"Go ahead and picket the camels for now. Let's just see if it's worth making camp." Evy swung off the back of her camel, Aamir following suit with two of his men. The looming mound of sand slowly sloped up into the side of the cliffs. Whether there was anything to be found underneath remained to be seen as the camels lowed, bobbing their heads up and down. Ardeth's golden eyes gazed over the cliffs and sand, his lips drawn into a tight line.
Rick's camel ambled over to Ardeth's horse. "Nothing is supposed to be here, right?" Rick asked, looking down from his higher seat.
Ardeth nodded. "I continue going over the history of sacred and historical sites in my head, but I can never recall mention of anything here." The men watched as Evy, Aamir, and the diggers began scaling the hump of sand, watching their feet create shifting holes as they climbed. "There should not be anything here."
Once Evy and the diggers had pulled themselves to the top of the sand mound, Evy walked to the precipice of grit facing the camels. Slowly, she nudged at the sand's edge with her boot, causing it to collapse towards her and cascade down the side. She continued to do so until the collapsing sand revealed a stone slab. "Brush, Aamir!" The chief digger pulled a large fine-bristled brush from the pack he carried, handing it to Evy. She knelt down, sweeping sand from the stone frantically as Aamir fell to beside her, pushing the sand off with his hands. Grains of dust were brushed away to reveal sandstone with the effigies of owls carved into it. Evy grinned to herself and looked to those still astride camels. "Make camp. I think this is it!"
"So much for nothing being here." Rick commented to Ardeth, dismounting.
"I don't understand." Aamir told Evy, peering at the carvings in the stone. "Owls?"
"The Roman goddess Minerva had an owl. It was a symbol tied to her wisdom." Evy replied. "The artifact we're looking for was rebranded as Roman but it's truly Egyptian." Her eyes were sparkling with excitement as she tenderly brushed off any remaining grains of sand. "I'll stay up here, see if I can uncover the edges of whatever this is. Go ahead and start unpacking without me."
The tents were pitched with relative ease and the equipment for the dig was unloaded and some of it assembled. Evy and her brush did not make much progress until the diggers scaled the mound of sand with push brooms. Ardeth advised Kit and Katrina to wear lengths of cloth around their mouths to avoid inhaling the dust as they set to the task of carting buckets full of brushed sand to the shaker.
"Why do I have to rock the shaker?" Alex asked as Katrina dumped the first bucket of sand into the screen of his contraption. The shaker was simply a wire screen cased in wood with a stand that could be folded against the frame for easy storage. Shaking filtered the grains of sand through the screen and held any larger objects for inspection.
"Come on, Alex, this is some of the fun stuff!" Jonathan informed his nephew. "Shaker's find the most miniscule and important pieces of artifacts out there! It's much more brilliant that brushing all that dirt off, in'it?"
"Then why aren't you doing it?" Alex demanded.
"Because I –" Jonathan caught himself. "I'm supervising."
Rick pulled another shaker from the bundle of the devices and tossed it into Jonathan's arms. "Have fun."
The site was cooled in the afternoon by the lengthening shadows the cliffs cast as the sun sank. Slowly, the entrance of a decidedly Roman temple began to emerge from the sand hump. Katrina and Kit were the first to uncover the sandstone steps leading from the desert floor thanks to their zealous sand removal while those above continued to brush off what would prove to be the peaked roof. Columns as big around as most people were wide were perfectly aligned at the top of the stairs, supporting the overhanging roof in front of a sealed entrance. Evy descended from the roof when Jonathan called up to her, sliding down the sand mound in a spray of grit. She loped far enough away from the site to turn and take it all in. She grinned. "It's not Egyptian, but I'll take it!" The woman laughed placing both hands behind her head.
They stopped for the night shortly after, though Evy was already laying plans for the following day. "I'd like to continue doing what we can to remove sand from the roof, and the walls as well. It's held itself up spectacularly under the weight of the sand, but I'd rather not risk any collapses because we're too lazy to uncover the rest of it –"
"That can be done, Evelyn, but I have a query: What shall we do for water?" Aamir asked. "The last well we passed was before we broke camp last night. Do you know of anywhere else we can get water? If not, we shall have to sacrifice two diggers a day to water duty to keep us all refreshed."
Evy bit her lip. In her excitement, she had all but forgotten the most important resource of all when it came to digging in the desert. "Let me find my maps –"
"There's no need." Ardeth said, standing. "There's a well several miles from here. I can show someone before the sun goes down, if you wish."
"Is there? Thank you Ardeth; that would be lovely."
"I don't mind fetching water!" Jonathan announced, abandoning his shaker. Alex glowered at his uncle before looking at the buckets he still had left to shake for the night. "Lead the way, Ardeth."
"I'll go too." Rick decided. "I'll take some of the thinner support poles with us, plant them in the sand within sight of each other so they can be followed, granted that the wind doesn't do anything to 'em."
Evelyn smiled at her husband and gave him a kiss before he, her brother, and her friend headed for the camels. "Kit, do you have the papers? Let's see what they say about the layout…"
Rick took a bundle of the thinnest support rods, each about a two inches thick and around four feet long. As he, Ardeth, and Jonathan rode north, Rick would tie a long scrap of red material from an old red bandana at the top of one of the poles before spearing it into the sand. Slowly, a trail of markers sprang up within sight of each other.
"You know," Jonathan began, "I kind of missed this. Merciless desert sun, grit in my teeth, shaking until my hands chafe –"
"Is there a reason for this passive-aggressive complaining?" Rick asked, stopping in his stripping of the bandana to look at his brother-in-law.
"No, really!" Jonathan insisted. "This is man's work – None of that boozing and schmoozing that I have to do at the casino." Jonathan raised his face towards the sun, feigning a noble expression. "I can practically feel my chest hair growing."
Rick was conflicted whether to javelin one of the poles to smack that smirk off of Jonathan's face or whether he could ride close enough to shove Jonathan from his camel and still have a living brother-in-law to bring back to his wife. Instead, he looked to Ardeth who had spoken little since they departed. "You've been awfully quiet. Taking a vow of silence or something?"
"That temple should not be there." Ardeth stated, grudgingly.
"So your pride is all hurt then, eh?" Jonathan asked.
"No, it's not that." Ardeth replied. "I am absolutely puzzled. The Medjai have roamed these sands for thousands of years –"
"Even Medjai are people. People are fallible." Jonathan replied.
"I do not think it wise to say that to a man who has helped save your life." Ardeth replied cooly.
"Well, this ride is getting awkward." Rick observed, spearing another support into the sand.
When they arrived at the well, they discovered it to have a small sandstone wall around its mouth with a slab covering it. The well was located next to a small mud brick hut with a rickety wooden door. Upon investigation, it was found to be empty save for a couple earthenware jars and a bedroll. "This well used to be guarded." Ardeth commented. "The fact that it is no longer makes me wary." Water was drawn for the night and the men returned to camp by early evening. Tents dotted the ground in front of the steps leading to the temple and one sole campfire (for cooking) burned. The camels had been, by large, picketed away from the temple in a makeshift corral of supports and rope. As Rick, Ardeth, and Jonathan poured the water skins into the covered troughs and barrels underneath a canopy, Kit crossed to help them. "You know," She commented as she helped Ardeth lift the board to cover one of the troughs, "I wouldn't mind making water runs tomorrow until we have everything full up. It'll cut down on the amount of time we spend getting water in the long run, and I'm just a translator."
"If Evy can spare you… And you take one of my pistols." Rick replied, nodding.
Kit smiled at her brother. "Look at you, big brother, making up for lost opportunities and being all protective."
Rick shrugged. "I could insist on coming with you, or say, 'No, that's manly work.'"
"The kind a person with chest hair needs to do." Jonathan offered.
"Can we please stop talking about your chest hair?" Rick snapped. Jonathan smiled sheepishly.
"…What did I miss?" Katrina asked as she approached one of the filled troughs with her canteen.
"Yeah, Jon, tell her what she missed."
"Evelyn, is there anything I can help you with?" Ardeth called to the fire, hanging his empty water skin up to dry and hastily departing the scene.
"Let me help you helping." Kit followed in his tracks. Katrina arched a well-shaped eyebrow at Jonathan.
"Yes, well… Ahem…" Jonathan "Just… manly stuff. That's all."
"Uh-huh." Katrina replied rather doubtfully, disregarding Jonathan further as she filled her canteen.
"Why aren't you married?" Rick asked his brother-in-law.
"An over-abundance of chest hair, no doubt."
The evening progressed uneventfully. Rick, Aamir, and Evy took charge of cooking for the night while Alex broke out a deck of cards and coaxed his uncle and Katrina into playing a few hands. Kit slunk off to make water on the far side of the temple and as she rounded a crest of sand she approached Ardeth with his back to her and feet planted firmly apart in the sand. He clutched a crude spear made by tying his knife to one of the Rick's extra markers.
"What are you –?" Kit began.
She must have startled the man, but he didn't flinch. "Don't move." He replied. "Be very still."
The wind whistled, stirring up some of the sand. Kit did as Ardeth said, standing perfectly still until Ardeth raised the spear and thrust it into the sand a few feet away. When he pulled the spear up, a sizable scorpion was speared on the end of it.
Turning to Kit, the man showed his quarry. "I apologize. If I explained myself, the creature would have burrowed into the sand."
The scorpion still twitched on the spear as Kit looked to it. "What are you planning on doing with that?" She asked, dark eyebrows raised.
"Have you ever had Scorpion on a Stick?" Ardeth replied, smiling.
"I… I cannot say I have." The woman admitted.
The Medjai smiled. "Would you like to help me spear some more? I doubt one will feed the camp."
"You know, Evy and Rick brought canned food and stuff…" Kit informed the man.
He chuckled. "Yes. But do you ever crave something that cannot be refused?" Ardeth placed the spearheaded scorpion down by his boot. Gingerly, he placed his boot on the head and pincers and pried the scorpion free from the blade before cleanly cutting off the venomous stinger. The scorpion finished twitching by then and the Medjai pocketed the arachnid with indifference.
Kit laughed cautiously. "Alright. Teach me how to hunt scorpions."
"The best time is to do it as the sun is setting. It will cool off soon and the scorpions are emerging from their burrows. You must stand very still, with a strong stance like this." He reverted to his wide footed stance. Kit mimicked it. "Good. And then you wait."
The wind whistled across the sands once more as the pair stood in silence. After a moment, Ardeth whispered, "There." He pointed to a movement in the sand so slight that Kit would have not noticed otherwise. A sandy scorpion slowly pulled itself from the earth, its pincers opening and closing once it was free. Ardeth handed the spear to Kit. "Aim true. Put your whole body into it."
"Whole body…" Kit repeated, gripping the support with both hands. Her interpretation was far too literal for, instead of simply lunging, she toppled into the sand spear first. A mist of sand rose up followed by peals of laughter from Kit as she spat granules of sand from her mouth. Nevertheless, when she rose to her feet the scorpion was on the end of the blade.
"Well done!" Ardeth praised, mirroring Kit's smile (though his had less sand in it). "Now gently place the head under your boot – Don't put too much pressure on it. We don't want it crushed." Kit did as Ardeth had and she soon had a tailless dead scorpion to tuck into her gown. "Now spot your own."
As they continued hunting scorpions (Ardeth doing so with all the poise of an experienced veteran and Kit doing so with a great amount of laughter and spraying sand), they talked. "Is Kit short for anything?" Ardeth queried.
"Katharine. Some of my friends used to call me 'Kitty' too." With a grunt, the woman speared her latest scorpion. "I hated it."
"I'm unfamiliar with English nicknames. They don't make much sense to me." Ardeth bantered, taking the spear from Kit after she removed the scorpion's tail.
"No one calls you anything besides your name?"
Ardeth smiled as though to himself. "My father called me 'Fareed.' It means –"
"Precious." Kit answered. Ardeth's brows rose in surprise. "I know my way around a couple languages other than Latin and English." She explained.
Ardeth felt his grin grow wider. "He's the one who taught me how to hunt scorpions. It's a survival method. Most of my survivalist knowledge was passed down to me from my father, to him from my grandfather, and so on."
"Have you taught your son how to hunt scorpions yet?" Kit asked.
Ardeth spotted movement in the sand. Without hesitation, he speared the scorpion. "I have yet to have the fortune of starting a family. Someday."
"Someday." Kit echoed, nodding.
They returned to camp just as the sun was about to dip down behind the cliffs, their pockets brimming with dead scorpions.
"Full house!" Alex slapped down a tattered handful of cards onto the crate that served as a makeshift table for their card games.
"You've got to be joking!" Jonathan exclaimed, looking at the hand. "That's – that's the third one in a row!"
Katrina folded, laughing. "I am being cleaned out by an eight year-old."
"You?" John asked. "I'll be lucky to have a camel to ride back to Cairo on."
"You've an awful poker face, Uncle Jon." Alex offered as defense, collecting several pound notes as he said so.
"We were starting to get worried." Evy announced to Kit and Ardeth as they strode toward the fire. "Is everything alright?"
"We would hate to lose our expert." Aamir grumbled from the fire as he adjusted the kettle.
"Ardeth was showing me how to catch dinner." Kit replied, pulling scorpion bodies from her pocket. Jonathan let out a guttural groan whereas Katrina and Alex abandoned their cards for a closer look.
"Ah, wicked!"
"Do they taste good?" Katrina asked Ardeth.
"Some might say it is an acquired taste, but I think so." The Medjai replied.
Rick's brow furrowed. "Scorpions?" He asked. "Really?"
"Come on Rick, where's your sense of adventure?" His wife teased.
"They're best cooked speared on a stick. But I know we don't have much in the way of extra wood –" Ardeth began.
"I have a better idea." Aamir offered. He pulled several long picks from one of the digging packs. "Be careful not to burn your tongues on the metal, unless you wish to grace me with some peace and quiet."
With Ardeth to guide them, those interested in having fresh meat for dinner were instructed how to spear the scorpions on the end of the picks by their stumped stingers. Jonathan was coaxed into roasting one with some words from Katrina, and soon a good number of the party were circled around the fire, slowly roasting the arachnids.
"This reminds me of when I was in the French Foreign Legion." Rick reminisced. "We usually roasted things like sausages or chunks of meat, but uh… It's fundamentally the same."
"This is so cool, Dad." Alex enthused. "Think we could build a fire pit in the back garden when we get back home and do this?"
"With what?" Evelyn asked. "I think all our bugs are a bit too small to eat back home."
"Mum, they're arachnids."
"How do you know when they're done?" Katrina asked Ardeth.
"May I see?" Katrina pulled hers from the flame and hovered it by Ardeth. "Perfect! You can tell when the skin has burst slightly and the juice is running down. Any longer and they'll be dry. Now," Using the long part of his robes as a guard against the heat, he took his own scorpion from the end of his pick. "Once it's cooled, you simply peel back the exoskeleton –" He waited for the scorpion to cool slightly and picked away the now-browned exoskeleton. "And then," He raised the creature to his mouth and made a loud sucking noise. Aamir laughed as Ardeth moaned at the heat, but the Medjai nevertheless finished the job. He chewed, swallowed, and said, "And it is done."
"It's like eating crawdads." Katrina commented with a smile, sucking her own meat from the exoskeleton. "Could use some spices just to pep things up."
"It could use a bowl of diced potatoes and a shooter of Glenlivet!" Jonathan lamented. Despite his moaning, he finished his arachnid, picking the exoskeleton clean.
Work started before the sun rose the next morning. Evy's wish to clear off the roof and free the temple of the banks of sand was well-heeded. Katrina took over the shaker so Alex could get in on the action with his mother, father, and uncle. Ardeth did his best to inspect the architecture and wrack his brain for some reason, any reason why the Medjai would not know of this place. It was Roman architecture, that was plain enough to see, but Ardeth knew of at least a dozen sites of Roman temples and complexes from after Octavian's conquest. It made no sense why this one was overlooked, even if it had been buried beneath the sands for thousands of years.
"Look at that!" Evelyn breathed as the temple's shape was finally freed from the sands. The entire structure was made of Egyptian sandstone, towering above the sands, but still minute when compared to the nearby cliffs. The row of columns at the entrance was the only use of the support structures with the rest of the temple made of straight lines and slabs of sandstone. In a small niche located in the peak of the roof, a small statue that must have been Minerva stood. She was missing her head and an arm, but the sentinel owl on her shoulder identified her well enough. Evy beamed at her husband, who had joined Katrina in working the shaker, and looked to Aamir and his diggers, all leaning heavily on her brooms and shovels. "Let's take a break for a bit, shall we? Then we'll work on cracking the seal on the doorway."
"I hope our 'expert' will check for booby traps." Aamir muttered, shouldering his broom. Ardeth disregarded him, as he was becoming used to doing. Instead, he crossed to Rick. "I think that I should go and alert my brothers at our camp. I would wish for them to be here when you open the door if only for safe's sake."
"Yeah." Rick nodded. "Still can't figure this out?" The Medjai simply affirmed his question with a nod. "I'll delay Evy as long as I can but you know her."
"Indeed." Ardeth gave his friend a nod and turned to retrieve his horse. "I'll ride fast."
His horse surged forward, sending up clouds of sand in her haste. The scorching sun was cooled by the wind whipping through his hair. He would head north and follow the path to the well, then turn around the cliffs the temple sat beside, and then bring some of his Medjai brethren with him –
But suddenly his horse sank beneath him with a terrified whinny and Ardeth found himself thrown from the horse's back and mired in quicksand. The horse shrieked in terror, its forelegs thrashing and only sinking it deeper into the morass. "Kiya! Kiya calm yourself –" Ardeth commanded the horse, but she just let out another terrified whinny. A large air bubble escaped to the surface of the quicksand and Ardeth found himself sucked into the mire up to his shoulders. He had tangled with quicksand before, and if one didn't lose their head, they were generally fine. Quicksand was almost never more than a few feet deep, but this treacherous pit seemed to have no bottom within range.
The horse screamed and finally her hooves found a bit of solid ground. She pulled herself out of the sludge, leaving Ardeth to sink further into the mire. Ardeth froze as he felt his chin dip in the sand. Further struggle would just make him sink deeper. Instead, he calmed himself for a moment before slowly beginning to drag his arms to the surface. His horse fretted at the edge of the pit before suddenly letting out another scream. Ardeth turned his head to find a cobra hissing at Kiya and striking at her legs. Without much more incentive, Kiya bolted from the pit, the cobra slithering after her.
"Kiya!" Ardeth cried after her, but his word was futile. He looked up into the clear blue Egyptian sky, the scorching sun burning his face. He'd have to return to the camp and borrow a camel as soon as he pulled himself from the quicksand. By then it might be too late... But Ardeth quickly found that no matter how slow he moved, the mire was determined to swallow him. The Medjai had never encountered a pit of quicksand such as this in all of his years of living in the desert. And Ardeth could not help but thinking it was somehow connected to the temple. He should have never left the temple – One Medjai was better than none, but hindsight always had the wisdom that had been lacked before.
"Ardeth? Ardeth, is that you?"
His golden eyes looked in the direction of the voice as he saw Kit, her camel weighted down with water skins, approaching from the north. He had forgotten that she had been making trips back and forth to the well that morning.
"Careful!" Ardeth warned. "It's quicksand."
The woman halted her camel twenty feet from the pit and, at the moment, it appeared as though she were arguing with herself. She would move to dismount and then sit down firmly in her seat before trying such a thing again. Finally, she plunked down in the sand in a very decided fashion, reeled for a moment, and then screwed her face into a look of determination. "I think I have some rope in my pack. Stay still – don't die."
"With pleasure." Ardeth replied, feeling himself slowly creeping further into the muck. "I do not mean to alarm you but –" The sand shifted and Ardeth found himself craning his face skyward to continue being able to speak. "I seem to be sinking quickly."
Kit circled the end of the rope, double knotting it. "Just grab." She threw it into the sludge. "I'm going to get you out of there."
With difficulty, Ardeth pulled an arm free and looped it through the circlet of rope. The quicksand gurgled and with a force that was nothing known to nature, Ardeth was sucked below the surface. Precious air escaped his lungs as he cried out, blinded and suffocated by the quagmire. His arm hugged the rope as tightly as possible and he felt it grow taught. Oh Allah. Don't let me die here Kit.
Someone heard his prayer, for a moment later he was pulled back above the surface. Blowing the quicksand from his nose, Ardeth gasped for air. He shook quicksand from his face and saw Kit astride the camel, the rope wrapped around the rear saddle horn she spurred the beast slowly, but steadily, onward. "Ardeth! Are you alive back there?" She called over her shoulder.
"Yes." Ardeth called.
Kit raised her chin, her eyes looking past the man. Her complexion blanched. "Good. Because we have problems."
"What?"
"Look behind you!" Ardeth turned his head, still holding onto the rope, and saw the horizon dusky with a sandstorm bearing towards them. His foot touched the firmer side of the pit and he pulled himself up to stand on solid ground as the wind began to gust, particles of sand fogging the air. Casting aside the rope, he didn't bother shaking drops of quicksand from his robes as he ran to the camel. Taking the rider's arm, Ardeth pulled himself up behind Kit. He didn't wait to be firmly seated before he cried, "Ride! To the well!"