Cursed Times - Only Yesterday! Sequel to Wattys 2015 winner!

Chapter 1 - Trueth: Lifelines

Dear Reader,

if you have not read 'Cursed Times - What Now?' I suggest that you at least read the 'Cursary' Chapter at the end of this sequel. 'Cursed Times - Only Yesterday!' is a standalone novel, but you will understand things better, if you check out a few facts first, which I have prepared for you. And now - Enjoy this novel!

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Portal plus two months ... .

'We are losing him!'

The healer to Trueth's right screamed and started pummelling Eje's scrawny chest with spell-enhanced paddles, her face red and sweaty with exertion.

'Tell the priestesses to haul...their holy backsides over here.' Trueth shouted at her other assistant. She got a wide-eyed stare in return. 'Go!'

'Yes, oh Noble One.' Needing no further invitation, the girl dashed off, as fast as her ankle-long sheath dress would allow. Her sandals slipped on the polished stone floor, and she nearly skidded into the wall opposite the sickbed. Thankfully, Selket, the ancient Egyptian goddess of healing, did not suffer a dent to her painted glory. Balancing a scorpion on her head, the daubed-on deity continued her cyclopic stare without any concern for her foreign disciple's plight. All she had to offer was the painted ankh—the looped cross which signified the breath of life.

Life was exactly what Eje had run out of.

Trueth splayed her fingers. Once more, she focussed on the dregs of her power deep down inside, the power they called 'sun-flow' in this world. She coaxed up magic through her veins, into her fingertips until they tingled with those blue sparks of healing that could bring her geriatric friend back. To her right, Kiya was still trying to jump-start an organ that was calling it a day.

Trueth pushed the other healer aside, her sun-flow had never been enough to start with; at least she had tried valiantly. All of Trueth's skill, all of her power went into a last desperate push on Eje's heart.

'Come on, live, you bugger!' Trueth growled between clenched teeth.

He just had to keep going. He was one of the precious few links to the life she had left behind. Eje had been a member of that second expedition when they had found the ancient battlefield under the step pyramid—and with it the ruined portal. They had got it hot-wired, just as Imhotep had planned, but far too few of her friends had followed. Far too many of them were... . Better not think about it. Eje had made it, he was here now, and none of her thoughts helped with encouraging the erratic throbbing she felt under her fingers. Trueth concentrated again and willed up more of her power.

And failed.

She glowered towards the rectangular opening to the corridor where the other healer had disappeared. Still no priestess in sight. The heartbeat shuddered.

'I need the medicine; my sun-flow is too weak!' Trueth screamed.

Kiya dashed across the room and rummaged through the baskets on the far side of the ward.

Unlike the elusive priestess, the demons had turned up just in time when the portal had finally opened. Trueth had not complained when Metjen and Seisi between them had dragged her through the portal. At least not much. She grudgingly admitted that being left behind among the howling minions of hell had been no option. They had been far too noisy for one thing.

Kiya raced back, a syringe in her hand. 'I hope this is what you need, Lady Thueris.'

Trueth nodded. She had been surprised by quite a few of the objects she had encountered since her unplanned arrival in this world, things she had taken for granted in her old home. Those were mod cons she knew to be unknown to antique civilisations, even without consulting the professor.