"You think they'll still be working, after those thousands of years?"
"Of course, sweetie. They're as much magical as mechanical, and probably still drawing power from the elven wand. The Pharaoh expected to be revived someday, and walk out of his Tomb into the afterlife. They all did."
We worked together, examining the wall inch by inch, and the right places to press and turn and manipulate seemed to flare up before us in the light from the Glass, as though we were being guided through the workings of some intricate combination lock. I found it increasingly hard to concentrate. It felt like we were being watched by unseen and unfriendly eyes. As though we weren't alone in the stone chamber, that some third person was there with us. Only iron discipline and self-control kept me from constantly breaking off to look behind me. That, and the knowledge that Polly would be sure to say something cutting and sarcastic.
The last piece finally fell into place, and the whole wall sank slowly and steadily into the floor, revealing the burial chamber beyond. There was a brief stirring of disturbed air and a sudden scent of preservative spices. The wall continued to fall away, then I almost cried out as a pair of shining eyes suddenly appeared before me. I fell back, reaching for the gun I kept in a concealed holster. Polly stood her ground, and the Glass's light settled on a tall statue with painted features. The eyes were gold leaf. I gathered what was left of my dignity about me and moved forward to stand beside Polly again, as the last of the wall disappeared into the floor.
She didn't say anything. All her attention was fixed on the burial chamber before her.
The sarcophagus lay waiting in the exact centre of the room, surrounded by half a dozen life-size statues, painted as guards with ever-open eyes. More hieroglyphics on the walls, of course, and several large portraits. Presumably the Pharaoh's family. A whole bunch of ceramic pots, to hold his organs, removed from the body during the mummification process. Even more pots, smaller and less ornate, holding grain and seeds and fruit, food for the afterlife. And lying in scattered piles around the chamber, more solid gold items than I'd ever seen in one place.
They say you can't buy your way into the afterlife, but this Pharaoh had made a serious effort.
"Put your eyes back in your head, sweetie," said Polly. "Yes, it's all very pretty, but it's not what we're here for."
"You speak for yourself," I said. "This is the mother lode!" "And it's not going anywhere. We'd need trucks to transport this much gold, not to mention an armed guard. We can always come back for it later, after we've found the wand. The gold is safe and secure here, but I can't say the same for the Lady of the Lake. That is still our main objective, isn't it?"
"Well, yes," I said reluctantly. "You can always find more gold, but there's only one Lady of the Lake."
"Exactly! Who's a clever boy."
"Any idea of where we should look for the wand?" I said. "I don't see it anywhere."
"Of course not," said Polly. "Far too valuable to be left lying around. The Pharaoh took it with him, inside his sarcophagus."
I considered the casket thoughtfully. Eight feet long, covered in jewels and gold leaf, the whole of the lid taken up with one big stylised portrait of the inhabitant. Very impressive, and very solid. Polly pretended to read some of the markings.
"Not dead, only sleeping."
"He's not kidding anyone but himself," I said. "Don't suppose you've got a crow-bar about you?"
"Hold back on the brute force, just for a moment," said Polly. She walked slowly around the sarcophagus, studying every inch of it through her Looking Glass while careful to maintain a respectful distance at all times. "There are supposed to be extra-special booby-traps," she said, after a while. "Mechanical and magical protections, all set to activate if anyone even touches the lid. But as far as I can see… they're all silent. Deactivated. I can only assume my protections are working overtime."
"Just as well," I said. "We don't want Sleeping Beauty to wake up. I've seen those movies."
"We can handle him," said Polly, dismissively.
"Don't get overconfident," I said. "After all these years on the Street of the Gods, soaking up worshippers' belief, who knows what the mummy might have become?"
"As long as my protections are still working, he's only another stiff in bandages," Polly said firmly. "If he should sit up, just slap him down again. Larry? Are you listening to me?"
I was listening to something else. I could hear the sound of soft, shuffling feet. I could hear great wings beating. I could hear my own heart hammering in my chest. The sense of some third presence in the burial chamber was almost overwhelming, close and threatening. I kept thinking the statues on the edge of my vision were slowly turning their heads to look at me. They were only feelings. I wasn't fooled by them. But I was becoming more and more convinced that someone or something knew we were there, in a place we shouldn't be. That inside the sarcophagus, under the lid, the Pharaoh's eyes were open and looking up at us.
Polly moved in close beside me, squeezing my arm hard.
"Larry, please calm down. We're perfectly safe. If I'd known you got spooked this easily, I'd have chosen someone else."
"I'm fine," I said. "Fine. Let's get the lid off, get what we came for, and then get the hell out of here."
"Suits me, sweetie. The mummy's holding the wand in his left hand. All we have to do is slide the lid far enough to one side for us to reach in."
Even with both of us pushing and shoving, the sarcophagus lid didn't want to move. It ground grudgingly sideways, a few inches at a time. Loud scraping noises echoed on the still air, interspersed with muffled curses from Polly and me. We threw all our strength against the lid, and slowly, slowly, a space opened up, revealing the interior of the sarcophagus and its occupant. The mummified head and shoulders looked shrivelled and distorted, the eyes and mouth just shadows in a face like baked clay. The wrappings were brown and grey, decayed, sunken down into the dead flesh. The body looked brittle, as though rough handling would break it into pieces.
The elven wand was held tightly in one clawlike hand, laid across the sunken chest.
"Well, go on!" said Polly. "Take it!"
"You take it!"
"What?"
"Let's think about this for a moment," I said, leaning on the lid. "I have seen pretty much every mummy movie ever made, including that Abbott and Costello abomination, and it's always the idiot who takes the sacred object from the mummy's hand who ends up getting it in the neck. In fact, it's usually at this point in the film that the warning music starts getting really loud."
"God, you're a wimp!" said Polly. She grabbed the elven wand, wrestled it out of the mummy's hand, and stepped back, holding the wand up triumphantly.
The whole burial chamber shook violently, as though hit by an earthquake. Thick streams of dust fell from the ceiling. The floor rose and fell, as though a great rippling wave had swept through the solid stone. The walls seemed to writhe and twist, as though all the hieroglyphics were coming to life and screaming silently. And the wall we'd opened into the burial chamber shot up out of the ground, and slammed into place against the ceiling again. I glared at Polly.
"Next time, listen to the music! Is there any other way out of here?"
Polly waved the Looking Glass back and forth, dust dancing in the brilliant beam of light. "I can't see anything!"
"Terrific," I said.
Then the lid of the sarcophagus crashed to the floor. We both looked round, startled, just in time to see the mummy rise out of its resting place. It moved slowly, jerkily, animated and driven by unnatural energies. It was small, barely five feet tall, a shrivelled wretched thing, but it burned with power. You could feel it. The empty eyes in the dead face fastened first on me, then on Polly, and finally on the wand. It reached out a brown bandaged hand, and the arm made dry, cracking sounds as it extended. The mummy kicked the sarcophagus lid aside with one foot, and the lid flew across the chamber to slam into the far wall.