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“Why are we whispering?” Ben asked in the same hushed tone.
“Because it’s a secret?” Ere returned. “I feel like we’re about to get boobytrapped like in one of thoseMummymovies.”
“Whispering won’t help us avoid it,” Sorin pointed out.
Ere smirked at him.
“Ever practical, my love.”
They spent the next half hour patting all around the interior of the sanctuary, trying to find a way into the supposed secret tunnel.
When they came up empty, Ben leaned against one of the statues built into the wall with folded arms and said, “I guess the depression could just be settling of the floor after thousands of years. Maybe we made too much of it.”
Ere sat on the floor nearby and huffed.
“As educational as this has been, and as titillating as that sex mural was, I’m kinda disappointed we spent the whole night simply sightseeing. We haven’t found any more clues for our quest. Nothing more to substantiate your theory about Thutmose III and Hatshepsut.”
Sorin, however, was kneeling upon the floor, two extra-large hands spread upon the stone. His body shimmered with a golden light as he gathered his phoenix strength and heat.
All at once, he channeled a lightning blast through his body, down his arms and into his hands—
Into the stone floor itself.
A thunderous boom resounded within the sanctuary, like a mountain range shifting and reforming itself. The stones that made up the slight depression on the floor suddenly dropped away, landing in the dark abyss beneath with a deafening crash.
“Holy shit,” Ere whispered. “A secret…pit.”
“I love it when I rhyme,” he said as an aside.
Then added, “I hope we didn’t just destroy an ancient landmark. Maybe we can put it back the way it was later.”
“Later,” Ben agreed.
He took back a torch from Ere’s shock-numbed fingers and leapt down into the pit. Once on the bottom, which was no more than a ten-feet drop, he looked back up at Ere and Sorin.
“Come on. We have a few hours before daylight. Let’s see where this tunnel takes us. It seems to have been dug into the mountain behind the temple.”
“I knew it!” Ere exclaimed, brimming with excitement.
“A secret tunnel! Lead on, Indiana Bones! Let’s go exploring.”
~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~
~1486 B.C. Ancient Egypt. 18thDynasty, Regency of Hatshepsut.
“The King of Punt offers ebony, ivory, gold, frankincense and myrrh…”
Heba barely listened to Senenmut recount the many gifts described in the foreign king’s latest letter.
Her attention was solely fixed upon the gleaming naked back of the Captain of the Guard as he helped the sailors secure the multiple sails that caught strong southerly winds to fuel their voyage.
They traveled light, only five ships, their size able to accommodate two hundred men on each, including thirty rowers. However, the whole purpose of the expedition was to leave plenty of room aboard to carry riches back from the fertile southern lands. Thus, Heba arranged for only the most loyal, experienced sailors, and the strongest, fiercest fighters to accompany her on the journey.
Only thirty men traveled on each ship, twenty fighters who doubled as rowers and ten sailors. Many officials wanted to come when they learned of Heba’s plans, but she trusted only Senemut and Pa-nahsy, one of her high officials. They would travel by day and set camps by night, if they were close enough to the coast, to eat fresh meat, refill their food and drink, and rest.
The leader of the five ships, a life-long trader who often represented Egypt in foreign lands, estimated that they would arrive at their destination in thirty days, if the winds favored them. Upon return, it would take twice as long, given the Red Sea’s currents and the direction of the wind.
Ninety days and nights away from the spying eyes and prying ears of the Palace… It was heaven on earth for Heba.
