** The horror slumbers buried under many meters of rubble and desert sand. Nameless cartouches, desecrated relics, and a sarcophagus containing an ancient riddle. **
"Ancient lands lost in time.
Storms of sand, walls of lime
Surround this mask of de...
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'Stop driving yourself crazy. You see where it's got you!' she hissed inwardly to herself, feeling for the latest result of her paranoia at the back of her head. Some blood caked the blond hair there and weakened her euphoria.
Others, however, were not, for in her uncle's and Mr. Kaphiri's faces, the fire of enthusiasm blazed brighter than in the lanterns ever could.
"How unusual," her uncle murmured as he took the first steps over the rubble and thus into the unexplored passage. His hands, marked by the years, slid to the wall to his right that curved above his head. Unlike the corridors they had trodden so far, this one had not been cut squarely into the stone but roundly. Arabella had never seen anything like it, and apparently, the rest of the people were not present. But there was much more to discover that distracted from the shape of the stone passage.
"Do you see that, Professor?" asked Mr. Kaphiri, pointing to the magnificent murals that adorned the tunnel ... "How gruesome."
The hieroglyphs and frescos had been damaged in numerous places. Some of this damage could be attributed to natural events, and some cracks stretched across the wall and split like lightning or parts that had come loose and fallen to the floor. The fact that the paint was peeling in many places was not unusual. However.
"It looks like they wantonly defaced numerous signs and images with a chisel or some other tool," gasped Mr. Kaphiri as he slid his fingers over a particularly magnificent mural that had been visibly desecrated. "Look, here!" he pointed to an effigy, "The man in this fresco carries a scourge and crook!" Mr. Kaphiri was breathing so heavily with excitement as if he were about to have a heart attack from rapture. As the air must have become too thick for him, too, he pulled down the beige cloth. His eyes shone happily, and his mouth was open as he could hardly contain his excitement. "He MUST have been a pharaoh!"
To this, her uncle also agreed. But little of the unknown Pharaoh could be seen, much to her chagrin. The entire face had been removed with rough blows, and whole fresco sections had been broken out. Elsewhere, pieces of the writings were missing, and some parts looked as if they had been roughly damaged in anger or a hurry.
Numerous eyes of the other effigies, perhaps priests, high politicians, subordinates, or family members of the Pharaoh, stared back at them from the walls. The faded color had hardly any of its former splendor left. Instead, it had an oppressive effect. Had the empty corridors and ruined chambers not been eerie before - this corridor certainly was.
"Were the tomb raiders angry because they couldn't get into the chamber, and they vented on the walls?" speculated Gates as they continued to move forward through the corridor.
"Not likely. The images of the Pharaoh were deliberately destroyed," her uncle contradicted. He rubbed his chin and looked closely at one of the effigies, looking incredibly thoughtful. "Only for what reason?"
"Maybe he wasn't a very popular pharaoh?"
Arabella could no longer stay in the antechamber either. Although her stomach was still queasy, she didn't want to miss something so significant out of fear. Her fingers slid to her camera almost of her own accord, and Arabella looked more closely at the piece so dear to her for a moment in the little light. She worried that the camera might have been damaged in her fall. Relieved, she expelled the air when she noticed that the lens and housing appeared intact. At least as far as she could tell in the little light, hesitantly she started to move, holding the camera as tightly as if it could protect her ... from whatever. from whatever.
