The Twice-Enchanted Blade: Part 3

In the morning, we left the city premises through the west gate, riding on massive elephant birds. A soldier who served as our guide explained that the tops of structures became visible after an earthquake, after which they were fully excavated.

It must have been a massive undertaking, as the artificial valley created by this project was humongous. After we reached it and peered over its edge, however, I ceased thinking about the logistics of digging out such a ridiculous amount of sand without the whole structure collapsing. Not listening to the soldier, who parroted a well-rehearsed narrative about how nobody had any idea why the colossal pyramidal structures were built, I realized I was staring at what I knew as the Great Pyramids of Giza.

The conclusion this led me to was logical, and perhaps I should have deduced it much on my own. I had assumed I was dragged to a world completely separate from my original one. The flora and fauna were strange, the maps I saw looked quite different from what I knew before, there was omnipresent magic, and while I was never an expert in astronomy, I could roughly tell the stars in the sky were all wrong. Not to mention, back home, we had a large orb called the Moon that could be seen at night, while this new world had an asteroid belt instead.

The reveal of these pyramids gave a different context to everything. They were ancient back in my day, and I was amazed they were still around, even outlasting the Moon, which someone extremely unwise at some point decided to blow up. I was, in fact, not completely convinced they were the genuine article, and it seemed quite possible to me these were a reconstruction, or perhaps even a hundredth reconstruction in a row, built after the originals fell to erosion but before they faded from memory.

Whatever the case, this convinced me that I was, in actuality, in my original world, but that countless eons passed between my death and rebirth, making it, for all intents and purposes, unrecognizable. There remained a slim possibility that this was indeed a completely separate world – wizards could, after all, bring creatures such as demons from other dimensions – which had completely identical pyramids by accident. The other option was that they were built by someone who had been brought here from my world before and decided to recreate a wonder from back home. Both of these possibilities I found unlikely.

This reveal didn’t make any practical difference in my circumstances, but it did leave me quite shocked for a while. The rest of the Treasure Hunters didn’t find this revelation all that amazing, most of them having already assumed that and believing I came to the same conclusion. I did have to explain to Civet what little I remembered of ancient Egypt, though.

We spent a few more days in Zh’el-Ezniq before continuing our southbound journey. Emir wanted us to stay longer, but Rhombus was growing restless and started challenging notable local duelists, so we decided to leave before someone got seriously injured and caused an international incident. The scenery remained similar, with towns and villages focused mostly on agriculture. Further south, the eastern bank became rocky and mountainous, and we passed by several mining towns. Eventually, we got to Bataya.

Standing at the very south of Al-Teina’s territory, Bataya wasn’t nearly as glamorous as Zh’el-Ezniq and S’urchin. Al-Teinan merchants rarely ventured further south, as it could be more than a week before reaching the next settlement. The Torcus valley would turn into a canyon very soon, that portion of land not being considered worth settling. Beyond that, there were a few merchant outposts, but proper countries were, it was believed, further south. Most of the local trade was conducted by dark-skinned southern merchants, who considered it worthwhile to make the arduous journey north to peddle their wares; Al-Teinans were, on the other hand, content to procure southern goods here, willing to pay the higher price to avoid having to venture into unfamiliar and possibly dangerous territory.

It was here that Spiridon Nixon finally recruited the bodyguards for the rest of the journey. While the Torcus was the main route through the emirate, there were desert settlements to the west – mines and oases, some of which were famous for their exquisite glasswork – and, due to their relative isolation, traveling to them without armed escort wasn’t the safest prospect. Nixon interviewed numerous merchants and caravan leaders, and finally picked out a band of decent reputation, Horned Vipers, led by a small, fierce-looking man who went by the nom de guerre of Fang.

They never traveled the route we were going to take; nobody did, really, but they were well-versed in dealing with dangers lurking in the desert. In addition, there were ten of them, which was about as many as we could take on the barge while still taking along enough supplies and elephant birds.

Logistics and security taken care of, we once again continued south. There were some isolated farms along the west coast here and there, but soon the terrain became rocky on both sides of the river, and we left any traces of civilization behind.

During the day, the heat was becoming unbearable. There was scarcely a sign of life along the banks, except for the occasional mountain goat. On the third day, for a moment, I thought I noticed a cloaked figure running across the cliffs, but it immediately disappeared, and I dismissed it as a mirage.

Soon after sunset, our sauropod started behaving strangely, slowing down and getting unruly. One of the crewmen dove into the water to check the creature out and found a large piece of sharp rock stuck in one of its feet.

“We’ll have to find a place where the beast can go ashore”, the captain informed us. “These creatures are so tough, they are completely unused to pain. It’s going to be trouble unless we treat it”. Besides, the sauropods were an expensive commodity, and losing one to infection would be disastrous for the crew.

Just as this was explained to us, our barge went around a bend in the river, and we noticed a beach at the bank, and behind it, a white building carved into the wall. It seemed to be a decorated entrance to a cavern of some sort, with marble pillars surrounding a large gate, above which a relief could be seen depicting scenes of revelry. The whole monumental structure was illuminated by torchlight, so, although the sun had set, it was highly visible.

This building we found to be highly suspicious, of course, as we didn’t hear a word of any inhabited places in this region, but our sauropod needed to be treated, so we decided to stop at the beach while doing our best to avoid interactions with any locals. Things didn’t go according to that plan, but at least the reader cannot accuse us of blindly walking into an obvious trap. We led the injured beast out of the water, lit a fire, and kept our weapons ready while waiting for the boatmen to do their thing. Less than half an hour later, a group of pale, white-clad figures emerged from the cave mouth.