The Valley of the Queens. Five kilometers shy of the river Nile. Northwest of Thebes, now modern-day Luxor. A giant bowl of sand and limestone filled to the brim with tombs that bled history, culture, and legacy.
And treasure. Lots and lots of treasure.
Omar opened one of his eyes, glancing over at his companion. Ali was snoring, slumped against a cushioned rock. The light of the fire that crackled between the two guards threw jittering shadows that sank into the darkness of the night surrounding them. In Ali's hand was a bottle of brandy, a sips-worth of drink left inside. Omar had a bottle himself, but only a fifth of his drink was missing. Also, unlike Ali's brandy, Omar's hadn't been tampered with.
A grin spread on Omar's face as he leaned over and placed a hand on Ali's shoulder. "Touré!" he said, shaking Ali about, "wake up, you son of a goat-fucker!" Ali stayed asleep, the jostling doing nothing but lolling his head about and warbling his snores.
Chuckling, Omar raised himself up, brushing sand off his cloak as he did so. He looked down the hill, checking on the campsite the archeologists had set up. The fires below were nothing but orange pinpoints of light; only smoldering embers and settling sparks remained. There was no sign of movement from below besides the occasional flick of a sleeping camel's tail. All the Englishmen were sound asleep inside their tents.
With the coast clear, Omar took his bottle of brandy and poured it out behind a rock until it was as empty as Ali's. Once his business inside the tomb was finished, he would come back to his guard post and fall asleep with his now empty bottle in hand. He would be discovered in the morning, but the punishment for drinking on the job would be much less severe than the punishment for stealing from a queen's grave. Besides, the Englishmen had done their fair share of celebratory drinking. He was sure they would sympathize.
After picking up his gas lantern, he made his way towards the tomb's entrance, keeping his lantern unlit. As he drew near to the rectangular hole in the sandy hillside, he looked over his shoulder. Nobody was following him, and the only noise he could hear was the moaning of the wind. He shivered, drawing his cloak closer. Egyptian nights were cold, but his shivers were more from nerves than from the elements. Once he had convinced himself that he wasn't being followed, he moved on.
Omar stepped inside the tomb, moving down the limestone steps and making his way down the entrance hallway. The wind that was filling his ears with wavering tones and chilling air was now a rising-and-falling drone that drifted in from behind as he moved further into the tomb. That muffled drone and Omar's shuffling footsteps were the only sounds in the corridor. The bareness of sound meshed well with the bareness of the passageway. The walls, floor, and ceiling were surfaces and nothing more; no tiles, no mortar, no stilted art or ornate hieroglyphics. The corridor had simply been carved out of the limestone.
Once he was far enough away from the entrance, he brought out a matchbook. After some fumbling and cursing in Arabic, he brought his gas lantern to life. Orange light danced about the corridor as the lantern's flame flickered inside its glass bulb. He brought the lantern up to head height, directing the light forward. Up ahead was a doorway that was guarded by a waist-high length of drooping rope. He walked up to the doorway and peered inside, holding the lantern at arm's length.
The room before him was the antechamber. Wider than it was long, the room was a hodgepodge of artifacts from the queen's reign: disassembled chariots, their wheels and chassis piled against each other in the left corner of the room; furniture, their animal motifs catching the lantern light and giving the bare walls behind them the look of a crude shadow puppet show; pottery and sacks, their contents either metaphorical or spoiled by over two-thousand years of stagnation. Over half of objects had little slips of numbered paper stuck to them. Omar noticed that all of the objects in the right half of the chamber were paper-free.
He smiled to himself now that he knew the Englishmen hadn't even finished with inventorying the antechamber yet. Both the burial and treasure chambers would be untouched; the archeologists would be much less likely to notice that something had gone missing from those two rooms. Licking his lips, Omar stepped over the rope. Before he moved further, he bent down and wrapped his cloak tighter about his legs. He didn't want the cloth billowing about and disturbing the dust. The archeologists would probably be too excited by their finds to notice the fine imprints of his sandals, but he could not say the same about his clothing throwing about clouds of dust in his wake. With his cloak secured, he pushed forward, carefully picking his way through the room, making sure he didn't touch any of the artifacts lying about. Soon enough he found himself at the doorway to the burial chamber. He stepped inside and promptly got a shock that left him three missed beats short of a heart attack.
A woman with skin as brown as ancient papyrus was sitting on an ornate throne of limestone. Black-brown, waist-length hair cascaded down a body covered more by tattoos than by clothing; besides the nearly-transparent silks covering her torso, the only other dressings she had were bandages wrapped around each of her legs from their thighs to their ankles. She was sitting upright with her arms crossed over a staff resting diagonally across her breast. her eyes were closed.
It was this fact, coupled with her rigid posture and coating of dust, that helped Omar realize that he was looking at a statue, not a vengeful leader who waited over two-thousand years to strike down anyone who dared interrupt her slumber. He blew out a breath and gently patted his chest to calm his racing heart. After calming down, he stepped up to the statue, admiring the craftsmanship as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The golden jewelry adorning the statue looked enticing, but he knew that the archeologists would be too familiar with Egyptian burial wear to not notice any missing pieces.
"Looks like you're in luck, highness," Omar said, miming tapping the statue's nose, "you get to keep your trinkets." Smirking, he turned his lantern towards a doorway that was to the right of the entrance. His light caught a multitude of glints and glitters as it shone into the room beyond. Jackpot.
He set his lantern down in the treasure chamber. He was practically drooling as he took in the hoard of golden furniture, gem-encrusted weapons, and priceless jewelry. He rubbed his hands together, his hungry eyes shifting from treasure to treasure; he was a kid in a candy shop, and by god he was ready to become a diabetic.
Though he wanted nothing more than to stuff his cloak full of treasure, he knew that greed was not in fact good. Too much missing, or something important missing, would draw suspicion. He would have to choose carefully; he didn't want to prematurely end his long con of mooching off archeologists. Considering this, he slid his eyes about again, looking for something extravagant but personal to the queen - something the archeologists wouldn't have a record of.
After several minutes of browsing, his gaze rested on a necklace. Unlike the other necklaces lying about, which were shoulder-covering rainbows of beads so large that they could be considered articles of clothing themselves, the necklace he noticed was a simple gold-chained amulet in the shape of a scarab beetle. Faded black paint outlined the creases of its back shell, and the ridges of its head and forelimbs were represented by yellow gems embedded into the gold, perhaps to drive home an association between the ridges and the rays of the sun.
He picked up the necklace and dangled the amulet close to his face, admiring the intricacies of its design and the value of its material. Its weight was satisfying; it wasn't hollow or merely gold-coated. The trinket would fetch a high price on the black market, and since he had noticed two more necklaces that were exactly the same as the one in his hands, he reasoned the archeologists wouldn't notice its absence. Smiling, he gathered up the golden chain in his palm and slid the amulet inside his cloak.
After adding a pair of earrings and a charm to his collection, he decided it was time to head back to his guard post. He picked up his lantern and left the treasure chamber, making sure to keep the spring out of his step so he wouldn't leave too much evidence of his trespassing on the burial chamber's floor. As he passed the queen's throne, he shot a glance at the standing statue, its eyes open and a scowl on its face. He turned back towards the exit, his thoughts full of profit. Omar was mid-step and halfway through the antechamber door when realization hit him.
He spun around, his cloak unraveling slightly as he did so. His eyes widened and his jaw fell open as his gaze met the queen's. Though the top of her head only came up to his chin, her posture and seething demeanor gave her an extra two feet in Omar's eyes. She stabbed a finger at him and shouted something in a language that sounded like a bizarre hybrid of French and Arabic. Omar blinked, his jaw quivering as he tried to think of a response. He didn't even know a single word of Coptic, to say nothing of ancient Egyptian. The queen repeated herself, this time gesturing at him with her staff. This only caused his knees to start quivering as well. Impatient, the queen took a step towards him.
Her approach finally triggered a response from Omar. He bolted into the antechamber, his lantern throwing about light as his cloak threw about the antiques at his feet. Furious, the queen strode after him, slamming the bottom of her staff on the floor as she did so. After one strike, the entire tomb began trembling. As this happened, Omar ran into the corridor that lead to the exit. Rather, what WAS the corridor that lead to the exit.
Omar gasped. What was at first a smooth limestone corridor was now a six meter-long pit of darkness. He tried to skid to a stop before he tumbled in, but his unraveled cloak twisted about his legs, which shot out from under him. He began to fall into the pit. Throwing out a profanity in panic, he twisted about in the air. Now he was facing the antechamber's doorway, and just before the rest of his torso slipped into the darkness of the pit, he was able to throw his arms out and lock them on the chamber's floor, the rest of his body dangling down the pit. This came at a price: his lantern was gone, leaving him in darkness.
Omar tried to get up, but most of his dexterity over the years had concentrated in his fingers rather than his core body strength. He was merely a petty thief, not an acrobatic cat burglar. That didn't stop his feeble attempts. Whining like a jackal, he kicked his legs at the sandy surface below, trying to boost himself up and over the edge of the pit. His efforts stopped when he realized he was making his body slip further and further into the pit. As he was panicking over what to do next, he noticed a soft glow above him. He looked up.
The queen stood above him, glowing in the darkness and looking down at him with a face that was two parts contempt and one part amusement. He met her gaze, his eyes wide, his face sweaty, and his breaths coming out in quick gasps of panic. Her lips curved upward in a smug smile. Omar's gaze was brought back down when he noticed movement on the ground; the queen was raising one of her slender, dainty feet before him. Omar glanced back up, his panicked face briefly taking on a questioning look as he stared up at her. With that smug grin still on her face, she spoke another string of ancient Egyptian in a commanding tone. Omar didn't understand a word of what she said, but he could guess what she wanted him to do based on her smug demeanor and placement of her foot. He wasn't one to demean himself for gain, but the abyss beneath him seemed to promise a much worse fate than having to grovel and kiss the feet of an Egyptian queen. He slowly nodded his head and brought his gaze back to her hanging foot. Swallowing a lump in his throat and closing his eyes, he brought his head forward. And was promptly given a swift kick to the face.
Omar lost his grip. With another screamed profanity, he fell backwards into the darkness below. After a second of weightlessness, he fell onto a floor with a thump and a spray of sand. Groaning and rubbing his nose, he raised himself up and looked above him. He was just in time to catch one last glance of the queen's grinning face as it disappeared behind the closing floor of the corridor above him. Then he was left alone with nothing but his now useless treasures and the meager light of a broken lantern. Or so he thought.
He sat by the remains of his lantern, his face gaunt from shock and disbelief. His expression changed to fear when he realized he could hear whispering flowing out from the shadows that surrounded him. He twisted his head about, searching for the source of the noise. The chattering sounds were all around him. The voices were again in a language he did not understand, but this time it seemed more animalistic than foreign. He stood up. Soon he noticed that the light of the broken lantern was catching on something in the shadows: little black orbs that shimmered in its meager light; little black orbs that followed his every movement; little black orbs that always seemed to be in pairs.
"Oh, great and merciful god," Omar moaned. Sweat collected on his forehead as the chattering grew louder. As the mass of shadowy creatures drew closer, the light began to catch on their limbs. They were insectile arms and legs, golden brown, that glinted in the lamplight as if they were made of gold themselves. Their barbed claws dug into the sand, which gave Omar unpleasant premonitions of what it would feel like when they dug into his flesh. He whimpered, trying to back away from the approaching wall of child-sized insects, only to realize once again that he was surrounded. From all corners of the darkness, the shining black eyes watched him, and the golden limbs shuffled about on the floor sending up little sprays of sand and grit.
One of the insects was more courageous than the others. It began to step into the circle of light Omar was marooned on. His breath caught in his throat and his body went rigid in terror. He expected to see chattering mandibles and twitching antennae looming out of the darkness, attached to a chitinous face that was both murderous and yet free of emotion. First came its claws. Then came its limbs. And finally the beast showed itself...
Omar balked. He expected an insectoid nightmare. What he got was a brown-skinned girl with short white hair. Yes, her limbs were golden, clawed appendages of chitin, and yes, her eyes were as black and featureless as obsidian marbles, but the creature they were attached to was not a "creature" at all. Just a girl. A girl with nothing covering her but a pair of shielded scarab wings on her back. Though small, her body was well-developed; she had perky breasts and curvaceous hips that suggested a rounded ass was hiding beneath her wings. As she looked up at him, he noticed that she had ridges running along forearms, and she had a similar line of ridges perched on her head, making it look like she was wearing a golden tiara.
"S-scarabs?" he said. The insect girl said nothing, her featureless black eyes staring up at him and blinking occasionally. As if to confirm his conjecture, he reached into his cloak and pulled out the scarab amulet, letting it hang in front of him.
"A-ah!"
Omar jumped, startled by the scarab-girl's sudden response. Her eyes, wide and wondrous, were locked on the trinket, and a hum was drifting over from her as her wings softly buzzed in excitement. She wasn't the only one. Omar looked around, watching as all the pairs of eyes surrounding him switched their gazes from him to the amulet hanging from his outstretched hand. The appearance of the amulet seemed to spread the leading scarab's courage to the ones still hidden in shadow. More and more of them began to slink into his circle of light. By now, all of them were softly buzzing in excitement.
Panic started to return to Omar's mind as his breathing room shrank. He stuffed the amulet back into his cloak, then Twisted around, he bent down and snatched up a jagged piece of broken glass from the remains of his lantern. "Stay b-back!" he shouted, brandishing the piece of glass that was hardly longer than his middle finger. The scarab-girls paused for an instant, more confused than afraid, and then resumed stalking up to Omar. He continued to turn this way and that, trying desperately to hold them back, but his feeble swipes only delayed their approach - it did nothing to force them back.
Suddenly, there was a much louder and deeper buzz from behind Omar as one of the scarab-girls leapt forward, propelled by her thrumming wings. Before he could even think of twisting around, the girl was on his back, her golden limbs hooked around his torso and her breath in his ear. With a scream, he fell to the sand with the girl still nuzzled against his back. And then they were upon him. Claw after claw reached for Omar as he thrashed about on the ground. Scraps of his cloak were torn off as the scarab-girls grasped at his body, trying to find a part of him to grab. Soon, his arms were restrained, his legs were bound together, and his mouth was gagged as a particularly raunchy bug buried his head in her chest. Subdued and silenced, he was dragged away on his back into the shadows, moaning in desperation all along the way.
As the buzzing and chattering faded away into the darkness, the light of the lantern faded along with it, the gas flame fizzling out with a "fssst."
♦ ♦ ♦
Omar didn't know exactly how long he had been dragged through the darkness; he only knew that it was longer than the time it took him to give up hope and stop struggling against his captors. However, he started to notice that another noise was intruding on the sounds of the scarab swarm's movement - the noise of running water. With a look of disbelief on his face, Omar tilted his head back, trying to set his gaze forward so he could see where they were taking him. After a few cricks to his neck, he was able to make out a craggily triangular shape approaching them. It was a flickering orange color, and the sound of running water was drifting out from it. This bizarre phenomenon confused him until he realized that he was looking at an entrance. They entered it, and once again Omar had to balk.
The scarab-girls had dragged him into an underground throne room. Ten-meter high square columns decorated with colorful paints lined the sides of a chamber that was as long and wide as a tennis court, floored with tiles of polished sandstone. The orange lighting came from obelisk-like torches that stood out from between the columns, and the sound of running water came from a three-meter wide artificial river that flowed through the section of room directly in front of the entrance. A small bridge linked the entrance to the rest of the room beyond the river. The swarm of scarab-girls carried Omar across the bridge before skittering up the length of the room. They reached the back where piles of maroon pillows were spread about a giant rug. Their trek complete, they released Omar, gently laying him onto one of the piles before surrounding him once again. He tried to sit up, but a pair of them shot up to his sides and held him down.
Omar looked about at his captors. Their eyes, black and featureless, were still locked on him. Though he still felt fear, he couldn't help but notice that every one of them had a gentle smile on their faces. The more he took in the faces surrounding him, the more he realized that they meant him no harm.
"Then why are they restraining me?"
The answer came soon enough. One of the girls came closer, her brown skin glistening slightly in the torch-light. Though he couldn't be absolutely sure, Omar assumed that this was the courageous one that first came into the light back in their pit encounter. When she had reached his knees, she stopped, tilting her head down and staring at his groin. She licked her lips. Omar barely had enough time to feel uneasy before she sprang into action. He yelped as she tore the tattered remains of his cloak apart, exposing his underclothes. He tried to move his arms to defend himself, only to be reminded that they were secured by the two scarab-girls flanking him. He could only watch and whimper as the courageous scarab-girl raised her golden claws once again... and planted them on the sides of his underpants, sliding them off an inch at a time.
"W-what?" Omar said, then closed his eyes and shivered as he felt the girl's breath on his limp cock. She had her face centimeters away, and was sniffing it. Then, after licking her lips once again, she stuck out her tongue, using it to trace little circles on the tip of his glans. He groaned as his dick began to stiffen, the tip shining with the scarab-girls saliva as she wrapped her tongue around it faster and faster, little mewls of pleasure escaping her mouth as she worked.
By the time he was fully erect, Omar's legs were trembling, and his breath was coming out in short gasps. With his cock now tall and proud, the scarab-girl that was teasing him brought her mouth closer, locking her soft lips around his tip and gently moving her head back and forth, suckling and slurping as she did so. He tilted his head back to cry out, but before he could, he felt another pair of lips lock over his own. One of the girls that had kept his arms restrained was leaning over him and exploring his mouth with her tongue. Omar didn't waste any time. Completely outclassed in size, the scarab-girl's tongue was pushed back into her own mouth as he kissed her back, lapping up the sweet and warm taste of her saliva directly from her insides. her black eyes shot open in surprise, but eventually they eased shut as she grew used to his touch. All the while, the girl at his groin continued to suckle at his cock until she was taking half the length into her mouth at a time, moaning as she wrapped her tongue about the shaft.
By now, the other girls surrounding them had grown impatient. Those in the front began to skitter forward to attempt to get a part of Omar to themselves. His legs spasmed as a few of them began massaging and licking his feet. His top was torn apart, and his head cringed as several others began suckling at his nipples. Some were content to nuzzle up to his side and lick at his skin, drinking in his sweat and relishing in the taste of his body. Both of his hands were picked up and guided to the pussies of the bolder scarab-girls; they guided his fingers with their own so he could properly stroke their insides to climax.
Omar was surrounded by a cloud of sensual energy. The scarab-girl with her mouth locked around his cock had found a satisfying rhythm, and the kissing and slurping noises she made were heard above all of the moaning and schlicking of her sisters. The others grew more frantic as well, some becoming so engrossed in loving Omar that they simply rubbed their dripping wet pussies about his body, hoping to gain release by leaving trails of their juices all about his skin. The body heat would have been stifling, but in the coolness of the subterranean night, it was more like a comforting warmth. The warmth began to build in his groin, along with a pressure.
Clenching his teeth and closing his eyes, Omar groaned into the mouth of the scarab-girl he was kissing as his orgasm rocked his body. The black eyes of the girl suckling his cock widened as his cum flowed into her mouth, but returned to a half-lidded look of content pleasure as she began sucking down the globs of his seed. Goaded on by his trembling body, the others around chattered in excitement, licking and grinding as fast as they could, as if to take in any residual sexual energy he might have had left over from his climax. The sweet smell of sweat and pussy juice filled the air.
Before the scarab-girl could finish lapping up the last of his cum, one of her sisters nudged her away, eagerly taking her place at Omar's groin. Before his cock even had a chance to become limp again, she pushed forward, nudging over several other girls so she could properly straddle his hips. Wasting no time, she stabbed herself onto his cock, giving out a shuddering gasp as she sank down his length, wiggling her hips as she did so. Omar's entire body spasmed in reaction. Her pussy was warm and tight, and the pleasure it provided intensified as the scarab-girl began bouncing on top of him, her mouth hanging open and her black eyes turning skywards. He tried to bring his arms forward so he could lock his hands on her thighs, but the two sisters that were using his fingers to stuff their pussies held his hands fast. He could only groan and twitch as the swarm of scarab-girls had their way with him, cuddling close and pressing their lithe and sweaty bodies against his.
In time, Omar was driven to his limit once again, his balls tightening before spurts of cum were milked out of his cock by the scarab-girl's tight pussy. As soon as the last drop of semen had been wrung out of his throbbing dick, the girl that had been straddling him was pushed off to be replaced by yet another golden-limbed, black-eyed angel. They continued the rotation, their insatiable lust pushing Omar to his physical and mental limits. His spurts grew smaller. His movements slower. His vision darker. His breathing became frantic to a peak and then slowed along with his movements. With one last moan of ecstasy, he drifted off, still surrounded and smothered by the glistening, brown-and-gold bodies of his lovers.
♦ ♦ ♦
Omar woke up to the sound of light snoring. He raised his head up to see that his harem of scarab-girls were sprawled about here and there, their heads resting on pillows and their eyes closed. At least, some of them were on pillows. Most of them had decided that his body was pillow enough for themselves. They were nuzzled up against whatever piece of him was still available: his stomach, his biceps, his hands, his shoulders, his thighs. One had even snuggled between his legs and had rested the back of her head on his privates. Besides their gentle breaths and the crackling of the torches lining the walls, the only other sound was the smooth rush of water at the far end of the room.
One of the scarab-girls woke up. She raised her head off of her pillow, her mouth making a big "O" as she silently yawned. She stretched, her back wings buzzing as she did so. After blinking a few times, she rested her black eyes on Omar. A smile spread on her face before she crawled up to him and gave him a peck on his cheek.
Before he could respond in any way, she scuttled off towards the river-side of the room. As she left, other girls started to rise from their sleep, following the same routine of yawn, stretch, blink, smile, and good-morning kiss. Soon, everyone had completed the ritual, and they were all once again surrounding Omar in a circle of black eyes and gentle smiles.
Not all were in the circle however, which became apparent when three more appeared, one carrying a large bowl of water, one carried a large bowl overflowing with fruit, and the last... was carrying the golden scarab amulet that Omar had stuffed back into his cloak before he was captured. The three scarab-girls presented their gifts, the first two laying his food before him, and the third skittering beside him and draping the amulet over his neck so it rested on his chest. The metal was cool and heavy, but he didn't care. All his thoughts were on the food and water set before him. Considering how drained he was of fluids from the ordeals of the previous night, he was all too enthused to take the bowl of water in his hands and practically drain it in one go; it slid down his throat with a pleasing coolness and a texture free of grit. Once his thirst was sated, he gobbled down the bowl of fruit, paying no mind to the seeds as they crunched between his teeth. Grapes. Apple. Pomegranate. Figs. One by one the savory handfuls of produce disappeared behind his lips. With a belch, he set the fruit bowl down next to the water bowl. A wave of chattering giggles looped around the circle of scarab-girls as he patted his stomach and sighed with satisfaction. Then he tried to get up.
Two of his lovers scuttled to his sides and held him down by his arms. He looked about in confusion. The swarm drew closer. The courageous scarab-girl crawled up close until her golden claws were resting on the ground next to his hips. She turned her black-eyed gaze to him, smiled, and then lowered it down to his groin. She licked her lips.
Omar's eyes widened. "Y-you can't be serious..."
But they were. For the rest of his life.
