The Nightmare Beneath the Sand

The Nightmare Beneath the Sand 13

All told, the visit to the hospital took close to three hours, mostly to wait for the results from the various tests that both Alaric and Leon had gone through. The doctor had let them have a room with a shower so that they could shower and change before relaxing on some rather comfortable chairs, Leon placed on an IV to keep him hydrated just in case something came up.

Once they were told to take care of themselves and what restrictions they were under, the group gathered the two men's medication from the hospital pharmacy, and they left. Mark and Alex went to the nicer of the hotel's, and booked a suite, taking the room with the dual beds and leaving the other room for Leon and Alaric while the rest of the group went for takeout.

Arriving at the room, it didn't take long for all five of them to settle in with their food, Leon sitting on the couch, stretched out over the length of it with Alaric sitting in the one recliner with the leg rest popped out. "I suppose that you want to know what has gone on right?" Leon asked as he ate a bite of spiced, pan-fried meat. They had just walked into the restaurant, told them that they need food for five and to make it protein heavy.

The lady had been nice enough to send him off with disposable plates and utensils, and a list of what the foods were. Leon was just to sore to get up to get the list and find out what he had grabbed.

"It would be nice," Alex said, eyeing the food options before deciding on what she wanted and taking her own seat on the loveseat next to Mark. Kran and Amir watched the two men carefully, making sure that they had what they wanted before settling in themselves.

"Whatever your ancestors thought, the creature that they sucked the dick of was not going to give them power. It would use them until they and their families were no longer useful to it," Leon stated, going for blunt instead of playing around. Alex paused and stared at him.

"And just what do you know about us?" she asked, slow and low. Dangerous. Leon just gazed back at her, his freshly braided hair laying over one shoulder. He didn't look dangerous, rather slim, and even wearing baggy clothes, she felt as if she tried something, even in his pained state, he would take her down with ease.

"I know that you lot have been trying for generations to remember where the maze was buried. That the magics prevented your family from remembering but not from using others to find it as you discovered," Leon said. "I know that your group was the one who bribed one of my most promising students to the damn maze and she died in there, trying to get a book that she wouldn't have been able to touch anyways." He ate a bite of soft flat bread and stared at them.

"Who?" Mark muttered, frowning as he tried to think of who they had contacted. "I know that we've been funding your group to eventually find the maze, but we did not send anyone out on their own," he said.

"Then someone in your group was trying to get there first before you," Alaric said. "Because I found her body. We will be collecting several bodies from the maze over the next few years and finding out who they belong to. Because of the way the maze was sealed, they are mostly mummified. I suggest that you and your group do not try to interfere with us learning just who the bodies are of and returning them to the families. There is one body that I will be personally working on," he continued.

"The priest who gave his life to guard the book when the maze was sealed and buried," Leon explained, Kran's eyes going wide.

"It was there?" Kran asked.

Leon sighed. "It is there."

"And his descendant, seeing as he still lives and breaths here, has the right to request his body back after I have done any needed tests," Alaric stated. "I'll be shipping his body to Cairo to do the MRI's and other scans. I just need Dakarai to sign off on it."

Mark sat up before nodding. "I will pay for the shipping and handling of the priest's body, both to Cairo and then back home. Do you know if we will be able to keep anything on his body?" he asked.

"From what I saw, beyond a small ankh, he didn't have anything on him but his clothes. Not even a wig. It was real hair on his head," Leon said. He started to relax, figuring that the two before him were willing to listen to what they had to say. "The village would sometimes have one of their own leave and go in through a hidden doorway to make sure that the book was still where it was supposed to be. Some would stay and die to help add their energy to the seals, while I think that others got out to tell them that the book was still safe."

"The historical aspects of this..." Kran finally said, rubbing at his face. "This is going to be world famous."

"Indeed," Amir said, sitting back as he gazed at the two men thoughtfully. "What was in there?"

"A creature that ate souls," Alaric said. "I think that no one will ever truly know what that creature was. It is possible that at one time it was known but since there was so much history destroyed or lost, that knowledge is long gone," he continued. "I do know that it came from the 'mouth of the nile' and was worshiped as a God until it was sealed away. It ruled as such, for just over two decades."

"When it tried to destroy a sacred temple to a God who I know for sure was lost to time, the people got a little pissed and took it down, rewriting history so that now we have one united Egypt instead of two." Leon shifted. "Your ancestors, who probably were pretty pissed that their power was taken away, was banished from the lands around here and most likely headed up into the upper parts of Egypt before spreading out through the world, keeping up the oral stories of the creature."

"We were told that our rightful power was stolen from us," Alex said slowly, frowning down at her food. "We were told that It brought peace to all of the lands and that as It's high priests and priestesses that we would end up in a place of power. We would be able to do things that we can not do even with all of our power and money," she continued.

Leon snorted. "You more likely would have ended up a play toy to it while the world was enslaved," he said, shaking his head. "It was smart like that. It told you just what you needed to hear, and in the long run fucked you over when your usefulness was done with."

Mark sighed, sitting back. "So we are learning. Tell us more so that we can make new plans for the future," he requested, Leon looking to Alaric before the two nodding. Kran broke into the telling of what had gone down in the maze to ask a few questions, mostly about the challenge pillar and various details of the maze itself, but Leon and Alaric were the two to talk the most.

At the end, they had eaten the takeout that they had picked up, had more delivered closer to dinner time, and the two had gone to bed. Mark rubbed at his face, feeling much older than his thirty years. "Do you suppose they know that they were in there for close to ten hours?" he asked.

Alex shook her head as she closed the door behind Kran and Amir, the two heading for their own rooms down the stairs. "No, I don't think they know. But for now...we have much that we need to tell the rest. I don't think they know about all that we have learned."

"If they did, they would have told us long ago," Mark said, turning to their room. "They don't like giving up power any more than we do." Alex snorted as she started to lock the room and turn off lights, intent on calling the rest of the group and sending them the information.