I dreamed I was near the pyramids of Giza, under a moonless sky, those vast expanses of stars within my view. It was dark, and foreboding, and I crept close to the pyramids and saw there the sphinx. But it was not the Great Sphinx as I knew it, for it was carven of black onyx entirely, as if from one smooth chunk. No flaws marred that inky black surface, and when looking up I saw it had no face, either... only a vast void of what might have been stars or galaxies within. It was a disturbing sight, the Black Sphinx without a face, and my suspicions did not become assuaged any by the noise I heard as I got closer - a soft, low rumble, like a large motor.
My wonder turned to dread as I moved to examine the sleek black artifact, closer and closer to one of its massive paws with five black claws protruding. It was only when I grew as close as I dared to the stone, within inches... that I realized it was not stone. The texture didn't look right for stone, it was soft and sleek. It gave off a warmth to it I could feel, and as my fingers brushed against the massive paw, I froze. Fur. I felt fur, and flesh and bone and sinew, beneath my fingers... and I suddenly realized the rumbling had grown louder.
No, not rumbling.
Purring.
It happened so quickly I had no time to run. The great beast rose, tilting its void down to gaze at me with a thousand stars as its eyes, scrutinizing with a familiar and unfriendly gaze. Its great tail flicked in what I could only conjecture must have been dark amusement, and its great paw lifted into the air. The last thing I remember before that five-clawed paw came down upon me was the stark realization that this had to be how a mouse felt before a cat, and how similar those five claws were to that shaggy-maned beast in the story the Bedouin guide had told...
I woke in a cold sweat, and so did Clayton and Ewan. Astonishingly, Clayton said he'd spoken with the sphinx, that it had wanted that bizarre wooden fetish to remain his, that it was observing us all... Damn us, that should have been the first hint something wasn't right, but no. We didn't listen to our gut instincts. The Bent Pyramid almost called to us, almost beckoned like a beacon on the sea. We had to know its secrets... but first, breakfast, and then the Red Pyramid.
One camel ride later, we found ourselves before the Red Pyramid, gazing up at its grandeur. Mah'muhd was particularly impressed, having never seen a pyramid up close. It seemed fairly unremarkable, until Ewan chanced to notice the missing chunk of stone near its peak and clambered up the side of the pyramid, where he found a near-rectangular stone divot that appeared to have been blasted out. He then realized that perhaps this was where that stone fragment Nyiti had given us came from. Ewan yelled down to Clayton to come check it, and when Clayton made it to the top, sure enough, the stone fragment fit in half the divot perfectly. Where the other half was, we had no clue, but now we at least knew the fragment came from the Red Pyramid.
That settled, the Bent Pyramid was our next destination. After a quick snack break and a short camel ride, we settled before the oddly shaped stone colossus, noting the two guards at its front entrance. We knew there was a back route to the west, but getting there without the guards noticing wasn't going to be easy. Sarah offered to distract the guards with smalltalk while the rest of us slipped around back, where we discovered a desiccated wooden board had been slapped over the entrance. It didn't take much effort to pry the board free, revealing the entrance to the pyramid's interior. Sarah arrived around this time to meet back up with us, stating that the guards had been pleasant people and said we could look around if we wanted. She did hint they couldn't know we were about to enter, though, as they told her people had disappeared around this area. Yeah, rules were made to be broken, and besides, we had Clayton, professional tomb raider, with us. What could go wrong if we took a little peek?
Clayton suggested sending Mah'muhd in first, as he was the smallest in the group and if he found any small crevices, he could fit in them easily. The rest of us followed in behind him, flashlight beams glancing off the intricately carved stone walls. Climbing through the ancient rubble proved a bit difficult, but eventually we made it through and upwards into the main chamber of the complex. It was large, and hieroglyphs covered every wall and two large columns in the center. Depictions of the Egyptian gods showed the acceptance of the pharaoh Sneferu into the afterlife, and Clayton explained with glee what each depiction meant. To stand in the midst of such an ancient wonder was astonishing, like no other feeling on this earth. The timeless weight of ages held us spellbound and intrigued... that is, until Ewan and Sarah called our attention to a strange-looking divot in a carved Wadjet eye. Sure enough, it looked almost like a button... and depressing the pupil caused a grinding sound of stone on stone as a small hidden passageway was revealed in the pillar itself, spiral staircase heading upwards.
Clayton was ecstatic, as were we all. If this was something new, we could very well have discovered a secret chamber before anyone else, by complete accident! Up and into the hidden space we went, slowly and surely, one by one... and found ourselves outside a strange, asymmetrical archway that leaned to the left side, engraved with hieroglyphs.
"Asymmetrical archway," Bridget murmured. "That's strange, very strange. The culture of Ancient Egypt favored geometric designs and symmetry. Why would they make something purposefully askew like this?"
"It could be that when the ground under the pyramid shifted, this archway came with it," Clayton offered. "It could have just bent like the pyramid did."
"No, that makes no sense." The others turned to Sarah as she spoke. "The top of this pyramid was built after the ground shifted. It wasn't planned this way, and even altering the angle wouldn't have changed the original arch design..."
We didn't have much more time for speculation, because as soon as we turned our attention to the archway again, we noticed it had... shifted. Now it was leaning to the right rather than the left. That was strange, we were all sure that it was leaning the other way before, and we hadn't heard anything shift...
Uneasily, we pressed onward. Beyond the archway lay a massive dark chamber, and as our flashlights penetrated the gloom, we soon realized it was a throne room, and a massive one at tht... Everywhere, gold and onyx and ruby inlays gleamed like stars, even the torches in the room blazed still, with a strange black fire, tinged by metal burning we hoped. Six great pillars with oil-wicks leading to a blackish gem with red tinges at the top stood like silent sentinels, guarding this ancient place, and between them ran a fine black and red silk carpet leading to the intricately carven throne, made of onyx and almost seeming like a set of inky tentacles rising from the earth. Ewan and Clayton took to putting flame to the oil-wicks, and as the flame crept upward and touched the gem, the stone lit a bright, crimson red, illuminating the chamber.
The rest of us had other ideas. While Clayton lit gems, Ewan approached the throne, finding it encrusted with strange gems that none of us had ever seen before. It was a commanding chair, one for only the most powerful of leaders. Taking out a switchblade, Ewan tried to pry one of the gems from its setting, but Bridget was having none of it and told him off before he damaged the artifact. High above the throne was a thin window, through which the waning, gibbous moon could be glimpsed, and that gave us sudden pause. Hadn't it just been daytime outside? We couldn't have possibly spent that much time here, right?
On one great wall was a star and world map of astonishing detail, detail the ancients couldn't possibly have had knowledge of. On another, a massive bas relief of various creatures and gods, all of strange form - there was a woman with something like a fan, there was a faceless, pitch dark pharaoh, there was a great sphinx with stars for its face, there was a strange tendril-headed creature with three legs and sharp claws. And there was a cartouche, a familiar cartouche. One that almost all of us, barring Ewan and Sarah, had seen before...
"Bridget, what do you make of this?" Sarah asked, and Bridget moved from her section of wall to help. She took a look at the images, then at the cartouche, and went almost a bit pale as she mouthed the hieroglyphs to herself.
"It tells of a birth at someplace called the Mountain of the Black Wind," Bridget answered. "It says, When Ra hath been devoured by Apep, and all the land bathed in darkness, then shall be born a child of the Howling One, at the Black Wind Mountain. As for the cartouche, it reads Ni-har-lut-hotep."
Sarah's face then matched Bridget's as the realization of what they had found came to light, and by this time both women turned to Clayton, who almost lit the last one.
"Clayton, don't light those!" Sarah ran to him, as if to grab the man. "This place, this isn't Sneferu's burial chamber... It's Nefr-ren-Ka's! We don't know what will happen if all of the gems light... it could even be a trap."
Clayton soon realized the gravity of the situation, and immediately asked Ewan's help in throwing sand over the flames to douse them. Better to work in the dark rather than risk springing a trap. Clayton instead turned his flashlight to the other wall, examining the map there in confusion.
"No," he said, examining the detail of the stars and the map itself. "No, this isn't right... the Ancient Egyptians were great astronomers, but these stars, they're wrong. I can recognize Aldebaran and Fomalhaut, but none of the others. I don't even see the Big Dipper here, or the North Star. And the map, there's no way that the Ancient Egyptians would have known about anything other than maybe Europe and the Mediterranean. They certainly didn't know about Australia or the Americas..."
"Mr. Clayton, look at this, please," Mah'muhd chirped, putting a hand on the bas relief map. "There are rubies here, and onyx..."
Our attention turned to the map, and we saw what the boy meant instantly. Across the Indian Ocean on the map was an inlaid onyx band, showing an arc over the open water. At three points - one in Kenya, one in Australia, and one in China near Shanghai - were rubies, fit into the wall and were the corners of a graven triangle between them. Then Bridget studied the stars on the map, and we saw the gears in her head turn as she realized what the map was telling her.
"A solar eclipse," she said, voice soft. "The onyx band is its arc of totality. The rubies, I am not sure. Holy sites of some sort? And the stars above... if my mental math is correct, then those would be the position of the stars on January 16, 1929..."
Something simultaneously occurred to us all then, and especially to Sarah and her occult knowledge. This map was no mere map, it was a map depicting the ritual sites for something. In rapid speech, Sarah explained that she thought the triangular inlay looked like some sort of warding or gate-like sigil, used in certain magic rites. It was most certainly not Egyptian, and most certainly seemed like bad news. Ha! If only we had known better...
Before any of us could speak, Ewan and Clayton happened to glance at the window outside, and realized the moon had vanished! It was not only night when we entered in the day, but now it was the night of a new moon when we knew it was gibbous! Then, out of seemingly nowhere, all six of the pillar gems caught fire and blazed bloody light over the walls, drowning us in malevolence and dread. Something was heard on the edges of hearing, strange flutes and constantly pounding drums echoing our rapid heartbeats. The sound was maddening and chilling, and by its very nature sounded wrong.
The realization we had to escape was powerful. Something was coming, something big and dangerous. We felt thousands of eyes upon us, and a dark presence make itself known. We tried to run for the door, but it was too late - suddenly, the gems quenched their light, the music ceased, and we were all once more plunged into inky blackness. Even our flashlights flickered and died. All was silent then for a moment, the darkness crushing around us and Mah'muhd huddling scared with a single trembling, faltering match in one hand. We barely had time to ask if we were alright, or if anyone had found the door, when we heard someone snap their fingers. The gems blazed to life, nearly blinding us, and we soon saw who was responsible for it.
There, in the onyx throne, was a pharaoh, dressed in fine black and red garments as well as glimmering gold and black jewelry. He had skin as dark as pitch, and kohl-rimmed eyes set into a youthful face, one twisted into a smirk. Then, his eyes turned to us all, seeing into us, through us, those eyes like black orbs with stars swirling in their midst, and icy fear gripped us inescapably as we realized who he was, his smirk slowly warping into an inhuman, amused, and very sharp-toothed smile.
"Welcome," the Black Pharaoh intoned, his hypnotic voice like silk over steel, "To my Inner Sanctum."