Gold Everywhere

Before we even hit the ground, Miu was calling to us. “Ra? Khepri? ”

“I’m fine, ” I croaked, shaking myself free of pebbles and debris. “What about you, Khepri? ”

“I’m okay, ” he chirped from somewhere to the right of me. “But I don’t know where we are. ”

“Me neither. ” I trained my ears and nose on the darkness around me. “From the echo, it sounds like a big place. And it smells musty. I’m talking really, really old. And sort of…spicy. ” I stopped sniffing as the horrible truth dawned. “Khepri, I think we’re in a tomb. ” “I’m coming to help! ” Miu called.

“Miu, don’t, ” I warned.

Too late. She landed next to me. “Wow. That’s a big drop, ” she said as a few pebbles bounced down after her. “How are we going to get up to the cave again? ”

“That was my point, ” I said hollowly. “Now we’re all trapped—in an ancient tomb. ”

“We’ll find a way out, ” Khepri said confidently.

“We’re doomed, ” I moaned. “Doomed, I tell you. No one will ever find us, and we’ll waste away in the darkness…”

Except it wasn’t so dark anymore. A faint light was glowing somewhere to our left.

Khepri scuttled toward it. “Hey, watch out, ” he warned us. “There’s a big hole here. I mean really big. ”

A hole? I stopped moaning and squinted. Khepri was right. On our left there was an enormous hole, right at the mouth of a tunnel. The light seemed to be coming from the far end of the tunnel.

“Maybe it’s a pit to trap tomb robbers? ” Miu trotted forward. “Yes, look at that. Those are some serious spikes at the bottom. And look, someone’s laid some rope across the pit—”

Khepri scrambled forward for a closer look. “It’s a rope bridge. ” The faint light wavered and grew brighter.

“Someone’s coming, ” Khepri said, hopping back to me.

“Anubis! ” Strangled by fear, I could barely whisper the warning. “He lured us here. It’s been his plan all along. He’s coming! ”

“Not Anubis again, ” Miu said, but I saw apprehension in her eyes as the light grew stronger.

“Hide! ” I choked out. “Quick! ”

Turning back, we could see the chamber we’d fallen into. It was indeed a tomb, with a polished stone sarcophagus and ghostly statues covered with jewels and gold. On the floor was a heap of still more jewels—including an enormous amethyst heart scarab. There was a small golden sarcophagus set carefully beside it…

A cat-shaped sarcophagus.

I twitched my whiskers in shock. The loot from the tomb robbery!

The light grew brighter, and then I saw him, coming down the narrow tunnel toward us…Anubis.

His black jackal head was enormous, the body beneath it veiled like a priest. When he reached the pit and the rope bridge, his robes billowed out, and he seemed to fly across it. Quaking, I ducked behind the nearest statue with Miu and Khepri.

“I told you Anubis was here in these cliffs, ” I whispered as we peeked out from behind the statue. “But you wouldn’t believe me. Even when I told you I could feel chills—”

“Ra, that’s it. ” Khepri turned to me. “That’s the solution! ”

What did he mean? I was too sick with fear to ask. Pharaoh’s Cat is as brave as a lion, but even a lion is afraid of the gods. Anubis was striding up to the sarcophagus, his power so strong that flames leaped from the walls as he passed. Or maybe it was just that his flaming torch was reflected in every spark of gold.

Certainly, there was a lot of gold here. Gold on the statues. Gold on the table. Gold on the wall paintings. Gold from the stolen loot of Setnakht’s tomb.

My paws trembled as Anubis set his torch in a golden stand, then leaned over the giant stone sarcophagus. With a horrible scrape, he pried the lid open and muttered some magic spell.

As I watched in horror, the mummy inside moaned and began to rise.

My ears flattened in fear, but I still caught every sound. The mummy groaned again, a tortured spirit being dragged back from the realm of the dead. The wrappings fluttered, releasing a terrible stench, like something that had rotted away…

I couldn’t take it anymore. Shutting my eyes, I went limp. Please don’t let Anubis find me.

“I don’t believe it, ” Khepri breathed into my ear. “Look, Ra. It’s

Kenamon. ”

Kenamon? Impossible!

I opened my eyes. The mummy was squirming now, and his face was turned toward us. Khepri was right. It really was Kenamon—tightly bound and gagged with torn linen wrappings.

Anubis hauled the boy out of the sarcophagus and dumped him on the floor. Grunting, the god straightened, and his jackal head wobbled. He steadied it with both hands.

It was a mask!

My claws sprang out. Nobody fools Ra the Mighty and gets away with it. Whoever it was, I was going to bring him to justice—somehow.

The boy groaned.

“It’s your own fault, ” the man in the Anubis mask told him. “You should have kept your nose where it belonged, boy. No one asked you to snoop around. ”

So Kenamon had been trying to solve the case—just like us.

I peered at the jackal-head mask. Who was behind it? Was it the Scribe, or Huya, or Neferhotep? They were all about the right size, and the mask muffled the man’s voice, so I couldn’t tell.

“I was only taking what was rightfully mine, ” the man said to Kenamon. “All those years I’ve worked myself to the bone to give the pharaohs a blissful eternity, and what do I have to show for it? I’ve been shorted on pay and treated like dirt. ”

Shorted on pay? That didn’t sound like the Scribe. That must mean it was Huya or Neferhotep.

“So who could blame me? ” the man went on. “I can’t right the balance in this life, but I can in the next. With the treasures I’ve taken, I’ll have a glorious afterlife. ”

Not if you’re a thief, I thought. The real Anubis will weigh your heart, and you’ll be found wanting.

But the man in the mask didn’t see it that way. “The gods themselves want me to have it, ” he told Kenamon. “Why else would they have led me to this ancient tomb when I was digging my own? Why else would I have had the skills to disguise the passageway between them? ”

The skills to disguise the passageway between them? I thought of the woodwork in Huya’s tomb. If only we could have taken a closer look at it!

“The gods planned it all, ” the man went on. “They showed my ancestors the secret way between Thutmose the Second’s tomb and Setnakht’s. When Thutmose the Second’s tomb was robbed and abandoned, I knew it was a sign. The gods ordained that I should restore the balance. And then you”— he pointed an accusing finger at Kenamon—“went and stood in the gods’ way. ”

Kenamon tried to roll over.

“Squirm all you like, ” said the man. “You won’t get away from me. Nobody knows where you are. I talked to the Scribe, and even to those fools Huya and Neferhotep, who have been combing the hills for you. None of them suspect a thing. ”

What? If this man wasn’t the Scribe or Huya or Neferhotep, then who could he be? The Vizier? The Captain of the Guard?

I exchanged a baffled glance with Miu, but Khepri didn’t move a smidge on my head. So he wasn’t startled by this revelation.

I gulped and thought hard.

That’s the solution, Khepri had said. But what had we been talking about?

I’d been saying that no one would listen to me about Anubis, that they’d made fun of the chills I’d felt…

What was the connection? As I tried to figure it out, the man in the Anubis mask yanked the boy off the floor.

“When they find your body in the desert sands, with a tiny earring in your hand, everyone will know that you and your father are guilty. And they will never, ever come after me. ”

His hands went to the boy’s throat, and I looked at Miu in panic. We had to stop him! And then, as I saw the golden cat sarcophagus behind Miu, it was as if I heard Pamiu speaking to me. I knew what to do.

Maybe Miu heard him, too, because when I darted out, she was right behind me.

“Meeeeeeeow! ” I screeched.

The man let go of Kenamon. “What’s that? ”

I dashed over to the loot and grabbed a jewel in my mouth. Miu followed suit.

“Go, go, go! ” Khepri shouted, clinging to the top of my head.

“Stop! ” The thief abandoned Kenamon and chased after us. “Put that down! ”

Miu and I raced ahead, the thief close behind us both. When we came to the pit, Miu soared over it, but I stopped in my tracks. A snarling shadow was leaping over the pit in the other direction, coming straight toward me.

Miu dropped her jewel and called out, startled, “Sabu? ”

The thief tried to slow down, but we were too much of an obstacle. As I swerved to avoid Sabu, the man stumbled over me and lost his balance.

“No! ” Sabu leaped to save him. Tail and feet tangled.

The man and the cat went hurtling into the pit, screeching and screaming.

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