Ife Lerato

(AUTOMATIC 14)

And so Ra asked if he could wake up

But the mean snake said

Not today Satan.

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Angelus Karthai

The tomb of Aneski... You must reach the tomb of Aneski, through there you will find the ship that lays in the centre of the chamber. You will sail on the River of Night to the Underworld on it.

Do not fail me.

There was barely enough light to see in the tomb, a few drops of stardust falling through each crack and cranny of the cave. Not enough to reveal it's secrets, but somehow enough the cast shadows everywhere, as if Angelus were living in a kaleidoscope of shadows and darkness. The only noise that could be heard were the waves of a current. This was the only guidance Angelus had to point him towards where he was meant to be headed.

Slowly, he felt his way around the cave, stumbling across the teeth like stalagmites, vicious and stained almost blood-coloured. With a howl, a sudden wind blew through the tomb, sweeping through it in gales upon gales, almost knocking Angelus off of his feet. He could only crouch behind a stalagmite for a little bit of protection. As abruptly as they came, the winds stopped, and Angelus cautiously continued making his way through the tunnel.

The cave seemed to be endless, there was nothing for Angelus to follow, no markings, no nothing. The pathways just seemed utterly spontaneous and none led towards the sound of the river. His mind told him not to venture onwards until he had a plan, the tendrils of darkness grappling him from all sides deterring his confidence with each step he took. Yet, his curiosity and will to adventure got the best of him. Braving the almost complete darkness, the cave sketched with charcoal, he continued onwards. The small cracks that shone with starlight were his beacons of hope, albeit it's meek light not doing much against the blanket of gloom that had settled upon the cave, it still reminded Angelus that there was still light, there was still a chance.

Yet, as even the small gaps of hope grew rare, Angelus often could not be sure that he had his eyes open. The cave itself seemed to be simmering with hostility, unwelcoming to all. Very quickly, Angelus began to notice another thing, the temperature. It felt as though the temperature was dropping with each passing second, soon chilling Angelus to the bone. While he had grown accustomed to the nightly chills of the desert, this was a completely different story. No one could have prepared for the tundra like coldness that was this tomb. It felt unnatural, nothing could be this naturally cold in Egypt, there was no way. What could possibly be causing it though?

Still, Angelus continued onwards, plundering through stone chamber after stone chamber, listening for the current at each split. Not without a few scratches from falling though, thankfully nothing too painful happened, but Angelus could feel a small trickle of blood running down his leg.

Amidst all of this, Angelus just wanted to give up. There was nothing he could do. Sitting onto the uneven stone ground, Angelus heard a click, as if a key slotting into a lock just perfectly. Slowly, the cave began to light up with crystals of all kinds. Some that Angelus could identify were Lapis Lazuli and Amethyst. Each had this glowing quality about it, so without blinding him, the crystals offered just enough light to see. Just staring at the vibrant explosion of colours, so crystalline and sparkling, Angelus couldn't help but start dreaming.

If he could have all of these crystals, he would be rich! He would never have to work another day, who could resist an offer like that? The twinkling and glimmering jewels seemed to be calling out to him, tempting him to touch and feel them on his palm. He was about to submerge himself into the sea of jewels and riches, dreaming of all that he could finally have for himself. With all of this sold he could be living in palaces, as if he were royalty.

Angelus sighed in content just from thinking of these things. And yet, as he grabbed hold of one of these crystals, a series of others sparked to life, seemingly showing him the way. Entranced, Angelus followed the path of glamour and glimmer. Step by step, he could feel the cave itself rumbling, as if something was running through it, creating tremors with every step. In panic, all of his dreams were shattered into pieces of glass, shooting pain through his legs.

Running, the cave walls seemed to be closing in on him, almost giving Angelus a claustrophobic sense. He could hear the river clearly now, surging in all of its rage and life. He hastened his footsteps even more, forgetting any warnings to keep calm and cautious.

In seemingly a split second, Angelus found himself in front the majestic boat, he leapt on, and squeezed his eyes shut. Feeling the pulsing rhythm of the river below his feet, accompanied with, for once, a welcomed darkness. 

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Ramia Gamal

AUTOMATIC 14

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Lucius Horatius

Lucius came to in a dark, clammy place. It was not as cold as it had been in the market, but the place was still chilly, like a deep cave.

The earthen floor was rough and firm. Not sand, or river soil, but hard-packed dirt.

There was murmuring in the dark; Lucius pushed himself up onto his elbows and knees, head spinning. A dim, weak light flickered, both before his eyes and behind them.

Lucius shook his head to try and clear it and instead nearly passed out with nausea. He groaned, resting his forehead on his forearm.

'On your feet, centurion,' he urged himself. 'Stand!'

He felt small hands on his shoulders. He pushed away from the ground and snatched at the invader of his space, catching them by the wrists.

The little girl shrieked and tried to pull her hands away.

"Who are you?" he demanded, shaking the girl. "What is this place? Speak, girl!"

"Let her go, you brute!" a woman stepped out of the shadows and pried his hands off the child's wrists. She pulled the girl away, placing herself between Lucius and her. "We're all confused, but be civil."

Lucius stayed kneeling on the ground a moment to get his bearings; as he blinked through the dizziness he scanned the room. A crowd of Egyptians stood, knelt, or sat all around. Some men, some women, all ages, all shades. The diversity of Egypt was arrayed before him. Some of them held small makeshift torches, one or two held candles. He immediately noticed that some small cabals had begun to form, and many of those little alliances were eyeing him with suspicion and contempt. Not a good sign, but neither a surprising one; expatriates such as himself were hardly welcome visitors.

His eyes finally settled and focused on the woman who had pulled the child away from him. She was nymph-like in stature and face. Her linen dress and flowing veil marked her as a priestess.

"What is this place?" he asked her sharply. "Why am I here?" He heard a sharp insult under someone's breath and snapped loudly, "Can you not hear me speaking Egyptian, you idiot?"

The broad-shouldered beast of a man who had spoken pushed away from the wall and stepped forward into a patch of light. "This is a tomb, ancient and sacred." He took a candle from the young man standing next to him and held it closer to the wall, illuminating the hieroglyphs decorating them. "This is hallowed ground and we have been chosen to walk upon it. We are chosen for a great purpose--we have been sent here, to the very tomb of Aneksi, by the gods themselves to enter the Underworld, defeat the endless Night, and liberate ever-shining Ra."

"Why is there a Roman here, then?" demanded some voice whose face Lucius couldn't pick out.

"I do not know," said the man who held the candle by the wall. "He may be an agent of the darkness placed here to disrupt us."

"I'm no one's agent." Lucius finally got to his feet. He was starting to feel outnumbered. "I am Lucius, I come from the land north of the sea, and I have no interest in the affairs of your gods. I will take my leave of you as soon as I am able."

Some of the duos and trios that had stayed out of the discussion began to migrate towards a deepening darkness at one end of the cave; an exit, it seemed.

The priestess hung back as people filed out. "Who chose you?" she asked.

"I don't know. I knew her as a common witch, but clearly she was more." Lucius felt a tug at his cloak and looked down to see the child. "What?"

"You dropped this when you appeared," she said, holding up his lantern.

"Oh. Well." He took it from her. "Not much good without a flame, but—" He caught the eye of the priestess, who was giving him a sharp look. "—thank you, little one."

The girl nodded and ran after the fading light. The priestess used the candle she held to light the lantern.

"There. Happy now?" As they turned and followed the others, she asked, "What did your witch look like?"

"She was just a woman at first. But then she...had this mouth, like a crocodile's. And she wore a red, curled cap."

"Ah," said the priestess, "Neith, then. Interesting. You're more than you seem, Roman."

"And what do I seem?"

There were screams up ahead; they broke into a run. The corridor opened up into a huge hall made of carved, laid stone. There was a web of staircases and doorways dotted the walls on every level like honeycombs.

The platform on which they stood was on the second level; below them, several members of the party had gone down to the lower floor instead of up the stairs, and were now writhing or crawling as they were swarmed by scarabs. Thousands of scarabs, surging up from drains in the floor like a flood. Some people were trying to fish their companions out of the infestation, while others ran.

Lucius decided to follow the man who had taken charge in the room before. He was leading the fleeing group up a set of stairs, yelling about a burial chamber and a boat.

The priestess faltered for a moment, seeming as though about to reach down in an absolutely futile attempt to save one of those screaming for help. Lucius grabbed her arm and pulled her along after him.

"You can't help them, girl, keep moving!" Another wisdom gleaned from his time in a small, sad army: leave the dead, even if they're still screaming.

At the top of the stairs, the company stopped.

"Which way?"

"That way."

"No, wait—"

"Which way is East?"

"That doesn't matter—"

"Look out!"

All eyes turned on the child, who was clutching at the nearest adult and pointing at the wall.

"It's just a painting of Ammit, silly child," said the adult to whom she clutched.

"It moved," insisted the girl.

Lucius turned and looked. The mural on the wall was sinister, full of fire and fear—but it was just a painting.

"That way," the priestess said, gesturing to the paintings on the walls. "The falcon, hidden in the reeds. It's pointing that way."

"What if it's a trap?" suggested another. "We should go this way instead."

Some squabbling broke out.

"Oi!" Lucius shouted and banged his sword on the wall to get everyone's attention. "Why would the gods bring you here with no explanation, no maps, and only trickery for signs? The falcon is sacred to your people, is it not? In Rome, we follow eagles; they never lie. Surely your falcons do not lie." Privately, he thought, 'That's Roman honor, though—do Egyptians have the same code?'

"Trust the falcon!" called out someone in the back of the group. The sentiment was taken up by others, and then the group began moving in that direction.

Lucius didn't like the idea of his back turned on any of them, so he hung back and waited to bring up the rear. He heard a pebble skip across the floor behind him and turned sharply. Nothing there.

He turned back to the group cautiously and followed again. Ahead, the others rounded the corner, keeping close to the walls to examine the murals closely.

There was the ghost of a breath on the back of his neck.

Lucius lunged forward, turning. The beast before him had the crushing hind legs of a hippopotamus, the powerful torso of a panther, and the monstrous head of a massive crocodile.

Its serpentine tongue flicked out between its jagged teeth as it gathered itself to pounce. A huffing, purring growl that sounded almost like the soft laughter of a deranged woman rumbled from its scaly throat.

There was no way Lucius could take on the creature; it was twenty feet long at least. He stumbled backwards and sprinted after the rest of the group, bellowing "RUN!" The situation instantly became chaos. Any delicate alliances that may have formed moments ago were forgotten as everyone scrambled to save themselves—some even going so far as to trip and push others to get ahead. Lucius scooped up the little girl, who had fallen to the floor, and ran with her tucked under his arm like a sack of grain.

Behind him, he could hear some unlucky bastard's demise. He didn't dare look.

"This way!" the priestess, leading the charge, rounded a corner and darted about another. The dancing of the light from their jostled torches made it seem for a split second that there was a bird of some sort soaring just ahead of her. "In here!"

Lucius came around the corner into the room and threw the child away from him. He seized hold of the door, which looked and felt as though it had stood open so long it was not part of the wall itself, turned to stone. It didn't help that gold and goods were heaped all over; he couldn't find solid footing on the carpet of coin.

"Somebody help me, for the love of—" He roared in frustration as the great door only budged. He could hear the dying screams of a girl out in the corridor, and when she was done, it would only be seconds before the monster continued after them. "JUNO'S TITS, SOMEONE HELP ME!"

He felt a great strength slip into him, as though his arms were sleeves that another had just pulled onto their own arms, and the with a great creaking the door began to move. One of his companions, a woman with long, curly hair, joined him now. Another jumped in to help, and then a man joined. Together, they pulled the door away from the wall in jolts and wrenches.

There was an almighty roar from the corridor, a victorious howling followed by massive footfalls.

"Come on, pull!" Lucius commanded, kicking treasure out of the way. "You're chosen by the gods, it's not your fate to die here! You're too good for that, all of you! Pull! PULL!"

With a great groaning, the door finally flew free, and they jumped out of its way to slam it shut. The galloping sound outside slowed as it neared the door, then turned to pacing accompanied by annoyed huffing and rattling. Then, there was the noise of enormous, heavy feet loping away, back the way they'd come.

Suddenly feeling as empty as a shirt, Lucius leaned back against the closed door, panting.

The room was piled with statues, stacks of folded cloths, urns, jewelry, and gold in every form imaginable. In the center of the room there was a large river boat, into which the surviving members of their company were already climbing. Clearly they thought to use it as a means of travel to their Underworld.

"Come on, we have to hurry," said the priestess as he approached the boat. "Ammit may return and that door will not hold her for long."

"No no, this is where we part," he said. "This business is none of mine."

"The gods have brought you here, they want you here. You would disobey them?"

"They're not my gods," said Lucius. "And it's clear to me now that I should never have come to Egypt. I'm going home." He pointed to the far end of the chamber; there was a door, shut and cobwebbed. "That is my exit. Best of luck to you all." He saluted them and started for the door.

"You think there will be a sun in Rome? This is not something you can run from!"

"Our sun-god is not fool enough to enter the Underworld every night, of course there is still a sun in Rome." He took hold of the giant brass ring handle of the door and pulled. It exploded open, blown apart by a tidal wave, a floodgate opening, a river unleashed. Lucius was caught up in the torrent and thrown back, with the wind knocked clear out of him. He tumbled in the water and then came down on something hard. His vision blinked out for a moment, and the world rocked and spun.

No, the world was actually rocking and spinning, he realized; he'd landed on the deck of the boat, now rising with the surging waters.

"Say what you like about the gods of Egypt, but they are persistent," said a young man clinging to the mast.

"But don't say what you like about the gods, Roman," added the tall, broad-shouldered man.

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Kahula Urbi

MADE SEXUAL INNUENDO AT ISIS. OSIRIS DISAPPROVED.

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Hotep Bonami

Fishing was easy. One could just place a net in water and wait for the fish to come. It was simple, relaxing— not at all like tomb-raiding. Tomb raiding in itself could be considered a sport, much like fishing, but Hotep couldn't say he enjoyed it. Perhaps a few people in the group got off on the adrenaline and puzzles from the many traps that awaited grave robbers, but Hotep was not one of them. He didn't get off on such cheap thrills, and more than anything he was becoming concerned for the fate of Egypt.

In a way, the whole lot of them were "chosen ones" in their own right. But only one of them was actually the chosen one. If fates had been predetermined and aligned like Hotep himself had believed, then only one of them was truly destined to restore peace within the beloved city. The rest of them would be merely numbers. Numbers to keep the chosen one safe.

Safety in numbers, after all.

"Watch your step," someone murmured from within the group.

Hotep looked ahead as they entered a new chamber. Orange and yellow lights flickered from the oil lamps that extended from the walls, and inscriptions on the wall were well lit and readable. It didn't vary from the last chamber and the only thing that had most likely changed was the trap that was in each room.

The last trap from the other room had been a tripwire that the leading man had been quick to discover. The poor innocent victim walked with confidence through the tomb, only to be greeted by death not even more than twenty minutes into the raiding.

After such an event, everyone was careful to watch where they stepped.

It was similar to how after that incident, everyone became quiet. Conversations had died, and no one really wanted to talk. Hotep thought that perhaps it was for the reason that no one wanted to miss an important noise or word being said, but the truth more likely strayed towards a feeling of fear of what was to happen inside the tomb.

Or it could have even been both potential reasonings responsible for the ominous silence. He didn't really know, but what he did know was that everyone was scared, and they had every reason to be. They were all taking a journey to hell, with complete strangers, and not knowing what the journey actually was.

Currently they were situated inside a tomb with an eerie atmosphere and the smell of death that suffocated anyone that entered. Anyone in their right mind who wasn't a grave robber would have ran out of there as fast as their legs could carry, but then again, was anyone sane in Egypt anymore?

It was a good question to which Hotep had no answer to. Though it was a fun thought to ponder.

"Has anyone seen Nubia?" a voice suddenly broke the silence.

A few mumbles and whispers were exchanged, but it seemed that a search for an answer was fruitless. Or at least if anyone had an answer, they were simply choosing to ignore the concerns of whoever had asked the question.

Nubia, would most likely be a forgotten person who fell victim to the many traps the tomb had to offer as a method of preservation and protection. Her purpose was to be a number that kept the chosen one safe, and Hotep would remember her for that.

Or at least he would try to.

All he could do was try. Try not to be in fear, and try to do his job on this important quest. Whatever the job was, at least.

"No Nubia, but it doesn't matter now. Look," another voice piped.

A chamber away from them was a ship that could be seen from years away. A grandiose ship that would take them to the River of Night, and be a key to whatever obstacle was ahead of them.

It was a beautiful ship.

The group of nineteen moved closer, and soon they were in front of possibly the biggest and most magnificent ship Egypt had to offer. It was a marvel to the eye, and when Hotep entered the chamber and saw the ceremonial ship in the center, he couldn't help but feel a sense of joy— relief even. Fishermen used boats, and boats were something he was familiar with. At least if he was sailing to death with Aneski, in the River of Night to Osiris's stronghold in the Underworld, he would be doing it in something that brought him joy and the familial sense of home.

Sure, there wasn't enough room in the vote for everyone, and at least one person had to be cut loose, but it wasn't going to be Hotep.

No, they needed him too much for this specific task.

It could've even been the actual task he was destined to do all along before meeting his own end in the Underworld. Ships were almost something of his expertise, and this was much more than just fortune.

It was fate. Hotep's fate— he was going to be the one to guide the ship down the River of Night.