“O’ Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt and daughter of Isis, you have returned just like you promised your children!”
“Cleopatra?” Kimberley asked the person whose voice she just heard behind her, before turning to gaze at the most beautiful woman she had ever seen, her eyes taking in every inch of the face before her.
Luscious lips formed a base for a slim nose that led up to emerald eyes embedded underneath dark brows. The woman’s long hair created a smooth oval shape with her face as it cascaded down her neck to caress her shoulders. Despite wearing black flowing attire, this enchanting beauty never looked out of place in the opulently decorated room. “I am Nanu, daughter of Nephthys, my queen,” she introduced, bowing. “You are welcome back from the dead.”
Kimberley did not know how to respond. She had felt like she’d been there before, so there could be some truth in the woman’s assertion, except the death part, that is. “Are you alone?” she asked instead.
Nanu appeared surprised by this question. She shook her head vigorously. “No, my queen,” she replied, kneeling before the police officer. “The daughters of our revered goddess are all here with me, including your maidservants and all those who went into hiding after your death.”
“Okay, I get it,” Kimberley pointed out. “I died and now I’m back. So, where are those you mentioned? And how did you come to speak my language so well?”
“I am not speaking, my queen,” the strange beauty highlighted. “I am using my mind to talk to you.”
For the first time, Kimberley realized that their mouths had remained closed ever since they met. “Telepathy,” she said in English. “Amazing.”
“Yes, it is,” Nanu agreed in a foreign language, which Kimberley understood, adding to her confusion.
“We both understand each other when we speak our different tongues,” Kimberley realized. “Yet I cannot speak your language. How is that possible?”
“Very simple, my queen,” the Egyptian said in her tongue. “I am speaking with my lips and communicating with my mind now.”
“Okay, good to know that you’re reading my mind as well,” the Portwood police sergeant muttered. “So, where are the others?”
“All around us,” Nanu said, clapping her hands twice.
To Kimberley’s utmost surprise, the life-sized female forms in the paintings all around them started moving. One by one, these works of art stepped out of the wall, stretching their bodies as if from a long induced sleep. The police officer counted twenty-nine females in all, including the beautiful Nanu, who stood before her studying her expression. “But, how did they...” she began.
“We have copied the tricks of the chameleon using magic our forefathers thought us, my queen,” Nanu explained as the new feminine faces gathered behind her. “This is to protect us from those who want to harm us.”
“You mean the people outside this hall?” Kimberley asked.
“Yes, the Christians,” Nanu said, drawing nearer her guest.
“Those people are Christians?” Kimberley asked her beautiful host, who nodded.
“Th–They want to annihilate us if we do not turn to their new deity, and we have resolved to pray and fast until help comes our way from our goddess.”
“Surely, she has heard our cries and sent you to us, my queen,” a blue-eyed girl in a white dress said.
“I don’t understand you,” Kimberley began.
“Chione cannot talk with her mind,” Nanu explained, turning away from the girl in a white dress. She noticed the blood smear on Kimberley’s dress. “I see you have already engaged another in battle.”
“They call him Khabawsokar here,” Kimberley agreed, “but I know him as Carl Bain.”
“A priest of the god of death and mummification,” Nanu revealed, frowning. “He must have joined the Christians.” The women exchanged glances. “He is betraying his people.”
“He knows the ways of our forefathers,” someone telepathized in the crowd.
“You bet,” Kimberley whispered, thinking of the Gray Ones.
“But we can defeat him and the Christians,” Nanu assured. “With your help, my queen, and the strength of our brothers.”
“Your brothers?” a curious Kimberley noted.
“Yes, my queen,” Nanu revealed. “Our men, who revere Osiris just as we adore Isis, have rescued your cousins from the scroll spirits.”
“The scroll spirits?” Kimberley wondered aloud. Sounded like the Booklords to her.
“Princess Anippe and Prince Ramses are safely with our brothers as we speak,” another woman telepathized.
Kimberley smiled when she heard this. Obviously, Rachel and Aiden were the mentioned prince and princess. “Can I go to them right now?” she asked Nanu.
“We will meet them at the Library of Scrolls if we leave now, my queen.”
“The Library of Scrolls?” Kimberley’s frown deepened. “What are you trying to tell me?”
Nanu’s piercing eyes remained unwavering. “The Library of Scrolls, my queen,” she repeated with confidence. “Where we must retrieve the white codex as Princess Anippe had promised us, and reclaim Egypt from the Christians and Romans.”
“The white codex?” Kimberley started. “You meant the white book, right?”
“Come, my queen,” Nanu rather urged her guest, taking her hands. “I must take you to your cousins.”
The change in Kimberley’s eyes lasted only seconds. What had gotten into her this time? She looked at the women standing behind Nanu and nodded without a word. Was she really Queen Cleopatra back from the dead? She still didn’t think so. “Follow me,” she said in a foreign language she had never used in her life and turned on her heels, only to notice the dropping temperature.
The men stormed the enclosure, yelling at the top of their voices. Kimberley drew her short swords as their weapons dropped two daughters of Isis. She side-stepped and stabbed an attacker before turning twice to slash open the stomachs of two other intruders in quick succession. The women behind her revealed various weapons and clashed with the aggressors. She dodged another man swinging a broad sword and sank her two swords into his back.
“Kill them all in the name of God!” an unknown soldier bellowed as he jumped into the fray. “Kill them for the emperor!”
“They are a distraction!” Kimberley warned her new friends, pulling out her ankh necklace before engaging another angry fellow. “Show your amulets if you have one!”
Seeing the beautiful Nanu struggling to pull out a necklace while blocking the swings of a huge soldier, the Portwood police officer silenced her present opponent with a decisive stroke and jumped over to help.
“Die in the name of God!” the bearded Roman cried, coming at his Egyptian opponent a fifth time.
Nanu fell when the rough-looking fighter brushed her off her feet and rolled away before he could sink his weapon into her. Kimberley slashed at the man’s right arm as he was about to repeat the downward jab and he dropped his weapon, shouting in pain.
Dodging the sergeant-turned-Egyptian-queen’s second swing, the Byzantine soldier landed a fist on the sergeant’s left flank and knocked her off balance using his right knee.
Kimberley fell forward, losing her swords in the process. She cushioned her fall with both hands and rolled away before a huge foot slammed into the ground she previously occupied. Blood splattered her face and the big man fell on his face beside her, Nanu towering over his dead body.
Kimberley picked her short swords and Nanu pulled her up. “Thank you,” she told the Egyptian girl.
“It is useless, my queen!” Nanu cried, retrieving her weapon from the fallen soldier’s back. “They are too many, we must leave now!”
Kimberley kicked someone in the groin, turned away and downed another advancing fighter. “I know,” she said, watching the battle. More Byzantine soldiers forced their way into the large hexagonal cave, shouting at the top of their voices. The dead soldiers were more than the female bodies lying on the cold floor, but N
anu was right. They couldn’t hold back the enemy forever. “We must go now!” the Portwood sergeant shouted, edging closer to the back of the cave as she fought. How she knew whatever secrets lay there was beyond her.
“Follow your queen!” Nanu rallied as she pranced about behind Kimberley. The daughters of Isis heard her and started falling back behind her, the enemy pushing forward at the same time.
“Kill them all!” another Byzantine fighter growled, swinging his sword at the retreating women.
He was silenced.
“Here lies the route we must take!” Kimberley cried, getting to the cave’s back wall by plunging her weapons into another man.
Nanu pushed away the dead man and pulled down the hidden lever she knew where to look for. The reed torches went out and darkness befell both parties.
The emperor’s men hesitated when the sense of sight failed them, and Nanu pulled another stick.
The wall cracked open in the darkness, revealing a partition the size of one person. The beautiful maidservant helped the women slip through, one at a time.
Their appearance was as sudden as the death it caused. Khabawsokar and the scroll spirits brought light with them, but killed many on both sides of the warring divide before the amulets that fell out of dead hands forced them to retreat.
Kimberley grimaced as she pushed away a dead woman and pulled herself out of the bodies lying about. A man whimpered like a child to her left.
“Help me!” Nanu cried in the darkness.
Kimberley reached out blindly to grab a flailing arm. She pulled up the Egyptian woman, who appeared flustered.
Nanu reignited the reed torches by finding their wooden control on the cave’s wall. All around her, survivors picked themselves up amongst the dead. “My sisters!” she cried, staring at the dead women.
“We cannot help them anymore, my friend,” Kimberley pointed out sadly. “They are now at peace with Anubis.”
“Anubis!” Nanu’s blood boiled at the mention of that name. “His priest caused this!” She spat at a dead Byzantine soldier lying at her feet and turned towards the wall partition. “We must avenge our dead sisters, my queen.”
“Aye,” Kimberley agreed, following her. “That we must do.” Through the hexagonal cave’s main entrance, she saw fighters cowering and praying outside. The men must have lost their will to fight after witnessing the carnage their allies had caused.
Nanu’s cry brought Kimberley out of her thoughts. She quickly slipped through the secret door on the wall and gaped at the heap of bodies before the maidservant.
* * *
Khabawsokar looked himself over and walked on down the long hall, noting how impeccably normal his appearance was. Despite the enormous power those symbols mustered, he and his infernal masters had come out of the last battle unfazed and unscathed. Their human minions, however, could not claim such a victorious state of affairs judging from the dire aftermath of that particular skirmish.
“The emperor has decreed that the pagan buildings be destroyed, Khabawsokar,” the Roman centurion following Carl Bain began.
“That was not part of our agreement,” the American-turned-ancient-Egyptian-priest said.
“It is a decree from the new emperor, pagan priest,” the soldier returned. “After all, you told me no harm would come to my men, yet you killed all of them. You lied to Emperor Theodosius.”
“I did not lie, my friend,” an annoyed Carl Bain emphasized. “I opened the temple doors from within as we agreed, and then I allowed your men to do what they must do for the period we agreed on.”
“Then you killed them, Khabawsokar,” the officer snapped, clenching his fists.
“My masters grew tired of their incompetence against mere women,” the Egyptian priest retorted. “They had to do what they did.”
“The Cave of Isis can only fit few men at once, Khabawsokar,” the Roman said coldly. “I could only send in a few of my best fighters at a time, since that tomb was not made for fighting battles.”
Both men walked on in angry silence.
“No wonder you told us to remove our symbols,” the Roman officer said.
“Your symbols are more pagan than Christian,” Carl Bain replied dryly. “Trust me, they cannot harm me.”
“You have betrayed the emperor by killing his best men,” the angry soldier continued. “After all, you serve the god of death.”
“We both serve gods of death, my friend.”
“You traitor,” the Roman bellowed, drawing his sword and stopping the priest with it. “Many refused to volunteer for the attack when they saw that you were an ally. Many who feared your pagan rituals and dark magic, Khabawsokar,” he cried. “Now, you must die for your sins, pagan!”
No sooner had the officer finished talking than he fell dead at the feet of the Egyptian high priest, a pool of his blood slowly spreading underneath him.
“Our enemies prepare to fight us after fleeing from your men and yet you mourn these same lazy men?” Carl Bain asked with a sigh. For the second time that day, he walked over a dead body, shaking his head.
The priest of death and mummification emerged onto a balcony overlooking the courtyard of the Temple of Isis. He now had on a new face as well as the robes of a Christian priest with the associated ineffectual symbols. A cheering crowd of Roman soldiers, peasants and Christian scholars from the Church of Alexandria greeted his raised arms. No one had noticed the mysterious transformation of his attire and appearance as he stepped out of the temple. No one but his infernal masters.
Carl Bain grinned for all to see. “We have successfully pushed them out of their pagan temple!” he declared to more cheers. “Now, we will burn down their buildings as decreed by God and our new emperor, and destroy all their scrolls and manuscripts with these pagan structures!”
The crowd went wild, and rushed into the temple through its open doors, shouting and condemning the pagans as they went. Many held up reed torches alongside the Christian symbols Khabawsokar and his spiritual masters knew were useless.
Carl Bain looked out across the large square, at the iconic Library of Scrolls, within which the Booklords had already started destroying the protections of the white book, and within which the final battle against the traveling trio and their pagan allies must be fought and won.
The American hustler knew he must retrieve his package right there before it was lost forever in time. There might never be another chance like the one before him now.
Suddenly, he spotted the dreaded symbol amongst the raucous crowd rushing into the temple below him and quickly looked away before its unknown magic got to him. He knew that he and his masters would soon leave that pitiful city, so the sign’s effect on him would soon be a thing of the past. How the Christians and those they persecuted came to love that particular sign so much he might never know.
The new priest turned to one of the three military officers standing beside him on the balcony. “You know the plan,” he said. “Proceed.”
The men nodded silently and left for the task ahead.
Chapter 12: The Library of Scrolls
ANKHS drawn, they burst into the revered edifice when the secret door fell. All the scroll spirits in the library vanished and eerie silence prevailed.
“That must be where they found the white codex,” Rachel, or Princess Anippe, said as she pointed towards the area where the Gray Ones had been floating around.
“Then we must go there immediately,” Amenhotep announced, quickly moving towards the said spot with his princess and fellow brothers.
“Amazing,” Aiden, or Ramses, whispered as he walked in-between the neat stacks of papyrus scrolls packed in wooden racks that lined up in all directions as far as he could see. Aiden had become Prince Ramses after being touched by Amenhotep, but unlike Rachel, he couldn’t recall his old memory and had no inkling of the alternate reality the white book had thrown him into.
Rachel, on her part, knew exactly what was going on and had an eye on Aiden should the
need arise to reverse the white book’s ‘spell’ on him through touch. She hoped to do so in any dire situation before he did anything stupid as an Egyptian prince.
Rachel and Amenhotep got to the spot together. The cold emanating from the white codex helped her locate its position beneath a stack of scrolls. Its book-like appearance gave it away when she got to this position. “Its inscriptions have frozen,” she said, feeling the cold blue lettering on the ancient book’s pages.
“And what must we do now, my princess?” Amenhotep asked her.
“Well, eh, we must wait for…the queen’s sister?” Rachel stammered, wondering how she knew that.
The library’s designers had made it possible for natural light to illuminate the building from many open circles on the walls. These windows could be shut to keep out bad weather. The noise outside drew some brothers of Osiris to these circular openings, and from here, they could see the crowd gathered before the Temple of Isis on the other side of the yard.
“They are heading for the wooden doors of the Temple of Isis,” an Egyptian pointed out. “They want to burn down the temple!”
“It has already begun,” Princess Anippe said, turning to the openings with dismay.
“Yes, it has, my princess,” Amenhotep agreed. “We must stop this madness right now before it destroys us all.”
“Who is the man on the balcony?” Rachel asked those watching.
“He looks like a Christian priest,” one of the Egyptians replied. “Maybe he is the man leading this madness.”
Amenhotep appeared impatient. “What is keeping our guest?” he asked, clenching and unclenching his fists. “What is keeping the queen?”
“I will be representing her,” a voice behind him said.
“Kim!” Rachel exclaimed when she turned and saw the familiar face grinning at her. A hug and a pat on the head followed. “Oh, Kim! I’m so glad to see you alive!”
Kimberley had emerged into the Library of Scrolls from another secret entrance with several women and two girls.
“Nanu!” Amenhotep cried on seeing one of the women with the dead queen’s sister. “Nanu, you are alive!” The woman rushed to him and they hugged each other before he turned to Kimberley and bowed to her. “Welcome back from the dead, my queen,” he said in his language.
The White Book Page 14