The repetition was starting to eat at them. Every hundred yards, the tunnel would split into a binary choice, like a stone nervous system reaching deeper into the earth. And every single time, Allen would ignore the path of the mundane, leading them instead toward the murals depicting the high arts of the ancient priesthood.
"Is it just me, or is that the same cat?" Ron whispered, his voice cracking as they reached what felt like the fiftieth fork. He pointed his wand at a small, carved feline on the right-hand wall. "I swear I've seen that exact same tail-twitch three times now. Are we just walking in a magical circle?"
Allen didn't answer immediately. He was staring at the mural, his brow furrowed. It was the same. Every detail was an exact replica of the previous choice. It was a psychological trap—a way to make intruders lose their sense of time, distance, and eventually, their sanity.
Suddenly, Allen went rigid. He held up a hand, and the others skidded to a halt.
The silence in the tomb was usually absolute, a heavy, airless thing. But for a split second, a sound had cut through it. It wasn't a dragging sound this time. It was a vibration—a low, rhythmic thrumming that seemed to resonate in their very marrow. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, it vanished.
"Allen... I definitely heard that," Ron said, his face paling under the wand-light. "That wasn't a trick of the wind. There is no wind."
"I felt it in my teeth," Nancy added, tilting her head as if trying to catch the tail end of a frequency only she could hear. Her usual bravado had been replaced by a sharp, focused dread.
"Keep moving," Allen commanded, his voice tight. "Whatever is making that noise, we'll face it when the time comes. Standing still in a maze is just an invitation for the walls to close in."
They pushed forward, their pace quickening into a light jog. The air began to change—no longer just dry and dusty, it was growing uncomfortably warm. It felt like walking toward an open oven. Sweat began to bead on Nancy's forehead, and Ron was wiping his palms on his robes every few steps.
The narrow tunnel took a sudden, ninety-degree turn, and Allen surged ahead. He didn't just walk; he ran toward a dark silhouette at the end of the passage. Ron and Nancy exchanged a frantic look and scrambled to catch up.
At first glance, it looked like a dead end—a wall of packed mud and silt. But Allen wasn't deterred.
"Diffindo!"
The spell sliced through the air like a physical blade. The dried mud, caked over the entrance for three millennia, groaned and shattered. Huge chunks of earth fell to the floor, sending up a cloud of suffocating dust.
"Scourgify," Allen added with a flick of his wrist. A gust of magical force swept the remaining debris away, revealing the obstacle underneath.
"Oh... wow," Nancy breathed, her eyes widening as the dust cleared. She stepped closer, her hands reaching out before she caught herself. "It's beautiful. I've seen the doors at the Cairo Museum, but this... this is in a different league."
She turned to Allen, her expression a mix of shock and dawning realization. "Wait. You just... you just made that mud explode. And then you cleaned it with a stick. What the hell are you two? Are you actually Wizards? Like, for real?"
Ron puffed out his chest, despite his trembling hands. "Took you long enough to catch on. We've been telling you the whole time. We don't exactly carry these 'sticks' for the fashion of it."
But even Ron's smugness couldn't distract from the door. It was a masterpiece of ancient engineering and excess. It wasn't particularly tall—perhaps seven feet—but it was made of a wood so dark it was almost black.
"Petrified mahogany," Allen murmured, tracing the grain with his eyes. "This didn't grow in the Nile Valley. This was imported from the deep south, or perhaps even further. Thousands of years, and it hasn't warped a single millimeter."
The wood was a canvas for intricate hieroglyphs. Allen recognized the celestial bodies—the sun and moon locked in an eternal cycle—and a menagerie of predators: scorpions with their tails poised, hawks with razor-sharp beaks, and sleek, predatory cats.
In the center of the door was the centerpiece: a massive lion's head, cast in solid gold. Its mouth was frozen in a silent roar, and under the glare of the wands, it shimmered with a heat that seemed to radiate from the metal itself.
"That's a lot of gold," Ron whispered, his hand drifting toward the lion's mane. "Gold is soft, isn't it? If we could just pry a bit of the—"
"Get down!"
Allen's reaction was instinctive. He tackled Ron, slamming him into the stone floor just as a sharp click echoed from within the door.
Thwip!
A slender arrow whistled through the space where Ron's head had been a second ago, clattering harmlessly against the opposite wall. The arrowhead was coated in a viscous, shimmering blue liquid that smelled faintly of bitter almonds.
"Bloody hell!" Ron gasped, staring at the arrow. "It tried to kill me! The door tried to kill me!"
"Ancient Egyptians weren't known for their hospitality toward grave robbers," Allen said, pushing himself up and dusting off his knees. "They figured if the sight of a golden lion didn't make you reconsider your life choices, a lungful of neurotoxin would."
"Is that all?" Nancy asked, her voice shaky but her eyes still glued to the gold. "Just the arrows?"
"Hardly," Allen replied, squinting at the runes surrounding the lion. "The arrows are for the people who can't read. The curse is for the people who can."
"A curse? Can you actually translate that?" Nancy asked, leaning in. Her fear was clearly losing the battle against her curiosity.
Allen didn't bother explaining the nuances of Ancient Egyptian Runes to her. It was a complex web of intent and sacrifice that a Muggle couldn't possibly grasp. "Roughly translated? It says that unless you enter with the 'Breath of the Reborn'—the Resurrection Incantation—every step you take past this threshold will rot your soul from the inside out."
"Charming," Nancy said, arching a perfectly groomed eyebrow. "So, what's the incantation? Let's say it and get to the jewelry."
Allen looked at her, genuinely surprised. "You actually want to recite a three-thousand-year-old necromantic spell? You have no idea what that kind of magic does to a person who hasn't been trained for it."
"Better than being cursed by a golden cat," she countered. "Besides, what's the alternative? Do we just walk back through the cat-maze for six hours?"
Ron and Allen shared a look of mutual defeat. She had a point. Going back was a death sentence of a different kind.
"How do we even open it?" Ron asked, stepping back to a safe distance. "Is it a standard Alohomora job, or something more... ancient?"
"Feel free to give it a go," Allen said, stepping aside with a smirk. "I'm curious to see how a 1990s unlocking charm handles a Bronze Age seal."
Ron cleared his throat, trying to look dignified. He pointed his wand at the golden lion. "Is this magic?" Nancy asked, watching with wide-eyed intensity. "Like, proper witchcraft?"
"It's magic, Nancy," Allen corrected. "Witchcraft is a bit more... messy."
"Alohomora!" Ron shouted, putting a bit of extra flourish into the wand movement.
The door remained as solid as the mountain. Not a single hieroglyph flickered.
"Nothing," Nancy chuckled, her tension breaking into a brief, mocking laugh. "Your magic is broken, Ron. Maybe the batteries are dead in your stick."
Ron's ears turned a violent shade of red. He tried again, louder this time. "ALOHOMORA!"
The door seemed to mock him with its silence.
"What are you laughing at, you Muggle!" Ron snapped, turning on Nancy. "If you think you're so smart, why don't you try? Go on, use your 'Muggle logic' to open a petrified mahogany portal."
Nancy's eyes flashed. She took a few steps back, her aura suddenly shifting from 'damsel in distress' to 'determined athlete.' "Step aside, boys. Let a professional handle the heavy lifting."
Allen and Ron watched, bewildered, as she took a short, explosive run-up. Just as she reached the door, she launched herself into the air, twisting her body and delivering a brutal flying kick directly to the center of the mahogany.
THUD!
The sound was heavy, echoing like a mallet hitting a drum. To Allen's absolute shock, the door didn't just vibrate—it groaned. A tiny, hairline fracture appeared in the seal, and the door shifted inward by a fraction of an inch.
"Hiss—ow! God, that was a mistake!" Nancy collapsed into a heap, clutching her ankle. "That wood is... it's like kicking a tank!"
The two wizards looked at each other in stunned silence. It was the most violent, un-magical thing Allen had ever seen, and yet, it had been more effective than Ron's spell.
"You're a maniac," Ron whispered, half-impressed and half-terrified.
Allen stepped forward, kneeling beside Nancy. He checked her ankle—it was already starting to swell. With a gentle touch and a whispered healing incantation, he watched the bruising fade and the bone knit back together.
"Oh," Nancy said, rotating her foot in a circle. "That's... that's actually incredible. I don't feel a thing."
Before they could celebrate their small victory, a voice boomed through the chamber. It didn't come from the door, and it didn't come from the tunnel. It felt like it was coming from the stone itself—a deep, tectonic roar that made the gold on the door vibrate.
"EXCUSE ME—PLEASE LET ME REST IN PEACE!"
Nancy let out a scream that probably reached the surface. The three of them spun around, wands leveled at the darkness they had just come from.
"LET ME REST IN PEACE!" the voice thundered again. It sounded like a mountain trying to speak through a throat full of gravel.
Then came the cracking.
It started as a small sound, like someone snapping a dry twig. Then it grew, multiplying until it sounded like a thousand glass bottles shattering at once. The floor of the tunnel, just ten feet away from them, began to heave.
Massive slabs of granite were being pushed upward from below. Dust and sand geysered into the air.
"Something's coming up!" Ron yelled, his voice bordering on hysteria.
A head emerged first—broad, stone-hewn, and wearing a traditional Egyptian headdress. Then came a pair of massive, crossed arms, followed by a sturdy torso carved with the symbols of the afterlife. Finally, a pair of legs, draped in stone robes, rose from the depths.
"It's just a statue," Ron wheezed, his heart hammering against his ribs. "It's just... it's just a guardian statue."
Allen didn't relax. He watched the statue's eyes—smooth, pupilless stone. Nancy was trembling so hard her teeth were chattering, her fists clenched against her chest.
"The statue..." Nancy whispered, her voice a thin thread of terror. "Allen... the statue just blinked."
As she spoke, the stone giant began to uncross its arms, the sound of grinding rock filling the narrow space.