Chapter Fifty-Eight

The honeycomb library was only partially lit, much of it still cast in shadow. Symbols chirped as they blinked around the honeycombs. A few hearts, still floating in their cells, pumped with alarm. Imogen kept her helmet light off, relying on the ambient light as she made her way through the twisting maze. She wondered where to go. Every exit she could find had sealed. She was trapped inside the eighth tier of the pyramid. And she wasn’t alone.

The metal grid floor began to shake. Ahead came the sound of heavy footsteps. Hollow voices spoke in a cryptic language.

Imogen veered off into a small vent clogged with black hanging tubes and cables. Hard and rubbery tubing bent as she squeezed through them. She hid within the mass of synthetic tentacles. She held her breath as the footsteps drew near.

A pair of giant shadows walked past her hiding place. Blue light beams passed over the tubes. Imogen tucked her head back and hid deeper, praying she wouldn’t be found.

* * *

One level above, Caleb watched in horror as Dyfan’s possessed corpse picked up one of the hearts and approached an open sarcophagus. “Anubis,” he said in a deep voice, calling the jackal-headed god. The large heart pumped in Dyfan’s hands as he placed it into the chest of a giant corpse. Then Dyfan’s throat released a loud, guttural sound. It resonated off the walls, vibrated in Caleb’s bones.

In the sarcophagus, the giant’s body began to shake, the head moving fast, the arms flapping at its sides.

Dyfan picked up another heart and placed it into the corpse of the ram god. “Khnum…” Its body, too, began to fill with light and shake with violent tremors.

Dear God, he’s resurrecting them.

While Dyfan had his back turned, Caleb eased away. A hand grabbed his ankle. He looked down at Trummel’s bleeding face.

“Don’t leave me,” he pleaded.

“You deserve whatever happens to you.” Caleb yanked his leg from Trummel’s grip and went to the far end of the crypt. He cared about only two things now: finding Imogen and escaping Duat.

All around the chamber numbers and symbols lit up, falling down the walls in waterfalls of alien codes. The wall in front of him illuminated with the lines of the metal panels. Next to a panel was a slot with a lever. He pulled it down. A square in the metal floor slid open, revealing metal rungs leading down a very steep shaft. Scattered lights partially lit it all the way to the bottom, at least one hundred and fifty feet. Caleb crossed himself with a quick prayer and then began to climb down the ladder.