Trueth was nowhere. Or everywhere. All at once. Whereever she was, it was freezing cold. But this was good as it helped to numb the howling agony in her leg.
Or maybe Metjen dulled the pain before he and Seisi propelled themselves into that fading light which had swallowed the Al-Nours. Trueth remembered the explosions and wondered whether the atoms of her body were being catapulted into Nirvana right at this moment. She might be experiencing the last split second of her life where everything flashed before her inner eye.
If I have disintegrated why am I still here? By now, that split second must have passed.
Trueth waited, but she saw nothing remotely resembling her life. Instead, she beheld only darkness with the occasional spark in it. She found this annoying. Did her life not qualify for a flashback?
Or had they arrived on the other side? Did Metjen and Seisi between them drag her to where she did not want to be--to an ancient civilisation? Those were chronically infamous for how they treated their females. Not that he had treated her any better; the last thing she needed was being close to that guy.
Trueth thought of the crawling blackness and the red veins that had pulsed in it and shuddered. Staying behind with the demons would have been hell. Literally.
Trueth hoped Metjen did not make a mistake, and these monstrosities were coming after them as she was lying here--assuming she was lying somewhere after all and assuming there was a here. Thinking about that idiot also was a bad idea. It made her eyes burn, and she was in enough pain already.
Trueth?
The question echoed as if spoken in a vast gallery. This was downright impossible, her head was not that large. Could a woman not try to recall her life and die in peace these days? Nothing was sacred any more.
Trueth!
She opened her eyes and checked the ceiling. No Nut this time. She only saw the familiar glittery greyness of stones that resembled those back in the first corridor. She groaned.
'In the name of the Devourer, we must help her!'
'I have not the power to heal her, you are the Enlightened One.'
'I'm what? Never mind, I'm-eh-spent.'
'Rubbish.'
'I say, can't mother-'
'I'm checking what we have, dear. And I'm amazed our stuff has turned up at all. I had forgotten about our provisions.'
'Excuse me... ,' Trueth said.
'Fascinating, completely and utterly fascinating!'
'Howl!'
'Mew!'
'Oh Hathor, give us strength... .'
It sounded as if her friends were all present and accounted for. The still forms rose before Trueth's inner eye, the dust that had been Iseret and those people from the temple, turned from one moment to the next. She shivered once more and tried again. 'Excuse me... .'
No chance, the others rummaged through the containers for something to use as a splint. Trueth was a healer. She should be able to heal herself... .
A spicy essence drifted into her nostrils, followed by a warm hand on her forehead as Seisi's voice drifted into her mind. Do not attempt this. You will not succeed as it is not the way.
With Seisi's help, she sat up in time to stop Metjen's mother from setting her leg, assisted by the professor. 'I believe the idea is to take painkillers first,' Trueth said feebly.
She got those and Metjen shared more of his fading sun-flow. As the last remains of the agony floated away, Trueth finally took in her company. She saw Rani-Ra and mother Al-Nour who hugged her with tears in her eyes, the professor who did likewise but without the tears and Ranofer, who mutely held on to her shoulder.
She counted eighteen Servants, more priestesses than priests and most she had never met. They appeared dishevelled as they came in a formal row and bowed to her. All Trueth could dredge up was a watery smile.
'What in the name of the Lord Ra possessed Nebmutef to join these-horrors?' Metjen had sagged onto the floor with his head in his hands. 'What have I done wrong?'
'He told me his family came with the force led by Pharaoh and the Guardians,' Seisi said quietly. 'They always served the temple and Iseret faithfully throughout the centuries. But they never got to lead, and he wanted to be acknowledged before he died.'
'Oh bloody hell, not this again,' Trueth said.
'All these buggers are after is recognition and glory,' Rani-Ra added.
Metjen sighed and rose from the floor. 'We must carry Trueth, mother--do we have anything we can use?'
Gebu and Eje ripped apart one of the canvas bags to create an emergency stretcher. Mother Al-Nour added a blanket and a pillow for good measure and Metjen levitated her inside. Amenemhet and Khafa offered to take the first shift and grabbed the handles. They were still bickering over who should walk backwards once the stretcher went up.
Trueth wondered how anybody knew which direction to go. These passages always went two ways...she twisted around, and the answer glittered in her face--not another corridor, but another wall instead.
She should have remembered that. They had run into enough walls to last a lifetime.
A closer look revealed this obstacle to be unimpressive. The corridor was narrow and its ceiling not high. The wall blocking it was made of glass, blue on the outside but frosted with splinters and cracks radiating from the middle, there it had turned white. Had they crashed through a glass panel? What she saw in no way resembled the ring in the hall, it was but a fraction of its size. And it was not round, it looked like a large mirror.
How could such a fragile piece of broken glass block the infernal hordes? Her heart missed a beat. 'Metjen, are we safe here from the demons?' Even to herself her voice sounded overly shrill.
He dropped his hands to his sides but did not look at her. 'I sealed it.'
'How?'
'I called for Imhotep to turn off the fucking light. It worked.' This time he turned his impassive face towards her.
An unholy stink arose, Trueth thought of the demons and broke into a sweat that instantly glued her T-shirt to her bra. Something glittered briefly in his beautiful eyes. He reached out as if to squeeze her shoulder--halted and withdrew.
'Don't worry, it's only Blondie. Have to get them out of the carriers pronto,' Metjen said. 'We've been waiting the whole day for you to come back to us.'
'Everybody needed a rest, to be honest,' the professor added.
She breathed again and sank back in her makeshift stretcher. It swayed gently into yet another corridor that reached into the distance as it if it was connecting worlds all by itself.
Time passed. Trueth dozed.
'Stop,' said Metjen just as Seisi said 'Halt your steps.'
They tested the wall, found nothing and frowned beyond each other.
'I sensed something--various times actually, but I wasn't sure.' Metjen said.
'Wait a moment,' said the professor, extracted a screwdriver from his pocket, examined it, shook his head and replaced it with a small hammer he tapped against the wall. A hollow sound came back. 'There's a room behind,' he said.
Rani-Ra knocked a pale golden ray against the barrier which cracked and ocher sand trickled out of the rift. Another ray and the wall collapsed.
'Oh no, ABC alarm!' Ranofer said. A lot of eyes focussed on him, and he reddened. 'Another bloody corridor, I say.'
He was right--and yet he was not, as this corridor looked different. No precision-built greyness. Instead blocks of creamy sandstone tapering towards the top encased a small passageway. A few uneven steps lead up the other end. Where it led to, Trueth could not see from her stretcher. She noticed an opening on the right, with hieroglyphs painted on the wall next to it. The professor darted across and thoughtfully rubbed his chin.
'What does it say?' Ranofer asked.
'It says "Resurrection Equipment: Trespassing forbidden for all those not Blessed by the gods. Obey, or the Winds of Shu shall rip through your guts. Wapwer son of Hapi, Bringer of Wonders".'
'Ah,' Seisi said. 'We are in the temple of Osiris.'
Trueth groaned--and waved away the painkillers. 'It's only that I keep running into that god.'
A shadow of the familiar amusement flickered across Metjen's face. 'Seisi, if we're in a temple surely you can get us out?'
He nodded and beckoned for them to follow him up the stairs, into another passage with more tunnels forking off from its sides. Seisi, ignored them, went straight on and up steps that continuously got wider as they climbed.
Metjen and Ranofer had trouble keeping their father under control. He dashed across from one doorway to another, checking out their precise little inscriptions--and the even more precise curses protecting them.
In one room, purple sparks flickered from the ceiling when the professor stuck his head in; from another one issued a bubbling sound that made him beat a swift retreat. When green smoke from an explosion rolled out of the third, Metjen threatened his father with the Claws of Anubis. This approach met with dark looks but at least Metjen had curbed the exploratory zeal of his parent, giving him a chance at surviving the cursed corridors.
These ended abruptly when they emerged into an immense circular shaft, still made of the tasteful creamy stone but decorated with engravings and paintings in black and blue.
From her stretcher, Trueth examined the far-away object crowning the chimney and realised it was the underside of a pyramid; a pyramid consisting of blue glass. A flotilla of bridges made of an ebony dark wood floated in mid-air, one atop the other. Several of them were pointing either up or down, and those showed treads.
Openings honeycombed the shaft. Presumably they could be reached via the stairs--had they at any point been usefully connected to the surrounding walls.
'Wow,' Rani-Ra said. 'This is different.'
'Makes me think of Paris Charles de Gaulle airport with its escalators,' Ranofer said.
'Rubbish. Those ladder-things look nothing like it,' his sister responded.
'It's impractical,' her mother said. 'How do I know this doesn't crash when I step on it? If I ever manage to get hold of one of these funny planks.'
'The temple is still empty and I do not sense the power of the gods. Without, it will take us long to exit. Of stairs and steps there are many,' Seisi said.
As they were massaging their calves, the Servants carrying Trueth gave Seisi a menacing glare.
'What is this place?' Metjen asked.
'We priests call the flying bridges, they turn into stairs and lead you where you want to go. They are of no value to us, let us set forth.' Seisi pointed towards a stairwell behind the airborne platforms.