Under the Yellow Sands

Chapter 2: An Invitation from the Dead

In the corner of the dingy hotel, the computer's ancient fan wheezed and groaned. Five young people, from five different countries, now equally penniless, huddled in a tight semicircle, their eyes glued to the dusty fifteen-inch monitor.

The webpage loaded slowly. Images assembled piecemeal, like a torn puzzle. It was a pirated page for The Grave Robbery Chronicles, plastered with gambling ads, but the text was largely intact.

"Is this thing even reliable?" Ben frowned, the screen reflecting in his glasses. "A Chinese tomb raiding novel? Shouldn't we be looking for a guide on 'How to Beg Quickly and Efficiently on the Streets of Cairo'?"

"Shut up, Ben." Jack's gaze didn't leave the screen. "Scroll down. See what it's about."

Tom, manning the mouse, clicked 'next page.' Dense Chinese text appeared. They couldn't understand a word, but a few embedded illustrations made everyone's breath catch.

It was a hand-drawn cross-section of a massive underground structure. Layer upon layer, like a sliced birthday cake. Each layer was marked with strange symbols and**** (densely packed) lines. There were rivers, massive boulders, and silhouettes of unnamable monsters.

"This is..." Sophie leaned closer, pointing at a hollow space specifically highlighted. "This structure... this isn't a normal tomb. Look at the layering. First level, sacrificial pits. Second, a labyrinth. Third, an altar. And that huge space at the very bottom..."

"What does it look like?" Jack asked.

Sophie's expression grew serious, her voice unconsciously dropping. "It looks like an exaggerated diagram of the inside of a pyramid. But pyramid structures are never this complex. This is more like... like they took the entire concept of the Duat and built it underground."

"The Duat." Alex repeated the word, a faint, intrigued smile playing on his lips. "Interesting."

"That's not the most crucial part." Tom pointed to another thumbnail image on the page. It was a photograph, or rather, a** (rephotograph) of a fragment of an ancient papyrus. The fragment showed a boat. It had no sails, but was filled with oarsmen who had the heads of wolves, hawks, and other animals. They were rowing, but the boat sailed not on a river, but on a star-studded night sky.

Below the image was a line of English commentary, probably added by a previous reader.

"Look here." Tom read the English softly. "'The Duat — the ancient Egyptian underworld described in the Book of the Dead. The place the sun god Ra travels through at night. The dead are reborn here.'"

The lobby fell silent. The hotel owner had long since yawned and gone upstairs. Only the five of them remained, with the distant sounds of Cairo's nightlife filtering in from outside.

"So," Jack began slowly, his voice hoarse with a strange excitement, "this Chinese novel references the Egyptian underworld legend?"

"More than that." Sophie's finger traced the screen. "Look at this passage. Translation software gives us the gist. It talks about a man named 'Zhang Qiling' entering an underground world. The description matches the Book of the Dead perfectly — twelve gates, a lake of fire, a feather weighing the heart, the monster Ammit devouring the sinful..."

"Coincidence?" Ben adjusted his glasses, trying to dispel the chill with logic. "Novelists research things."

"If it's a coincidence, what about this?" Tom clicked open another image folder — the comments section of the pirate site. Months ago, an anonymous user had uploaded a photo. It was blurry, as if taken from a moving vehicle. But it clearly showed a large, heavily eroded Sphinx — not the famous one at Giza, but a smaller one, half-buried in sand, its face worn.

But what made their scalps prickle was the modern, bound book placed neatly between its paws. The cover was in Chinese. Even through the pixelation and distance, the characters were legible — The Grave Robbery Chronicles.

"Someone placed this Chinese novel inside an Egyptian monument?" Alex's voice finally registered surprise. "A prank?"

"If it was a prank," Sophie pointed at the upload date, "this was three years ago. After three years, the book is still there? No one took it? No one cared?"

Silence.

It was a heavy, tangible silence that settled on their shoulders.

Jack suddenly laughed. It was a laugh of abandon, the calm madness of a man fate had repeatedly kicked. He turned, leaning against the dusty wall, looking at his four friends.

"Alright. Let's assume it's not a prank." He spread his hands. "Let's assume that in China, there really is a group of people who, for thousands of years, have studied one thing: how to enter the tombs of gods, and return alive from the underworld. And somehow, the results of their research overlap with ancient Egyptian legends."

"And then?" Ben asked.

"And then?" Jack's gaze went past the lobby, through the glass door, towards the distant night sky where, in the direction of the Pyramids of Giza, a faint orange glow of light pollution marked the city. "Our current situation is: no money, no passports, no way back. Tomorrow morning, the Cairo police won't even notice if their toilet clogs. We'll be five illegal vagrants, thrown in jail, then deported, with a stain on our records we'll never wash off."

It was harsh, but true.

"You have an idea." Alex looked into Jack's eyes. It wasn't a question.

Jack didn't answer directly. Instead, he asked Tom, "When you paint, what are you most afraid of?"

Tom blinked. "Afraid of... the canvas being too big, the paint being too expensive, or... having no reference material?"

"No." Jack shook his head. "What you're most afraid of is facing a brand new, blank canvas. Because you don't know what to paint. You don't know where to put the first stroke. And now—" He pointed outside. "Egypt is a four-thousand-year-old canvas. And the brush..." He turned and thumped the old computer monitor, making the screen flicker. "This Chinese novel is our reference image."

"Crazy." Ben muttered. "You are a goddamn lunatic."

"Thanks." Jack accepted it calmly.

Sophie was quiet for a long time. Then she asked, "Even if we do... go tomb raiding... where? How? The Giza Plateau is crawling with police and security. Tourist cameras everywhere. We'd get mummified by the tourism board before we even saw a sarcophagus."

"Not Giza." Alex spoke up. He stared at the photo of the Sphinx, his gaze hawk-like. "This photo wasn't taken on the Giza Plateau. Look at the background. The three big pyramids at Giza are landmarks. You'd see at least one of them from any angle. But here, there's nothing but sand."

"So where is it?" Tom asked.

Alex zoomed in, carefully studying the faint, eroded inscriptions on the Sphinx's base. It was a script he didn't recognize. Not the familiar hieroglyphs, but something more... archaic.

"Here." He pointed to a massive rock half-buried in the sand behind the Sphinx. "Look at the shape of this rock. What does it look like?"

Five heads crowded closer, squinting. Sophie realized first, gasping. "It looks like... the head of a crouching jackal."

Jackal.

In ancient Egypt, the symbol of Anubis, the god of death.

Jack's eyes lit up. He whirled around, rummaging through the junk on the reception desk, finally pulling a crumpled tourist map of Cairo from under a pile of debris. He slammed it onto the table, and five heads immediately bent over it.

"Anubis..." Sophie's finger traced across the map, passing Giza, Saqqara, Dahshur, finally stopping at an area circled but unnamed. "Here."

"What is this place?" Ben asked.

"Memphis." Sophie said. "The ancient capital of Egypt. But its necropolis is vast. Besides the known pyramid fields, there are huge stretches of desert that have never been systematically excavated. Local Bedouins have legends about a 'Devil's House' under the sand there. People who go in never come out."

"This is it." Jack's fingertip tapped the unnamed region, as if tapping the forehead of a sleeping giant.

Outside, a cat yowled, a long, piercing cry like a baby's wail. A black cat leaped from a windowsill, its green eyes flashing briefly in the darkness before disappearing into the alley.

Tom shuddered.

"How do we get there?" Alex began considering practicalities. "No transport, no gear, not even enough water. Walking dozens of kilometers into the desert on foot? We'll die."

"We can borrow gear." Jack said. "I noticed on the way here, lots of construction sites. Tools, rope, flashlights, picks. Unattended at night."

"Borrow?" Ben laughed bitterly. "Steal, you mean."

"What about food and water?" Sophie asked.

"For this." Jack pulled something from his pocket. His sole remaining possession — a battered Casio Pro Trek watch, the face scratched but functional.

"Trade." He said. "The hotel owner smokes Cuban cigars. Means he has connections, and he's greedy. Tomorrow morning, I'll trade him this watch for some supplies. Then we walk to the outskirts, catch a beat-up transport truck, the cheaper the better."

"And then?" Tom asked. "We get there and what? Shout 'Open Sesame' at the sand?"

Jack didn't answer. He looked back at the illustration from The Grave Robbery Chronicles. In the drawing, the man named Zhang Qiling stood before a massive stone door covered in vivid carvings.

Sophie said quietly, "What if... what if the methods in this Chinese novel actually work? Like reading feng shui, locating the dragon's lair?"

"Feng shui is a Chinese geomancy term." Ben protested. "What the hell does it have to do with Egypt?"

"Why not?" Sophie countered. "The ancient Egyptians chose locations for temples and tombs carefully. Aligned with specific stars, near certain points of the Nile, with stable geology. Isn't that feng shui? Just a different name."

"So your idea is to use Chinese tomb raiding theory to find an Egyptian pharaoh's grave?" Ben found the idea absurd.

Jack looked at Sophie. Sophie looked at Jack.

Alex was quiet for a moment, then said, "When I was in the army, I did a tour in Afghanistan. Our guide was an old local. He said the mountains speak, and the wind tells you where to go. We thought he was crazy. But that old man led us past an ambush once. Saved the whole squad."

He paused, looking out the window. "After that, I learned that some things aren't in textbooks."

3:00 AM. The quietest time in Cairo.

The five huddled on the battered sofas in the lobby. No one could sleep. The computer screen had gone dark.

Tom whispered, "What if there really is something in there? I mean... really... something unclean?"

"Then we run." Jack said.

"What if we can't?"

"Then we stay there." Alex's voice was cold. "We're pretty much dead now anyway."

Ben shifted, muttering, "If I die, I'm going to bury a notebook with me, with an inscription: 'This was my choice. Don't blame my crazy friends.'"

In the darkness, Sophie let out a small laugh. It was like a needle, piercing the gloom hanging over them.

Just before dawn, Jack dozed off. He dreamed.

He stood in an endless desert. Above him, the stars swirled in the sky. In the distance, there was a black pyramid, not made of stone, but of something smooth like obsidian. Its peak pierced the sky.

He walked forward. The sand beneath his feet turned to water, icy cold. The black pyramid grew closer. He could see carvings on its surface — not pharaohs and gods, but row after row of square characters.

Chinese.

He was straining to read them when the water beneath him became a whirlpool. A pale, white hand shot out from the vortex and grabbed his ankle...

Jack woke with a start, drenched in sweat.

Sunlight streamed through the glass door, bathing the lobby in gold. Sophie was crouched beside him, looking at him with a strange expression.

"Nightmare?"

Jack wiped his forehead. He didn't answer. "Where are the others?"

"Ben and Tom are negotiating with the owner." Sophie said. "Alex is keeping watch at the alley entrance."

As she spoke, Ben came back carrying a large bundle. His face held the relief of a narrow escape. "Success! Five bottles of water, twenty loaves of eysh baladi (Egyptian flatbread), and a small bag of dates. The owner wanted to take your shoes too, but Tom drew him a quick sketch — made him look younger — and that softened him up."

Tom smiled shyly. "I made him about fifty percent more handsome."

Alex entered last, carrying a few lengths of rebar scavenged from a construction site and a coil of nylon rope. He dropped them on the floor. "Let's go."

The five stood at the hotel entrance, taking one last look at the place where they'd spent only one night.

Jack stuffed a battered, English-translation copy of the Book of the Dead (found in the hotel corner, left by some previous guest) into his backpack. He took a deep breath. "Let's go. Time to deliver an invitation to the Pharaoh. Tell him five broke and desperate guests are coming to collect his rent."

They didn't look back.

Behind them, Cairo awoke. The call to dawn prayer rang out from the minarets, long and mournful, as it had for a thousand years.

And far away, beneath the sands, in the darkness of four millennia, something seemed to stir.

(End of Chapter 2)