Simon stood frozen in the doorway. There was a figure standing on the opposite side of the small, cavernous chamber, in the midst of stacks of golden coins and precious jewels, just visible in the light of several torches along edges of the room. Simon had half a mind to double back and run out of chamber. He didn't think he could take any more threats to his life today.

  But before he could move, the figure raised her head and two amber eyes met his, and he saw that the figure was a girl. And what a girl it was. Her face was heart shaped with a soft, round chin and smooth cheeks (on which black lines reminiscent of tribal tattoos curled inward), which were framed by a mane of hair darker than ebony. Her skin was molten caramel, her eyes shone like liquefied light in the flickering halo of the torches along the walls, and a considerable amount of glittering assets sparkled on her arms, legs, and head: A golden ruby-embellished tiara rested upon the dark strands of hair on her forehead and several bangles, bracelets, and twinkling, bejewelled rings gleamed brightly against the dark skin on her wrists, fingers and ankles. She wore a plain white tunic and a pair of crude leather sandals.

  She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. It took several seconds until Simon had gotten over the first shock, then the fear of being beaten to the treasure, which he thought was rightfully his, took the overhand again.

  “Who are you?” exclaimed Simon, flabbergasted. The girl replied something that he didn't quite catch. “What?” asked Simon.

  “I said: What are you doing here?” This time, her words registered. Her voice was clear as song, yet demanding enough for Simon to recognize the warning in it and take a step back.

  But that wasn't why he was gaping at her in confusion. Once his brain had made sense of her words, he had also recognized the tongue in which she had spoken; a language which he had spent most of his life to perfect, although it had long since vanished from the face of Earth. Indeed, the girl was speaking Ancient Egyptian.

  Morgan, who studied Inuit tongues as a hobby (as if that was any better), had laughed at him, Simon, for learning this dead language. Nothing could have proved his cousin wrong better than this, the situation in which Simon found himself now. At once, he felt confirmed that learning Ancient Egyptian had been a good thing after all. On the other hand, hearing it spoken out loud for the first time in his life did nothing to assert his sanity.

  Simon extracted a finger and pointed it at the embroidered chest of her tunic. “You are a goddess,” he said in Ancient Egyptian, quite certain that no mortal could possess such beauty. The language was both unfamiliar and oddly well-sounding on his tongue, and this seemed the perfect opportunity to prove its usefulness.

  “That is blasphemy,” the girl replied irritably. “I'm a demi-goddess.”

  Simon almost laughed out loud at the statement, but at that moment, his brain finally processed the thing she was holding in her right hand. It was an iridescent, dull gold blade, curved at the top like a sickle, inscribed with variously shaped symbols and odd signs, and adorned with a single egg-sized ruby at the hilt. A khopesh, remembered Simon, an item he had only seen in the museum of Cairo until this day.

  “Well? Are you a -” The girl's voice brought him back to the present, which, upon reflection, wasn't looking very good for him at all.

  “I did not catch that last word,” Simon said, still eyeing the khopesh warily.

  “A t – r – a – c – k – e – r,” she said, her eyes revolving over his body, as though trying to determine whether he was armed or not. She pointed the tip of her glowing khopesh at him, forcing him to take another step back.

  At that very moment, however, having just reeled backward and seen the scene from a completely different angle, Simon suddenly realized what this was, and almost laughed out loud again, shaking his head at the thought how easily he had been to scare. As realization dawned, so did anger at having been fooled.

  “Morgan, you can come out now,” he demanded loudly. His words echoed eerily around the tiny chamber and the staircase behind him.

  The girl cocked her head to the side, her lips pressed into a thin, disapproving line, and her dark eyebrows contracted in the middle. Nothing but absolute silence answered his call, a quiet in which Simon tapped his foot impatiently and a sheen of dust trickled from the ceiling and onto his hair.

  “I know this is a hoax. I must have taken a wrong turn, ended up back here with MORGAN!” Simon repeated angrily and more loudly than before, shaking dust out of his curls, angry that his cousin (although found out) was making him wait.

  Once again, the only response to his outcry was the echo of his own words. What was Morgan waiting for? Simon could see right through this scheme, and he didn't like being fooled, especially not when the game was already over.

  Meanwhile, the girl on the opposite site of the chamber had not moved from the spot, but regarded him now with a mixture of weariness and mild concern, as though she wasn't quite sure whether he hadn't lost most of his marbles. “There's no one else here,” she said then, frowning.

  “And you, you can stop the pretence,” Simon snapped at her. “I've figured you out.”

  They stood in silence for several more minutes, each regarding the other carefully; the girl, her shoulders tense and her gaze wide; Simon, ogling the impossible female and her khopesh, and considering if he should overpower and drag her out of the pyramid and back to Morgan. That would show his cousin not to mess with him.

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  Simon didn't like the alert, predatory look she was giving him either, like a lioness about to pounce. He couldn't have laid a finger on the reason, but suddenly he had his doubts that this had been Morgan's idea. Come to think of it, it was a much too elaborate scheme for his cousin. What was more likely was that this girl had gotten here by accident and was now trying to scare him into submission.

  Simon almost laughed out loud again, and the girl stared, but at that moment, it was back, the strange, whispering noise from before. It was coming from right behind him now and, this time, he was quite sure that it was not Morgan or a draught, what with the cool, ghostly shower that prickled uncomfortably down his back. The girl must have heard it too, for she frowned and her ears twitched slightly, as though she were listening intently. Then a cold breeze hit Simon's neck and he shrieked in surprise. His plan of assault quickly forgotten, he threw himself over the sarcophagus' top and slithered across its surface to her side of the chamber, where it seemed safer. At least for the moment.

  She was even more beautiful close up, but more terrible as well. He could see the mirrored flames of the torches flicker and dance wildly in her amber eyes, lending them a dangerous quality. Right now, though, he preferred her to whatever was coming down the stairs, thinking he better face the devil he knew than the one he didn't.

  “Hah,” she said, chuckling, as though his peculiar behaviour were nothing she hadn't seen before. “You,” she barked at him then, jabbing the tip of her khopesh toward his chest, “find yourself a weapon.”

  Following her instructions without a particular reason, Simon scanned the crammed chamber for a weapon. There were several: Black, rusty axes leaning against one wall, a morning star hanging from the crossbar on the ceiling; an ornate broadsword that he doubted the could lift on the other wall; and, at last, his gaze fell upon a thin, ornate dagger next to him.

  “Lots of good that will do,” said the girl as he made to pick it up.

  “Excuse me –” began Simon indignantly, but his retort was cut off fairly quickly as sudden movement at the entrance of the room caught his eye. At the same time, he became aware that the whispering had grown louder. It was so close now that Simon could even determine its source, a sinister, black cloud that whirled around the doorway, sparking and cracking with something like electric flashes.

  “Gas!” he exclaimed, positively alarmed that Morgan would go as far as to gas him out to steal his treasure.

  As the watched, the dark fog transformed; it began to glow, twisted and twirled,something was emerging from it, something many-legged and knobbly... And then the ghostly forms became more distinct. Ghastly black creatures like the crosses of a sabre-tooth tiger, an eagle and a wolf were forming in the doorway, their white, pupil-less eyes rolling and bulging, their feathery wings folded tightly on their backs, and their jaws snapping and drooling.

  The wolves' bodies were thick and wiry, with fleshy muscles protruding from their massive, voluminous shoulders, strong hind legs and sturdy necks. Pointed ears lay flat against their heads in a doubtlessly threatening position, saliva was flying from theirs jaws, and, when it opened them, Simon could make out two rows of serrated teeth like a shark's, with canines as thick as his arm.

  “What is that?” Simon shrieked, pointing at the apparition with a shaking finger. “Some sort of illusion?”

  “Chimaeras,” said the girl matter-of-factly. “Very keen noses, and notice the legs, those can run very fast...” As she spoke, the chimaeras' heads swivelled toward them, their fangs bared in a vicious growl – Simon would have given anything to stop the girl talking... Surely, she must realize that her voice would attract the wolves' attention …

  “Of course, they're not that bright... And see their eyes? They're blind too, can't see us, just scent...” She sniffed the air in demonstration.

  Simon looked at the girl in disbelief (and with a feeling that she was the one who had a screw loose, not him), his jaw dropping – the crazy person was actually smiling.

  Then, she did something that scared the daylights out of Simon even more than the chimaeras did. She began to glow in a faint, golden light, as though a million tiny lightbulbs had been switched on just under her skin. At the same time, her features seemed to distort into something that he could best describe as feline: Thick, pointed fangs like those of a great cat, flat, round, furry brown ears that lay smugly against her head, a smattering of sandy fur across her now broad, black nose.

  Simon yelped and raised his dagger, unsure which of the two apparitions was more unsettling, and which he ought to attack. The partly fur-covered girl or the angry wolf chimaeras at the door?

  Before he had even finished this thought (never mind coming to a decision), one of the horrible chimaeras crouched down on its hind legs, ready to jump.

  Simon's brain reeled. Surely it couldn't cross the entire twenty feet of the chamber with –

  “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

  The chimaera flew at him with its horrible jaws wide open, saliva oozing from its long, sabre-like fangs. It let out a combination of a howl and a shrieking wail that was like metal grinding against metal in his ears, and definitely not a sound a human could have made.

  Time seemed to slow down momentarily; Simon could feel each hair in the back of his neck rising separately. He stood there, holding the thin, brittle dagger (which seemed so inadequate now in the light of what he was facing) out in front of his chest, his arms stretched and his fingers shaking as he watched, paralysed with fear, the beast sail over the top of the sarcophagus, unable to veer his gaze from its gleaming eyes.

  The chimaera landed on his chest, and time returned to its normal pace; the sheer force of the impact of what felt like several tons of flesh knocked him backward into the wall with the abomination still on top of him. Its eyes rolled again, its jaws snapped at his throat, saliva sprinkled his face, claws dug into his shirt... He was going to die, he was sure of it...

  Rip! A horribly wet gurgling sound erupted in the air around man and beast, accompanied by a noise like smashing, splintering bone. Blood and innards exploded over him with a beastly stink of something rotten and putrid.

  Simon fought the urge to retch, blinking rapidly into the spray of red, desperate to find out what had happened, for it was impossible to tell whose blood it was... He couldn't be sure it wasn't his, what with the chimaera's weight numbing everything from his chest downward... And then his vision cleared, and the monstrous body slumped on top of him.

  The girl had cut cleanly through the beast's mid with her khopesh, and was now using its fur to clean the blade.

  “Get up,” she said briskly to Simon, as though she found his terror disproportionate, and sheathed her blade. “We better get moving, and quickly. The Trackers will be here any minute now.”