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He told me more as we put together a makeshift torch, harvesting his socks to burn first. Apparently,
Alexandriawas honeycombed with a series of fresh-water cisterns, created at the time of the city's
foundation by its namesake, Alexander the Great, in 300 B.C.
"This cistern is clearly more recent," Rhys mused, holding up the sputtering torch we'd MacGyvered
together from one of his socks wrapped around the top of one of my sandals. The uneven glimpses of
columns and vaults that arched into the pressing darkness around us, at least two levels above and one
level below to the reflective water, were hauntingly beautiful& and damned eerie. "Ninth century, I'd
imagine."
"A thousand years and change," I murmured then deliberately forced my attention back to the
precarious issue of our footing. Even barefooted, I wasn't wholly sure of my balance, much less his.
Despite that we were heading where I'd thought the lights had vanished, most of the stone braces we had
to traverse, barely two feet wide, didn't have wood over them and they were crumbling remains of their
former glory. "Is that all?"
"They are positively modern, by Egyptian standards," agreed Rhys. "Look you can tell they used
ancient capitals for their pillars. Some of them are upside-down."
I reached back and caught his long hand, only partly to make sure that, in his inspection of this incredible
structure, he didn't plummet off an archway. The water below us was way too shallow to risk falling into
it from this height I'd been lucky. If I had landed feet first, I'd probably have broken my ankles. And if I'd
landedheadfirst &
But I hadn't.
Rhys squeezed my hand. But all he said was, "I know some archeologists who have been trying to map
the cisterns for some time, now. We must take note of where we emerge, so we can direct them back to
this one."
Ifwe emerged. But I wasn't about to give up. And okay, Hani Rachid wouldn't have bothered with his
warnings, if he'd expected us to die down here.
I still felt sharp relief when we found a broken-down stone staircase pretty much where Rhys had hoped
we would. Our torch had burned through the rest of our socks and started on a sleeve, torn from his
shirt, by the time we reached a more modem passageway of cement, lined with concrete benches.
"It's a bomb shelter," Rhys explained. "From World War II. We must be getting close. Look there's a
ladder."
Our emergence out of a manhole cover into a dusty alley, near an outdoor café where men were
smoking hookah pipes, would have garnered us stares even if Rhyswasn't missing one sleeve of his shirt.
As it was, we smiled, waved and hailed a cab as quickly as possible.
We both exhaled twin sighs of relief as the taxi pulled back onto the street, toward the Hotel Athens.
Then Rhys surprised me. "I am sorry."
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"You? What for?"
"Hani seems to believe I've behaved inappropriately with his wife yes, his ex-wife, I know," he
clarified, when I opened my mouth to argue. "I haven't, of course, not by Western standards. But here,
the mere fact that I dined with them may be thorough enough insult."
"It wasn't just jealousy," I assured him. "I'm the one he challenged to a duel in the Khan el-Khalili,
remember? I'm the one who he keeps calling a witch."
"I'm the one who brought you here in the first place."
I looked at him beside me, on the duct-taped, vinyl bench seat of the cab. He appeared downright
tormented, his blue eyes shiny in the shadows, his jaw tight, his sleeve missing.
I grinned and kissed his cheek. "And thank you for that."
The driver, scowling at us in his rearview mirror, scolded us loudly all I understood of it was "La'"
We ignored him. "For what?" asked Rhys. "For getting you attacked and abducted?"
"For bringing me back to my quest." I found his hand, squeezed it "For giving me the chance to find the
Isis Grail.If Tala can be trusted."
Tala was waiting for us in the lobby of our unassuming hotel. When she saw us, her eyes closed in her
pale face, and her lips moved in what seemed to be a prayer of gratitude. Several policemen awaited us,
as well, and my first assumption was that she'd called them to report our kidnapping.
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