Mau’s distant voice echoed angrily from the depths of the buried city. Running to catch up, Sona, MeMe, Grace and I stumbled over rubble that had dropped from the ceiling centuries before when earthquakes shook this part of the world.

Sliding over sand sifting with a hiss along the marble parquet floor, we finally came to a long entrance hall with several doorways on either side. At the far end, an archway opened into a larger room where we could hear Major Mau raging maniacally.

The four of us skidded to a stop in frozen horror at the feet of two fierce six-foot Egyptian warriors standing guard beside the doorway. The soldiers each wore the blue khepresh, the ancient Egyptian headdress sometimes known as the war crown. Bare-chested and bronzed, their white linen wrap-around skirts were badly frayed with age. Stitching on the soldier’s leather belts had decayed long ago, dropping their axes and swords to the floor. But they still had their bronze spears raised firmly over their heads, ready to hurl them down on any cat who foolishly attempted to defy them and pass into the next room.

“This is as far as we can go,” declared Grace. “Lets turn back.”

MeMe craned her neck to see around their legs. “Wonder how Mau got past them?”

Sona cautiously approached the closest one, batting its foot with her paw. With a wry smile she said, “It’s OK, they’re only bronze statues.”

Creeping along the wall as far away from them as possible, we broke for the next room. Empty of everything but dust, the rough stone chamber felt cold as death after all the beauty in the upper galleries.

At the opposite end stood a massive wooden door where Mau paced back and forth lashing his tail in a furious passion. The door was only seven feet high by four feet wide, with a wooden bar and bronze hinges, not terribly difficult for a person to open. But it was an enormous barrier for a band of little cats.

Fresh claw marks around the bottom of the wood showed that Mau had been scratching at it. But now he was pushing his nose against the edge in that useless way some cats do with doors. He even meowed. But whoever might be on the other side had died a very long time ago and wouldn’t be able to open the door for Mau or any other cat ever again.

Dr. Mina’s asthma was making her wheeze.

Grace sneezed. “Can we go back now? The air down here is killing me.”

Khui had been studying the door.

“We should be able to lift it off its hinges,” he offered timidly.

“You idiot!” Mau exploded. “How are little cats like us ever going to lift such a massive thing as that?” He stormed around the room chasing his tail in a fury.

Sona said, “Khui has a good idea, sir. If we use a lever and put all our weight on the other end, we might pry it open.”

Mau brightened. “Excellent idea, Sona — Khui! Bring us a lever!”

Everyone looked around, but Khui had vanished.

Suddenly there was a terrific crash of falling metal echoing up and down the long corridors. The cats took off in a mad scramble to safety, like rockets in a fireworks display.

Only MeMe, who was partly deaf and had a hard time with direction, stood alone in the middle of the room.

Creeping back cautiously into the room, I laughed when I saw MeMe standing all by herself in the middle of the floor. “Hey MeMe, some cat panic! This was like your rocking chair in a room full of cats!

We both giggled remembering MeMe’s silly joke.

The only light in the room was from Dr. Mina’s tablet, hovering near the wooden door, casting a blue glow back along the stone walls.

This was our chance! “We’re going, MeMe. We’re getting out of here.”

“Going? Going where, Ridley? These creepy cats have the only lights.”

Jumping over to the tablet, I said to MeMe, “This is our ticket home. We’ll take this thing and find Grace. With the doctor’s map, we can search for a different way out so those blue cats can’t follow us. We might even use this thing to find our way to the coast and sneak aboard a ship for home.”

“But what about those blue cats?” MeMe argued. “Won’t they get lost down here without their map? They need it to get outside again, too.”

“They’ll get what they deserve, MeMe. Come on, lets go!”

But when I pulled on the doctor’s tablet, it wouldn’t budge. I yanked and tugged, but it was hopeless. The thing was locked in the middle of the air as firmly as if it had been frozen in ice.

Hiding my bitter disappointment, I told her, “OK, maybe that won’t work, but we’ll find our way out by remembering how we came in. After all, we’re cats! We have perfect sense of direction.”

Most of us do.

I had to find Grace before the others came back. Running for the hallway, I called back, “Just wait here MeMe, I’ll come back for you.”

Smack! I ran right into Khui.

“Trying to escape?” he hissed. “Don’t bother running away. You’re already dead.” He slashed my face with his sharp claws.

The instant his paw went up to his lethal collar, I raced away, pounding up the first tunnel I came to.

A violet ray hit the ceiling, BANG! choking me in a cloud of plaster dust. Another blast slammed shards of brick fragments out from the wall. Hugging the inside curve of the tunnel, I tried to keep out of Khui’s line of fire. Light from his collar danced shadows on the walls as he crept up the corridor to get me in range.

Running to an intersection of two tunnels, I tried to catch my breath behind the wall on the right side.

My only advantage was that he had to stick his head around the corner to use that ray of his. If I was quick enough, I might be able to snatch his collar and turn it back on him. With his collar, I could fight my way out and save MeMe and Grace.

Pressed against the plaster wall with bared claws, I watched the reflection of Khui’s light as he drew close. Rage knotted my stomach. In my mind, I could taste his blood on my teeth, and hear the coward squeal for his life. But he sprinted past me, up the other side of the corridor, and I lost my chance.

Getting ready to spring out and jump him from behind, he turned around, sweeping the way with his light. I jumped back with the shadow, flattening against the cross-tunnel wall, waiting for him to come back.

But Khui was smart. He turned off his light.

As I froze, hardly breathing, I could hear something like his claws scratching along the wall, feeling for me in the dark. When they seemed to draw close, I lunged out, snatching blindly for his throat.

My paws found his collar.

Khui reared back, twisting away but I hung on, trying to pop the thing off. Rolling on top of him, one of my claws snagged the trigger.

Instantly, a brilliant screeching violet ray shot out, slicing my ear in a sharp stab of pain.

We wrestled desperately across the floor, trying to keep from getting carved into pieces by the beam of knife-sharp death cutting the air like Satan’s fire hose. Plaster and stones rattled away in ribbons from the walls. Choking dust filled the air. Somewhere at the edge of my thoughts, I could hear Sona’s voice calling Khui’s name from far down the tunnel.

A chunk of the ceiling fell hard onto us and Khui went limp.

Out of breath and completely turned around in the dark, I finally let go of the collar. Afraid to touch it again, I stumbled up the tunnel with no idea where it was taking me.

I’d been a fool.

If I went back again, those other blue cats would kill me on the spot. They’d kill MeMe and Grace, too. And now that I’d run up the wrong passage, there wasn’t much chance of back-tracking in the pitch dark. I’d find another way out.

Slashed and bleeding, dusty as a moth in a flour mill, I staggered away to get as far from Khui as possible before he woke up and came after me.

Hugging the wall with my whiskers, I followed any corridor which seemed to slope higher. After a while, there was a narrow stairway leading up with a promise of freedom. Don’t worry, Ridley, only a little farther and you’ll be out.

A landing at the summit seemed to open into a room. In the dark, it was impossible to tell how big anything was, so I screamed out, “Where am I?” to get some sense from the echo.

The vast space of a huge empty hall reverberated back.

Where am I? . . . where am I? it mocked.

This wasn’t the great hall of the golden statue, or there would have been daylight coming down from that door in the ceiling. This was my dark empty grave. “I’M LOST,” I screamed.”

The echoes rolled over me in waves of panic. You’re lost, You’re lost.

Frantically running back and forth across the wide floor, unable to decide which way to go, all sense of direction failed and I knew I was done.

Defeated, falling on the floor with my head on my paws, I waded into a dark pool of despair. What would become of MeMe and Grace, and Java, if I couldn’t return to help them? I had to admit that a major change had come over me since MeMe found me on the mountain. Imagine me worrying about a cat like Java! In spite of feeling hopeless, the irony almost made me laugh. MeMe rescued me, so now I had to rescue her. I’d lead the cats to freedom and be a hero. I’d be part of a family and for the first time in my life I’d have lots of friends and finally be happy.

A faint ripple of air flowed ever so softly along the tile floor, ruffling the guard hairs along my face with hope. Jumping up to chase the little breeze — as soon as I tried to sense its direction, it was gone.

Gummed up in a mire of despair, I fell on the floor again and felt it teasing me, faintly tickling the hairs on my face. This time there was no mistake. Eager now to chase it to its source, up to the desert sand in sunshine and fresh air, I turned right and left, arraying every awn hair, guard hair, and whisker toward the promise of freedom. But the enchanting breath abandoned me once more, like a demon lover.

Unable to give up my one chance, I crawled slowly across the floor carefully feeling with every nerve in my body for that silent whisper, until as quickly as it had vanished, the mischievous flirt caught me again.

Racing toward it like a blind fool, afraid of losing it again, I slammed nose-first into a stone wall that threw me back doubled up in pain. It was that same nose Khui had slashed and it stung horribly. Feeling around blindly, I discovered that the desert air was drifting down, not from a wall, but coursing down a marble staircase.

Blindly racing after it up the risers, desperate to find a way out, I crashed into another block of stone resting on a step. The surprise knocked me backward head-first, tumbling over and over, until I sprawled in a humiliating heap where I’d started at the bottom.

This time as I retraced every step more carefully, something hissed beside me. Pressed flat, waiting as silent as a mummy’s tears, I listened carefully for any sign of a predator in the dark. Sand sifted onto my fur from somewhere up in the ceiling. Spooked, I dashed the rest of the way to the top landing, Moments later I heard the crash of a heavy stone falling from the ceiling. It skidded down the stairway, thudding to a stop below with a crack of broken tiles.

The little breath of air faded at the top, but thankfully it led me in the right direction. Shouting yoww yoww yoww into the darkness, the echoes reflected back to say that I was standing at the end of a long hallway. Silence closed as quiet as the inside of Nefertiti’s sarcophagus. Wary of standing too long in one place, I put my feet out and started walking.

My imagination was playing tricks. At times I spun around in a panic, listening into the darkness at the hiss of sand sifting in from the desert somewhere above.

To hold back the terrors, I pretended MeMe was walking by my side saying, ahk ahk, and trrrik trrik, and her funny erk erk erk which she always said when she was happy to see you.

Darkness had stopped being black. Strange imaginary phantoms railed up suddenly in the back of my eyes. Just as I’d duck away, they’d fade out of sight and another illusion would flash out, tormenting my nerves.

As I walked farther, that same elusive current of air again softly brushed my fur. Crouching down, trying to pick it up with every hair, I heard a sniff.

Swiveling my ears, I heard it again—the unmistakable sound of another animal. But was it real this time, or just the sifting sand? What else could be down here in this city of death besides snakes and scorpions? What could make a sound like that?

It’s in a cat’s nature to wait and hide. But sooner or later everyone runs. The birds, the rabbits, the frogs, stay silent and secure, only to surrender to the terror at the last moment when they could have been safe.

They flee and are killed. Eaten alive.

That would never happen to me. I’d never be the one to run.

I heard something nearby take a sharp breath and I flew, pounding away madly, claws screeching on the tile floor, tearing blindly down the side corridor, the one where I’d felt the current of air.

Hoping desperately to reach freedom, I ran for my life in blind panic.

Clearly now, I could hear another set of paws driving me on, the way a hawk drives the mourning dove into a window to its death. Running blind would get me killed — smash into something and get knocked out. There’d be a wall or a pillar, something I couldn’t see in the dark.

I’d hit it and the chasing thing would get me.

“STOP! STOP!” cried a voice.

But I was too scared to stop.

“Stop NOW! I won’t hurt you. DON’T GO ANY FARTHER!”

But I couldn’t make myself stop running.

Thousands of years before, the Egyptians had quarried a block of limestone from an ancient sea bed, one among thousands to build this temple dedicated to little cats like me. During an earthquake in the tenth century, this same block shook down from the ceiling. It had waited patiently all those many years in the quiet darkness for me to blindly slam into it and crack my head.

The limestone block slid away.

It scraped across the sandy floor like a curling stone.

Scrape, scrape, scrape, and . . . silence.

Two seconds later it shattered. The sound echoed up from the bottom of a sheer drop 44 cat-lengths below, or as people measure it, something like 65 feet.

The air I’d been chasing hadn’t come from above. It came from below.

“Hey! You OK?”

A paw touched me and I jumped back.

The voice had a strange accent but it was the Common Cat Language everyone spoke.

“This place is dangerous, but I guess you found that out,” it said.

I tensed ready to fight.

“Relax, I’m not going to hurt you,” the voice said gently.

“Then why were you chasing me?” I demanded, indignation rising over my fear as I tried to rub two bruises on my head, a cut on my nose, and lick my leg at the same time.

“To get you to stop! You shouldn’t run in the dark.”

“I wouldn’t have run if you hadn’t chased me!” I snapped.

“I wouldn’t have chased you if you hadn’t run.”

We could go on like this forever.

Only, he said, “How else was I going to get you to stop before you killed yourself like a fool . . . and me with you!”

Him, too? Now I was too ashamed to say anything.

“Who are you?” the cat demanded. “And why are you down here running around in this dangerous place?”

Who was I? It was so dark, we couldn’t even see each other and I’m thinking, Who is this cat who comes out of nowhere like some kind of phantom spirit?

On the verge of hysteria, I started rambling, “My friends are in terrible trouble, but I messed up . . . such an idiot, I shouldn’t have left them. My name is Ridley . . . I know it’s a silly name . . . Grace’s brother is a cup of coffee, and MeMe is my friend . . . but they’re all lost.”

I took a deep breath.

“Actually, I’m the one who’s lost.”

Suddenly remembering myself, I thanked the cat for saving my life and I was about to say more — I’m always ready to say more. But before either of us could say much of anything I whispered,

“Ow! My head hurts, and . . . and . . . I don’t feel so good!”

And I fainted clean away.

It was so embarrassing.