Pharaoh's Taboo Gift

"You wouldn't shoot me. You're just a woman!"

She cocked the hammer back with her thumb. The sound was very loud. "Come one step closer and find out. Chris."

"Mom?"

Zahira jerked her head at the stunned group of men. "Get the keys. Leave them one set. Make sure it's not for the water-truck."

Ten minutes later, cursing and swearing, the three remaining men were bouncing back down the hill. Zahira sincerely hoped that they wouldn't catch up to Sabah and Gonzalo before they got back to Luxor.

She turned around to find Chris staring at her. "You had a gun?"

Zahira grimaced as she replaced it in the holster. The weight was a comfort, even if the raw was awkward. "In a place like this, Chris, I always have a gun. All nice and legal and approved by the State Department, so I didn't get arrested when I took it on the plane. Out here, a woman sometimes needs the ability to say no and make it stick. Or were you looking forward to being held down while I got gang-raped?"

"I...I..."

"I know." She touched his cheek. "You're a good man. You would never think about taking advantage of a woman that way. But the world is full of men who aren't like you. Who would be happy to take what doesn't belong to them, just because they're bigger and stronger than I am.

"Well." She looked up at the sun, gauging how long the light would last. "This has been one hell of a start. But I would like to take a look at the temple before sunset. What do you say, kiddo?"

Chris shrugged. "So far we've already had a broken leg and a mutiny. What's the worst that could happen?"

Chapter 3

Chris followed his mother as they walked around the outside of what she assured him were the remains of an ancient Egyptian temple, dedicated to the worship of a female pharaoh who had ruled the land over three thousand years ago. Perched on the edge of a sandstone bluff above the Valley of the Kings, it was perhaps a hundred yards long, and half that wide, and loomed over their heads in a low, sullen mound.

"How do you even know that this is Hatshet...Hapshet..." He stuttered to a halt.

"Hatshepsut?"

"Yeah. Her. How do you even know this is her temple?"

"From that." His mother pointed. "See the hieroglyphs?"

He squinted. "Yeah," he shrugged. "Can't say that I understand them."

"That's her name. Right there. 'Khnemet Amun Hatshepsut.' 'United with Amun, foremost of noble ladies.' Most of her temples and obelisks were defaced or destroyed after her death. But this one seems to have survived, somehow."

"Huh." He kicked at a loose stone, sending it bouncing away. "Seems a bit silly to put your name on the foundation. If I was a pharaoh and wanted everyone to know how awesome I was, I'd make sure my name was on the top of the temple, not the bottom."

His mother stopped, so suddenly that he nearly ran into her. "Mom! Watch out!"

Zahira turned to face him. "Say that again," she whispered.

"Huh?"

"What you just said." She was staring at the low, sandy hill that supported the foundation as if she could burn holes in it with her eyes. "Say it again."

He frowned. Why was his mother acting all weird? "I said," he repeated patiently, "that if I was a big hot-shot Pharaoh, I would have my name on the top of my temple. In big red letters twenty feet high. Not that they used letters in those days, I guess. It was all birds and arrows and squiggly lines."

"Yes! That's right!" Zahira jumped up and down with excitement. "Look, Chris!" She pointed across the valley. "Three thousand years. Three thousand years of storms blowing sand and dust and crap across the valley. It comes up here, gets trapped by the rocks, and settles around the temple.

"We're not looking at the foundations. We're looking at the top."

Chris stared at the mound of dirt and dust. "You mean...the temple is inside there? All of it? Crap. You're going to need a bulldozer to get inside."

"Not a bulldozer. Just a lot of people with shovels." She danced away, giggling. "Gonzalo is going to shit himself when he hears this!"

And that's when the ground opened up and swallowed her.

Zahira choked back a scream as she slid down the pitch-black slope. She spread her arms wide, trying to arrest her decent, but the stone sides of the passage were smooth as glass.

With a squeak and a thump, she landed on her backside, startled but unharmed.

What the fuck?

"Mom! Mom, are you all right? Are you down there? Mom!"

Turning, Zahira was able to see her son's silhouette at the top of the chute, or secret passage, or whatever it was that had sent her down here.

"Yes, I'm here," she called.

"I'm coming!" Horrified, she saw Chris turn and begin to stick his legs into the tunnel.

"No! Stop! If you come down, we'll both be trapped!"

Chris paused. "Oh." His chagrined voice floated down to her. "I didn't think about that."

"Besides, I don't want you clumping around down here and messing around with a site. Go get some rope. I know we packed some. It's probably in the supply tent."

"But what about you?"

"I'm fine, Chris. Not even a scratch. Now go. Get the rope!"

Zahira breathed a sigh of relief as his shadow disappeared. Her son was a good man. But sometimes he didn't look before he leaped.

She took a look around, seeing for the first time the chamber where she had been deposited. With the only light coming down from above, the impression she received was of a large, dark space.

One way to fix that. She pulled out her cell phone and hit the flashlight app.

Holy shit.

Gonzalo had been right. It was a temple, not a tomb. The furnishings were long gone, decayed by the slow erosion of centuries, and the doorways were blocked by dirt and rubble. But the brilliant colors on the walls and the elegant, bas-relief sculptures looked as if the artists had just finished their work yesterday.

And to her utter shock, it was a temple dedicated to sexual desire. Everywhere she looked, it was to see men and women depicted in the act of lovemaking. Even in a culture that was refreshingly open about sex, the effect was startling. Here, a woman knelt astride a man, his erect phallus clearly penetrating her groin. Here, a pair of nubile young maidens kissed ardently. Here, a man lowered his face between a young woman's thighs, her pleased smile telling the entire world of her pleasure. Here, a scene of pastoral beauty, with a well-built young man embracing his lover, who was naked from the waist up. The stiff buds of her nipples made her desire obvious.

All this, and a dozen more, until Zahira's face was burning.

Something moved at her feet, and she jerked away, nearly dropping her phone. With a sigh of relief she saw that it was just the light reflecting off a pool of water. The basin that held it was the size of a large bathtub. But strangely, it gave off none of the stale, stagnant odor that she would have expected.

And water? Here, in the desert? Where they didn't measure yearly rainfall in inches, but in millimeters?

A spring. And with that realization, one mystery was resolved. And maybe more. Zahira smiled, imagining Hatshepsut, that clever, canny woman, using every weapon that came to hand to consolidate her rule. Somehow, she had learned about the spring, a rare resource in a land where water was life. Learned about it, and then used it as a symbol of her rule, building a temple devoted to sexual fertility on the spot, the spring to be set aside for the use of her holy priestesses.

No wonder her son tried to erase her from history, she thought, holding the light up high and examining the paintings and carvings again. They were absolutely exquisite. In none of them were the women in the classically subservient poses that was standard for this era of Egyptian art. She wasn't just a radical. She was a revolutionary. She wanted women to be on equal terms with men, just as she was.

Zahira brushed her fingers across the carving where the man was pleasing his lover with his mouth. The pale yellow stone seemed to be on the verge of springing to life, where the woman would cry out with the joy of her climax.

"Mom? You still down there?"

"No, Chris," she called back, irritated at the interruption. "There's actually a teleport machine that the ancient aliens left behind and I've been replaced by an evil duplicate."

"I've got the rope," he replied, ignoring her sarcasm. "Just give me a couple of minutes, okay?"

"Fine." She walked around the temple, trying to get a feel for its dimensions. This wasn't going to be a couple weeks' work, that she could tell. This might be the find of a lifetime. Her mind burned, imagining the size of the crew she and Gonzalo would have to recruit to restore this place. Or maybe she could get the Egyptian government to front some of the cost. God knew they could use the tourist money. And something this...salacious...was sure to be a huge draw, once they had pulled all the data out that they could.

Lost in her thoughts, she nearly walked into the altar. A single block of golden sandstone, it sat waist-high, directly in front of the pool.

This is where the priestesses worshipped. She could imagine them, clad in finery, lit by the sun that danced on the blue waters of the spring.

And there, on the altar, a single chain, wrought of heavy gold links, as clean and shining as if its owner had set it down mere minutes ago, instead of millennia.

Zahira picked it up. A medallion dangled from one end. Made of gold or bronze, a single flawless ruby was set in the center.

Worship me.

It was a whisper in her mind. A tiny breeze that stirred the air of that dark, shadowed room. A call that could not be denied. Without even thinking about it, Zahira undid the top two buttons of her blouse and lifted the chain over her head.

The instant the metal touched the skin between her breasts, she fell over in a dead faint.

"Mom! Mom! Wake up! Mom?"

Zahira blinked her eyes. Chris' panicked face was overhead, and his hand was shaking her shoulder. She winced as his fingers bit deep into her skin.

"Ouch!" She shoved the hand away. "I'm awake, all right?" She rubbed her shoulder. "That hurt."

Chris sat back on his heels. "Right. I call and you don't answer. I come down here and find you unconscious. And I'm the bad guy?" he scowled.

~A rude youth. But comely. Perhaps he can be trained?~

She blinked at the unfamiliar voice. It didn't sound like hers did when she talked to herself.

"I'm sorry, Chris." She apologized. With a start, she realized that her blouse was still undone and that her son was staring at her cleavage. Turning her back, she quickly did up the buttons, hiding the medallion. "Maybe there is some bad air down here. That could be why I passed out."

"Then we better get out of here as soon as we can." Her son shone his flashlight over the walls and whistled. "Nice."

"Get your mind out of the gutter," she replied, using his shoulder to lever herself to her feet. The room briefly spun, and she closed her eyes, fighting for balance. Her head...didn't feel right. It felt...stuffed, full, the way it did when she had a nasty head-cold.

~My apologies, my handmaiden. I will attempt to make my presence less...intrusive.~

The sensation receded. Zahira knelt by the pool, and took a quick drink, cupping her hands to bring the cool, sweet water to her mouth. "How did you get down here?" she asked Chris.

"On my butt, at about thirty miles an hour," he replied with a grin, his good humor restored. He pointed at a rope hanging out of the entrance. "I tied the other end to the bumper of one of the trucks." He waved with a hand. "Ladies first."

"You just want to look at my rear end on the way out," she laughed, and he flushed, shuffling his feet and looking like a middle-school kid who had been caught looking at a dirty movie.

~When we should obviously be exploring the gifts that the gods bestowed upon him, instead. What strange garments you have! Do your men no longer wear the shendyt, the kilt? And why not? It certainly made lovemaking more convenient when all you had to do was lift the hem and...~

Zahira shook her head as she crawled up the tunnel, one hand gripping the rope, as if she could rattle loose that dark, wicked voice, which observed everything with a wry, sardonic sensuality completely at odds with her normal thoughts.

Emerging into the evening sunlight was like being born again. She stood at the lip of the shaft, her chest heaving as her lungs fought for air.

Trying to concentrate on something else, she bent down and investigated the hole in the ground. It really was very clever, she thought. The shaft must have been built as an escape hatch for the priestesses in case of war or a raid on the temple. A counterweighted stone covered the entrance, only opening when someone stood on the correct spot, as she had.

Lucky for me. Otherwise, we might have spent weeks trying to find the main entrance under all that crap. Now I can still do work inside while everyone else is tossing dirt over the side of the cliff.

Chris emerged, coiling the end of the rope on his arm. "Well, that was interesting," he said. He squinted at her. "Are you all right, Mom? You still look a little...shaky."

She nodded. "I think I need to lie down," she whispered.

In an instant, he had her arm, steadying her as he guided her across the top of the bluff. All gods be thanked, the heat was finally starting to fade as the sun sank behind the western hills. But it was probably still over ninety degrees. The back of her blouse was stuck to her skin, and sweat dripped between her breasts. The very skin of her scalp seemed to be on fire.

"Here." He handed her into the tent. "Lie down and rest. I'll start getting supper ready."

She lay down, her head swimming. "Call Sabah, too, will you?" she asked weakly. "I want to find out how the professor is doing. And if she's planning on coming back tonight."

"Will do," he nodded, and zipped the tent flap shut behind him.

Zahira closed her eyes and toed off her shoes. Despite the awning which was slung over the row of tents in an effort to shade them from the worst of the heat, it was stifling and breathless inside. With an effort, she tugged off her heavy, sweat-soaked slacks and dropped them to the ground beside the cot.

~Much better.~ The mysterious voice was approving.

Zahira's brow furrowed as she stared up at the ceiling. The roof of the tent moved in tiny eddies of wind.

"All right," she said quietly, hoping Chris couldn't hear her.

"Who are you? And what are you doing in my head?

Chapter 4

Chris pulled out his cell phone as he walked toward the main supply tent. This had definitely been a day to remember. Between the professor's broken leg, his mother's amazing threat of violence when their porters revolted, and the incredible discovery of the entrance to the temple, this was one for the books.

He just hoped his mother was all right. With Sabah, the professor, and everyone else gone, it was his job to protect her. Sure, Zahira had more experience in dealing with restless natives and corrupt government officials than he ever would. But when all was said and done, she was still his mother.

His call to Sabah went straight to voice mail, which wasn't surprising. Squinting, he turned and looked out across the valley. But even the dust of their passage was long gone. Instead, he typed a quick text message to her. Hey. Things got really crazy after you guys left. Give me a call as soon as you can, all right?

That job done, he started getting the campsite ready for the evening. This far away from the city, with no electricity it was going to be pitch-black as soon as the sun went down, so he lit a pair of kerosene lanterns, hanging them from hooks so that the area would have some light. After that, he washed up, using water sparingly, and started fixing supper.

The evening was too warm for him to even think about making a hot meal, though they did have a couple of portable propane-powered stoves. But there was bread and cheese and sausage for sandwiches, and a large selection of fresh fruit and vegetables. He hummed to himself as he chopped and sliced. The repetitive motions were soothing, especially after the craziness they had all just gone through. Five days ago he had been in New York City and looking forward to summer break. Now he was on a hilltop mesa outside of Luxor, near a temple dedicated to the worship of an Egyptian pharaoh who had been dead for over three thousand years.

And what a temple! Chris wasn't an expert like his mother was. But when he and Sabah were younger, their parents had dragged the two of them across half of the Middle East. And he had never seen anything like the artwork on the walls of the temple before. From the way his mother had been blushing, he didn't think she had either.

Maybe it was the equivalent of Pornhub, back in the day, he snickered, setting sliced apples, carrots, radishes and a bunch of grapes on a platter. Guys who weren't getting any ancient Egyptian nookie could come out to the temple, see some naked tits, and have something they could tell their friends about when they went back to work the next day.

What that job might actually be, he wasn't certain. But he was pretty sure that it wouldn't be any fun.

Maybe cutting stone blocks out of the side of a cliff using a fishbone, or something.

His phone rang, and he sat down at the table. "This is Chris."

"Chris!" His sister's voice was profoundly irritated. "What the hell is going on out there? The other three porters passed us when we were barely halfway back to town, honking their horn and screaming at poor Achmed. He bailed on us as soon as we got to the hospital. Said he needed to use the bathroom, and then he disappeared. At least he left us the damn keys to the SUV."

Chris laughed shortly. "He was probably afraid that we'd report the car stolen to the cops. They don't exactly have a warm and cuddly prison system around here, you know." Speaking quickly, he explained how the other men had tried to convince their mother that they should leave the site, considering it cursed, and how the mood had gotten ugly when Zahira had refused. Although he left out the bit where she had hinted that she thought the men might be considering rape, the parts he did tell her had his sister sputtering in fury by the time he was done.

"Those assholes," she seethed through the staticky connection. "So it's just you and Mom up there?"

"Yeah, he said. "But get this." And then he proceeded to tell the story of how they had inadvertently discovered the entrance to a temple that was seemingly devoted to sex, and how he had slid down the chute with the end of a rope in one hand to find his mother unconscious and curled in a ball at the base of the altar with a strange gold necklace around her neck. A necklace, he had noticed, that she didn't seem to want him to know that she was wearing.

"She can't be thinking of stealing it, can she?" he finished.

"Mom?" Sabah scoffed. "No way. Even if she was the kind of skeev who would try to smuggle an artifact out of the country, she's too smart to try. Remember the way the officials would go through our luggage every time we went home?

"Don't worry about it, Chris. She probably just wanted to try it on. There's nothing wrong with that. I bet she felt like Indiana Jones when she found it."

"Da-da-da-daaaah, dah-da-daaaaaa." Chris sang a bit of the theme music, and his sister laughed.