Reawakened (The Reawakened Series) (34 page)

“Will you be able to sense him?” I asked.

“I cannot hear his voice until he has been called from the realms of the dead. His body is no different from these ancient corpses’.” Asten pointed to a walled-in section covered with clear glass. Behind the glass, there were dusty dead crocodiles of various lengths.

“Ah, those are some of the crocodile mummies I mentioned,” Dr. Hassan pointed out.

“Thanks. I figured,” I whispered.

Asten had cloaked us, but there was no sign of Ahmose or a sarcophagus anywhere in the crocodile section of the temple. We checked every room, doorway, and standing stone, but encountered nothing except the sting of windblown sand.

“We are deceived,” Asten murmured.

“Well, yeah. The bad guy never shows his hand. Come on, let’s go rescue Amon,” I said, and took a step back toward the center of the temple, but Asten darted his arm out to stop me.

“It is too late,” he whispered.

“What do you…” I paused as the wind became more forceful. A dark cloud of sand swept the length of the open court in a whirlwind. “…mean?” I cheeped as Asten scooped me up in his arms and began to run.

Dr. Hassan darted around a large column and through a doorway. “Here, Great One! We can hide!”

Inside the dark room, we plastered ourselves against a wall, hoping to remain undetected. When the sandstorm passed by, we waited for several minutes. I looked up at Asten, who gave me a relieved smile. Just when we thought it might be safe, a tremor rocked the temple. The dirt floor beneath us sank several inches and I staggered against Asten, who caught me easily.

There was a small opening at the top of the wall opposite us, but it looked much higher than it had just moments before. Lifting my finger, I pointed to it and started to mouth
Something’s wrong
to Dr. Hassan when I felt a heavy pull on my ankles. It was a squeezing sort of weight, like being caught in a boa constrictor’s clutches. I looked down and was puzzled to see my feet were buried beneath the sand.
How did that happen?

I distinctly remembered the floor being hard-packed when we’d come in. Suddenly, my eyes flew to several objects. A heavy stone across the room was now one-third sunk into sand. Crumbling rock at the base of the wall was completely gone. And my bag, which I had thrown to the ground when we’d come in, was half buried.

It didn’t make any sense. I tried to pull my legs free but only sank deeper. The sand was now halfway up my shins. “Asten?” I cried in a panic, squeezing his arm.

“I know, Lily. It was a trap.”

“Dr. Hassan?” I called out, twisting to see him.

“I am here,” he replied weakly. He had sunk up to midthigh.

Turning toward the wall, I scrabbled for purchase, trying to reach something that would halt my descent, but my actions served only to speed up the process.

“Stop, Lily,” Asten demanded quietly.

“Isn’t there something you can do? Some sort of magic to get us out?”

“I have tried. From the time I first noticed the quicksand, when the room shook, I have tried weaving spell after spell. It makes no difference. The Dark One has cursed this sand. Once you are captured by it, it does not let you go.”

“But we’ll suffocate! We’ll die!”

“Yes.
You
will. As for me, I will spend eternity buried alive.”

“This can’t be the end! Why are you giving up? Surely Amon can save us!” I thrashed back and forth wildly and sank up to my chest.

“Lily!” Asten cried. “Moving makes it worse! You must remain still!”

Stretching my arms up, I desperately clutched his fingers, the pressure of the sand like a vise on my chest. But instead of Asten pulling me out, I dragged him down with me. I could no longer turn my head enough to see Dr. Hassan. Tears ran down my face as I hyperventilated. The sand crept up to my neck, my arms so heavy I finally dropped them. This was it. I was going to die a horrible death, one of the worst I could imagine.

All things considered, I would have preferred being crushed in the stone cube in the Valley of the Kings. At least then, I would have been with Amon. A slight tug on my hair tilted my head back. I had a few more seconds of breathing.

The sand stretched gritty fingers over my scalp, filling my ears. I managed to suck in a huge breath, and then it was over my mouth, creeping over my forehead. I closed my eyes, and sank into the viscous abyss.

Drowning in quicksand is a little better than drowning in water. There is no thrashing, kicking, or head shaking. No desperate struggle for the surface. No glint of sun above to beckon you not to give up. Just a quiet shrouding. An inevitable sinking, as if your body has been bound in a warm cocoon.

I would imagine that the sensation is not unlike birth. The sand slides upward, over your skin, which is disorienting since it feels like it’s flowing in opposition to gravity. Intense pressure squeezes your limbs and torso. Your lungs burn with fiery pain, but you wait, and wait, and wait, hoping, praying, and pleading for the travails to be over, wishing for that moment of delivery when the cold rush of air finally allows you to scream.

But then you realize that you aren’t dreaming. That this isn’t a birth, a becoming. No. Instead, this is an ending. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. The shifting sands lead nowhere. Waiting and holding your breath is pointless. You will be swallowed whole.

The mind settles at last, finally resigning itself to fate as you prepare yourself for death. You wonder what the sand will feel like when you breathe it in. Will it hurt? Will you cough? Will you feel the grit filling your lungs? How long will it take for you to suffocate? And what will happen to your body after you’re dead? Will you sink to the bottom, eventually hitting solid ground, or will you just fall forever, sliding through slippery nothingness until the sand rips the flesh from your bones and little pieces of you are messily strewn around in the quagmire?

These were my thoughts as my body sank. Every object that touched my skin, sand and other, was a new sensation. The pressure on my lungs, the tugging on my body hurt in a way I’d never experienced before.

I became hyperaware of my surroundings, which was why, when my legs suddenly became cold and the sand creeping up my pants began to slide back down in wet clumps, I knew something had changed. That there was at least a pocket of air directly beneath me.

Even though my lungs were ready to explode, I held my breath for a few more heartbeats, then shifted. My lower half dangled freely, but my upper half, the half that needed to breathe, was still stuck. The quicksand seemed to clutch at my shoulders and hair, unwilling to give up its victim.

Desperately, I dug down, scooping handfuls of sand until my fingertips broke through and a dry wisp of air tickled the pads of my fingers. I kicked and thrashed, wriggling my exhausted body until, with a wet sucking noise, the sand gave way and I was expelled into a dark cavity.

Choking, I sucked in a quick breath as I fell, not knowing if I was going to hit solid ground and die or be sucked back into the quicksand and have to go through it all over again. My ears were full of sand, but I thought I heard a ghostly voice calling my name. Gasping and wheezing, I flailed at the air, my body twisting and somersaulting as I dropped.

I developed a sudden sympathy for Alice, slipping down the rabbit hole. I didn’t know what I wanted the most—to stop falling, to throw up and get it over with, or to be able to see. Any one of those seemed like an incredibly precious gift at that moment.

As I plummeted, the minutes stretched long and torturous, and I came to accept my fate. I was no longer hoping for deliverance.
If I were going to get out of this, it would have happened already,
I told myself. No, I was in some kind of never-ending limbo. A terrible purgatory that reminded me of all my weaknesses, faults, and regrets, and there was no way out. Perhaps I was already dead. My eyes stung with tears and I whispered a name. It wasn’t the name of my parents or my grandmother; it wasn’t even God.

“Amon?” I whispered in a tremulous voice. “I’m sorry.”

With my death, his time on Earth would be short, but there might still be enough time for him to bond with someone else. I was imagining my happy reunion with Amon as disembodied spirits and wondering whether the Egyptian version of the afterlife overlapped with the Anglo-Saxon version of heaven, when I hit something. The impact knocked whatever little bits of sand I’d breathed in right out of my lungs with the force of a gunshot blast. Coughing violently, I tried to figure out why I wasn’t dead. The gritty object that broke my fall was now wrapped around me, smothering me. Then it spoke.

“Cease your wriggling, Lily. You are safe.”

Stilling, I stretched out my hands and touched a sand-covered chest. “Asten?” I whispered.

Two gleaming golden-bronze orbs twinkled in the darkness. “Were you expecting someone else?”

“No. Not at all. I was expecting to die, actually,” I choked out.

Asten grunted. “Not today, it seems. Are you injured?”

“Injured?” I echoed, as if not understanding the word.

“Can you stand?” he clarified slowly.

I blinked. “Oh. Yes. I think so.”

“Good.” Asten set me on my feet. “Now that you are here, you can help me with Hassan.”

“Dr. Hassan is here?” I gasped.

“He is. His body is heavier than yours, so he emerged more quickly than you did.”

Asten moved away and I stumbled after him, stretching my arms out in front of me.

“Ah, I forget you cannot see in dark places.” Asten lit his body and surrounded us in a soft white bubble of light. Other than the hard-packed dirt floor under our feet and a few small pebbles, there was nothing else.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“I do not know.”

We came upon the crumpled form of Dr. Hassan and I knelt at his side, pressing my fingers against his neck. His chest rose and fell under my other hand. “His pulse is strong,” I said. “It doesn’t look like anything’s broken.”

“His limbs should be intact. I caught him, as I did you.”

Looking up at Asten over my shoulder, I asked, “Weren’t you hurt by the fall?”

“I am not bound to the earth in the same way as you. The power of the starlit ibis grants me the ability to control the speed at which I rise and fall.”

“Hold on. Are you saying you can fly?”

“Yes. You have seen this.”

“No. Not as a bird. I mean, can you fly as a man?”

In answer, Asten raised his arms slightly away from his sides and his body lifted into the air. Motionless, he hovered several feet off the ground and then slowly lowered.

Shaking my head in wonder, I turned back to Dr. Hassan. “So if you caught him, then what’s wrong?”

“I do not know. Perhaps he is simply unconscious.”

I slapped the doctor’s face lightly. “Osahar? Can you hear me? Wake up!” I shook his shoulder, but he remained unconscious. “Can you carry him?” I asked as I picked up his beloved fedora and shoved it into my bag.

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“As long as is necessary.”

“Okay, good. Let’s try to find a way out of here, then.”

Asten crouched down and scooped up Dr. Hassan, throwing him over one shoulder like a suit coat. “I will follow you, Lily. Where would you like to go?”

“I guess…we should try to go that way.” I pointed ahead.

We wandered for what felt like hours, though I had no real sense of time. The only excitement was finding my backpack. Asten turned his nose up at the bruised banana I offered to share, so I shrugged and gagged down the mealy fruit, happy to find anything to fill my empty belly. As we walked, I scratched and rubbed at the itchy grime coating my body and attempted to wring it from my hair.

I began to despair. Every pebble we came across looked the same, and when I made a little pile of them to resemble an arrow pointing in the direction we went, it had completely disappeared when we doubled back not a few moments later.

Dr. Hassan finally stirred. He moaned, and Asten set him down. I trickled some bottled water into his mouth and wiped away as much of the crusted sand from his face as possible.

“What? What happened?” he asked. “Where are we?”

“We don’t know.” I wet a strip of fabric Asten had torn from his already too-short skirt and bathed Dr. Hassan’s face. “We fell through the quicksand into this place. There’s nothing here but us.”

I pulled Dr. Hassan’s once white, now filthy and crumpled fedora from my bag, brushed away some sand stuck to its brim, and handed it to him. He gave me a kind smile and took the hat.

“Ah, this was given to me in honor of my first real archaeological find—an exceedingly rare stone carving of Bast.” The band on the fedora broke as he tried to reshape the hat. “Well, perhaps it is time to set the past behind me and focus on the future.”

“I’m sorry, Osahar,” I said.

“Think nothing of it. We were lucky to escape with our lives.”

“Yes, but we haven’t exactly found a way out.”

“Lily is correct. There does not appear to be an end to this dungeon,” Asten said. “But it might be possible for
you
to be able to see something I cannot. Would you agree, Hassan?”

A meaningful glance passed between the two men, but I couldn’t figure out what they might have meant, and honestly, I was too tired to care. Dr. Hassan struggled to his feet with Asten’s help.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said cryptically.

Slowly turning in a circle as he perused the darkness, Dr. Hassan muttered absently to himself. After a few moments, I had begun wondering if he’d hit his head on a rock and was having a mental lapse, when he turned to us and said, “I am afraid we are trapped in an oubliette.”

“An ooblewhat?”

“An oubliette—a dungeon with no exit other than the way through which one entered. It is a French term meaning ‘a place of forgetting.’ ”

“Do you mean it’s a place people throw you so you are forgotten, or it’s a place so dark and empty you go crazy and forget who you are?”

“A bit of both, I would imagine.”

“So if there is only one entrance and we came through quicksand, then the only way out—”

“Would be back through it.”

“Is that possible?” I turned to Asten.

“I can fly us up to the sand, but it was infused with magic and even I cannot pass through the barrier.”

“So we’re trapped.”

“For the moment,” Dr. Hassan said quietly.

“Are you saying you know a way out?”

“Just because there is no perceivable alternate exit does not mean another exit does not exist. I believe there may indeed be a way to escape.”

“Then let’s go!” I’m sure excitement was visible on my face even in the dim light. I’d been trapped in way too many claustrophobic places on my adventures with Amon and didn’t relish the idea of being stuck in an oubliette any longer than I had to be. The only thing that kept me from panicking and hyperventilating was worrying about Amon.

I grabbed Dr. Hassan’s arm and pulled him forward a few steps before he stopped me. He patted my hand and said, “It might be best to free Ahmose before we leave.”

“F-free Ahmose?” I stammered.

“My brother is here?” Asten demanded.

“He is. Or, I should clarify, his sarcophagus is here.”

“But where?” I asked. “We didn’t see it. How do you know this?”

Dr. Hassan hemmed and hawed before saying, “It is not far. Come.”

We followed him for a few moments and then he seemed to disappear into thin air. I froze. “Dr. Hassan?” I called out nervously.

“I am here, Lily.”

“Where?”

“Here. Take my hand. It might help.”

He was suddenly before me again and held out his hand. After two strides he stepped up onto nothing, turned around, and smiled. “Just trust me.”

Asten gripped my other hand and we slowly clambered after the doctor. The place we entered was different from the one we’d left. We were still surrounded by darkness, but large boulders now littered the ground. The oubliette played tricks with my mind, and the shadows at the edge of Asten’s light lent sinister shapes to the rocks surrounding us. I often turned abruptly thinking the boulders were actually giant skulls that cackled at us as they ground their pebbly teeth.

Dr. Hassan walked right up to his bag. “Ah, there it is.”

As he dusted it off, I asked, “Where are we? How did we get in here?”

“We are still in the oubliette, but this is a different section. The two of you were trapped in an optical illusion.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.