Chapter eleven
I was back at Hoving aerospace, it was night. I looked around the beautifully manicured grounds then carefully started walking towards the large main administrative building. I tugged on Ammits leash jerking her along behind me.
It had taken her a bit of time to get used to being ethereal, she tentatively walked behind me. My spell enabled the people, or animals, it encompassed to be able to see and talk to each other, however the people and animals looked like ghostly outlines and the voices sounded distant and strange.
I had modified the spell so that Ammit could still use her nose to smell things.
We entered the building by walking through the door, I had to literally drag Ammit behind me. She stared at me with an angry expression.
I carefully walked up the large curving staircase that led to Semiramis's opulent office, even though we were both ethereal, the souls of our feet were still partially in the physical world, this so we wouldn't fall through the floor.
I had wrapped Ammit's feet in little booties so her nails wouldn't click on the floor, something else she was not pleased about as she took every opportunity to try to gnaw them off.
After a few minutes of walking I was dragging Ammit through the door to Semiramis's office. I heard her make a sound like a combination of growl and whine. The office was empty.
"Geez... stop whining... think of all the cats you could scare the shit out of," I said as I reached into my bag for Imhotep's scroll.
Ammit's head perked up when she heard me say cat, I could see her start to think.
I let her sniff the scroll.
She carefully started sniffing the air her head jerking back and forth , she took a few steps, sniffed the floor. Then she appeared to be deep in thought.
She lunged forward after she finished her contemplation and trotted over to Semiramis's desk, she delicately sniffed one of her desk drawers and then barked lightly.
I was beginning to wonder if she was using her nose at all.
"Maybe I should hire you out as A Private Investigator."
I stuck my head into the desk to see if I could see the drawers contents. It was too dark, I turned to see Ammit's ghostly head next to mind, she was looking as well, a curious expression on her face.
She turned to meet my gaze, stared for a second like she was about to speak, then licked my face.
"Yuck... " I said as jerked my head back.
Ammit drew her own head back and stared at me again, she looked quite pleased with herself.
I scanned the office carefully looking for any obvious security devices. I saw none, this was not a surprise to me since the last thing a secretive sorceress would want is something that could track her whereabouts.
I gripped Ammits leash tightly then flicked the squares on my bracelet to bring us both back from the ethereal plane.
"Shh!" I whispered to Ammit, my index finger on my lips.
I used my bracelet again to conjure up a key.
I carefully put the key into the desk drawers lock. The key was from a spell I had found in the research paper's of another sorcerer, he had lived during the renaissance.
He must have discovered something profound about locking devices, because the keys spell worked on virtually every type of lock I had ever encountered, even modern electronic ones.
I felt the key vibrate slightly and heard a faint clicking sound. The key then jerked to the left, I heard the lock click open. I slowly pulled the drawer open and looked at its contents.
I saw a small statue of a kneeling ancient Egyptian scribe, it was maybe eight inches long and was lying on its back.
I carefully picked it up and turned it over, I did not recognize the scribe.
"Woof?" Ammit barked impatiently.
She was staring intently at the statue. I lowered it so she could see it clearly, she gave it a cursory sniff as she inspected it.
A thought occurred to me suddenly, I pulled a small computer tablet out of my handbag then tapped on a screen icon with my finger, it opened up a webpage.
Ammit was done inspecting the statue, and started surveying the room.
"Woof!" she said quietly and impatiently.
I looked at the tablet, I had opened it to the Strudel search engine voice activated language translator webpage.
"The game is afoot." It read.
I read further.
"Is what the common Reynolds Point Setter would say if it could talk. This is its prefatory bark before it begins a grouse hunt."
"Hmm... so I'm Watson huh?"
I put the statue back into the desk drawer, I used the tablet's camera to take a few pictures of it then closed and locked the drawer.
"Let's go Sherlock," I said as I used my bracelet to transport us away.
We were back in The City of Magic. I knew roughly where Imhotep's quarters had been when he lived here. The city was like most ancient archaeology sites, arranged by era.
I pulled out Imhotep's scroll once more for Ammit to sniff. She jerked her head back in irritation when I put it in front of her nose, then let out an annoyed bark.
I put the scroll back into my bag as I looked at her, she had a serious expression on her face as she surveyed the area.
We were on a street lined with two and three story white washed mud brick houses. The street was made of rough cobble stones.
Her ears perked up and she lunged forward pulling me along. She sniffed the corner of the closest building, paused, then lifted her leg for a pee.
She was off again dragging me along, she would sporadically stop and sniff the ground then glance around deep in thought then be off again. This went on for maybe twenty minutes before she stopped in front of one of the non-descript mud brick buildings.
"Woof!" She said impatiently.
There was an ancient wooden door in front of us. It must have been magically preserved to still be intact after all these millennia.
I pushed against the door with my shoulder, it creaked open after a few seconds of effort. We entered a small anteroom complete with benches, a globe light flickered to life in one of the anterooms corners.
The thick layer of dust on the light indicated it had been off for thousands of years.
Ammit dragged me into the main body of the house, light everywhere globes flickered to life. I saw the sparse furniture and decor indicative of a man living alone. There was a film of dust on everything.
I f this was Imhotep's quarter's, he had lived here during his sorcery training.
Ammit jerked the lease out of my hand as she suddenly took off. She ran to a small wooden stand on which sat a small statue of a scribe.
I walked over to it while taking out my computer tablet. I brought up the picture of the statue from Semiramis's office.
They were very similar, probably made by the same artist. There were subtle differences but I suspected they were not intentional. The artist probably made many of this shape.
Ammit barked impatiently.
I picked the statue up and let her examine it, she sniffed the underside paused, then unbelievably she cocked one eyebrow.
"Woof!" She said.
I still had the STRUDEL translator website up. I maximized the screen and looked at the translation.
"I think I see the bird now."
"The Reynolds point setter has been trained to signal its master with a number of distinct barks, this particular bark mean's that they have spotted a grouse hiding in the bush."
Curious I searched the internet for a picture of a Reynolds point setter, when I found one it looked nothing like Ammit, except for the nose strangely.
"Sooo... it's the nose that holds a dogs Ka... I always suspected as much," I said as I petted her muzzle.
Ammit and I searched the rest of the small house, we found nothing interesting, some moth eaten clothes and bed linen. Imhotep left very little behind, we did find a cylindrical stone seal used to mark the owner's name on the wet clay bulla needed for securing papyrus scrolls.
>
It erased any doubt that this was indeed Imhotep's dwelling.
We left the house, I closed the door behind us, I scanned the street looking at the other buildings. There was nothing obvious that popped out.
Semiramis's dwelling was over a mile from here, searching it was out of the question as she had booby trapped it before she left. We had discovered this when it was first explored.
"What next then?" I asked Ammit.
"Woof woof."
I looked at the tablet.
"We must go back."
"Back... where? "
Ammit stared at me impatiently.