Pandora Gets Vain (Pandora (Hardback)) (9 page)

“Stay close to the left wall.”

“Trying,” said Alcie.

“How do you know where you’re going?” asked Iole.

“Field trips.”

“Huh?” said Alcie.

“When I was at gladiator school in Ethiopia, sometimes we’d get to go on field trips if we did really well in basic strategy or hacking class. I’ve been in temples like this before. They don’t treat their dead like we do back in Greece. Especially those they want to keep an eye on.”

“Keep an eye on?” said Alcie.

“You know, like thieves, murderers, grave robbers. After they’ve been punished, their bodies are thrown into a large room called the ‘Chamber of Despair.’ It’s usually off to the side of the temple, underneath the desert. Pandy must have fallen through the ceiling. One of the four passageways up on the main portico would have led down to it. I just hope I picked the right one. We’ll know soon.”

“How?” asked Iole. “It’s pitch black.”

As if in answer to her question, the most horrible smell imaginable wafted into her nostrils. Alcie broke out of Iole’s grip and covered her nose with both hands.

“What in Apollo’s name is that?” she cried.

“It’s exactly what I hoped for,” said Homer. “When I said they just tossed the bodies in, that’s like totally what they did; one on top of another. That’s the smell of a burial chamber.”

“Alcie, where are you?” Iole said sharply.

“I’m here,” Alcie replied, fumbling in the dark for Iole’s free hand. “I can’t breathe, but I’m here.”

“Cover your noses, breathe with your mouths,” said Homer. “I just hope she landed on a body and not anything else.”

“What do you mean?” asked Iole.

“Well, thieves and grave robbers and such were executed by . . . like . . . impaling. And often the stakes were still in the bodies when they tossed them in the chamber. Quiet—we’re almost there.”

But Alcie and Iole were already silent as statues as they prayed to every god and goddess they could think of that Pandy hadn’t ended up skewered like a lamb roast.

Suddenly the passageway lit up with a soft glow only a short distance ahead.

Alcie glanced at the wall next to her: a human skull, set into the wall, stared back at her. She was about to scream when she heard a loud voice.

“
Ah . . . fresh blood!
”

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Chamber of Despair

4:28 p.m.

The entire chamber was now glowing murky white. Pandy stared at the unblinking eye, floating in midair. It was easily ten meters in diameter and the lines surrounding it gave it a fierce, enraged appearance. But after the first words echoed through the chamber, words Pandy did not understand in the least despite Egyptian 101 back at school, all was eerily quiet.

Slowly, she began to look around, careful not to move too much should the eye see her and speak again.

What she saw was terrifying. The chamber stretched into darkness on both sides, and there was a wall of dark bones about forty meters directly in front of her; finger, hip, and leg bones jutting out at every possible angle. But the floor of the chamber . . . that was something entirely different.

Whole bodies. Thousands of them. Scattered. Piled. Stacked one on top of another forming dozens of small hills that faded into the black of the chamber. Most were already skeletons or severely decayed and as she looked, several leg and foot bones simply dropped off, crashing to the floor below.

She closed her eyes tightly, wanting to block out the sight around her.

Had she really just seen what she thought she’d seen? As a little girl, her father had told her stories of fierce battles, great scenes of destruction and death (before her mother had whacked him on the head and told him to stop), so she could pretty well handle the thousands of human bones strewn about. But had she really seen the . . . holes? Every body that she’d glimpsed, she thought, had a hole in its mid-section.

She slowly opened her eyes and looked up. All over the chamber light radiated through the bones, causing spooky silhouettes. But in some places, small discs of filmy white, like little moons, could be seen as the light from the giant eye shone through the perfectly round circles in the bodies.

Except, of course, for the bodies with huge wooden poles through the middle.

Pandy gasped.

Directly in front of her were the bones of a man lying twisted and curved around a thick wooden pole.

There were hundreds of poles all over the chamber, their ends sharpened to fine points. Half had toppled over, but half were still upright. She had assumed that these were only support poles, shoring up the desert floor high above and keeping it from caving in. But each pole carried a human skeleton somewhere on its shaft. The pole she was lying against didn’t have a body. Then she realized the crunchy bits underneath her were the remains of a skeleton she had crashed into as she fell.

Then, from off to her right, she heard the murmur of voices, very soft, but getting louder and talking fast. Turning her head she saw a small flash of white fur and three larger shapes burst into the chamber from a dark entryway.

“Pandy?”

“Kumquats! Pandy, where are you?”

She was opening her mouth to answer when a pulse in the light made her glance back toward the horrible eye.

The eye had turned slightly, rotating toward the new sound coming into the chamber. A beam of light shot out from the center of the eye toward the four figures and the same loud voice shouted again.

“Enter not, dogs! You will wait until you are needed!”

Suddenly, it seemed to Pandy that her friends had slammed up against an invisible wall. She could see Iole’s arms outstretched, her hands pressed flat against an unseen barrier. Alcie, trying to find some way around, was only succeeding in smashing her nose on something she just couldn’t see. Homer was throwing his entire weight against . . . whatever it was . . . again and again. Dido, Pandy saw, was rigid, barking furiously, his white eyes focused on her lying on the pile of bones.

The eye turned back toward Pandy, now almost on her feet.

“
You disturb the chamber. You are of flesh. This is not
allowed.
”

Silence.

Pandy looked again to her friends, scuttling noiselessly like beetles inside an invisible jar. Could she get to them? Could she free them . . . or herself?

“
You disturb the chamber. You are of flesh. This is not
allowed.
”

“I . . . I . . . don’t understand what . . . ?”

Pandy stood, half hiding behind the pole, and accidentally grazed her left hip against the wood, causing a sharp spasm of pain. She twisted around the pole to peer out from its other side. As she did, she caught sight of a figure, ducking down behind a pile of corpses about thirty meters away.

“Hello?” she cried before she realized that calling attention to herself in front of someone who may or may not want to kill her just might be the most idiotic thing she could do.

The light around the eye pulsed again and again. Each burst getting brighter.

“
Speak not, desecrator
,” the voice boomed. “
Prepare
to join those who have gone before!
”

Suddenly, the sound of several voices filled the chamber, repeating a single phrase again and again.

“What is this thing?” cried Iole behind the invisible barrier.

“What is
that
thing?” said Alcie, pointing to the huge eye, now focused on Pandy.

“Homer? Homer! Stop it!” said Iole, stepping in front of Homer as he prepared to charge again. “You obviously can’t break through. We’re trapped. This thing, this invisible wall, is magic of some kind . . . or the work of the gods.”

“Hera’s found us,” whispered Alcie.

“Hera wouldn’t be able to act this fast, at least I don’t think so,” said Homer, panting hard as he slumped against the barrier.

“What do you mean?” asked Iole.

“This is Egypt. The people have their own gods. Like . . . different ones.”

“I know
that
part,” said Iole.

“But . . . like . . . if Hera wanted to get to you, she’d have to get permission from Isis, or Osiris, Nut, Ka, Geb. Maybe even Anubis. Our gods can’t just come in and take over. They have to ask.” Homer suddenly charged the invisible wall again. “Ugh . . . I think there might even be paperwork.”

“It’s glowing brighter again!” said Alcie, looking at the eye.

“
Nephthys prepares a place. Kneel before Nephthys,
” the voice said, the sound ricocheting off the walls of the chamber.

“I can’t . . . I can’t understand! Something about kneeling in place,” cried Iole, listening intently. “I dropped Egyptian 101 for Basic Chinese!”

“It’s a chant. It’s saying ‘Nephthys prepares a place. Kneel before Nephthys,’ ” said Homer.

“Who’s that? What’s that mean?” asked Alcie.

“The Egyptian Goddess of the Dead. They pray to Nephthys before they sacrifice or execute someone.”

“Great Apollo!” gasped Iole.

“But it makes no sense,” said Homer, pacing and pointing to the huge eye. “That’s the Eye of Horus. It’s a symbol of healing and protection. The Egyptian students at school wore it around their necks. It doesn’t destroy anything!”

Dido began whimpering, turning in small circles then putting his paws up against the invisible wall.

“Figs,” said Alcie, turning, “look!”

Pandy’s knees buckled under her, as if someone had hit the back of her legs with a rod, and she lost complete control of her body. Her head was thrown back, her arms were flung up then thrust violently forward as her body was bent so her face and arms hit the floor. Then, still on her knees, her upper body was raised up and thrown back, then slammed forward again into the ground.

“What’s happening to her?” screamed Iole, prying a rock loose from the entryway to the chamber.

“I don’t know!” cried Homer, pacing again rapidly back and forth. “Something’s making her move like that. Usually people . . . prisoners and stuff . . . don’t have to be told, they just kneel and pray before they’re killed. But she doesn’t know the custom, so something’s making her do it anyway.”