Jake Atlas and the Tomb of the Emerald Snake Page 9

  Pan stood over me, spotlit by my goggles’ torch beam. Her face was covered in sand and sweat, crushed up bits of bone and rotten chunks of snake flesh.

  “We made it,” she wheezed.

  Only where had we made it to?

  20

  Part of me wanted to rest and recover from the horrors we’d faced so far in this tomb. But another part, that instinct that made me do dumb things, told me to get up and keep going. The black suit might have found a way underground. We had to be the first ones to find the coffin and its mummy.

  I pushed my comms bud deeper into my ear. “Sami? Can you hear us?”

  There was nothing. Not even static.

  “Kit?” I yelled.

  The only reply was my own voice bouncing around the darkness.

  “We should never have trusted him,” Pan said, helping me up. “He left us to get crushed. That was his plan all along so he could have the tomb for himself.”

  She was convinced, but it made no sense. Kit had saved our lives in the sand trap. Why bother, just to leave us to die in the pit?

  Torchlight from my goggles beamed along a narrow cavern with arched, rust-coloured walls. A white liquid had seeped from cracks in the stone and dried into salt-like crystal patterns. I touched some of the stuff and it flaked apart in my gloves. It was natural, something in the bedrock deep beneath the Giza Plateau.

  The air was damp and warm. The rotten-meat smell was thick and cloying. I looked back, directing the torch at the snake bones and skulls spilling from the pit. Had the snakes somehow got into the pyramid and fallen down the pit? Or had something killed them?

  “Come on,” I said. “We have to find the tomb.”

  We edged through the darkness, following the shaky ribbon of torchlight. We flinched at every shadow and tensed with each rush of warm air that rustled along the passage. The ground looked like a dried-out riverbed, shattered with thin cracks. I crouched down and aimed the torch beam at the gaps. It shone through, gleaming off rock formations below.

  “There’s something under there,” I said.

  “A secret underground world under the secret underground world?” Pan asked.

  Ahead, the cracks were covered by something that looked like ash. Crouching again, I ran a hand through the powdery grey surface. A stench rose from the stuff, so strong that I retched and wrapped an arm around my nose.

  “It’s guano,” Pan said.

  “Eh?”

  “Bat poo.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Look up.”

  A shivering canopy of bats hung from the cave ceiling. One of them stretched its wings, then wrapped them back around itself like a blanket.

  I shifted, directing the torchlight across the grey carpet. There were footprints in the guano.

  “They’re fresh,” I said. “They must be Kit’s.”

  There was also a trail through the guano as thick as a tractor tyre, as if Kit had dragged something across the cave, or been followed by it.

  I ordered my goggles to zoom and they magnified the track, picking it out in microscopic detail. Whatever had passed through had left curved impressions in the guano. “They look like scales,” I whispered.

  Fear prickled my back. “Pan, you’ve read about this place right? Don’t pretend you haven’t.”

  “Duat. Yeah. Ancient Egyptians believed that after they died their souls had to travel through caverns to reach Osiris, who weighed their hearts to see if they were pure. First they had to pass tests.”

  “What tests?”

  “Pits and monsters.”

  “What monsters, Pan?”

  “Snakes, mainly. Oh! That would explain all those bones. In ancient times that pit must have been filled with snakes.”

  Not just ancient times, I wanted to say. Some of those snakes had been killed recently – by something or someone.

  “Keep going,” I said. “Stay close.”

  We couldn’t get much closer. Our trembling sides pressed together as we followed Kit’s prints through the guano. Puffs of gas rose with each footstep, causing us to gag and curse. The sounds echoed around the arched darkness. And then the trail went cold.

  “No more bat poo,” Pan said. “No more footprints.”

  My torch flickered. I took my goggles off and bashed them against the wall. The light flashed, flickered again and died.

  A hiss echoed around the cave.

  “What was that?” Pan gasped.

  I whirled around, but it was impossible to tell where the sound had come from. It seemed to be everywhere at once.

  “Jake? Pan?”

  The voice crackled in our ears.

  “Sami?” Pan said. “Thank God you’re back.”

  “I drove around the plateau until I picked up your thermal signals,” Sami explained. “You’re now fifteen feet below the ground, roughly under the Great Sphinx. Where’s Kit?”

  “You tell us,” I replied. “He disappeared.”

  “What? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m seeing three thermal signals on the screen. You two, and … someone else.”

  Someone else. Blood froze in my veins, and my voice came out in a shiver. “Sami, on your screen… Where is the third image you see?”

  “That’s the strange thing,” Sami replied. “It’s right behind you.”

  Something moved. It was too dark to see, and it was gone in an instant – a creature that was as fast as a cat and as long as a bus.

  Another hiss echoed around the darkness. We backed up against the cave wall, telling Sami breathlessly about the bones in the pit.

  “You need to get out of there right now,” he insisted.

  “Why? What is it, Sami?”

  “What do you know about evolution, the survival of the fittest?”

  “You mean, how weak animals get killed off by strong ones?” Pan said. “Then the strong ones breed even stronger ones.”

  “Exactly,” Sami said. “You said the pit was filled with snakes? That was five thousand years ago. Without food, the snakes would have eaten one another. The strong ones fed on the weak ones. Those strong ones then had baby snakes that were bigger.”

  “Over and over for five thousand years,” Pan said.

  “Right,” Sami agreed. “What you end up with is a sort of super-snake. Super-big, super-fast, super-smart.”

  “Super-good at killing,” I muttered.

  “Get out now!” Sami urged.

  I wanted to get as far away from this place as possible, but we couldn’t leave until we’d found the mummy. And anyway, we had no idea how to leave. I couldn’t bring myself to say it, but there was a chance we were trapped down here.

  “We’ll go on,” I said. “If there is a giant snake down here, maybe it will eat Kit instead.”

  I said it as a joke, but I couldn’t help thinking that maybe the snake already had eaten Kit. Maybe we were dessert.

  We kept moving, away from the sound of the snake and into a maze of caverns so narrow that we could reach out and touch rock on either side. I kept turning, convinced I heard something move.

  “Jake, feel this,” Pan whispered.

  Part of the cave wall was flat and smooth, as if a polished stone slab stood against the rock. The surface was carved with grooves and curves, cuts in the rock that didn’t feel natural. It was too dark to see for sure.

  “It’s got an arched top,” Pan said. “Could be a stela.”

  “Stela?”

  “Stone plaques Ancient Egyptians used to mark important days.”

  “OK,” I said, “but why is this one here? I can barely see it.”

  “I’ll try to lighten it up,” Sami said. “Blink three times and your goggles will send me a photo.”

  I did, and my goggles flashed.

  Whatever Sami did to the photo, he did it in seconds. “OK,” he said. “I’ve got something. Looks like a carving and some hieroglyphs. I’m sending an enhanced file to your goggles.
”

  The reworked photo appeared in my lenses, overlaid on the wall, bright and clear like someone had flicked on a light switch. It wasn’t perfect, but it was incredible how much Sami had teased from the darkness.

  I’d seen carvings like this in books about Egyptian tombs that Mum and Dad had left around the house. Only this one was sharper, untouched by tourists and archaeologists, and protected from thousands of years of desert wind, sand and pollution.

  Pan took my goggles and saw for herself. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed.

  The painting showed what seemed to be a god wrapped in tight bandages and surrounded by columns of painted hieroglyphs. I recognized the mummified figure well enough by now, with his small green face and crossed arms carrying the crook and flail farming tools.

  Osiris.

  “Jake,” Pan said. “We’re close! We have to be.”

  “Uh, guys…” Sami sounded worried again. “There’s something else in the painting, where it’s lit up by the flash. Looks like a carving of a giant snake.”

  I snatched the goggles back. Sami was right – in the photo, an oval head rose beside Osiris. Snake eyes glared from the wall, and the creature’s mouth was open to show curved fangs.

  That seemed strange.

  Stepping closer, I ran a hand around the section of the carving where the photo showed the snake. I couldn’t feel the shape of the creature on the wall. It didn’t make sense that the snake was in the photo, unless…

  Unless it wasn’t a carving of a snake.

  It was a reflection.

  The snake was right behind us.

  21

  “Move!”

  Pan and I jumped at the same time, diving in different directions as the snake lashed forward and head-butted the cave wall. Chunks of stone showered over me. I cried out and scrabbled back.

  The cave filled with hissing.

  The snake’s glistening shape rose. It was as thick as a barrel. Its head was the size of a rugby ball, and fangs as long as daggers glinted in its mouth. Muscles and scales rippled as the creature coiled into a tight spring, about to strike.

  “Jake?” Pan cried, staggering back. “What now?”

  I scrambled up, blinking to clear my eyes of dust, and accidentally set off the camera on my goggles. The flash caused the snake to turn away, its hiss growing even louder. I’d never heard such a noise. It was like a thousand tyres deflating at once.

  This creature lived in the dark. The light must have stung its eyes.

  I edged back, yelling at the thing. “Over here, you ugly worm!”

  The snake coiled again, about to attack. I waited – one heartbeat, two – and then blinked again.

  Another flash. The snake lurched to the side and crashed into a wall. Blinking again and again, I didn’t give it a moment to recover. It tried to turn away but I followed its gaze, strobe-lighting the cave with flashes from the goggles.

  The creature thrashed. In the flashes of light, I saw its mouth open and what looked like a hose rise from its throat.

  “Watch out!” I screamed.

  A jet of venom sprayed from the hose, missing me by inches. I fell and rolled over to see it splash against the cave wall, sizzling and dissolving rock. The stuff would have melted me in seconds.

  The snake turned, firing another jet of toxic spit. Pan grabbed my arm, dragged me away and pulled me up. Suddenly we were running.

  “It’s after you!” Sami bellowed in our ears.

  “We know!” Pan screamed. “How do we kill it?”

  “With guns!” I yelled.

  “We don’t have guns, Jake!”

  “Flare guns, in our utility belts.”

  Behind, the creature slithered faster down the passage. We were almost out of cave – ahead was solid rock. I felt my belt, groping for the flare gun. If I could get a shot off, maybe it would scare the snake long enough for us to escape. I’d only have seconds to turn and fire before the beast was on me.

  And then something happened that I’ll never forget.

  Pan turned, dropped to one knee and fired her flare. The streak of red fire lit her pale face. Her eyes narrowed and her jaw clenched.

  The flare shot between the creature’s fangs and right down its throat. Red fire filled the beast, a twisting column of raging light. It writhed, spraying venom in all directions. I dived from one jet, scrambled away from another. But we couldn’t last long, trapped against the cave wall. The snake’s head slammed into rocks. Its fangs struck stone inches from my arm. It was an out of control weapon that could still easily kill us.

  “We have to get past it!” Pan yelled.

  I don’t really know what happened next. I went into that zone again – not thinking, just acting. I wish I had thought, so I wouldn’t have done such a stupid thing. But I had to stop the snake from thrashing.

  I took two quick steps and leaped onto the creature. I locked my hands around its throat and clung on like a rodeo rider, yanking hard to pull it away from my sister.

  The snake jerked up and I hit the cave ceiling. My BioSteel suit took some of the blow but it still felt as if … well, as if I’d been slammed into a cave wall. My jaw rattled. Spots of white light filled my vision. Rocks dislodged and tumbled down.

  I remembered the cracks in the ground. If I could get this creature to thrash hard enough, maybe it would crash through the cave floor.

  I pulled harder, and the snake’s thrashing grew even more intense. Smoke gushed from its mouth, and it made a terrible noise, high and sharp like a toddler’s scream. The flare was burning its insides.

  It flipped over and I hit the floor, and then sprang up so I hit the roof again. The creature whipped from side to side until suddenly the cave floor gave way and we plummeted.

  I fell maybe twenty feet, landing hard on top of the snake. I slipped off, and the creature’s head flopped on top of me, pressing me down. The end of its tail was trapped under rocks in the tunnel above, so the rest of it hung down like a slide. Smoke wafted from its mouth, like a snuffed out candle.

  It was dead.

  I was dimly aware of Sami speaking in my ear.

  “According to the thermal reading, you’re either lying under the snake or you’re in its belly.”

  “Ugh,” I grunted.

  “Brave move, Jake. Very brave.”

  I didn’t feel brave. My leg felt as if it had been sawn off and stamped on, and then swung at my head as a club. I think my skull had come loose.

  “Jake?” Pan called.

  “I’m … I’m not dead.”

  That was the only way I could describe my condition. Just not dead.

  “Wait there,” she said.

  She slid down the snake’s back. Taking my arm, she dragged me from under the beast and helped me stand on shaky legs. I must have looked like she did: cut and bruised, covered in sand and dust and rubble. But still we both grinned.

  “You just killed a giant monster snake,” Pan said.

  “We did,” I replied.

  I slid the flare gun from my belt and fired a feeble shot. The firework struck rock a few metres away. It sizzled on the cave floor, casting a flickering red glow up the cavern walls.

  The walls were different from those in the caves above, which had been natural rock surfaces. These were flat and smooth and painted with gods. Carvings of Osiris stood out from whitewashed backgrounds, alongside other gods I recognized from Mum’s guidebook – jackal-headed Anubis, and Isis, Osiris’s wife. Most of the scenes were perfectly preserved, as if they’d been painted yesterday.

  But a few paintings looked much older – huge circles on each wall, framing all the colourful gods. It was a symbol that I had seen before: an emerald green snake eating its own tail. Parts of the creatures had flaked away, and their paint was far more faded than on any of the gods.

  Pan picked up the flare. Its glow spilled around the chamber, turning the snakes from dull green to blood red.

  “These creatures don’t look Egyptian,” she mu
ttered. “They look older than the rest, too. Like they were painted before them.”

  I realized I hadn’t told her about the woman with the same symbol on her briefcase, whom Kit had met at the hotel. Now didn’t seem to be the time either. Right then it didn’t seem to matter what it meant; we just had to find the coffin.

  I followed Pan through a square entrance to another chamber. We both stopped and stared. All of the walls were decorated with the same painting, although they were tricky to see. Things were in the way.

  Wonderful things.

  My mouth opened, but no words came out. I didn’t know what to say; I’d never seen anything like it.

  Treasure.

  Pan moved around the room, guiding the flare over objects piled against walls. Everywhere we looked we saw gold: golden thrones, golden chests, golden statues of Osiris. There were reed baskets filled with gemstones in all the colours of the rainbow – emeralds as big as apples, rubies the size of plums.

  Pan rushed around the chamber, crouching to study one object, rising to examine another. Her smile seemed to light up the whole tomb. The old Pan was gone. Down here she was so alive.

  “These are grave goods,” she said breathlessly. She handed me the flare so she could inspect them closer.

  “Egyptians left stuff in tombs for the dead to use in the afterlife,” she continued. “The more powerful you were, the better your loot. Just look at all this, Jake. It’s … it’s unbelievable.”

  Despite the pain and fear, we both burst out laughing.

  “Guys?” Sami asked. “What do you see?”

  “Treasure!” I yelled.

  I’d never felt like that either. It wasn’t just the thrill of finding this tomb, although that would have been enough to make my arms quiver. It felt as if this was something we were meant to be doing, Pan and me together. It felt … right.

  The flare sizzled, its light weakening and the tomb growing darker. I rummaged around among the grave goods, looking for anything else that might work as a torch. I picked up a tall ceramic jar with a lid shaped like a bird’s head.

  “Oh my God!” Pan gasped. “Jake that’s a canopic jar!”

  “A what?”

  “A canopic jar! They held the mummy’s body organs. This one shows the head of the god Qebehsenuef. He protected the intestines.”