Mark awoke in the front seat of the car. Pulling the seat up, he saw that it was still dark out. The car’s clock was probably broken then, since the time on it read 8:38. Perhaps the clouds blanketing the sky 24/7 were just thicker than normal today. Yeah, that seemed like a good explanation.
He got out of the car, breathed in the brisk (near-freezing) autumn air and started doing his morning stretches.
A low roar began to come from the north, the direction of Cairo. Mark stopped his stretches as the noise became louder. Eventually, a speck in the air grew into a larger and more distinct shape and collided with a nearby hill, kicking up a large cloud of dirt and sand. Mark sighed and started walking over to where the thing landed. This wasn’t how he liked starting his mornings.
Half-buried in dirt and at the end of a trail where it had slid across the ground lay a large, silk-clad man. With the statuesque build and sculpted facial features, he looked like he could be a professional model, and the gaudy silk-and-gold clothes he wore certainly looked like something you would see on a catwalk. One eye was visible between half-open eyelids, glowing with faint, dark blue light. Mark hesitantly approached, looked fruitlessly for pockets, then checked it for a pulse. Nothing. Suddenly, the body glowed briefly with a dim blue light and a faint pulse appeared. Alright then.
The man was missing his left eye and had multiple broken bones and cuts across his body. And instead of blood, the gashes were seeping a reflective, yellow substance which looked suspiciously like gold. Mark waved his hand over a small pool of the stuff and confirmed that it was no warmer than the rest of the body. He then ran his hand through the puddle, and it definitely had the consistency to be gold. He also noticed that the edges of the pool were hardening into what was almost definitely solid gold. The alarms in Mark’s head telling him that this was probably really dangerous were rapidly drowned out by cash register noises.
Mark grabbed the body by the ankles and started dragging it back to the car. It was right around now that Mark realized just how built this guy was. He must have been around seven feet tall and was almost pure muscle. After a few minutes, Mark gave in and drove the car closer so that it was only a few feet from the body.
With great effort, the body was lifted from the ground and dumped into the back seat. When the body landed, Mark heard it start to groan. The big guy had lifted his face out of the seat’s polyester and was mumbling to himself.
-
“Ugh… What happened? I was at a party… Did I get..? No… Where am I, is this a coffin? Where’s my eye..?”
Horan looked up to see the barrel of an assault rifle pointed at his face. He wiped some blood dripping from his mouth and pushed the cylinder out of his face. Behind the gun was a shaggy-haired, unshaven human in his early-to-mid 30s. Horan dropped his hand and the gun immediately snapped back to its original position.
“Who a-“ began the human, who then paused. “Alright, that might be skipping a few steps. What are you?”
Horan attempted to push himself up, but a sharp pain in both arms put a swift end to that plan. He buried his face back in the soft material he was crammed into and mumbled slowly. “Alright human… I’m gonna stay here and you can go find my other eye. Blue glowing marble, you can’t miss it.” He waved in a direction he figured led out of the container he found himself in.
-
Mark gripped the handle of his rifle tighter, ticked off at this thing’s sass and unnerved by the remaining eye, which looked like it was made of solid gold. “Now I’m gonna say it again, and unless you give me an answer, I’m gonna shoot you. What are you? Do I need to speak Arabic? هل هذا أفضل?“
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
The man chuckled a little, then winced. “Of course, where are my manners? Lord Horan, Egyptian Primus, Pharaoh of the whole Domain and the guy so much more important than you, you should be grovelling right now as opposed to threatening me. I’m gonna ignore your attitude and ask you again to go find my eye. And find out how I got here, while you’re at it.”
Mark looked the guy up and down. “You’re saying a lot of words as if I’m meant to know what they mean.”
-
Horan sighed. “Yeah, I should have expected that. Hey, can you let me out? This box-thing really isn’t meant for someone of my stature. And while you’re at that, for the third time now. Eye. Find. Bring here.”
The human scowled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about with that eye. Are you with the guy who took all those people a while ago?”
That was out of left field. “Oh yeah, that Nabbing business! No, I’m not with Deus. He left us to our fate the same time he left you to yours. And if you’re not gonna do as you’re told, at least let me out of here so I can find my way back to the palace.”
-
Now this conversation was getting interesting. Mark lowered his rifle slightly. “Palace? What palace?”
The man, named Horan, apparently, tentatively flexed his fingers before dragging his hand down his face. “The palace of the Primoi of Egypt, no you can’t come. I really do need to get back, I’m throwing a party right about now to welcome my mom and u-“
-
Horan sat up with a bolt, barely even noticing the burning sensation he got in his gut from that move. He pushed the door of what he now recognized as a car open and rushed out, immediately collapsing from the pain in his leg. Crawling on all fours, he looked at the sky to get his bearings, but saw only a ceiling full of clouds.
Horan swore. “Thel! Come here and let me put you in your place, you two-faced coward!”
-
Holding his rifle in one hand, Mark watched the Horan guy look around frantically, spot the Nile and begin crawling towards it.
This guy was claiming to be in charge of the ‘Palace of the Primoi’, and considering the fact that he was seven feet tall, had a glowing blue eye and bled liquid gold, this could be an opportunity Rachid would be very pleased about. Even if the Palace was a dead end, the walking gold factory would still make both Mark and Rachid, more importantly Mark, exceedingly rich.
Grinning feverishly, Mark turned the keys in the ignition and drove over to where Horan was crawling.
-
The SUV Horan had been cooped up in a minute ago trundled up next to him, the human leaning out of the open window. “You look like you could use a ride! Might I ask where you’re planning on going?”
Horan looked the car up and down, then groaned quietly. “It’s no royal chariot, but it’ll do. For now.”
He tentatively stood up, limped to the passenger door and opened it. The human grabbed the door and closed it. “Back seat for you, big boy.”
Horan let out a long, drawn-out, very over-the-top moan. When he ran out of breath and the passenger door was still closed, he trudged over to the backseat and climbed in.
-
Horan, lying curled up on the back seat to fit his height inside the car, leaned forward and pointed out of the windshield. “The entrance to the Palace is located by the Pyramids, I’m sure you know where those are. Northward ho, human!”
Mark turned the key in the ignition and started heading back to Cairo.