Chapter Five: The things that lie within

"When I was a little girl I used to sneak into my parents' room and take out books to read. They had this marvelous bookshelves carved from the very walls of their bedroom and it was at ground level, the highest shelf rising only three feet above the floor, so it was all at arms reach for a little child like me. I saw and read things that I shouldn't have, of course, but I also learnt so much from… The world. I learnt ancient eastern wisdom from the I-Ching, and that appeased my rather fiery nature. From novels I learnt about bravery, healthy mischief, fantasy… even love, in al its expressions. Fraternal love, distant love, unconditional love… Soulmates. And I learnt a thing or two about cultures, specially their religions… Greek, Romans and Egyptians, there are no mystery to me. Teenagers and their fascination for sluttish blond singers who show more skin than talent are, on the other hand"

Bastet hid a chuckle upon hearing the human's latest remark, and shook her head. She had been extremely wary of the girl whose soul seemed cold, but she wasn't purely evil. And, given the fact that she hadn't spoken to an intelligent soul since the Pharaoh, who now lay forever asleep in the depths pf the Tomb had died, she was a rather refreshing novelty. But there was something odd, something inhuman about the mortal that she couldn't quite decipher. It was as if she was human, but at the same time she was something else. Something the avatar, who had been alive since little before The War a long time ago, had never seen before.

"You seem like a rather nice mortal… A dreamer, with enough intelligence and belief to not take things that are considered fantasy lightly, so… How the Hell did you end up here?" the cat asked as they wondered through the many dark, narrow passages of the pyramid that twisted and turned to their own free will, like some sort of living entity. The girl looked at the black-furred animal and shrugged.

"The book was mine, and still is. It has been ever since I was six years old, but I never gave into the temptation. I've always known that the book was, and still is, dangerous. I… I didn't say The Words. God, I wasn't even there when They were spoken, or I would have stopped that foolish mortal!"

Bastet stopped dead in her tracks, her golden eyes opened wide. The way the girl had said the last word, mortal, with that slight air of superiority that characterized those who don't perish as easily as humans, was exactly the way most immortal Fae said it. And that ticked her off.

"But how did you know the book was dangerous? How did you know that you weren't supposed to say The Words on the first place?" she carried on questioning, arching an eyebrow, though the gesture was lost in the blackness of her face. Augustine turned sharply to look at her and, for a moment, her eyes seemed to shine brighter than the roaring fire that graced the tip of the torch she was carrying. A moment later the eerie ice-blue light was gone, and when Bast saw the normal expression the girl was wearing, as if nothing had happened, she thought that maybe it had been the light of the flame reflecting in her clear eyes the cause of the glow, though she knew deep inside she was just kidding herself.

"That's none of your business, but I'll tell you. I've never told a soul about it, but being here just increments the need to do so and end the secrecy" she paused and absentmindedly ran a hand through her forehead, touching one spot and letting one of her fingertips describe an invisible figure along it and then reached out and removed a cobweb from their way "The voices told me… I hear them randomly. They don't come from inside me, but they speak to something inside me. Something I try to reach out for, but I don't want to catch. I know what it is, but at the same time I don't" she chuckled and then put a hand over her heart "One thing I know, though… It's me, it's a part of me, it is almost everything that I am"

The Avatar didn't reply, but seemed relieved. The girl had described the symptoms of a person, a simple human, with a sixth sense. Granted, it didn't usually manifest itself in the form of voices, and there was something else that didn't quite fit, but it was just a sixth sense, that was all. She was a gifted mortal, but a mortal nonetheless. She sighed in relief and, realizing she had stopped walking with Augustine, she joined her at the end of the passage. The corridor split in three from there and they looked all the same: dark, uninviting and dreadfully dangerous.

"Well, getting lost in the middle of an ancient Tomb was not included in the Dragon King's nice little pep talk back in my class, with all that mystery and trapping me against desks thingy" the red-haired mumbled to herself as she gazed at the corridors. Suddenly the air was chilly around her, but she didn't shiver. She had always liked the col. So refreshing, so teasing and deliciously familiar. The cold was a friend, not a foe.

'Some things stay, no matter how much they tried to conceal the truth' one of her all-too-familiar voices whispered in her left ear, at the same time as she felt a gust of wind mischievously brush past her at the same side.

She didn't turn to see if there was someone besides her, she knew she was alone with the exception of her 'I-don't-know-the-damned-way-out-of-here' so-called avatar that was supposedly trying to help her solve the sandy Labyrinth and was actually quite lost.

'The cold will not last for long. Is there anything you wish to ask us, little one? We sense your need for us' another voice, more fatherly-like and more serious than the other asked her gently.

'I do need you counseling, though in more ways than one, and I don't have the time. Which way shall I go? Right, middle or left?' Augustine asked silently, knowing that though she hadn't uttered a word, whoever was talking to her had gotten the message. She was getting very comfortable with the voices that she only could hear, and the things that laid locked inside her.

'That's too easy, you ought to know on your own, mistress…' the first voice answered and was joined by the second, who added: 'Search within, follow your instinct, and you shall do fine'

"Hey, Girl!!! Girl!!! You are starting to worry me! Answer, damn it!" Augustine heard in the distance and suddenly realized her eyes were closed, and that she had dropped the torch, which lay surprisingly (or magically), lit up still in the floor near her feet, but not near enough to burn her… No, the flame was never close enough to burn her, ever in her life. It seemed like an irony of destiny, a mockery that was useless, for she brushed it away. Nothing could hurt her.

She fluttered her eyes open and took a deep breath, realizing she had stopped breathing since the moment she had heard the first voice. She glanced around, not agitatedly but languidly and then her eyes came to rest upon the concerned and slightly puzzled face of her avatar and sighed, knowing full well what had happened.

"I spaced out for a minute, didn't I?" she asked, already knowing the answer, her voice calm and smooth, as if nothing rare had happened. When she saw the cat nod furiously she shrugged and replied that it 'happened from time to time' and that she shouldn't worry about it.

"It doesn't hurt" she assured the wide-eyed Blast before looking at the left passage and titling her head, a pensive look masking her features "Come on, let's go. I want to get out of here soon. The sent of death still lingers in the air, in spite of all the years that have passed since death came to claim a soul in this place"

Bast held back the numerous questions her mind came up with in that instant, and simply followed the mortal girl. For it was the Labyrinth of the Mind, after all, and stranger things had happened there before.

Without much ado both figures kept walking. The dangers they encountered were every bit the 'Indiana Jones' style Augustine had secretly expected, and she mused that having some kind of adoration for Harrison Ford turned into a dashing archeologist had finally paid off. One thing was for sure… she wasn't supposed to leave the tomb breathing and with her heart beating safe and sound in her chest, and the pyramid was doing everything possible to ensure that. But she knew of the danger before it happened, and it was the only flaw every trap had: if you know of it before it gets you, you can beat it. But sometimes she missed the warning, though she tried hard to concentrate, and that is how she got the new cut along her left palm.

"My hands ought to be doomed today" she muttered to herself as she looked warily at the chamber that was supposed to be the death chamber, where the once powerful ruler of the golden Kingdom of Egypt now lay in eternal rest. The minute she stepped into the spacious room the torches all over the walls lit up themselves, their flames of an eerie blue color that made the girl glance back and wish for a moment that she could retrace her steps and simply flee from that place. The reflex of the flames on the golden surface of all the treasures hoarded up in the Chamber hurt her eyes, and for a moment she closed them, using her hands to shield her face from the radiance of the gold, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, tigers eyes, quartz and other precious and semi-precious gemstones, that glittered and sparkled almost in harmony, as if dancing with their glow an unknown, perfectly practiced ballet. For a moment she stared at the golden plates, the statues of the so called The Ennead, a.k.a. The Nine Gods of Heliopolis, the nine great deities: Ra-Atum (a.k.a. Ra), Shu, Tefenet, Geb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, the evil Seth and his twin sister Nephthys, the various every-day utensils, the perfectly-woven rugs, carpets, dressed, the jewels and she felt as if she had been transported to the Ancient Egypt she had read from the pen and paper of Wilbur Smith.

"God, is so beautiful and so utterly disgusting at the same time…" she said aloud, her voice echoing in the empty and dark corridors of the pyramid "All this work, all this years of carrying stone in the merciless heat of the sun and the cruel tiredness of the night, all the carving, hammering, melting and molding, all the artists working their souls off, for the damned thing to be abandoned in the middle of nowhere, and with a curse powerful enough to keep everyone that sees the pyramid away from this! How selfish is that…?"

"It's not selfish" Bastet argued, having heard her "They did all this with pleasure. They loved their Pharaoh and wanted him to have all he could ever want in the afterworld. But he was cursed, by a man who envied his popularity… His very own brother. The Pharaoh loved him, and wanted him to be happy, but he had other intentions. The throne was his goal, and he obtained it through… Regicide, fratricide, call it whatever you want. There were dark forces involved in this, magic. That is why the pyramid was brought here. It was a battle between Fae, the ones who supported the Pharaoh and the ones who wanted the brother in the Throne. The Pharaoh, who was barely a child, was very fond of his magical friends, who were noblemen and noblewomen of a respectful Fae family, subjects of King Gareth himself. They gave him, on his twelfth birthday, a pet even, a magical one, to show their affection towards the intelligent and generous human that had captured their attention. But his bastard brother, of twenty years old who hadn't been recognized as the heir to the throne because of his condition as a 'child of love', and a group of Fae Lord who rivaled with the ones helping the Pharaoh decided to kill the boy, and use his brother to do so. They failed many times, but the kid finally was cursed, and the curse is still in force.

The Avatar paused because her voice was suddenly faltering. She remembered the kind, raven-haired, black-eyed kid that was once a great Pharaoh. He used to love to talk to her, and took great care of her, brushing her black fur and talking for her for hours and hours…

"How did his grave end up here, of all places?" Augustine asked quietly, sensing rather than seeing the sorrow that weighted heavily on the cat's soul. She knew that feeling all too well. The feeling of loss was always with her… Loss for people she didn't remember, loss for beings that had meant the world to her, that had loved her, but that she couldn't picture in her mind's inner eye. It was as if once they had been many… and now she was the only one left. She was…

The Lonely…That was her title, it was the answer to all her questions… But she was getting carried away yet again.

"The Fae lords who loved the little Pharaoh stood with him, during the curse. They brought his so called grave to their home, and they stayed with him, using their magic to keep him safe from the black magic that had been cast upon him. He was fine, he lived… or rather he existed, if not leaving at least undead. But then… The War happened… They went away… Under the power of iron they perished, fighting for what they believed" Blast paused, a faraway look settled in her feline features "The curse couldn't be fought with magic anymore, and took him, and the pyramid… And me. Out of pity, because no one else wanted it, King Gareth placed the Tomb here, in the Labyrinth, were it would be forever guarded, and would also serve a purpose. I've been here ever since. No visits, because only danger lies and lives in the Labyrinth of the mind… His Majesty still comes sometimes, though… But he is very busy, and most of times he talks telepathically. I guess that's why is nice to talk to someone you can look at the face, and that's why I'm so talkative and…"

The cat paused when she realize she was babbling, and promptly shut her mouth, seemingly embarrassed. But Augustine's curiosity had been awakened, and she had some questions to ask. They all seemed terribly painful to ask, so she settled for the one who sounded most neutral.

"Whatever happened to the ones who cursed the Pharaoh?

"They were killed in the War too… Murdered personally by…" Bast started saying with a smug smile when she was interrupted.

"King Gareth himself, because of Treason, betrayal to him and cold blooded murder" Augustine muttered, nodding absentmindedly "Of course, he asked for them not to be executed by anyone except him. Nobody questioned him, they never do…" she paused; her brow furrowing and her eyes pensive "It's all coming back…" she looked up and around the room, her eyes wide "This place… This world... Is making me wake up"

The Avatar's jaw dropped to the floor and she wondered if the girl was ever going to cease to surprise her. All she had said was true… King Gareth himself had murdered the traitorous Fae Nobles, with his very own sword with an iron tip. So much she knew, he had confessed it to her. The weight of murder didn't bother him apparently… His burden was one a thousand times more terrible.

"There is nothing here, and we mustn't linger here more than necessary. It is disrespectful somehow" she paused and frowned "Don't you think?"

"I know what you mean" the avatar replied, her whiskers moving when she frowned "Let's get the Hell out of here"

The two figures moved out of the death chamber but, as she set a foot out of that place, Augustine felt something unsettling and slithering past near her. And suddenly the feeling was everywhere, surrounding her, trapping her, choking the life out of her… Constricting her very soul.

"I don't feel very well…" she muttered suddenly, leaning against a golden wall of the hallway for support "Actually… the world is kind of spinning around me…"

She tripped and fell to the ground, her breathing erratic. Bastet immediately ran towards her and began to fuzz over her, all the way asking if she was okay every two seconds. The girl felt better after a couple of seconds, and eventually her legs stopped trembling and she was able to stand up again. She looked back at the chamber she had just left and could have sworn that she had felt as if evilness had flown from there.

'That's what I get for helping the Drama Club so often… I'm starting to sound like a true Drama Queen' she chided herself, but she felt herself unable to look back at the chamber, and very eager to leave the dreadful monument to death once and for all.

"The exit is right at the end of this tunnel, of that I am sure" the avatar suddenly piped in, happily to finally be of any assistant. Well, you know the saying… Better late that never.

"Great, you finally know your way around this damn maze and it's when we are about to leave it" Augustine mumbled more to herself than to her companion, but her voice had a teasing tone that indicated she was merely joking. Then her voice grew dark and almost omniscient as she eyed the room in which the hall they had been walking in ended.

"It isn't supposed to be this easy" she said aloud, look around her. The torched had lit up as they walked by and then, when they passed them their fire had extinguished as if by some kind of spell… Of course, that was literally the case. But such an amount of magic that had been following them around without doing much save for lighting and putting out torches and sending random breezes of saffron-and-carbon-smelling air was kind of unsettling.

"I know what you mean… And I think you are right… And, by the way, it's unusually hot in here, don't you think?" Bastet suddenly realized, frowning her pretty feline face. Augustine nodded and sniffed the air gingerly.

"It smells funny too" she whispered "Like if we were surrounded by a volcano or something. It smells like cinders, and the air is really stuffy"

She fanned her suddenly flushed face with her hands and took a breath full of steamy air, trying not to gag. It smelled and tasted horrible. Rancid was a good way to describe it, putrid being the second best. She frowned delicately and covered her nose with her two hands. The smell was slowly turning from tolerable to unbearable and she caught, feeling nauseous.

"It's like someone was breathing over my shoulder" Augustine muttered with a voice muffled by her hands. And suddenly she noticed that Blast was staring wide-eyed at her… Or rather at something behind her… Unsure of what to do she turned around, in slow motion as if she was in a movie and her eyes met the huge gaze of a pair of emerald-green eyes settled on a golden-scaled face.

"Of course, trust fairytale-like adventures to have the most known and abominable clichés" Augustine muttered darkly "Of course there had to be some horrible monster behind me"

The dragon was huge, so huge that he seemed to be a little crammed in the large room they were in. His eyes were a blazing green, the color of unmarred jade and his large wings where folded over. His scales were a sandy gold color, the same color of the blokes that formed the pyramid and he didn't seem to be in a very good mood. Not at all…

With a furious and reverberating roar the creature lounged at the defenseless mortal with spite shinning in his almost hypnotic eyes. Augustine sidestepped to try and avoid the weight of his paw, but it caught her, throwing her to the floor. And trapping her against it. She squealed, twisted and turned, but it was with no avail. She was totally, neatly and simply trapped.

And yet, though there was rage dancing like scorching flames in his eyes, there was also deep sadness in the beast's face.


"She is going to get freakin' eaten!"

"Thank you so much for pointing that out, Dean!" muttered Justine darkly, her eyes shooting daggers at the N'Sync-look-alike teenager, who was staring at the large bubble with wide eyes and a mixture of fear and morbid curiosity and anticipation. The auburn-haired girl frowned, thinking that most of her fellow classmates were taking the things they saw in the bubble as things in a movie: impressive, yes, frightening, of course but also… unreal. As if they weren't happening to someone of flesh and blood… A fellow classmate, for Goodness's sake!

'Is as if this place is having some strange effects on us… It's making us fell everything is a fantasy, a fairytale' she thought suddenly, looking at her friend with the help of the orb. She was in a precarious position, but her eyes barely held any fear at all. There was, though, curiosity and sympathy mixing inside the luminous icy depths.

"She sees something we don't" she finally understood. She always did, and Justine had the certainty that she would always do. Her very presence, though most of the time quiet and calm, spoke of the power of knowledge, the force that lay trickily calm and folded up inside the dainty body of the apparently weak and unimportant Augustine.

"Whatever it has that makes her what she is, is growing, or at least showing itself more and more as time flies by" she muttered to herself, not really conscious of the fact that someone was listening to her self-uttered ramblings. She turned then her eyes to the King that lay sprawled in his oak, throne-like chair, the lazy posture contrasting with the look of utter concentration that washed over his features as he regarded some papers and muttered things to himself.

"Why are you doing this to us?" she snapped all of a sudden, her nearly black eyes blazing with some kind of anger mixed with indignation and a little bit of fear. The King, who had been listening to that particular mortal's thoughts glanced at her and smiled, arching an eyebrow.

"Doing what to you, mortal? You have to be more specific"

His voice was close to taunting, but he was far too serious to taunt… Well, taunt Justine, at least. But whenever he was near the Labyrinthine traveler he felt the urge to mock her just for the fun of it. His thoughts wondered away then and he promptly brought himself back to reality and tried to deny to himself that he had been daydreaming.

"You took our sense of reality away! It is as if we felt that nothing that's happening is real! Stop doing it!" the girl shrieked "I don't want to feel nothing!"

Just as those words were screamed a wince of pain spread across the room. All the magical creatures assembled there shook their heads, muttering under their breath: 'Foolish mortal' over and over again like some sick mantra. Even Raphael let out a long, weary sigh and tsked.

"Humans are always so careless with their words" he lamented aloud, waving his tail instead of shaking his head. Gareth immediately fixed his cool and heated gaze on the girl and smiled a tad, almost as if he found the words she had so foolishly uttered amusing a little bit.

"You really wish that, mortal?" he asked, not really waiting for an answer. With a graceful wave of his hands a translucent grey crystal appeared floating just above his palm "Your wish is my command, then" Before anyone could even blink the crystal flew nimbly from His Majesty's hand towards Justine's chest and passed right through her flesh into her heart. For a moment the girl stood there, dumbfounded, looking at herself and expecting to have horns and a tail all of a sudden, but nothing happened. Then, as something inside her started beating near her own pounding heart she felt pain as she had never felt before. Ripping, numbing pain in certain parts of her body. One of her ankles, parts of her arms, the back of her head…

Every single place where Augustine had injuries

"What did you do to me?" she demanded to know as she rubbed her arms with her hands because something else was emanating from the second beat apart from pain… A slight, barely noticeable coolness.

"You told me you wanted to feel, so I made you feel… Everything you little friend there is feeling. Every cut, every bruise, every hardship will reflect itself in you. That crystal I tossed to you became a mirror of the beating heart of that mortal" the Dragon King replied lightly, turning his eyes towards the papers he had been reading "Enjoy your wish"

After that last statement one of his cynical, cold and almost lifeless laughs reverberated in the room. And, after that, there was silence.


Meanwhile in the pyramid the little 'dragon-appearing-out-of-nowhere' thingy wasn't going all that well. The beast had a horribly high level of strength and seemed to be driven by raw, unmarred hatred that kept him going… In other simpler and a lot worse-sounding words, he had gone totally berserk and he wasn't about to stop before killing someone…

}

Someone meaning Augustine, as it appeared. She was currently trapped, staring at the fiery eyes of her soon-to-be executor, and trying to figure out what it was that she saw there. It was something, obscured by the amber of his irises, hidden by the depth of his rage. But there was another thing reflected there, quite literally. A message, written above the exit doors, in ancient hieroglyphics. Another riddle perhaps? The secret of eternal joy in the Afterland, maybe, for it was were she was heading right now by the looks of the situation.

"Hate to be such a pain in the rear, Bast, but would you mind translating the message above the exit door before I get eaten? I wouldn't be able to appreciate it with my head bitten off, you see" she yelled sarcastically, twisting and twitching to escape the iron grip of her monumental captor. The avatar actually had the nerve to look offended for a moment before her feline eyes settled on the carved, ancient words. "Mourn or be mourned, bury or be buried. Give and you shall take" she translated with easiness, but the meaning was lost for her, and she showed that puzzlement on her frowning face "It doesn't make any sense. Is not a riddle, for there is no word to guess from that. It seems like…"

"The way to get out of here?" the red-head exclaimed, squirming out of her claw prison and crawling toward the black cat "That would be very useful, except for the fact that there is a gigantic lizard in between that door and me"

By that time the amount of sarcasm in her voice was so heavy it almost seemed to weight physically in the air. The girl was keeping her wits unusually about for a mortal who was fighting for her life against a colossal, medieval and not to mention magical beast that was supposed to exist in fairytale stories.

Then again, that was a fairytale story. And she was a fairytale kind of gal.

"Why won't you tell me what you've wanted to say all along?!" she shouted finally, evading the dragon's swishing tail that seemed to want to crush her. It didn't help that the tail, instead of ending in the traditional triangle-shaped tip it ended in a bunch of pointy spikes "Why can't you just tell me?! I'll understand, I know I will!"

That sudden angry outburst seemed to paralyze the animal from head to toe. He looked, really looked at Augustine for the first time, its head cocked to a side, as if he found her unusual in some way. And that flickering light that had been forever dimming in his eyes since the moment he had appeared in the chamber relighted almost magically, giving his eyes and hypnotizing quality as they burned like emeralds on fire.

"I…" Augustine tiredly repeated, somewhat puzzled herself "I'll understand. I don't know how, but I will… I think I sort of do now, but I must be sure. Give me some time"

Her voice was soft but she wasn't amazed that the dragon had heard it. She had read in some book that they had a very keen ear and a quality to understand creatures with whom they felt some sort of affinity or kinship. And yes, there was something of that flowing between them. It was an ancient thing, something that seemed to connect her to almost everything in that Labyrinth, and dragons specially. She knew that because she was feeling it now… She had felt it with their King.

'Better not to go there, it's dangerous territory' her mind warned her and she agreed wholeheartedly. The Dragon King was definitely dangerous territory.

"But back to the task at hand…" she muttered as she was trying to decipher what she felt but couldn't quite understand or put in words. She looked deeply into the dragon's twin jade pools that were his eyes and saw… Herself, as a child, crushed by something. And she remembered.

"Mourn or be mourned…" she whispered, looking at the funeral Chamber with sudden understanding "Bury or be buried… They didn't… He didn't… They just let him… As a curse… Oh, my" she gasped, realization hitting hard "they just let him wonder, dead-alive for God knows how long"

With those words the girl started running as if the Devil himself was on her heels. Actually the ones 'on her heels' so to speak were the Dragon and Bast, who was meowing every single insult she knew because that 'damned little mortal girl' wouldn't tell her what she was up to. But when the Avatar reached the girl's destination what saw puzzled her. Augustine was kneeling in front of the sarcophagus, with her eyes tightly shut and her head slightly bet in signal of respect, her hands palm against palm and raised to her chest till they almost touched her lips. She was muttering something and holding some kind of necklace made of black pearls arranged in little groups and that finished with a set of three pearls and a black cross. It was beautiful, and she looked so serene there, barely moving, her voice rhythmically whispering something with a certain feeling that could only be born from the deepest of fates...

It took the cat goddess little time to realize that the mortal was muttering something in Latin, which confused her even more. As she went on and on whispering she ran her fingers through the strange necklace, as if counting something. She was like that for apparently fifteen minutes, not caring as the thirteen-hour-clock chimed the time away, and only stood up after having said "Amen" aloud. She winced slightly when she caught sight of her sore knees, but she didn't complaint, just stared at the sarcophagus. Carefully and slowly she approached it and lightly touched it, her hands seeming to caress the painted face with the large, black eyes and the golden paint with fondness.

"I didn't know you when you were alive but… It doesn't take that to realize just how good a little boy you were, because the love your pet feels for you speaks for itself. What they did to you…" she paused and then took a deep breath to continue "was monstrous and heartless. And I'm sorry. I want to set you free, I prayed to do so and, though it wasn't in the Egyptian way I buried you in my own, me being a catholic. And now I am mourning for you, so please" she looked upwards, to whoever was listening "Go… Just go…"

Suddenly the ground started shaking beneath them and for a moment Augustine grasped the sarcophagus for support. She felt that weight, that heavy curtain of dark magic that had been drawn over the whole pyramid lift from it and then everything went still again. She spun around to face the sand dragon, her eyes searching his.

"Is he gone?" she asked breathlessly "Is he free?"

The creature nodded, a happy smile (or at least what Augustine thought to be a happy smile) grazing his muzzle. The girl let out a mouthful of air she hadn't realize she had been holding and smiled in relief.

"For a moment there I thought it wasn't going to work because I prayed in Latin instead of doing some ancient, incense-involving, ritualistic Egyptian thing, but I can practically feel all that heavy feeling of near doom lifting away"

At that point of the conversation Bast had enough of not knowing what the hell had happened and she made it very clear to everyone present (meaning she shout her lungs out) and she was promptly filled in by the huge creature through telepathy.

*As you well know, there was a curse hanging over this pyramid. The curse's deepest secret was that, once cursed and dead, the pharaoh couldn't rest in peace, but would remain dead-alive till a charitable soul appeared, prayed for him, begged for him, buried him and mourned him. Till then I swore to never let go of those people who dared enter this place and not show that kindness to my master*

His mind's voice, that echoed eerily inside the girl and the avatar, was filled with hatred and sadness that felt almost like a stab to one's spirit. Sometimes that happened with telepathy, the feeling expressed through it could touch a creature's soul.

But Augustine shook her head, this time her being the one puzzled. "I wasn't charitable. I only did what I had to in order to get out of the Pyramid. How's that charitable?"

If Augustine had one gift, one thing to be proud of, was her honesty and most of the time it had gotten her only in trouble, but she couldn't help but blurt out the question, which didn't seem as farfetched as she had thought. This time Bast was the one to enlighten the rest (and was quite proud of doing so) when she answered:

"You were praying a rosary back there, weren't you. That takes and awful amount of time, for I know that a rosary consists on fifty 'Ave Marias', ten 'Our Father' and then three 'Ave Marias' and then some other prayer that I can't recall. That's an awful amount of prayers, and it wasn't necessary, but you did it because you wanted it. You wasted precious time out of sheer generosity, because you really wanted everything to work, because you wanted to set the boy's soul free. The pyramid itself was designed not only to measure intelligence, but charity as well. That is because there is no use in being intelligent without generosity or kindness of spirit. Intellect is nothing without those qualities, and if you hadn't had them you would have failed the Labyrinth, with or without this test. Congratulations, you are off the Hook for now"

"I wasn't being kind" the girl suddenly snapped, her voice like whip "I was being sympathetic. When I was a little girl, someone very dear to me died. And… before I was born, I lost a whole family"

She stopped them, the reality of what she had said hitting her. Why? Why she kept on saying things so cryptic that even she wasn't able to decipher them. Though she knew, she really knew, that they made sense, that they were truth and that she knew why, but couldn't bring herself to admit it. What was she hiding? She knew, and at the same time she didn't and that tearing-apart was killing her.

The Underground was killing her.

"Just forget it" she muttered under her breath, seeing Bast was about to shower her with questions yet again "Let's get out of her. Let's get out of this damned place before it's too late"

Without much ado the trio crossed the exit and stood under the clear, midnight sky. Fresh air was like a blessing after hours confined in such a little place with all the stuffy air and Augustine took a deep breath before turning towards her newfound friends.

"I guess I am on my own from here, right?" she whispered almost sadly "Thank you very much for everything. And Bast, treat Sandy very well, okay? He is such a nice little thing"

Sandy was, of course the pharaoh's dragon and he actually had a pretty complicated Egyptian name, so they had re-baptized him on the spot, so to speak. The Avatar snorted upon hearing the word little referred to the colossal monster that, minutes ago, had nothing else in his mind but to slaughter them.

"I'll take good care of that living-bonfire for you" she grudgingly muttered sighing "You just go and do what you must, whatever that is"

The girl looked at the black Egyptian cat and frowned, puzzled by the meaning of those last words. Bast just shook her head and attempted to dismiss the subject by moving a paw in the air.

"I'm an avatar, I know about things. What one must do may not be very velar the moment we ought to do it, that I can tell you. Now off with you! Time's running and you don't have much of it"

Without looking back, because doing so had proved to be a mistake in the Labyrinth the girl run off into the woods that stood in front of her, the deep silver-blue and almost black foliage looming over her menacingly. It was not an inviting sight at all, but she didn't expect less of the Labyrinth.

"I can breathe the wisdom that surrounds this forest…" she whispered to herself, closing her eyes "A pity that it's all going to be used against me"

With hesitation she gazed towards the path that twisted and turned inside the depths of the forest. She took a nervous step back and took a deep breath, not sure that she had the guts to confront such knowledge.

'That's nonsense, dear. If our race ever had a strong point, that was our wisdom. That is why you were created for, after all' a voice muttered into her ear and she felt the wind around her push her into the dark woods. Feeling her heart drum in her ears she turned back, unaware that her eyes had flashed with an ice-blue, blinding light.

"The things that lie within are getting out of control" she said aloud, shaking her head "This is not going to end up well, no matter what the outcome might be"




Author's note: Well, well, I've returned (sound of drums, please) and I am SO sorry, really. I've been undergoing major changes in my life. I changed to a bilingual school and, though speaking or writing English has never been a problem of mine, it's hard to cope with everything. Besides the academic level of this school is way higher than what I'm used to (this school talked the IB exam of Cambridge and for the ones who know what I am talking about you can tell how hard it can be! Writing essays is killing me!

Besides I'm at that school from eight to four-thirty in the afternoon and, as it is really far away from my house I get home at six o'clock so I have less time to write and all. I know it's inexcusable my tardiness all the same, but at least I have an excuse, right?

For the ones who have stopped hating me, thank you very much and for the other a new chapter of The Night of the Blue Moon is coming (I swear) with a rather nice little twist (insert mad laughter here please). Well, gotta blaze here, guys. See you around (I promise).

You most sorry author (for the ones who give a damn),

Sabi