weren’t going anywhere; I could come back to examine them later. I had much more reconnaissance to conduct.
I crept down the hall in front of the line of sarcophagi, my eyes toward the center of the room. Elkhashab’s string of bulbs, spaced at odd intervals, created puddles of yellow like streetlamps, allowing the edges of the room to languish in shadow. Past the first set of pillars, I saw some familiar markings on the floor: a circle enclosing another circle, and inside that not a pentagram but a mixture of lines, Hebrew characters, and mystical symbols straight out of
TheGreater Key of Solomon
. The White Knife and the Black Knife were there, the Sickle, the Sword, and all the rest too. Elkhashab was definitely more than a crocodile priest. He dabbled extensively in the dark end of the magic pool, like Nebwenenef before him.
A supporting wall forced me to move toward the center. A doorway there led to another room, decorated with bas-relief doodads heralding Sobek’s spiffiness. At least, I inferred as much from the gaping maw of a crocodile sculpted at the top.
The next room was poorly lit. A single light made a half-assed effort at fighting the darkness from the edges. The scent of water and fetid rot twitched at my nostrils; something had died in there. Maybe many somethings. The pervasive miasma was enough to make me draw Fragarach from its sheath.
Two steps into the room, I heard the water gurgling again. Cursing the weak effort of the token bulb, I recast night vision to better see what I was missing. The chamber was of a similar size to the one I had just left, except that in the center of the room there was no floor with mystical symbols scrawled across it; rather, a black pool with ripples betrayed recent movement. Pillars rose out of it to support the ceiling.
There was no great mystery about what awaited me in the gloom. Elkhashab, that pantweasel, had left me with one or more crocodiles to deal with. A faint electric hum drew my attention over my left shoulder.
A large old-fashioned freezer lurked there, a thick cable snaking from underneath it to the room I’d just vacated. He must have run the electricity behind all the sarcophagi. I opened the lid and saw that it was full of steaks and roasts. Oberon would have approved. I took a few out and threw them to the edge of the pool, then tossed a final one into the pool itself. Something responded in the dark, and I slid along the wall counterclockwise, holding my sword point in front of me. Anything that wanted to eat me had to eat my blade first. Once I’d started to move along the longer wall, a splash sounded from the space I’d vacated, followed by serious macking noises. I saw gold glinting in the dim light, and then an enormous pocked back stretched sinuously into the water: It was the largest crocodile I had ever seen, festooned with enough metal to make reestablishing the gold standard plausible. I hurried to the next supporting wall and another doorway. There was nothing that I could see to keep the crocodile from entering the next room, but perhaps it didn’t want to leave its comfy mini-swamp with easy-to-hunt rump roasts.
The subsequent chamber was fairly well lit, like the first one, allowing me to dispel night vision, but its contents were entirely different. Instead of sarcophagi along the walls, there were boxes—the wooden kind you used to see a lot of before the planet started to run low on trees and people figured it might be better to use recycled cardboard instead. They were probably full of the treasures missing from the burial chamber. I left them alone, figuring it was best to leave it all conveniently packaged for the Ministry of Antiquities. I was much more interested in the creeptastic vibe coming from the far side of the room.
Elkhashab had repurposed an ancient stone worktable, perhaps originally intended as an embalming station, by turning it into a makeshift altar. It was stained with fluids that were supposed to
I crept down the hall in front of the line of sarcophagi, my eyes toward the center of the room. Elkhashab’s string of bulbs, spaced at odd intervals, created puddles of yellow like streetlamps, allowing the edges of the room to languish in shadow. Past the first set of pillars, I saw some familiar markings on the floor: a circle enclosing another circle, and inside that not a pentagram but a mixture of lines, Hebrew characters, and mystical symbols straight out of
TheGreater Key of Solomon
. The White Knife and the Black Knife were there, the Sickle, the Sword, and all the rest too. Elkhashab was definitely more than a crocodile priest. He dabbled extensively in the dark end of the magic pool, like Nebwenenef before him.
A supporting wall forced me to move toward the center. A doorway there led to another room, decorated with bas-relief doodads heralding Sobek’s spiffiness. At least, I inferred as much from the gaping maw of a crocodile sculpted at the top.
The next room was poorly lit. A single light made a half-assed effort at fighting the darkness from the edges. The scent of water and fetid rot twitched at my nostrils; something had died in there. Maybe many somethings. The pervasive miasma was enough to make me draw Fragarach from its sheath.
Two steps into the room, I heard the water gurgling again. Cursing the weak effort of the token bulb, I recast night vision to better see what I was missing. The chamber was of a similar size to the one I had just left, except that in the center of the room there was no floor with mystical symbols scrawled across it; rather, a black pool with ripples betrayed recent movement. Pillars rose out of it to support the ceiling.
There was no great mystery about what awaited me in the gloom. Elkhashab, that pantweasel, had left me with one or more crocodiles to deal with. A faint electric hum drew my attention over my left shoulder.
A large old-fashioned freezer lurked there, a thick cable snaking from underneath it to the room I’d just vacated. He must have run the electricity behind all the sarcophagi. I opened the lid and saw that it was full of steaks and roasts. Oberon would have approved. I took a few out and threw them to the edge of the pool, then tossed a final one into the pool itself. Something responded in the dark, and I slid along the wall counterclockwise, holding my sword point in front of me. Anything that wanted to eat me had to eat my blade first. Once I’d started to move along the longer wall, a splash sounded from the space I’d vacated, followed by serious macking noises. I saw gold glinting in the dim light, and then an enormous pocked back stretched sinuously into the water: It was the largest crocodile I had ever seen, festooned with enough metal to make reestablishing the gold standard plausible. I hurried to the next supporting wall and another doorway. There was nothing that I could see to keep the crocodile from entering the next room, but perhaps it didn’t want to leave its comfy mini-swamp with easy-to-hunt rump roasts.
The subsequent chamber was fairly well lit, like the first one, allowing me to dispel night vision, but its contents were entirely different. Instead of sarcophagi along the walls, there were boxes—the wooden kind you used to see a lot of before the planet started to run low on trees and people figured it might be better to use recycled cardboard instead. They were probably full of the treasures missing from the burial chamber. I left them alone, figuring it was best to leave it all conveniently packaged for the Ministry of Antiquities. I was much more interested in the creeptastic vibe coming from the far side of the room.
Elkhashab had repurposed an ancient stone worktable, perhaps originally intended as an embalming station, by turning it into a makeshift altar. It was stained with fluids that were supposed to
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