Valley of Kings

by Michael Northrop

  He looked up, and Alex’s breath caught. Sand clung to the Walker’s face, wet from the oozing blisters, and he glared at his enemy with eyes that were now glowing red.

  “RUN!” called Alex.

  They rushed past the Walker as he slowly rose to his feet. They gave him a wide berth — except for Luke, who shouldered directly into him. There was a sizzling sound as he made contact.

  “Aaah!” cried Luke.

  But the impact had done its job, knocking the Walker back to the ground.

  Injured or not, Luke ran like a gazelle. “Are you okay?” shouted Alex as his cousin quickly caught up.

  “No!” shouted Luke. “Felt like tackling a campfire.”

  After a few more strides, Alex risked a quick look back. The Death Walker was on his feet now. His hands were raised above him, and in between them, a ball of flame was forming. Alex kicked it up a gear, still amazed at his new health, still testing its limits. It was torture to run in this heat, but crazy desperation fueled him. His body responded, his engine revved, but at any second he expected it all to end in flames.

  He’d caught the Walker off guard. He knew it wouldn’t work again. By the time he turned and faced him, he’d be a pile of ash and bone.

  Alex searched for some escape, but to their left, the limestone face of the valley wall rose steeply. To their right, the ground was exposed and bathed in brutal sun.

  “Over here!” said Ren, already veering toward the base of the slope.

  “Why?” he shouted in between gasps for air. “Where?”

  But now he saw it: a gap in between two jutting wedges of limestone. The opening was narrow, barely as wide as he was, but the darkness within hinted at depth. “Is that a cave or —”

  “Just go!” Luke shouted, passing him.

  Alex heard a crackling sound growing behind him as he took a sharp left on the fly. A fireball whooshed past him. He felt its searing heat as it passed, scalding his skin even though it missed.

  The Death Walker roared his disapproval behind them — and the roar sounded close. A quick glance back confirmed it. He was rushing toward them at incredible speed, sandals slapping sand.

  Alex turned to see Luke and Ren running for the crevice in the valley wall, just steps ahead of him. It was a thin slice of pure black cutting deep into the base of the slope. It could hold anything or nothing at all — and the friends hit it at a dead run.

  Alex saw Ren disappear into the darkness.

  And then Luke.

  And then it was his turn. He closed his eyes and braced himself, expecting to run straight into the back of a cave, or at least his friends. Instead, he ran into a dark, narrow passage.

  “This way!” Ren shouted from somewhere up ahead, her voice echoing off the limestone that surrounded them.

  He followed the narrow, sloping passage: forward and up.

  “Hurry!” he shouted, risking a quick look back at the wedge of light at the entrance. “He’s right behind us.”

  Alex’s heart hammered in his chest and his entire right side burned. The claustrophobic darkness raised his fear to near panic. His frantic mind could form only the most basic questions: Where did this passage go? Were they just moving deeper into the mountain? Wedging themselves in?

  The sound of footsteps and hard, sharp breaths filled the narrow stone gap at first, but soon another sound rose up. A crackling sound, like a thousand insects feeding.

  “Go, go, go!” called Alex from the end of the line.

  Up ahead, Ren finally managed to wrestle the flashlight free from her pack. She clicked it on just in time to avoid running into the wall at a sharp bend in the passageway.

  She swung around the corner, then Luke. Alex thrust his left hand out to avoid crashing into the wall as he made the sharp turn to the right. The fireball hit the wall a split-second later.

  Flames licked around the corner, and the passageway lit up and filled with a wave of heat that nearly buckled Alex’s knees. But the thing had extinguished itself on the wall.

  And now there was light up ahead. Not fire, but sunlight.

  The friends made for the opening as fast as they could, but their heavy legs and overheated systems couldn’t manage more than a jog. Ren stumbled out first. Then Luke. Alex took one last look back, but all he saw was gray smoke curling in the darkness.

  He turned and burst into sunlight. Ren and Luke were bent over with their hands on their knees on the slope of the ridge, balanced on a small ledge that protruded like a lower lip under the cave’s open mouth. The valley spread out below them. Luke stuck out his arm to prevent Alex from toppling off it.

  Alex nodded his thanks, then bent over and coughed smoke out of his lungs. He looked up, trying to gauge the distance to the top of the ridge.

  “Look at this,” said Luke. “I think it’s a path.”

  Alex looked and would have pumped his fist if he’d had the energy. An old footpath led upward from the ledge, cutting back and forth across the face of the slope, leading toward the top of the ridge and out of the valley. Alex looked back at the passage and understood: a secret escape route for the tomb raiders that pillaged the valley in ancient times. Tired, overheated, burned, thirsty, and cramping badly in his side, Alex fell into line behind the other two and followed the path as best he could. “How did you know that cave would save us?” he said to Ren’s back once he had some fresh air back in his lungs.

  “I didn’t, really,” said Ren. “But I was hoping it wouldn’t try to kill me twice.”

  Alex wasn’t really sure what she meant, but the climb was too tough for follow-up questions or complicated answers. Instead, he kept his feet moving and his eyes peeled. There was no sign of the Walker on the slope below them, but there was trouble above. The rising sun was eating away at the last of the shade. The heat was unforgiving as they climbed. They trudged on, bent over and silent except for their labored breathing, until eventually they made it.

  At some point during the climb, he’d passed Ren. Now he reached back and tugged her over the top of the ridge with him. Luke was already collapsed on the ground. The air was instantly cooler on the other side. Even the direct heat of the desert sun paled in comparison to the supernatural sauna of the valley itself. For maybe a minute, all they did was lie on their backs and breathe.

  Luke dug his water bottle out of his pack, took a swig, and then passed the bottle to his cousin.

  It was the best thing Alex had ever tasted. He took two greedy gulps, wiped his mouth, and passed the bottle to Ren. She took a sustained gulp that would have made a camel proud.

  “You were hoping what wouldn’t try to kill you twice?” said Alex, finally picking up the question he’d let drop on the climb. “The Death Walker?”

  Ren looked up into the bright blue sky and shook her head. “My amulet,” she said.

  Darkness had fallen. The temperature had dropped, but Alex could still feel the heat radiating off his skin on the side the Death Walker’s fireball had passed. Luke had blisters where he’d touched the Walker. And Ren was just as sunburned as the rest of them from the blinding blast of light.

  They sat in front of the small fire they’d built, moving as little as possible. Everything hurt. “I need, like, some lotion or something,” said Luke, poking at a blister near his elbow.

  He was sitting in a folding chair. Along with a small stack of dried-out firewood, also currently in use, the chair was the only thing that had been left of the tomb robbers’ campsite. After being caught hammer-handed, Alex figured the secretive crooks had sought out an even more remote hideout.

  “This whole thing was a trap,” moaned Ren, keeping the complaint ball rolling. “Hesaan knew there was a Death Walker here, and he sent us right to it …”

  “Explains why there was someone on the train here, too,” offered Luke.

  Alex barely heard them. He was too busy scouring the visitor’s log he’d taken from the council’s guard booth. The plastic cover was partially melted, and the pages inside
were dried and crisp. They reminded Alex of ancient papyrus, and they might as well have been.

  He turned to the next page and tipped it toward the glow of the fire. Once again, he was confronted with row after row of scrawled names and dates. Most of the entries were in Arabic, but he concentrated on the English entries. There was one column for printed names, another for signatures, and another for what must have been reason for visit. The occasional date in English told him he was in the right range …

  “Well, whatever,” said Ren. “Because they sent the wrong three kids into this trap. We know what to do with a Death Walker.”

  Luke sat back and released a do we have to groan, and Alex looked up from his logbook.

  “This thing is killing people, Luke,” Ren continued. “We need to get the Book of the Dead. I’ll bet there’s one in Luxor. And we need to figure out who this Death Walker is, so we know which spell to use against him.”

  Alex looked at the fire and blinked a few times, trying to reset his eyes after too much dim-light reading. He was sure there was something going on in Tut’s tomb. The bones, the burned Aten … But most of all, the feeling he’d gotten from his amulet. It wouldn’t light up like that for nothing. It had to be something big. And if it was the Spells, hidden somewhere inside there …

  “Okay,” he said. This time he was the tie-breaker. “We need to go back to KV 62, and we can’t go back into the valley without some way to fight that guy.”

  “What we need to do is not get burned to bacon,” said Luke.

  “We should head into Luxor first thing tomorrow,” said Ren. “We can’t fight a Death Walker without the Book of the Dead.”

  Alex couldn’t focus on Luxor, though — his thoughts were still in the desert. “I think the Spells really might be down there. The scarab went crazy in that tomb … Maybe my mom really was just putting them back, to keep them safe.” He liked the idea. It explained why she was doing it on her own, in secret. It was kind of noble, even. But the others looked skeptical.

  “Do you really think they’re there?” said Ren. “We went through that tomb.”

  Cheered up by his new theory, Alex managed a small smile. He lowered his sunburned face toward the firelight: “I definitely think we’re getting warmer …”

  The sound of soft laughter spilled like much-needed rain into the desert night.

  But just as Alex was reaching down to pick up the logbook again, he heard something.

  “Shhh!” he said. “What was that?”

  The other two froze.

  Tsss-tsss-tsss-tsss.

  Such a small sound, like someone stabbing a sack of flour with a small, sharp blade …

  “I hear it,” whispered Ren, her eyes opening wide. “It’s coming from …” She turned and pointed, just as the source of the noise entered the glow of the dying fire. “It’s Pai again,” said Ren.

  “Mmmur-rack?” said the mummy cat.

  Luke eyed her uneasily. “No burger,” he noted.

  Ren stayed seated in the sand and tried to coax Pai-en-Inmar, sacred servant of Bastet, into her lap. “She makes me feel safe.”

  A voice sounded from the opposite side of the fire, clear and almost singsong, but in an ancient language.

  All three human heads swung around frantically, and even Pai ventured a look over her shoulder.

  Luke tipped backward in his chair, arms windmilling wildly as he spilled onto the ground. “Gah!” he said, desperately scrambling to his feet. “Who is it? Is it the Walker?”

  “I don’t understand this one,” said the figure, gesturing toward Luke.

  Alex had wrapped his hand around his amulet out of sheer survival instinct. He understood the words, but it took him a moment to muster a response.

  “I know you,” he managed finally, staring up from his spot by the fire.

  “You, I understand,” said the figure, taking another step into the light. He seemed to consider it for a moment and then turned his hand palm up and raised it a few inches. “You may rise, my subjects.”

  Alex and Ren slowly stood, and Luke followed a few beats later.

  Alex looked down. “You … you have feet.”

  The young man looked to be no more than eighteen, with bronze skin and handsome, somehow familiar features. He was wrapped in ornate robes and looking down at his own feet. “So I do,” he said, “but I never liked these sandals.”

  His sandaled feet were bare, just like his head and hands, but a band of tightly wrapped linen was visible below the hem of his robes. Alex looked closer and saw scraps of linen peeking out from the wrists and neck of the garments as well.

  The figure looked up and met Alex’s stare. Alex wasn’t trying to be rude, he just couldn’t quite believe it. He recognized the face, of course. It looked exactly like the most famous gold funerary mask in history.

  “Tutankhamun,” he said in a hushed, reverent tone.

  “Yes,” said the boy king, “but you may call me Pharaoh or Supreme Ruler or Almighty Emissary of the Great and Powerful Amun-Re. Whatever makes you comfortable.”

  “King Tut?” said Ren, incredulous.

  “Yes,” he said, shrugging. “I suppose that will do, too.”

  Alex looked over at Ren and saw her look down at the spot where her left hand encircled her ibis. Ren was speaking ancient Egyptian, too.

  “Duuuuuude!” said Luke, pointing at Tut. “You’re famous!”

  Tut stared at him blankly, and then turned to Alex. “What is the meaning of Duuuuuude? Is that this strange boy’s name?”

  Alex glanced over at his cousin. “Kind of,” he said.

  “I see,” said Tut. “But I grow weary of you all. I will pet your cat now, as is my divine right.”

  But Pai seemed unconvinced.

  Tut took one step closer and Pai backed up.

  A second step and she hissed.

  “Perhaps not,” said Tut, changing course. “I would hate to get scratched.” He looked down at Pai. “Fine, you little beast,” he said. “Flea receptacle. All I did was restore the worship of the old gods, your master included. All I did was rebuild their temples. Go ahead and hiss!”

  Tut headed toward Luke, who backed up, but not fast enough to prevent the boy king from plucking the Yankees cap off his head.

  “Hey!” said Luke. Tut ignored him and his dramatic hat head and turned back toward the other two. Holding the cap in one long elegant hand, he gestured toward the intertwined NY symbol with the other. “I am not familiar with this hieroglyph,” he said. “What does it mean?”

  “Some people call it the Evil Empire,” said Alex, Mets fan to the core.

  “Mmmm,” said Tut. “I am familiar with those.”

  “What, uh, what are you doing here?” said Alex, before quickly adding: “Your, um, majesty?”

  Tut considered him for a second, taking in his stained clothes and burned skin with a look of mild disdain. “I saw the fire,” he said. He dropped the cap in the sand and began walking away. “And anyway,” he added. “I am looking for something.”

  Without another word, he disappeared into the night to continue his search.

  Alex, Ren, and Luke were all from New York City, so they’d had their share of celebrity sightings. But those celebs had all been alive.

  Talking about Tut gave them some energy as they made their way through the Egyptian morning toward the first ferry to Luxor.

  “He was kind of full of himself,” said Luke. “Total diva.”

  “Pharaohs were told they were living gods,” said Alex sleepily. “I could see that going to your head.”

  “Yeah, but he just, like, dropped my hat.”

  Alex shrugged. “It is a Yankees cap.”

  Luke blew air out his nose. “Please,” he said. “The Mets are doormats. How are we even related?”

  “He was kind of handsome, though,” offered Ren.

  Now Alex blew air out of his nose. “He wasn’t really,” he said. “I mean, not back then.”

  “No?”
said Ren, a little disappointment in her voice.

  “Nope,” said Alex triumphantly. “He was a scrawny, buck-toothed little dude. I saw a show where they reconstructed what he looked like from X-rays and stuff.”

  “Nerd,” said Luke. “Mets nerd.”

  “Well, he didn’t look scrawny last night,” said Ren.

  Luke agreed. “Dude was ripped.”

  “Yeah, he looked just like his funeral mask,” said Alex.

  “Right,” said Ren. She knew this one. “The ancient Egyptians believed that if they had a statue of themselves built before they died, they could, like, inhabit it in the afterlife. Their spirit could take on its shape. Remember how the last Death Walker looked just like his statue? Tut looks like his mask.”

  “Bigger nerd,” said Luke. “Non-baseball nerd.” But then he had another thought. “I’d build my statue twenty feet tall!”

  They turned a corner and the Nile came into view below them, a broad black ribbon in the soft morning light.

  Inside the ferry, the crew outnumbered the passengers. The burned and blistering friends took their seats stiffly. They leaned in and counted how much money they had left after buying their ferry tickets. Medicine was liable to be expensive.

  “When we call Todtman, we can ask him to send more,” said Alex.

  “Or maybe bring it with him,” said Ren. “Now that we know what we’re dealing with here, he’ll probably want to come help out.”

  Alex hoped he’d come. Todtman would give them a lot more firepower.

  As they settled in for the rest of the trip, Alex pulled out the binder.

  “Aren’t you done with that yet?” said Ren.

  “It was hard to read by one little campfire,” he protested. “I could barely …” But as his eyes fell on the next line, he realized that he was done after all. He stopped speaking and even stopped breathing for a while.

  “What?” said Ren, scooting around on the bench seat for a look.

  Alex pointed to an entry halfway down the page, written in dull pencil. Ren leaned in. “Who’s Angela Felini?”

  “She was my babysitter,” said Alex, “in third grade.”