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The Lost Temple

A Story by Dikran O.

Based on a concept by Coyotek

"We are officially lost."

Ksi leaned over her friend's shoulder to get a look at the map she was holding. It was mostly tan, indicating dessert terrain, with a few brown contour lines and only one black dashed line to indicate the trail they were supposedly following. "Are you sure?" She asked.

Constance Jotkowska, famed anthropologist and Egyptologist, shook her head sadly. "Yes, unfortunately. The trail gave out some time ago so I was following the GPS, but now the GPS is telling me that are at a couples resort in Bermuda."

Ksi looked around at the endless expanse of the Egyptian desert. "They have a hell of a beach."

"Ha-ha. There is some kind of magnetic abnormality here that is interfering with the GPS ... and the satellite phone, and my compass, and the starter on the land Rover. I think I know where we are, roughly, but getting out of here is going to be a problem.

Ksi sat down on the hot sand beside her friend and lover and put her left hand on Constance's thigh. "And where exactly do you think we are?"

Constance pointed to an 'X' she had drawn on the map. "Here." Ksi was not encouraged; the 'X' was a good fifty kilometres from the nearest road and twice that distance from the nearest village.

"Maybe we should have turned left at Abo Quarqi." She said dryly.

Constance did not catch the sarcasm. "No, no. That would not have worked." She pulled a sheath of notes and diagrams out of her backpack and started spreading them out on the sand. "See? According to my calculations we need to be opposite of Luxor on the corner of an equilateral triangle with the pyramids of Giza at its apex."

Ksi shuffled the papers idly as she tried to make sense of the shapes which Constance had transposed onto maps and satellite photos. "Explain to me again what we're looking for."

Constance sat back and spoke in the same tone as when she lectured students at the museum that employed them both.

"As you know, many so-called scholars have tried to associate the positions of the pyramids and the major temples of ancient Egypt with the stars in the constellation of Orion, because they mistakenly believe that it corresponds with the constellation for the Egyptian deity Osiris." She held up a page torn from a book showing several depictions of Orion overplayed on a map of ancient Egypt. In each case the three stars of Orion's 'belt' were superimposed, more or less, on the Giza pyramids. "Depending on how you orient it the three main pyramids of Giza and a couple of other sites seem to line up, but never to scale and most of the stars in the constellation have nothing significant where that theory indicates something should be. But what they are forgetting is that the ancient Egyptians, especially the ones that built the temples and pyramids, did not know anything about the Orion legend. They worshipped Osiris and his mate, Isis, known as Sah and Sopdet back then, who were said to live among the stars."

She pulled another chart, which showed the constellation of Orion in black with a similar figure superimposed on it in red. But in the case of the red figure the three stars of Orion's Belt now formed the top of the figure's head. "The constellation of Sah only includes about half of Orion's stars," Constance continued, "and a dozen from other Greek constellations. Legends of the life force emanating from the brow of Sah when he was killed by his brother Sep make more sense when you consider that this was supposed to have happened at a site in the Giza, where the pyramids now stand. That was why they were designed as they were, to let the life force from each newly dead Pharaoh out so they could join Sah and Sopdet in the heavens."

"And the other stars?" Ksi asked.

"Well, it's a new theory, but Rigel, the star that sits on Sah's left shoulder, is in the same position as the temple of Amun Ra in Luxor, and a couple of the minor stars sit atop temples of minor gods elsewhere. According to one ancient legend, Sah is only one star in his own constellation, the middle of the three in the brow. The other two are his wife and son, Sopdu, who avenged his father's death and became the first Pharaoh. All the other stars are made up of other gods from his family, with Amun Ra uppermost." She pointed to a satellite image which showed Rigel plotted outside of Luxor, right above an ancient temple. "But Amun Ra, who was the sun god in the New Kingdom era, was not alone." Her finger traveled west across the image to where the star Saiph was plotted, roughly in the same spot as where the 'X' was on the topographic map.

"Amun Ra was paired with his mate, Amun Et.". Constance continued. "Not much is known about her except that her name means 'The Hidden One'. She is depicted wearing a red crown and bearing a staff of papyrus, and represents duality or pairing. If my theory is correct, we should find a temple dedicated to her somewhere around here."

Ksi looked around at the emptiness again. "It's not exactly the nicest spot in Egypt."

Constance sighed as she gathered up her papers and stuffed them back into her bag. "Things change. The sand wasn't here five thousand years ago. There were rivers near here then and a network of roads. Polaris wasn't even the North Star back then, a minor star in Draco called Thuban was."

Ksi hugged her friend with her right arm. "I'm sorry if I'm a little grumpy." She said. "I do understand what you mean about misinterpreting the stars though. Everyone in the West assumes that their astrology and zodiac holds for everyone else but that is not true. In Asia we have a totally different system. The stars are arranged in four symbols, or seasons, and 28 lunar mansions. The stars in what you call Orion are in the 21st or final house of the White Tiger of the West symbol, which is the symbol for autumn. The three stars in Orion's belt are known as Shen, literally meaning 'The Three'. Saiph is called simply 6th star, or 'The Assistant General'. Interestingly, Rigel would be the star we call 'The Leading General', showing a connection between the two similar to that assigned by the ancient Egyptians."

"That is an amazing coincidence." The taller girl replied with real interest. "I find many correlations between the mythologies of different cultures as expressed through astrology." She was about to continue but at that moment she wrapped her arm around Ksi, and her hand ended up on the cloth that her Asian lover had tied around the stump of her left forearm to keep the sun off it. Constance's mouth closed in mid thought as the memories of how Ksi had lost her left hand flooded back.

Constance had met the young heiress several years before and they had quickly become friends. Constance arranged for Ksi, who was travelling the world to build experience before taking a management position on the family plantations, to be hired by the museum. She then had to lead a search and rescue operation to find Ksi and her lover Niwen who went missing in the Amazon searching for a mythical civilization and its city. They had been escaping from a bad situation when the hydroplane Niwen and Ksi had been piloting crashed. Niwen had been killed outright. Ksi had been knocked unconscious but was trapped in the twisted metal. She had to be cut free in order to save her life. Feeling responsible for her presence, Constance had taken the hatchet from the emergency kit and had done the grisly job herself. But she felt guilty and had never told Ksi, who assumed that she had lost the hand and part of her forearm in the accident.

In grief over the loss of her lover, Constance found strength in helping Ksi down the road to recovery, moving the girl into the spare room of her apartment as she suffered through painful surgeries and physiotherapy. At first she took care of the younger girl out of a sense of duty and guilt over getting her involved in the expedition in the first place, but that soon turned to affection and, later, to love. Ksi had felt grateful for the support, and because she was attracted to strong-willed, dominant women that too turned into affection. The night she first appeared at Constance's bedroom door she was not turned away, and they had been lovers ever since.

Constance stood up, feeling uncomfortable. She hoped that she had not gotten Ksi into another desperate situation. "Come on." She said with false cheeriness. "Let's make a shelter to get out of the sun until it gets low enough on the horizon to tell east from west. If we're lucky the compass will start working again when we clear the area. If not, well, we should be able to make ten kilometres before full dark and then we can use the stars to navigate by. By sunup we'll be thumbing a ride back to Luxor."

"Are you sure you can find our way back to the highway?"

"Sure. They don't call me 'Coyotka, The Desert Coyote' for nothing."

"I've never heard anyone call you that."

"It was before your time. Let' go see what we can salvage from the Land Rover."

They kept their backpacks, several bottles of water, some energy bars and extra clothing for the cold desert night. Constance kept her papers, despite their weight, and Ksi packed a light tarpaulin, some poles and cord to make a shelter with. Having been in the deep dessert before Constance suggested that they look for a slope or cliff and camp in the shadow of it, if there was any.

She led them down and around a promising dune, focused on where the shadows would fall as the day wore on. She was about to suggest a spot when Ksi pointed out a dark line in the landscape about a kilometre away. Constance examined the spot through a small pair of binoculars.

"There is some exposed rock with a small overhang." She informed Ksi. "Enough to shelter under until the sun gets lower." Picking up their gear they headed down the slope towards the rock face.

As they drew nearer Constance became more and more excited as two things were becoming evident: the rock face was too flat to be natural, with straight seams between the blocks; and the rock itself was a different type than the local geology.

"Limestone!" Constance breathed when they were still a hundred metres away.

"Is that significant?" Ksi asked.

"Oh, yes. The local rock is sandstone. The Pharaohs quarried limestone to build their temples and pyramids in Tura, southeast of Cairo, hundreds of kilometres from here. Whoever they built this for must have been very important. This could be the ruins of the temple of Amun Et!"

She hurried forward, towards the shadowed area which they could now see as a layer of large blocks, as tall as them and set back several metres from the rows above. Ksi wondered what was holding those upper layers in place as there were no columns or pillars evident.

As Constance approached the wall the metal cross that was slung about her neck lifted off her sweat-soaked khaki shirt and stood straight out on the end of its chain. Ksi felt something tugging at her breasts and realized that the stainless steel 'D' rings attached to her nipple piercings were sticking out in the direction of the wall also.

Constance took several coins from her pocket and tossed them into the air. The brass and copper ones fell to the ground but those with nickel, iron or steel in them flew to the rock and stuck. "There's lodestone somewhere inside." She concluded. "Probably from a meteor strike; the surrounding terrain suggests there was a substantial impact around the time the pyramids were built. The effect of the magnetic field would be strongest along the axis." She muttered as she turned and noted that the Land Rover was parked a kilometre away in direct line of sight of the exposed rock. "That must be what is interfering with our electronics." She turned to Ksi with a big smile. "You know what that means?"

Ksi wiped the sweat from her brow. "That if we push the Land Rover far enough away we can start it and ride back to the hotel in air conditioned comfort?"

"No, well yes, but that's not what I meant. The ancient Egyptians were keen astronomers. They would have seen the meteor coming down through the atmosphere, maybe even felt the impact back in Thebes, what Luxor was called back then. They would certainly have marked its course and sent an expedition. One does not ignore messages sent from the heavens. What better place to build a temple than right on top of the impact site?"

As she spoke Constance dug a chemical lamp mounted on a headband out of her pack and snapped the capsule inside to produce a strong yellow glow. She produced another for Ksi. "This overhang is typical of an entranceway of the era." Then she produced a small, sturdy digital camera, one that was waterproof, shockproof and shielded against electronic interference. She checked that the Duracell batteries were charged and that the camera was working by taking a picture of the outside of the temple before hanging it from her wrist by the attached strap.

Ksi looked at the headlamp doubtfully. "You don't expect to be able to just walk in there, do you?"

"Probably not. Sand or rocks may be blocking the main entrance, but this was a temple, not a pyramid. It's not designed to keep people out. Although anything valuable would have been removed by the priests when they abandoned it, or taken by raiders if it was overrun. At best we may find some frescoes and carvings still intact." She turned on her lamp and slung her backpack over her shoulders. "Let's go."

Putting her headlamp on Ksi followed dutifully.

There was an opening in the back wall under the overhang. It was half full of sand blown in off the dessert. Constance stepped through it, carefully examining the floor on the far side. She advised Ksi to "Keep an eye out for potholes." And booby traps, she added to herself. But the floor seemed solid.

Inside the doorway the passage widened to four metres. They surveyed the walls, floor and ceiling as they went, and every time one of them spotted a bit of colour or a remnant of a carving Constance stopped and took a picture of it. "I have to document as much as we can in order to establish us as the finders of this site." She told Ksi. "Otherwise one of those greedy bastards at the Bureau of Antiquities will steal all the credit."

The passage was straight and level for twenty metres and then it began to slope downwards. As it went the frequency and size of the frescoes and carvings grew. "Less erosion from the wind and sand down here." Constance commented. By the time they had gone a further thirty metres the images were almost complete. Then they came to a stone door that was closed. On the door was a carved and painted figure of a woman in white robes. She wore a red headdress and had a staff made of reeds in her hand.

"Amun Et, I knew it!" Constance almost gushed. "The main temple chamber will be just beyond that door."

Ksi ran her fingers along the near-perfect seam of the door. There was no visible handle or opening device. "Looks like the end of the line, for today at least." She turned to go, finding it hard to do as the magnetic force tried to pull her nipple jewelry back towards the door.

"Maybe I can get the crow bar from the Land Rover into that seem." Constance muttered as she tried to decipher the hieroglyphics on the door. She had to hold her pince-nez glasses with one hand as the tiny screws in them were attracted to whatever was behind the door. Everything else with any metal in it she had stowed in her pack which she left by the entrance, except for the camera. It was a sturdy model with a steel frame and it was floating horizontal to the ground at the end of the strap that kept it on her wrist. She shifted her hand a bit and the camera strap came off. The camera hit the door close to the seam with a solid 'thunk' and stuck. "Oh, my God! I hope it's not broken."

Constance tugged on the strap to pull the camera off the door but instead of the camera coming free the door began to swing open on gritty hinges. It stopped after a few centimetres. She put her foot on the wall and pulled harder, and accompanied by the sound of sand being ground between sliding rocks the door edged open enough for her to get her hands inside. She passed the camera strap to Ksi to hold, so that the door did not slam on her fingers, and pulled as hard as she could. The solid slab of rock opened slowly, but steadily, until it was sticking out ninety degrees from the wall. At that point the camera came free and tried to fly towards the source of the magnetism, but Ksi kept a firm grip on the strap.

They stood in the end of the passageway, Ksi with her good arm extended as she fought to keep the camera from pulling her forward. The rings on her nipples were making tents in the front of her shirt. She regarded the blackness beyond the door.

"Did those carvings on the door say anything about a curse on all those who disturb this temple?" Ksi asked out of the corner of her mouth.

"No."

"Nothing like 'Beware! Danger! Doom and Death Awaits!' was there?"

"Nope."

"What did it say?"

"It said 'Enter all who are prepared to face their self', or something to that effect. It's hard to say. Hieroglyphics are open to some interpretation."

"What does that mean?"

Constance shrugged. "I don't know. Amun Et was the goddess of duality. Maybe one must be prepared to see their true character revealed. Like the mirror gate in that movie, The never Ending Story."

"Think that they have mirrors inside?" Ksi brushed her bright red hair back over her ears. _ I could use a mirror_, she thought, and a shower. She sniffed, smelled sweat, but other odours were coming through the open door, the smell of ancient dust and something else, something fresh. That smell, more than the hand of her friend, drew her inside.

Constance shone her light around the room. It was a large oval, about twenty meters long and ten wide. The walls were smooth vertical limestone, covered with frescoes that looked like they may have been painted yesterday. The floor was white limestone around the edge, but the middle appeared to be shiny, almost reflective. The ceiling was also white limestone, but there was a long rectangular black stone built into it that stretched the length of the oval. It was oriented to the axis of the room, to the temple itself. The camera was pointing straight up at the near end of the black stone.

"The meteor must have fused with some local iron deposit," Constance said, "enough to allow them to forge it into what is, essentially, a giant bar magnet. I wonder what it feels like to stand under it?"

"Are you sure that's safe?" Ksi began but before she finished Constance had stepped onto the shiny portion of the floor. She gasped as her foot came down and continued past the surface. She pulled it back immediately, evidently no worse for wear, and bent to examine the floor more closely.

"Ha!" She laughed. "It's water."

Now Ksi recognized the smell. "Water!"

Constance took her headlamp off and immersed it, shining the beam of light to and fro under the surface of the water. "The impact must have opened a spring to an underground river, parts of which may have been on the surface closer to the Nile. This chamber is designed to keep the water at a constant level while renewing itself continuously. The downstream water must have been considered particularly holy, what with this magic stone blessing it as it flowed. I'll bet it joined the Nile close to the temple of Amun Ra."

"What did they do with it at this end, other than blessing it that is?" Ksi asked as she raised a palm full and sniffed it. It seemed to be okay.

"Anoint priests, bathe virgins, the usual sort of thing. They carved out the rock to make it like a big swimming pool, shallow on the edges but deep in the middle."

Ksi draped herself against Constance. "We're a little short of virgins, but a bath sounds like an excellent idea."

Constance smiled down on her. "That would be fun, but let me record this first." She disengaged from Ksi's embrace and reeled in the camera, gripping it tightly with both hands to keep it level while she lined up her shot.

"Damn!"

"What's wrong?" Ksi, halfway through the act of disrobing, asked.

"The magnetic field is so strong in this chamber that it has degaussed the memory card in the camera. It's been wiped clean. I'll have to come back with a film camera to document our find."

Naked now, Ksi reached around from behind Constance and took the camera from her hand. She walked back to the door, the camera floating behind her at the end of its tether, always pointing at the near end of the lodestone, and reached up to the sill before releasing it. It stuck to the sill, attracted to the magnet but prevented from flying to it by the intervening stone, with the strap hanging down into the open doorway.

Ksi turned and struck a pose in the light cast by Constance's headlamp and softly silhouetted by her own lamp, which she had left in the doorway. Her skin was a few shades darker than Constance's, but her eyes were pale blue and clear. She was shorter than her lover, but curvier and with good muscle tone. Her hair was long and hung straight down her back. It was bright red, a sign of good fortune in her Asian homeland. Her pubic bush was just as red, and she had shaved it into the shape of a small arrow, pointing down to her vagina. Her breasts were large, rounded and well formed with dark, almost brown nipples, each of which had an elongated 'D' ring on a barbell piercing. Normally when not attached to a chain and leash to be led to the bedroom those steel rings hung straight down, but at the moment they were pointing up towards the roof.

After pausing for a moment to allow Constance to admire her, Ksi slid over to her lover and deftly began to disrobe the taller woman with her one hand. Off came the khaki shirt and shorts. Constance lifted her undershirt off and Ksi unsnapped the bra beneath. She caressed the petit breasts from behind before inching the plain cotton panties down over the Anthropologist's firm buttocks and down her long, slim legs. All that was left was the heavy hiking boots and socks, and Ksi undid and slipped those off while kissing the bare flesh of Constance's legs.

Constance shivered, more from the sensation of the lips on her skin than the coolness of the air in the pool room. Ksi worked her way around her until she was knelling in front and her kisses concentrated on the tender flesh of her upper thighs. Ksi traced the tip of her tongue along the dark line of Constance's pubes, which grew naturally in the form of a 'W', as she forced her hand between those thighs. Constance put her hands on the bobbing head and gasped as the tongue quested lower.

But Ksi only teased her for a minute or so before standing up, trailing kisses along her lover's torso and breasts as she did. She pulled Constance against her in a hug. "I'm so dirty and sweaty." She said, ignoring the fact that Constance was just as filthy. "Can we continue in the pool?"

"Of course." Constance granted, backing up into the water without disengaging from Ksi. "We can rinse each other off before ... and after." Ksi responded with a giggle.

Constance led Ksi to the centre of the pool where the water was deepest, up to their shoulders. As the progressed the magnetic field grew weaker, as it does in the middle of a bar magnet where the attraction of the two poles equals out. Under the water Ksi's nipple rings returned to their normal position.

Hands and lips had begun exploring before they were ankle deep, accompanied by sighs and moans and the occasional yip as teeth pinched flesh. The solid rock walls amplified the sound and sent it back as echoes after a split second delay.

"I love you Constance-ants-ants." Ksi said. The reverberations made her giggle.

"I love you too, Ksi-eye-eye." Constance replied, and giggled too.

"Hello-oh-oh." Ksi called.

"Who's there-air-air?" Constance replied.

"Who's there?" Her voice came again, but it sounded farther away to Ksi.

"What did you say?" Ksi asked, lowering her voice so it would not echo. But a second later she heard her voice repeat the phase.

Constance sounded puzzled when she replied. "I said 'Who's there' and then you said the same thing imitating my voice, a pretty good imitation too. Then you said 'What did you say' twice." As she spoke they could both hear her words coming from a point that seemed to be nearby, yet sounded far away at the same time. Constance stopped in confusion and the other voice stopped also. "What the hell is going on?" Both voices asked simultaneously.

Spooked, Ksi was already making her way out of the water by then. Constance was right behind her.

They stood by the doorway side by side, naked and dripping, with their arms around each other, their heads swivelling to and fro they searched the shadows. "Is there anyone there?" Constance asked tentatively.

"-one there?" She heard her voice say clearly from somewhere nearby. Ksi squealed, and an identical squeal came from a point right beside her ear.

There was a change in the shadows. A slight movement that caught Ksi's eye. "Look!" She gasped, pointing to the doorway. Warm air was coming down the shaft, creating a small breeze as it forced the cooler air out. The breeze had set the camera strap swaying where it hung down from the sill. But as it swung it left an image of itself behind, one that followed a moment later, only to rejoin the first when it stopped moving.

Constance's brow furrowed with curiosity. "Now that's interesting"

"-ing"

Clutching each other tightly, they began to back up around the rim of the pool. They had gone only three steps when they felt their backsides connect with something soft and warm. They turned and found themselves face to face with two canine figures, or rather, two figures with canine heads and fur-covered human bodies ... female bodies ... naked female bodies.

Constance's trained eye catalogued them in an instant. The one directly in front of her was a coyote with dark brown hair and eyes. Her fur was two-toned brown with some white patches. It had modest size breasts with large pink nipples. There was a jagged line of darker fur just above the pubic area, like a small crown with three points. The shorter one, opposite Ksi, had a head that looked like a collie. It was mostly tan but with darker collie markings and a white chest, belly and thighs. It had bright blue eyes. Strangely enough, it had long red hair streaming down its back, and the Anthropologist in her wondered if it might not be a headdress, like the one Amun Et wore.

But the Egyptians never depicted their animal-headed gods with furry bodies, she reminded herself. Her eyes dropped to the groin of the red haired one and widened as she saw the small tuft of red fur shaped like an arrow pointing down towards the creature's vagina. Her glance darted to the figure's left arm, and saw that it was missing its left hand, the forearm ending in a rounded, fur covered stump. Now her eyes were darting back and forth, picking up on details she had missed the first time: the collie's nipple piercings with their elongated 'D' rings, the pince-nez glasses on the coyote, the cross around its neck that looked just like ...

"It's us!" Ksi exclaimed, but the sound came from two mouths as the lips of the collie moved in synch with Ksi's. "They're alive!" They added, and each put a hand, or a paw, in front of their open mouth to contain their shock.

"Oh - my - God!" The coyote and Constance said simultaneously. "Parallel universes!"

Constance opened her mouth to speak again and saw the coyote open hers too. She put her hand up in front of the coyote's mouth, beating her raised paw by a hair's breadth. "No." She said, pinching the canine's lips so that she could not speak. "We are together now, in your dimension or mine or somewhere in-between, but we need to think and act independently." She released the creature's lips and pressed her own together to prevent her from interrupting.

"I agree." The coyote said. "We're scientists, after all."

Beside them Ksi and the collie were silently examining each other, Ksi running her hand over the fur of the collie and the canine touching Ksi's flesh with her paw. Tiny sparks of static flew from the wherever their digits touched the other. Both wore identical expressions of wonder. Constance noted that the dog's paw was like a human hand, except that it had pointed claws instead of flat nails. But its feet were broader and more canine, with four short clawed toes instead of five. She wondered what other ...

"... differences there are." The coyote finished her thought for her.

It's time we got to know each other, Constance thought as she extended her right hand. "My name is Constance." She said. "I'm an anthropologist from a place we call Poland."

"Me too." The coyote replied, taking her hand in a firm grip. There was a spark, almost like an electric discharge, at the contact. "But Constance is a nickname my brother calls me, because I'm constantly running around the desert searching for lost cities and temples. My real name is Coyotka."

"That is what my brother calls me! Coyotka, the desert coyote."

"Does your brother like to ... uhm ... watch? Watch you with ..." Coyotka tilted her head toward Ksi and waggled her tongue suggestively.

"Oh yeah. With her or with my friend Geno."

Coyotka laughed. "Does she bang anything that moves in your universe too?"

"And half of the things that don't." Constance laughed back.

"She's a cat where I come from." Coyotka informed her.

Constance thought about her blond friend and her reputation of always landing on all fours. "Fitting." She said.

They began a comparison of their two universes. Beside them Ksi had discovered that her collie counterpart was also named Ksi, and that she had a similar background. Their conversation dealt more with friends and personal habits.

"So in my Egypt," Coyotka was explaining, "the gods have heads like you humans, with hair only on top, and fur covered feral animal bodies."

"Maybe there is a third universe where the sentient species are hairless animals." Constance speculated, wondering, if that was the case, why their counterpart from that universe had not shown up in the temple too. Maybe the portal only connected these two universes. She was about to discuss the theory with Coyotka when she noticed that the coyote woman was no longer paying attention to her. She was staring a he stump of the human Ksi's left arm and frowning.

Constance nudged her and the spell was broken. Coyotka looked back to her with a pained expression on her face. "Did you ... " she said under her breath, making a chopping motion at the same time with her paw where the other two could not see it.

Constance nodded. "Does she know?" she whispered.

"No."

"Are you two ... " Constance wagged her eyebrows suggestively. Coyotka looked straight down on the stone floor and that was answer enough. "Your Ksi is very cute." Constance continued. "I never thought of it but a collie fits her perfectly - they are smart, loyal, affectionate, and a bit submissive to their masters."

"And your Ksi is very pretty." Coyotka assured her. "With the red hair, blue eyes and cappuccino-coloured skin she looks very erotic ... I mean ... exotic. She looks very ... uh, nice."

Her coyote doppelganger's gaze had drifted over to the human Ksi again, but this time there was an entirely different look in her eyes. One that Constance recognized because she had seen it her mirror several times while preparing to bed the Asian heiress. She looked at the furry Ksi and admired how well the curves she was used to fit under fur that was so short as to be barely there in some places and thick enough to bury your fingers in others. And that tail! She found herself wondering what it would feel like to run her hand along that tail, and under it. And would that tail wag if her fingers found that sweet spot that drove her Ksi wild?

She felt Coyotka's eyes on her and she tore hers off the collie. The coyote was looking at her with a sly, knowing expression. "Should we ..."

"... she won't mind. And she would..."

"... appreciate the surprise."

Still smiling, they each took a step back. "Ksi." They both called. "Could you get my notebook from my shirt? There's something I want to write down before I forget."

One Ksi hurried to a pile of clothing to the left of the door. The other rushed to a pile on the right. Constance followed the collie version into the shadows. Coyotka went after the human Ksi.

Constance caught up to the collie as she straightened up with the notebook in her paw. She put her arms around the shorter girl and cupped her breasts with her hands as she pressed her body up against the furry backside. There was a spark but not nearly as powerful as when she had touched Coyotka.

Ksi's tail came up between her legs and wagged, giving Constance an interesting and pleasurable sensation between her thighs. "Coyotka, not here. The others will see." The collie giggled, but she rubbed her butt against Constance's hips just the same.

"I'm not Coyotka." Constance whispered in one furry ear, and felt the collie stiffen as she said it. "But I could be." She hooked a finger into each of the nipple rings and tugged them the way her Ksi liked her to. The collie resisted at first, but then she submitted and bent forward as Constance pulled her beasts downward and around. Soon she was on her knees facing the anthropologist. Constance was standing on the edge of the pool, so Ksi had to kneel in the water to get in the position Constance wanted her in. "I want to feel that muzzle between my legs." She commanded, putting her hands on each side of the collie's head. "I want to feel that long tongue inside me."

The canine Ksi complied, just as the human Ksi did when Constance took command. Just like her Ksi, this one wrapped her arms around Constance's hips and used her good paw to caress her buttocks as she rubbed her left forearm between her mistress's legs. He tongue was longer and broader than her human counterpart's, and the long thin muzzle between her thighs was an added sensation. Constance gasped as the collie's clever tongue found her clit and wondered how Coyotka was faring.

Coyotka had come up behind Ksi as the human girl was bent over the pile of clothes, searching for the notebook. She extended a paw and traced the line of the girl's spine with one blunt claw from neck to coccyx, marveling at the similarities in the structure of the two bodies. Ksi stiffened at the initial shock of contact and the tiny spark it produced, but shivered with pleasure by the time Coyotka's claw reached its destination.

"Oh, Constance, do you think it's wise to ..." She broke off as her head turned and she saw the tall furry body behind her.

Coyotka put a digit to her lips and said "Shhh. Don't disturb them." And she indicated the two entwined figures in the shadows to the right of the door. Then she put her paws on the big round naked buttocks of the human and sighed at the smoothness of bare flesh. "Don't move." She ordered.

With Ksi on her hands and knees, Coyotka lowered herself to the floor, backing into the pool so that the target of her affection was right in front of her. She stared in wonder at the hairless expanse of muscle, and at the shaven slit squeezed between. She ran her paws over and around those mounds as she licked her lips to moisten them. Then she leaned down and licked that slit, drawing her tongue up over the puckered hole and along the crease between them where a tail should be.

Ksi moaned as the rough wad of wet flesh explored her. It was similar to the way Constance loved her, but not exactly the same. The feel of the tongue was different, as was the thick pads on the coyote's digits where they caressed her. But the chemistry that had first attracted her to the Polish anthropologist was still there, and she found herself grinding her twat against the coyote woman's muzzle eagerly.

Coyotka dug her digits into the bare flesh of the human and pressed her muzzle against the rapidly dampening cunt. Her tongue darted in and around and she teased the clit that felt exactly the same as the one on her lover. She used her sharp teeth to trace the mons and the inner lips as they bloomed, just as she would on her Ksi, but she got more of a reaction from the human.

Ksi was building to an orgasm faster than she normally would. The sensation of long dangerous fangs sliding around and occasionally almost closing on her tender bits was new and exciting. The roughness of the tongue and its incredible length was invigorating. And the cold leathery nose rubbing her anus was not bad either. She longed to turn and run her fingers through the fur of the coyote but dared not move. Instead, she bit down on the notebook and tried to hold back the flood as long as possible.

On the other side of the room Constance was finding it hard to stand as waves of ecstasy washed over her. The long snout of the canine Ksi covered her fore and aft while the tongue quested inside. Paws with rough pads caressed her thighs and tickled the back of her legs. Her own hands were buried in the collie's thick ruff, and she had to caution herself not to press too hard. But every time that Ksi's sharp little teeth poked her a bolt of pleasurable pain shot through her and she wanted just to squeeze that furry head so much.

With her knees slightly bent and the head between them licking and sucking furiously she began to rock her hips in time to the lapping tongue. Ksi picked up on the signal and worked harder on her clit. Round and round her tongue went. Back and forth it flicked. Occasionally she parted Constance's twat with her paws and sucked on the hard button of flesh with until it stood out from the surrounding folds of flesh. After two minutes Constance could take no more, and with an orgasm that was half hot fluid and half electric discharge she came in the collies face.

The canine Ksi drank down as much as she could catch, lapping at Constance like a puppy searching for her mother's teat. Constance collapsed, her knees finally giving out, and lay half in and half out of the water with Ksi in her arms. "So smooth, so smooth." Ksi murmured as she ran her paws over the bare skin. Reaching down between Constance's legs she dipped her digits into the gaping twat and brought her sodden paw to her mouth. "Mmmmmh, good."

Constance began to move as her breathing evened out. She stroked the furry back and kissed the carpeted breasts of the dog girl. One hand inched its way down her side and over a hairy hip, dropping into her lap and wiggling into the open triangle at the apex of Ksi's thighs. The collie parted her legs and Constance found the moist slit and slid two fingers inside.

Coyotka meanwhile was rubbing the human Ksi's clit with her digit while she probed her anus with her tongue. The combination was too much for Ksi to resist, and she had already bitten through the spine of the notebook. She let out a cry that reverberated off the rock walls as she squirted past the probing digits to soak Coyotka's ruff with bitter sweet nectar, making the fur crackle as pent up energy released on contact.

Coyotka kept rubbing the spot inside the girl's twat that corresponded to the sweet spot inside her Ksi and was rewarded by a series of convulsions as the human girl experienced multiple orgasms. When she was so spent that she collapsed to the floor Coyotka relented and took the witching body in her arms. "There, there." She comforted her. She stroked her naked flesh until the shivering subsided.

As she calmed down Ksi's hand and foreshortened arm began to wander on the fur covered body that seemed otherwise so familiar to her. She felt the breasts, and was pleasantly surprised to feel the nipples harden under her palm. She dug her fingers into the thick tuft of fur around the coyote's neck and tentatively raised her head to kiss the black lips above it. The lips responded, and she slipped her tongue inside.

It felt different from Constance's mouth. The teeth were sharper, and there were more of them. It gave her a thrill of danger to go with the erotic excitement and she opened her mouth to probe deeper. While their tongues wrestled her hand moved steadily downward until it found the band of bare flesh that excitement had exposed between the coyote's legs. She inserted one, then two, and finally three fingers as Coyotka's moist cunt widened to accept her.

They continued like that for a while, with their heads pressed together and Ksi's hand working Coyotka's twat. But then Ksi shifted her weight and swung around Coyotka so that she was on the other side of the taller coyote. She removed her hand and used it to hang on to Coyotka as she lowered her stunted arm. Then she pushed Coyotka back until she was laying down half out of the water with her knees up. Between them the stump probed for the gaping slit, found it, and with a twisting motion, worked its way in.

Coyotka gasped as her twat stretched to accommodate the phallic stump. Her juices and the water helped to lubricate it as it inched its way in. And she could feel each twist and thrust on her clit as it was crushed between her pelvis and the warm, muscle covered dildo. When Ksi had worked it in as far as her elbow she pulled it back and began to pump it like a piston, in and out at a steady rate.

A few metres away Constance was working at the canine Ksi aggressively, driving her fingers into and around the furry twat furiously. So much so that the collie girl was writhing and rolling on the edge of the pool moving slowly but steadily closer to the other pair of lovers. Constance crawled to keep up, kissing the open muzzle and sucking on the protruding nipples, now and then taking them between her teeth and biting gently.

As Coyotka and her Ksi grew closer to orgasm the four drew closer together. Soon they were close enough to touch, and a minute later they were close enough for Coyotka and her Ksi to kiss, which they did, eagerly. Above them, hands and stump working without respite, the humans kissed deeply too. But they all stopped when Coyotka let out a howl that shook the room as sparks flew and lava-hot secretions squirted out from around Ksi's arm to mix with the waters of the pool. A moment later her Ksi added her voice, and juices, to the mix. They all collapsed in an exhausted heap, half submerged in the pool.

Constance began to stir first. She pulled her hand out of the canine Ksi and shook it to get the blood flowing again. Then she stood up and stretched. Coyotka, still shaky on her legs from the massive orgasm, stood up too but had to lean against the wall for support. Constance stepped out of the water and helped her to stay upright. As she gazed into eyes that she had only seen in a mirror she felt an attraction so electric that her hair began to stand on end. Coyotka was evidently feeling the same thing because the fur around her head was sticking straight out, making her look like a puff ball. Constance wondered what it would be like to kiss herself. Coyotka puckered her lips and leaned forward as Constance moved in to find out.

Despite the difference in size their mouths fit together nicely and their tongues greeted each other like long lost friends. Constance could feel a charge building up between them, but thought nothing of it. With the giant magnet above them and the dry dessert air coming down the passage there was bound to be a little static, especially when one of them was covered in fur. It would probably discharge in a bright spark that may hurt for an instant but ....

There was a bright flash, like lightning, and a 'bang' and she found herself knocked up hard against the rock wall. Coyotka flew in the opposite direction and ended up in the pool. What the .... Constance's brain worked furiously, trying to figure out what just happened. In the pool Coyotka stood up and she could see from her expression that she was equally surprised, and just as bent on solving the mystery before one of them got seriously hurt.

The two Ksis had been knocked flat on the floor between them. Groggily, they crawled out of the pool and reached out for one another.

The scientists had a flash of intuition. "No!" Coyotka and Constance shouted at the same time. "Don't touch each other, not on dry land."

"Huh?" The two girls were unsure, but they halted hand and paw a centimetre apart.

"The portal between universes is held open by the magnetic field." Constance began.

"But the two dimensions are at opposite ends of the poles." Coyotka continued.

"So we're polarized differently, which causes electrons to flow through us when we touch. It's not so bad when you touch someone else but ..."

"... touching your double causes an exchange of twined electrons that react when they encounter each other, like matter and anti-matter."

" Unless you're in the water, ..."

"... which will dissipate the charge. The ancient Egyptians must have discovered this and built the pool below the magnet just for that purpose. So doubles should only meet and interact in the water, otherwise ..."

"... we could set off a chain reaction that could destroy both our universes."

There was a moment of silence then they said simultaneously, "This is too dangerous to be made public. Imagine some terrorist group trying to increase their stock of loyal fighters by brining all their doubles over."

"Or some horny anthropologist bringing the apocalypse by wandering off with her coyote half for a little bump and grind." The two girls said, frowning with jealousy at their human or coyote rival.

"Yeah ... hey! Simmer down you .... you two." Constance chided them.

"I'm sorry. That was mean of us. The fact is, we were wondering what it would feel like ourselves, doing ourselves, that is." The human Ksi said, and canine Ksi nodded her head in agreement. "If this is so dangerous though, how do we keep from touching each other while we leave, and how do we know that we'll be going back to the right universe?"

"We leave in pairs." Coyotka declared. "Human with human and anthromorph with anthromorph. I have pictures in my wallet of the two of us on vacation last year I assume you do too?" Constance confirmed that was so. "Whoever leaves first just has to check in their bag to see if they are in the right universe. If they are then they leave, and the others follow after five minutes. If not, we just keep trying until things work out right. Agreed?"

The other three nodded.

"Now, there is just one more thing we need to do before we go." Constance said, a sly smile creeping across her face. Coyotka returned that smile with a leer of her own.

"What?" Both Ksis asked. "What do we need to do?"

"We need to get back in that water and carry on where we left off." Coyotka said as Constance came to join her in the pool. Several sparks flew as they embraced, but it was not nearly as bad as before.

"The deeper the better." Constance advised, leading her coyote self toward the centre of the pool.

"That's what I always say." Coyotka replied, her paws already gone from sight between the humans legs. "The deeper the better."

* * * * * * * * *

By a flip of a coin it was decided that the humans should leave first. Constance and Ksi said goodbye to their counterparts and headed through the door. As they left, Constance reached up and retrieved their camera. They checked the bags at the entrance to the temple and found that the photos did indeed show their human selves. With a sigh for the two they would never see again they shouldered their pecks and trudged out into the desert.

After they had gone two hundred metres Constance turned and drew her flare gun from the pocket of her pack. She checked to see what kind of shell was loaded and grunted in satisfaction when she saw a Flash-Bang. It was like a half stick of TNT, good for visual and audio signalling. She aimed it towards the face of the dune that overhung the temple and fired. The projectile buried itself in the sand and went off an instant later. Tons of sand came loose and streamed down to cover the exposed entrance. When the dust settled there was no sign that anything had ever been there.

They waited until the sun was down and the air cooled off before pushing the Land Rover nearly a kilometre to get it far enough away from the magnetic field that surrounded the temple to jumpstart it. It was exhausting work, and the drive across the desert to their hotel in Luxor was no picnic either. But they had to turn the vehicle into the rental agency before they could rest, and they lost their deposit because the electronic ignition was burnt out. The dealer refused to rent them another without a substantively larger cash deposit. When they got to their room they dropped their clothes, took a quick passionless shower together, fell into the big bed and were asleep in an instant.

They woke late the next morning, entwined in the middle of the big bed. Constance complained of a headache and that every muscle in her body ached. Ksi confirmed that she felt the same way. "Constance," she asked, idly fingering one of her lover's nipples, "what happened yesterday, could it all have been a hallucination? Some trick of our minds brought about by the heat? I've seen workers on my parents' plantations caught up in some pretty elaborate fantasies when they were suffering from heat stroke, and you have to admit, Coyotka the desert coyote and Ksi the faithful collie dog sound like something our psyches might have dredged up."

"It felt so real." Constance said as doubt crept into her mind. Rolling over, she rummaged through the pile of clothes and kit beside the bed and came up with the camera. It was beat up and gritty as if it had been knocked against a rock a few times, but that could have happened when they were pushing the Land Rover to jumpstart it. She turned it on and accessed the memory card.

"It's blank." She informed Ksi. "Just as it would be if it was exposed to a strong magnetic force .... or if we never took any pictures because we never found anything."

"And if we go back there will be nothing but a wall of sand because you covered the temple up, or there never was one." Ksi added.

Constance sighed. "We can't go back anyways. We're broke and we have nothing to show for this expedition. It will be a while before the museum agrees to fund me again." A blinking red light on the camera caught her eye. "The batteries are dying. Could you pass me a new pair?"

Ksi got out of bed and searched though their bags until she found a handful of fresh batteries. She held them out for Constance, but the archeologist's stare was fixed on the old ones lying in her palm.

"What's wrong?" Ksi asked.

Constance held one of the batteries up with the brand name toward her friend. Printed on the familiar copper-topped cylinder was the word 'Furicell'. "We brought the wrong camera back." She explained.

Ksi was bouncing with joy. "So it did happen! A portal for our parallel worlds does exist."

"Yes, it does." Constance agreed. "And the best part is," she added with a wink, "that if we ever get the urge to go back and dig our way in for another visit I'm sure that Coyotka and her Collie friend will be doing the same from their side too."

Constance/Coyotka, both Ksis, Conrad, Niwen and Geno are © Coyotek

Land Rover © Tata Motors

Duracell © Berkshire Hathaway

Furicell © Yorkshire Terrier, but not in this universe.