Chapter 10
The bus ride to Karnak was sheer torture. Yugi's suspicious gaze fell on each of his fellow tourists in turn. He felt as if any one of them might turn on him at any minute. Mai returned his look with a languid smile that reminded him uncomfortably of a cat sated on a surfeit of canary. Beside her, Bakura dozed, his head lolling against the window. Was it because of the alcohol he'd consumed on the boat, or was it all a ruse? With Ryou occupied chatting with the girls from New York, Yugi spent the entire trip conjuring up theories about who had searched his room and why.
Someone, maybe one of the people around him, didn't want him to find his grandpa.
Yugi's hands twitched on his lap. He curled his fingers into his palms, and resisted the urge to hug himself. He needed a hug. He wished his grandpa were there to give him one.
What had Sugoroku gotten himself into?
They got off the bus in an unlit parking lot. Across the way, colossal stone walls reared against the night sky. Strategically placed floodlights turned the stone to gold, seeming to glow with a mellow aura in the darkness. That was their destination. Karnak.
In addition to Yugi's group, other clusters of tourists converged on the entrance to the temple complex. Panic throbbed in his stomach at the number of people milling around. How could he find Yami in all this? What if Yami wasn't even here?
Pegasus joined them at the entrance, and he and Mana stepped forward to address the group. "The show will commence shortly," Pegasus said in his plumy, showman's voice. "It shall unfold as we progress to the open courtyard, through the Great Hypostyle Hall, and into the very heart of the temple complex until, finally, our journey concludes on the shore of the sacred lake."
"Please make sure you have your flashlights at all times," Mana piped up. "The way is uneven and, at times, poorly lighted."
Yugi curled his fingers around the flashlight in his jeans pocket, holding on to it as if it were a talisman to ward off his fears. No sooner had he grasped the flashlight than the floods went out, plunging everything into darkness. A single spotlight played across the surface of the high pylon gates. From unseen loudspeakers, symphonic music swelled.
A female voice spoke. "May the evening soothe and welcome you, oh travelers."
"You will travel no further, because you are come. Here, you are at the beginning of time." The second voice was male, intoning the words with sonorous import. "You now enter the place where, for two thousand years, only priests and pharaohs trod. Hear the whispered response of the ever-present god. Come, oh visitor, do not be overwhelmed by the immense size of this holy place. It was designed, not for men, but for gods."
Carried along with the crowd, Yugi soon found himself in the inner courtyard, a place of stone and shadows. A colossal statue of Ramses the Great loomed at his back. The disembodied voices of the presentation continued.
"All the magnificence of the pharaohs lies before you at Karnak. ' I am the Father of fathers. The Mother of mothers...'" The voices joined, speaking in unison. "I cause all to be, that men should have a path on which to tread. Come. Follow me."
They walked slowly through the gloom of the hypostyle hall, lit only by hidden spotlights, and made mysterious by the shadows of the giant columns. The voices told the story of the "Great Week of the Creation of the World, the separation of the Earth from the Waters." They heard the voice of the god Amun, and the voices of the pharaohs Seti and Ramses. Yugi felt as if he had been transported back through time, to an age when the temple awoke with the dawn to praise the god for creating the world anew.
The murmurs of the crowd brought him crashing back to the present as they entered the next courtyard. Where was Yami? Had he broken his promise? Yugi looked at the people nearest him. Mana darted about like a hummingbird herding cats as she tried to keep her charges from straying. The New Yorkers surrounded him, their faces glowing with excitement. Had one of them searched his cabin?
"Yugi!" The deep voice cut easily through the ambient noise. "Sorry I'm late."
Yugi had never been as happy to see anyone as he was to see Yami pushing his way through the crowd. His white shirt seemed to glow in the moonlight.
"Am I glad to see you!" Yugi resisted the urge to wrap himself around Yami. Sheer relief made him lightheaded. "Where the hell have you been?"
Yami caught Yugi's arm when he swayed. "What's going on? Did something happen?" He glared down at Yugi, who clutched at Yami's shirt with one hand while pushing him away with the other. "Stop that and let me help you, damn it!"
"Easy, my friend," came a steadying voice. Only then did Yugi realize that Lieutenant Bahur was there, too. "If something has happened, I am certain he will tell us."
Yugi nodded. "Something did happen, and we really have to talk. Now."
"Please, it's time for us to move on..." Mana scooted between them, forcing Yami to release Yugi as she defused the moment. "Here are the guides who will lead us the rest of the way on our tour."
A tall man with oddly light-colored eyes and a turban around his head took Yugi's arm and urged him into motion. Startled, Yami looked around as if just realizing they weren't alone. "Okay. Let's just get this over with so we can get out of here."
Yami didn't seem to think there was anything strange about the guide, so Yugi allowed himself to be led deeper into the complex. Other groups and guides jostled around them, in a kind of living Brownian motion. Mai and her sister-in-law, led by their own guide, stepped between Yugi and Yami. As quickly as it was created, the space filled with more people, separating them even further.
Yugi bounced on his toes, trying to spot Yami's auburn hair as his guide shepherded him onward. "Wait!" Yugi protested. "We have to wait for my friend--"
"There is no time," the guide said. He had a light accent that gave a lilt to his words. He herded Yugi around a column, then through a gap in the remains of a massive stone wall.
As Mana had warned them, the footing was uneven. Yugi stumbled as his foot caught on a stone. Righting himself, he looked around and realized how far they'd come from the others. There was no sign of Yami or the crowd of tourists enjoying the show. The ruins of the complex were dark and confusing. Every opening looked like a gaping maw. None of them looked like the way he should go.
When he glanced back, his guide had vanished. Yugi dashed to the nearest opening and peered through it, but everything looked the same in the dark and he couldn't tell if he'd come this way or not. It was the same with the next direction he tried, and the next. His usually excellent sense of direction had deserted him. Apprehension ran an icy claw along his nerves. He was alone. The lights, music, and voices seemed distant now, moving farther away from him with each passing moment. No matter which way he turned, he couldn't find the way to get to them. His heart thudded painfully in his chest as he spun in a circle, eyes searching the shadows.
"Yami!" There was no answer, not even the lonely whisper of the wind.
He wasn't certain how long he'd been wandering when he became aware of hostile eyes upon him. He whipped around, but saw nothing. Only the thick, encroaching shadows. He shivered, hugging his arms across his torso.
"Yami! Where are you?"
"Dr. Viridian! We'd love it if you would join our little group." Mai's blonde mane obscured his view of Yugi as the woman stepped between them.
Yami had to force himself to focus on her. "What?"
"I said we'd love for you to join us." Mai planted both hands on her curvaceous hips and pouted at him. "Weren't you paying attention?"
"Not really." Yami cut around her and hurried toward the last place he'd seen Yugi. Mahaad was right on his heels. "Where is he?"
"Is something the matter?" Despite her impractically high heels, Mai easily kept pace with the two men.
"Yugi's disappeared." Yami didn't spare her a second glance. "Come on, Mahaad. We've got to find him!"
Yami raced through the first courtyard, Mahaad beside him. They turned a corner and ran headlong into Mana. Furious with himself for letting this happen, Yami pinned her with a fierce look and demanded, "Have you seen Yugi?"
Mana's eyes were huge in her suddenly pale face. "Only with you."
Yami cursed. He took off in earnest, running on pure instinct. Something pulled at him and he obeyed. He shouted over his shoulder as he ran. "Check the sacred lake -- I'll try this way!"
A short way outside the temple walls, he heard a familiar voice shout his name. He froze. "Yugi?"
A faint response sent him racing through the open-air museum, dodging around concrete benches and broken blocks of stone from one of the reconstruction projects. He vaulted over a huge chunk of carved stone, and let the tug in his chest pull him onward.
Yugi stood beneath the entrance to the Temple of Ptah. Directly above his head, the billowing of a white jalabiya robe caught Yami's eye.
"Yugi!"
Yami bellowed the name, sprinting desperately across the open space. At the last moment, he launched himself into a tackle, plowing into Yugi's side as an enormous chunk of sandstone crashed down toward them.