Page 3 of Ra (The Scarab Prophecy #1)
Shrugging as she considered continuing her path of tapping up to the throne, behind it, then down the other side to finish out the entire room at foot and shoulder height, she got to it.
Her ear pressed to the wall, she listened as she tapped.
The toes of her boots tapping a repeated rhythm on the floor and the seam and edges of the lower wall.
She’d actually begun to make good progress when she stopped suddenly and focused on a place in the relief that she’d not noticed before.
What she’d thought was a black scarab beetle lying in Ra’s outstretched hand, was actually a hole in the shape of a scarab beetle — carved into the wall.
Leaning closer to the wall, she put her fingertip into the hole.
“How did I not know this was a hole?” she murmured, pushing her finger into it to see just how deep it was.
“Doesn’t go all the way through,” she said thoughtfully.
She stood back and examined the relief and the colors painted on it.
There were green vines of some kind weaving themselves through the hands of all the gods, who were interconnected by the vines and the scarabs placed here and there.
All of the scarabs were black with green features on their wings.
The vines around the missing scarab looked to her like they’d just start on one wing, and exit out the other.
She stepped back even further, her eyes rounding as she stared at the black hole on the wall missing its scarab.
“It’s not a black scarab that’s missing,” she whispered.
She stuck her hand in her pocket and pulled out the scarab ring her father had given her.
She stared at the ring for an entire minute before slowly raising her eyes to the wall.
“Holy shit,” she breathed out as she popped the scarab off the band and stepped closer to the wall.
She slipped the band onto the thumb on her opposite hand, and held the scarab in her closed fist as she used her index finger to examine the hole again.
“Daddy, what did you do?” she whispered as she opened her fist and placed the scarab in the hole.
It not only fit, it clicked into place. The moment it did a loud clap, like a bolt of lightning hitting a tree sounded up above her.
She jumped, and ducked for cover, then hurriedly tried to retrieve the scarab, but it was now part of the wall and wasn’t coming out again.
“Damn it!” she exclaimed, as she dropped to her knees and tried to pry it out of the wall.
“What are you doing?” a very deep booming voice demanded from behind her.
“Huh?!” she asked, jumping to her feet and spinning to see who’d caught her trying to remove her scarab.
“I will not repeat myself!” the man bellowed.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to. I was busy and didn’t hear you,” Azi snapped. “And where did you come from? I just checked and no one but me was in here.”
The man narrowed his eyes and moved closer. “Who are you?”
“Who are you?” she demanded right back at him, only now recovering enough from being startled by him to realize he was wearing an ancient shendyt around his waist. He was a large man, the typical dark brown skin of his race.
His eyes were black and piercing. His lips were thick and almost gave the impression that he wore lipstick due to the slight color tinting them.
He was muscular, yet his muscles were slender and long, rather than short and bulky.
“I’m here every day and I never remember meeting you.
Nor do I remember meeting you through any of the government officials I’ve dealt with. ”
“How dare you question me!”
“How dare you question me! I belong here. I found this place!”
“I built this place!” he thundered. “How dare you enter my temple without the proper tribute!”
“Tribute? Seriously? I think you need to leave. You’ve obviously got some delusions.” Azi took out her cell phone and started dialing, forgetting that she couldn’t get a signal this far underground with all the stone surrounding her.
“What is that? A weapon? I’ll end your pitiful life!” he threatened, lifting his arms into the air to call down the powers of the sun to assist him. He didn’t want to kill her, just wanted to give her enough of a startle that she’d stop being so difficult.
Azi watched as he tried to make something happen, but nothing happened.
He looked up at his hands still held aloft in the air, brought them down to face level to inspect them briefly before shoving them into the air again, and repeating himself. “I’ll end your pitiful life!”
“You already said that,” she pointed out. Azi held a black belt in more than a few martial arts styles and wasn’t the least little bit intimidated by this man. She kind of felt sorry for him as he realized his hands weren’t going to do whatever it was he thought they’d do.
He glared at her and literally snarled before pulling his hands down again to examine them. “I do not understand,” he said to himself, and seemed confused.
“Is there somebody I can call for you?” she asked.
“Call? Yes! Guards! Guards! I summon you at once!” he shouted.
He grinned at her snidely, placed his fisted hands on his hips, braced his feet shoulder width apart, and turned to watch the door for his guards to arrive.
After almost a minute of no response, his brow creased as he stalked over to the door and peered up at the stairs. “Guards!” he shouted once more.
“I’m pretty sure everyone is gone for the day. I don’t think any guards are coming. And if they do, they work for me, not you.”
He turned to look at her angrily. “How do you not know who I am? How do you not cower in my presence? How do you not fall to your knees before me and worship at my feet?”
“I don’t know who you are. You haven’t bothered to introduce yourself. And I will not cower because I fear no man. Nor will I kneel, much less worship at any part of him, especially not his feet.”
“I am Ra! God of the sun! I created all life, and ensure its continuation and all order in the universe! Without me, all life would cease to exist!” He lifted his hands in the air as though to call forth some kind of power then thrust his fingertips in her direction.
Azi stood with her arms crossed over her chest, one hip cocked out as she tapped one foot on the floor and watched him expectantly with both her eyebrows raised. “Whatever it is that you’re expecting your hands to do, I’m pretty sure it’s malfunctioning.”
He’d been glaring at his hands and looked up at her angrily. “You’ll see. I am Ra, god of the sun and all that exists under it!”
“Okay.”
“You do not believe me!”
“No, I’m sorry. I really don’t.”
“I am there! And there!” he said, pointing to his likeness painted in different places on the walls of the temple.
“And there!” he said. “This is my temple! Built to shelter my body and those of the rest of the gods I created! Without me, even they would not exist! See for yourself, then worship me properly,” he said, his voice dropping an octave, his words enunciated slowly and with purpose as though he actually expected her to do so.
To humor him, Azi glanced toward the reliefs and paintings on the walls of the Tomb of Ra. She even approached a wall and examined the image of Ra before turning to look at him again.
He raised his chin in the air, providing her with his best side to compare to his likeness. “I am resplendent.”
“You are a man. Not much more, I’m sure.”
“I am Ra, and I am resplendent!” he half-shouted, thrusting his arm out to point at his likeness again.
Azi walked away from the likeness she was comparing, and considered another.
Finally she wandered over to the throne, determined to look there where he was pictured with all the rest of the gods.
When she got close enough, her mouth fell open and her hand shot out to trace the place Ra’s image had been carved on the relief before.
She quickly looked over her shoulder at the man standing across the room, claiming to be Ra, then at the faded, almost empty place on the wall once more.
“Shit, shit, shit! What did you do? Why is Ra not on the relief anymore?!”
“I am here, silly female. How would I be on the wall if I am here instead?”
“That’s impossible.”
“Yet, my image among the rest is clearly muted, and here I stand,” he said, condescendingly, his words accented with perfectly timed impatient blinks of his impossibly long eyelashes.
“No, no, no, no,” she rushed out, as she ran to the next wall and the next, examining all the likenesses of Ra that she could find. The man in front of her couldn’t appear any more like the images of Ra if she’d hired him to do so.
“This is impossible,” she muttered.
“And yet it’s not,” he said, feeling vindicated.
Finally she hung her head in defeat and slowly turned to face him. “How did this happen? Why are you here?”
“You summoned me! I am here to be revered! To take my place as god of all the lands!” he exclaimed. His voice returned to what she thought might be a semi-normal tone for him as he finally looked her in the eye. “I am here because of you. I want to live again.”