TITLE: Land of the Gods
RATING: R
SPOILERS: to Crusade
STATUS: Complete
SUMMARY: While excavating a tomb in the Valley of the Kings, Lex has a vision of the original owners, Pharaoh Amenmesse and his Great Royal Queen Takhat. Series.
PAIRINGS: Lex & Lana of course!
Foreword:
This story has been inspired by real life events, people and places. It's set in Ancient Egypt, and revolves around the lives Ramesses II, Queen Takhat, Seti II and Amenmesse, roughly 1200 BC. Why I chose these people and this place, if not obvious in the story, is explained in my end notes, along with apologies to any strict history buffs. Had this been written as a novel, better care would have been taken to ensure proper details etc. but as it is, this is only a piece of fanfiction written for a challenge.
Though this story is about real people, it is still a work of fiction. Relationships, dates, ages and other details have been bent to fit my vision. Again, all explanations as to the hows, whys and "what the hell?" are explained in my end notes as well as links to my sources for further reading.
Chapter One The Valley of the Kings- Luxor, Egypt: Fall 2004
The blinding sun poured its heat down on the desert, unrelenting and heavy. There was no real wind today, though every now and then a stray breeze would kick up a cloud of yellow dust and spray it into the eyes, mouth and nose of the unsuspecting. For those who would cry out in alarm at the offense, the surrounding sands would crinkle and seem to mock the fool who didn't realize; this is the Land of the Gods.
Heat waves, like shimmers of silk in the distance, rose up from the sand that surrounded the valley. For the sick or stranded, they promised false hope, sending many on a wild goose chase that only ended in death. Tricksters you'd think, but maybe it was magic- ancient, old-world magic that continues to spellbind and paralyze those who are not mindful of the danger around them.
For Lex Luthor, being on this sacred ground, felt very much like returning to the site of former glory. True, it was only his namesake that conquered Egypt, but setting his foot where Alexander once stood sent a shiver of power up his spine. Welcome brother… the land seemed to say.
He stood outside of tomb KV10, and hoped he'd found the right place. It was not the tomb of an important Pharaoh. Amenmesse did not even have an impressively decorated tomb. Looted in ancient times, there was nothing much left other than a few canopic fragments and a badly preserved human skull. Hardly even worth the cost of excavations.
Still, Lex was attracted to this site. In his quest to find one of the stones of knowledge, he'd been led to this region through a legend in an ancient scroll, one rumored to have survived the library of Alexandria. Pointing the way to Egypt was a lot like pointing to the ocean and asking someone to find a one-of-a-kind fish, but Lex always enjoyed a challenge.
The passage in the scroll spoke of two brothers, Anpu and Bata, at war with each other, both seeking their father's great crown, and the love of one woman, Taket. She was said to contain a great power, one that would have granted her chosen husband all of the riches of the known world. When she married Anpu, his brother vowed vengeance. To end their dispute, Egypt was divided into Upper and Lower, with each brother given rule over one part. Anpu was a good man, wise and a just ruler, while Bata was cruel and selfish. Out of jealousy, Bata raped Taket, and forced her to become his great royal queen. She delivered him a son, and they lived happily until Anpu murdered his brother and hid his mortal remains so that Taket could not resurrect him. In her grief, she became a wraith who wandered the land of shadows, searching for her lost love. She took her treasure into death, and it was never seen again. The last line of the passage read, "Taket waits."
Lex sent teams to Cairo in order to research everything he could find about the elusive Taket. Though the exact spelling was not found, a "Takhat" came up in several places. Interestingly, her name was mentioned as not only a daughter of Ramesses II, but also as queen to two brothers, the warring Seti II and Amenmesse. Not much is understood about their reigns, which were documented in several places with conflicting dates. They seemed to rule right on top of one another, usurping each other continuously. And then there was Takhat, apparently queen to first Seti, and then to his brother Amenmesse, to whom she bore five daughters and one son, Siptah. KV10 was their tomb. Though it had been vandalized many times since antiquity, no great treasure had even been discovered. He could only hope that perhaps it still remained.
Finally entering, Lex took too deep a breath and coughed, instantly regretting that he did not heed the warnings of his guide. Paki was a charming, stocky fellow with a white curling mustache and perpetual frown. The only thing that made the man crack a smile was money, a condition, which Lex understood and was happy to indulge.
Paki had warned that the acrid air deep in the tombs could be hazardous to those with immunity problems, something that Lex was forced to deal with since the poisoning he endured three months prior. The poetry of almost being murdered by your own father, an aging king threatened by the rise of his first-born son, could only be eclipsed if the tables were turned. Lex quite looked forward to that day.
He coughed again and cleared his throat.
"Mr. Luthor?" Paki questioned, his face full of concern.
"It's nothing. What have you found?"
Paki half turned and began leading the way through a maze of tunnels. Most of the debris had been cleared in prior excavations, but once they passed the four-pillared hall, the tunnels were narrow and unorganized. If one were to follow a direct path, they would reach the burial chamber, but the party of diggers paid to search the tomb had stopped half way there and now pointed to the East-facing wall.
Several ruined scenes were depicted, their color faded and images scratched over in a deliberate effort to vandalize the drawings. Perhaps destroyed by Seti II out of jealousy? There wasn't much to see, and with his chest burning, Lex inhaled in order to shout at Paki when a familiar drawing leapt out at him. A glyph very similar to those found in the Kawatche caves of Smallville was printed on the hand of a woman. She offered a gift to Isis with her head bowed.
"Here," Lex said, his heart pounding. "Tear down this wall."
"You'll be arrested!" Paki cried.
"Another hundred thousand on top of your fee," Lex promised. "No one can know I was even here."
Sweating, Paki agreed and informed the workers of the task. Horror shined in their eyes, and several fled with superstitious fears. Lex watched as they ran shouting from the tomb. He turned curious eyes back to Paki, who looked very nervous himself.
"They fear the curse," he explained. "Desecrating a tomb, especially the image of one of the old Gods… death comes to those who would do such a thing. It is madness."
"Just get the job done." Such nonsense irritated Lex, and he gave the group a stern look before turning away from them and stepping towards the old burial chamber. Their murmurs faded away into the background. Three mummies had once been unearthed here: all women who'd been tentatively identified as daughters of Amenmesse. For whatever reason, it seemed that both Amenmesse and Takhat had either not been buried in their own tomb, or were removed by someone. That idea bothered Lex. That a king's legacy could be so uprooted after his death.
One of the many reasons he vowed never to die.
The burial chamber was empty now save for a raised dais near the back of the room where two stone thrones stood, and an altar several feet in front of them. The altar had once been where the king's sarcophagus would have lain, and the thrones prepared for Isis and Osiris to guard over him.
A single torch flickered it's low light, and Lex felt the effects of the heat and bad air catch up to him. His vision begun to blur, and breathing was difficult. The ever-present tremors, which had coursed through his body since the poisoning, increased visibly and made it difficult to stand still.
He flipped his wrist over and looked at the special watch designed for him, revealing not only his heart rate and pulse, but also the number of hours since his last dialysis session. Lex grimaced to see that the number had already reached 61. No doubt his personal physician on board the Luthorcorp jet will do some serious nagging by the time he finally returns. 72 hours, she said often. That's the limit. Anything over and his internal organs would begin shutting down. He wondered if that were true, and part of him even wanted to test it out. See how invincible his body really was.
But at the moment, Lex did not feel particularly invulnerable. He leaned against the stone altar to steady himself, and briefly shut his eyes. When his legs wobbled, Lex's body gave a quick jerk and his eyes snapped open. Realizing he had just drifted off standing up, he decided to go ahead and sit down on the altar, considering it was the only semi-clean area in the room. Sure, the Egyptian government would be pissed, but hell, he was looting this tomb after all. What did rules really matter?
Oddly, his aching body relaxed into the hard surface. Pulling his legs up, Lex laid back resting his head on his arms and looked through bleary eyes at the ceiling. So much had been destroyed by both man-made and nature born instruments. Where the paintings weren't scratched over, rain and subsequent flooding had marred their images. What story would they have told had they been allowed to remain?
From what was left, it was clear at least to know that the tomb had first been prepared for Amenmesse and his favorite wife, Takhat. Not a single relief of her face could be found anywhere in KV10, for all had been scratched over.
Not surprisingly, the idea of two brothers fighting over a woman and power appealed to Lex, and he couldn't help but apply the situation to himself. Lana had been used up and cast away from Clark too many times, and Lex felt as though the time neared when he could gently sway her into his good keeping. He would not make the same mistakes Clark had made, by allowing her to leave him. If given the smallest opportunity, Lex would find a way to bind her to him forever.
Knowing that the workers were busy, and not likely to bother him unless they found something, Lex allowed himself to finally rest. He closed his eyes and listened to the workers with their pick axes and shovels, the metal on metal clinking echoing through the tomb. The air quality would be better in the tent erected for him outside of the valley, but it was cooler in here, and besides Lex wanted to be closer to the dig site. He did not let the idea of sleeping in a burial chamber bother him. Was too tired for that anyway.
He thought of Lana in her Parisian art school, and wondered how long he should wait to make his desires known to her. A week? A month? Six? As long as she was away from Clark Kent, that was all that truly mattered. Just a little longer, and she would become his sole pursuit. Soon after, he was sure, she would succumb.
Lex drifted off to sleep with a smile on his face.