Author:
Date: 12-07-2010
Rated: M, for very graphic sexual scenes.
Warning: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh or the Kiss of the Highlander by Karen Marie Moning, the book this story his based on. Also my mother tongue is the Portuguese and this story doesn't have a Beta so it is quite likely that this and future chapters have some mistakes.
Reviews are most appreciated, the more feedback I get more quickly I will write!
Chapter 1
Prologue
A dog that intends to bite does not bear his tooth
Ta-meri*1
1481 B.C
"The nesu*2 is dangerous, Mahado"
"What are you talking about mother" asked the priest.
Mahado looked out the window watching the exotic plants curling in the blazing sun. His mother was reading the sorts and was he foolish enough to turn around and look at her eyes, she would interpret it as a sign and he would be dragged to another conversation about a fantastic forecast. The wisdom of his mother, wich was never been perfect, marred day after day, consumed by strange dreams.
"My yew sticks told me that the Pharaoh*2 represents a serious danger to thee"
"The neb*2?"
Surprised, Mahado glanced over his shoulder. Cowering behind the desk, his mother sat up, proud that she was able to hold his attention. It's done. He thought with an inner sigh. It was not the first and it would not be certainly the last time that he would let himself get into her conversation as easily as if his long robes had ensnared in silva and now he would need finesse to end that before things degenerate into a secular discussion.
Besseta Alexander had lost so much in life that clung fiercely to what remained - Mahado. He stifled the urge to throw open the door and escape to the serenity of his own apartment, knowing she would not fail to corner him again at the first opportunity.
Instead he said gently:
"Pharaoh Atem doesn't represent any danger for me. He is a great nesu and I feel honored to have been chose as one of his priests and adviser"
Besseta shook her head, her lower lip trembling as a drop of saliva dripping between her lips.
"You have a limited vision child. You cannot see what I see. This is really horrible, Mahado"
He gave him his most reassuring smile, which, despite his youth, was always able to soothe the sufferer's hearts.
"Please stop trying to guess my life with these clubs and runes...you're start to become paranoic"
"What kind of mother would I be if I don't worried with your future?" scream Besseta
Mahado crossed the room and kiss the wrinkled face, then he run his hand through the sticks undo the misterious disposition.
"That's enough. This play that you love so much is nothing else than that, a game"
Besseta adopted a defensive position and start to collect her things while glared to her son.
"These sticks are much more that a little game. I beg you, give them the due respect. He must be stoped!"
The curiosity took the best over his resolution in put an end to that conversation once for all .He cannot expect to put an end at her illusions if he didn't know what they were, right?
"Supposedly what will the Pharaoh do that is so bad?"
"He will take a lady. She will be a threat to you...I think she will kill you"
Mahado opened and closed his mouth like a Nile perch beached on the riverbank. That's it, his mother was surely loosing her conection with reality.
"Why should the neb's wife try to kill me?"
"I can't see why. Maybe the young lady will fall in love with you and wrongdoing will come from that"
"Now you are realy conceive things. Fall in love with me instead of Pharaoh Atem?"
Besseta glance at him quickly averting her eyes.
"You are a good-looking lad Mahado" she say with a motherly confidence.
Mahado knew the true, he realy was good-looking but he wasn't like the charming Pharaoh, who was made for war, conquer and seduce women and men alike.
"Save your sticks. I don't want to hear nothing of this nonsense."
Besseta keep her eyes on the ceil in one stubborn silence.
"Look at me mother. You have to promiss!"
As he refuse to withdraw his requirement or avert his firm stare she shrugged and nodded.
"I will not damage the nesu, Mahado. Now out of here" She said bluntly.
"I have things to do"
Pleased with his mother answer. And beliving that she would not pester the Pharaoh with such things Mahado take off to the palace with absolute sure that by dinner time she would have already forgoten all of this.
In the followed days Besseta attempted over and over again make her son see the mortal danger that hung above him. He admonish her gently, rebuke her less gently and showed that wrinkles of sorrow around his brow that she so hated to see.
Wrikles that clearly say My mom is becoming crazy.
Despair foray into her old bones and she realised that it was in her hands to make something to help her son. She would not lose her only child. He was everything that she had. She refused to belive that the ability of foresight was been given to her just for her to sit quietly and wait.
When, a little after the tenebrous vision a group of bedouins come to town she knew that she had found the perfect solution.
It took time to negociated with the right people; albeit right was not properly the word that she would use to describe the kind of people that she was required to deal.
She could see the future but that wasn't nothing in comparation with some of the practics of the wild bedouins that sold jinx and charms side by side with other more ordinary goods. But the worst is that she had have to steal the valuable book of spells from Mahado as a way fo payment. When he found out he would be shattered.
But alive!
Although Besseta had passed many sleepless nights due to her decision she knew that the sticks had never been wrong. If she did nothing Pharaoh Atem would take a wife and that woman wouldl kill her son. In that point the sticks have been very clear. If the stick had told her more, maybe how the woman would do that or when and why, maybe then she wouldn't feel so desesperate. How could she possibly survive without Mahado? Who would help her in her oldness?Alone, the big and hungry darkness would swallow her in a wink. She had no other option but make Pharaoh Atem disapear.
One week later Besseta meet with the bedouins and their chefe- a man with dark hair named Rushka - in the beautiful oasis close to the capital.
Pharaoh Atem was lying unconscious at her feet.
She stared at him with caution. The Pharaoh was a tall man for the standard of their people, with golden, exotic skin that cover a little montain of muscles that defined the perfect and manly body of the ruler. A tricolor mane that till now continue to suprise everyone by its exuberance stand up vaguely remind the outline of a crown. But maybe his most unique trait were his dark crimson eyes now occult behind thick eyelashes that had the fame of be able to bring the stongest of the men to his knees with just a stare. All this combined formed the most beautiful man ever seen in those lands. That just contribute to support the belief that the nesu was realy a god because just gods could be so perfect.
Besseta shuddered and moved away a little in fear. The bedouins laughed.
"The moon could fall on him and yet he would not awake" said Rushka with a mischievous glint in his black eyes.
"Are you sure?" insisted Besseta.
"This is not an ordinary sleep"
"You dont kill him, did you?"ask her worried "I promisse Mahado that I wouldn't damage him.""
Rushka arch his right eyebrow.
"You have an interesting code woman!" he mockery "No, this will not kill him. He will just sleep forevermore. It's an ancient spell. Performed with the all the caution"
When Rushka turned around given instructions to his men to place the Pharaoh on the wagon, Besseta let out a sigh of pure relief. That had been risky - sneak to the palace,drugged the wine and lure him to the oasis - but everythig had gone according the plan. He had fall close to the limpid lake and the bedouins had begun the ritual. They had painted strange symbols on his chest, frosted him with herbs and intoned songs.
Though the bedouins make her feel uncomfortable and she was anxious to run back to the safety of her home, she had made herself stay and watch to be sure that the crafty bedouins fulfilled their part of the bargain. A soon as the last words of the spell had been pronounced, the air itself had change: she felt an unusual cold, a sudden and completly fatigue and could swear that had saw a bright light around the unconscious neb. Yes the magic of the bedouins was truly strong.
"Forever, forever?" insisted Besseta "He would never awake,will he?"
"I already told you, woman!"say Rushka impatiently "The man will sleep,stagnat, completly untouched by time, he will not awake unless that human blood and sunlight mixed over the spell on his chest"
" Blood and sunlight would wake him? But that cannot be. Ever!" exclaimed Besseta started to panic again.
"That will not happen. You have my word. Not where we plan to hide the body. The sunlight would never touch him in the caves near the Nile. No one would ever find him. No one knows that place but us."
"You have to hide him as deep as possible" insisted Besseta "Lock him inside. He cannot never be found!"
"I already say that you have my word" retorted Rushka sharply.
When the bedouins, wagon in tow, disapear in the sands Besseta fall to her knees and murmured a prayer of gratitude to all the gods known and unkown. Some eventual feel of guilt were easily forgotten compared to the relief, and she comfort herself with the thought that she had not realy harm him.
He remain, as she had promissed to Mahado,unscathed.
In essence.
*1
The ancient Egyptians used various names to refer to their land.
The most common was:
Kemet, "the Black Land", which applied specifically to the territory on the banks of the Nile, which alluded to the black soil brought by the river every year;
Decheret, "the Red Land", referring to the desert with its burning sands, where the Egyptians penetrated only to bury their dead or to explore the gems.
They could also call it:
Taui ("the Two Lands", ie the Upper and Lower Egypt);
Ta-Meri (Beloved Land ");
Ta-netjeru (" The Land of the Gods ").
In the Bible:
Egypt is known as Mizraim.
The actual word Egypt derives from the Greek Aigyptos Egypt (pronounced Aiguptos), believed to derive in turn from the Egyptian Hetkaptah, "the mansion of the soul of Ptah".
Some present inhabitants of Egypt call their country of Misr.
*2
Today the kigs of ancient Egypt are called "Pharaoh", but this word that derives from per-aá was not the most usual in Egypt to refer to the monarch. The Egyptians refer to the Pharaoh as nesu (king) or neb (lord). The term per-aá means "great abode" and was initially applied to the royal palace; only from the XVIII dinasty as also applied to the king, largely through the influence of foreign peoples. Also the date - 1481 B.C - in the begining of the chapter fits the reign of Hatshepsut, the woman-Pharaoh, who was the 5º ruler of the XVIII dinasty Of the New Empire.
And that's it. Please review