Emeni froze, his legs almost buckling. In the flickering half-light he could make out the face of a god, Amnut, devourer of the dead. The oil lamp shook in his trembling hands, and he stumbled back against the wall. But the god did not advance. Then, as the light played over its golden head, revealing its ivory teeth and its slender, stylized body, Emeni realized he was looking at a funerary bed. There were two others, one with the head of a cow, the other a lion. To the right, against the wall, were two life-size statues of the boy king Tutankhamen, guarding the entrance to the burial chamber. Emeni had already seen similar gilded statues of Seti I being carved in the house of the sculptors.

Emeni carefully avoided a garland of dried flowers dropped on the threshold. He moved quickly, isolating two gilded shrines. With reverence he unlatched the doors and lifted the golden statues from their pedestals. One was an exquisite statue of Nekhbet, a vulture goddess of upper Egypt; the other, Isis. Neither had the name of Tutankhamen. That was important.

Taking the mallet and chisel, Emeni moved under the Amnut funerary bed and quickly made an opening into the side chamber. According to the plans of Amenemheb, the other two statues Emeni wanted were in a coffer in this smaller room. Ignoring a strong sense of foreboding, Emeni entered the room, holding the oil lamp in front of him. To his relief, there were no terrifying objects. The walls were rough-hewn rock. Emeni recognized the chest he wanted from the beautiful image on the top. There, carved in relief, was a young queen offering the pharaoh Tutankhamen bouquets of lotus, papyrus, and poppies. But there was a problem. The lid was locked in some clever way and would not open. Emeni carefully set down the oil lamp on a reddish-brown cedar cabinet and examined the coffer more closely. He was unaware of the activity in the tunnel behind him.