Metjen pushed himself off the roughly plastered wall. 'The question is, whether to believe Iseret?'
Trueth wrapped her arms around herself, even if it was not frosty in Iseret's chamber. 'I do. I'm not sure though, whether she told us all she knows.'
Metjen scoffed. 'I'm sure she didn't. But I'm equally sure she needs us. So we are halfway safe, I dare say. But if anybody would prefer to stay behind, I won't blame you.'
Rani-Ra waggled a finger in his face. 'Nice try, bro. I'm a Guardian too. I'm coming. Especially after seeing these...visions.'
'Lord, we will not leave you,' the Servants chorused. Eje pushed out his chest. It still appeared to be rather scrawny. 'We will follow in Pharaoh's footsteps.'
'Sandals,' Trueth said. 'I'm still concerned about those demons. I would rather not like to meet them.'
Metjen did not either. 'Iseret said they have to be summoned, and she's guarding things. I think the buggers haven't arrived yet.'
'What was it with these waters?' Rani-Ra said. 'Did they all plunge into the Nile? Why would they do that?'
'If the leaders of Kemet shifted their people complete with environment into another world it must have been one hell of a bang. Loads of fallout I should guess,' Trueth said.
Rani-Ra looked pensive. 'Good point. But who was that woman? The one who looked like mother?'
Trueth shrugged. 'No idea, but the similarity is striking.' She snapped her fingers. 'Could have been Amasis?'
'Iseret must have been leading those of the warriors who were priests,' Eje said, his voice cracking with emotion.
Things were getting out of hand.
'Enough of this debate!' Metjen shouted, his voice reverberating off the walls. Great, now he sounded like their former high priestess, maybe he needed to take it easy on the levitation front.
Metjen stored that thought for later and took a deep breath. 'Sorry folks, but we should explore, instead of talking. But I'll go first. And Rani-Ra?'
'Yes?'
'I'll have that ring.'
His sister stared at him.
'Please,' he added as an afterthought.
'No, you don't,' Rani-Ra said. 'I'm a woman, you're not. I too can pass for Amasis and that might help to fool a few monsters. So I keep our ring.'
With this, she marched through the opening and Metjen had to follow or risk losing her. They clustered at the top of the second shaft. Metjen was ready to take the first step when Trueth zapped a blue bolt into the gloom below.
He teetered, propelled his arms to prevent himself from plummeting and regained balance with an effort.
Trueth scratched her chin. 'Mm, was worth a try. Sorry, about that.'
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.
'Guess what, only one of these doors is the right one,' Trueth said.
'Be my guest.' Metjen mind-prodded the stone straight ahead, then stepped on it one foot at a time. No reaction, but he had never been the trusting sort. He focussed, called his sun-flow and viewed himself in mid-air.
It did not work.
'What are you doing, you've gone red in the face?' Trueth said.
Metjen expelled air that should have got him aloft. 'Can't levitate here.'
He moved his ka on the stone right ahead followed by his body. Again nothing happened, and he released a shuddering breath.
'So far, so good. But we still don't know which exit to pick.'
'Can you spare me the running commentary?' He was well aware of that little problem himself, but first they needed to get across this landing. It did not give him good vibes. In fact, the vibes were bad.
'Where are you going?' Trueth asked.
'Eh?' Metjen realised he was sinking through the slab which had taken on the consistency of quicksand. Unlike quicksand there seemed to be nothing below, his legs were kicking empty air.
'Damn!' He grappled for purchase on the stones. The girls landed on the neighbouring slabs and grabbed an arm each. It made no difference—the void pulled him down inexorably.
Metjen shook off the girls' helpless hands, raised his arms above his head, screamed out the invocation to Shu, the god of the air. A vortex descended on him, sucked him up and out—and in a mad whirl slammed him into the wall.
He somersaulted back, landing one step back on the slab which had born his weight before.
It disintegrated right underneath his feet.
Metjen grabbed the edge of the vortex as it was about to vanish and staggered onto another slab further on from the treacherous two. An uneasy quiet settled on the group. He stomped on the stone, but nothing happened. Rani-Ra and Trueth seemed to be safe where they were standing.
Metjen checked the wall he had slammed into and saw more dark blood seeping out, oozing down the stairs. Slowly it pooled on the landing—with a crunch the ground underneath the growing puddle disintegrated under its weight, creating a hole in the ground which exuded noxious yellow fumes. Amenemhet coughed. Then Nefer. They had to get out of here. Now. But the fumes scratched the back of his throat, making his head swim.
'That face—Amasis, I wonder whether she might help us after all... .' Rani-Ra held out the hand with the ring and stepped on the slab next to her, accompanied by a collective intake of breath.
The stone held.
To the sounds of hushed breathing and the occasional groan, Rani-Ra skipped from one piece of stone to another, springing no more traps. She twirled around Metjen, stopped right in the middle of the small landing where she waved her hand once, twice—and the doorway on the left flickered once.
'Only step where I do.' She pivoted to lead them on.
Metjen followed in her footsteps, stomping on each slab before placing his feet and bouncing forward to the next. He guided the others as they tramped on behind, the boom of their progress resounding off the walls until the whole party reached the safety of the doorway. The last rumble echoed in the shaft. Then it was quiet again.
Metjen peeped into the dark cavity in front of him. They had landed in another small icebox without exit. It was debris-free as far as Metjen could see in the low light of their orbs. Shadows pooled at the other end—he realised what he saw was no shadow. Scorch marks ran over the floor to congeal in one spot—which turned out to be no spot but a black hole reaching even further into the depth.
A faint glow crept out of the opening.
'Trueth, do me a favour and don't shoot into the dark.'
She curled her lip but refrained from commenting. He waved and the group crept towards the inky pool, probing the room as they went along.
Nothing.
Metjen peeped over the rim of an XXXL-sized manhole.
Whoever was responsible for the lighting had issues with the response time. He could not see much, but the floor of the room below appeared to be covered in lumps of rock, bent metal and unidentifiable objects. Far too many of them showed bits of smudged white, giving him the impression they better stayed unidentifiable. The air smelled of mildew, dust and broken things, and he again wished that they had Nebmutef with them, if they could not have Iseret. At least he could use his walking aid to whap attackers over the head.
'I think I should... .' Rani-Ra said when a buzzing sound drifted up from the chaos down below.
The echoes in this place were terrible. It was a rustling, and it sounded from the entrance.
Metjen whirled around.
The light was getting worse.
Trueth asked 'Now what?' She regarded Metjen quizzically. He nodded, and a blue bolt dashed into the encroaching shadows.
It was reflected by many cold beady eyes flashing from a mass of writhing dark tentacles slithering towards them. Coiling, uncoiling, hissing and raising their hoods—a little army of cobras was sliding straight at them. The front ones exposed fangs dripping with venom.
Rani-Ra thrust the ring towards the scaly monsters, but they came on relentlessly and more joined them from the darkness.
'Get down there!' Metjen yelled. He ascended into mid-air, waited until the last one had made it—surely not towards safety but at least away from the reach of this repulsive mass and dived, narrowly avoiding the jabbing fangs.
Once landed, he looked up at the hole where a ring of cobras was hissing and spitting annoyance at their escape. Spitting—he jumped aside as the first drops of venom plopped fromt he ceiling, creating little craters that pockmarked the floor.
'Damn!' He had not been fast enough. one drop had sliced into the skin of his palm opening up his flesh with laser precision, dissolving it in the process. It hurt as if he had grabbed the griddle above hell. The flesh was smoking, pulsing—Trueth's warm fingers gripped the wound, she flowed mental balm over his lacerated skin, closed the edges and stopped his flesh from digesting itself.
If this continued, he would owe his life to Trueth too many times over.
Metjen stumbled to a boulder, he needed to sit down.
At the last moment, he remembered where he was and examined the shape behind him. It was only a big stone with a skeleton hand squashed underneath, so he parked his backside on the rugged surface.
Trueth examined his hand, apart from a scar and jittery feeling--the after effects of too much adrenaline--he seemed to have suffered no harm. His sister stumbled up and hugged him wordlessly. He felt better—
'It's getting brighter,' Trueth said.
Her observation was correct. The special effects were finally working, and the cobra-crowned hole had disappeared into the gloom. Instead, their landing site was emerging from the shadows, giving them an excellent view of all those things he had never wanted to see in the first place.
'Yikes,' Rani-Ra said.
That was the understatement of the year, Metjen thought.
===