Desperately banishing the thought of hairy spiders and stinging scorpions, I gingerly reached my hand inside the hollow and scooped out handfuls of loose earth until my fingertips brushed against a smooth piece of pottery. Madly, I scooped dirt from around the object, unearthing it from its resting place like a sloppy paleontology student would a bone. Despite my frenzy, I was trying to be careful. Finally, it came free in my hands.
By tracing the shape, I was able to visualize the piece. The base was full and round like a bowling pin and tapered up to a neck small enough for me to wrap my hands around but big enough to accommodate something substantial, like—I wrinkled my nose—organs, for example. At the top, capping the object, was a rough-carved piece of wood, rounded with a sharp point.
“I found one!” I called out to Amon. “What should I do?”
I heard a grunt as Amon wrestled with the wiry shabti. “Open it!”
Cradling the jar in my arms, I gripped the top and pulled. It wouldn’t budge. “Can’t I just crack it against a rock?”
“No! You must not break it!” Amon called, the words rushing out along with his breath as he was slammed against a wall. The fighting stirred up the soft dust, and I sneezed several times. The final sneeze was so violent that as I twisted the top of the jar, it finally loosened.
With a triumphant cry, I wrenched the top from the jar. It made a popping noise, like a cork being pulled from a bottle. Light filled the container, and despite the fact that I definitely didn’t want to see Amon’s thousand-year-old organs, I peered inside.
Floating particles as tiny as grains of sand moved within and coalesced until they formed a light bright enough that I had to look away. Slowly, the golden light rose up and out of the container, where it stretched until two wings became visible.
The light began to look like some kind of bird, and when the head and beak solidified, it cried out, the same cry I’d heard in my dream. It was a falcon—a beautiful golden creature that gleamed as if it harnessed the rays of the sun.
The wings flapped, and the falcon made of light circled my head and flew higher and higher. Obviously, the room was much larger than I had imagined. As the falcon passed the two men in combat, Amon and the shabti became visible.
Amon had created a sand weapon—a sword—and he used it to cut the servant, but though the shabti staggered back with a wound on his forearm dripping blood, the injury glowed with a reddish hue and then disappeared.
It appeared that the shabti was using the red light to injure Amon, and I realized then that the servant had created two swords made of the red light, which clanged against Amon’s smaller weapon again and again. Each volley seemed to weaken Amon, and I couldn’t understand why.
The golden bird passed over me as Amon began to chant, weaving a spell that the falcon responded to. His ringing voice echoed off the walls of the cavern.
I call upon the falcon, born in the golden fires of the sun.
He who has slumbered is to be reborn this day.
Lend your whole, living soul to the one rent in pieces.
Offer your resilient wings, your piercing talons, and your discerning eye.
Your home has stretched to the far edge of heaven,
But today, you will find haven in my beating heart.
Together we are reborn, renewed, and rejuvenated.
Your offering will be recorded in the annals of time and your service rewarded.
Come! Come to me and be remade!
The bird cried, flying toward Amon just as the shabti stripped him of his sword. Amon threw back his head and lifted his arms, and his whole body lit up from within. I could now see everything inside the antechamber and several things immediately became obvious.
First, there were three more rectangles in the wall, lined up in direct proportion to the one I’d found, and the other canopic jars were destroyed. They’d been smashed; their broken pieces littered the ground. Second, the fine powder that had caused me to sneeze repeatedly was not sand, but a shimmery red dust. Third, the shabti now had a clear view of Amon, who, without his sword, arms raised in the air, and head lifted, was defenseless.