Little alarm bells clanged in my mind, but there was no way for me to warn Amon to zip it. From the small glimpses I’d gotten of the tent, when I wasn’t distracted by Amon, I surmised that we were in an archaeologists’ camp.
Dr. Hassan was likely not a medical doctor but a doctor of Egyptology. If Amon shared too much or said the wrong thing, Dr. Hassan might figure out that he hadn’t been born in this century, and with me in a state of paralysis there wasn’t much I could do to prevent them from carting him off for further study or, Egyptian heaven forbid, an autopsy.
Amon seemed attuned to my worried mind and turned to me. Touching my shoulder, he whispered, “We are still in the Valley of the Kings in a tent outside the temple of Hatshepsut.” When I formed a mental protest, he added, “Hush, Nehabet, all will be well.”
We are anything but well! Everything was wrong, horribly wrong, and now we were facing the enemy to all who were alien and different—scientists. We’d somehow gotten the attention of a person who could potentially be the most dangerous human on earth—a man who could figure out who and what Amon was.
My theory about the nature of the doctor’s field of study was confirmed when Dr. Hassan introduced his assistant, Dr. Sebak Dagher. The younger man, who was clean-shaven and wore a colorful headscarf instead of a hat, seemed friendly enough, but there was something hungry in his expression. Maybe it was just that he was young and had something to prove.
Seeing the two of them together made it official. They were definitely archaeologists. I should’ve guessed that when I saw the white fedora. Indiana Jones wore a brown one, and probably every archaeologist owned at least one.
The two men chatted amiably with Amon. They hadn’t called the Egyptian-tourist version of the police to escort us off the premises, but that made me even more suspicious. Why hadn’t they called a real doctor to examine me? Surely there was a first-aid station somewhere in the Valley of the Kings.
But even if there wasn’t, they had to have access to a hospital, and yet here I was all decked out like a fallen Egyptian queen, hands placed gently over my chest as I “recovered.” The men talked in English, but then switched to the language of the locals, which caused me to constantly strain to understand what they were saying from just the tone of their voices.
The two men seemed fascinated by Amon, but I couldn’t sense any hesitation or fear in him, so I eventually stopped trying to understand and just focused on regaining the feeling in my limbs. From time to time Amon reached out and wrapped his fingers around my arm, sending little waves of energy pulsing through my body.
The men didn’t notice except to exclaim over my quick progress. Dr. Dagher—which sounded too much like dagger for me to free him completely of suspicion—came to my side at one point and explained what had happened. He told me that I’d been the unfortunate victim of an ancient booby trap designed to prevent tomb raiders from taking artifacts.
I wanted to find out what kind of toxin I’d inhaled and why it hadn’t been removed yet from a recently excavated tomb. And I really wanted to know, if Amon had been discovered there, why had he been transported to the U.S. so quickly? Why were the canopic jars still there? Why had Amon been moved from his original resting place, and who had done it? But I knew those questions couldn’t be brought up to these strangers.
I could tell from Dr. Dagher’s shifting eyes that he was keeping secrets. The way he kept looking toward Amon and his mentor, I got the sense that he’d much rather be listening in on their conversation than babysitting a mute American girl.
After leaving us for an hour or so, Drs. Hassan and Dagher returned to my side to check on me. Thankfully, they switched to English when they saw that I was alert.