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“This must be where the zodiac was removed,” Randy said, pausing to look straight up. Indeed, where the rest of the ceiling was black, a large area of the sandstone appeared especially rough and newly exposed.

“Damned frogs,” David cursed.

“Penton!” Barbara scolded, using his title to good effect.

“Apologies,” he replied.

When they finally emerged onto the sandstone-walled roof, the sudden bright light had the women opening parasols and Randy and Tom pulling out their eye-glasses.

“What is that?” Helen asked, pointing to the southwest, her attention on a rectangular ten-columned structure with short walls. The columns were topped with capitals of Hathor, but it no longer had a roof.

“The Kiosk of Hathor,” Mahmood said, moving toward it.

Only one wall of the structure had an opening.

“Probably used for rituals involving Hathor and the sun disk,” he added, pointing to the carvings in the sandstone.

“A statue of the goddess would have been on display here during the New Year’s Day festival.

It is shown being carried by the priests in the reliefs on either side of the stairs we just climbed. ”

“What was considered the New Year?” David asked.

“Early summer,” Mahmood replied.

“The roof was probably wood, which is why it’s no longer here,” Diana remarked, her gaze sweeping the carvings, many eroded from years of exposure to wind.

“And that one?” David asked. He was already heading for the only other structure atop the roof, one with a short set of stone steps in front of it.

“The Chapel of Osiris, which depicts the resurrection of his mummy,” Mahmood replied.

“The reliefs are of Isis, who was both his sister and his wife—she is the one who used her magic to bring him back to life so he could father the god Horus,” he explained.

“There are other underworld deities depicted here as well.”

Harry grinned when Stella displayed a look of disgust. “They had to maintain the purity of their bloodlines, my sweet,” he whispered.

She scoffed. “As if they were horses.”

The other side of the rooftop vantage provided an unimpeded view of the gateway to the north, the village of Qena to the west, and a smaller structure that barely showed above a sand dune.

Mahmood pointed to it. “Probably a mammisi,” he said.

“A birth house,” Diana interpreted for those who looked in her direction.

“Let us go down the other stairs,” Mahmood suggested. “But we will require our torches, as it will be dark, and you must be careful as these stairs are as uneven as the others we climbed.”

Using the tinderbox, Randy lit one of the torches Mahmood carried and one from Diana’s satchel. He gave it to Will before lighting the other. Meanwhile, Mahmood had used the flame from the one torch to light the others before he disappeared into the stairwell leading down.

The rest of their party followed, Randy allowing Diana to carry the torch he had lit. “Should I light the other?” he asked.

“Let’s wait. We may need it if this one goes out before I’m finished,” she replied, her gaze on the walls on either side of the stairs.

Once they were back on the main level of the temple, Diana hurried to join Mahmood. “How can I go down below?”

He gave a start. “You wish to go into the crypts?”

“I do.”

“They are not tombs,” Mahmood stated. “Merely storerooms.” He glanced over at Randy, who shrugged.

Although he was tempted to forbid her from exploring the crypts, he knew she would be angry with him if he denied her the opportunity.

“Is there any chance anyone—or anything—is already down there?” he asked.

Mahmood shook his head.

“I wish to go down, too,” David said.

The guide sighed and led them to the Throne Room where a trap door was located in the floor.

“Allow me to open this one and another in the Flame Room”—he pointed across the temple—“but the other doors are hidden under some sliding blocks in the perimeter walls. Only the priests knew of their location.” He lifted the heavy door, which revealed the top step of a thin staircase that led into inky blackness.

About to go down, Diana was prevented from doing so when David held a staying arm in front of her.

“Allow me, my lady,” he said. He took Tom’s torch from him, eliciting a sound of protest from his cousin, and he headed down the steep stairs.

Once he was through the opening in the floor and the flame from his torch wasn’t in danger of burning her, Diana followed him down.

“Am I a fool to wish to go down there?” Harry asked of no one in particular. “I am rather curious.”

Mahmood lit another torch and handed it to him. “They are long, slim chambers,” he warned, holding his hands out to indicate a width typical of a corridor. “Very deep.”

“Understood,” Harry said. He descended the stairs.

“Anyone else?” Randy asked.

The rest of the party shook their heads.

Mahmood disappeared for a moment to open another trapdoor in the floor of the Flame Room. When he returned, he cleared his throat. “Allow me to take you into the sanctuary of Hathor,” he said, waving in the direction the three-walled inner room near the back of the temple.

He lit another torch and handed it to Tom, who held it aloft as they made their way past openings into the chambers that lined the interior of the temple. Straight ahead was the sanctuary, but before they entered, a high-pitched squeaking sound had Helen pausing.

“What was that?” she asked.

Directly behind her, Tom paused and slowly swept the torch through the air in an effort to light the area around them.

“What was what ?” Stella asked, from directly in front of her daughter. A gust of air had her gasping. “Oh!” she cried out. “I felt something touch my cheek.”

Barbara and Will quickly joined her, Will waving his torch about in an effort to determine what might have startled the countess.

The sound of flapping wings had them gasping.

“There is no need to be fearful,” Mahmood said calmly. “It is merely a?—”

“Bat!” Stella yelled.

The sound of more flapping wings had Helen backing up until she collided with Tom. Her exclamation of surprise had him placing a protective hand at her waist. “I’ve got you,” he whispered.

“Oh!” Barbara turned, ending up pressed into Will’s side as he wrapped an arm around her waist while making sure to keep the flame from his torch away from everyone.

“Shh,” he said as loudly as he could manage. Although Stella allowed another whimper, the movement in the air around them seemed to cease.

“We have merely disturbed the bats that use this temple as their cave,” Mahmood said in a quiet voice. “There is nothing to fear from them.”

“Are there any down below?” Randy asked, thinking of his wife and cousin.

“I do not believe so. The trapdoors are kept shut. Let us continue.”

“I think I would prefer to go back to where those large columns are,” Stella said. “Where it’s lighter.”

“As would I,” Barbara said, hooking her arm into Stella’s. The two took off toward the light at the front of the temple.

Will sighed. He was about to join the women to provide protection, but it was Tom who offered to do so. “Allow me,” he said, handing the torch to Mahmood.

The four who remained behind watched them go before Mahmood led them into the sanctuary. Like all the other walls in the temple, these were covered in hieroglyphics. A gilded wooden structure meant to house a statue of Hathor was in the middle.

“Here the pharaoh is offering Hathor a copper mirror, a sacred emblem of the goddess,” Mahmood said, waving to one of the images.

The light from his torch illuminated the illustration, but when the sound of a bat reached them again, he sighed.

“I apologize. They are usually not this active,” Mahmood said.

“I think we have seen enough today,” Will said.

The guide nodded his understanding. “I shall go down to see how the rest of them are doing in the crypts.” He headed toward the first trapdoor while the other four made their way toward the entrance.

Tom offered his arm to Helen and was relieved when she accepted. Perhaps she had forgiven him for what had happened the week before.

Once they were back in the hypostyle, Tom and Will saw to extinguishing their torches and resumed their study of the carvings on the walls and columns.