Alex woke slowly. There was a dull pain on the back of his head and the feel of stone beneath him and something gritty on his face and neck. He reached around to touch the sore spot. As soon as his finger pressed into the tender, swollen bump, he remembered how he’d gotten it.
His eyes opened wide, only to be flooded by harsh light. He forced himself to sit up, and scanned the space above him for Aff Neb or his gunmen. But all he saw were the gently curved walls of a deep round pit and, far above that, a clear blue desert sky.
Where was he? Why —
“Good morning, Alex,” he heard. “Or should I say, good afternoon.”
Todtman. As Alex turned toward his voice, he was surprised to feel the scarab shift against his chest. Aff Neb hadn’t taken it?
Todtman was sitting up against the sheer wall of the pit, looking a little worse for wear, his familiar suit jacket and cane nowhere in sight. Ren was seated next to him. Alex felt his tensed muscles relax ever so slightly. He let out a long breath and pulled another back in. “I’m glad you’re both okay,” he said.
“Are we?” said Ren. “I doubt it. I’m glad you’re awake or conscious, or whatever — but it’s not like we can go anywhere.” She gestured up at the pit.
Alex took a quick look around. The pit had to be forty feet deep and at least as far across, the walls ranging from light tan to bone white. Limestone, he thought. Just like in the Valley of the Kings. The air was warm, and he reached up and brushed a sprinkling of sweat-stuck sand from his face and neck.
“We’re in the desert,” he said.
“Yes,” said Todtman, wincing as he rose to his feet. “Somewhere in the central desert, if I had to guess. It wasn’t an especially long flight.”
Flight? thought Alex. He must have been really out of it.
“Did they … hurt you?” he asked. It was a dumb question. He could already see a cut above Todtman’s left eye and a swollen bump under his right. He’d been roughed up. He quickly glanced over at Ren, relieved to see no visible injuries.
“I may have resisted a little,” admitted Todtman, taking a few short steps. Without his walking stick, he limped noticeably on the leg that had been crippled by a scorpion sting during their pursuit of the first Death Walker. He began to slowly move across the pit. Ren popped up beside him. Her ibis and Todtman’s falcon were in plain view at their necks. Alex groaned as he climbed to his feet to join them.
“Why didn’t they just finish us off back in Alexandria?” he said. They were approaching a new stretch of the pit’s gently curved wall, following Todtman’s slow progress. Alex had no idea where they were headed. There was no visible means of entrance or exit, no doorway or ladder or rope.
“Yes, that does seem odd,” admitted Todtman, coming to a stop. “They may be curious about what we know.”
An ice-cold wave washed through Alex. Minyahur. “We can’t say anything!” he said urgently.
“We may not have a choice,” said Todtman, and the ice-cold wave doubled back. Torture. Magic. What lengths would The Order go to? He resolved then and there that they could do what they wanted to him. As much suffering as he had caused, the least he could do was endure some. Besides, he had a lifetime of practice with pain. But it wasn’t himself he was worried about. He looked over at Ren.
“But it may not come to that,” continued Todtman. He lifted his sloping froglike chin toward a scattering of symbols cut into the wall. The shallow marks were nearly invisible in the light stone.
“Why aren’t those cut deeper?” said Alex.
“They were,” said Todtman. “But they’ve worn down through the ages. These symbols are very old — even by Egyptian standards.”
“Indeed,” said Todtman. “Close to five thousand years old, if I had to guess.”
Instinctively, Alex and Ren closed their hands around their amulets. Only a moment later, they released them.
“That’s weird,” said Ren. “Normally, the ibis lets me read hieroglyphs.”
Todtman nodded. “As I said, they are very old. Precursors to the hieroglyphs we know today. But I think I can puzzle out a few. Here” — he pointed to the stacked symbols before them and then to another cluster a few yards away — “and there.”
“What do they say?” said Ren.
Todtman ran a finger along the shallow groove of the nearest symbol, pursing his lips and taking one last look before delivering his verdict.
“It seems fairly clear to me,” he said, “that they brought us here to be …” He pointed at the last symbol in the bottom row. “Do you see that one? Very similar to a common hieroglyph found in nearly every Middle Kingdom tomb.”
“Death?” guessed Alex. “Burial?”
“Close,” said Todtman. “A sacrifice, an offering.”
Alex stared grimly at the symbol, his head reeling with the realization. He felt, for a moment, like he might black out again. It might have spared him some suffering if he had, because he now understood why they’d been left with their amulets. In ancient Egypt, all sort of things were sacrificed to appease the spirits and please the gods: Everything from animals as large as oxen to treasures of incalculable value.
He looked down at his scarab. The amulets were the priceless treasure.
Then he looked up at his friends, the small, huddled group of three.
And they were the animals.