In The Eye Of Re

Epilogue

Author: Erica

Setting: Egypt, 1926, right after the first encounter with Imhotep

She wiped her grimy hand across her sweaty brow, frustration creasing her face. She stood from her hunched position stretching her legs and back,

feeling it snap, crackle and pop all the way down. After days alone in this

desert temple she was starting to feel like she wasn't getting anywhere, but

she couldn't bring herself to give up. Something kept pulling at the corners

of her mind, telling her to keep going, that the answers to all of her unknown

questions would be revealed in the next brush stroke. The sun was going down

on another unsuccessful day and she decided to go wash up before the night

creatures came out.

There was a lake next to the Temple, and when the sun rose and set she

could tell why this complex dedicated to the gods was built here. As she

stooped to wash her hands she rubbed the tattoo on the back of her left hand

between her thumb and forefinger for luck. The Eye of Re stared back at her

expectantly. She was a little girl when it was first placed there. The creepy

old woman from the Cairo orphanage told her it would protect her until she

could fulfill her destiny. She hadn't taken it seriously until a week ago.

She removed the wrist band on her left arm and scrutinized another tattoo

with intense blue eyes. A vulture flying. In her opinion the thing was

hideous, but it seemed to be the link between her and whatever her destiny

was. She pulled the papyrus she had found in Queen Nefertari's tomb in the

Valley of the Queens' and unrolled it.

At first she could only make out a few words on the ancient paper, but

that wasn't what had caught her eye. In the center of the sheet was a vulture

identical to the one on her arm. A quick stop at the library in Karnak had

helped her translate the rest of the manuscript and that was how she had

ended up here, at the Temple of Mut. Unfortunately, there wasn't much left of

the scroll or the temple, which made her task all the more difficult.

She finished washing and went to pick up her tools. As she did so she

dropped a small hand shovel and it skittered a short distance across the

floor and hit a bare wall she had already studied. When she bent to pick up

the tool she noticed a small chip in the plaster.

"What's is this?" she mumbled to her self as she started picking at the

it. Soon plaster began to fall off the wall in chunks and she found an

inscription. A painting of a beautiful woman stood before her wearing the

double crown of Egypt, a vulture protruding from beneath it. She held out her

hand to a man she was quite obviously in love with and a small child sat at

their feet.

The woman wore a gold ring plainly engraved with a vulture on the hand at

her side. The ring was one of the drawings on the mysterious papyrus she

possessed. She frantically began searching the inscription for any words she

recognized and one jumped out at her.

"Hamunaptra," she breathed aloud. The only person she knew who could take

her there was dead by now she was sure. She hadn't seen him since before he

was arrested, and she couldn't get back to Cairo before he was hanged to try

to and stop it. She just hoped that he left some clues as to where she could

find the lost city. That ring was there, and she needed to find it.

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Let me know what you think. Chapter 1 will be out soon. See ya later.

This is just a footnote. Neferteri and Nefertari are two separate people.

Nefertari was the favorite wife of Ramses II in the 19th Dynasty, who was

actually Seti I son. Neferteri is of course the person Evelyn once was, and

if you think about it, would be Ramses sister.