Chapter 9

Johnny was disoriented for a few seconds when he woke up. Disoriented because for the first time he went to sleep in the dream and woke up in the present. The dream was also the longest and most involved yet. Johnny sat up as he remembered all that happened in the two months they were in ancient times.

Johnny’s sitting up awoke Hala.

“Come back to bed, Alarec my husband, it is still dark outside,” she mumbled, and she was speaking the language of her ancestors.

Johnny did not know whether Hala speaking ancient Egyptian, or him understanding it, surprised him the most.

Johnny fumbled around and found his LED lantern and turned it on. Then he gently shook the women awake.

“Wakey-wakey my little Ibises!, i It’s six AM and we have things to do and people to see ... or vice versa,” he said, and he chortled at his cleverness.

The women did not find him clever or amusing.

Mia sat up groggily and gave him the finger.

“You suck, Pulaski,” she muttered.

Hala nodded in agreement.

“I like our other husband better,” Hala said. “He lets us sleep as late as we want.”

The other two women nodded their agreement until it dawned on them what they were saying. Johnny smiled as they all looked at him in embarrassment.

“The thought of us being married to each other doesn’t bother me a bit,” he admitted.

That afternoon Johnny and Hala met up with Rachael and Mia in the newly lit tunnel section that included the baths and the bedroom of Alarec and his wives. The first order of business was for Johnny to test the water at the baths. He did that with a set of water test strips that detected chloroform bacteria and heavy metals in drinking water. The results were all negative.

Johnny gave Mia the good news.

“The water is very pure, at least until you get in it,” he said with a grin.

Mia slugged him in the arm hard enough to make him wince.

“Not funny, Pulaski,” but was laughing as she said it.

As soon as Johnny finished testing the quartet set off to explore the section of tunnel that branched out under the sacred lake. They took the right branch because they could feel a very slight breeze from that direction. Unlike the other tunnels this one did not rise., i In fact, according to Rachael’s fancy barometric altimeter, it went slightly downhill. A couple of rooms branched off the tunnel then it narrowed down to a passageway with a ceiling low enough that Johnny and Rachael had to walk hunched over.

The small passageway ran for a long two hundred yards and ended in a loosely fitted stone wall. A small breeze was coming through the spaces between the stones in the wall and they all could feel the moisture from the other side. Rachael gave the okay, and Johnny made short work of the wall.

Removing the wall revealed a waterway much like the aqueduct at the baths, only slightly bigger. The water was about five feet across and slow flowing. It was impossible to judge the depth by eye because light reflected off the surface. Along the near side of the water a ledge, just wide enough on which to walk, went left and right.

“I think this is the spring from the bath caverns, so let’s go downstream,” Johnny suggested.

Everyone agreed, Mia led off, and all of them hugging the wall as they traversed the narrow walkway. The water ran another hundred feet and then went under another stone wall.

The wall of neatly fitted stones was resting on a lintel that spanned the small stream. Johnny started carefully removing the stones blocking the ledge they were standing on. He would take down a stone and the women would pass it back along the ledge. He only needed to remove five of the concrete block size stones to be able to see the other side.

“It’s a well,” he said. “I can see a dim light and there is a pipe coming down into the water. I can see sunlight through the cracks in around the edges of the cap. It’s probably at least 40 feet deep.”

Everyone took a look and Mia remarked, “Well this is sort of anticlimactic, but I’d like to know where this well is located on the surface for our map of the tunnels.”

They replaced the rocks into their place and returned the way they came. When they were back at the main tunnel under the Sacred Lake, it was too late to explore the branch leading in the other direction. So they went to supper instead.

Rachael and Mia had student counseling to do after supper so Johnny and Hala hung out at the dispensary trailer. Hala made Johnny a cup of Egyptian coffee before sitting in his lap while he drank it.

“I don’t know what I will do when my benefactor returns, Johnny. I care for you too much to sleep with another man;, but if I don’t, I will be homeless and lose my place in university,” Hala said worriedly.

Johnny nodded. He understood her dilemma but didn’t know how to fix it.

“You belong with us, Hala, we all love you. Don’t worry, we will figure this out.”

Hala snuggled tighter against him and sighed contentedly. She had total and absolute trust in Johnny Pulaski.

As soon as he said it, he realized just how much he did love each of the women. He knew they loved him too, but no one ever talked about the subject. He was going to rectify that situation that night.

Mia pounded on the locked dispensary door at ten PM. The door was locked, because Johnny was busy making sure Hala was squeaky clean in the trailer’s small shower. Johnny wrapped a towel around his waist and went to open the door.

Mia grinned on seeing a very wet Johnny in nothing but a small towel.

“Looking good Pulaski,” she said. “I’d join you too but it’s getting late and we want to sleep in our room.”

Johnny nodded. It was strange that they considered what amounted to a cave as their room. Strange but true. Johnny was as comfortable and content in the small underground chamber, as he was in his apartment back in Florida. The women felt the same way, even Rachael whose home was a thirty-room ocean front mansion in the Hamptons.

Mia bounced into the trailer with her usual abundance of energy just as Hala emerged from the bedroom. Hala had slipped on a loose fitting kaftan that hid everything by the time Mia pushed past Johnny.

“I hope you saved some for me,” Mia said.

“I did not finish him,” Hala answered with a blush.

“Who said I was talking about him?” Mia teased.

The trio walked to Racheal’s trailer and snagged her before they went down into the tunnels. Rachael, the constant worrier, brought up the subject of what would the do when the authorities found out about the tunnels. It was another question no one could answer.

“We need to keep this a secret for as long as possible because we can’t take a chance of being banned from being here. Limiting the coming and going as we are, and the tent covering the stairs, seems to be working. Plus, only a few people know the extent of our find so that should buy us more time,” Johnny said.

Once they reached their underground chambers all talks of troubles and problems disappeared. Instead, Johnny led the conversation toward their budding relationship.

“So, I want you all to know that I am in love with each of you. I know it sounds weird, but it is the absolute truth. I don’t expect anything from you, I just wanted you to know that,” he said.

The women looked at one another.

“I feel the same way,” Rachael admitted, “but I’ve been embarrassed to say it.”

That got confirming nods from Hala and Mia.

So what do we do about it?” asked Mia.

That was the million-dollar question for which they had no answer.

They did, however, have a hunger to be as close as they could get. This night Rachael was the focus of everyone’s attention. And she was an eager participant regardless of which partner was with her. Afterwards they fell asleep ... and they dreamed...

The warrior priests of the Cult of Amun-Ra had been back in Thebes for a month when Sulihotep sent Alarec and his wives on a trip to Nubia. The Cult of Amun-Ra were seekers of knowledge, and constant pilgrimages by its priests was how they accumulated that knowledge.

Nubia was ruled by the Great Nubian Leopard King, Aserkamani. Askeramani was an ally of Ramses and ruled all of Kush (Nubia) south of the second cataract at Abu Simbel (cataracts were areas of the unnavigable sections of the Nile where boulders and shallow water produced white water rapids). The capital of the Kingdom of Nubia was Kerma, a thriving city located just above the third cataract.

The family of Ruth, the Israelite from Canaan; Princess Henuttawy, daughter of Ramses the Great; Li Na, the exotic beauty from the mysterious East; and Alarec the pale giant, traveled by boat to Aswan, the location of the first cataract. They had with them two wagons and four horses to pull them. From Aswan they continued South on foot.