go see Aset and Ausar," Carlos said, still staring at the pearl in her necklace. It had begun to smoke under the California sun's brilliant rays. Damali nodded, gaping at her pearl. "Ya think?"
* * *
It was supposed to be a solo visit by each of them, just like always. Carlos had called down the golden obelisk to transport him to the Neteru King's Council, just as Damali had called the violet pyramid door to her Queens. But the moment both Light passageways opened, they merged, and suddenly Damali and Carlos were walking down a long white marble corridor side by side. The vaulted ceiling was shaped like a pyramid, and had glowing, silver hieroglyphic symbols etched in the marble. A strange violet fog gave the hallway a dreamlike quality that made it hard to tell if they were moving or standing still.
"This is too freaky," she whispered.
"I know," he whispered. "You ever been down this way before?"
"No. You?"
He glanced at her and shook his head. She peered at the black-box on the golden floor, drawing his attention. The pearl was now spinning wildly inside the box, which emitted yellowish, sickly smoke.
"What are we gonna do with that?"
Carlos shrugged. "I don't know - but I know one thing, you ain't putting it on your neck anytime soon."
"You got that right." Mesmerized, she couldn't stop looking at it for a few seconds, and then she looked at him. "What if I'd dipped that in the water while the team was there and whatever's making it sick got out?"
"I know, baby," he said quietly. "It's bad enough me and you touched it holding hands, so
..."
"Yeah, I know. We could be carriers of something really foul to the whole group." A roar coming down the hall made Carlos instantly bulk, drop fang, and throw out a shield in front of him and Damali as the blade of Ausar came into his hand.
"No, no, no!" Damali warned. "It's Aset's guard lions. Stand down, or they'll attack to the death from the perceived threat."
It took him a second to heed Damali's warning as two huge white lionesses that stood four feet at the shoulders, with saber-tooth incisors bounded down the hall, muscular wings helping them gain momentum as their silver claws raked the golden floor. He stood at the ready to shield himself and Damali again, should it be too late and the creatures already have been confused. But the lionesses stopped ten feet in front of them, looked down at the black-box containing the pearl, and snarled at it.
Hesitant, one of the lionesses batted the offending item away with a hard swat. When the sound of Zehiradangra's screams began to leak out, the other lioness snapped the box into her powerful jaws, pivoted off a wall, and took flight, headed back in the direction they'd come from. The remaining lioness issued a warning growl toward Carlos, then glanced over her shoulder and went airborne to follow the lioness that had retreated first.
"Aw, man," Damali whispered, practically singing the statement. "They really did not like that."
"No doubt," Carlos said, rubbing tension out of the back of his neck. "Plus, you get a
whiff of that stink that came out of the box?"
Damali made a face. "Yeah. But now what? I've never called a council hearing and been -
"
Dense violet and gold-hued fog instantly filled the chamber, surrounding the sickly yellow vapor that had escaped, and cutting off Damali's words. She and Carlos watched in awe as the chamber fog retracted into a lance and speared the center of the yellow mist, eerily causing it to scream. Then just as suddenly the multi-hued fog formed a tight pyramid around it, and began to shrink as though compacting trash until it disappeared.
"Now that was deep," Carlos said in a quiet, reverent voice once the pyramid was gone. Damali never got a chance to respond before twelve heavily armed male and female warriors in glowing white-gold Kemetian armor strode down the hall toward them. At the lead was an unusually tall man and a woman. They looked like siblings. Both owned the same shaped faces, opaque eyes, gleaming ebony skin, and taut athletic build. The only difference was the male was slightly taller and thicker than the female, but then-tight dreadlocks were of the same length, and wrapped in silver bands, like their arms. The entire retinue carried shields, broad swords, quivers on their backs filled with an arsenal of silver arrows, and daggers stashed in the calf-straps of