Chapter 3: Sleepwalker

The origin of sleepers and sleepwalkers is the same: they were all people who messed around with magic in one form or another. Trapped there by sorcerers, losing track of their own lives and walking too far into the shadows until they lost the world entirely, troublesome spirits sealed into a harmless sleep, harmless people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time…Walkers like me, sent into the shadows by a wicked one just to strengthen his own ties to the darkness. Most Walkers end up as sleepers eventually. They weary of walking, lie down to rest and probably spend the rest of eternity dreaming of loved ones in the world they left behind. Others never lie down, just keep going until they start dreaming on their feet and believe they have finally walked home. I suppose it's unusual for a Walker to inhabit the spirit world as long as I have and still be awake, seeing. Then again, I always was eccentric, even in life. I guess my soul never had strong ties to the real world to begin with, and that sorcerer only hastened the inevitable.

But that is not the story I am trying to tell now. You don't care about me, you want to know about the Pharaoh; the crowned one who endured his captivity with a kind of fiery defiance I had never seen before in any sleeper.  

There is no time in the shadow realm, so it was impossible to know how long it had been since I had seen him. It felt like a long time, for what that is worth. Either way, I could scarcely believe it.

I knew it had to be him; no other bears a crown like that on his brow. But my blood ran cold when I saw his state. Asleep he was still, but then why where his eyes open? Why did he walk, hands reaching before him to seize the passing shadows and shape them, only to have them vanish?

He was sleepwalking. I immediately backed up to give him space, for as I have said, few things are more dangerous then a sleepwalker, for a sleepwalker is not responsible for their actions. If they perceive anything, it is only a dream…

My head filled with a million questions. Why? What had induced him to move, even in the depths of sleep? What was he looking for?

Looking at those wide, searing, vacant eyes glaring their challenge at nothing, I had a premonition that it was something incredible…

Alex, Sarah, and the Professor just stared. There didn't seem to be anything else to do.

The winds had cleared away the rest of the sand from around the small pillar. All told, it stood about six feet high. The winds had also cleared the sand from the tile-like stones surrounding said pillar, and in the background: what looked like a sealed doorway, set into the hill itself. From it's dusty, worn stone center stared the eye symbol.

The three approached in silent wonderment. They had to slide down the dusty slope to reach the level where the door and pillar stood, which they did almost without taking their eyes off the door. The area to the side was flat, marking the way that the winds had come and gone.

"Mon dieu…" said the professor.

"You said it," echoed Alex

There was a pause in which the wind swirled some of the sand at their feet, lifting it up and away.

"So…" said Sarah, "what do we do now?"

In response, Professor Champollion approached the pillar. It wasn't much taller then him. He put one hand on the top and could feel the raised eye.

"It is difficult to say from what we can see here, but I do believe that there were once many of these." He mused. He looked at the door, staring at him from hillside.

"This place must have been covered in those sands for thousands of years," exclaimed Sarah.

"And the winds just come and blow it all away?" said Alex.

"I'm no meteorologist," said the professor, "but I suppose we must have sufficiently weakened the sand's hold on the hill that the wind could finish the job."

None of them believed it. All of them were more then a little creeped out. Still, Professor Champollion had waited his whole life for this day, and he wasn't about to let this strange miracle go to waste.

He slowly walked towards the door, the unblinking eye staring out at him from the door's façade. A single crack divided the door perfectly in half. The professor reached out to touch it…and pulled his hand back as if something had burned him.

He stared at the door with wide eyes. "I cannot believe this…"

Something strange happened to Sarah. She stepped forward. She heard her voice say, "Please let me try," and then she reached out to touch the very inside of the doughnut shape, and turned her hand like a key…

There was a deep rumbling. Sarah came to her senses and jumped back in fright. Alex caught her and the two clung to one another while the professor stared at the door with wide eyes.

Slowly, slowly, the eye separated along the crack and rotated inwards, moving on some earthquake mechanism that had lain idle for millennia. Soon all three were left staring at the huge, yawning darkness before them.

Sarah realized that Alex was holding her in a death grip. She gave him the evil glare of doom. "Hands off!"

Alex was too busy staring at the opening and blithering to notice her complaint. She clenched her fist and would have popped him one if he hadn't come to his senses and released her with a hurried apology and hands in the air.

"Sarah…" said the Professor, totally missing this amusing little incident because of his inability to peel his eyes off the yawning mouth before him. "How did you know how to open the door?"

Sarah sobered immediately. "I…don't know. I just knew what to do, somehow…"

"Sarah," said Alex, also staring at the opening, "Am I crazy or does it sort of feel like we've been here before?"

Sarah was about to make an indignant reply when something in her gut told her he had a point. "It does feel sort of familiar…"

"My children…" said the Professor, staring at them with wide eyes. Alex with his lean fighter's build, blond widow's peak and warm brown eyes, Sarah with her russet-red hair pulled back in a ponytail, lean dancer's form and sea-green eyes…The way they both came to the museum every day, and although he could give no formal classes, reading every word of anything he gave them, hanging on his every lesson, not to mention being a beloved source of companionship and laughter…And now this…

It is said that those who truly excel in a scientific field are those with a kind of obsession with their work. This was true in Champollion's case, and his mind zipped over all sorts of crazy reasons why his assistant had known how to work this ancient mechanism.

They were both staring at him by now.

Champollion pulled himself together. He gave them instructions to run back to camp and prepare some torches. Again, they were loath to leave him. He said don't worry, just hurry back, and they both took off.

In about ten minutes, they were back with three gas torches and a bunch of candles. These they distributed among themselves, gave each other one last encouraging look, and ventured into the beckoning darkness.

(End Chapter 3)