Chapter Ten

Mila woke in the middle of the night. She didn't know why, or how, but she slipped out of her tent and went to stand in front of the coverstone. The full moon illuminated the girl, dressed in long, flowing robes that were turned a blinding white by the moon's rays. Mila's blonde hair blew behind her, and her blue eyes were open, staring at the slab.

Hawking's tent flap stirred, and he emerged. "Mila?" She didn't turn or acknowledge his presence. She held her hand out above the slab. "Mila, what are you doing?" He touched her shoulder, and pulled his hand back sharply. A shock had zapped him as soon as he touched Mila.

Mila lowered her hand. Hawking saw that the engraving of the handprint was just below her hand. She placed her hand on the indention. Her eyes lit up, turning the irises white. Hawking backed away. As he watched, the handprint on the coverstone began to glow with the same light. The runes around Mila's hand glowed as well, and this spread throughout the entire slab, like blood through a person's veins. She took her hand away.

Hawking gasped. The heavy, large coverstone rose a few feet into the air, than slid away from her. Underneath it, dark, dusty steps led down into the interior of the Egyptian desert. "Well, that solves our problem," Hawking muttered. Mila said nothing. "Mila? Mila?" There was no reply. The light slowly faded out of her eyes. Mila jerked and twitched, and seemed to wake up. "What the heck was that?" she asked. "How did the coverstone open? What happened? Why am I out here?"

Hawking explained about the light on her eyes and the coverstone hovering and sliding away. "That sounds like what happened back on LuCA..." Mila said, half to herself. "What?" Hawking asked. Mila peered down the steps. "Back on LuCA, my friend Jakk and I found a ULO. It was a black slab, about the size of a computer. We brought it back to the lab, and when I touched it with my bare hands, it did sort of the same thing. It opened up, but there was nothing inside. And then it just--disappeared." Mila decided not to tell Hawking about the voice. She had learned her lesson the first time with Jakk.

Hawking was listening very intently. "Did this box have anything inside it?"

"No," Mila lied. "It was empty." Except for a creepy voice telling me that I was going to die.

"And was your friend with you when the box opened?"

"No, but I told him about it." The disappointment in Mila's voice was obvious.

"He didn't believe you, did he?"

"Nope." Mila shrugged her shoulders. "So, who's gonna go down the stairs first?"

Chapter Nine

The sand blew into Mila's eyes. She shielded her hand against the blinding sun and surveyed the scene in front of her. The remnants of a few tents, now just scraps of cloth and broken poles, stood next to a slab of rock lying on it's side. The rock was just a few feet high, but the side facing Mila was roughly 5 feet long. She walked around the great object.

It was a sandy yellow-orange, and was inscribed with runes and symbols all over it's surface. Mila recognized a handprint, a cat, a river, and something that looked like it could be either the sun or the moon. The slab itself was approximately 2 feet high, 5 feet wide, and 15 feet long. Mila recognized the slab from Thellas' journal. He had drawn the slab with extreme detail, and despite the weathering of the years, the object had remained relatively untouched.

Mila stepped back from the object. It had a quality to it that was enchanting and haunting, and she shook her head to get rid of it. What had Thellas said? She opened her messenger bag. She had dressed in the protective clothes of a camel rider: long, light colored robes and sturdy shoes. She had even gone so far as to pick up a headdress to shield her face from the sand and the sun, though it wasn't doing such a good job.

Mila pulled out her tablet, carried all the way from LuCA. It's sleek, professional surface looked odd against the sand and grit of Egypt. She pulled up Thellas' journal and found the section on the slab.

This object appears to be the coverstone for the tomb. We will work on removing it tomorrow. But for now, I will sleep.

There was nothing else. Thellas' journal hadn't been recovered in it's entirety. The next page that remained detailed the burial chamber. There was nothing about how Thellas had removed the coverstone.

Mila tucked her tablet back into her bag and crossed to her camel, an ornery male named Gamelru. The camel tossed his head and snorted. Mila ducked to avoid the wave of snot that passed overhead. "Yeah, yeah," she said. "We get it. You need food. But aren't you supposed to live off your own fat, or something?"

Gamelru tossed his head again in response. "Ok, ok," Mila said. "Just don't spray snot all over me, okay?" She patted Gamelru's neck and reached for her pack.

☯☯☯☯

Mila placed her hands on her hips and looked at her tent. "Clearly, I need practice," she said to Gamelru. He snorted in reply. The tent was lopsided, but it would have to do. It was made of a few poles, with a brown cloth stretched over all of it. Mila had placed it next to the ruins of the other tents. It had freaked her out to be so close to them, but the location had the best view of both the coverstone and the direction from which she had come.

Mila reached for Gamelru's reins. He flicked away, and she lunged after him. "Come back here, you filthy--" she tripped and landed facedown in the sand. The camel whinnied, the sound reminding Mila of laughter. She rolled over.

"It's better when you approach them from head on," a voice said from no where. A hand clasped Mila's and pulled her up. She cleared the sand from her eyes and gasped in delight. "Hawking?"

Hawking bowed slightly. He was dressed similarly to her, and he had even opted for a turban. He was holding the reins of Gamelru, who looked slightly ashamed, along with a dark chestnut horse. "Mila Arwyr. We meet again."

"But--how? Why? What about your business?"

"They postponed the meeting until September. Some of the interns got a little excited about their findings and didn't cite them right, so they'll need a few months to get everything in order. I decided to come and see you."

"But how did you get here so fast?"

Hawking smiled. "Camels may be more efficient, but horses are faster." He patted his horse's neck. "Now, let's fix your tent."