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- Herausgeber: WS
- Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
- Serie: Pyramids of Time
- Sprache: Englisch
Intrepid archaeologist James Tiberius uncovers a hidden chamber deep within the Great Pyramid after being imprisoned, betrayed, and hounded by a ruthless corporation intent on harnessing the power of the gods for itself. Triggered by an unexpected surge of electromagnetic energy, James is catapulted from the modern day to 1153 BCE, landing in the vibrant yet perilous world of ancient Egypt during the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses IV.
What begins as a claustrophobic nightmare, in a sealed tomb, transforms into a tale of survival, as James navigates a culture both alien and awe-inspiring, forging alliances with historical figures and uncovering the pyramids’ secret role as cosmic portals entangled across time.
Alongside a cast of unforgettable characters, including the fearless young Kite, the wise Khalid, and the courageous Neferu, James must decide whether to reshape history or find a way back to his own era, all while grappling with the emotional weight of love, loss, and legacy.
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Seitenzahl: 548
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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Letters from the Gods
D.C. Bond
Copyright©2025by D.C. Bond
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
Map courtesy of King of Maps. For more maps, visit kingofmaps.com.
Published in the United States by D Bond & Associates, LLC.
E-book edition ISBN: 979-8-9987597-0-3.
1st edition 2025.
Contents
Prologue
PharaohKhufuwasnot known as the most charitable of pharaohs. He knew his reign had been a disaster filled with lost battles and corruption. He knew the people hated him and his family. Khufu didn’t care. The population existed for his pleasure. He often conscripted an entire town’s population for labor building his vanity projects. Khufu felt that Egypt was nothing but a sinking swamp surrounded by desert. The people were lazy and were in constant revolt. The Upper Kingdom was already in open rebellion, and there was talk that a new pharaoh, blessed by the gods, would soon rise up.
Khufu had reigned for over twenty years, and now was his time. He had been ordered to meet Osiris in person. Pharaoh knew the secrets of the gods that had been passed down from his father and their fathers for thousands of years. Osiris and his people were not from Egypt, but from a place far away in the night sky. Now he was to meet one of these gods for the first time. Only priests had been allowed to attend and gaze upon the countenance of the gods for hundreds of years. In the past, when there were more gods in Egypt, they were often seen among the people. Their numbers had been dwindling for a thousand years.
Osiris’s priests told Khufu that Osiris would be traveling to the Great Pyramid and stopping at Khufu’s palace for an audience. Khufu spared no expense. He decorated the streets and prepared for a festival. It seemed the gods had once again decided to reveal themselves to the people.
Khufu spent a week barking orders at everyone in sight. This festival had to be the biggest and best. Dancers and musicians were brought in from all over the kingdom. The fattest cows and goats were slaughtered in sacrifice and would be served to Osiris and his retinue.
Khufu was told to expect Osiris in the afternoon, and he thought he was prepared until the six Osiris priests entered the palace, two of them blowing trumpets.
One priest garbed in shiny gold sequins stepped forward.
“I am Hem-netjer Osiris, High Priest of the Almighty. Attendees of Khufu, our Netjer Osiris has come and wishes an audience with the pharaoh. You will leave now.”
Everyone looked at one another, then at the pharaoh, who had a confused look on his face.
“But, esteemed Hem-netjer, I was expecting the mighty Osiris to attend these festivities. They are in his honor,” said Khufu.
“Osiris requires none of this. He will meet you in your apartments.”
The priest stood there momentarily, then, seeing that people were confused, he loudly clapped his hands. This caused a number of the attendees to jump and begin scurrying out of the room. Khufu, realizing all of his hard work was in vain, started complaining.
“Does the great and powerful Osiris need anything else? Or should I go sit in the study and wait for him?”
“That will be acceptable,” the priest said.
In a huff, Khufu dismissed his guards and staff and retired to his rooms. Two hours later, the Hem-netjer entered and announced Osiris.
“Pharaoh Khufu, I present Osiris, Netjer of Resurrection and the Afterlife, to you.”
The god bent over to walk through the door as he entered the room. Khufu stood, his legs shaking in fear, as he watched the giant creature casually stroll into his home and sit on his couches. The god then motioned for Khufu to sit. Osiris looked in many ways like any other Egyptian, other than the fact that he was nearly eight feet tall, had pale-green skin, and had eyes more like a cat than anything resembling a human. He wore an elaborate golden headdress that gave him an extra two feet of height, and it was impossible to determine his age.
“Pharaoh Khufu, the netjeru that you and your people know will no longer inhabit Egypt.”
The voice seemed to appear in Khufu’s mind. Osiris hadn’t even opened his mouth.
“Great Osiris, how is it that I can hear your voice when you do not speak?”
“You can understand me because I am directing my thoughts into your mind.”
“Please, great Osiris. I cannot face my people and tell them the netjeru have abandoned Egypt,” said Khufu.
“We have been in this place shaping your people and this kingdom to become one of the mightiest to ever exist in this world. We have been guiding all of mankind for nearly eight thousand years. Our time here is at an end. We made a covenant with your forefathers, Khufu. The pact states that in exchange for the labor of your people to help us build the gateway, we agreed to accept your pharaohs into the afterlife and resurrect them to live with us as they lived here. I am the last of us. Our pact ends with me.”
Khufu’s eyes grew large as he listened. “Osiris, does this mean I am not to be accepted into the afterlife with my ancestors?”
“Pharaoh Khufu, I will be departing through the hidden chamber in four days. When I activate the pyramid, everything in the pyramid’s chambers will be sent along with me to the time and place of my choosing. In that time, if you have prepared the chamber in the portal, as you have been instructed, you may be the last pharaoh to travel to the afterlife from the Great Pyramid. A thunderstorm will be the harbinger of our departure. Once I am gone, the entrance to the main chamber will be sealed and forgotten in time. The Osiris Cult will destroy all the records that speak of us and how we came to build the pyramids. Your people will live on without us.”
Abruptly, Osiris stood and walked away. Khufu was distraught with fear and doubt. As soon as the Osiris priests had all left, he began yelling at his servants.
“Bring my Hem-netjer, the Tjaty, and the Imi-r Mesha at once. We must prepare for my funeral."
Awakening
James’seyesslowlyopened. Everything was pitch-black and silent. A metallic scent mixed with moisture, dust, and an ozone tang was sharp like the air after a lightning strike. A wave of panic hit.
“Where in the hell am I?” he rasped, voice echoing off unseen walls. His hands fumbled for his satchel, fingers trembling as they closed around his trusted Zippo. Snap, flick, the flame sputtered to life, a frail yellow glow in the void.
“That’s right, the chamber,” James muttered, steadying his breath.
The walls sloped inward toward the ceiling, pressing closer with every flicker of the Zippo’s light. The room was barely wider than his outstretched arms and felt like it was closing in, its surfaces shimmering. His throat tightened. The air was stale and heavy, as if the tomb itself was breathing down his neck. Claustrophobia, his old nemesis, sank its teeth in. He could almost hear the stone groaning, ready to crush him. He staggered to his feet, the walls seeming to tilt, shrinking the space to a coffin’s width. Thoughts of a crowded Egyptian prison cell were at the forefront of his mind.
“Not now,” he growled, slamming a palm against the cool gold to anchor himself, his pulse fluttering like a trapped bird’s wings.
The small flicker of the Zippo’s yellow and red flame reflected on the richly adorned walls. James reached for the LED lamp he’d left on the sarcophagus. It was dead, not even a flicker. A shake and a few frantic toggles of the switch confirmed either the batteries were done or the wiring was fried. The sarcophagus gleamed under the Zippo’s flame, its gold sheen absurdly lavish.
No way it’s solid, he reasoned, just wood with gold sheets, has to be. If it were pure gold, it’d be worth hundreds of millions. The symbols etched in relief on the walls and sarcophagus tugged at his memory—familiar, yet alien, and definitely not New Kingdom script.
James found himself a little disoriented, kneeling next to the sarcophagus.
“Holy shit, Khalid, what the hell was that? Khalid… Kal, did you feel that?” he called, voice cracking.
Silence answered. The tunnel entrance, which had been wide open moments ago, with Khalid monitoring air quality, was now a seamless wall of stone. No light came through, not a sound from the crew. His gut twisted. The space felt wrong, too still, like a void swallowing him whole.
“This isn’t right,” he whispered, the Zippo trembling in his grip as he stumbled toward the sealed door, its edges becoming more defined with his every step.
The claustrophobia hit harder now, a vise around his chest. Once a marvel, the room’s gilded walls loomed like a predator’s jaws. The sloping ceiling felt inches from his head.
“Too tight,” he gasped, sweat beading on his brow despite the chill.
He’d faced tombs before, snakes, spiders, and dust but always with an exit in sight. Now trapped like a rat in a cage, his breath came in shallow bursts. He pressed his back to the sarcophagus, its cold bulk a lifeline, and squeezed his eyes shut, fighting the urge to claw at the walls.
“Get it together, Jim,” he hissed, but the air felt thinner, the silence louder, every creak of his boots amplifying the tomb’s suffocating grip.
“Ah, damn, my head’s swimming,” he muttered, sinking to the floor as dizziness overtook him. He collapsed again, the Zippo slipping from his hand, flame snuffing out. Darkness swallowed him again, a black tide pulling him under. When he woke, disoriented, he groped blindly for the lighter with his heart pounding. His fingers brushed the smooth steel, and with a snap, flick, light flared.
“Thank God,” he breathed, though the relief was fleeting. The tomb’s confines still loomed.
James rose unsteadily and shuffled to the sealed door, checking his Rolex Explorer II at 3:45 p.m. The union laborers had been eating lunch at noon when he entered, their ritual as predictable as the sunrise.
“Ten minutes down the ramps, fifteen to find the lever…a few moments before the noise,” he calculated. “Three and a half hours out cold?”
But as he stared at the sealed stone, a wild thought gnawed at him. The air was too crisp, the silence too absolute—no hum of generators, no clatter of tools. He pressed his ear to the door and heard nothing.
“Khalid wouldn’t ditch me,” he murmured, confusion blooming into something sharper. The glyphs gleamed brightly under the Zippo, their precision uncanny. They were not hand drawn but machined, like something from a lost age or a future he could fathom. A chill raced up his spine, not only from the tomb’s grip but also from a dawning awe.
“No way,” he whispered, tracing a symbol that wasn’t 20th Dynasty, too angular, too perfect. His mind reeled, piecing together the impossible: the chamber’s hum, the flash before he blacked out, the sealed door.
“Did I …” he laughed, a shaky, half-mad cackle. “Holy shit, am I in Ancient Egypt? Did it work?”
The idea was insane: time travel, straight out of his wildest theories, the ones colleagues had mocked for decades. But the strange air, the pristine glyphs, the missing crew… It all clicked with a terrifying thrill. He staggered back, awestruck, the tomb’s walls no longer a prison but a portal, his heart pounding with dread and wonder at the reality he’d stumbled into.
He thought back to what had happened before everything went dark. He had reached over and touched the symbol on the sarcophagus, and it had come alive in his head. He had been thinking about his mom and how amazing it had been to visit the tomb of Ramesses IV when he was a child. James reached to touch the same symbol, but this time there was nothing. It was as if whatever had sent him to this place simply went dead.
This project was funded by a US-based firm that liked to keep all construction in-house, even flying the entire crew in from out of the country after completing another secret project. A few locals were hired for cooking and housekeeping to keep the nearby population happy.
How Black Sands Corp. was able to get the Egyptian government to allow this exploration was a mystery, and James was convinced that Black Sands “owned” most of the bureaucracy that would have objected to most US firms exploring ancient Egyptian sites. Regardless of how this dig was allowed, it was happening, and James had to be a part of it.
They had come to his house without even a phone call, in two large black SUVs loaded with six big operator types. To James, it seemed like something out of a Tom Clancy book. After the massive, muscly dudes climbed out of the vehicles, a small, thin man with glasses slid out of the back seat. He was blond and blue-eyed, and after exiting, he gazed at James as if trying to size up the man. He wore black slacks with a black blazer and a white button-up dress shirt. The top three buttons were undone, exposing a large medallion on a gold chain that he was obviously very proud of.
“James!” It was a statement, not a question. “I am thrilled to have found you.”
James recognized the CEO of Black Sands Corp., who had him thrown in prison just a few years before.
With a slightly tilted head and confused expression, James said, “What in the world could you possibly be doing here?”
“That, my friend, is an excellent question. I know we have had our differences in the past, but do you perhaps have a place to sit and discuss a few things?”
James collected himself. Being locked in a small space was exactly the kind of thing he feared most. It was ironic that James, an Ancient Egypt historian and tomb explorer, was claustrophobic. Dealing with snakes and spiders was part of the job. Tight spaces were also not a dealbreaker. Being locked in a tight space with no means or understanding of how to get out was definitely a dealbreaker.
Luckily, the Zippo had fluid and was still working, and the small headlamp was lying on the floor near where James had passed out. He collected his headlamp to begin inspecting the door. He worked to find the on button, which would not have been a problem with his regular headlamp. This was one of the fancy gadgets that Black Sands had issued and was way too technical for something that was supposed to simply light up. He toggled the switch back and forth a few times, but nothing happened.
First, the lamp isn’t working, and now my headlamp. Could I have been exposed to an electromagnetic pulse? James had theorized in a published paper that the pyramids had been designed to harvest and store electromagnetism collected from the stars. An EMP (electromagnetic pulse) would have likely destroyed the circuitry of any electrical appliance in the pyramid.
The door itself, like all the walls in the room, was covered in gold. The symbols looked much less like pictures and more like a style of letter, laid out similarly to normal Egyptian hieroglyphics. There was an exactness and precision you wouldn’t see in a normal hand-drawn glyph.
James stuck his nose up to the edges of the door and detected a faint scent of fresh air. The claustrophobia was beginning to kick in again. He didn't panic outwardly, but the fight-or-flight sense started working him up.
“Hello, can anyone hear me?” No sound came back.
It was beginning to get serious. No lights, no sound, limited fresh air.
Okay, think. This is not only a burial chamber. There is much more going on here. A burial chamber would not have a way for the mummy to get out, would it?
James knew tombs would never have a two-way door to the sarcophagus room. Some side rooms might have false doors or even small windows or openings so that the faithful could send offerings, but never an actual exit.
If this isn't a burial chamber, then maybe there is a lever or something like there was on the outside, James thought.
Groping his way around the reliefs and glyphs on the wall, he found a familiar symbol. Yes, this was the same symbol that was on the exterior. It was the glyph that James had recognized as “door” or “portal.” He pressed carefully on the glyph, which seemed to depress for a second, then popped out. With a slow twist, he manipulated the lever until it stopped and gave a slight pull. Air and dust swirled around. It reminded him of some sci-fi shows he had watched where people opened an airlock on a spacecraft. Swoosh, the sudden movement of stale air put out the flame on his Zippo. Suddenly, darkness enveloped James. Snap, flick, again the Zippo came to life.
How long does a Zippo’s fuel last?
He needed to figure out how to get out of this newly illuminated tunnel. The tunnel was long, and the chamber was near the pyramid's center. It also had a very steep incline and at least two areas that required ladders to descend when they were entering earlier that day. The first section of the tunnel was level until he reached his first obstacle. There was a ten-foot wall ahead of him. On the way down this morning, an aluminum ladder was waiting for him. This time, there was nothing.
He stepped back a few feet to examine the situation. The tunnel was narrow at this point, around four feet wide.
How the hell am I going to climb that?
The walls in this area were very smooth sandstone. Even a bit chalky, as sandstone can get. His thoughts brought him back to when he was a child, maybe ten years old. There had been a hallway in his parents’ apartment about the same width as the tunnel that he and his friends used to sort of “spider climb” by bracing their hands and feet against the opposing walls and using that friction to work their way to the top. That could work here.
He got into position. This was going to be a bit harder than he remembered. Somehow, a flexible and limber ten-year-old had a leg up, so to speak, on a six-foot-three thirty-year-old with a beer gut. James wasn't in bad shape, actually, he was pretty athletic. The years of working with his hands had developed the kind of strength that comes from real work.
“Here goes nothing,” he said out loud as he moved into position.
He tried to hold the lighter in his teeth and realized it was an incredibly stupid idea, singeing his eyebrows. The only plan he could come up with was to put out the Zippo, stick it in his pocket, and climb up blind. The thought freaked him out a bit, but what else could he do? Snap! The Zippo was off. The darkness moved in. Instantly, James’s heart started beating rapidly, and sweat started dripping from his brow. He felt for the walls and, with a little jump, wedged his feet in and was able to climb his way up the first two or three feet.
I can do this, he thought, as he moved one hand and then the next up.
One foot, then the other. Little by little, he was making some progress. He figured he was nearing the top and reached for the ledge. It was almost within his grasp but didn’t really allow for a better handhold than the friction the walls were already affording.
He flipped his canvas satchel onto the ledge and ended up climbing several feet over the ledge before moving forward until he felt he was no longer over the abyss below. He then slowly started to lower himself onto the floor. He felt he must have climbed a bit higher than he thought and tried to dangle his foot down to find the floor. To his satisfaction, the floor was right there, and he was able to let go and drop the three or four inches to the ground.
Snap, flick, the Zippo ignited. James was at the bottom of a steep ramp. This time, it wasn’t a chore to brace against the wall and walk up the incline. He remembered from his original descent that there was only one more wall to climb and then a steep ramp to the outer wall of the pyramid. The next wall was a breeze after dealing with the first one. This wall was only about seven feet high, and he could set the Zippo on the ledge above him, then climb both walls to get to the top.
After ascending the last ramp, James found himself still in pitch black, with an enormous block of stone blocking his path. Strangely enough, this stone differed from what he remembered from the original expedition. This was a much smoother stone, like the smooth Tura limestone, in which the Great Pyramid had been originally clad. Nothing like that had been seen for a thousand years. Over the past three thousand years, people had pilfered these beautiful, white, smooth stones to build temples, palaces, and later mosques.
James held the Zippo up to inspect the stone. The flame began to flicker and was blown out an instant later. Darkness again enveloped him, but something caught his eye. There was light coming from near the base of the stone. He got on all fours and peered out of a rectangular-shaped hole, maybe eight inches wide and four inches high. With another quick snap, flick, the Zippo came to life again. He looked around the immediate area near the little window to see many small statues strewn about. There were also bundles of what must have been flowers, dried up, near the small opening.
When I found this space a couple of years ago, there was no place where light could have reached this spot. Someone must have hidden it in the past, the future, or… He was having a hard time wrapping his head around the situation. This is a tomb. Perhaps this is one of the false doors that were often installed in order for the Ka or Ba, the spirit or soul of the deceased, to travel in and out of its tomb. People would have left offerings.
James peered out again, and what he saw was hopeful. It was night, and there were no generators or worksite trailers, but some campfires were burning in the distance.
Campfires mean people are cooking and being warmed nearby.
James lowered his mouth to the little window.
“Hello!” he cried out at the top of his lungs. “Hello, is anyone out there?” Nothing.
He struggled to push against the stone, which wouldn’t budge. He wedged his back against a nearby wall and pressed his feet against the stone with everything he had. It still wouldn’t budge. He was going to need some help if he was going to get out of this damn tomb.
James sat in near darkness. The flame of the wonderful Zippo flickered, creating eerie shadows on the walls of the tunnel. He sat there wondering what he could do and what it would take to get out of this mess. But as the shadows danced, a deeper wonder crept in, overtaking his fear. The impossible beauty of the moment began to sink into his bones.
He leaned closer to the window, the Zippo’s light trembling in his grip, and stared at the campfires flickering in the distance, like stars fallen to Earth.
“This can’t be real,” he breathed, as if speaking too loudly might shatter the spell.
The air carried a scent, not of diesel fumes or modern dust but of wood smoke, baked earth, and something ancient, even alive. His mind spun, grappling with the absurdity: those lights in the distance, the pristine Tura limestone, the glyphs sharper than any he’d studied in ruins.
“I’ve really gone back…haven’t I?” he murmured, awe swelling in his chest.
He pressed a hand to the cool stone, sensing a time he’d only dreamed of, New Kingdom Egypt, the reign of Ramesses IV, alive and breathing beyond this wall. The realization hit him like a thunderclap, and he laughed.
“Twelve years of BS, and here I am,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief.
He’d spent years chasing theories of pyramid portals, enduring jibes and sneers on the forums, yet now he sat in the belly of history itself. The campfires weren’t Black Sands’s—they were ancient hearths, tended by hands that carved the glyphs he’d spent his life decoding.
“This is Egypt,” he marveled, voice cracking with reverence, “not some dusty relic, but the real damn thing, alive and untouched.”
The weight of it pressed against his ribs, experiencing the sheer magnitude of standing at civilization’s cradle, a witness to a world he’d only known through faded texts.
He traced a glyph near the window—Khufu’s cartouche, vivid as if inked yesterday.
“I’m here,” he whispered in awe. “I’m actually here three thousand years before my time.”
The thought was dizzying, a cascade of wonder drowning his earlier panic. He imagined the Nile flowing beyond, unmarred by modern dams, its banks teeming with reed boats and priests chanting to Amun-Ra. The stars outside were brighter and sharper than he’d ever seen, the same stars that guided Khufu’s builders and that lit the nights of a living pharaoh.
“What the hell do I do with this?” he asked the silence, half-laughing, half-reeling, his Zippo’s flame a tiny beacon in a reality too vast, too miraculous, to fully grasp.
Growing Up
1999 AD
Jameswasbornin the mid-80s, right in the midst of hair bands and acid-washed jeans. He was from a small town near Cairo, the son of an American expatriate and an Egyptian mother. His father, Hank, was an engineering contractor who worked on local infrastructure projects, while his mother, Sara, came from a long line of Egyptian historians. Even as a child, James was fascinated by his mom's stories of pharaohs, pyramids, mummies, and ancient mysteries.
James’s mom was well known in the archaeological community. She would occasionally go to dig sites to add insight into finds and sometimes even help with excavations. She was always sure to pull James from classes and bring him along. She knew the information he would learn on a dig site would be far more impactful than anything he could learn in a classroom.
James was twelve when his mom decided it was time for the family to visit some Egyptian historical ruins. She hoped to further James’s love of her own passion. James had often been around the Egyptian countryside while visiting job sites with his father or dig sites and museums with his mother. This trip would be different. He was excited to see the temples, tombs, and ruins of which his mother often spoke. They rode in Hank's work truck, a white Ford F150 with his company's logo on the side. It wasn't brand new, but it seemed that way compared to the other vehicles on the road to Luxor. It was a long trip from their apartment in Cairo. They drove all day, stopping only for gas, food, and the occasional bathroom break.
They passed countless irrigation canals along the way, ferrying the Nile’s riches through the land. The road was lined with concrete homes, all in some nearly complete construction phase. Hank looked in his rearview mirror and noticed the confusion on James’s face.
“You have a question, son?” he said.
“Yeah, Dad. Why are all the homes here unfinished? It looks like they built up three or four stories high and have rebar sticking out of the roof like they are building higher.”
Hank snickered. “There are two main reasons they look like that. Many of these families live together, with generations living in the same building. Whenever they need more room, they add to the top. Also, at some point, they adjusted the tax code to say that if a building is not one hundred percent complete, they do not have to pay as much property tax as if it were finished.”
“So, everyone in Egypt is cheating on their taxes?” James said.
Hank laughed, “No, it is a clever way that local politicians can fleece rich hotels and corporations that would never leave a building unfinished. Those people will pay their full taxes, and the locals only need to pay a part. The politicians sort of wink at the residents, and they all know the drill.”
“Isn’t that unfair to the people who want to do the right thing?”
“You are twelve, James.” He looked at Sara, and she nodded as if to confirm his age. “You are going to learn that rarely in life will you find that things are fair and never, ever expect them to be.”
They drove on in silence for another few hours. James sat quietly in the back seat. He was used to American TV and the bustle of downtown Cairo. It always amazed him that stepping out of the city felt like traveling back in time by one hundred years. Dirty children of his age were in the fields behind their family homes, gathering crops and tilling. Donkeys and carts were the primary mode of transportation in these rural areas. You would see many old cars and trucks, but gas was expensive. Grass for donkeys was everywhere.
James couldn't help but feel wonder at the whole thing. Entering the ancient city of Luxor was awe-inspiring. As the Nile gently meandered to the coast, it bore witness to the rhythmic dance of seasonal floods that sculpted a vast, fertile delta and the ebb and flow of one of the world’s greatest civilizations. Luxor was sort of the summer home for some pharaohs, and others would visit during festivals or to celebrate victories in battle.
His head was on a swivel, taking in the vistas. As they drove through the city, they saw an awesome mix of the ancient and modern. They passed massive obelisks and avenues lined with hundreds of sphinxes right next to contemporary high-rise hotels.
“Tomorrow, we will visit Karnak first and then go to the Valley of the Kings,” said his mother.
“Can’t we go now?” James said, wide-eyed and sitting up at attention in his seat.
“No, dear, we have to let your father have some sleep. He’s getting old.”
“Humph, old my ass!” Hank said as he waved away the bellhop and grabbed all three large suitcases himself.
The bellhop looked a bit shocked, as if he would surely lose his job.
“Don’t worry, son. I’m in the prime of my life,” he said as he struggled toward the stairs.
James didn't know if he was talking to him or the bellboy. “What floor are we on?” Hank asked Sara.
“Three.”
Hank had been walking toward the stairs and, in one smooth move, changed course and beelined to the elevator. Sara glanced at James and gave him a sly wink.
The next morning, James was up at first light. He jumped into his clothes, ignoring any personal hygiene, and walked straight to the door that divided the two rooms.
“Mom, Dad, are you up? We need to get going.” If they were going to fit both Karnak and the Valley of the Kings into one day, he knew they had better get started.
“Go away, pest,” a grouchy voice muttered.
James barged in. He knew that was his invitation to cannonball into his parents' bed. Luckily, Hank and Sara expected this.
“Fine, let's get moving,” said Hank.
The first stop was Karnak. James had read all about the great holy city. Built over thousands of years, the pharaohs of the ancient era built onto this vast, sprawling temple city. James was speechless, looking up at the hundreds of pillars, each covered with hieroglyphics. He stopped to read a few, but only for a moment. There was so much more to see.
The Tiberius family had forgone the usual tour guides and opted for Sara’s detailed stories of wars, lives, and loves past. There was so much to take in. James closed his eyes and listened to the noise surrounding him. He imagined he was back in Ancient Egypt with people and priests going about their daily business. It felt so real.
The tour ended in a small chamber. Sara called it the Holy of Holies—the most sacred place in Karnak. Only the highest priests and the pharaoh could enter. In ancient times, it was thought to house a statue of Amun-Ra, the God of Gods. It was believed that the gods would manifest most fully in this temple, making it the focal point for its spiritual energy.
Sara finished her lectures and said, “Next stop, the Valley of the Kings.”
It was only midday, and James was not happy about leaving Karnak, but he was too excited about visiting the tombs, so he didn't complain. They climbed back into the Ford and headed across the great Nile River. James looked out as they passed an armada of fishing boats and a few small river cruise ships. James imagined the cruise ships were Pharaoh’s mighty oceangoing fleet, armed with catapults and bowmen with flaming arrows. The ride to the valley continued to be amazing. They passed massive statues of two seated men in beautiful headdresses.
“Wow, Mom, look at that.”
“Those are the Colossi of Memnon, the guards protecting the temples and tombs,” said Sara. They drove a little longer through ancient ruins on the left and right until they came to a gate and a visitor center. They hopped aboard an open tram and headed further to the tombs.
Sara planned to walk Hank and James through each and every tomb. A couple were chained shut, but these were not an obstacle for Sara, who walked right up to a guard and pointed at the tomb. They were immediately let in.
James thought, Mom’s important here. She’s a boss.
Even Hank was impressed and followed a few steps behind her in awe of her knowledge. Sara walked at a steady pace and read and explained the drawings. James tried to do the same but hadn’t quite made it that far in his studies.
After a couple of tombs, she began collecting a following. Tourists were bleeding off from their guides and were quietly listening to Sara’s vast knowledge of the history they saw in real-time. The stairs down to the ramps to the tombs were far steeper and longer than either James or Hank had expected. The final tomb of the day was Ramesses IV. Sara had saved it for last because she knew it was the one James was the most eager to see. It was getting near evening, and the park would be closing soon.
James and Hank were visibly getting tired, but when Sara mentioned the tomb of Ramesses IV, James sprang to attention. Upon entering, he walked down the first flight of stairs and a long ramp. James noticed that there were entire books of knowledge painted onto the walls and ceiling of the structure. At the bottom, upon entering the burial chamber, he read symbols that said things like “The Book of the Dead” on one wall, “The Book of the Night” on the ceiling, and “The Book of the Caverns” on yet another wall. He thought about asking his mother what it all meant, but he would have to wait. He saw an enormous stone coffin. This would have held Ramesses IV's sarcophagus and mummified body, but it had been pilfered, maybe one thousand years ago or more, by tomb raiders.
James pointed to a glyph on the coffin that he didn’t recognize. “Mom, what is that symbol?”
Sara paused and knelt to look. Her fingers traced a faint, angular glyph that was out of place and didn’t match the others.
“This one’s strange,” she quietly murmured almost to herself, with a furrowed brow. “It’s not New Kingdom. It looks modern. I have been finding these symbols often lately. The older the tomb, the more likely we are to find some of these strange symbols. Dr. Geist and our corporate sponsors don’t want me to talk about them, but between you and me, I think they are old, very old, in fact.”
She glanced over her shoulder as if expecting someone to be listening in.
“But that’s not something you need to worry about, Jimmy. That’s my puzzle to work out.” She changed the subject and said, “In fact, the only tomb in the valley that had not been robbed was that of Tutankhamen. His tomb had been covered by a landslide and forgotten over time. It hadn't been rediscovered until the 1920s by an English archaeologist named Howard Carter.”
James was speechless, and in awe of all he had taken in that day. The elaborate hieroglyphics and beautiful, colorful drawings were still vibrant after three thousand years or more. He left the day’s adventure behind. James and his father were beat, but Sara wanted to stop at every ruin on the way back to the hotel to tell the stories. James was asleep fifteen minutes into the drive.
At the hotel that evening, James woke to use the restroom and noticed his mom hunched over her notebook. She had a stern look on her face in the faint glow of a reading light. James walked up to see what she was looking at and noticed symbols that appeared very similar to the unknown script in the tomb. These had words next to them like “energy" and “stars.”
The instant she realized what he was doing, she closed the notebook and said in a tight voice, “James, the work I am doing could change everything. Promise me that you'll keep asking the questions if I can’t finish my work on these.”
He nodded, confused and trusting. He could tell she was speaking of something important but couldn’t grasp why she was so fearful, almost as if eyes were watching her even then.
A Dark Place
1153 BC
Jameswasonthe floor and leaned against the wall next to the little opening. It was a bit awkward, but if he hunched over, he could rest and still peer out. In the distance, the campfires went out one by one until the only visible light was from the stars. Assuming it was late evening, even though his watch showed 4:30 p.m., he sat back and tried to sleep. He decided that wasting the Zippo’s fluid for no reason would be pointless.
He sat there for hours thinking, What could I possibly do to get someone's attention? There has to be a way.
The campfires looked to be as much as a quarter mile away. He realized there was no way they could hear him scream through the little hole. He was fully exhausted from the stress of the day and must have drifted off because the next time he opened his eyes, the light of sunrise began creeping into the little window. He checked his Rolex, 2:30 a.m. James tweaked his sitting position to get the maximum view. He noticed a series of small brick huts in the distance and could make out figures working in the fields. These were exactly like the structures he had seen excavated from ancient Egyptian work camps.
“Toto, I don’t think we are in Kansas anymore,” James said out loud. Somehow, his crazy theories were true. “Well, holy shit. Now what?”
He took in his surroundings. The room was not very big, about eight by six. What he took for offerings were strewn about in various levels of decay. Some looked perhaps months old, whereas others had been here many years, maybe hundreds. His eyes were adjusted enough to see clearly at this point. He looked back down the corridor he had come through last night. There were no side tunnels he had missed. It was a direct shot down into the tomb, as he had remembered while exploring yesterday. The exception was that the hieroglyphics were much more vibrant.
Positioning himself in front of the hole, he yelled again, “Hello! Anyone! Hello!”
There were no people anywhere near his little prison. Searching through his canvas satchel, he brought out his only sustenance. One Kind bar and a bottle of water. He had been holding out on partaking of either, realizing he may have to ration his treasures. After consuming half of each, James gathered all of the offering items. They were degraded beyond recognition. It appeared it had been a long while since anyone had visited this shrine, perhaps less than a year by the look of one of the bundles.
James had an idea and carefully undid all the bundles of sticks. He broke up the smaller ones, then reached through the window with both hands and placed them outside. James was an excellent outdoorsman and was very familiar with making a campfire. He decided a small teepee fire would be best, with the fuel available. Once he had it all set up, he considered lighting it. Given the very limited number of offerings here, he decided it might have the best effect at dusk or night. At this distance, people should be able to see a small fire. The only thing left to do was sit and contemplate what had happened to him.
James thought back to his mom and her research. His hand absently went to the satchel and grasped his mom’s notebook. He kept it with him as much as he could. James was a very knowledgeable archaeologist, but he knew in his heart that he owed everything he was to his mom and the research she had done that sparked his imagination. She had called the creators of the script Anunnaki, a name given by the ancient Sumerians to visiting gods.
What did the future hold? With a chuckle, he thought he should know precisely what the future held. With a bit of a start, he realized he was in a position unlike any modern human. He would have to figure out whether he would be a quiet bystander in this new reality or try to shape the future to help humanity, and himself in the process.
He pondered two completely different theories. First, could he even change the future? Was it possible? If he were to say, kill the king, would that mean whatever the king had done in his lifetime would never have taken place?
The butterfly effect suggested that anything he did in this time would have a ripple effect that would change the future, perhaps creating a future where his parents never met, and he was never born. If that were to happen, would he cease to exist in this time, whatever this time was?
Perhaps an alternate theory may prove true. Any decision he made now could result in the future splitting off into branches. Parallel realities, each reality existing at the same time with completely different outcomes. If that were the case, could he ever travel back to the future he knew? Perhaps the two timelines were entangled so that travel could still be possible as long as the connection between the times existed. If that was the case, whatever he did now would have no effect on the future, and the two separate realities could coexist. With no clear answer, he sat back again to wait for nightfall. Hopefully, his signal fire would attract someone, and his future wouldn’t end here in this dark prison.
James’s back hurt, his ass hurt, and his shoulder was numb from leaning on it all night. He considered finishing his bar and water but thought he should hold off a bit. His lips were cracking, and the dry, hot air was sucking whatever water was left in his body out into the breeze.
I’ve made it out of worse jams than this, he thought.
“Maybe not worse than this, but pretty bad anyway,” he said with a chuckle.
He wasn’t exactly sure who he was talking to. His head started getting a bit light, and he figured it wouldn't hurt to take a little nap. He woke again with a jolt. It was pitch-black.
“Crap!” he said with a raspy, dry throat. “How long has it been?”
He looked at his watch, which, luckily, had glow-in-the-dark indicators. It read 2:00 p.m. The watch, which had a perpetual self-winding mechanism, was dead. He hadn’t been moving around enough to keep it wound up. In a panic, he looked out the small window to see a sky full of stars and only two small campfires in the distance. His mind raced. Am I too late?
“Damn!” he said.
He quickly pulled out his Zippo. Snap! Flick! The flame once again began dancing. He slowly reached out through the window with the flickering flame.
That’s it, he thought. That should do it.
The flames began climbing up the broken sticks. It was lighting. James quickly and gently set two of the idols onto the now-growing flame. He stacked more sticks and more idols onto the flame. It was definitely large enough now for someone to see. He tweaked his head and began to blow on the pile. The flames reacted with a whoosh and grew at an even faster pace.
James put every bit of the offerings onto the pyre. It had to be big. He considered saving some of the combustibles but decided it had to be now or never. The fire outside shone through the window, and the beautiful orange light danced on the wall. The colorful hieroglyphics were dancing and coming to life.
This is it. This has to work.
James could hear the weather picking up a bit outside. Some wind was swirling around, causing his bonfire to waver. A strong gust picked up the fire and blew half of it through the small window. It was like a maelstrom in his prison. Fire and sticks were blowing and swirling around. Fire licked at his clothes, igniting his pants. He quickly took off his leather jacket and hat. The fire was smoldering right through his shirt as well.
Damn, probably should have kept my jacket on, he thought.
The smoke thickened, and James laid down as flat as he could to suck the last bit of fresh air off the floor. He noticed that the lower he got, the better the air, so he grabbed his satchel and rolled down the steep ramp in an effort to extinguish the fire and reach breathable air. He tried to brace himself against the wall but was too weak. Sliding down and grabbing at whatever he could find to slow his pace, he made it to the bottom of the ramp, falling unconscious and rolled limply off the ledge.
When he came to, he didn’t have any idea how long he had been at the bottom of the ledge, but he seemed to be in good shape. Good, considering his foot was pointed in the wrong direction. The pain came in waves as soon as he noticed. His stomach let go of whatever was left in it, and he began to swoon again. Reaching into his satchel, he pulled out the remaining sustenance. He decided to go ahead and finish both, as he didn't see how he could possibly navigate back up to the top of the ledge and couldn’t find a way out of this situation.
With a little laugh, he thought, I didn't find any skeletons sitting at the bottom of this ledge when we first explored it, so I guess we’re going with the parallel universe theory.
He passed out. His Zippo flickered wildly, once again revealing the colorful dancing figures on the walls.
A Fresh Start
2000 AD
TheymovedtoAmerica soon after the Karnak trip. James felt like he really never fit in with the natural-born American kids, but he enjoyed pop culture, video games, movies, and TV shows. Heck, his dad had named him after a certain Starfleet captain.
He spent much of his time as a young student in America exploring museums and studying Egyptology. James’s dad was a little put off by that and wanted his son to get out there and get into football or hockey or something. His mom watched her son with love, admiration, and pride. James was an excellent student.
He had no problem acing all his classes through high school. James made the hockey team at his dad's request and loved it, but was never really good. He ended his high school career with a solid 4.0 GPA, even with AP Physics and History, and many top universities invited him to see their campuses. James enrolled at Harvard with a partial scholarship.
The university would cover half of his tuition, but room and board would be up to him. They were enamored that James had presented and nearly won the International Science and Engineering Fair. His theories and presentation about how pyramids could focus electromagnetic energy were considered scientifically astute. Still, many of the judges thought it to be more science fiction than plausible, even if the science was sound.
James was expected to enroll in the university's engineering program, but to his father's dismay, he enrolled in the School of Archaeology. James had chosen Harvard, as it was considered one of the very best schools in the US for studying archaeology. He hadn’t mentioned that to his father.
He had been mostly alone in the dorms for all of freshman year after his roommate contracted some staph infection from who knows where and had to drop out of school. James took that solitary time to immerse himself in his studies. To appease his father, he loaded up on high-level math and physics classes and dove head-on into history, specifically Ancient Egyptian history. That first year was an eye-opener. The physics taught was so basic and elementary that he didn’t feel like he was learning anything.
Several of his professors asked if he could TA some of their classes. They didn’t realize he was only a freshman. In that first year, it got to the point that James couldn’t justify going into debt for half the tuition and room and board expenses, bringing the yearly total to nearly forty-five thousand dollars. He thought that by the time he got his doctorate, he would be in debt for hundreds of thousands of dollars. What could he do with that amount of money in the real world?
A friend of his father was a construction lead with an engineering company tasked with completing some pipelines in the oilfield on the North Slope of Alaska. Khalid knew James as the bright young kid who would follow his father around on construction sites, learning and helping out wherever he could. James’s father had met Khalid on a construction project, upgrading roads leading from the refineries to population centers in Egypt. He worked for Hank on several projects worldwide over the next decade. In time, Khalid was considered part of the Tiberius family and was always invited to holidays at the ranch.
Hank hadn’t been feeling great and had turned down a few projects, including the pipeline project at the Alpine Field. An oilfield service company sent Khalid to oversee the project that Hank had engineered.
After the spring semester had finished, James received a call from Khalid suggesting he come work in northern Alaska.
“Yer pop told me that ya were stressed ‘bout finances and school. Come up ta the slope, and I’ll get ya on a crew workin’ four weeks on, two weeks off. With overtime, ya should be able ta clear enough ta pay fer school.” He booked his flight the same day.
James had been to interesting places all over the world, but Alaska had been on his bucket list since he was a child. James packed up his dorm and stuffed everything into a tiny storage compartment off campus. The rest of his meager belongings and cold-weather gear fit in a single bag.
It took three very long flights to get to Deadhorse, Alaska, the point where Khalid would send a truck to pick him up. As instructed, he scheduled a twelve-hour layover in Anchorage to pick up the necessary fire retardant Carhartt bibs, jacket, and other PPE. The flight from Anchorage to Deadhorse was something for the books. It was a clear sky, and majestic Mount Denali rose conspicuously out of the Alaska Range in all of its snowy brilliance. The airport in Deadhorse was as tiny as you would expect for a town constructed solely to support operations on the Prudhoe Bay oil field.
Khalid was standing near the single baggage claim.
“Hello, my boy,” Khalid bellowed.
James had an embarrassed look on his face. “Will you keep it down? I don’t want people thinking I’m only here because you're my uncle or something.” James's smirk turned into a smile and a huge hug. “Oh hell, I’ve missed you, Kal.”
They walked together out the door to find Khalid’s truck idling at the curb.
“You leave your truck running here?” James asked. “Aren't you afraid it will get stolen?”
With a huge belly laugh, Khalid said, “Where do ya think a thief is gonna go? Fairbanks is five hundred miles away, and there’s only one road. I usually don’t leave the truck runnin’ all the time in the summer, but it's sort of a habit. All the diesel trucks run 24/7 in the winter, so they don’t freeze up.”
The truck was a white, three-quarter-ton Ford with a ladder rack on top, and “Black Sands Corp.” was stenciled on the door.
“Are we working directly for Black Sands on this one?”
“Yeah, yer dad sent me here on a contract with ‘em to oversee the new pipeline construction. Let’s hit the road. It’s a bit of a haul ta the man camp from here.”
James noticed a lack of local pubs on the drive out of town. Most places like this that James had been to had numerous bars. A way for the workers to let off some steam after putting in twelve hours of hard work. These were not to be found in Deadhorse. James had heard that the North Slope was "dry"; no alcohol was allowed by law, as per the local native government.
“So if there is no booze, what do people do around here for fun?” James said.
“There really isn’t a whole lotta fun ta be had up here. We've gotta pool table and ping-pong set up at the man camp, and the food's amazing. They spare no expense on that.”
The man camp was not the pinnacle of opulence. It consisted of several temporary modular buildings that were connected together.
“Don’t worry 'bout the looks. Everything’s clean, and you've got at least one hot shower per section. Way better than what we get in Egypt, anyway. When ya get up in the mornin', we’ll get ya over ta the safety officer, who’ll go over the area’s safety procedures, and if I’m not mistaken, ya still need yer confined space class.”
James grabbed his gear and started walking toward the buildings.
“Which room is mine?”
“That’s the thing. Each room is fer two people, and I already have a roommate, so looks like yer the lucky one who gets ta bunk with a stranger,” Khalid said with a smirk.
“Great, that sounds lovely.”
“Anyway, I know ya missed out on the joy of a roommate this year in school, so I’m sure it’ll be awesome ta have a new friend,” Khalid wailed like a donkey, startling James.
“You need to warn me the next time you laugh like that. I thought we were being attacked by a polar bear or something.”
“Okay, get settled. Go talk ta the lady at the desk, and she’ll get ya sorted.”
With a little wave, James walked inside. The main lobby was where they had the entertainment. Along with pool and ping-pong, there was a PS3 with an extensive catalog of games and a few couches set up in front of a large screen.
“The DVDs are all over here.”
James looked around and saw a big guy with a bigger smile standing behind him.
“Ah, okay, thanks,” James said.
“I’m Tom. Are you here working for Black Sands?”
Tom was large in a few directions. He was about six feet three, nearly three hundred pounds, and had very short brown hair with a scruffy goatee. You could tell by looking at him that he wasn't a threat, more of a gentle giant type.
Reaching out his hand. “Hi, I’m Jim. No, not exactly. Technically, I’m working for the engineering contractor.”
“Wow, that sounds nice. How do you get a gig like that?”
“Right place, right time, I guess,” said James.
“Hey, are you looking for a room?”
“I guess I am. I was supposed to go over and talk to that lady at the desk.”
“Sandy?” said Tom. “Oh, she’s harmless. Come with me.”
Tom sucked in his gut and started to sort of swagger toward the desk.
“Hey, Sandy, wassup?”
“Hey, Tom. Who’s the cute new guy?”
“This is…uh. Oh, dude, what’s your name again?”
James looked at the young woman. Sandy was pretty, not a model by any means, but the curly blonde hair and very little makeup suited her. She wore a white tank top and baggy Levi's ripped at the knees. Something told James that a seven down south was a nine or ten on the slope.
“Jim… Uh… James is what the reservation should say.”
“Last name?”
