By Amber Michelle K.
myaru@etherealvoid.net

"What is this?"

Raeger's voice was loud in the still, dead air of the chamber. Judas turned to find that she had paused by the wall at a section where the space between pillars was off. There was an indentation in the wall, framed with a lintel and doorposts, covered with carvings and even still faintly colored here and there, where ancient traces of paint still stained the stone. He approached slowly and brushed dust from the hieroglyphs. "A false door."

He saw her glance at him in his peripheral vision. "Why would they do that?" she asked, looking back and stepping closer to examine the artwork. "Wouldn't it be a lot of work?"

"Perhaps." Judas let his hand fall. Everything in the city was remarkably well-preserved; the door might've been carved yesterday for all he could tell, except for the dust. The elements couldn't reach Kethra to cause damange. It had been built underground with just that purpose in mind. "But such things are common in funerary complexes. This was meant to be annexed to the resting place of our last king, but of course it was never finished, and he was entombed elsewhere."

She was silent, though he knew questions were burning in her mind. Stories were her weakness, he knew, and he'd used them to lull her more than once when it seemed her thoughts were moving along dangerous lines. Lawfer's death still lay between them like a naked blade. She couldn't forget it, and he did not care to apologize for something that was ultimately part of his nature.

"In ancient days it was believed the souls of the deceased would leave the tomb and wander. These doors would be carved in the walls of the buildings and the barriers surrounding the complex, so the spirit could come and go as it pleased." He raised his torch to illuminate the incantation on the lintel. The shadows jumped with the flame, and he had to wait for it to calm before he could read, "Hail to the Living One, who illuminates from horizon to horizon." He breathed a laugh. "Pharoah thought well of himself."

Raeger reached up to touch a carving gingerly, with just the tips of her fingers. "And this is... Isis?" Feeling a little braver, perhaps, she brushed her hand over an outstretched wing. Dust sifted to the ground, and she pulled her hand back quickly.

"Yes. For protection." Judas glanced over the other glyphs quickly. "I'm a little surprised. The chronicle I read said that Akhenaten abolished worship of the old pantheon. Everything else here invokes the protection of the sun." The authorship of that chronicle was questionable, however. If the people of Egypt were annihilated as it said, who was left to bury the pharoah and record his deeds? His former tribe elder was quite clear that none of the nomadic families had dared go near the cities after the destruction. "I don't think his so-called revelation included Isis."

If only other countries had kept better records, he might be able to find a secondary source elsewhere. No one remembered Egypt, and he supposed no one had mastered the art of the chronicle as well as his own people at that time. But something, anything would be better than reliance on corrupted documents.

These half-finished structures left over from Akhenaten's reign, and the old, crumbling ruins of complexes even older, were all he could rely on to revive the old tradition. In a way he was grateful that the pharoah's death had come so soon; there were still monmuments and scrolls referring to the old ways that he hadn't had time to destroy.

"I don't know the truth of the matter," he said softly, reaching up to rest his hand on the wing Raeger had touched. "If there is one god or many, or only a few with different faces. A foreign power came to destroy, and the sun offered no protection. Perhaps he really was angry at Pharoah's audacity and allowed it to happen." The light and shadows danced again when he lowered his torch, and it seemed the wing moved, though iht was only cold stone. "And the others, maybe they turned their faces away in revenge for the loss of their honor."

It seemed the mighty palace of Kethra contracted around him when he said that, the walls and ceiling lost in shadow aside from the small area around the false door. The weight of the sand above suddenly felt tangible.

"We should keep going," he said, glancing up into the shadows. "There should be a smaller chamber farther on, in the back. We can rest there before continuing."

They only had a day or so before he would have to leave the ruins and seek out some kind of sustenance. Kethra was over a thousand years old and still standing strong against the shifting desert sands - it would still be here, if he ever decided to come back. Perhaps then he would know the truth, and leave the old superstitions behind.

Notes: I make only a minimal bow to history, because VP screwed with it enough that I don't feel the need to be accurate. :P The game's "Akhetamen" is going to be "Akhenaten" from now on in my stories. No offense to the translators, but their little game with these names just screws with my head. Tutankhamun (the original Japanese) OR Akhenaten, please choose one and ditch the other, kthx.