With barely enough light to see more than a few feet in front of me, I bend down on my good knee to take stock of my injury. Crimson blood blooms across my beige slacks, seeping through a small tear in the twill.
“Fantastic.”
I rip at the fabric as best I can with one hand to get a better look at it. Luckily, the injury is fairly minor, the blood already clotting. I click my tongue in disappointment. It was only a matter of time before I got hurt; it tends to happen on these expeditions when I’m a bit too reckless. Which is always.
At least it’s only a scrape and not a broken bone like last time.
Standing again, the match has nearly reached my fingers. Shaking that one out, I light another and peer into the darkness. I can’t see a damned thing, the room draped in black gossamer, absorbing any possibility of light.
I run my free hand over my braid. “Think, Hawkins: if this is part of the Osireion, then there must be some way to bring light to it. An oil lamp or a torch maybe. Find that, and we’re in business.”
Taking a deep breath of the stale air, I smell… some sort of oil? Turning in every direction on my bum leg, I find it strongest behind me. I limp toward the wall a few paces away—when I notice a golden bowl sitting on a ledge.
Moving toward it, the stench of oil intensifies. It’s thick and heady, like castor oil, which means it can’t be from Claude’s useless lamp. Close enough now to peer inside the bowl, I mark a pool of liquid I’m almost certain isn’t water sitting at the bottom.
Leaning in further, I gag at the intense smell. “Jesus Christ.”
I’m not sure how much light this little bowl of oil can provide, but it’s better than striking a match each time one goes out until there are none left.
I fight to steady my hands again in the near-darkness, holding the disappearing match over the bowl.
“Here goes nothing.”
I drop the remnants of the burning match—and the liquid bursts into flame. I stumble back, throwing an arm over my face.
Once the brightness fades, I lower my arm.Looks like it worked.It doesn’t give off much light, but it’s enough to discern a long, braided wick slick with more oil, trailing up into obscurity.
I barely blink before the flames race up the wick, the fibers sparking and curling in on themselves. It quickly catches on the slight ledge a few feet above me, spreading across thesurrounding stone walls of the tomb. In seconds, the entire place is alight with carefully controlled chaos.
I gasp, finding myself grinning.Finally, something goes right.
Gazing up, the ceiling dips low in this room compared to the rest of the temple. The limestone walls burst with colorful hieroglyphs—bright depictions of stories and peoples and animals I’ve never seen anywhere else, painted in faded reds and blues and blacks, even golds.If only I had the time to properly enjoy this.
The sooner I find the amulet, the quicker I can find another way out of here.
I’m not sure if finding the Amulet of Amun will break me out of this self-made prison, but I have to try. I didn’t go through all that just to leave empty-handed. Besides, there’s no telling when Claude might wake up. And since he already watched me crack the code of the first two locks, evenhecould figure out the final one.
Being trapped in a room with no way out is bad—being trapped in the same room with a Nazi is far worse.
Even if I’m the one with the gun this time.
Golden sarcophagi line the walls at even intervals, looming over the center path of the hidden tomb like sentries. Although, if they’re buried with Osiris, they’re more likely to be priests than guards.
At the other end of the room rests a lavish sarcophagus crafted in the image of Osiris himself. Just as Claude mentioned. The rectangular bottom is forged from solid gold, with the eye of Horus emblazoned at the center and a myriad of other glyphs wrapped around it.
That must be where the amulet is.Tightening the straps on my pack, I head for the tomb of the god who’s given me so much trouble today. Limping slightly from the abrasion on my knee, Ishuffle across the thin layer of sand that found its way down here over the thousands of years this place has sat dormant.
From my current vantage point, the sarcophagi on either side of me appear untouched. A rare thing. On more than a few expeditions, Nonna and I weren’t the first ones to find the tombs, caves, or temples we searched for, and many sites had already been stripped of their artifacts. This place, however, remains unsullied by modern excavations and ancient grave robbers.
God help me, I’m giddy over it.
The gold of the sentries shimmers in the firelight as I creep along, waiting for my feet to drop out from under me again. Or for a mummified medjai to appear from the shadows and strike me down.
Thankfully, I reach the rectangular sarcophagus without incident.
The top greatly resembles photographs I’ve seen of King Tutankhamun’s tomb, found in the Valley of the Kings when I was a child, but in the likeness of Osiris instead.
My chest swells.The amulethasto be in there.
