Reawakened (The Reawakened Series) (28 page)

“Watch for one that floats,” Dr. Hassan said as he worked. “A true adder stone will float in water.”

“Adder stone?”

“An adder stone is used to protect a person from evil charms or nightmares. Since it is formed from the venom of adders, it can also prevent death from snakebite,” Amon explained.

“There’s one!” Dr. Hassan cried. “We need one for each of us, so keep searching,” he added as Amon fished the floating rock from the pool.

Several handfuls later, we had a second stone, which Dr. Hassan told me to keep in my pocket. The sun would be up any moment, and the Egyptologist was throwing handfuls in a frenzy. Finally, a third rock rose from the depths, and Dr. Hassan leapt into the pool like a cat scooping up a fat fish for dinner.

Staggering out of the pool, he led us to a clearing, where he held his rock up to the rising sun. As dawn broke over the horizon, light shone through the hole in the stone and a pinprick of white light hit the water, angling up slowly as the sun rose higher in the sky. When the ray of light hit the mountain, I looked at Dr. Hassan.

All of his attention was focused on the mountain. “Come on now,” he whispered. “We must find the opening.” A few seconds later, he shouted triumphantly, “There! There it is!”

I saw a flash on the stony hill on the other side of the pool, as if a mirror were reflecting the light cast by the hole in Dr. Hassan’s adder stone. The mountain rumbled, and I waited for something strange to happen—a skeleton army to appear, a mass of scurrying scarab beetles looking for someone to devour, some kind of sign of the Egyptian apocalypse—but the mountain settled and nothing happened. I peered across the water, but the shimmering light was gone. Pocketing his adder stone, the doctor stumbled down to the pool and started making his way around it.

“Why did we each need a stone if yours did the trick?” I asked him as we carefully made our way across the slick stones.

“You’ll see,” he answered cryptically.

Before long, we arrived at the foot of the mountain. A waterfall cascaded down the steep rocks, its spray wetting our skin. Dr Hassan came to a stop and lifted his stone to his eye. “Here we are, at last,” he declared.

“Uh, where would that be?” I asked.

“Use your stone,” he answered. “Look through it and you will see our path.”

Pulling my stone from my pocket, I peered through the tiny hole and gasped when I saw an opening in the mountain. When I looked at the mountain without the stone, I saw nothing. Taking a step forward, I patted the mountain and found it as hard and impenetrable as it appeared, but then Dr. Hassan, stone still to his eye, stepped right through it and called out for us to follow.

I took a deep breath, positioning the adder stone so I could see through its hole, and murmured sarcastically, “What could possibly go wrong?” as I walked through a mountain.

Absolute silence descended. Stone as thick and as solid as a tombstone pressed against me on all sides. Above was a rocky ceiling that seemed to lower with every step I took. The horror of being buried alive wasn’t even the worst part. What really freaked me out was that I wasn’t in a secret cave hidden within a mountain, I was passing through solid rock.

Mineral formations slowly moved over me as if my body was seeping into the rock itself, and there was a heaviness, like I was wading in a strong current. The only explanation I could come up with was that I had moved into a different phase or dimension from the one the rock existed in. My fingers pressing the stone to my eye shook, and I closed the other eye so I didn’t have to see the mountain as I passed through it. My pulse felt thick as my heart beat in a noisy rhythm.

The taste of copper and salt hit the back of my throat, and though I tried to keep my mouth closed, I constantly gave in to the temptation to wet my lips. Unfortunately, there was no relief found in the process; my tongue only ended up coated with a thin layer of grit and minerals.

No matter which direction I looked, Amon and Dr. Hassan weren’t visible, so I pressed forward, following the strange flash of light that appeared to be coming from the stone every so often and illuminating the area directly around me. Unlike a lighthouse, which helps guide boats and warns of hidden rocks, the illumination felt to me like it was drawing unwanted attention, and I fully expected a monstrous creature with a gaping maw to find me because of it.

Each time my surroundings lit up, I stopped breathing until I was sure there was no immediate danger. I began to sense little vibrations in the area that became more pronounced every time the beam turned off.

I pressed on until the blinking light vanished and I was left in the dark root of the mountain without a guide. Blindly, I took one step forward, then another. I began hyperventilating, wondering if the mountain would ever end, when suddenly I emerged from the rock.

Though it was still dark, there was an immediate, recognizable difference in the atmosphere. The weight that had been dragging on my limbs was gone; I felt a wisp of air brush my cheek and my ears popped. My hand came into contact with the solid rock behind me and I turned, touching nothing but empty space until my fingers found the wall again. Scuffling sounds echoed in the darkness. Then I heard Dr. Hassan. “Lily!” he cried. “Over here.”

I stretched out my free hand and took a few cautious steps forward. “Where are you?” I called.

There was the sound of movement nearby, and I listened carefully, trying to make sense of the noises. Someone, or something, had emerged from the rock behind me. When I turned toward it, I saw its green orbs flashing in the darkness.

“Lily,” Amon said as he closed the distance between us, “are you all right?”

“I’m…I’m fine. I think.” Amon ran his hand over my arm and a light powdery dust as fine as talc slid and then settled on my skin, making me cough. I patted my clothing, trying to get rid of some of it. Apparently my brief hiatus into the world of being clean was over. Amon didn’t seem to care that I was coated with grit. He took my hand in his and lit his body enough for me to see where we were—in a large cavern.

“Dr. Hassan?” I called as I spotted his form. He was on his hands and knees patting the dirt.

“Another foot and I would have had it,” he announced as he got up.

“What were you looking for?” I asked as Amon and I made our way over to him.

“This.” He lifted a thick, blackened stick and began fussing with one end.

“A torch?”

“Yes.” He glanced at Amon and was momentarily awed by his natural light. “Unfortunately, those of us who are mortal are not born with inner flashlights.” He raised the torch. “Shall I?” he asked Amon.

“If you would.”

“Of course.”

“Where are we?” I whispered nervously.

“We are still in the Oasis of the Sacred Stones, but we are deep within the mountain,” Dr. Hassan said. “If you listen carefully, you can hear the waterfall. I hid Amon’s brother behind it.” He lit the end of the torch and Amon immediately turned off his light, which I assumed helped him conserve his energy.

“What was that strange light in the mountain?” I asked as Amon guided me around a large cluster of stalagmites.

“The light can be seen only with a true adder stone,” Dr. Hassan said. “It allows passage into the mountain. The flash you saw was activated by the sun shining through the stone.”

“A path forged by the sun god,” Amon mused.

“Yes, in a way. It’s a little trick passed down by grand viziers through the centuries. To direct the light we had to be in the right spot at the right time.”

“Does it work like the Egyptian mirror trick in the movies?” I continued, curious to know if there was any science going on behind the magic.

“Not exactly. Creating a pathway was no mere reflection of light. You see, scientists believe the adder stone to be any rock that is naturally hollowed out by water. The superstitious believe it is created by a snake’s saliva and that possessing one offers various protections. But I know its true nature. Do you know it, Great One?” At a look from Amon, the doctor stammered, “F-forgive me. I mean, Amon.”

“I confess I do not.”

“Ah, then perhaps you will indulge me as we make our way to your brother.”

“Please continue, Vizier,” Amon politely encouraged.

“Yes, well, the goddess Isis—”

“Who was married to Osiris,” I added.

“That is correct. She missed her husband after he was assigned to the underworld.”

“Wait a minute, I know this one. She tricked Amun-Ra into giving her his true name after she poisoned him.”

“And do you remember how he was poisoned?” the white-haired Egyptologist asked.

After a moment of thought, I snapped my fingers. “A snakebite!” When the grand vizier raised his eyebrows, obviously impressed, I waved my hand and explained, “Amon’s been teaching me.”

“It would seem so.”

“I remember that Isis got to visit her hubby, but what does that have to do with an adder stone?”

“Well, the snake that bit Amun-Ra escaped and inadvertently absorbed a bit of the god’s power through its fangs. As a result, the progeny of that particular snake developed the ability to shine light in dark places. They hide themselves away in secret spots lest they provoke the wrath of the sun god once again. A true adder stone is the calcified remains of the head of one of those snakes, and when you look through its eye, you, too, can not only see in the darkness but also conceal yourself in a spot that even the sun god himself could not discover.”

The stony object in my hand suddenly felt cold. I swallowed and let out a weak gasp as it slipped from my fingers. It lay there, pillowed in the sand, seeming to give me a snaky smile and a wink. Unable to resist, I wiped my hand on my shirt, creeped out that my lifeline in the mountain passage was a snake’s skull.

With the torch shining on it, the stone twitched like a small dinosaur skeleton coming to life. After a moment, I realized it was simply the light dancing on the ancient bone, but the effect was still unsettling.

Amon reached out to pick up my adder stone, but the sand shifted, spilling into a small crack in the ground that had been hidden. My stone sank along with the sand, and the crevice was too deep to fish the stone out with our fingers. Amon considered using his power to retrieve it but then decided against it and gave me a reassuring smile.

“If we do not find another way out, we will return for it. Do not worry,” he said.

“Er, assuming we raise your brother, I did not think to find a fourth stone for him,” Dr. Hassan said shamefacedly.

“All will be well,” Amon said.

I hadn’t actually been too worried, but Amon’s reassuring smile disappeared quickly, which
did
cause me to worry. As we followed the grand vizier down the dark corridor, I hypothesized on what was causing my mummy-come-to-life’s distress. He really didn’t seem alarmed about the loss of my stone, and surely a snake’s head didn’t frighten a demigod. There was something more going on, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Every few steps, Amon looked back at me with concern, and I realized he was more anxious about me than anything else. Puzzling out his mood, I wondered if things were really as bad as he believed them to be.

Sure, I felt exhausted, and my leg and arm throbbed where I’d been bitten, but I wasn’t sick enough to be bedridden, at least not yet. I squeezed Amon’s hand and was about to reassure him when we turned a corner and came upon a sarcophagus.

As the Egyptologist hurried forward, touching his torch to ones mounted on the wall, I took a few steps closer and got a good look at the depiction of Amon’s brother. The wooden coffin was rounded and shaped similar to King Tut’s, but where the boy pharaoh’s had been decorated in gleaming gold, the final resting place of one who actually
was
a demigod was humble by comparison. The artistry of the coffin, however, was worth noting.

Like the walls of the tunnels, the side panels were decorated with symbols of the three brothers—the sun, the moon, and the stars—but the stars featured more prominently this time. I walked around the coffin and took in the images of three young men standing with a dog-faced man.

“Who is this?” I asked.

Amon crouched down next to me. “That is Anubis. This carving shows Anubis granting us the gifts of the gods as he breathes life into our bodies again. It is the time of our first rising.”

“And this?” I circled around to the foot.

“This shows the defeat of our enemy, Seth.”

“So Seth is the horse-faced god?”

“That is not a horse. It is a beast.”

“Which beast?”

“All of them and none of them.”

“I don’t understand.”

Dr. Hassan stepped to the other side of the sarcophagus. “Set, or Seth, as Amon calls him, is a shape-shifter.”

“Seriously?”

Amon nodded. “He can take any form he chooses, which makes him all the more dangerous.”

“He can become a hippopotamus or a crocodile,” Dr. Hassan said. “A black pig or a cobra.”

“Was Seth always bent on the destruction of Egypt?” I asked.

“He was the god of chaos from the time he was in the womb,” Amon explained. “The goddess Nut was his mother; because he was impatient, he would not wait for his time to be born. Instead, he used his already sharpened teeth and ripped his way out, escaping through his mother’s side.”

“Power and fulfillment of his dark desires is his only purpose,” Dr. Hassan further explained. “Those who follow him care not for the lives of others. Their carnality, their bloodthirstiness, their insatiable cravings are all reminiscent of the beast they follow. Seth is a monster, and is depicted as such in drawings.

“Assigning him an animal token would be callous, for all creatures simply follow their natural instincts. Even the most feared animals—crocodiles, snakes, scorpions—do not harm for evil purposes. This is why the ancients created a nonanimal—a beast—to show to the world what Seth truly is and to serve as a warning should he ever rise to power again.”

“Okay, so what’s the next step?” I asked.

“I am afraid I didn’t bring as much as I would have liked to in the way of preparation for Amon’s brother’s awakening,” Dr. Hassan said. “I have but a little food and water to refresh him.”

“He does not need those things to awaken,” Amon replied kindly. “The spell I weave will be sufficient.”

“But the traditional feasting, the music and festivities—”

“That you would have provided those things had you been able is token enough of your loyalty. The offerings you have brought will sustain him for the time being,” Amon finished.

Dr. Hassan gripped his bag and fished through its contents, pulling out a bottle of water and a wrapped pastry. Reverently, he cleared a space at the base of the coffin, spreading out a red handkerchief and placing his meager offerings on top. Seeing his distress as he rearranged the items a few times, I unzipped my bag and offered to share the fruit that Amon had stuffed into it before we left the hotel. The fruit was sad and a little bruised, but the offering seemed to please the white-haired devotee.