Chapter 3: The Mummy’s Game
Chapter 3: The Frost Game—Prisoner’s Gambit
A wisp of spectral laughter followed Mia and Griffin as they pressed deeper into the pyramid's icy veins, uncertainty curling in every shadow cast by their torches’ blue flames. Whether Seer had faded into the labyrinth behind them or still watched from the mirrors, only the scrape of footsteps and the low, fearless beat of Griffin's wings reminded Mia she wasn't alone.
But nothing—neither the shifting walls nor the vents of frostbitten air that crept from unknown crypts—prepared them for what waited ahead.
It began with a gust: chilling, but sharp with grit. A ripple of sand rose up, spiraled with flakes of living ice, and somewhere in its heart, a deep voice reverberated, both menacing and weary, as if forced out by ancient, brittle lungs.
The next chamber was vast, its ceiling lost in darkness, its floor patterned with glowing runes and polished tiles. Row after row of statues lined the edges, each figure so well-carved that Mia caught herself expecting them to blink. Warriors, healers, scribes—the faces shimmered with frost, frozen mid-stride or mid-plea. Hieroglyphs above their heads pulsed a dull, haunting blue.
In the center of it all: a raised dais, encircled by surging sand and swirling snow. Here, the wind fused grit and rime into a storm so wild that Mia instinctively hugged her satchel close, as if her journal’s battered covers could anchor her to reality.
And at the eye of that froststorm, he stood—the Mummy.
His wrappings dangled in ribbons of snow-spun linen, studded and crusted with shards of old ice. Beneath the loosely wound bandages, eyes blazed like glacier-light reflected on midnight water: cold, furious, and impossibly ancient. He was giant, somehow sleepless, and when he stepped down from the dais, the marble floor groaned, shivering under the impact of power held in check for centuries.
Mia’s first instinct was to shrink behind Griffin. Griffin did not budge, wings spread, stone tail poised like a blade. 'If you want her,' he growled, 'you’ll have to get through me.'
The Mummy’s mouth-creases cracked in a mirthless, echoing laugh. 'I need no fragile guardians. I am both prisoner and ward of this frostbitten legend. Ages past, I sealed away what should not be known—locking secret within secret behind walls of living snow.'
For a flicker, the wind dropped; Mia felt the chill bite deeper, something sorrowful flickering in the Mummy’s luminous gaze. 'I am not your enemy, nor your ally,' he continued, his words heavy as lead. 'I play a role. Will you?' The bandages drew taut as he lifted a gnarled hand—a signal, it seemed. The tiles on the floor gleamed, angling into new configuration.
Runes surged beneath their boots—symbols for ice, sand, time, spirit, memory—each pulsing with shifting colors. At the far end, a single black tile glimmered, unreachable but central to the puzzle unfolding before them.
'Play the Frost Game,' the Mummy intoned. 'Pass, and you edge closer to truth. Fail, and wind and ice will scour your names from memory.'
The wind rose again, thundering past columns of chilly statues. Mia could barely hear Griffin’s aside: 'I’ve never liked board games.'
But the rules, unspoken, wrote themselves across the air. Each tile must be chosen, one by one. Some would chill the puzzle into immobility—others, if let thaw, would release the sands that threatened to bury them. One, above all, must remain frozen, though its identity was less than certain.
Mia’s heart thudded as Griffin, never one for subtlety, eyed the ice tile. 'Just freeze them all and see what sticks,' he huffed. 'Overwhelm the puzzle. It’s the pyramid—surely it wants a show of power!'
But Mia remembered the runic warnings: 'Some secrets survive only when protected from heat or haste.' She frowned, uncertain. The dazzling glow of each glyph made it difficult to focus—the sand tile flickered with amber light, the time tile pulsed faintly, slow and steady, the spirit tile shimmered as if alive, and the memory tile…
Mia reached toward it instinctively, feeling her breath catch. Unlike the others, the memory tile seemed almost warm beneath her frostbitten palm, pulsing with the rhythm of a distant song. She paused. The statues around the room—were they posed as if thinking, remembering, or locked in the agony of forgetting?
Then, a familiar presence—a shadow flickering at the periphery—Seer, emerging half in and out of focus, her silver eyes unreadable. 'Brute force preserves nothing but ice,' she whispered, her voice threading between stone and snow. 'But memory… memory endures, frostbitten or thawed. Some legends must be forgotten to be kept. Others live only when cherished—never altered.'
Griffin let out a snort, clearly annoyed by riddles within riddles. He started toward the time tile, talon raised to strike, but Mia intercepted gently. 'Wait. Not everything should be stopped or frozen. If this is about secrets, the legend must be preserved—but not by force. Not by stopping time. Only memory holds meaning safe, even when the rest changes.'
Though her knees trembled, she summoned her power—not blasting cold across the chamber, but tracing a delicate mist around the memory tile alone. Frost grew, coaxed and careful, locking it under a filigree of crystalline blue. The remaining tiles she let go, guiding warmth and light to thaw them, step by cautious step. The sand rushed in, but Mia used her frost to channel—gentle enough to cool, never to smother.
The puzzle responded—pulsing, rattling, all but the memory tile sloughing away their icy guards. An invisible wind drew every loose flake and screaming grain of sand toward the dais’s center—then peace, at last. The statues stilled; the hovering threat of collapse retreated, and for a heartbeat, everything was quiet but for Mia’s racing heart.
The Mummy watched, incredulous at first, then quietly impressed. His bandaged fists unclenched, and his voice was less a threat, more an admission. 'You choose with restraint,' he rumbled. 'Most seek only power, crushing what they cannot understand. But memory was my only companion—all things die, but stories outlive even frost.'
Griffin gave Mia a sidelong look, somewhere between pride and sheepishness. 'Told you not to rely on brute strength. Someday I’ll learn.'
Mia managed a weak laugh. 'We’ll just have to keep practicing.'
Shadows moved again. Seer, her form sharper now, offered the faintest nod. 'Every legend needs a keeper—a heart that remembers, not just a hand that preserves. The pyramid’s games are never only about magic.' For a moment, her voice lost its usual detachment, and Mia felt the tremor of hope ripple through her. Was Seer beginning to believe in her… or herself?
The Mummy’s gaze went cold once more, but it was the cold of distance, not malice. 'You have passed my game, little frostbearer. But know this: the pyramid itself will test your resolve, your empathy, and your cleverness tenfold. Only then—only if you guard memory not as a relic, but as a gift—can you hope to face the Cipher.'
He stepped back, his hulking form already dissolving into shards of frost and ceremonial dust. As he faded, a low, guttural promise echoed: 'Should you fail, you will find me waiting—in every echo, every blizzard that stirs the old stones.'
The wind slackened.
In the dimming light, Seer drifted closer, her hands tracing invisible threads over the glowing tiles. 'A path… is never just chosen once. Come. The Cipher’s riddle awaits, but its clues are buried not in ice, but in the warmth of what you dare to remember.'
Griffin smirked, shaking sand from his wings. 'Next time, I vote for a challenge involving fewer board games and more fire-breathing beetles.'
For the first time since entering the pyramid, Mia laughed—a sound quick with fear and excitement, but also brightened by something new. Trust, maybe; hope, certainly.
With statues behind them and riddle ahead, the trio vanished down the tunnel revealed by the puzzle’s thaw, Seer sowing hints as they walked—a trail of cryptic glyphs Mia took care to note into her battered blue journal. For in this place, every clue was precious, and every memory a key.
Far behind, the wind picked up again—clean this time, a mere sigh through ancient halls that shook with the promise of secrets not quite lost, and the steps of those determined to remember them.