Paul Cude
A Chilling Revelation
1
The Shifting Sands of Time
Cold sand ran over the top of her toes and sifted through her sandals as she ran through the dark, narrow passage. Horribly hounded, her acute senses could hear them, all still some way back. From what she could tell, there were an awful lot of them, maybe as many as a hundred. In anywhere but an enclosed space, she could have easily evened the odds, but she'd been tricked into coming in here, and now it could end up being her tomb, as well as that of the king for whom it was intended.
Turning a sharp corner at speed, she stubbed one of her toes on a rock sticking out of the sand. Silently she cursed the narrow passageways. There were supposed to be secret entrances and exits, but she hadn't found any up until now. Just a reasonably large chamber would do. It only had to be big enough for her to transform into her dragon persona, big enough to fight off the attackers that had been sent after her.
Stumbling across a flickering torch hanging on the wall, for a brief moment she thought about taking it with her, just to have the comfort of the flame near her small, lithe body.
'No,' she thought. 'It would just waste time.' But she knew it might aid the screaming mob baying for her blood, so she pulled it from the wall and rolled it in the sand until the beautiful flames died away, leaving it lying across the cramped, sandy passage. In near total darkness, she accessed her dragon abilities, choosing to concentrate on enhancing her vision. It all happened in a split second and before she knew it she was back, sprinting for her very life.
As she ran, she wondered where it had all gone wrong. Handpicked by the dragon council especially for this mission, her infiltration skills were renowned throughout the domain, and yet she still found herself in this precarious position. Worst of all, she hadn't managed to get a message off to caution them about what she'd discovered. Of all the regrets she had at that moment, the fact that she hadn't sent this warning was at the top of her list.
Skidding to a halt in the sand, her legs nearly disappeared from under her. In the wall to her left was a door, a frame anyway. It looked as though it had been hastily blocked by a large slab of rock, but it was a door nevertheless, and the first one she'd seen. Standing, studying the entrance, her enhanced hearing picked up the sound of people rubbing against the walls further down the passageway. Having gained some ground on her attackers, she figured they were less than a minute behind her. Running her fingers around the edges of the frame, looking for anything strange, she knew it wasn't unusual for openings of any kind inside a pyramid like this to have entrances that were activated in a secret manner. Sometimes the mechanism was a couple of finger holes, sometimes the pushing of a certain rock or brick, sometimes the moving of a torch or its frame. All of these methods had presented themselves over past weeks as ways to open potentially blocked routes. Finding nothing by searching with her fingers, she scanned the nearby walls beside the door and the corridor behind her.
'NOTHING!' she screamed inside her head.
It was then that she heard the leader of the hoard heading her way, cry out in pain, stubbing his toe on the same rock she'd done, only moments ago. Did she go on and leave this entrance in the hope that she'd find something else? Or did she risk them catching her up and try to go through? Every instinct she had shrieked at her to try to open this door. Crouching down, she put all her strength into pushing against the slab of rock. It didn't budge. Quickly she moved onto the middle of the rock and tried again. Noticing it give a little towards the top, reaching up, she felt the slab move just slightly as she shoved it with all her might. Time was running out, the assailants had just fallen over the fireless torch she'd left on the ground, and were nearly upon her. Instinctively her hand brushed against the ornate hilt of the dagger tucked into her belt. Although she wasn't ready to die, she knew that if the moment came she'd take a whole lot of them with her.
Both hands pressed firmly against the top of the rocky slab, she jumped backwards with her feet, her heels landing solidly against the rock behind her. With her knees bent, she began to walk up the wall, eventually finding herself some six feet or so above the sandy surface of the passageway, feet pressed firmly against the opposite wall, her palms pushing against the slab of rock behind the door frame. Tensing every muscle in her body, she pushed again with all her strength. The mighty slab of rock shifted in the corner, revealing a tiny opening. From her horizontal position she could see that the breach was perhaps big enough for a cat to scamper through. Her body was small, compact, dainty even, but the gap looked impossible for her to climb through. As this single thought ran through her mind, time ran out. From around the corner came a frenzied mob, all vying to get to her first. Seeing the rabble heading towards her with such hatred, their torches blazing above the leaders' heads reflecting the madness in their faces, was all the inspiration that she needed. With every ounce of strength she had, she pushed, almost able to taste the reek of the fetid breath of her pursuers. As quick as a flash, she pushed off with her feet and launched herself at the tiny gap in the top corner of the door frame, barely scraping through, ripping the skin off both her ankles in the process.
Perched on the edge of the rocky slab that had now fallen back into place, she watched the bright, thick red blood ooze down her ankles and silently drop into the sand below, all the time catching her breath after what had been a frantic ten minutes. Both her feet hurt like hell, but there was nothing she could do about that just now.
Channelling as much of her magic as she dared into the damaged skin, she hoped they would begin to heal. As the crazed mob battered the rocky slab in frustration from the other side, she took in the contents of the totally dark room she found herself in. Nearly choking on the dust particles hanging in the air, she hadn't come across anywhere that had smelt this musty and old. Not only that, but nearly every single thing was covered in layer after layer of spiders' webs.
'Oh great... spiders,' she thought, shivering.
Weapons and tools clinked and rattled on the other side of the doorway, the noise prompting her into action, despite the fact that she just wanted to sit and heal up. Carefully she slid down the side of the slab, leaving a trail of thick blood from her ankles in her wake. Stepping gingerly onto the sandy floor, her ankles sent agonising waves of pain up through her legs as she tried to move. Parting the terrifying spiders' webs that were everywhere, she started to investigate the room, while attempting to ignore the sound of the angry mob.
Moments later, she realised where she was - a small burial chamber of some sort, and if her normally efficient sense of direction wasn't off, the hidden chamber appeared to be somewhere between the King's chamber and the Queen's chamber.
'Fancy that,' she thought to herself, 'a secret chamber inside Khufu's pyramid, halfway between the two chambers and I have to get stuck in it.' Under more pleasant circumstances, she'd have been ecstatic about her discovery, but she had to get out and get a message to the council. It was all that mattered now.
Deciding very quickly that she was bored of the cold and darkness, carefully she searched the pots and jars inside the chamber for some papyrus. Despite the urgency of her situation, she took great care for fear of accidentally opening one of the canopic jars (containing either the mummified liver, lungs, stomach or intestines of someone extremely important) that surrounded the large sarcophagus, almost certainly containing a mummy of some sort. The last thing she wanted to do was to disturb any of those. Although knowing on a logical level from her dragon training that the religious tendencies of the humans were nothing more than a false belief, she still maintained a great respect for them. Eventually reaching into an ornate pot with gold decoration, she found what she was looking for: a tightly wound piece of papyrus. Gently pulling it out, she set about unwinding it. After that she retrieved one of the biggest bones she could find from a skeleton that sat propped up against the wall furthest from the doorway through which she'd entered the chamber. Wrapping the papyrus tightly around the bone at one end, she mentally switched off her enhanced vision and concentrated on producing any sort of flame from her mouth. Not realising how chilly she'd become, it was something of a chore to conjure up a tiny dribble of fire, that hiccupped into life pathetically. Waving the papyrus through the heat, her heart leapt as the fire took hold and the makeshift torch burned and crackled with intent.