HalfWorlder #Wattys2017

Chapter 20-Riding with the dead

I sat there fuming as Wep's boat glided through the dark maze of underground rivers. The Torey had followed through on her promise to send her son with us and I wasn't happy about it. "It is his specialty," she had conferred through her wolfy mouth. She grinned as my mind withered in discomfort at the thought. "You can read all about it in the hieroglyphs. It is known." Yeah, yeah, he's the opener of ways and all that. I get it. She tipped her head in acknowledgement and sent us on our way.

There was no time to lose. That much was clear by her hasty dismissal of us and her wolf son. Wep stopped only long enough to pick up a single pack that sat waiting by his front door, and walked down the pier to one of the newer boats. The Torey took on her full female form once more at the dock and dutifully kissed her son goodbye. He was slightly more comfortable with her when she was only Anput the mother and not Torey, the mind worm.

A gentle current flowed through the grotto and we drifted along with it into another cave. The current carried us on until we had travelled far from the Halls of Anubis, carried faster and faster into smaller and yet smaller caverns until the ceilings became so low that the grandeur of the marble grotto faded to a distant memory. The marble transitioned to ordinary rock and the crisp odorless smell of the Grotto was replaced with damp earth. We'd left most of the solar light far behind too and it was dark except for the electric lights on the boat.

It was unnerving being this far underground too. You felt the crushing weight of the earth above you, but the feeling was somehow familiar. I had been on a ride like this once at Disney Land – except there were singing pirates. This, on the other hand, had no sound track playing to quiet my nerves. There was only thick darkness and cold and quiet. The air chilled my skin and the spray from the water didn't help the cold that settled in my bones either.

Wep and Alexandra stood together in shadows at the helm. He navigated the ship through the twisting tunnels with one knee bent and resting on the bench seat beside him. Alexandra stood alongside him with perfect Oasen balance even as the boat rocked. She was like a blonde Cleopatra regally poised at the ship's helm, an icon of beauty and authority with all the mounds of silken pillows piled high as her backdrop. Wep was her pharaoh. All she was missing were the servants with palm fronds and grapes.

I wrung my hands and held on as we picked up more speed. The small vessel Wep had chosen was admittedly perfect for navigating the narrow tunnels. He knew what he was doing, sure. The guy had at least a thousand years' experience, but I didn't think it beneath him to toss me out of the boat by taking a corner too tight either. If I'd learned nothing else about him over the last few hours, it was that he was extraordinarily competitive, and I was more than positive who the competition was over.

Cleopatra.

The thought worried me at the moment with him in charge.

The fact that I was only the first halfworlder Alexandra's age that she'd ever met was not lost on me in this moment either. Maybe I was just a novelty? And now that she'd met Wep, she had an opportunity to move onto something better; someone more interesting? I mean, why hang around with a 17-year-old hybrid when someone like Wep was interested. The guy was a smooth-talking, good-looking, ancient, victorious, solar barque driving, howling, shape-shifting, makeup artist of a wolf man. What's not to love? I growled mentally.

And Alexandra laughed. The honeyed sound of it carried even over the roar of the waters, and Amisi shrugged her shoulders at me watching me watching them. I wanted to die.

We pushed forward through the dark and shadows another 30 feet until another tunnel took shape on our right and Wep halted the boat, powering down with a slosh of water off the stern like beer foam sloshing off a tall glass. Rock framed the tunnel's entrance, but it wasn't natural in formation. The rock was carved to look like teeth. The stones arched around the tunnel opening forming a gruesome open mouth. A twisted nose and two frog-like eyes were chiseled into the façade and glowered down at us as we floated through. A blast of wind hit, making the mouth howl at us, even as it swallowed us whole as we entered. Wep kissed the ceiling for good measure. It was a superstitious gesture.