Mud Ghecko

Epilogue: The Exodus of the Misfits  It began with an uprising no one saw coming—not from the royal court, not from the dusty temples of Amok, and least of all from the bureaucratic dung heaps of Sakkara's lower archives. Mussa, once a slouching, poetry-quoting, sandal-shuffling nonentity, and Princess Naynah, a royal rebel with more brains than patriarchal tradition would ever allow, made a break that would alter history. With the help of Kephri the scarab—who'd rerouted a labyrinth of guards using nothing but strategically placed dung balls—and the ever-snide Serious, the talking dead cat, they fled Egypt under cover of a lunar eclipse. They navigated through forbidden tomb tunnels, bribed border guards with embalming coupons, and rode atop a stolen sacred ostrich named Marvin. In the land beyond the desert, on the shimmering shores of the Unnamed River, they founded a city called *Sekhem-Ubasti* —"The Strength of the Forgotten." There, cats were not sacrificed but ...