Obsidian Egypt: Chapter One

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“Are you sure this is a good idea?”



Twenty eight year old Clarissa Wenston pretended not to hear her twenty five year old brother, Chris Wenston, and continued down the dark hall leading deeper into the Temple of Horus. Behind them, two others followed, each actually clutching to each other in fear of being attacked by scarabs or ticks. They were in the lower tunnels now, making their way further underground each passing hour.



“Clarissa, seriously,” Chris said, his voice slightly strained. His dull blue eyes looked slightly nervous, and he was continuously running a pale hand through his messy brown hair. Clarissa rolled her eyes, reaching an equally pale hand back to take the brightly lit torch from her brother and hold it out in front of her for better light.

“Chris, seriously,” Clarissa mimicked, rolling her eyes and stepping over a large crack in the stone floor. “Would you just shut up so we can do what we came here to do?”



Clarissa Wenston was an Egyptologist. She was a graduate of Yale (and the University of Alexandria for her Masters), and she had formed her own practice, the National and Historical Egyptian Explorers Association, which she had been running since 2009 (a full two years). Her and her brother, Chris, had been working closely on different jobs for the past month; the two had only just been reunited one year ago, when their parents died in a hideous plane crash on their way to Egypt from the States. Since then, Clarissa had been trying to make peace with her brother, trying to find some way for him to forgive her for never acting like a sister. For never being there.



The group moved deeper still into the tunnels, Clarissa’s slim fingers clutched tightly to the torch, moving it around occasionally to check for insects or other potential dangers. Her other hand graced pieces of jet black hair that had come loose from their tie behind her ear, while stormy blue eyes traced the floors when they were not inspecting for danger. The still evident darkness was a bit unsettling, despite the fact she had been going on expeditions since she was sixteen years old, and the dank chill caused a shiver to rip up her spine. She winced; the things she did for a little recognition.

Chris, upon realizing Clarissa’s discomfort, immediately tried to take her mind off of it. “So tell us a little about this Scorpion King,” he said, loud enough for the others to hear. Clarissa frowned lightly, but upon hearing agreement from the others, began to tell what she knew.



“The Scorpion King was defeated by a vast army,” she said. “He requested a second chance from Anubis, the god of the dead; said if he could fight one last time he would grant Anubis his soul. Of course, Anubis agreed; the soul of the Scorpion King was considered very valuable. He gave the King a gold bracelet, the Bracelet of Anubis, which the King was required to wear at all times. Anubis also granted him control of his army who, despite being dead, would rise up from the sands of the desolate Oasis. The Scorpion King fought against the same army that defeated him and emerged victorious. Anubis took his soul, as they had agreed upon, and the army was returned to the sands they arose from.”



“But then what’s all this about his mace head?” Kiko Takahashi asked from behind Chris. Kiko was a twenty five year old Japanese recruit, with dark brown hair to her shoulders and glassy brown eyes. Her face was nicely set, with high cheekbones and a smooth complexion. She was a pretty nice girl, as far as Clarissa knew. But Clarissa hardly associated closely with anyone these days, so she could have been wrong.



Clarissa took a minute to consider that before answering. “It was his greatest weapon,” Clarissa said. “His most valued. He left it on these grounds, which used to be an Oasis, dead long before even the Scorpion King himself. I think…” she paused, coming to a large stone door with hieroglyphs carved into the center. “I think that this is where the battle took place. If it is, then we’ll find the mace head here.”



“But this is on the Nubian Desert,” Richard Grimes, a six foot tall African American with a thick mane of black hair said. “There isn’t much history here.”



“That’s because people don’t read between the lines,” Clarissa said absently; she had the torch held up to the door, and was attempting to read the hieroglyphs etched into the stone.  She had been taught Egyptian language by her father, who had also been an Egyptologist, and who had brought her to Egypt at just eight years old so she could begin her own studies. By the time she started graduate school, she was fluent, and all she had left to learn were hieroglyphs. She was a fast learner, however, so it didn’t take too much time.



After a moment, Clarissa pressed her shoulder to the stone and pushed; the door slid inward with a loud screech, one that brought loud protests from her group. Once she had pushed it far enough to where they could fit through, she cast her torch around; it was a set of very old rock steps. The eighth set they had come across that day. Or night, Clarissa wasn’t sure; they had gone in the Temple at around three thirty in the afternoon, and had been in for hours now. She didn’t even bother checking her watch anymore.



“Be careful everyone,” Clarissa said. “If you trip and fall, it’s the Association’s money for the hospital bill.”

She could practically feel everyone rolling their eyes.



Clarissa led the way down the steps, taking them very slowly and very carefully. They were breaking apart in some places, making it very possible for someone to break their ankles. The passage they were located in was very tight squeezed; the four of them together had to descend in a single file line to avoid being crushed. Once they reached the bottom, Clarissa was practically traumatized to find another passage, this one made of limestone. The others didn’t seem too happy about it either; an outburst of sighs sounded from behind her.



“How much longer is this going to take?” Chris practically whined. He was starting to become visibly irritable; Clarissa could tell by the way he was shifting and pulling at the top buttons of his white short sleeved shirt. They may not have been around each other long, but Clarissa was pretty observant when it came to these things.



“To be an Egyptologist, you need to have patience,” Clarissa said matter-of-factly. “We could be down here for the next day or so.”



Kiko’s voice caught her attention. “Is that what this bag is for?” she asked, holding up a small blue backpack she had been carrying. Clarissa had packed it full of food and water and handed it to her before they entered the Temple. She nodded.

“We won’t survive a day in a place like this without something to eat and drink,” Clarissa said. With a small sigh, she started down the tunnel, the others following behind at a slight distance. They walked in silence, all too tired to even care about making conversation. Clarissa half wished the group was bigger; at least the silence wouldn’t have been so awkward. But then again, she had refused to take more than three people down with her, for it was easy to get lost, and she couldn’t keep track of everyone in a larger group. And since cell phones didn’t work, she had been forced to give everyone walkie-talkies; there were only four available, and she wasn’t letting anyone without a walkie-talkie on the expedition.



It was another hour and a half before they got to another door. This one seemed to be made of limestone, and had more hieroglyphs etched clearly across the center. Clarissa raised the torch to study them and muttered quietly to herself, “’What lies beyond this door is not only pleasure but pain, wealth but invaluable, life but….’” She paused, frowning deeply. “Scorpion?”



“Ooh, cryptic,” Chris drawled. Clarissa elbowed him hard, and he grunted. “Hey!”



“Shut up,” Clarissa growled, and handed him the torch. “Hold this.” Once her hands were free, she shoved hard on the door, which slid inward with a similar noise to the one the last door had, only much louder, and squeakier. Once the door was open far enough for everyone to fit, she took the torch back from her brother and stepped through it, expecting to find more stairs. She was surprised to find that it wasn’t steps, but a large tomb.



“Holy shit,” Richard muttered from behind her. Clarissa cast the torch around, her blue eyes huge. The tomb was filled with ancient artifacts, everything from gold statues to small brass pots. In the center of the room stood a coffin like case that gleamed gold and blue in the firelight, with hieroglyphs etched on the bottom that ran all the way around. Behind it, against the back wall, stood a large glass case; Clarissa couldn’t see what was inside it from where she stood. She was having a hard time seeing anything, actually; her vision was starting to swim. It wasn’t like it was the first time she had made a discovery, but she hadn’t expected to find an actual tomb below the Temple of Horus. Her heart was racing, and she was just waiting to break out into a sweat.



“This is…” Chris couldn’t even finish his sentence; he was staring around, just as shocked as Clarissa. Swallowing hard, Clarissa took a moment to find her voice. When she could speak properly, she finished for Chris.



“This is amazing.”



Clarissa moved further into the room, her tennis shoes squeaking slightly on the marble and rock below her feet. Kneeling next to the tomb, she lifted the torch to get a good look at the markings on the side. Just above the hieroglyphs was one word, written in the English alphabet: Serqt.



“Scorpion King,” Clarissa whispered quietly, raising her hand to trace her fingers along the letters.



“You know, I think you’re a little too over obsessed with this Scorpion King,” Chris said from behind her, startling her enough to cause her to lose her balance and hit the ground on her side. With an irritated glare at Chris, she pushed herself back into her kneeling position.



“Very funny,” she grumbled, her eyes studying the hieroglyphs under the English word. “I’m not going to pretend not to be excited about something I know a lot about.”



“You really need to get laid,” Chris laughed. Clarissa just rolled her eyes; Chris had been teasing her about her lack of a boyfriend for the entire month they had been hanging out with each other. Clarissa was quite content alone; her past relationships were enough to scare her away from romance.



“Clarissa,” Kiko called from behind the casket. “I…think you should probably see this.”



Clarissa rose from her position on the floor and moved around the casket, coming to a stop next to Kiko. In front of them, the glass case she had spotted from the door. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, but when they did, they practically popped out of their sockets.



“Oh…wow….” Was all Clarissa could really manage. Sitting on a deep red velvet cloth was a mace head. Upon further inspection, she found that the handle was still attached. That was odd. Clarissa was sure it was supposed to be just a mace head. It didn’t matter, however, because her team had just found the most important artifact Scorpion King history held.



“Let me see that bag,” Clarissa said to Kiko. Kiko slid the strap off of her shoulder and handed it to Clarissa, who took it and opened the front flap. Her hand disappeared inside, and emerged with a pair of white gloves, which she slipped on her small hands after setting the bag on the floor next to her. Very carefully, she lifted the glass covering of the case, letting it rest against the back wall.



She was almost afraid to touch it. The mace head looked like it hadn’t aged at all, other than a few cracks along the bottom. The handle was still smooth, as if it had been polished recently (though Clarissa knew that wasn’t possible, as the tomb hadn’t been found before this day). The descriptions on the head were so particular, and hadn’t worn out, even though the weapon was clearly over three thousand years old. Clarissa studied the description of a King wearing a white crown, with a bull’s tail hanging from the back of his belt. Her eyes dropped to the handle, where the carving of a scorpion was visible.



“Are we taking it with us?” Kiko asked.



Clarissa nodded. “The Historical Site back in Abu Simbel may want it,” she said. She didn’t add that she had no plan to hand something like this over. She hoped to put it on display in the NHEEA’s museum, though she knew other museums were going to be in a bidding war over it as soon as they found out she had found it. But that worry was left for later; right now, Clarissa had to get the mace head out of the Temple. Reaching forward, she grasped the handle with both hands. The handle was hot, even through the material of the gloves she wore on her hands, and gave off a sort of electric feeling. Shocked, she jerked away, taking a slight step back. Well that had been unexpected.



“Clarissa?” Chris asked from behind her; she hadn’t even realized he had been standing there. She turned her head to look at him for a moment, then turned around and grasped the handle of the mace head again. The feeling was still there, but she ignored it, picking it up and weighing it in her hands. She had no idea what was causing the electric heat; legend said the mace head had magical properties, but Clarissa believed it was all bull. If magic existed, the world wouldn’t have been as screwed over as it was. It was a ridiculous concept.



After a moment of silence, Clarissa said, “Rejoice while you can, my friends. We’ve made history.”



This seemed to lighten the mood a little. Richard and Kiko were smiling huge. Chris seemed pleased. The two siblings looked at each other for a minute before smiling at each other. The hard work really did pay off.



                                       ~~~



About five and a half hours later, the team emerged from the Temple of Horus. They were dirty, they were exhausted, but they were triumphant. As soon as they emerged, a team of reporters came running at them, some flashing cameras, others hurriedly asking questions about the mace head Clarissa carried in her hands. Clarissa and Chris exchanged amused looks, and answered as many possible questions as they could. But Clarissa’s arms were feeling like they were about to fall off (most likely from about three to four hours of carrying a heavy mace head up from the tomb), and no matter how much she liked being in the public eye, she just wanted to get back to Abu Simbel, where she had lived for a good seven years at this point.



The group managed to separate themselves from the press and make it back to Clarissa’s black 2008 Jeep Liberty, which was parked in the tourist parking lot. She had gotten the vehicle as soon as it hit the market three years ago; now, in 2011, she wanted a new car. It wasn’t that the Jeep was in bad shape, she was just tired of it. Something smaller would have done her just fine. Everyone climbed in, Clarissa in the driver’s seat, Chris in the passenger’s, Richard and Kiko in the back. Clarissa opened the glove compartment and stuck her hand all the way in the back, grasping her wallet and bringing it out. From the wallet she pulled her key, in which she stuck in the ignition. From there, she pulled the Jeep out of the parking lot, and directed it back towards Abu Simbel. She glanced at the clock; it was almost six in the morning. And there was still a long drive ahead.