Reawakened (The Reawakened Series) (19 page)

I asked Amon if we were likely to come across any more booby traps, and after I explained what they were, he told me that Egyptian tombs usually came with curses, not snares for the unsuspecting. Still, he seemed very uncomfortable with the idea of moving ahead, though he believed that the path we were peering down was indeed the correct one.

Tentatively, he led me forward, insisting on going first, but then suddenly, he froze. “Do not move, Lily,” he whispered.

“What is it?” I asked quietly.

Reaching forward, Amon touched his finger to the air right in front of him and blood immediately pooled at his fingertip. “It is a deadly wire, created to sever the neck of the hapless person wandering the tombs. And this time, there was no warning.”

We backed up slowly while Amon whispered some words. Sand rose from the tomb floor and swirled around his hands. The grains coalesced and solidified, forming a deadly-looking weapon—a knife. The blade burned with Amon’s white light.

“Stand back,” Amon warned.

Using the glowing knife, he slashed the wire. As he did so, it recoiled violently, like a whip, delivering a stinging slash to his cheek.

Amon cut another wire and another, his mood darkening with each discovery. After we finally made it to the end of the tunnel, consulted some hieroglyphs, and turned down another corridor, Amon finally began to relax.

Because he let his guard down, I did, too, and it came as quite a shock to both of us when I tripped over a slightly elevated stone and the walls began to shake.

“Amon?” I called out. “Is that you?”

“I am not causing this disturbance,” he said as I stumbled against him. The walls shifted, and before we could get our bearings, we were trapped inside a stone box. It became deathly quiet. Amon attempted to use his knife to pry open the sealed edges, but he couldn’t find a place to insert the blade. He stirred the sand around us and sent it scurrying into the corners searching for cracks. The sand just hovered in little clouds, not finding a way out.

I sat on the ground and dusted my hands off on my jeans. “So much for your Egyptians-don’t-use-booby-traps theory.”

Amon frowned. “It does not make sense. The tombs were never protected in this manner before.”

“Maybe your so-called guardians who are missing in action set up the traps to protect you and your brothers so that you wouldn’t be discovered.”

“Maybe.”

“In that case they should have set up a few more, since you were found anyway.” I sighed. “Can you sandstorm our way out?”

Shaking his head, Amon explained, “If the sand cannot find a crack in this prison, then we cannot escape it in that manner, either.”

Sitting down next to me, Amon dusted off his hands and held them up in the air, chanting different spells. When one didn’t work, he tried another, and another. It was around the third or fourth spell that I noticed the light coming from his skin was waning. It actually flickered.

“What’s wrong with your light?” I asked.

“I am not sure,” he said as he lifted a hand to study it. “Let me try something.”

A ball of flame materialized in Amon’s palm, but it soon sputtered and went out. “I do not understand why this is happening,” he said.

“Wait a minute. You can create fire with your hands?”

Amon nodded.

“You are full of surprises,” I said in awe.

I took a few deep breaths and felt a niggling pain in the bottom of my lungs. “I…think we’re running out of oxygen,” I said, the pain in my chest now becoming a dull ache. “You need it to maintain your flame, and it’s also affecting the light from your body.”

Amon took my hand and switched off his light. Darkness deeper than that of a grave surrounded us. Desperate to figure a way out, I ran my free hand over the wall closest to me. “Try to see if there is an indentation or a trigger,” I suggested to Amon. “In the mummy movies there is always a way out, we just have to find it.” Amon worked on the wall opposite mine and then we moved on to the other two. When giving the same treatment to the floor, I came across a depression in the stone. “What do you think this is?” I asked.

Making his way over to me, Amon slid his hand on top of mine until he felt the stone I’d found. “I am not sure,” he said.

It felt like a hollowed-out curve, similar to a mold for a sphere, but no matter how we pushed or beat on it, nothing happened. I sat down heavily with my back against a wall. Amon slid down next to me. “So this is it, then?” I said, more to the tomb than to Amon or myself. “We’re just going to suffocate in here? What’s next? The walls will crush us?”

Not a minute later, there was a terrible grinding noise. Amon stood to investigate.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I cried.

“The ceiling is lowering, Lily,” Amon said. “Stay as low to the floor as possible.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked, my voice trembling with the conviction that whatever he tried wouldn’t be enough to save us.

“I will attempt to brace it,” he panted.

“You’ll be crushed,” I wheezed.

“I do not know what else to do.”

Little by little the ceiling dropped, and as strong as Amon was, there was no stopping its progress.

As I sat there cowering, hoping Amon would pull a secret sun-god power out of his bag of tricks to save us, I contemplated my impending death. At that moment, I realized my entire life had amounted to essentially being trapped inside a box. How fitting that I was now going to die in one.

Despite the fact that I liked to believe that I was a regular girl who longed for an adventure with a mysterious man, the truth was, I was about as far away from being a regular girl as I could be. I’d been conditioned like a pampered poodle to be utterly obedient and go only so far as my diamond-studded leash allowed. If the world got too crazy, I’d tremble at my parents’ feet and let them make everything all better. I was a coward.

This little adventure with Amon was so far outside my comfort zone that I didn’t even know who I was anymore. My outer shell had been ripped away and what was left was a raw, scared girl. My confidence, the marrow that made up who I was, and my grasp of what was real and what was imaginary had been ripped apart. The foundation at the core of Lilliana Young had crumbled and only broken rubble remained.

The irony was that as I waited for death, I realized that I was now finally living. I was experiencing the world. I’d run away from home, developed a serious crush on a guy who didn’t feel the same, and traveled to the desert. I was in serious need of a shower, said whatever acerbic comments came to mind, and couldn’t care less about the consequences of my actions.

And now, here I was, nearing death, and I felt…glad.

Being with Amon was the most invigorating thing that had ever happened to me and if I was to meet my end here, then at least I could say that I had truly experienced living in all its sweaty, uncomfortable, harsh, heartbroken, scary, sometimes deadly, but always thrilling glory.

If I was going to leave this earth, I would do it with a smile on my face and consider it a fitting end to the ultimate adventure. “All things considered, I think I’d rather suffocate than be crushed,” I wheezed. “How about you?”

Amon panted. “Why do you speak like this?”

“I don’t know. Just accepting the inevitable, I guess. Please stop straining yourself,” I pleaded as Amon grunted and staggered beneath the ceiling.

The scrape of a shoe on the dusty floor told me Amon had heeded my words. Soon he was next to me, trying to catch his breath in a space almost devoid of oxygen.

“Are you going to die, too?” I asked.

“Perhaps not immediately, but losing you will weaken me to the point that my death will be inevitable. For the first time in millennia I will have failed in my duty.”

“Yeah. Sorry about that.”

Amon put his arms around me, pulling me close. “No. I am sorry for this, Young Lily. I did not wish to endanger your life.”

“Yeah, well, I should have known that taking up with a mummy was not the safest bet.” Stretching my hand above my head, I could easily press my palm against the ceiling now. Amon and I slid down a little, prolonging the inevitable. Turning my face in his direction, I decided to throw caution completely to the wind and asked, “So, does the weight of our situation inspire you to rethink the idea of kissing me? I mean, if I’m going to die, I’d really like to know what a kiss feels like first.”

Amon murmured, “The weight of our situation…weight. Could it be that simple?”

Carefully, Amon moved around me and found the round groove again. He chanted, and I felt the sting of sand as it whipped past me with a hiss.

“What are you doing?” I whispered in the darkness.

Ignoring me, he kept on and then cried out in joy at the whir and click of the walls. The ceiling rose and the floor shifted. The momentum caused me to lose my balance and roll to the side. The cool rush of air filled the room as Amon took my hand and helped me stand.

Soft golden light filled my eyes as Amon’s skin began to glow once more, and he pointed at the thing he’d created—a stone ball that fit exactly into the groove of the floor.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I once heard a story about weighted balls being used in the pyramids. A stone ball weighted just right was used to open secret passageways and doors. We were going in the right direction, but we did not have the weighted ball necessary to enter.”

“So the depression we found was like a lock and the ball was the key?”

“Yes. Exactly.”

The deadly box had opened up to a new passage. As we passed through the doorway, Amon leaned down and grabbed the ball he’d created, dropping the heavy item, which was about the size of a grapefruit but with the weight of a bowling ball, into my bag before placing the strap across his chest.

So I wasn’t going to die after all. Gratitude filled me and I smiled, vowing to remember that even in the most dire of circumstances, it was better to live, explore, and face possible danger than to cower for the rest of my life inside a pretty box. From that point forward, daredevil would be my middle name.

“I think we should just assume that there are going to be more booby traps ahead,” I said, still smiling.

“Yes. We should move cautiously,” Amon said as he peered at me quizzically, probably trying to understand why I was in such a good mood.

During our careful advance, Amon didn’t come across anything, and we passed through several corridors unharmed. After climbing a long series of stairs, we came upon another set of hieroglyphs. This time there was a clear indication that the secret tomb hiding the whereabouts of the sun god was close by. Amon decided that since we were so near to his last resting place, we should momentarily abandon the search for his brother and check out his tomb first to see if we could find his canopic jars.

We reached a stone wall with the symbol of the sun engraved upon it. Amon pushed a lever, causing a hiss, followed by an explosion of dust that blew over both of us.

A crack of light appeared. Undaunted, Amon shoved the wall, widening the gap, and we entered the tomb. The vacant room was filled with artificial light. We ducked into the next chamber and found it empty as well.

As Amon studied the hieroglyphs covering the walls, I stayed where I was and pulled out the map I’d been given earlier. “Amon, do you realize where we are?”

“We are near my burial chamber.”

“Yes, but this is no ordinary tomb. This is KV63. As in, the tomb of King Tut!” Amon stared at me as if waiting for the punch line. I sputtered, “The point is, this is the most famous tomb here and we aren’t likely to be alone for long, so we have to hurry.”

Amon nodded and turned back to the carvings while I perused the map. Mumbling to myself, I said, “We came in through the treasury, so this must be the burial chamber. To the left is the antechamber, and just beyond that, the annex. The passageway out is over there.” I pointed in the general direction of the exit.

Amon turned to me, ducked his head, and whispered, “If I was indeed buried here, I would not have been found near the pharaoh or in the annex or the antechamber. My tomb would have been near the treasury room. We were always hidden behind the great treasures so that marauders would stop and not search any farther.”

“Well, apparently someone found you.”

“Yes. But where? There is no indication that another mummy was discovered in this area.”

“Maybe you were moved?” I suggested.

“Perhaps.”

“Then maybe your canopic jars are still here.”

“They may be.” We searched all the walls and found nothing indicating a hidden chamber or canopic jars.

Starving, I pulled out an apple from my bag and felt grateful that Amon had forced me to bring some food along. As I searched for another water bottle, an orange fell out and bounced along the ground until it came to a stop in a corner.

When I picked it up, I found it had rolled right into a spherical depression, similar to the one we’d found before.

“Amon! Over here!”

He crouched down next to me and smiled. “You have found it.” The hollowed-out sphere had a sun engraved in it. Taking the sand sphere from my bag, Amon whispered some words and the sand on the surface of the stone shifted, creating an exact impression of the sun to match the mold in the floor. Fitting the stone ball into the depression, he turned it slowly, and there was an audible hiss as the floor began to move.

A wall rose to block off the entrance to the treasury and, then the entire floor sank as if we were in a large elevator. When it came to a stop, we were several levels below King Tut’s tomb. Stepping off, Amon removed the stone ball and the treasury room lifted, returning to its original position. It took the light with it, so Amon lit his skin. Before us was a vast chamber supported by stone columns.

Deeply etched engravings and paintings depicting fascinating events, very different from the ones in the other tombs, lined the walls. I saw the sun, the moon, and the stars, the great pyramids, images of the god with the giraffe head, and what I recognized as Anubis pointing to three men in the process of mummification.