Page 2 of Ra (The Scarab Prophecy #1)

Eight years later…

Azi did her best to smile as the visitors made their way past her and up the stairs to the smaller tomb above.

“This way, ladies and gentlemen! We have much more to see on our adventure! We have yet to see the Valley of the Kings!”

“And the pyramids! Those are the real tombs I came to see. I heard they’ve found Nefertiti! Definitively!” one over-weight, over-heated, over-dressed lady puffed at her husband.

“I can’t imagine it’s as stunning as this one,” her husband answered.

“It is. This one is just a room. There’s no one in it! That stunning sarcophagus and no one in it. I don’t know why they call it a tomb. There’s not a single dead person here! That’s what makes them truly interesting is the dead!” she insisted, as they hurried to catch up to their tour guide.

Azi waited until they and the other throngs of tourists left her and her ‘Tomb of Ra’, as it had come to be known, alone.

She looked longingly around, wishing she’d had the opportunity to spend time truly searching every inch of it herself.

But, being the stickler for rules that she was, she’d advised the Egyptian Department of Antiquities of her find.

The moment they’d realized the gravity of her find, they’d rushed in, taken over, and given her little more than an honorary position as the discoverer of the ‘Tomb of Ra’.

She sighed tiredly as she walked slowly around the tomb, taking in all the beautiful decor, the sparkling gold, and what she now knew was an empty sarcophagus.

It had apparently never been used. Neither had this tomb.

Either its owner never got the chance to use it, or it was as she’d said originally — it was meant to be a temple.

Either way, the smaller common tomb above had done its job and hidden her find for thousands of years, from any who might have searched for the grandeur of this one.

She heard footsteps on the stairs and turned to face the entrance, waiting to see who it was.

Abasi came into view, his usual happy, joyful self. “Dr. Clement!” he exclaimed.

“Azi. It’s Azi. When are you going to stop calling me Dr. Clement? You’ve known me since I was little.”

“When I, too, am a doctor, perhaps I will feel at ease dropping the formality of your title. Until then, you will always be Dr. Clement.” He thought about it for a few seconds then grinned at her again. “Unless a better title presents itself.”

“Well, I’m not going back to school any time soon, so I doubt there will ever be another title.”

“One never knows, Dr. Clement. I would remain open to all things, were I you.” He tapped the floor where he stood with the toe of his shoe before stepping to the right and doing the same thing.

Once he reached the wall, he used the toe of his shoe to tap gently at the seam of the floor and the wall, also laying his head against the wall and tapping it gently with his fingertips.

Azi started laughing when she realized what he was doing. “There’s nothing else here.”

“There might be! We thought there was nothing else in the tomb above, but it was a decoy.”

“That is very true. But I’m sure after all the experts they brought in over the last two years, if there was something else, they’d have found it.”

“We’ve only been given small opportunities to explore when others were present, up until now. Now, they feel there is nothing more to find so they’ve turned their attention elsewhere.”

Azi shrugged. “At least they allow us to maintain access as long as we allow them to roll us out and parade us before the media from time to time.”

“It’s a small price to pay.”

“It’s soul-sucking,” Azi said quietly, though her eyes were glued to Abasi’s progress as he tapped his way along the wall and floor.

“Only if you let it become so. It insures you still have access if nothing else. It’s worth it.”

Azi sighed. “They want me to go on a tour on behalf of the Egyptian Department of Antiquities, and deliver lectures to anyone in academia — or anyone who pays enough to attend — on their behalf.”

“What do you get in exchange?”

“I get continued access to digs in Egypt.”

“What do I get?” he asked, only half-joking.

“Well, as you are my non-negotiable, you’d also get continued access to digs in Egypt.”

“I could keep watch over Ra’s tomb and you could go teach and present, and when you are done we could continue on wondrous adventures into history!” Abasi said dramatically, his voice building to a crescendo.

Azi raised her gaze to the ceiling and looked around its edges as his voice echoed perfectly and melodically. “This would truly be a wonderful location to sing for the gods.”

“It would, at that.”

Azi walked over to the golden throne and ran her fingertips over its arm as in her mind’s eye she imagined a male of impressive stature and beauty reclining there as he looked out over his kingdom.

Abasi’s voice brought her back to reality, when she realized that she’d missed what he’d said.

She turned and looked at Abasi. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening.”

“I noticed,” Abasi said, with a warm smile. “Don’t forget, Dr. Clement, you once loved teaching. Your father spoke of it often.”

“I did, that’s true. But I let it go when he wasn’t able to oversee his digs anymore. I found a deeper passion here, following the path he began.”

“Perhaps if you take a bit of a holiday from the digs themselves to present all you’ve discovered here, woo the people, and teach those who will take over when we are far too old, we’ll be given the opportunity to find another hidden piece of history when you come back,” Abasi said.

“Woo the people,” Azi said with a soft smile. “I can woo.”

“I know. I’ve seen you woo the Ministers of the Antiquity Department. It is why we still have access to this site.”

“It’s a simple thing really, to do what they ask. Instead of fighting it, I should just go with it. Follow the opportunities until I find myself back here.”

“Yes! Always take the positivity from anything you’re given. Even the most detrimental of situations has positivity buried deep beneath its surface.”

“Abasi!” a man’s voice called from the top of the staircase.

“Do not leave without saying goodbye to me. I’ll watch over things in your absence,” Abasi said, waggling his finger in her direction as though she was an errant child.

“I won’t. It will be at least a week or two before I can prepare to leave. And thank you, Abasi,” Azi said.

She watched him go up the steps, then waited another five minutes to be sure that no one else was coming down.

Once she was sure no one else would be coming to tour the tomb today, she went over to the last place Abasi was tapping while checking for the different sound of a hollow space behind the gorgeous reliefs and wall paintings in the ‘Tomb of Ra’.

Forty-five minutes later she was still tapping when she realized she’d reached the throne.

She raised her head and looked in the direction she’d come from.

It was a lot of ground to cover, a lot of wall to search, and she’d not done as thorough a job as she could have if she’d already reached the throne.

She turned and looked out over the decorative floor of the tomb, then made a cursory glance of the walls and ceiling again.

Focusing on the entrance that led to and from the stairway, she shook her head.

“At least I know the places I tapped and the places my feet stood are solid. I’ll have to double check from the calves up, and from the head up, but at least some of it has been examined.

” She turned to the throne at her left and sighed as she realized she was talking to herself.

“Gotta get some friends, Azenath! You’re talking to yourself — and out loud at that. ”