The Crucible of Thoth -- Episode I

The Crucible of Thoth

Bruce Heard & Janet Deaver-Pack

Valley of the Kings, July 27th 1914

       Brimstone and dynamite.
       Something else in the air was wrong beside the vague scents. Percival peered past a gritty boulder at the debris sloping down from the rocky crag. The desert’s starlight cast a stark bluish hue upon a circle of tents surrounding a dying campfire. Workers slept directly on the ground, under the gaze of increasingly jittery dromedaries.  A short distance away, a fancy motorcar was parked near an old battered truck heaped with equipment needed to excavate an ancient tomb. A gust of wind lifted a thin sheet of dust that rustled down over the encampment. A man stepped from a tent, a westerner, judging from his impeccable suit and pale skin. He looked briefly at the camp and then lifted his head, facing Percival’s hiding place.
      Devlin Quint.
      Percival sensed his nemesis more than he could make out the man’s features. There was something about the master of a demonic sect that just made Percival feel queasy. If still around, the camp’s director, Howard Carter, must have already fallen under Quint’s mesmerizing gaze.
      (. . .)


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