A sliver of gold appeared beneath William Stratton’s brush.
He had been scraping at the same grid section for three days, convinced something lay buried there. Now it had finally revealed itself.
The lantern light trembled along the tunnel walls while his brush teased away the dust, grain by grain. The air inside the passage had been close and suffocating, stale with the smell of a sealed tomb. But now he shivered at the sudden cold.
He lifted a hand to sweep away the gnats that had been biting him constantly, then stopped. They were gone.
The gold circlet was set with dark stones that caught the lantern light in flashes of blue lapis lazuli and black obsidian. The craftsmanship was impossibly delicate compared to the other artifacts recovered from this section. He squinted, but the lantern light dimmed with every inch he exposed, and the details refused to appear.
“It’s a diadem,” he whispered to himself. “But this isn’t a burial ornament.”
A shudder ran through the passage. Dust sifted down from the ceiling and the lantern flame guttered.
William hesitated, listening to the uneasy groan of stone shifting somewhere deeper inside the mountain.
“Yeah, I hear you,” he said to the rock around him. “But after three years in this blasted desert, I’m not walking away now.”
He tried not to rush the excavation as another tremor shook the tunnel.
“No… not yet. I’m so close,” he muttered. “This could finally prove my thesis.”
The tremors intensified. Thunder cracked through the tunnel as the far end of the chamber gave way. Stone and earth collapsed in a violent surge, debris racing toward him like a breaking wave. A sharp curse tore from his throat. The diadem was almost free. In one desperate motion, he wrenched it from the ground.
He clutched the treasure to his chest and scrambled back toward the entrance, stumbling over loose stone, covering his mouth as the tunnel crumbled around him.
A sharp crack split the passage ahead. He ducked as something heavy broke loose above him. A jagged length of timber and rock came down hard across the side of his head. He staggered, nearly dropping the diadem, but forced himself forward through choking dust and falling rock. He burst into the harsh glare of daylight as the tunnel collapsed behind him in a roar of stone and sand.
William collapsed onto his back, coughing and staring up at the blinding sky. Dirt caked his face and hair. Blood ran into one eye from a long cut along his scalp. He lay there fighting the dimness creeping in at the edges of his vision.
Eventually, he sat up and looked back at the collapsed entrance, shaking his head. He had been a fool to stay so long. Another minute and he would have been buried alive.
He pushed himself to his feet as the ground seemed to tilt under him. His ears rang, and the darkness threatened again.
Professor Elias Bellamy was hurrying down the slope, picking his way carefully through the drifting dust.
“Professor!” William shouted hoarsely. “I found something…” Then he trailed off in confusion.
Elias reached him in a hurried limp, brushing at the settling dust with his cane. He took in William’s bruised and battered form, lingering on the blood running from his scalp.
“Good god, Bill! Are you all right?”
“Yeah… I’m okay,” William mumbled, clutching the diadem as if it might slip away.
Elias’s eyes followed and fixed on the relic. He went still.
His grip tightened on his cane. “Bill… you removed it?”
William glanced toward the smoking ruin of the passage. “Um, well… yeah, it was that or try to study it from very tight quarters.”
Elias blinked, catching himself. “Yes. Yes, I suppose so. Not ideal.” He crouched beside him. “Let’s look at what you’ve uncovered.”
Elias studied the diadem properly now. It was a circlet of coiled gold, ancient and dulled by time yet carrying a dark, unsettling elegance. The craftsmanship bore none of the stylings of the 18th Dynasty they were excavating. At its center, two figures faced away from each other: a cobra with its hood spread and fangs bared, and a vulture with wings partly open, beak ready. They were joined at the base by an intricately knotted band of silver.
Elias frowned. “No… that can’t be right. Uraeus and Nekhbet shouldn’t appear together like this.” He leaned closer with growing disbelief. It appeared older than the Pschent, older than any crown he had ever seen depicted. This was not a symbol that followed tradition.
William held the diadem carefully as Elias examined it. He wiped at the sweat and blood on his brow, streaking it through the dust, and lowered himself onto a rock, fighting off blurred vision.
Elias sat next to him. “Here.” He pulled a kerchief from his pocket and pressed it into William’s free hand. “Hold that to your head. You’re bleeding more than you realize.”
William obeyed without protest. The fabric came away soaked almost immediately.
“It’s a shame we couldn’t catalog the site in situ,” Elias murmured, eyes still on the crown. “Removing only this may leave us with more questions than answers. Still… it has the potential to rewrite everything we know about this period.”
William nodded absently. “I know.” The words that followed dissolved into an unintelligible murmur.
With shaking hands he set his hat back on his head, but the bloodied kerchief slipped from his grasp. He stooped for it, and the hat tumbled off again. He frowned at it, confusion clouding his features.
Elias’s brow furrowed. “We should get the crown secured. And you need that head looked at.”
“Yeah. Good idea.” William got to his feet, hat in hand, as nausea swept through him. “I’m not feeling very well. Maybe you’d better hold on to this.” He handed Elias the hat.
A moment later, he placed the diadem on his head and bent to gather his tools.
For an instant, the entire valley fell silent. Even the dust slowed as it drifted down.
Elias accepted the hat, looking momentarily confused.
“Bill, this is your hat…”
William raised a questioning brow as the diadem settled into place. Then he glanced up in horror, realizing what he had done. He dropped his tools, reached for the crown—and froze. A shudder rippled through him.
He staggered. “Professor…?” His voice came out thin and trembling. Dark patches spread across his neck and face. He clawed desperately at the diadem.
Fire ignited beneath his skin. It raced along veins and bones until his entire body glowed from within. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came. His skin split with lines of blinding light and the smell of scorched flesh. For one instant, he stood rigid, shining.
Then the heat consumed him, and his body collapsed, flesh and bone turning to ash.
The only movement was a faint curl of smoke rising.
Elias stumbled back, catching himself on the stone wall.
“Bill…?”
He couldn’t move. He could only watch the glow fade, as if William might still be there beneath it.
The ash shifted. Elias lifted his hand to shield himself from the sight. By the time he found his footing, there was nothing left to save. Only a smoking skull, blackened and hollow-eyed, resting in a heap of ash. The diadem lay upright beside it, cool and gleaming with menace.
“Bill—” His voice broke. He dragged a hand over his mouth, unable to look away.
The silence stretched.
Slowly, reluctantly, his attention shifted to the relic. He regarded it for a long while. Then he lowered the cane, his hand shaking, and drove its tip down into the ash within the diadem. The metal struck something solid with a dull crack.
Elias flinched. After another pause, he pulled on his gloves and used the silver pick-and-hammer handle of the cane to lift the diadem free. He was shaking as he tried to regain his composure.
For a moment, he could have sworn the jeweled cobra was watching him.