The light peeking in between the bars was provided by a guttering torch jammed in a wall sconce in the corridor beyond. With a trembling hand, he fingered the tacky patch of drying blood on the right side of his head. Sharp pain drove through his head at the touch, and he couldn’t repress a curse.
From the corridor beyond, he heard Doc’s anxious voice. “Ryan, good fellow, are you awake? John Barrymore, can you see if he is awake?”
“Ryan? Are you all right in there?” J.B. asked.
“No,” he managed to say, dismayed by how weak and hoarse he sounded. “But I can manage.”
Slowly, he levered himself to a sitting position and, after enduring a wave of vertigo, he realized he was naked.
“Krysty,” he called. “You okay, lover?”
His only response was the faint echo of his question. Doc coughed uncomfortably. “I regret to say she is not among us. Nor is young master Lauren.”
Ryan groaned. “Where are they?”
“No idea,” Mildred said. “All of us in the chariot were knocked on our collective asses by those metauh weapons. We came to a few minutes ago. You must have been hit harder than the rest of us, or you were still weak from the shot you took yesterday.”
Ryan forced himself to his feet. His arms and legs felt rubbery, and his heart beat with great, erratic poundings in his chest. Slowly, painfully, he managed to stumble over to and use the barred door as support. “Or Hell Eyes kicked me in the head, as an added little bonus for not being scared away.”
Gazing through the bars, he saw Doc, J.B. and Mildred all in identical cells and all naked. Doc, always tall and skeletally lean, looked pathetically vulnerable. His rib cage protruded from beneath his pale skin, and his hipbones jutted out as sharply as his ribs. His stomach was concave. He kept both hands clasped discreetly over his groin.
J.B. looked a bit ludicrous, too, wearing nothing but his sallow skin and spectacles. He gripped the wooden bars tightly, his knuckles white.
Mildred stood with one arm crooked over her breasts and her hand spread at the juncture of her thighs.
The four cells formed the transverse bar of a T. J.B.’s cell faced the juncture corridor. Ryan leaned his forehead against the bars, swallowing painfully. His throat felt like it was lined with sandpaper. “Was Krysty in the chariot with you?”
“Yes,” Doc answered dolefully. “It is safe to assume she and Jak were separated from us for some reason.”
Ryan inhaled slowly. Strength was returning to his limbs, the fierce pain in his chest fading to only a persistent ache. “Any idea where we are?”
“No,” J.B. said. “Came to in here, as naked as a newborn babe.”
“We could be in ancient Egypt for all we know,” Doc commented. “Buried in a hidden chamber in the pyramid of Giza.”
“Don’t go jolt-brained on us,” J.B. ordered.
“I have no intention of doing so,” Doc retorted irritably. “However, you may have noticed how the citizens of Aten appeared to be of Egyptian origin… all dark haired and dark skinned. Not an Anglo-Saxon in the bunch. The odds of Pharaoh finding only that physical type in the Barrens are so astronomical that they are not even worth discussing.”
Mildred chuckled lowly. “You’re forgetting where we are.”
“I believe that was my topic, Dr. Wyeth.”
“We’re in a movie set, Doc. In some remnant of California, not Egypt, ancient or otherwise. And if it’s a movie set, it’s basically an illusion. And therefore, the so-called Egyptians we saw are probably the product of hair and skin dyes, to maintain the illusion for Pharaoh’s benefit.”
Doc uttered a “Hmph” of interest. “Pray proceed.”
Mildred started to gesture, as was her habit when talking, then kept her hands where they were. “I got a good look at the citizens of Aten. Regardless of their coloring, their body and facial structures are not the Egyptian norm. I saw a few blue eyes in the mix, too.”
“So,” Ryan said, “this is just some big playacting set for Hell Eyes. Is that what you’re saying?”
Mildred shook her head. “Not exactly. He’s gone to a great deal of trouble to evoke the look of the Eighteenth Dynasty, so it’s more than just a fantasy land to him. We’ve got to take it seriously because he takes it seriously.”