A cactus stood on the horizon, though its shadow took the shape of a dinosaur. And now suddenly that of a horse. And now it turned into a ship. There was definitely just a simple cactus there, which means the dancing shadows could have only one reason.

“They’re coming. Grab my binoculars!”

Gidi rummaged through Jaco’s cotton shoulder bag. The dune gazelle quickly came up with a round, metal object in her mouth.

“No, that’s my compass. Bi—no—cu—lars.”

Jaco lay flat on the sandy dune. The jackal turned his gaze towards dozens of grey dots on the horizon. Gidi stuck her head in the bag again and pulled out an elongated, iron object by the handle.

“What? That’s my dagger! Binoculars. The thing with two lenses.”

He held both paws in front of his eyes, mimicking binoculars. But being a four-legged creature, he couldn’t keep standing on two legs for more than half a second.

Her eyebrows shot up. She nodded with exaggeration and dove into the bag a third time. This time she threw two rolls of parchment onto the sand.

He sighed. “You just need to grab my rope and you’ll have a bingo.”

Her mouth fell open. “No! Get rid of them! Those beasts will eat me!”

“Not a dingo, a bingo. Dingoes only live on the other side of the world.”

One of his ears turned outward. Footsteps. Soft and faded—but that was how Shadowshifters always sounded. He scanned the surroundings, but all shadows seemed normal and fitting.

“You’re useless,” he finally said.

Jaco bounded over the dune, grabbed his bag in his jaws, and scattered the contents before them: a rope and binoculars. He flung the binoculars on top of the hill and peered through it.

He saw a pack of ravenous Shadowshifters. Everywhere they walked, dunes gained shadows as if they were houses and trees gained shadows as if they were animals.

Gidi stared at Jaco with big eyes and drooping ears. “But … but … if I’m useless, why do you keep taking care of me? Why don’t you bring me back to my family?”

“Gidi, how many times do I need to say it? Your family is—how do you say—unavailable.”

“Not even dear uncle and auntie?”

“Yes, even them.”

“For how long will they be unavailable?”

“Maybe quite a while.”

Jaco placed his beige-white paw on Gidi’s even whiter forehead. He felt two hard stubs that would later become magnificent black horns.

“You know what, look at it this way. In this part of the barren desert, you’re the only dune gazelle left alive. It’s my duty to keep you safe and bring you back to better lands.”

“Oh. That’s nice of you!” For the first time, a smile appeared and her chubby tail wagged. “Who gave you that duty?”

“I gave that duty to myself. Now hush, if you don’t want to die.”

He tossed all the items back into the worn bag, except for the rope. This he wrapped loosely around his neck, like a scarf. A trio of ground squirrels scurried past. Their brownish pink fur would camouflage them against the equally colored sand, if not for the white stripe on their sides.

“Hey,” Jaco hissed. “There are Shadowshifters over there.”

“Where we came from too! We’re not safe anywhere.” One squirrel pointed backward and ran on. The others stared at Gidi for a long time before following their friend.

Jaco sneaked in the indicated direction.

“What are you doing?” Gidi squeezed alongside him. Her short legs made it difficult to keep up with him.

“They probably had their nest there. We’ll find food.”

Her stomach growled. Jaco’s stomach reacted the same way. They snuck around the sandy dunes, for walking over them might reveal their location. The sun burned at their backs. With each step, Jaco checked if the shadow on the floor still actually looked like his shadow, and not suddenly a bird or a monster.

After a short walk, they stumbled upon a small oasis.

The sight of green earth, covered in plants, was so rare that Jaco thought he was dreaming. Two dead ground squirrels lay between the leaves. A large Shifter Bite revealed their fate.

“Collect leaves, nuts and seeds,” Jaco said. “I’ll take these two.”

Every time she saw Jaco eat animals, a shiver went through her body. Don’t pay attention to it, she thought. He’s a scavenger. He’d never eat me as long as I’m alive.

Shadowshifters knew the rare fertile spots and guarded them well, so Jaco already fled the area. She had to rush and fling the gathered food into the bag.

Once at a safe distance, he looked at the sun.

“Quick, get my map.”

Gidi smoothly pulled a circular, thin object from the bag, with a needle in the middle.

“You serious?”

“Wait, no, I know this one!” She stuffed her entire face into the bag and lifted up a roll of parchment.

“Finally, thank you.”

Maybe you should carry the bag yourself, she thought.

Jaco unrolled the map. His eyes darted to the empty corner in the bottom right.

“Good, good, good. We haven’t had this area yet.”

“How can you tell from the sun?”

“I’m the best jackal of my family. I can hear the sound is different here. I can smell I haven’t walked here before.”

“Good thing you’re bringing it up. Maybe you should wash some more.”

“Deal. If you learn to grab the right objects from my bag—at your first attempt. Say, do you see anything special?”

“Is a gigantic statue of a head special?”

She leaned in the direction of the sandstone statue. Jaco scratched a sketch of it into the parchment. using his sharp nails. She looked over his shoulder and saw the map was almost complete.

“How do you know the desert ends at the edge of the map?”

“It says so in the legend.”

“Boooooring. I’d rather have a story with dragons, and flying carpets, and dancing elephants, than one that says how big your map should be.”

“It’s not a boring legend! More and more beings all over the world believe it. The Florisian Faith is almost bigger than the Religion of the Banish. Or even Juradom! That should tell you something!”

He noticed he talked unnecessarily loud and switched to whispering.

“And I’m trying to prove it’s a true story, because I’d like to meet one of those gods and ask something. Grab the second roll from the bag.”

Oh no, I left that one behind, she thought. She quickly looked away.

“You know what,” she said laughing, “tell the legend from memory! That’s more fun!”

“Ah. Alright then. The legend speaks of a time long, long ago, when this entire desert was still underwater. An egg—just one egg, green with ragged edges, covered in seaweed—drifted aimlessly over the billows.”

“How can you drift over willow trees?”

“Sorry, it’s an old legend. Billows is Ancient Dovish for waves. The egg kept bobbing, until it suddenly cracked. No one knew how, but out of the egg sprang Ra, the Chiefgod. He flew into the sky and became a second sun. This dried up the water quickly and revealed the land.”

Now that the sun hung lower in the sky, all shadows grew longer and harder to recognize. Jaco wasn’t sure anymore if the cactus’ shadow next to him even resembled a cactus.

He picked up his pace; Gidi was still lost in thought.

“So Ra is to blame for this annoying heap of yellow sand?”

“Erm, yes, in a way he is. He had children—many children—who grew stronger each generation. Osiris was his favorite. He married Isis. They were madly in love and had multiple kids. Ra was overjoyed with his family—Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, Set, and Horus. He had a calendar made with 36 months of ten days each.”

“But … that’s only 360 days?”

“Exactly! The remaining five days were holidays, one for each child of the gods. But then tragedy struck. Set was angry at Osiris for being favored and murdered him. I’ll spare the details, but in no time everyone died, except Isis. The four deceased demigods were buried in the four corners of the desert, in a pyramid. I’ve already found three—at the previous one, Horus, I found you.”

Jaco tapped the top right corner of the map. She saw a large eye with a thick brow and lashes.

“Was Horus in the shape of an eye?”

“No, no, Horus was the sky god. So he was a falcon. This is Horus’ eye. It helped the first inhabitants of this land with mathematics.”

“Oh, fascinating. And Isis?”

“She still lives, if we’re to believe the legend. She wanders around here somewhere, weeping for the loss of her husband. And every time she cries for her family, the Nile overflows.”

“Could she be behind the Shadowshifters?”

“Certainly not! She hates them as much as we do!”

Jaco had to lower his loud voice back to a whisper, again. He was fed up with this. He should be free to live here, of all places. But now even that sandstone statue in the distance was gaining a shadow that looked more like a nightmare monster. And yes, he knew what those looked like.

“So you traveled to this desert just to look for her?”

“Gods no! I absolutely hate this place. I—”

Jaco looked at the ground and drew circles in the sand with his paw. “I’m banished from all continents. The Companions themselves did so—and they don’t make such decisions lightly. This is the only place I’m allowed to live, purely because it didn’t exist yet when I was banished.”

“Oh? Why—”

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

At a slow trot, he moved towards the statue. Gidi looked at the black and gray specks on his back, which stood out sharply against his otherwise sand-colored fur. They were shaped like raindrops sliding down a window to meet in his tail.

Jaco was already some distance away when she heard footsteps behind her. Without thinking, she ran up to him and pressed against him, though she was tiny enough to almost walk underneath him.

“I hear them again,” she whispered. “Very close.”

Jaco walked as fast as he could without making a sound. Gidi bounced and slid through the sand, making all kinds of noise.

He sighed. But he had made a choice. In his new life, there was only one thing that mattered: he had to protect her.

Jaco sped up even more, as the hills around them cast longer shadows. Behind him, he heard sand shift.

“We’re at the Pearl Pyramid, Osiris’s final resting place. Hopefully this one isn’t such a disappointment. You have no idea how difficult it is to get inside one of those things! First you have to get past that annoying Sphinx, then you have to—”

“Who calls me annoying?”

A low, slow voice pierced their ears, as if the Sphinx had just woken up. The human Sphinx face stood there, unchanged.

“Apologies, Mister Sphinx, I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about—uh—your brother, who guards the Temple of Horus. He was in quite a foul mood for sure. Must have gotten up on the wrong side of the—uh—sand bed.”

Gidi shuffled aside. Though its face was human, it had the body of a lion and wings of an eagle.

“Yes.” After each word, the Sphinx seemed to yawn. “My brother can be very annoying sometimes.”

“Mister Sphinx, I ask your permission to pass.”

“You are known to us, Jaco the Youthful. You know the procedure.”

“Of course, of course. The thing is, Mister Sphinx, evening is falling and I don’t want to stand in the middle of the desert at night.”

“Then I suggest …” The Sphinx laughed, loud and annoyingly slow, a combination Gidi had never heard before. “… that you hurry up!”

“Very well. Gidi, pay close attention, we’ll need our brains for this.”

“First question. Rira riddle me this.”

The Sphinx paused once more, as if he had to research the question in some book—which it had lost. Gidi noticed a slight twinkle in his eyes: two tiny fireballs that darted between her and Jaco.

“When the bearded man wanted to brave the billows, he forgot to keep the waving farewells.”

“Huh? What?” Gidi squeaked.

“Oh no, please don’t.”

Jaco sighed as the Sphinx repeated the riddle, taking up even more of their time.

Once done, Jaco gave his answer: “The burning letters in his silken pouch, he read the hostile bottled posts with ease.”

“That is correct. Second question.”

The lights in the eyes extinguished once more. Gidi tapped Jaco and coughed. “What was that?”

“It’s a famous sailor’s poem. About a spy who reads all the letters from enemies, even those about personal issues, but forgets to read the letters from his dying wife. Very tragic. Never travel over sea.”

“Oh. I like it. You should tell the whole poem—”

Fire returned in the Sphinx’ eyes. “Rara riddle me this. The man no one can defeat, kills six foes with one blow. Who is he and what day?”

“Phew, that’s a tough one. I’ll use my multiple choice.”

“Multiple choice activated. Answer A, the cloud god Wo. Answer B, the supreme god Ra. Answer C, the dinosaur Donte.”

The entire desert turned red. The sun barely peeked above the horizon. The Sphinx’s shadow dunked Gidi and Jaco in complete darkness, but was somehow shaped like a pack of foxes.

“What do you think?” she said.

“I know Wednesday is named after Wo. But he’s a cloud, so he can’t defeat enemies at all.”

“I’ve never heard of Donte before.”

“Really? He did some pretty important stuff.”

“I’d go with Ra. At least I know him.”

“That’s because you don’t know what happens if we get it wrong. Hm, the name Donte has changed into Thunder after all these years, so that could stand for Thursday. I’m afraid I’ll have to use my second lifeline.”

He addressed the Sphinx. “I want to use my eraser.”

“Eraser successfully used. We’ll cross out answer C.”

“Aha, then it’s Ra! Sun god, worshipped on Sunday, defeats the six days before him.”

“That is correct. Third question.”

While the Sphinx pondered deeply again, Gidi looked behind her. She didn’t see anything, but kept hearing shifting sand. She crept closer to Jaco.

“How many of those things can you use anyway?”

“I have one left, but I can’t use it now. Unless you happen to know a way to send post from here to friends in Traferia.”

The eyes glowed again. Brighter than before, amplified by the darkening night sky.

“Rira riddle me this. A beautiful woman was worshipped, two suitors fought for her hand. But the father of the gorgeous maid, found worthy neither man. A camel race was started: the camel that arrived last would win his daughter’s heart. The men realized the race would never end, until they devised a clever plan to swiftly win the woman’s affections.”

Jaco’s mouth fell open. He looked at Gidi, who bounced back the same look.

“It’s getting harder. I don’t even know what the question is!”

“He wants us to guess their clever plan. Think, think, think. How can they have a fast race, while the men want their own camel to end last?”

Gidi swore she saw two glowing eyes behind a dune, but when she tapped Jaco there was only darkness. The sun was gone. A strong wind picked up. Sand swirled around their paws, and they moved closer to the Sphinx for protection from the dust storms.

“I’ve got it! They switch camels! Each man rides the other’s camel.”

“That is correct. Final question.”

Hurry up, there’s a sandstorm coming, she thought. She learned, however, not to say anything out loud when facing a Sphinx.

The temperature dropped significantly. Even pressed against Jaco’s warm belly, she shivered. Sand was terrible at retaining heat—and in the barren deserts of Floria, there was nothing else.

Fortunately, the eyes came back to life quickly.

“Rara riddle me this. A merchant laden with fine wares, walked whistling over stone streets, but saw there, a woman in front of an old building, displaying the same in her tent. She sold her objects for one coin each. He sold his merchandise for two coins each. She was the cheapest and got a hundred visitors. He caught only forty customers. Whose coffers grew the fattest?”

“Okay, Jaco, now it feels that our sleepy sand lion is just saying random words!”

“It’s a math question. What’s bigger, a hundred times one, or forty times two?”

It was quiet for a moment. Gidi surveyed the ground, until she realized Jaco stared at her.

“Oh, that question was for me?”

“Yes! I never learned math!”

The sound of footsteps swelled. Jaco looked back anxiously. He narrowed his eyes and his pupils danced back and forth. “Four Shadowshifters,” he whispered. “I can handle them. Answer the question!”

“Um—well—you see Mister Sphinx, that is a very interesting question you’re asking there.”

“More tempo,” Jaco snapped.

From the left, a small, light orange beast shot out of the shadow. Its wide head and eyes looked feline, but its gigantic ears gave away what it truly was. A fennec fox, native to the desert.

Jaco grabbed the black tip of his attacker’s tail and flung it the other way.

“A hundred times one is … a hundred. Forty times two is … eighty. So … a hundred is more than eighty!”

A second fennec jumped from the right, but didn’t get far. With his tail, Jaco batted it over the hills like a golf ball.

The final two Shadowshifters ran at him simultaneously from the front. He put his nose to the ground and blew as hard as he could. Two sand dunes on both sides collapsed and buried his assailants.

“The woman!” Gidi shrieked. “The woman earns the most!”

The Sphinx seemed to fall asleep. The pauses between words grew even longer and the lights in the eyes already extinguished. “That is … correct!”

The Sphinx’ head sank into the ground, revealing a long corridor inside its body. They ran inside—and the head immediately shot back into position.

Behind them, Shadowshifters scratched the sand in vain.

Both heaved a sigh of relief. They trudged to the end of the hall, where a large hole revealed more desert landscape.

“Why didn’t we just walk around it?”

“Can’t be done. Without you realizing, magic sends you the wrong way. You can only find pyramids through a Sphinx.”

They stepped through the hole. It was lighter than where they came from, even though the sun was still down. Faint rays of light illuminated a path. Large footsteps pressed deep into the sand, followed by many smaller ones.

They followed the meandering path. In the distance, a bright light loomed and they heard the waves lapping at the land. Just a few steps later, they found the source.

“Now I understand why it’s called the Pearl Pyramid,” said Gidi, her mouth agape.

“Beautiful, isn’t it? Just as the legend describes.”

A gigantic pyramid hid the moon and replaced its light with thousands of tiny stars: pearls. The shimmering glass decorated the pyramid like a Christmas tree.

“Who placed all those pearls there?”

“No one. Under the right conditions, like extreme heat from the sun and water nearby, sand turns into glass. So according to legend, Ra also did this. It’s called Desertglass, though only the prettiest ones become pearls.”

How does that whole legend fit on such a small piece of parchment? Gidi still couldn’t close her mouth. Jaco scanned the ground for crumbled pearls to put in his bag.

The path ended far before the pyramid. The entrance was nowhere to be seen and the ground was discolored, clearly darkened. He gently pushed her behind him and took the rope from around his neck.

“I want you to listen closely to me and always stay behind me, understood? From here on it gets dangerous. The gods pull out all the tricks to protect pyramids.”

“Why? Don’t they want people to worship them?”

“No, that’s the issue. The Followers of Ra believed in life, not death. They believed gods walked among them in animal form. When they died, they would go to the afterlife, where they lived on forever.”

“Oh. I’m starting to like them more and more. Eternal life sounds exciting!”

“… unless you lived badly and did nasty things, then your existence would end immediately. No worse punishment was imaginable.”

Jaco cracked his rope on the ground like a whip. The brown mud splattered and burst apart, but nothing else happened. He studied the grains closely, then struck the ground right in front of him.

They heard a loud rumble, as if a building collapsed, and suddenly the ground was gone.

Gidi peeked carefully over the edge. A deep chasm led down into a dark place full of spikes.

“What … nice beings, those pyramid builders.”

“Ah, well, if you know what you’re doing, that treasure is easy to find,” said Jaco.

He gently pressed his paw to the ground that was left. It felt sturdy. He walked over it towards the pyramid; Gidi followed after some hesitation.

“Treasure? What treasure?”

“I meant the final piece of the puzzle to finding Isis, of course. The treasure is a fragment of text that completes the legend.”

“Awesome!”

She forgot about the abyss around her and hopped cheerfully alongside Jaco. They stood at the foot of the pyramid, but still no gate revealed itself.

“But, if they believed in life, why do they try to murder intruders?”

“If an intruder steals even one thing from the pyramid, eternal life ends. The objects inside are your payment for getting into the afterlife. If stolen, whoever is buried here disappears, forever.”

Jaco pressed his ear against the sloped pyramid wall. From afar it looked smooth, but up close it was more like a wide staircase upward. The bricks often stood askew, or crumbled, and the limestone had round dents and protrusions. Gidi swore she saw skeletons of fish.

The sun rose as they reached the backside. Finally, Gidi thought, some warmth.

Jaco slowed down and removed his ear from the wall. “This is it.”

“This wall looks exactly the same as all those others.”

“That’s true, but I hear wind blowing behind this wall.”

Gidi also put her head against it. A gentle breeze ruffled her fur.

Jaco brushed past her shoulder. “Do you have enough food with you? Once we’re inside, we can’t easily get back out.”

“I … think so?” It’s more important that YOU have enough food, she immediately thought.

“Good, then we’re going in. Prepare for a grand adventure!”

“How do you want to break through this wall? With your dagger?”

“No, no, it’s an optical illusion.”

“Is that also an old word for waves?”

“No. It means you think you see something, but it isn’t actually real. Your eyes are fooling you. Look.”

Jaco struck his paw against the wall. To Gidi’s amazement, however, it flew through. A few seconds later, he pulled the paw back, not showing any signs of pain.

Gidi carefully pushed her nose against it and also went through. It felt soft. Together, they lifted two large pieces of cloth painted to look like stones.

The hall was dark, with nothing but a single torch on the wall. Jaco grabbed this and scraped its tip along the rough stones, like a match. A flame ignited that allowed them to see the end of the hall.

Gidi immediately ran forward, but he jumped in front of her.

“Careful! Traps are always invisible at first glance.”

The torch illuminated the wall. A short text was scratched into a square. Gidi didn’t recognize the symbols, though they seemed fun. She saw a feather, a flat outstretched hand, and even an owl drawn identically dozens of times.

“Hieroglyphs. Don’t worry, you’ll learn to decipher them in time. Let’s see. Here sleeps Osiris. Before one finds his final resting place, one must pass through the Hall of Truth.”

A series of arrows in the middle of the wall pointed to the end of the hall. Above each arrow, an increasingly larger figure was drawn, but it was currently too small to recognize.

Step by step they moved towards the dark end.

“What is the Hall of Truth?”

“Anubis, one of Osiris’s children, leads dead souls to this hall. Once there, Osiris places your soul on a scale. On the other side he places a feather. If your soul is lighter than the feather, because you were a good person who did nothing cruel, you move on to eternal life. If not, your soul disappears.”

She swallowed. “And we’re going through that now?”

He shrugged and walked on with determined steps. “It’s just a legend, you know, and we’re not dead souls. Besides, I assume your soul is lighter than a feather!”

She had to run to keep up with him. “I don’t know if I want all that just for a fragment of text. Even if we might find Isis.”

Jaco screamed in panic. “Watch out!”

He grabbed her hind legs, dropped the torch, and dove flat to the ground. She followed involuntarily. “The Florisian Faith liked to string invisible wires at eye level. If you walk into them you go blind—or even worse, lose your nose.”

“How is not being able to smell worse than not being able to see!?”

“If I couldn’t smell, we’d have been eaten long ago. I’ve hardly ever seen those Shadowshifters.”

More careful now, they crawled over the floor, until the feel of the stone changed at the end of the hall. They stood up and shook the dust from their fur.

Gidi looked left and finally saw what the figure above the arrows was. A jackal.

A jackal!

Above it was another text. This time, somehow, Gidi could read the hieroglyphs. Anubis welcomes you to the world of the dead.

She stood stock still. Jaco didn’t notice and already stuck his head through the opening. He peeked around the corner, first left, then right. Slowly and silently, Gidi shuffled backward.

Jaco is Anubis, she thought. He’s come to sacrifice me!

She had forgotten about the invisible wires and tripped. She plopped on her back and couldn’t get up herself anymore, legs flailing wildly.

Jaco ran towards her and tried to turn her over. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“No! Stay away from me!”

He looked at her as if she were a difficult puzzle he just couldn’t figure out. “What? What’s the matter?”

“What’s your real name?”

“I’m called Jaco. I don’t have a last name, I never knew my parents.”

“Not true! You’re Anubis! You killed me long ago and now you’re taking me to the god of the underworld! I don’t want to go.”

“No, no, no, no, nonsense. If I had killed you, you would have noticed for sure.”

“So you admit you’re Anubis?”

“No, I’m a descendant from Anubis. I can’t help that. That’s why I know so much about pyramids, temples, and Ra’s legends. That’s why I have the original legendary parchment in my possession.”

Not anymore, she thought. But this isn’t the time to tell him that.

With his snout, Jaco pushed her onto her side and examined the wound on her heel.

“A deep cut. Hop on my back.”

He lay down on the ground. She waited a long time. He really seems to want to protect me—but why? Why? She slid onto his back and rested her chin between his ears.

They entered the Hall of Truth. It smelled of incense and burnt wood. In the large empty space, every footstep echoed for a while.

In the center stood a gigantic golden scale. In the right pan laid a large peacock feather, while the left pan remained empty.

“Let’s hurry through before the real Anubis returns.”

He sprinted past the scale. He kept running and running, even when his face turned red and his tongue hang out, panting loudly—the end of the room never came any closer.

Now Gidi understood how magic could prevent you from ever reaching a pyramid.

Exhausted, Jaco laid his head on the ground.

“Oh, maybe the scale will ask us questions too? Can we use multiple choice again?”

He laughed and turned to the empty pan. “No, dear Gidi, I’m afraid we have to weigh our souls.”

“How?”

“By sitting on the scale?”

“But … then it will weigh my body, not my soul.”

“Do you see any other option?”

Is destroying the scale an option? She didn’t dare say it in the possible presence of a living scale.

She stepped forward. The empty left pan lowered itself—an invitation.

She jumped on it. The pan with the feather plummeted down freely and bounced off the stone floor a moment later. Gidi was lifted up just as fast, nearly bumping the ceiling with her head.

The scale spun around and flung her away on the other side. She had to jump away to avoid a rough landing.

“Jaco! You have to try it! It’s like a ride!”

He looked concerned. “I’m afraid my soul isn’t as light as yours. Maybe you should continue alone.”

“I won’t survive a minute more in this stupid pyramid. I don’t even know what I’m looking for. Try it—what could go wrong?”

“A lot,” he mumbled, as he planted both paws on the scale.

Like a sponge, the scale sucked him in. The feather lowered and lowered, Jaco moving up just like Gidi. But when the dust settled, the feather still hovered just above Jaco.

He was heavier than the feather.

His eyes widened and his tail clung tightly to the scale.

“Throw away the rope!”

He shook it off and flung it towards her.

The feather bobbed up and down, but maybe that was an optical illusion too. There was no clear outcome.

“Quick, grab my compass!” Jaco shouted.

She dove into the bag and flung the binoculars towards him.

He sighed. “We’ll have to do it with this then.”

He threw the object into the air and batted it away with his tail. It landed on top of the feather with a shrill clap, like a spoon clanking against a pan.

Jaco rose just enough to rise higher than the feather. He too was flipped around and pushed to the other side.

Exhausted, he sank through his legs and his eyes fell shut. A long breath left through his nostrils.

“Hey, stay awake! We still have a pyramid to discover!”

“That can wait until tomorrow.”

“But isn’t it unsafe to sleep here? We’re in the realm of the dead!”

“No, we can’t actually enter the realm of the dead. Only deceased beings can do that. That’s why Osiris rules it.”

“Oh. Where are we then?”

“We’re now safely in an in-between space. The warm-hall-behind-the-scale, I call it. We’ll figure out the next step tomorrow.”

The rays of light illuminating the room dimmed. Tiny holes in the wall let in just enough outside light to see the room, but now that evening fell, they lost that luxury. The only torch they had still lay at the entrance.

“Oh, well, then I’ll sleep too.”

In the dark she searched for Jaco’s warm belly and pressed herself against it.

She couldn’t sleep. The scale had so much trouble with him, she thought. Why does he want to find Isis anyway? Maybe he’ll murder her!

By now she only saw black. She thought of her memories from before Jaco found her, but nothing came to mind. She’d been very young.

After hours of worrying she decided enough was enough. She blew in his ears until he startled awake.

“Why do you want to bring me to better lands safely anyway?” she whispered.

“Is this really the best moment?”

“Yes. If we’re continuing this adventure together, we have to trust each other.”

“Fine. Do you have any idea what the Shadowshifters are looking for?”

“Food? Murder? Funny shapes in the shadows?”

“Yes, you’re a tasty bite for them. That’s why I have to protect you.”

“But then why didn’t you take those squirrels with you?”

“I can’t protect everyone. Besides, they’re not important.”

“What do you mean not important? All animals are important!”

“Yes, yes, I know that, sure. But not all animals rule a kingdom.”

Her smile grew wider than ever. “… are you saying I’m the queen of this desert?”

“No, you—”

Two loud shrieks echoed through the darkness. Many footsteps splashed on the ground, like marbles bursting from a bag. A fiery torch stormed into the room, carried by a fennec fox, and illuminated the darkness.

Unfortunately, a lack of shadows at night didn’t mean Shadowshifters lost their powers. Instead, it meant that everything was a shadow.

“How in the gods’ names did they get inside?”

Dozens of fennec foxes ran into the hall, screaming and growling. They jumped on the scale together, which toppled over and cracked the floor with its hard landing.

So destroying WAS an option after all.

Jaco pushed her onto a small staircase leading to a raised plateau. He looked around: four side passages. He chose one and frantically pointed at it.

“Run! As fast as you can, I’ll distract them!”

She attempted a big leap, but the wound on her leg tore open again.

“Can’t do it!”

Jaco immediately stood before her. “Then we’ll have to do this differently.”

“No, go on alone!”

She said it heroically; she didn’t mean it.

“I’ll never leave you. No one survives alone in this desert. You just have to play along.”

The Shadowshifters formed a circle and bared their teeth. They scratched the ground and growled loudly, but no one jumped at Jaco. Every time a fennec fox stepped forward, he was roughly pulled back by his friends. The torch lit up everyone’s eyes, but no more than that.

Jaco puffed himself up. “Greetings, dear friends, listen to what I say!”

“Why would we listen?”

“We have important information!”

All the fennec foxes laughed. “So what? That dune gazelle there is worth much more to us. We’ll eat her and the desert will be free.”

“Not true! The queen remains in charge.”

“You think she’s still alive?”

He fell silent. One of the fennec foxes was significantly larger than the others. One paw clutched the torch, but Jaco’s eye fell on his other paw, which flattened a familiar parchment roll. And his neck, which wore a familiar rope.

“You can’t eat her. If you do that, you’ll never leave the pyramid alive!”

Now he had their attention. “She has information I don’t have. Without that knowledge, you might be able to escape the pyramid, but you’ll be cursed and die soon.”

“That’s true!”

Gidi yelled it deafeningly loud and stamped with her good hoof. Some fennec foxes startled and shied away.

“Say whatever you want. Once we’re outside, your fate will be the same. Tie them up!”

With his own rope, his left legs were tied to Gidi’s right legs. They could only walk at exactly the same time, which was practically impossible. The largest of the fennec foxes stood before Jaco and also puffed himself up.

“My name is Halek.”

“Oh, nice to meet you, I’m—”

“We’ve chased you a long time, Jaco. Each encounter, you were too clever for us, but that girlfriend of yours was a mistake. You should have stayed alone and definitely not lost your magical parchment roll.”

Jaco looked angrily at Gidi; she turned her head away again. She blinked and the Shadowshifter had jumped away to rummage through the torn bag. He pulled out the map and unrolled it. He briefly studied the intricate drawings, then flung the roll against the wall.

“Where’s the second part of the legend? Speak up! Where is Isis?”

“I don’t have the second part. I’m here precisely to find it. What do you want with her?”

“Once we’ve eaten that girlfriend of yours, she’s our last obstacle. With her out of the way, the desert really is ours. What do you want with her? Make some more friends?”

“Ask her to uplift my banishment.”

“Don’t believe a word of it. You’re an adventurer, a treasure hunter, a freebooter. They say you robbed the bank of Heroeshaven. Alone. You came here for treasure, a reward, a secret weapon. What is it?”

Jaco remained silent. Halek looked him up and down. His tail lowered, as if he was genuinely disappointed in Jaco.

“Stay quiet all you want, I’ll find out. You two lead me to the treasure chamber.”

“Please, let us rest first.”

The large Shadowshifter growled and walked away. The fennec foxes ransacked the bag and gobbled up all the food.

“Is it true?” Gidi asked softly.

“I’ve done many things I’m not proud of. Robbing some bank or other is not one of them.”

“Then why do they think it was you?”

“Someone completely on their own is easy to accuse. I happened to be in the area. I’m an intimidating jackal—no one defended me.”

“Is that why you were banished?”

“If only it were that simple. Then I’d have had an alibi.”

“Oh too bad, I’d have liked a kangaroo as a pet.”

“No, not a wallaby, an alibi. If they’d banished me for the bank robbery, they couldn’t have accused me of kidnapping.”

“Oh, but, I’d happily tell them you didn’t kidnap me! That I came along voluntarily.”

“I was talking about another kidnapping, but nice—”

A trio of Shadowshifters stomped the marble floor. As they approached their prisoners, they pushed other fennecs off the staircase.

“Done! Get up! That’s enough rest!”

“Your leader promised us more rest than this.”

“We don’t have a leader. One for all, and every fox for himself. Come on! We have better things to do!”

The first sunlight already dripped into the room again, illuminating the four side passages, each with an identical rectangular opening. Above the openings, however, were different words.

To the left and right of each word was the same symbol. An eye with thick brow and lashes: the symbol for Horus that Gidi had seen on Jaco’s map. She bumped her nose against his chin to get his attention, but he watched the fennec foxes closely.

“Tell us which passage to take and we’ll give you some food.”

“Yeah, right. Another of your empty promises.”

Meanwhile, six fennec foxes stood around them, spitting on the ground. Halek, whom they thought was the leader, still ate from the bag.

“We promise it. Give us the answer!”

“I don’t know. The words don’t make sense.”

“We’ll decide what makes sense. What are the words?”

“Two-quarters, a quarter, three-quarters, and four-quarters.”

“Maybe it’s a math question. That’s two-and-a-half together. Ring any bells?”

“Yes, that I’m surprised Shadowshifters can do math.”

Halek cracked a smile. Until he seemed to remember he was supposed to be threatening. “That was your last joke.”

“Stay calm, stay calm. I think we need to find the word that doesn’t belong—that’s the passage we need. That could take a while, so I suggest we split up and each choose one passage.”

Halek jumped between the Shadowshifters, nails first. He picked some leftovers from his teeth while placing a paw on Gidi’s trembling head.

“Out of the question! Then I’d lose three-quarters of my pack to traps. This scrawny dune gazelle isn’t worth that much to me. Give me the answer now—”

Another fox interrupted him. “What do you mean your pack?”

Halek didn’t even spare him a glance, let alone an explanation.

Gidi kept tapping Jaco and then nodding towards one of the passages. As he spoke, he put his paw on her head to calm her.

“And what if Anubis returns? And he sees you guys knocked over the scale? His vengeance will be bitter!”

“Yes, yes, enough of that. We have you captive, so we’ll do the threats. Fine, we split up. But I’ll stay close to you two … and you walk up front.”

They shuffled to the passage with three-quarters above it. The pack divided itself into four groups of nine. Each group hastily ran into another passage.

“I noticed,” Jaco whispered to Gidi through gritted teeth. “I hope you know what you’re doing,”

“Trust me, I’m the math genius here. Probably something I learned, you know, as a princess at—”

She stopped talking when the foxes walked right behind her. It was dark in the passage. Jaco held his non-tied front paw against the wall and felt notches that seemed to form a drawing.

Gidi did the same and also clearly felt a difference between this wall and the rest of the pyramid. Most drawings were abstract: circles, squares, spirals, lines. Interwoven were countless animal species: a crocodile, hippo, falcon, cat, fox, jackal, camel, and more.

Jaco slowed down. “Everyone, stop!”

The fennec foxes were slow to understand and shuffled a bit further.

“Now!”

Jaco swung around wildly to keep everyone behind him. Halek’s shriek fell silent due to a large jackal tail against his mouth. The torch illuminated the ground right in front of them.

“Look at the floor. See how some stones jut up at an angle? If you step on them, a mechanism starts. A trap. Quick, give me my dagger!”

The leader pulled the bag out of another’s teeth and rummaged through it. He was occupied for a while, but eventually flung the compass at Jaco.

“Can nobody here properly recognize objects!?” his voice echoed through the passage. “Fine, we’ll do it with this.”

The compass had an iron chain link. He took it in his mouth and wrapped two links around his strong molars. He tossed his head back; the compass followed. At its apex, Jaco turned back forward and slammed the compass into the ground.

All the loose stones shattered. The compass itself also broke into a hundred pieces, but it had already achieved its purpose.

An elephant-sized boulder fell from the ceiling and landed right in front of his snout.

Everyone was unharmed, but the passage was blocked. Jaco pushed as hard as he could against the rock.

No movement.

Yelling and screaming reached them from behind. The sound of a whipping sword, followed by a rope being cut. All four entrances collapsed simultaneously. A lion’s roar sounded in the distance.

Halek grabbed Jaco’s neck fur and spit in his face while speaking.

“And now we’re all stuck! You failed, Jaco. You’re not as great as you think. And Gidi will pay the price.”

“Calm down! Look. A riddle is on the wall.”

He spat again, this time towards the stones. “Followers of Ra. How they didn’t choke on their own riddles, now that’s a riddle. What is it?”

“When you seek me I’m not there, when you find me we’re square …”

Jaco fell silent. Gidi took over.

“… but if you don’t uncover my hiding place on the wall, your adventure ends here for all. Rara riddle me this, what am I?”

Dust clouds fell from the ceiling. A soft rattling. The boulders at both ends of the passage slowly moved towards each other, as if they were magnets. The fennecs ran to the other side and pushed against the stone—stopping it soon proved impossible.

Both stones crept towards one another, faster and faster.

“Untie us!” Jaco yelled. “We can’t run like this.”

Halek stood frozen and breathed rapidly. He looked behind him, but his friends uselessly scratched at the constricting stone and already gave up hope.

His claw cut the rope in two.

Jaco wriggled loose and let both Halek and Gidi onto his back. Why is he doing that, Gidi asked herself. He’s the enemy!

“Think, think, think. What does the riddle say? What am I? What are we looking for? Where is it on the wall?”

“How should I know! He must be hidden.”

“Hidden. That’s it! He is hidden.”

“Oh. Clever. Um—how does that help us?”

“Look at the words—Rara riddle me this. You think every riddle starts like that, but that’s not entirely true.” Jaco pressed his snout against the drawings. “This riddle is addressed to Ra. It speaks to him directly! The maker must have been one of his children.”

“Oh. As if they used to play hide-and-seek with Ra? We’re looking for one of his children?”

Everyone was packed together in the middle of the passage, like an animal pyramid. Jaco looked up.

“Do you remember the symbol at the start of the passage?”

“The eye? The eye of—”

“Horus, exactly. Son of Ra. And what could he do that we can’t?”

“Fly!”

Gidi grabbed the torch in her mouth and flung it upward. The endless dust clouds made it difficult to keep looking.

So Halek jumped and stuck to the ceiling like a spider. He too scoured the stone for a revealing drawing. The other fennecs merely watched, frozen, as the large boulders crept ever closer. They had to tuck in their tails to save space. The sound of stones grinding over stones was unbearably loud, like nails scratching a chalkboard.

The boulder pushed against Jaco’s hind legs.

“There! Behind that square, a falcon head peeks out!”

Jaco grabbed the torch, flipped it around, and pushed the wooden end against the square.

A hatch flew open.

They fell into dark depths, yelping loudly. Everyone landed on a sloped stone that transported them like a slide. The stench of old books and dusty attics crept up Jaco’s nostrils. A light burned at the end of the slide, and the lower they went, the warmer it became.

Their spiraling ride ended in a small square room. Everyone ran into a different safe corner as soon as they felt steady ground under their paws.

The temperature was pleasant. In the middle stood a rectangular stone table, with a burning fire on top. On both sides of the table, notches in the wall held objects. Jars, pans, spoons, chains, bracelets made of pearls and desertglass, and even an amulet in the shape of a flame.

Across from them stood a wooden door, barely taller than Gidi. Of course all these things had the wrong shadow, which disoriented Jaco.

He had barely landed or he was grabbed by three fennecs. The same happened to Gidi—and even Halek was held down by three of his own friends.

“You nearly sent us to our deaths!”

“Have you gone mad? Me, Gidi, and your leader are the only reason you’re still alive.”

“He is not our leader. He’s gone soft. Weak. He trusts you too much. Like he wants to be best friends! And where will our food come from, then? Where’s the power that was promised to us? We don’t need a worthless leader dumber than us.”

“We. Who’s dumber than we are.”

“Shut your mouth!”

He slapped Jaco across the face. The fennecs wrapped the rope around the hind legs of all three prisoners and pulled painfully tight. They pushed the trio with backs against the wall. Objects fell and shattered on their heads, but Halek stayed silent.

“Look at what we’ve become. Our proud pack—six measly fennec foxes.”

I count nine, Gidi thought. She didn’t even dare look at the foxes. Her ears that normally stood upright, lay flat and still against her cheeks.

“We’ll move on. We’ll easily find the second part of the legend by ourselves. You all, on the other hand, can starve here. There is no worse death—we know.”

They ate the last crumbs from Jaco’s bag and flung it aside. All nine foxes busted the door open and squeezed through the narrow opening at the same time.

“You realize I’ll only become best friends with these two faster now?” Halek yelled. The Shadowshifters slammed the door shut. The shadows in the room returned to normal, mostly.

“Let’s hope we took the wrong passage,” Jaco mumbled. “And they now fall into an abyss.”

“I’m afraid,” said Gidi, “this is the right passage.”

“How are you sure?”

“You said the eye of Horus was a memory aid for math. My parents taught me you should always calculate with perfect fractions. In other words, the numerator, the number on top, should always be one. When I asked why, they said it had always been that way, that the gods had decided it. The only word that didn’t show a perfect fraction was three-quarters. That’s a three over four.”

“You’re amazing!”

Jaco kissed her forehead. Her ears spontaneously perked up. She recalled her parents again, the lessons she so often had. But where are they now? I miss mom.

“You’re not mad I lost your parchment roll?”

“Shadowshifters are always angry and look what’s become of them. Everyone in Floria thinks of themselves and the Companions can’t keep the animals together anymore. That’s exactly why we have to stick together.”

“So I can do whatever I want?” Gidi chuckled.

“Whoa, whoa, no, certainly not. But sometimes you end up in a situation where even the best choice is bad. I was falsely accused of kidnapping and bank robbery, but I couldn’t help it. So the best solution was to let myself get banished to this place to search for treasure.”

“Oh. So I actually helped out?”

“Yes! Sort of! We now have the chance to stop the Shadowshifters once and for all.”

Only now Halek turned around and shook his head. “Who do you think you are? That you have the right to wipe out an entire animal species? I should have killed you and left this cursed pyramid!”

His drooling mouth revealed he still considered this.

Jaco believed none of it and just grinned at Gidi. “What do we call this?”

“A learning experience!” she called back.

Halek wanted to be threatening, but had to laugh anyway.

“If we fight we’ll all starve here. I’m not insane. You’re insane, Jaco. But I can’t seem to dislike you.”

He got up, but quickly sank down against the wall again.

“We just wanted to survive. We were banished too, you know, just because one of our kind poisoned somebody important. This whole desert is as dead as can be. If you don’t eat others, you get eaten yourself. I understand you, Jaco, why—”

Jaco nodded quickly and changed the subject.

“Can you reach my bag?”

Halek slid towards the bag, as far as he could, and whipped his tail to the ground. The black tip just barely touched the torn open flap.

“I can touch it, but no more than that.”

“Doesn’t matter, because that means with your tail you can reach that amulet, above you.”

Halek looked up. Some points of the fiery amulet stuck out from a notch. He spun his tail like a propeller, and knocked the amulet loose on the third swing.

Jaco caught it between his teeth. The blunt points of the ancient amulet made it difficult, but he cut himself loose. He jumped to his bag and grabbed his dagger to cut Gidi and Halek free in one swoop.

He rammed the door, but only injured himself. Gidi also took a run-up and headbutted the wood with her head, her small antlers pointed forward, but the door remained shut.

“They barricaded the door, probably with large rocks.”

“Now what?”

Jaco saw the abundance of round objects in the room and his ears perked up.

“Now we’re going to scare those Shadowshifters into puddings.”

Jaco rummaged through the objects. Every so often, he’d find something valuable and toss it into his bag. He pushed aside anything that didn’t shine or wasn’t made of gold, until he found a small stone statue all the way at the back. A little pyramid, no larger than his head.

He looked at Halek.

“Grab the dagger and try to make a hole in the wooden door.”

Gidi had been nervously pacing around the room, but now came to stand next to him.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” she whispered. “Just a few hours ago he wanted to eat us.”

“When I first found you, dear Gidi, you would bite my front paw and tail over and over. You kept that up for four days straight. You were scared and thought you had to seem scary to survive. But I’m old, older than you think. I can see right through that.”

“Oh, okay then. If you say so, old grandpa. Why are all these things here anyway?”

“This is the last room before the burial chamber. This is where Osiris was embalmed and wrapped in linen cloths like a mummy. Then they moved him to his final resting place. He’s probably still there, along with our treasure: the second part of the legend that hopefully leads to Isis.”

Jaco smashed a small pot against the floor until it shattered. He grabbed a long, thin shard and pressed it into the top of the pyramid, creating a round opening. He smiled, satisfied.

“Why destroy that beautiful statue?”

“You’ll see soon enough. Halek, how’s it going?”

It was as if all the strength had drained from the powerful fox. Gidi understood what Jaco meant. Halek had puffed himself up this whole time, trying to seem scary because he was scared of his “friends” himself. Now that someone had poked a hole in him, however, now that he felt Jaco wasn’t going to hurt him, he deflated.

He stabbed the dagger into the door with all his might. Two planks in the middle snapped in half. He growled and stabbed the same hole three more times, until he could completely pull out the planks.

The hole was big enough to see through, but never to walk through.

Gidi didn’t see anything special on the other side. Torches on the walls lit up a gray hallway that seemed to dead-end both ways.

Jaco also stuck his head through the hole.

“That’ll do. Gidi, grab some pots and smash them as hard as you can.”

She did as instructed. Halek quickly covered his ears. Jaco coughed and placed the pyramid statue against his mouth, with the opening on top, like a megaphone.

“Who has broken my scale?”

His loud voice easily rose above the noise of the pots, and his low rumble echoed long after. Even Gidi startled.

“Anubis will find you!”

He spoke even louder, with even more threat and divine power in his voice. Gidi and Halek both played the pots and pans like ghostly musicians.

“And his vengeance will be sweet! Flee now while you still can!”

They stopped making noise.

Sounds of footsteps and shouting grew, like a siren approaching. A gust of wind blasted down the hall, extinguishing the flames.

“Ah, that wasn’t supposed to happen. Alright, we’ll make do. Quick, hand me the rope!”

In the darkness, they could only see each other’s eyes. Jaco stuck out his paw blindly. A moment later he felt something prick him.

“Rope. How hard is it to pick the right object!? That long, stringy thing that had us tied up for hours!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean, I just can’t find it in the dark.”

“Okay, new plan. Gidi, find a safe spot. Halek, get on the other side of the door. Press yourself against the wall and stick your paw out as far as you can.”

Just to be safe, Jaco closed his shiny eyes so no one could see him anymore.

As Halek moved past, Gidi definitely felt rope brushing her paws. He’s had it this whole time, she thought, but saying anything now would give them away.

The smoky fumes in the hallway tingled. The footsteps sounded extremely close now. The panting of nine foxes filled the hall until it was drowned out by commands from their new not-a-leader.

“There. A door, an exit!”

They heard the stack of rocks blocking the entrance roll away. The door opened. All the Shadowshifters ran through the opening at once; they all tripped over the outstretched paws of Jaco and Halek. Like dominoes, they fell one after another, building a pile of foxes.

Jaco immediately left the room. He grabbed a torch, relit it against the wall, and shone it on the group.

Next to the pile, Halek tied a tight double knot in the rope. All the foxes were bound tightly together, like a package to be delivered.

“Ah, yes, good idea. Wouldn’t have thought of that. I only meant to trip them up.”

“I know, Jaco. I know you did,” said Halek.

Gidi sauntered past the bound stack, whistling as she inspected the hall. Jaco grabbed his bag, his dagger, and followed her. Halek spat on his former friends. He barricaded the wooden door with heavy rocks, then swaggered down the new passage as well.

“Is it true?” Jaco stopped Halek, speaking softly. “That these were the last fennecs? That by doing this you’ve doomed your own kind to–”

“It’s true.”

Halek shoved Jaco aside with his shoulder and strode on. From a distance, it looked like a dead end, but upon reaching it a side passage appeared.

Gidi’s small body grew exhausted. “Are we almost there?”

“That depends.”

“On what?” Halek had grabbed his own torch, a fine help in the oppressive darkness.

“How quickly we make it through this maze.”

They walked swiftly, as if Anubis really was chasing them. Gidi panted, feeling her legs less and less, the wound on her paw still irritated.

“Stop, stop, I need to rest for a minute.”

Halek huffed in annoyance, like a reflex, but did stop walking. “Agreed. We can’t just blindly enter a maze and expect to stumble on the exit. Jaco, I’m sure you know some trick?”

“I know one, but it doesn’t guarantee we find the exit quickly. Only that we will find it eventually.”

“Fine. Better than nothing.”

“That’s because you don’t understand how mazes like this work. Anyone who enters eventually finds the exit. By chance, by luck, if they just keep trying long enough. To prevent that from happening, they built in an extra mechanism.”

“Please, not another riddle. I’ve had my fill for last the next thousand years.”

“No, something much worse. The Followers of Ra had great knowledge of particles and gases. There’s a good chance that toxic gas slowly fills the maze, and if you breathe too much of it …”

“We get the idea.”

I don’t get it at all, thought Gidi. But it sounds too serious to joke about. Her breathing had calmed and she gingerly tried standing on her own legs again.

Halek looked at Jaco doubtfully.

“We could split up. If someone finds the exit, bang loudly on the wall. The others will follow the sound.”

“That’s like me standing at the bottom of the ocean, yanking a piece of coral, and expecting you to hear exactly where I am. Besides, Gidi definitely can’t go alone.”

Normally Gidi would have objected to this. Now she sat drained on the floor, feeling lightheaded, as the ground swayed.

“You made your point. Then we have to run fast. How do we find the exit?”

“Place your paw against the left wall. No matter what, follow the left wall and don’t let go. Eventually we’ll find the exit.”

Jaco lifted Gidi onto his back again. And they ran. Their stomachs growled and their tongues hung out, but hall after hall they continued undaunted.

Objects lay scattered around. A shawl, coins, a pile of flint, skeletons of fish and even one from an osprey. They weren’t sure if the items belonged to the pyramid builders or were remnants of less fortunate adventurers.

After an hour, running turned to jogging, which later turned to walking, until after many hours it became strolling. Their throats constricted more and more. Gidi felt like chunks of rock sat in her mouth, while Halek’s breathing sounded like snoring.

They had passed thousands of halls, when they finally found a circular room.

A round pool of water rippled in the center, ringed by lush soil and ferns. A marble pillar held up a glass orb. The torchlight shone precisely on the orb, reflecting and refracting it hundreds of times, as if the water was filled with millions of mirrors. As if another pearl pyramid sat in the water.

Among the ferns lay stones covered in green moss. Combined with the glittering lights, it created a beautiful scene, certainly after hours of aimless wandering.

“Finally,” Halek coughed and choked with each word. “Sit and rest.”

He headed for the first stone. His stomach grumbled; Gidi’s responded similarly. He stretched his paws to—

“Don’t touch it!” Jaco yelled.

Halek didn’t even react anymore, his face contorted by exhaustion and the toxic gas. The more tired he became, the more all the shadows morphed into shapes that resembled … nothing.

Jaco also struggled for air. “Such bright green moss is the perfect plant to conceal Gripglass.”

“Gripglass? It really exists? That’s just a scary story for children.”

“Of course it exists! Children’s tales aren’t lies.”

“Oh. Then what about the monsters under our beds?”

“Absolutely! I’ve done my duty and laid under a child’s bed before.”

“Huh? What? Why?”

Jaco walked away, coughing and shaking his head.

“You know, sometimes I really don’t understand Florian customs. You all live on the fear of others, rather than life force and wonder. That’s why I’d like to return to the other lands, away from this sandy hell.”

He walked to the stones and used his dagger to scrape away the moss. Little green dots on top of the rocks seemed to slowly shift positions.

“They communicate with each other. No one knows how this plant was ever created, because they seem like particles, materials. Like clothing or water. But if you touch one, they all swarm together, and before you know it you’re completely covered. They never let you go, ever.”

“I understand the gripping part, but why do they call it glass?”

Jaco shrugged. He surveyed the room and saw there was no other passage. They could only go back.

He hadn’t heard Gidi in quite a while. Each time he looked over his shoulder, she barely kept her eyes open. When he asked her something, Gidi only responded by nodding slowly.

“She doesn’t have much time left,” he whispered to Halek. “I think the exit is hidden here somewhere. I hope so, for Gidi’s sake. Look for clues—but don’t touch anything!”

“Why are you whispering?”

“So Gidi can sleep, it’s better for her.”

He had barely finished the sentence when they heard light snoring, like a soft wind blowing past leaves. They both had to cough at the same time and chose opposite sides of the wall to inspect.

Once Gidi was properly snoring, Halek firmly grabbed the jackal.

“Why are you doing this? What’s your interest in saving the royal family?”

Jaco had checked that the ferns didn’t have any Gripglass. He carefully laid Gidi down among them and observed that she really was asleep.

“The dune gazelles who seized power were the best thing to ever happen to Floria. They were good rulers. I couldn’t stand to see her grandfather go mad and destroy everything. I know someone had enchanted him, a powerful enchantment only doable for a demigod, but I couldn’t find the culprit.”

He stopped searching to stare Halek in the eyes. “I didn’t find Gidi. I abducted her at night, after giving the entire royal family a potion that made them sleep for days.”

Halek’s breathing quickened. “That explains why we were able to so easily come in and …”

“So … she’s the only one left … "

Halek took a step back from Jaco and studied Gidi, who slept innocently.

“It’s done. The dune gazelles were always a better creature than us. What you did was very noble.”

“I wouldn’t use that word. Soon, soldiers from all folks will knock on Floria’s door to murder the criminal Jaco. They’ll want to uphold the laws of Companions … as far as they still mean something.”

“Why are you still here then? Do you think Isis can protect you? Undo your banishment?”

“She could, but I don’t think Isis wants to be found. No living person has ever seen her. I do think, however, that a big treasure and piles of gold coins can protect me.”

“If you step out of this pyramid draped in gold chains and pearls, they’ll certainly think you’re a criminal.”

“They already think I’m a criminal! There’s no changing that. I’ll just have to bribe those Companions.”

“That kind of thinking is exactly what turned me into a Shadowshifter! Everyone saw a fennec and labeled me a criminal, so I stopped bothering to prove them wrong. I was nearly murdered by my own friends, imagine that.”

They had combed the entire wall. Besides the usual meaningless symbols and scratches left by frustrated treasure hunters, they found nothing.

“Why do you stay with us then? Why not turn in the Shadowshifters to the Council of Kame, collect the reward, and start a better life for yourself?”

“You said it yourself: there’s a curse on this pyramid! Otherwise I would have left long ago. Would have already devised ten ways to make life miserable for those other Shadowshifters.”

Jaco laughed. “Gosh, I can’t believe you fell for that. I’m just making stuff up. I’ll say anything if it saves my life and Gidi’s. A curse? What would such a curse even be?”

“So … I can leave?”

“If you still remember the way back out of this maze, be my guest.”

“Ah, as a wise man told me, I’ll just keep my right paw against the right wall, and I’m bound to find the entrance eventually.”

They laughed, interrupted by Gidi’s moaning. They scanned the room. They couldn’t peel their eyes away from the shimmering waves in the center, but didn’t dare come closer to the Gripglass.

“I’ve never experienced this before. The answer was always quick to find. The legend already said the Pearl Pyramid was the pride of the gods—that it was the best guarded—but I didn’t expect this.”

“What did you just say? Pearl Pyramid?”

“Yes, that’s what they call this deceptive inflated triangle.”

“But isn’t that the answer then?”

“I don’t think shouting the words pearl pyramid will help us.”

“No, look at that big pearl on the pillar. And all those pearls in the water.”

“There are no pearls in the water, that’s the reflection of the one big pearl.”

“Are you completely sure about that?”

Jaco walked to the pool, though the stones prevented him from getting close enough to peer deep into the water. “And then what? How does it help us if there are pearls lying in this water?”

“Maybe they form a pattern. Spell out a clue.”

“Hmm, not the dumbest idea. But we can’t get any closer.”

“Gidi is small enough to slip between the stones without touching the Gripglass.”

“No. Gidi will not be sacrificed.”

Halek smoothed his whiskers. “Ah, then I’ll just do it. I’ve done thousands of things more dangerous than this.”

“Then those were a thousand too many. If you don’t make it, and neither do any friends of yours, your species will be extinct. Think about that!”

“Listen who’s talking! I don’t care one bit about my kind and neither do they. They’re awful. We’re the weeds everyone pulls from their gardens. It’s better if we’re gone for good.”

Halek stepped forward, leaned over the stones, and placed his front paws against the large pearl. He expected to find support, but instead pushed the pearl off its pillar and into the water.

Losing his balance, he grabbed the pillar with one paw, but only caught air with the other paw. He swiveled to the side, hanging above the stones and water like a cable car, the muscles in his limbs pulled taut.

Jaco ran toward him, but was too late.

Halek slipped and fell on top of a rock. He tumbled forward and landed in the water along with the stone. Air bubbles rose to the surface, but Halek stayed down.

“Swim, swim to the top!”

Jaco’s shouts awoke Gidi. Together, they could only watch as Halek’s hind legs grew greener and greener, as he swam circles under the water’s surface.

“Quick, give me the rope! We’ll pull him up!”

“We don’t have it anymore!” Gidi plunged her paw into the water, but Jaco yanked her back forcefully.

“We can’t touch him anymore. I’m sorry.”

A head burst from the water and two green paws clung to the part of the pillar above the surface.

“I can’t do it.” Halek spit a waterfall between his sharp teeth. “I can’t feel my legs anymore. I hope you find Isis.”

“No, we’re going to find Isis together. You’ll get a new start for your kind.”

Halek went under again, but managed to surface. His neck was green. The Gripglass now crept over his face too.

Gidi cried. Jaco kept looking for solutions.

“Ah, at least now I can go and lie under children’s beds as a monster.”

Halek was completely green now, except for his eyes. He let go and sank into the depths. Jaco and Gidi watched him for a long time, but no air bubbles appeared at the surface, and no fox ever came up.

The shadows around them regained their expected shapes. They lengthened and sharpened.

They’re becoming arrows!, Gidi thought. And the arrows pointed to the symbol of a staff on the wall. Halek is pointing to the only symbol that appears only once.

Jaco trudged to the wall, his head dropped. He gently pressed on the symbol. Next to him, two stones rotated inward like swinging doors.

Gidi still stared into the water. Jaco picked her up and laid her across his aching back once more. His legs wobbled, nearly giving out. His vision grew increasingly blurry.

“We have to go. We’ve breathed in too much gas already.”

Gidi rested her chin between his soft ears again. They shuffled on. When she looked back, the shadows were nothing more than the shape you’d expect.

A wide staircase led to a spacious opening far deeper underground. It was well lit. No dust covered the steps, unlike the rest of the pyramid, and the stone perfectly reflected the torchlight.

The air was fresh. Gidi felt her constricted throat open up more and more, and her heart beat slower and slower.

Halfway down the stairs, they suddenly heard rumbling and roaring. With ever step, a new sound seemed to appear.

I thought we had captured all the foxes?

Jaco took each step very carefully, as if he still saw traps everywhere. Every time a noise came from the room, he paused. The ruckus would cease a few beats later and he would creep forward again.

A shrill bang. Three shards fell through the opening onto the bottom step of the stairs. A vague round shadow appeared but did not move.

Jaco reached the last step. The shadow was much larger than a Shadowshifter, and they could now clearly hear someone yelping and roaring.

He crouched down, while Gidi slid off of him. Both took weapons into their mouth: Jaco his dagger and Gidi a glass shard.

They stormed into the room, yelling loudly, though Gidi flung her shard without looking.

“Ow! Stop!”

A large lion lay on the ground. Three chains bound him to the wall, leaving only his tail free to move.

“Finally! My rescuers! I was starting to lose hope.”

Jaco was utterly perplexed—something no trap inside the pyramid had managed to do. He wanted to ask Gidi what he should do, but she had hidden behind him at the lion’s first roar.

“Uh—yeah—of course we’ve come to rescue you. That’s exactly why we’re here, yes. No other reason at all.”

“Well, get on with it then! I can barely feel my legs anymore because of these heavy chains.”

“On one condition, Your Highness. That dune gazelle there is the Queen of Floria. And she’s your rescuer, so don’t you dare harm her.”

“For what kind of barbarian do you take me? Of course I won’t eat my rescuers, especially if they are royal friends. Now, hurry up please.”

On the farthest left chain hung a large lock, with a deep keyhole inside. Jaco stuck his dagger in, turned and pried, until all the chains snapped loose.

The lion let out a gigantic roar and flung the chains against the walls. He stood proudly before them, his head alone larger than Jaco’s entire body.

Jaco didn’t dare look at him and turned his gaze to the room. In the center stood another rectangular table, but bigger than the ones from previous rooms.

On top lay a mummy. Much of the linen wrappings had ripped, revealing a gigantic skeleton. He thought he recognized it as the legendary saber-toothed tiger.

He walked around the skeleton and noticed a particularly pleasant smell. Lavender, thyme, rosemary, and a light oil scent filled the room. Next to the head lay two large fangs, and around the feet lay small diamonds in every conceivable color and shape.

The area around the table was easily traversable, but the rest of the enormous chamber was filled to the top with treasures. Stacks of gold coins held silver crowns and pearl necklaces. Gorgeous fiery rubies—some even larger than the lion’s head—were scattered everywhere.

Gidi jumped into a pile and pretended to swim.

“I assume,” the lion said, “you have a way out of here?”

“Not so fast. First … I’d like to take some of these lovely things with me.”

“As would I, worthy adventurer, but it would be extremely unwise to curse yourself for a few gold coins.”

“A few? A few? You could build fifty new palaces with all the gold here. With these treasures you could easily conquer the rest of the world!”

“Are you trying to bribe a Companion now?”

“No. The Companions don’t exist anymore, not really. They fell apart long ago. After you disappeared, Your Highness.”

“Nonsense, utter nonsense. I will be welcomed as a hero and order will be restored. Lead me to the exit and I’ll forget this greedy outburst.”

Gidi wriggled out of the treasure piles.

“What about Isis?” she whispered.

“Yes, we need to flee before Isis returns! That wretched goddess is the one who locked me up here!”

“I don’t believe that for one second. According to legend, Isis is a kind, benevolent person. Your abduction is what tore us all apart. Besides … you’re remarkably healthy for someone who’s supposedly been imprisoned for years. And—”

The lion lashed out. Jaco dodged with a backwards somersault into a mound of gold coins.

“Furthermore, how did you even get in here? The gods must really hate the aggressive Companions who defeated their kind.”

“Don’t you dare speak to a Companion like that!”

The lion reared up and opened his jaws, but froze when he heard knocking on the walls. Just a light tapping, and he turned into a frightened cat. He forgot to blink and his front paws trembled.

“She’s coming, she’s coming—quick, quick, flee!”

“No. I can’t just stroll out of this pyramid with you. They think I’m the one who abducted you! That’s the whole reason why I’m in exile.”

“Argh! Then hide yourself.”

I still have no idea who this lion is, Gidi thought, but if he’s scared of Isis, I’ll happily hide. She ducked into the small space under the table while Jaco leaped into a pile of coins.

They both saw nothing and had to rely on sound.

Gidi heard a heavy door open. Light footsteps entered the room.

“You really think you can break those chains without me noticing?”

She laughed. Her voice sounded sweet. Gidi heard the lion chattering his teeth and backing away.

“No. I won’t go back in chains. Let me go. You’re committing a grave sin.”

“How interesting. You didn’t seem to think that when you abducted and attacked my family. When they asked over and over if they could leave. And eventually my family …”

“Don’t you dare forget that my father, Tibbowe, fought with your kind in the First Conflict. He tried to save you!”

Isis laughed again, and although it remained cute, Gidi heard a sadness and anger too. She startled at a muffled thud on the table.

“Indeed, I do not forget. These bags of money look familiar, don’t they?”

The lion growled something like “no”.

“Odd. The recipients, like the wolves and turtles, all remember you handing these over. Including the order to—how did you phrase it again?—get other creatures out of the way.”

Another dull thump on the table. The stacks of coins shifted and Jaco had to flip upside down again to conceal his eyes.

“And now? Now there are four temples in Floria. Four dead Companions. And why? Why?”

“I didn’t know you still existed!” the lion yelled in desperation. “I thought all the original gods were gone. And it was good, there was finally peace. But no, it obviously had to be ruined, because a Primal Turtle suddenly rose from the sea! Filled with godly magic, for you obviously couldn’t help yourself and enchanted there eggs, isn’t that right?”

The chains had returned around the lion’s paws, though he showed his strength by pulling at them with every word. He made Gidi doubt the toughness of these walls.

“And those Companions? Those cowards? They allowed all the demigods to live! Mercy, mercy, the Wise Owl only dealt out mercy. Solomon might fool you and change his name to Nephthys, Horus might have been too important because of his amazing falcon’s eyes.

But they wanted to conquer the world—with their unfair advantage of godlike power—and I could not let it happen.”

Silence fell. Until Isis spoke softly: “You would have gotten away with it too, if you hadn’t publicly threatened the Wise Owl in the Council of Came. That worries me the most.”

Her footsteps faded. The lion king tried taking a step. “Please, let me go. Give me some of the treasure and I’ll build a wonderful temple for you, oh goddess, and I’ll apologize for trying to save the world, and—”

“Shall I let you in on a little secret, Anniwe? The gods care nothing for temples, or belief, or stupid offerings. They care about their creatures and that they behave kindly. And you did not do that, end of story.”

“Why did you build this pyramid then? Why not just kill me right away?”

“That is none of your concern. Have a nice evening!”

Chains rattled. The lion groaned. With a loud thump, his body fell back onto the floor.

Gidi ran out from under the table. Jaco jumped from the gold coins as if they bit his behind.

“Wait! Isis! Isis?”

He just glimpsed the black tip of a round, soft tail slipping through the doorway. The stone door fell shut by itself, but he managed to wedge his paw in at the last second.

Furiously, he flung the door open and looked into the hallway.

Isis was nowhere to be seen. An empty hallway ending in a stairwell stared at him, lifelessly. He placed a heavy diamond next to the door to keep it open and walked back inside. Gidi stood next to the lion.

“You … you … mean lion!”

She headbutted him with her black horns, which seemed a little taller than before. He didn’t react.

“I guess you realize we won’t be rescuing you?”

Jaco slung his bag back over his shoulder. The lion remained silent.

“Come, Gidi, grab as many treasures as you can carry, then we’re off.”

“No! We won’t steal from nice Isis.”

“Oh really? You’re growing bolder too. Do you have any idea what you could do with all that gold? You could make Floria big and successful. You could build gorgeous cities out of nothing, invite the most beautiful flowers.”

He smiled at her and made a slight bow.

“After all, you’re the Queen.”

Gidi swallowed, uncertain about everything, too uncertain to even move.

“I don’t want to be queen at all. I want to go on adventures with you. I want to follow Isis—not sit on a throne all day. Besides, how can I ever be a good queen if I steal from the gods?”

Jaco dropped his head until his eyes were level with Gidi’s. He sighed.

“Dear, dear Gidi. I’m not the person you want me to be. I’ve killed Shadowshifters. I’ve wrecked pyramids. I’m accidentally responsible for your family’s downfall. I … I really did rob the bank in Heroeshaven.”

Gidi smacked him hard in the face—he had expected that. What he didn’t expect was the hug afterwards.

“All that may be true. I wasn’t there and you’ve suffered much injustice. Of course your past isn’t perfect. But here, in this desert, you’re the only reason I’m still alive. And why I can sleep soundly at night.”

Tears welled up in Gidi’s eyes. Jaco couldn’t look at her without tears of his own.

“You’re the only family I have left. How would you feel … about becoming Queen of Floria?”

“Ho … wait just a minute … you mean, like, you want to marry me?”

“No silly, I’m retiring, and I’ll name you as my successor. But only if you don’t steal a single gold coin from this room!”

“Oh.” Jaco heaved a long relieved sigh. “That, uh. You know, let’s talk about it after we’ve escaped from this pyramid.”

“Good idea.”

They walked through the passages and quickly reached a spiral staircase, tied to the walls by ropes in all directions. They looked up and saw open air, for the first time in a long while.

Jaco suddenly looked at her intensely. “Wait. I just remembered something I saw when I was hiding among the gold coins.”

He ran back inside. She heard rummaging and tapping against the wall for several minutes. Eventually, he reappeared in the doorway and tapped the stone that had kept it open.

He ran to Gidi holding a parchment scroll in his paw, so worn it barely stayed rolled up.

As Jaco approached, however, his shadow was not that of a jackal, but of a dragon.

He slung his bag around Gidi’s neck and shoved her up the stairs. As if enchanted, just like her deranged grandfather, they raced up the narrow steps after each other.

Below them a squeaking, cracking door opened. They quickened their leaps. The sun stroked their foreheads; the outside air already smelled so close.

“Only a hundred more steps! Hang in there, Jaco!”

The stairs were being battered. Nine foxes approached swiftly.

“Gidi, quick, grab my—”

She reached into the bag and flung the dagger to him.

“Ah, thanks. You have talent!”

As he kept running, he sliced all the ropes. The stairs swayed more and more, like an extremely long tail from a dog very happy to see their owner.

“Just ten more steps!”

The lead Shadowshifter dared a big leap for Jaco’s tail. He missed and tumbled off the staircase.

“We made it!”

Jaco butted his head against the round pearl on the pyramid’s roof, until it came loose. It rolled off the pyramid.

They climbed outside. Gidi gnawed through some cords, while he cut the final thick rope.

The stairs came loose with a crack and fell like the backbone of a crashing dinosaur. Along with it, all the foxes tumbled into the abyss.

Jaco almost slipped on the slick roof—but there was a reason for the slickness. Gidi nudged him, pointed to a slide that seemed an odd addition to a temple like this, and started counting down.

“Five … four … three …”

Jaco jumped and pulled her along.

“Hey, I wasn’t ready yet!”

“I told you I’m bad at math!”

The wind blew through their fur as they received a gorgeous view of all of Floria. An empty, barren, deserted Floria. But Jaco now saw the emptiness as a chance. A chance to rebuild it better with Gidi.

Not much later, they landed in the soft sand near the sea, laughing. That laughter quickly ceased when they heard the pyramid rumble and growl. Will it never end? she thought.

Bits of pearl flew past their ears. As they ran away, a cacophony of stones shattered and groaned as the pyramid collapsed.

They didn’t dare look back until they stood knee-deep in the water. Of the once great, proud pyramid nothing remained but a crooked pile of rubble. Shards of pearl made a new path, this time from the pyramid to the sea. Most pearls and debris had landed in the water, however, and were being carried to the horizon by waves.

Jaco and Gidi looked at a lovely, warm sunset side by side.

“What do you think of my proposal now?”

“Maybe there is beauty in this desert after all. I’ll gladly be king, but only if you’re my queen. Or advisor, or helper, or however you want to call it. It takes two beings to govern this vast territory.”

“Fine, but I want more animal species to come here. And more plants. Oh, and we’re getting a fox as a pet.”

“That’s illegal.”

“Oh.”

“Some would go so far as to call that kidnapping.”

“Oh.”

“I see there’s still much I can teach you.”

Jaco looked out over the green field. A pool of water rippled in the center, while the burning sun shone on a small, brave cluster of flowers. His tongue hung out of his mouth as he dug another hole in the sand. A ground squirrel ran across the field, deftly avoiding the flowers, and stopped out of breath before his snout.

She handed over a parchment scroll.

“A message from Gidi.”

Jaco unrolled it and scanned the text.

“She found a new seed … but no one can make it grow … something about a maze and magic … she calls it greenglass.”

He shook his fur and spoke to the air. “We already have glass, Gidi, this is confusing. I’ll shorten it to grass.”

“If I may ask,” the squirrel began carefully. It remained strange for them to have a king who ate them without hesitation after they’d died. But with each day, Jaco gained more trust. “Why didn’t you go with her? They say you two went on many adventures together.”

“I’d love to, but I’m grounded.”

“But you’re the king!”

“So? No rules apply? Let me remind you of a lion who thought the rules—”

“Yes, you remind us a lot.”

“Besides, she was right. It was stupid of me to secretly steal something from Isis’s treasure.”

“It’s understandable, Your Highness. Thanks to that wealth, we’ve managed to create fertile green land in the desert for the first time.”

“That’s what I told Gidi too, and that’s why I’m grounded. To care for the plants, she said. Oh, and one of us always has to stay in Floria.”

“Why’s that?”

“Not everyone accepts that Gidi made a foreigner king. Especially not the newcomers flocking to Floria like moths to a flame. What do they want? For us to fight it out like the Tigers, until only the one with the biggest claws is left standing and gets to play boss?”

They walked away from the field, toward a beige building made of limestone. A large canvas, stretched across the entire front, provided cooling shade. In front of the building stood a fountain—without water thus far—with a statue of a large fennec on top.

They had invited the best Bearbuilders to make the statue. So that, with optical illusions and tricks, its shadow resembled not the statue itself, but a dragon.

“Besides,” said Jaco, stroking the statue with his paw, “Isis’ curse may be tied to the treasure. Strange things have happened ever since. The Pearl Pyramid? Overnight it reappeared, good as new.”

“Forgive me for asking, but did you really see her? Did you see Isis in the flesh?”

“Didn’t see her, heard her. I thought I’d found a text revealing her whereabouts, but I don’t understand it.”

Jaco rummaged in the bag around his neck and pulled out a parchment scroll.

“Look. It just has a drawing of two pandas. One completely white, the other completely black. And in the background something that looks like a wooden clock.”

“Curious. Should I take the drawing to the Wise Owl?”

“I would greatly appreciate that. Bring some friends for your safety. Borrow my boat, as long as you promise not to wreck it.”

“I can’t promise that. You know our steering skills. This whole boat idea is still rather new to us.”

Jaco laughed and nudged the ground squirrel with his snout.

“I guess I’ll start on a new boat then.”

And so it was that life continued …