“Now should we talk to Hongo?” Tiyana asked.
“Not if this is another trap. If it is a trap, then I’m not putting him or you or anyone else at risk. I’m going in alone.”
“Hunter, no. I’m going in with you.”
Hunter stared long and deep into Tiyana’s eyes. He stared until the tension became palpable. Tiyana met his gaze. She shook as she desperately willed him not to go. Then, she thought about what she wanted. She did not want him in danger. She knew he would not put anyone else in danger. She wanted to go with him. She finally turned her eyes aside and muttered, “Fine, you can go in first, but I’ll be right behind you.”
Hunter stared at her awhile longer and then began to protest, but as he opened his mouth he saw the look in her eyes and stopped. He started again, “Okay, but keep your distance.” He leaned in and kissed her.
She whispered into his ear, “Be careful, I’ll be watching your back.”
Hunter slowly crept into the hallway with Tiyana close behind him. They proceeded uneventfully through and into an octagonal room. This room, unlike the others, had no lights. As they emerged from the tunnel, a warm yellow glow sprung up around the edges of the room.
“Hunter, the candles…” Candles lined the walls. A gradient of shelves rose up thirty feet to the ceiling on all sides and every shelf had rows of candles adorning their length. As they crossed the threshold of the room, the first candle on the bottom to their left sparked and lit. The spark grew just large enough to ignite the immediately adjacent candle. When lit, that candle created a spark that lit the next candle. This domino effect rapidly illuminated the entire bottom shelf. Then the next shelf ignited. The bedazzled Prices watched as thirty rows of candles lighted in procession and illuminated the ancient sepulcher.
“Son of a gun… Tiyana, do you see what I see?”
“I see it, I see it… what is it?”
“Who is it?” Hunter corrected her.
Tiyana looked closer, “Is that a person?”
Hunter’s eyes widened, “That helmet! Tiyana, the upright squared ears, the flowing mane, the long drooping snout, that is the Typhonic beast.”
“Beast?” Tiyana asked.
“Yana, it’s the totem of Set, the Egyptian god.” Hunter told her in awe.
“Is it a mask?” She asked.
“I think so.” Hunter replied.
“It looks so lifelike.” She said.
In the center of the octagon lay a display case similar to the one that they had found back in the lair. A human figure rested stoically inside. Dark robes covered his lower body, and his head stood erect. The figure rested in a state of repose. The figure showed impeccable posture. His hands emerged from his robes. In one hand, he held a golden ankh. In the other he held a scepter.
“Son of a gun, that scepter with the drooping head on top and the forked bottom. Yana, that is called a ‘was’ scepter. It symbolizes control over chaos. It’s a sign of royalty or divinity.”
“He looks regal, I suppose.” Tiyana muttered.
“Tiyana, that might be Set.” Hunter said.
Tiyana said nothing at first. After a pause, she muttered, “it could be a caveman or a pharaoh. This is a burial chamber. He’s preserved, not alive.”
Hunter raised an eyebrow, “I’m not so sure about that.”
Tiyana sighed.
Hunter went on, “Well, it’s not a caveman. No caveman had more gold than King Midas.”
“It’s just a man.” Tiyana said warily.
Her head was spinning. By this time, the fire from the candles had completely illuminated the room. The Prices saw menacing stone gargoyles rising up from pylons in the ground. One gargoyle guarded each corner of the squared, frozen display. In front of the display lay a large golden ankh, the Egyptian symbol of eternal life. In the soft candlelight, the radiant gold shimmered in effulgent waves. At the base of the ankh, a pedestal rose from the ground. An obsidian, silver, and jade statuette of the Typhonic creature rested on top of the pedestal.
As the Prices walked in slow circles around the exhibit, Tiyana inspected everything with an eye for traps. Hunter did the same, but with an eye for recognizable relics. After a few loops around the room, they came to a stop in front of the pedestal.
“There’s an indentation in the middle of the loop of the ankh.” Said Hunter.
“I know, I saw it.”
“I believe this statue goes into it.”
“Probably.”
“He might attack us.”
“Probably.”
“I’m going to do it.”
“Okay.” Tiyana said the word without hesitation. They would run out of water and die or they would die by a booby trap set for grave-robbers in this nightmarish tomb. Just like her husband, if she had to go down, she would go down swinging.
Hunter grabbed the statuette, which felt surprisingly light in his hands, and strode purposefully to the center of the ankh. He placed the statuette into the indentation and watched an all-too-familiar process begin. The statute shook. Then it began to glow. Then it melted into the hellish brimstone that they had seen in Cerberus’s lair. The rusty golden gelatin seeped into the hidden recesses of the floor. Then the liquid crept up into the gargoyles. They appeared terrifyingly lifelike as the glowing magma illuminated their bodies, giving life to their empty eyes. Soon, the Prices saw the bright liquid leaking into the frozen chamber in the center of the room. The display began to melt. When the ice crystals liquefied and receded into the floor grates, the human figure stirred.
“Here we go.” Hunter said nervously.
He reached over and squeezed Tiyana’s hand. They held hands and watched the stiff limbs become livid. After shaking his arms and legs, the man lifted his hands to his head. He took off the Typhonic helmet. Hunter and Tiyana stared mesmerized into a set of piercing ice-blue eyes. A silvery grey tint mitigated the intense blue of the probing irises. They observed the fingers slowly start to move as they ponderously stroked the top of the scepter.
“Fermech.” The figure said the word while only barely moving his lips.
The figure enunciated each syllable, but finished the word quickly. In an instant, a clear, circular wall dropped from the ceiling and surrounded the man, cutting the Prices off from him.
“Jeosen, kone ste vi.” The figure tilted his forehead slightly down and smiled using only the right side of his mouth as he said this.
Hunter glanced sideways at his wife who met his gaze. Then they both turned back to the figure. Hunter shrugged his shoulders slightly and raised his arms with palms upward in an expression of puzzlement.
Hunter replied, “We come in peace.”
Tiyana thought about rolling her eyes, but the image before her transfixed her. The figure’s smile morphed into an expression of skepticism. The figure remained silent for a few moments as it pondered what to do. The bony finger tapped the scepter.
“Cheur Stadt.” The figure said in a stern, martinet tone.
The Prices recognized that they had received an order. Then the figure broke into a thin, contrived-looking smile. He waived his right hand with an open palm. Neither Price could tell exactly what that gesture meant. Soon, a mechanical arm with a concave apparatus like the one in the utility room descended from the ceiling. The apparatus came to rest above the head of the dark-robed figure.
“Cheur Stadt.” The figure nodded his head slightly as he said this.
Hunter felt like a dog who had been ordered to sit still. Tiyana reached over and clasped Hunter’s hand as she tried to relax and picture herself at the beach, or in a spa, anywhere but in front of the phenomenon before her. Deep down, however, adrenaline pumped through her veins and she enjoyed the thrill. The dark figure leaned his head back and closed his eyes. They waited.
“He’s doing it too. Is that what you did back when you turned the lights on?” Tiyana whispered to her husband.
“Yes, that’s it.” Hunter replied as he gave her hand a comforting squeeze.
Eventually, the process ended and the apparatus rose back into the ceiling. The dark figure’s head rolled forward to face Hunter and Tiyana. With visible effort, the figure formed words in English.
The voice boomed, “You have found me, but you have not ensnared me. A carbon-infused sheet of leaded glass surrounds me… I do not recognize either one of you. Who are you?”
Hunter and Tiyana’s expressions of awe and dread changed to puzzlement. “Why would we want to catch you?” Hunter yelled at the glass cage. Yelling was unnecessary; however, as a speaker system carried the voices in and out of the glass.
“I will ask you again, who are you? If you come from the East then know that you have not caught me. If you come from my clan then tell me where are Dajian and Ceredenemor?”
Hunter looked at Tiyana and shrugged. He looked back at the figure. “We are archaeologists. We mean you no harm.”
At that, the figure began a deep belly laugh. “And no harm shall come to me. Tell me, do you mean me to believe that you are humans?”
“Uh… yes?”
The figure began laughing again, this time louder than the first. “Mortal humans?”
“Are there any other kind?” Hunter did not know what to say, but he felt insulted.
“Well then mortals! I could use a couple of drudges. Malmech!” At the word “Malmech” the glass enclosure rose back up into the ceiling. “Batseko ha naskipordo!” With a thundering voice the man shouted a command. Immediately the golden ankh began rising from the ground. A metal pylon supported it.
“I am weak from my long rest. Turn the ankh in a clockwise motion.”
The mysterious man’s attitude irked Hunter.
Hunter demanded answers, “Look here, who are you and why should we help you? We are trapped down here. We need to get out. Do you know how we can escape?”
“Ahhhh, a deal. A fair trade. You help me and I will grant you the extenuation of your brief lives. I will give you the gift of dying in atrophy and anguish as you rapidly grow old. After all, that is what all mortals want is it not?”
“Let me get this straight. You can get us back to the surface?”
“If you want that, then you shall have it.” As an afterthought, the man added, “Count yourselves lucky for you stand before Ghaelvord and few have. In time you will come to appreciate the honor. Now the ankh awaits you as the naskipordo awaits me.”
“Remarkable.” Hunter said. He continued, “Tell me, are you Set?”
Ghaelvord met this question with another thunderous laugh and replied, “I am Ghaelvord. I am Dahjaat. No primitive myth can explain my kind to your kind. Now, the ankh.”
Hunter felt uneasy. He did not like Ghaelvord. He stared at Ghaelvord, trying to size him up. Ghaelvord stared back with a passive, but unnervingly calm gaze.
Tiyana broke the silence, “Ghaelvord, did you build this place?”
“Indeed.”
“And you know a way out.”
“Turn the ankh and you may leave.”
“There are more of us. We have a whole group back in the other room.”
“I will take them all to the surface. Turn the ankh. By the way, you spoke of Set. How many years have passed since his story was first told?”
“The story of Set?” Hunter asked, dumbfounded.
“Indeed.”
“Thousands. At least five thousand, probably more.”
“Excellent.” Ghaelvord said as he smiled wide. “Turn the ankh, now, for my patience wears thin. I command the systems here as you have seen. I will bury you all down here for an eternity if you do not turn the ankh!”
“What do you think?” Hunter turned his head and muttered to Tiyana.
She whispered back, “For all we know he’s right. We don’t really have any other options.”
Hunter felt uneasy about the whole situation, but he had to agree with her.
He responded, “Yeah, alright.” Then he turned to Ghaelvord, “Alright, we’ll do it. We do not want your treasure. We just want to get to the surface.”
“Treasure?” At that, Ghaelvord laughed. “This entire cave of Mammon will be yours if you want it. If what you have told me is true, then you will have earned it as I will be deeply indebted to you for awakening me so fortuitously early. Now, turn the ankh.”
Hunter and Tiyanna looked at each other and nodded. Hunter stepped into the circle of the ankh and Tiyana pushed at the bottom of it. The device did not turn easily. They pushed and pushed and the symbol slowly turned. As it turned, a massive iron gate at the far end of the room began slowly rising up off of the ground. As the gate rose, waves of heat emanated from the other side. The Prices kept turning the gears and the door kept opening. They saw flickers of light dance across the walls as if the room behind the gate contained a raging fire. When the gate opened wide enough, Ghaelvord strode through purposefully. Hunter and Tiyana braced themselves and leaned hard on the levers so that the gate would stay open.
“Mwa ha ha ha ha!” The Prices heard triumphant laughter coming from the chamber.
“How can he go in there? I can literally see heat waves coming out of that room.” Said Tiyana.
“I have no idea.” Replied Hunter.
What happened next astounded the daring explorers.
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