Simon had a good view on the derelict temple from where they were sitting in the shadow of a cluster of large palm trees; the building sat in the middle of a small oasis at the stream's edge; the oasis itself was concealed from view by the surrounding dunes and a lush, green bush-belt. If his companions hadn't guided him there in the morning, Simon was convinced he would never have found the spot. It was the perfect hideout.

  The only sounds interrupting the evening silence were the crackling of a small fire between them, and an occasional flap of cloth from where Horus was sitting; still barefoot, cross-legged, and with his back to the temple; ferociously polishing one of his golden cuffs with a piece of spare cloth, as though the non-existent flecks of dirt on the pristine metal had offended his eyes somehow.

  Nefertari, sitting next to Simon, was as radiant and fetching as ever despite the anxious and slightly evil eye she was throwing at some sort of gooey paste she had concocted for dinner and which she was now stirring in a large pot they had hung over the flames.

  Simon hadn't felt this hungry in years, or, indeed, ever. He was nearly famished by the time she ceased her ministrations of the food and nudged him in the ribs, hard, holding out a bowl. He took it gingerly, daring not to look too closely at the contents, which smelled like fermented fruit and burnt cabbage. It was a kind of stew made from mixed roots, stems, berries, and some sort of undefinable, stringy meat, which, upon reflection, he wasn't really that keen on identifying. Besides, he was too ravenous to reject the meal anyway.

  As Simon ate, he wondered what was happening at home, back in his own time. Surely, everyone must have noticed his absence by now.

  But what had they done about it? Sent a search party into the pyramid? The structure wasn't that big, not if one stuck to the main pathways... Could they have found the hidden lever next to the spike trap? And had they come across his torch lying abandoned inside the narrow passageway that led to the metal archway?

  Simon's imagination could go as far as where the archaeologists had found the secret tomb, but no further. What had the archaeologists done when they hadn't been able to find him? Many a people disappeared each week, and from more perfectly ordinary places than inside the Great Pyramid of Giza... Was it likely they had given up trying to find him, being unsuccessful in their search?

  His thoughts travelled back to that archway, that time portal … How large were the odds that someone would find a way to operate it and come and get him?

  They are sky high, Simon answered himself.

  He was certain now that the transition from there, the twenty-first century, to here, around two thousand b.c., must haven happened when he had gone through the blue fog inside the archway. It would make sense … at least as much sense as anything could in that respect …

  Simon followed his progress through the pyramid with his inner eye. After the transition he had ventured downstairs into the room where he came across Nefertari, who claimed to be a demigoddess … He shuddered to think what would have happened to him had she not been there, what with the chimaeras and those brutish men marauding the area. He would certainly be dead by now... Looking back, the girl's presence had kept him safe, which was a relief, but still didn't explain one thing: What had she been doing inside the Great Pyramid in the first place?

  Horus was watching him intently again, as though trying to read his mind. But Simon had already had enough of that, and those eyes were unnerving, so he averted his gaze quickly. And then he remembered what the boy – the god had said the first time they had met.

  “How did you know my name, the first time we met?” asked Simon out loud, following an impulse.

  “I saw it,” said Horus airily. “You're different from us.”

  Simon huffed indignantly at this non-answer, “How would you know?”

  “You have more important questions than that,” said Horus flatly and in a final sort of tone. He looked down at his food with ill-disguised disdain, shoved his still full bowl away, and returned to cleaning his jewellery.

  Nefertari, who hadn't missed his rejection of her food, huffed angrily, but didn't comment.

  “Eating is a human thing anyway,” said Horus, who hadn't moved his eyes from Simon, in a tone that might have sounded apologetic had anyone else used it.

  Horus' glare wasn't exactly an invitation to ask the questions burning on Simon's tongue, but this was as good an opportunity as any to find out more about his captors, this world, and why they were hiding out in an old temple.

  “What's a tracker?” he asked as a sort of warm-up question.

  “Headhunters, paid mercenaries to find those enemies of the false god, ” Nefertari replied, then gestured at herself and Horus. “Us, for instance.”

  “What were you doing inside that pyramid?”

  Nefertari exchanged a glance with Horus before she said, “You are an archaeologist, yes? Someone who investigates the objects and relics of –”

  “– your culture, yes,” Simon finished impatiently.

  “Well, that's what I was doing. Looking for something. A relic. I – We still are,” Nefertari said. Horus' shoulders tensed, the piece of fabric with which he had been cleaning his accessories limp in his hands, as if he knew exactly what she was going to say next and didn't like it. “It's called the Infinity Key, you can open almost anything with it.” Nefertari paused shortly, her gaze fixed on Horus, who was listening with his head tilted somewhat to the side. “More precisely, though, it's the only thing that'll open the Hall of Mirrors, which is where Apep lives.”

  “The key has been lost for decades,” Horus said grumpily and not without accusation, as though Simon was personally responsible for the device's disappearance. “It vanished some two decades ago with an explorer, a man who used to visit Egypt in times of need.”

  “What does the key look like?” asked Simon, who wasn't remotely as interested in the explorer as he was in the relic itself.

  “It's a sort of hourglass, filled with – with time and magic, or so they say,” Nefertari elaborated, though her tone of voice left no doubt that she didn't believe time could be filled into a glass. “There's a sort of mark on it too, a sign with which to recognize the right one...” She drew an A into the air with her forefinger. “It looks a bit like an eye.”

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  But Simon wasn't listening any more. An awful thought had crept into his mind at Nefertari's description. A key that could open the gateway to another place, a key like an hourglass, an hourglass with a symbol to recognize it...

  Could it be...? Hadn't he, Simon, spent the better part of the day imagining how his hourglass pendant, now lying warmly against his chest, had kicked the archway to live, filling it with that misty, blue substance...

  But what were the chances she was talking about his hourglass? Surely, the accessory now lying against his chest couldn't be the Infinity Key... The thought was ridiculous... And Nefertari hadn't said anything about travelling in time either, only opening gateways … And yet he was here in ancient Egypt, conversing almost casually with gods and Pharaohs...

  “Here,” Nefertari's voice scattered his thoughts again. “It looks like this...” She held out her right hand, where a golden ring with a ruby set into the center glittered. What looked like the letter A with an inward coiling circle and a dot inside that circle had been carved into the gem, as though it were some kind of coat of arms.

  Simon recoiled from Nefertari's outstretched fingers, his tongue suddenly dry. After seeing the pattern, which was exactly the same as the one on his hourglass, on her ring, he was almost sure that he knew exactly where the missing key they were looking for was: Dangling from a chain on his neck, stuffed out of sight in inside his shirt.

  “I still don't understand why you need it,” Simon said, careful not to look into Horus' eyes, certain that the teenage god would know immediately what he was thinking, what he was hiding...

  Horus' finger twitched as if they were about to form fists, but then froze.

  “Thutmose,” he spat. “The imposter Pharaoh has obtained great power from the false god.”

  “False god?” echoed Simon. He'd heard this before.

  “Apep,” said Nefertari. “The false god has allied himself with Thutmose, enabling him to ascend onto the throne of Egypt when – when my uncle died.”

  There was a short silence in which Simon was able to sort through his thoughts again. Of course he was familiar with all the old myths, Apep being the enemy of Ra, that sort of thing, but he could see a gaping hole in her tale, too. If her story was true, why couldn't they just... assassinate the imposter Pharaoh? Shouldn't that be easy, especially with someone like Horus at her side? Simon may have decided that he did not like the adolescent god very much, but he had to admit that his strength was quite admirable for his size, even if it was rather upsetting and inhuman. But then, if the boy really was a god, he could hardly be expected to be human...

  “I still don't understand,” Simon said, aware that both of his captors were watching him. “Why can't you just take the throne back? What does one relic matter?”

  “You haven't been listening,” hissed Horus at once, “or perhaps you already know, and you're just playing stupid?”

  “I told you, I am not – you said it yourself! This is not my world! How would I know –“

  “You could be hiding your real self,” Horus sneered unpleasantly.

  “I don't even know what you're talking about,” Simon shot back angrily.

  “Enough,” Nefertari intercepted with a sharp snarl. Her lips were pulled upward, showing thick, pointed fangs, and her soft features were horribly disfigured into something animalistic again.

  Simon twitched away from her, appalled, his last hope that what he had seen before and thought was a trick of light fading away into nothingness.

  “Sit down, Walker. And you, Horus,” Nefertari hissed, glaring at her divine companion.

  Simon hadn't even realized he had stood up. Slowly, he dropped back down onto his batch of sand. Horus opened his mouth to argue, but seemed to think better of it and eased himself back onto the ground as well.

  “As you wish, Pharaoh,” the god said composedly, but when he returned to cleaning his many accessories, his movements were uncoordinated and wild.

  “You wanted to know why the Infinity Key is so important to us,” Nefertari continued as though the two boys hadn't just been about to murder each other. As she spoke, she shook her head and her features morphed slowly back to their usual charm.

  “It's Apep,” she explained. “Apep is different to the other gods. He is much more powerful, almost equally as mighty as Ra himself. Once he knew that we were looking for him, he made sure we wouldn't find him unless we have the key … But that has been lost for centuries, hasn't it? So Apep went and holed up in his hidey-hole, and most of the old gods don't like to meddle in mortal matters, and Horus is too young, so nobody could have told us...”

  Simon knew nothing about when or why the key had been lost, but he listened to Nefertari's explanation anyway. He wasn't very keen on getting on her bad side again, for nothing had yet scared him as much as the girl's sudden transformations. And although he was dying to know more about the magic she undoubtedly used to do those mysterious face-morphs, he couldn't help being wary about it either. Opposite of him, Horus seemed suddenly taut, apprehensive, and somewhat uneasy at the mention of other deities. His fingers were lying idly in his lap, still clutching the wipe he had used to mop his accessories, and he was staring at his feet, as though he were deeply absorbed by the sight of his dazzling toes.

  Nefertari, seemingly oblivious to the god's discomfort, continued, “Apep is a master of disguise, impossible to find if you don't know where he is, like a serpent hiding underneath the sand. Which is fitting, of course...”

  “But you do know where he is?” asked Simon.

  “There is a gateway in the palace of Memphis,” Nefertari said. “It goes straight to the Hall of Mirrors, which is where Apep is hiding, but it's locked from access. That is … unless you have the key, of course... which we don't.”

  Simon swallowed thickly. Nefertari's story sounded very questionable and dubious to him, and at the same time a small part of him still wanted to believe that this was all a prank. How could the hourglass pendant possibly have come into his possession, if it was what Nefertari claimed it to be? Was he supposed to believe that his grandfather had, somehow, managed to get his hands on something this important? And how ridiculous was the notion that the key would fall into the hands of an archaeologist by accident?

  No, thought Simon firmly, surely it had to be a mistake. She couldn't possibly have meant the hourglass pendant he had inherited from Avrak Walker, the odds were simply too great. And, on the off chance that Nefertari was right, would he be willing to give the hourglass up? No, Simon answered himself again, certainly he wouldn't give his only treasure, his only truly valuable possession, to the savages who had abducted him. Or to anyone else, for that matter. There was simply no way he would part with it, no matter the consequences – what would his grandfather say if he lost it? Of course, the old man was dead, but even so … It was his hourglass now, his treasure, and he owed nothing to his kidnappers... He couldn't risk them knowing about his prize. As long as they weren't aware that he had the hourglass pendant, the Infinity Key, they would keep searching, but there was no telling what they would do if they knew he already had it... From now on, he would have to be extra careful, keep the accessory hidden at all times, and then take the first window to make his escape.

  When he looked up again, Simon realized that he must have been quiet for too long, because the other two were watching him quizzically, their eyes narrowed. Quickly, he racked his brain to find something to say, then asked, “And the apophi, they're his slaves?”

  “They're his army, yes,” said Nefertari, suddenly angry. “They used to be different creatures, good ones, the Pharaoh's soldiers, but now Apep corrupted them, made them into his servants...”

  Simon didn't know what to make of this statement, and again his brain had began to whirl dizzily and throb dully. It felt like his head was twisting and spinning on its neck, as if it were attempting to break free from his spine, and it was still teeming when, hours later, they retreated back into the temple for a night's sleep.