Cursed Times - What Now?

Chapter 28 - Ghosts and Cobras

Metjen pressed both hands against the crumbly bricks of the shaft and tried to calm his racing heartbeat down. 'Brilliant! Now you have woken up whatever is lurking down there and it'll be ready to tear us to pieces.' He growled at Trueth and descended the first steps into a sooty gloom that was almost visceral. Already, the silhouettes of the others were fading behind him--

'--Metjen, I can hardly see you any more,' Trueth shouted.

He stopped. 'I'm only five steps down. Stay close to each other, this is beyond weird.'

Footsteps shuffled behind him and their group was whole again. They inched their way further down the stairs, penetrating into the darkness. The Servants had called up an Orb of Ra which cast a feeble glow on the stone treads ahead of them. Above, the light that was Iseret's chamber shrunk until only a pinpoint was left. Then it was gone. The cold was back, turning their breath into a mist that further obscured visibility. He felt disoriented as if floating back in space. And in time... .

'What's that?' Nefer asked with a tremor in her voice.

'What's what?' Metjen responded.

'Do you not hear anything?' Nefer said.

'Hear what...ah, this.'

A humming sounded from the deep. The air shimmered, the strange gloom vanished, and he realised they were approaching another landing a few steps below them. This one had three exits, one left, one right and one in the middle. Metjen noticed the sign of Imhotep on the lintels of all three of them.

'And now?' Trueth asked. 'Now...now... . ' Her voice echoed up the shaft.

The air shimmered once more. An ember appeared in the room behind the middle exit. The ember became a spark, a flame... .

'Run!' Metjen screamed.

There was no time. From the opening floated a disembodied head. It stopped at eye-level and Metjen recognised the translucent face of the long-dead Amasis. The expedition scrambled back up the treads.

'Beware—go no further, or the wrath of the Guardians will be upon you.' The face flickered and disappeared.

'We are the Guardians,' Rani-Ra and Metjen burst out together.

'At least we think we are,' Rani-Ra added in a small voice.

Trueth had backed up towards the wall, wiping sweat off her brow she leaned against the side of the stairwell for support. Blood seeped out of the wall right where her hand was, and Trueth stumbled back towards the others frantically shaking out her fingers.

'Let me see this!' Metjen snatched her wrist to check. No blood. He dropped the hand.

'Stay away from the walls, touch nothing. We need to conjure up Hide of Taurit and Teeth of Sobek in hungry mode. And whatever else you can keep up,' Metjen said.

The wall still oozed a foul smelling runnel that dripped along the edge of the stairs. Metjen positioned his team where they would not tread into the slime and had them advance slowly, bristling with a patchwork of spells like the spears sticking out of the battle formation of Roman legionaries encased in their shields.

Like those soldiers they had nothing to protect their feet—Metjen sensed a presence in the dimness above their heads, scanned the slope of the ceiling and noticed nothing.

Something hissed.

Sweat was running down his back. The quicker they escaped from this shaft, the better. A few more steps brought them towards the stone-paved landing.