Chapter Fifteen
Ahkmenrah dug his fingers into the eye sockets of his latest foe and tore the skull right off the skeleton's neck. He flung the skull into the dirt and glanced at his brother, wielding two femurs like swords against a particularly violent foe. Ahkmenrah took two of the skeleton's ribs and used them to decapitate the individual. Kahmunrah nodded his thanks and then said, "Behind you." Ahkmenrah turned, swinging the ribs and swiftly removing this creature's head.
"Go for the head," Ahkmenrah replied. "That seems like the only way to stop these bastards."
"Only problem is there's too many of them." Ahkmenrah nodded. Kahmunrah threw the bones into the dust and stepped back, taking his brother with him, but the creatures stopped suddenly, as if frozen by the tablet. "That's weird."
"They shouldn't even be up and walking anyway. They're not even supposed to exist." The earth beneath their feet shook, and amazingly the skeletons held together. Ahkmenrah turned and pressed his back against that of his brother, his eye tracing the numerous fissures forming in the desert all around them. "Are you seeing this?" he asked.
"Every part of it," Kahmunrah replied.
"Please tell me you have at least some idea of why the earth is falling away beneath us."
Kahmunrah opened his mouth to say that he had none, but then he remembered something Ahkmenrah had taken quite seriously when he had spoken it. "Brother," he said, "this is a nightmare come to life."
Water sprouted from the fissures, and Ahkmenrah chewed his lip, partly wondering where all this was coming from. Then it hit him. This wasn't supposed to make sense. Just the opposite, in fact. "Kahmunrah, run." Kahmunrah turned and ran, pulling his brother along behind him.
The ground continued to shake, fracture, and flood. As if snapped out of a trance, the skeleton army roared to life and chased after them. Then, over all of the cacophony, as the desert caved away beneath their feet and the water crashed against itself as it rose to the surface, came an unearthly, deafening cry that made the blood of both Egyptians run cold.
NATM
A guard at the western gate of the enclave scanned the surrounding underworld, and then his eyes widened. Water rushed toward the enclave, and in its midst was a shape he never hoped to see. So rapt was his attention, in fact, that he almost didn't notice the two men in front of the rushing tide, and when he did, he told them, "Get in." He didn't once take his eyes off the snake in the water.
One of the men pulled him through the gate and bolted it against the water. He looked at the wall, where the water stopped completely. "Stay here," one of the visitors said to him, and he and his companion stepped back, eyes skyward.
"Now what?" the companion asked.
NATM
Ahkmenrah's eyes drifted across the wall, where the waves crashed but couldn't seem for the life of them to make any forward progress. A snake head floated over the water, and Ahkmenrah tried to make sense of the chaos floating through his mind. You are an immortal bringer of chaos, destruction, death, and disaster, and you have just been pulled from your nightly fight with the Sun God, he thought. Do you a, find your way into the upper world to end it, b, erase the existence of as many people as possible, or c, both? Best and most destructive, world-ending answer: C. "Wait for him to move," he said to his brother in English. "Then we'll follow him."
"Are you sure about this?" Kahmunrah asked.
"No, but I don't have a better idea." Kahmunrah shrugged. Ahkmenrah continued to watch the snake while careful to avoid eye contact with it. It slithered out of the water and lowered its head over the wall, drifting toward the brothers. Ahkmenrah started to focus on one of the scales on its snout. Be strong, he told himself. Be strong and have faith.
The snake exhaled. Ahkmenrah closed his eyes against the gust and waited in uncertainty for several long moments before daring to open his eyes and once more restrict his focus to one of the snake's scales. The snake shifted its head and then opened its great maw, and Ahkmenrah could have sworn he saw the end of the universe.
Kahmunrah pushed his brother aside and settled into a solid fighting stance. Ahkmenrah looked at him and then at the snake's fangs, glistening in the light. His unarmed brother was very likely dead unless he did something about it. He pulled Kahmunrah toward him, inadvertently goring him on one of the snake's bottom fangs. "Brother, I'm so sorry," he said. "I tried to save you."
Kahmunrah worked himself off of the fang of the snake and offered his brother a weak smile, and then he rolled onto the dirt, his arm wrapped around his torso. Ahkmenrah leaned over him, protectively. The snake, deeming him as good as dead, flew off. Ahkmenrah helped his brother to his feet, and they staggered off after the snake.
NATM
Brunden slept on one of the benches in the expansive room containing the Gate of Kahmunrah, thankfully sans tablet, and Larry impulsively made rounds about the place. He stopped one of these episodes to catch his breath and take in the emptiness around him. He had yet to see a single birdman since Kahmunrah worked his magic with the tablet, but then, he didn't see the gate at that moment, either, so it could be as simple as the gate opening and the birdmen walking back into the underworld. At least something would be back to normal.
McPhee staggered through the door and leaned against it, breathing heavily and donning a deer-in-headlights look. "What're you doing here?" Larry asked.
"Is it over?" McPhee replied. "Is this whole nightmare over?"
"Almost, and I promise, it's not usually this bad."
"It had better not be, or you will never work in my museum again."
"How will you honestly find someone else qualified enough to handle the tablet without wanting to steal it?" McPhee paused. "Take it you don't want another Cecil around, either." The director nodded. "That's kinda what I figured."
"So you're saying I'm stuck with you?"
"Not really. You can always hire Brunden. He's in on the secret, too, though he's probably wishing he wasn't, considering."
"Is it true this is almost over?"
"I'm pretty sure. Of course, I'm not following things in the underworld-"
"Underworld?"
"I don't know how much you found out, but we'll explain everything when we get back to New York."
"Not here?"
"There's something I think you need to see. In your own museum."
McPhee nodded. "There's something we need to take with us."
Larry helped McPhee with Ahkmenrah's sarcophagus, which they eventually found in storage, and then Larry woke Brunden and told him to keep in touch and keep his eyes on the gate, and to especially let him know if anything they didn't want to happen happened. Then McPhee and Larry loaded up the van and set off for New York.