Hello everyone! Yes, it took me forever to update blah blah blah. I won't bore you with excuses, but I DO want to thank all my reviewers for reviewing! The Book of Ra is officially THE FIRST Kane Chronicles fanfic to reach 100 reviews! I never dreamed it would have that many, so thank you ALL very VERY much! :)

This is dedicated to LovesToReadOnline, who just so happened to be the 100th reviewer! Enjoy! :)

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"Well, looks like we won't be leaving that way." I muttered, shaking sand out of my hair. So much for Ra not having a security system.

"Great. Now what do we do?" Sadie moaned, looking around the stuffy, ancient chamber. "There's nothing here!"

I had to admit it, Sadie had a point. There was nothing here. Besides some ancient hieroglyphics on the worn, ancient walls, the place was literally empty. Unless, that is, you count pounds of dry sand as a room feature.

Zia didn't seem worried, though. She was studying the paintings on the walls intently, as if she was looking for something. I walked up beside her to see what she was looking at, but all I saw was painting of some buff, tan guy with a bird head, holding a book up to the sun as the cover burst into flames. The book itself seemed unharmed though.

"Horus?" I whispered, but the moment the words escaped me, I knew they were false. That was not Horus. I'd seen the god in person, and this guy looked nothing like him. Besides, Horus would sometimes appear with the head of a falcon, but this bird looked more like a hawk.

"Oh wonderful, a bird-man burning a library book. God, did the Egyptians have no return policy?" Sadie asked. She had started observing the painting as well. "When I got ketchup on that bloody frog book in third grade, the librarian-"

"Sadie." I said, before she could continue. "Shut up."

She huffed and stomped away, muttering something about amphibians and old ladies.

Zia traced the book with her finger. Nothing happened of course, but as she gazed at the drawing again, her eyes sparkled. I swear I could almost see the light bulb turn on above her head.

"Sadie!" She called, motioning with her hand for my sister to come back. "Can you read this?"

Sadie sighed. "Please. There's nothing there. Just all this random ceremonial rubbish. Nothing's gonna get up out of-"

"Sadie! Just come over here and read this part." Zia snapped, obviously not in the mood for Sadie's complaints. "Please," she added, but there was an edge to her voice that would have made me sprint to read that wall. Sadie must have been thinking the same thing, because she walked hurriedly back over to us, although she was muttering the whole way.

Sadie squinted as she studied the faded hieroglyphics above the hawk dude. "Something like, 'The Book lies within the heart of the Noon Sun.' That's odd. Why are noon and sun capitalized?"

"A place?" I offered, but it didn't seem likely. Zia's gaze was on the painting, and I saw them widen with shock.

"What?" I asked. When she didn't answer, I waved my hand in front of her face. "What?" I repeated.

"It's not a place." Zia whispered, without looking away from the painting. "It's a name."

Then she placed her finger on the hawk man's chest, right where his heart would be. A moment later, the room began to shake. Sadie, Zia, and I fell to the floor as buckets of sand rained down on us. I used my hands as a shield for my eyes, and in a moment, I was waist deep in the stuff.

"It's caving in!" I yelled, looking for Zia and Sadie, who may as well been invisible in the downpour of sand. "We've got to-"

"Carter!" Zia yelled over the noise. "Look!"

I turned around to face the wall where the painting had been, only to find it gone. Instead, there was a large, black opening that could either be a dark room or a bottomless abyss for all we knew. The problem was that it was already closing up again. I dove in the direction of Zia and Sadie, managed to take their hands, and then sprinted toward the entrance. I pushed Sadie in first, who yelped as she lost her grip on my hand. Then I turned to Zia, but she wouldn't budge. There was no way two more people would be able to get in; the entrance was closing too fast.

"Go Carter!" she yelled.

Think again, Zia. "No Zia, we-"

"GO!" she demanded, giving me a fierce shove.

I was not losing her again, so yanked her forward as I fell, causing her to lose her balance and fall in front of me. She pulled me down with her though, and just as I thought we might both make it through, I felt a sharp pain in my leg. My shoe apparently got stuck in the entrance as I went down. I was dangling in the air, hanging from nothing but my sketcher that was wedged between the two closing walls. In a few more seconds, I may not even have a foot.

"No. Way." I muttered, looking back at my shoe. At the last second, I forced my foot to turn at an impossible angle. A sharp pain ran up my leg, but my shoe instantly slipped free and I fell, face first, into the darkened room below.

*::*::*

I must have landed on my head, because I woke up about 20 minutes later with Sadie and Zia kneeling above me. My whole body ached, but my left leg was the worst. It felt like I'd been stabbed with a dozen needles, and even the smallest movements were painful. I moaned and looked around at my surroundings. We were in the middle of dark and musty tunnel. Like the chamber with the painting, these walls were covered in faded markings, not that I could read any of them. The tunnel continued in two directions, but for all I knew, there could be a shear drop at the end of it, because besides from the faint glow of Zia's wand, I could barely see anything.

Zia was staring intently at my ankle. She started murmuring something too softly to hear, but I knew it wasn't English. After a few moments, a glow erupted from Zia's wand to my broken ankle, and the pain immediately subsided. I could actually feel the pain trickling away. After a minute or so, Zia stopped the chant, and I sighed with relief.

"Way to go, Carter." Sadie said sarcastically. "How on Earth did you manage to break your ankle? All you had to do was jump."

I rolled my eyes and instantly regretted it, because even that hurt. "I did jump," I answered, "but my foot got stuck. I'm lucky I still have a foot."

Zia shook her head. "If you had gone first, none of this would have happened."

I laughed. "Come on, Zia. Like I was going to abandon you in a chamber with the ceiling caving in? I'd take the broken ankle any day. What's it going to take for you to realize that we're a team?"

"Oh yes, one big, happy family." Sadie muttered. I ignored the comment and looked at Zia, waiting for an answer. Instead, she carefully put my shoe back on and said, "You'll be fully healed in a few hours. Don't put any weight on it. We'll set up camp here tonight."

"Here?" Sadie asked, not sounding too enthusiastic about sleeping in the middle of a creepy tunnel. "But something's not right. Can't you feel it?"

At first I didn't know what she meant, but then I felt a soft breeze rush past me down the corridor to my left. A few moments later, it blew back in the opposite direction. It was as if the tunnel was…breathing.

"Um…is that normal?" I asked, knowing the answer before Zia replied. I'd been in plenty of tombs to know this was way out of the ordinary.

"S-ooo," Sadie said, breaking the eerie silence. "We're just going to sit here while the spooky tunnel breathes on us? Are you bonkers?"

"I don't see you coming up with any better ideas." Zia said, still looking down the darkened corridor. "Besides, we won't accomplish anything tonight. Carter's foot will be healed by morning, and then, Sadie, we can leave."

Sadie still looked weary. "When you say 'leave,' you don't by any chance mean Egypt in general, right?"

Zia cracked a small smile, but it disappeared just as quickly as it came. "Right." she said.

Sadie sighed. "I knew it would be too good to be true."

While Sadie stared suspiciously down the tunnel, I opened my locker in the Duat and took out some of the things I had packed before we left the 21st Nome. Three sleeping bags, some matches, crackers, bottles of water, and a Ziploc bag of rice (which I planned to cook over the fire), a steel pan, and cereal (just because it was in front of me while I was packing.)

While we munched on some crackers, Zia poured some water from the bottles into the pan and then dumped some rice in. Then, being a master of fire, she made the flame without using the matches. She simply pointed her index finger at the two logs I had taken out of the fire in Amos's study, and the wood burst into orange flames. I made a mental note to ask her to teach how to do that, and then passed her a cracker, which she accepted with a smile.

After a while, we were feasting on the rest of the crackers, rice, and handfuls of fruit loops. Not your average super, but no one complained. After I finished my last handful of the sugary cereal, I carefully crawled into my sleeping bag and shut my eyes. I opened them one last time and found myself looking at the dark form of Zia, who was staring into the darkness ahead of us, looking frightened and completely lost. I wanted to say something to make her feel better, but before I could, my vision went black and my ba left my body. Within moments, I had left the ancient tunnel behind, but for some reason, my ba was reluctant to leave. It didn't take me long to figure out why.

*::*::*

UH OH. "Cliff hanger hanging from a cliff, and that's why he's called cliff hanger!" Haha, I loved that song (In Between the Lions...anybody?) ;)

Oh, nevermind :) Anyway, thanks for reviewing guys and I hope you continue to do so! I'll try to update soon, and there's a contest I'll be mentioning in the next chapter for all you readers out there. You'll see what I mean ;)

Love,

(:(:(:mythomagic:):):)