It was dark when Malik heard the noise again.
It was the sort of dark that you can only experience deep beneath the earth's surface, sealed in by layer after heavy layer of cold rock and sand. He lifted his head from his hard pillow, blinking at the embers of the dead torch bolted to the wall, the last red glints painting patterns against the blackness. He strained his ears and heard it course down the corridors of his subterranean home – The voice.
It had been several weeks since he had first heard it, and it returned every few nights, echoing through the stone tunnels and sliding into his ear while he lay in bed. Sometimes it was louder, sometimes more muffled but it was always undeniably the same voice, rich and insistent. It flowed down past his room and died away; leaving no sign of its origin by the time he flung himself out of bed and opened the door. Once or twice he had been able to make out words, rocks of coherence among the tide, talking of "Burial" and "Revenge". Nothing more than that was ever solid enough to catch Malik's ear, no matter how hard he concentrated, ear at his door.
He had never mentioned it to his family, not to Isis, not Rishid and certainly not his father. That wasn't a conversation that he foresaw helping anyone.
It had become such a staple of his nights that he was beginning to suspect that he would have to learn to live with it, factor it in as a standard part of his life from now on. He couldn't do that until he had at least worked up the ability to investigate fully, putting to rest whatever the origin of the strange voice was. With his eyes locked on the final embers of his bedroom torch, he knew that this would be the night.
The voice came slowly at first, probing at the air and murmuring into the darkness.
"Buried."
Malik silently threw himself from his bed.
The voice built up, crashing past his door in a torrent.
"Buried."
He stalked across the stone floor, trying to remain as quiet as possible.
It passed, flowing eastward up the corridor.
"Revenge."
He gripped the handle of his door, pulling it forwards as gently as he could, letting in the cool air of the corridor beyond, feeling it slide across the hairs on his arms. The darkness persisted beyond his doorway, showing him no sign of any passer-by. He turned in the direction that the voices had travelled, still able to hear them faintly echo back to him from beyond a corner, quiet and incoherent. It had passed him by once again, disappearing into the coils of the night and leaving him behind. Malik hung his head as the voice died away, resigning himself to trying again the following night, perhaps camp out right next to the door until he heard the noise approaching. If it didn't come tomorrow… Well, he'd have an uncomfortable, long night.
He turned away.
He saw it.
A figure in red disappearing down the corridor, soundlessly rounding a corner and vanishing with a flutter of the crimson cloak that was wrapped about him.
Before he realised what he was doing, Malik was giving chase, bare feet pounding onto the cold stone as he ran in pursuit of the cloaked stranger. He started to skid as he turned the corner, sand and sharp stones digging at his feet. Ahead of him, the figure disappeared into the darkness, each torch on the wall guttering and dying as he passed. From where he was, Malik could make out his powerful frame and the shock of white hair atop his head, the huge strides he took, the fact that he was always a few inches above the ground. Malik paused for a moment, and the figure was gone, swallowed up by the darkness. He picked up the chase again, following the stranger down into the tunnels that ran beneath the Tomb Keeper's home.
Every step of the way the strange figure stayed ahead of him, disappearing when Malik slowed, constantly and silently pressuring him into continuing the chase. Every new metre covered took him further and further down into the catacombs that ran through the tombs, further from the surface, further into the hot, stale air.
By the time he collapsed from exhaustion, he had no idea how long he had been running for. By now the sun could be rising over the tomb for all he knew. Down here it was the same foetid night it had been for the last few millennia. He lay in the dust of an old, disused chamber, feet bleeding and sweat pouring down his brow, slicking his hair against his scalp. Every last inch of him ached and pleaded for mercy, muscles and bones alike throbbing in the agony of exertion. He pulled his head up, neck sore and protesting, looking around himself.
The chamber that he had collapsed in was featureless but for one wall across from him, carved with pictograms and vast curved, organic lines. A battle scene had been etched into the stone wall.
No.
Not a battle.
A massacre.
Woman and children fleeing and crying, unarmed men throwing up their arms at the onward march of a hundred soldiers on horseback. It was a nightmarish tableau of sin, making Malik want to turn away in disgust. He felt a slickness on his back, thicker and warmer than the sweat that coated his skin. With pain flaring across the lines carved into his flesh, he realised with mounting horror that his scars had opened, his mutilation weeping at the sight on the chamber wall.
He stared into the image on the wall, at the men leading the charge. He saw the garments and the badges of office that tied them to the court of the ancient Pharaohs, the golden items of legend clearly marked out on them.
Malik saw the fluttering of a rich red cloak in the corner of his eye, dancing at the edge of perception like the ghost voice that had haunted his nights. The figure sat in the dirt next to him, though his movements disturbed neither dust nor air, no sound coming from him as he took up a seat next to Malik. He turned to the boy, and Malik saw his face for the first time, the deep, dark scar crossing over his worn and tested features. Without a sound the figure turned to look at the wall, eyes locked on the same riders that had caught Malik's attention earlier, malice boiling over through the intensity of his gaze and the flecks of blood and foam in his jaw.
"Buried." He said, the voice reverberating off of the chamber walls, washing down through the tunnels and making a mad dash up towards the surface.
Malik nodded.
"Revenge." He responded.