“This is a sphinx?” I jogged to Oliver’s side; and sure enough, as I approached, I could see the faintest shape of a headdress . . . and then a face.
Oliver waved Milton’s booklet at me, the pages rattling in the breeze. “There used to be an entire avenue lined with sphinxes on either side. And at the end of it, there was a temple dedicated to Apis. I suppose that vague bump over there is it.”
“Dedicated to whom?” I asked, squinting at a mound in the distance.
“Apis. He was a god in the shape of a bull. And bull mummies seem formidable indeed.”
I bit my lip, unsure what to say. I was so deeply grateful that Oliver continued to fight on my side—that he sought to help. . . .
But I could not let go of this coiling guilt inside me. I knew what needed doing—and this only confirmed it further.
Yet . . . I didn’t want to.
So as Oliver walked onward . . . and then onward some more, I simply followed in silence. Sphinxes’ heads poked up with regularity, some more intact than others. Whoever this Apis god was, he was clearly important. Soon the mound ahead began to look less like a pile of moonlit sand and more like a small building. Each step brought bricks into focus.
But that was not all.
There were footprints. Lots of them. And they were fresh too, since the wind had not blown them away.
Oliver and I exchanged a glance, but our pace did not slow. The prints led to the temple and descended into a dark hole like the entrance to the catacombs of Anubis. Oliver knelt and inspected the opening.
“Did something go in?” I asked.
“I’d say the reverse—something left.” He pulled back, shoving Milton’s booklet into his pocket. “The sand here has been pushed outward. Come on.” He wriggled through the hole . . . and then vanished into the darkness.
“El,” he shouted back, “there are stai—” His voice broke off, replaced by a yelp.
“Oliver!” I thrust into the hole. It was as black as pitch within. “Are you all right?”
“I’m . . . fine.” His words were muffled and distant.
I scrabbled in, trusting my hands to guide me in the darkness.
“Be careful,” he went on, sounding slightly closer. I scuttled faster, feeling a stone step. Yet just as he began to yell something else, the floor vanished.
And I toppled into nothingness.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I did not hit the ground.
Instead, I hit Oliver, and he crumpled beneath me with a miserable “Oomph.”
“Why didn’t you warn me?” I snapped.
“Your hand is on my nose,” he mumbled nasally. “And I did warn you. I said ‘Watch out for the drop.’ I’m sorry if you were already falling as I said it.” He shoved me, and I toppled to the side of him.
As in the other catacomb—and the Great Pyramid—the air was hot and dusty, the darkness oppressive. But most concerning of all, our entrance hole was at least fifteen feet overhead. A circle of white light.
Oliver fumbled the glowworms from his pocket. Their feeble green shimmer only illuminated a few feet around us, and as he rose to his feet, it sprayed and flickered unevenly—revealing a high, vaulted ceiling and a wide tunnel cut directly from the bedrock. It was much larger than Anubis’s temple.
“How do we get out?” I asked as Oliver towed me upright. My voice echoed off the stone.
“Not sure . . .” Oliver swung the jar around, his eyes glowing bright—and then widening. “Thank you, Professor Milton.” He strode away from me and revealed a ladder set against the wall. He snatched it up and toted it toward the hole of moonlight.
“How do you know it was Milton’s?” I asked.
“It’s either his or some treasure hunter’s. Does it really matter?” He returned to my side, and together we set off into the catacombs.
“We seem to wind up this way often,” I whispered over our padding feet.
“And what way is that?”
“You guiding me through the dark.”
Oliver grunted a humorless laugh. A laugh that said Are you just now noticing?
My teeth gritted together. I should do it now—I should do what needed doing right now . . . and lose Oliver forever.
But I didn’t. I couldn’t, and after twenty paces we came to a three-way split in the tunnel. Yet no paintings adorned the walls here.
“I see figures ahead,” Oliver said softly. “I think they might be statues.”
His grip tightened around my fingers, and he towed me onward. Soon enough I could see the statues too. . . .
But they were not statues at all.
Oliver pulled up short and shoved me behind him.
For several long moments we simply stared, our breaths trapped. But then I eased mine out.
“They aren’t imperial guards,” I whispered. “They’re holding swords—not spears. And they have shields too.”