The Black Fog

Back to Lilith ;)

Picture is Clio...

We were going to have to leave to fight this thing soon. There is now a dark shadow on the horizon. Ilsa's dad, (or pappa as she calls him) has been working with Nico, Will and Nolan to figure out how long we have. Three days tops. I was pretty stunned when they told me that. After we explained EVERYTHING to Ilsa's dad, or Professor Kaler, he started interrogating Tut. We all laughed behind our hands, and Ilsa turned her face into a beetroot. Not literally thank God. Ilsa and I have been working out how to use the stone, unsurprisingly she is very good with ancient magic and Greek history. She is strong to. Far stronger than you would have thought. When I told her this, she replied simply that just because she is pretty doesn't mean she is weak, man has made many mistakes in underestimating women. She is fiercely independent, and I rest my case in thinking that she is head over heels for a three-thousand-and-a-ridiculous-amount-year-old dead person. Its kind of cute, kind of weird, and kind of ironic on so many levels. Anyway, back to what I am doing now:
I was sitting on a chair. Listening to Professor Kaler mercilessly questioning Tut about a bazillion different things that would be either: completely stupid or completely usless to anyone but an Egyptologist and archeologist. Ilsa was scratching Hieroglyphics into a wax tablet that her dad has a bazillion of. She was muttering words in (I think it was Swedish?!) a language I didn't understand.
"Ilsa?" I said interrupting the celebrity interview; waving my hand in front of her face.
"Huh?" She looked up as if I had broken her from a trance.
"What on earth is you doing woman?" I asked. She smiled.
"Nothing" I gave her a look.
"People don't just write in Hieroglyphics, while muttering words in heaven only knows what language, for no reason" I declared, as though I had caught her in some crime.
"I am writing. So? I am talking to myself in Swedish. So? Is that illegal?" She asked.
"It is now" I announced.
"Lovely" She said before returning to her 'art'. I walked behind her and tried to see what she was doing. There was nothing but a bunch of random drawings on the wax. She seemed unfazed by my prying. I caught some of the words:
"Livet styrs inte av ödet, men av oss. Ödet sätter bara ett exempel och erbjuder terminer vägar. Det är upp till dig vilken du tar, Ilsa " She muttered. She seemed to be writing what she was saying. Her father had resumed the interview, so I couldn't have anyone translate.
"What are you saying?" I asked her.
"Nothing significant" She snapped.
"Oka-ay" I replied in retreat. I left the room, and it was the last time I saw my friend alive. The most arrived that night, once again cheating us out of our lives. I woke, to a house full of dead people, the only one who wasn't dea, was the already dead person. And me.
"Is it just me or are they..." I began.
"Dead? Yes. They are, by not for long" He replied.
"What do you mean?" I asked. He stood up and I had to jog to keep up with his determined strides.
"I mean: Once the mist is destroyed, then we can once again walk the earth. By we I mean the dead"
"So this place is going to be swarming with heretic pagan barbarians once I get rid of this thing?" I asked. He stopped 'dead' in his tracks and I walked into him. "Hello?"
"It has been... A very long time since I heard that word" He mumbled.
"What? Barbarian or...?"
"Heretic" He said. I raised an eyebrow. Then it dawned on me that to Tut's people, his father, Ankhen-sun-thing-god, was known as the Heretic King.
"Oh. Sorry, I didn't-" He continued in his walk and I resumed jogging.
"Its fine. He is going to murder me when he finds out I disowned him, anyway" He said. I raised my eyebrows but didn't say anything else. I felt around in my pocket for the stone, which I found. It was incredible what you can do with it. Then a question hit me: How was I not dead? The mist had admitted that I might not die. This was crazy, it all felt like a numb dream. Horrifying and tragic all in one.
"Its up to you now Lilith. I can't really help you with much. My sense, meaning what is keeping me here is beginning to fade. I don't know how much longer me, or anyone else can stay here before we finally get to rest" He told me. I furrowed my brow.
"Ilsa, when she rises, is not going to be happy with you if you go. Nor Will Professor Kaler" I pointed out. He smiled wryly.
"Ilsa will come. As for Professor Kaler, you would be surprised how far he would go to get the answers that in another time, and another place, could have made him the most famous historian on earth" He explained, winking. "Well, other than the butcher" He disappeared in a puff of desert sand. I thought about this, butcher? What the hell. Then I remembered that Howard Carter was the most famous historian on earth in 1922. And in order to remove Tut from his sarcophagus he had to cut him up. Probably the main reason Tut killed him. Well, not directly, but Egyptian magic was very powerful, mainly around tombs of people that had been deliberately killed because they found it much harder to rest, and disturbing them is not the best way to get in their good books. I wandered around aimlessly. Clio had explained that in order to destroy the fog I had to find the heart of it; not as easy as it sounds. Especially not with a bazillion Swedish Vikings wandering around, staring at you as if you were some sort of criminal. Well I kind of am.
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Sorry for the short chapter today. Huge twist in the plot too. Things are about to get very interesting for Lilith Shackleton, and by that I mean more interesting than they already are. The facts about Tut being mutilated after death are true, and to some extent I think that the explanation for the curse of his tomb were something to do with the hideous way that he was taken from it. And possibly he was deliberately killed but that is a very debatable topic. But then again, healthy nineteen year olds don't just drop dead for no reason. I'll leave it to you to make your own assumptions, but for the book I just wanted a little ancient magic thrown in. I mean, 'Black Fog' is hardly normal, but lethal, talking black fog? Hahaha. Not normal at all.