Get out your popcorn, tourists beware, here comes a paranormal adventure with a historical twist, set in Egypt--and Britain.
From Chapter 29 'Darkness': 'Did I just try to dive into that goo to get at a dead guy?' Trueth asked.
Define dead,' Me...
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The hall Trueth found herself in was rectangular in shape and anarchic in appearance. They had arrived towards the far end of one side.
Where she stood, she could make out chunks of scattered rocks, sometimes rising to piles of rubble. A corkscrew convolution of rusty bands strangled charred poles of wood, mingling with the other remains. In between, rested broken pieces that appeared only remotely human, yet once they were alive. Bones showed, and teeth gaped from beneath flaking black tissue, which once had been skin.
Their arrival stirred the dead air; dust motes, and grainy particles obscured the view. In the rising dusk, it was still possible to see what should stay hidden—but it was impossible to spot what might still be hiding. The stink of ancient death permeated the trapped air of this frozen cavern where only mould could prevail, and the living were unwelcome.
'What's this?' Rani-Ra pointed towards the other side where something huge and round reflected dull glints from the wall.
'No idea,' Metjen said. 'I need to be closer. Let's go.'
He set off with his sister, carefully picking their way among the debris. Trueth remained rooted to her boulder. Her chest felt so tight she could hardly breathe. Monsters and mummies in a box she could handle, these corpses were too much. She remembered the bony hand under the stone and let go of her support.
What are these lunatics up to now?
Crunches and the clacking of stones around her signalled the Servants were on the move. By now Metjen's priests would follow him to hell and back. She did not fancy being left behind, so she took a deep breath—and got overwhelmed by a hacking cough which made her eyes water.
Half-blind, she stumbled after the troops as they made their way through the ancient battleground. Ahead of them, Metjen stopped again. He held up his hand for them to do likewise, listened and his golden sheen sparkled through the half-light. Fortunately, he prompted no reaction, supernatural or otherwise. He must have done something else. The visibility improved.
Above them, loomed a ring the size of a house with its lowest point right above the floor. Built of an unearthly purple metal, the ring was set in a wall riddled by cracks which crossed behind the metal like huge bolts of dead thunder. Parts had broken from former solidity only to disperse into more rubble on the ground. Crude shapes of blighted metal convulsed from the ceiling a few metres in front of the ring where they pierced a podium.
'This reminds me of the pedestal we used for the key, only bigger,' Nefer commented.
They carefully advanced through the mess towards a barrel-sized base made of multiple layers of purple metal coils alternating with cracked glass paste.
'You're right. And it's the same material they used for the holy objects. Looks like a conductor or something,' Metjen said.
His comment sounded so ridiculously normal Trueth nearly laughed. She cleared her throat instead, and Metjen turned towards her with a quizzical expression.
