Dr. Hassan strode ahead, then suddenly stopped, staring hard at the nothingness in front of us. He held out his hands and patted the air, running his fingers along invisible lines until I heard a click.
“Found it!” he exclaimed with a smile. Grabbing on to a piece of something imperceptible to my eyes, he pulled, and then thrust his hands away. A large section of the space in front of us slid aside, revealing a long tunnel with steps at the far end. “That portal is our way out.” Dr. Hassan pointed to the hole he’d made.
“How? How did you do that?” I asked.
“Oh.” He blew out a breath and scratched his head. “Well, it’s difficult to explain.”
“There is no time, Doctor. Amon awaits,” Asten reminded him.
“Yes, yes. After you, my dear.”
Carefully, I stepped through the hidden door and into the tunnel. Again we needed to rely on the light created by Asten and Ahmose. Black chains with cuffs hung from metal hooks. High overhead I saw broken stonework that had once been crisscrossed arches. Sunken alcoves held carved statues of Egyptian gods that wore tortured expressions.
“What is this place?” I said, and cringed as my voice echoed through the empty halls.
“I believe this is a secret gathering place for the minions of Seth,” Dr. Hassan whispered.
We passed a large room that contained a floor-to-ceiling statue of the horse-faced god. Great puddles of dark liquid pooled in the cracks and crevices of the stone floor. “Is…is that blood?” I asked hesitantly.
Dr. Hassan kept his eyes forward and draped an arm across my shoulder, effectively blocking my view. “It is best not to think on such things,” he said after we passed. “But suffice it to say, I am very certain that the god of chaos has been worshipped here.”
We climbed the stairs of the long passageway and were met with a series of doors and tunnels. “Which way?” I asked.
“Follow me,” Dr. Hassan said.
Neither Asten nor Ahmose protested Osahar’s leadership, so I made a mental note of it, adding to my list of strange things regarding the relationship between the brothers and their grand vizier. I continued along without asking more questions, despite the fact that I was bursting with them, as usual. Something was definitely going on between Dr. Hassan and Asten, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Ahmose, newly risen though he might have been, was caught up in it, too. Why they would feel the need to keep secrets was driving me crazy.
When Dr. Hassan found the door he wanted, his face brightened as if he’d just discovered the secret of the universe. At last we came to a final set of stairs and he announced, “We are freed.”
At the top was a heavy wooden door locked from the outside. The four of us pushed against it, but thick chains rattling on the other side made it seemingly immovable.
“Vizier, if you would watch over Amon’s young lady, I will attempt to open this door,” Ahmose said.
“Wait a minute, who told you I was…?”
I glanced over at Asten, who gave me a charming smile and shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, you’re wrong. Both of you. Amon is just my friend.”
Ahmose had placed both of his big hands against the door. Bracing them there, he turned to look at me with his steel-gray eyes. “You are bound to one another. As his brother, I can feel this, even without Asten’s girlish whisperings.”
Frowning now, Asten countered, “Nothing is certain at this point. Besides which, why is it that I must put up with your insufferable mockery century after century? Just because I am more handsome than you and my body is not covered with enough hair to rival a jackal’s is no reason to call me girlish. Your jealousy is unbecoming.”