by J.P Jackson
*
Taylor woke some time later, sharing the cage with other prisoners while the caravan traversed a bumpy path through the thick jungle. Most of the men looked sick, emaciated and broken. They stared through the bars with hollow eyes and didn't speak to each other. They had nothing to say.
Bull was asleep, stretched from one side of the cell to the other. Taylor sat beside him, his face dripping with sweat, arms over his knees and back pressed against the bars. He'd already studied the lock and knew he could pick it, but he wasn't going anywhere. For now, this was where he needed to be.
The caravan maneuvered near the fringes of a dank swamp. The wagons rollicked from side to side, parting overhanging branches and attracting a plague of mosquitoes.
Taylor moaned as he slapped them from his arms and neck; prisoners meanwhile simply lay there, allowing the blood suckers to drink their fill.
The swamp was infested with crocodiles, eyeing the caravan or warming their flesh on the grass. Taylor flicked a mosquito from his wrist and wondered if this was his original landing spot.
They arrived at a parched clearing, the sudden brightness revealing the severity of bites blighting every man’s skin. Taylor nestled his itchy face between the bars and concentrated upon a sound coming from the earth. The caravan creaked over the edge of a scooped out quarry of limestone, a mile long and hundreds of feet deep. Slaves looked like ants, breaking their backs in the heart of a chalky pit. Alien birds of various sizes and colours supervised the work, one for every hundred men it would seem. Taylor took mental notes and tried to regulate his breathing. Each spike in his adrenaline caused the torch to glow, so he tucked the gauntlet under his armpit to hide the light. Fortunately for him, the slaves and their supervisors were concerned with more pressing issues. Each bird was stationed at heavy, crane like machinery located around the quarry. The slaves, using rope and muscle, heaved huge boulders underneath the crane arm. Once in position, a device at the end of the crane would blast the rock with a humming sound, enough to cut it clean down the middle. Taylor was awestruck by the energy expelled by both man and machine. It was an efficiently run assembly line.
The only time the operation appeared to lose its rhythm was when one slave raised his hand and cried out. The others dropped their tools to squint at an object falling from a cloudless sky. They threw themselves to the ground and looked up as a stone slab crashed into the quarry, bursting into pieces and causing minor cuts to those cowering close to it.
The lanky birds gathered to inspect the debris. With nothing in the sky and no explanation, they clicked and chirped the men back to work.
The caravan continued passed the quarry and ascended a steep, rocky hill. Taylor lay back and as his heart settled, the light left the torch. He was now convinced that the torch and his heart rate were intrinsically connected. He hoped he would live long enough to work out the hows and whys.
The donkeys panted as they pulled the wagon up the hill, inch by slow inch. Bull opened groggy eyes and scowled at his swollen shoulder, a deformed bump over the break.
"Hurts like a bastard, eh?" Taylor said, removing his shirt and making a simple sling. "I know you don't understand me, but I'll tell you anyways.” Taylor went to Bull and wrapped the shirt around his arm and neck. “Wear this sling day and night for at least six weeks. Take it off when you bathe and avoid arm positions or motions that cause you pain."
Bull grunted his thanks. Shirtless, dehydrated and exhausted, Taylor sat back, wiped the sweat from his face and waited for this world's next surprise.
Travelling east, the carts levelled out and Taylor finally realized where he was, if not when he was. He stared open mouthed at the ancient riddle, 74 meters long, 19 meters wide, 20 meters high, and carved from a single block of limestone.
"The Sphinx," he said, squinting away from it's gleaming limestone. Taylor had visited the Giza Plateau during school, and this was not the Sphinx as he remembered it. A Sphinx was a mythical creature with the body of a lion and head of a human. This colossal monument was all lion, the snarling king of the jungle with a face Taylor recognized from the village temple and Fort Knox.
The lion stood guard over the Great Pyramid of Giza. Slaves marched alongside the caravan on an elevated causeway, flanked by thick trees and sparse vegetation. Other wagons joined the tail end of the column, all of them headed for a perfect polyhedron, rising 146 metres into the sky. The pyramid was covered in a complex wooden scaffold but it's smoothly polished casing stones shone through, bright and magnificent. The only thing missing from the wonder were a few final casing stones and the capstone, the final piece placed on top to mark the end of construction.
"My God," Taylor uttered, knuckles white as he gripped the bars.
The aliens' tools made for light work. Each bird held a large gun like instrument, gold plated and shaped like a portable jet engine. One green feathered bird aimed it's gun at a flat casing stone weighing, as Taylor recalled from his studies, in the region of 13 tons. When the bird activated the device, it emitted a low frequency hum, creating a hazy field surrounding the slab. As the bird raised the gun, the slab rose effortlessly into the air, defying Newton’s laws of gravity and challenging everything Taylor had learned about physics. The slab ascended the scaffold as a waiting blue bird fired it's own weapon at the stone, completing a seamless transfer. The blue bird then hovered the stone to the waiting hands of slaves, who manipulated the slab into place.
The birds communicated in squawks, whistles and warbles. Taylor tried to match specific sounds with body language but was unable to get a sense of what they were saying.
A red feathered bird passed near the cage. It held one of the golden guns and Taylor craned his neck to get a better look at it, but saw nothing that would reveal it's mechanism. The caravan stopped suddenly before a stockpile of seed sacks. Taylor brushed the dust from himself and settled next to Bull as cloaked men moved forward to open the lock.
The cage door swung open and all were ordered out as a familiar horn boomed across the construction site. In unison, slaves, priests and birds fell to their knees. A conditioned Bull followed suit, leaving Taylor alone in the cage.
"Bollocks!" he groaned, pushing himself out of the wagon and onto the Giza Plateau.
He heard the thud of landing steps over his shoulder, but before Taylor could turn his head, he was forced to his knees by the yellow bird's leathery fingers digging into his neck.
Taylor moaned, knelt, and the bird relinquished. The horn sounded again and the reason was soon apparent. A stocky figure draped in a white cloak exited the pyramid. Heavy set birds followed at a respectful distance while grovelling slaves reached out to feel the figure's blowing cloak.
Taylor lowered his head to the dirt, but his pale skin caught the approaching stranger's eye. Ten steps away, the stranger threw back his hood to reveal a monstrous form, not man nor bird, but a thousand pound, muscle-bound humanoid lion. Taylor's palms shook on the sand, the light returning fast to his torch.
The lion's face was wide with dense brown hair, and his amber eyes were round with deep, dark pupils. His snout was long with needle-like whiskers at the sides, and sharp teeth hung from his parted mouth.
The yellow bird took Taylor's right arm and displayed the torch to his master. He explained through squawks and the lion nodded back.
"Stand," the bird whispered to Taylor. "General Apophis demands you on your feet."
Taylor put one foot in front of the other and rose in a daze. The moment his legs supported him, he was snared around the throat by the lion's powerful paw. Apophis pulled Taylor close and peeked inside his gasping mouth, as if searching for something special. A thick fog rolled over Taylor's eyes and just before he was lost in it, Bull appeared and threw a clenched fist at the lion's head, causing it to stumble and drop Taylor, who flopped to the sand. The yellow bird squawked, Apophis roared and spectators flinched. Despite his broken collar bone, Bull threw himself at the lion only to be caugh
t by the head. Bull fought back but the lion was too strong. He reached into Bull's mouth and took hold of his tongue. As Taylor's color returned to normal, he witnessed as Apophis ripped out Bull's tongue, then swallowed it back like a party favour. Blood spewed from Bull's mouth and a glazed expression overcame him as he slipped into shock. He wobbled momentarily then thumped to the sand, kicking up a cloud of dust as he landed.
With the dust cloud acting as temporary concealment, Taylor got to his feet and ran. He had no direction. His heart pounded and the torch blazed. He saw the Sphinx and the hill behind it. He could see the swamp in the distance and pushed himself on. Better to face the crocodiles, the mosquitoes and jungle, than the unearthly horror behind him.
He reached the hill and threw himself forward, but instead of rolling into the bushy undergrowth beneath the canopy of trees, Taylor found himself floating. His limbs went rigid, a chill coursed through his body while an unusual hum encompassed him. He was weightless, screaming, and flying. This exotic force sent him soaring over the pyramid, his torch resembling a signal flare. It was a stomach churning sensation, and when Taylor eventually puked, the chunks were trapped in the field with him. Slaves marvelled at his light while the bored looking lion lapped Bull's blood from his claws.
A red bird controlled the gun that held Taylor aloft. It squawked with delight as it propelled him over the plateau. Others pointed and cheered, but their levity was short lived when Apophis gave the signal for Taylor to be lowered to the ground.
He landed with an unceremonious thud at the general's feet.
"I don't belong here," he said, his flesh pulsing from white to gold as he gazed at Bull's dead stare. "This is not my time. This is not my time."
General Apophis, teeth stained with blood, took hold of Taylor's right arm and squinted at the gauntlet. The yellow bird bent to whisper into the lion's ear. Apophis listened yet seemed to discard the advice. Holding Taylor's arm, the snarling beast squeezed and crushed the torch. Violent sparks arced from the device and writhed up Taylor's arm, neck and head. Spasms followed as metallic pieces fragmented off of the torch, damaging Taylor's link to the future and sending a web of furious heat through his heart.
The power faded, his light diminished, and the fog returned.
— CHAPTER TWELVE —