The Book of Thoth
sister silence

(1927, London, England)

The American leveled a glare at the obstacle barring his way that was meant to shake the confidence of any opponent. Unfortunately, this particular locked door had no concept of self-preservation to speak of and so was not moved at all by this display of ferocity. It seemed that Richard O'Connell, the sometime soldier, dashing adventurer, and reluctant hero, was at last humbled by the mystery of one simple cherry-stained door. Not to be bested, however, Rick employed a desperate strategy, engulfing the door knob in one hand, slowly, cautiously, and with all the gravity of a man waiting for the axe to fall. Trying to shake the sensation of disaster breathing on his neck, he jiggled the handle futilely.

"Let it go, O'Connell," his brother-in-law advised sagely, not even bothering to stir from his careless sprawl on the sitting room couch. "She's not coming out."

Rick let an inaudible sigh escape his lips, but he lingered where he was just to prove that he hadn't fallen into the bad habit of listening to Jonathan. He began to shake the handle more violently, which eventually led him to rattling the entire door in its frame, and finally, rationally, to pounding on the wood with both fists. This proved no more successful than his other endeavors, though, and within minutes he abandoned his effort and leaned his full weight wearily against the door frame.

"Can't she hear me?" he vocalized his frustration.

"I bloody well can," Jonathan moaned as he turned onto his side, "and you're ruining my one chance at a decent nap."

Rick swiveled to face the Englishman, crossing his arms in the process. "I'd love to hear your reason as to why my house is a much more convenient place to attend to your beauty sleep than your own home."

Jonathan opened both his eyes wide, managing to look both mildly surprised and entirely like a cornered animal. "Yes, well, much more comfortable place you and missus have here, you see. Besides, mine is, ah, occupied at the moment."

"'Occupied'," Rick rolled the word ominously in his mouth. "May I ask what sort of guests you're entertaining this time?"

"Oh, just some old friends. Nice chaps, but no one a respectable gentleman such as yourself would be interested in making the acquaintance of, O'Connell."

"Hmm," the sound rumbled forbiddingly in Rick's throat. "Since you've really been no help to me with the crisis at hand, I'd hate to deprive these 'nice chaps' of their gracious host any longer. It might just be time for you to go home, Jonathan."

Jonathan floundered, panic-stricken, and struggled to sit upright. "Now, now, Rick, let's not be too hasty. You never even gave me the opportunity to answer your question."

"I'm waiting."

Very deliberately, Jonathan took his time in resituating himself into a more comfortable position. "The fact of the matter is that she can hear you just fine, but she chooses not to."

"And why would that be?"

Jonathan's whole body moved in a shrug as he allowed his eyelids to slip closed. "How should I know? You're the one who married her; I'm only related by blood. I can't be expected to solve your marital problems."

"Try," Rick gritted between clinched teeth.

Jonathan opened his eyes into thin slits. "Mmm…All I can tell you is that she's always done things like this, ever since we were children. Whenever one of those ancient texts comes across her hands, she gets reclusive and she won't speak to a soul until she turns those bloody pictures into something resembling a real language."

"So," Rick drawled, "let me get this straight…She's in there…"

"Obviously."

"…and she's not going to speak to me until she's finished with this little project she didn't even bother to mention to me, her husband."

"Very astute. No wonder my baby sister chose you over everyone else."

Rick absorbed the barb along with the implications of the situation, and quietly simmered. He wasn't angry with Evie exactly, just irritated with her in a general fashion for ignoring him, for not thinking to share her new discovery with him, for putting him in this predicament. But mostly he was furious with himself for feeling so lost without her presence, for allowing himself to need anyone so desperately that he couldn't wait a day or three to see her. Nothing like this had ever taken hold of him before, and he wasn't so sure he was comfortable yet with this housecat role he was taking on.

At last, in his silent fuming, he stumbled upon the most eloquent phrase to express his rage, his frustration, his longing, his uneasiness: "Dammit."

"Pardon?" Jonathan demanded.

Rick settled his gaze on his brother-in-law, realizing he was about to do something incredibly stupid and that he no longer cared. Really, what would one little broken promise matter now? She'd probably never know.

"I said that I need a drink."

Jonathan's face brightened.

There were very few things in life that Richard O'Connell and Jonathan Carnahan managed to agree on, Evelyn being one, and the value of a good, stiff scotch in a tough spot being another. Undead mummies who abducted librarians and brought plagues of locust were, mysteriously enough, the third and final subject they were in accord on.

"That's what I thought you said, my good man. Well, I doubt the old girl will notice if we pop out for a few minutes. Or hours. Whichever."

°

(1289 B.C.E., Thebes)

It was the second time that day that Labarnas' adventure--and not to mention his life--had almost come to an ignoble and premature end.

The first incident had found him asleep in the hold of a ship scarcely after sunrise, lulled into oblivion by the gentle rolling of the Nile. Without his knowledge, the ship had docked that morning in the port at Thebes, and a porter had been tasked with unloading the cargo, both expected and unexpected. It just so happened that Labarnas had never gotten around to paying his passage on this particular vessel, it being solely a merchant ship and he with only a single item of value to his name, one which he would never be voluntarily parted from. Labarnas didn't envy the unfortunate porter that had confronted him, not for the nasty bruise he would have when he regained consciousness, nor for the beating he would receive when the captain learned the news of the escaped stow-away.

The second occasion was over a woman, of course.

He had spent the scorching hours of the afternoon in a lazy amble from shade to shade in the streets of Thebes, occasionally charming a morsel of food from a stranger, but more often alone in his own brooding mood. It was impossible for him to imagine creating a new life here in Egypt, where he would be as much of a fugitive as he had been in his own home, and he considered the prospect of journeying farther south, to Nubia perhaps. But he had recently developed an aversion to traveling by ship, and the possibility of enduring the perils of the desert without money for the proper provisions was even more daunting, leaving him unsure of how he would ever reach his goal. He was beginning to believe that it would have been more honorable to be murdered in his native country, where he could have at least been given the dignity of a traditional burial and family to mourn him, instead of dying here in Egypt, alone and forsaken.

As his thoughts wandered into darker ideas, his feet too turned in a different direction, leading him into a neighborhood of the more affluent villas of the kingdom's greatest nobles, their white walls clustered as near as possible to the Pharaoh's palace. He now not only had to compete with pedestrian traffic, but he was also forced to scramble out of the way of speeding chariots and weave around litters glittering with gold. Which was exactly how he managed to collide with this particular woman; while his concentration was absorbed with calling down the wrath of the gods on the head of one particularly reckless chariot driver in his faltering Egyptian, his feet continued his planned course straight into a warm body.

His inspection of this unforeseen obstacle began with the feet, encased in gold-gilded sandals and, beneath the usual coating of dust, well-manicured and undeniably feminine. Brushing her ankles, the texture and cut of the linen she wore spoke of wealth and nobility, thin, nearly transparent, and bleached immaculately white. Clasping the cloth to her at the waist was a braided gold chord, from which hung an amulet of the goddess Hathor inscribed with a spell of protection. Her shoulders were traditionally bare and the skin there was uncommonly pale for an Egyptian, obviously unaccustomed to hours spent out in the elements. Her only piece of adornment was a testament to master craftsmanship, a golden collar inlaid with rectangular cuts of lapis lazuli, onyx, and garnet that glittered fiercely at her throat. The complimentary beads decorating her wig were stirred against her smooth cheeks by a slight breeze, drawing his attention even farther upwards. Shimmering black kohl dramatically darkened the edges of her eyelids, emphasizing the wise loveliness of her eyes, as well as the fact that her eyebrows had been shaven in the Egyptian ritual of mourning.

As he faced her for the first time, he heard the involuntary intake of breath shudder on her lips. His eyes, an intense shade of cerulean blue, were even more uncommon in the Two Lands than they had been in his homeland, and often elicited this kind of response. In Memphis, some had called him kehft-man, spirit-man, and had spoken charms to ward off evil, but more often his eyes worked to his advantage since the Egyptians appreciated their rarity and beauty more than they feared them.

It was in that space of time when their gazes first intersected that he finally realized that he was treading on the corner of her gown. His own surprise led him to overreact, stumbling a few steps backward, and in an unusually clumsy movement, he tripped over his own feet, lurched sideways, and fell.

But by some unhappy chance of the gods, he happened to tumble at the feet of one of the most feared militants in all the nations surrounding the Mediterranean, the personal guards of the Pharaohs, the Medjai.

The man whose toes he had crushed grabbed his wrist in order to haul him back to his feet, but in another act of providence, he seized upon the one hand that held the only remaining evidence of the young man's origins. The grip on Labarnas' fingers tightened noticeably.

"What's this?" the soldier growled, though he had clearly recognized the significance of the signet ring. He nearly wrenched Labarnas' shoulder out of its socket as he drug the man to his knees. "How did you come by this pretty piece?" he demanded louder.

"Reshed," a second man bearing the same telling tattoos as Reshed approached, followed by a third, "do you wish to alert all of the Black Land? Hush. Now, what is the quarrel you have with this man?"

"I have no quarrel with him, Captain, beyond the fact that he is a spy."

The captain, a remarkably young man for one in his position, managed to take on a concerned countenance. "A very serious quarrel indeed. And what evidence do you have against this supposed spy?"

"Only what he himself wears." Reshed yanked Labarnas' arm again, causing a fresh spasm of pain, so that his captain could see the ring for himself. "The crest of the royal house of the Hittites, there, on his ring."

"Do you think he might be a thief, Captain?" the third man, who had been silent so far, asked as he peered over his superior's shoulder.

"A Hittite spy," reiterated Reshed vehemently, "come to kidnap the Great Royal Wife, obviously."

"Really," the captain questioned Reshed, "one so clumsy as this? Do you believe that he could have penetrated so far into the capital undetected, only to fall easily into our hands at the first opportunity?" He addressed their new captive for the first time, looking down on him, "Who are you? Tell me your name, man."

Labarnas straightened his shoulders with all the tattered remains of his pride, trying to shake the numbness that was the result of Reshed's hold. "Call off your eager little puppy first. If he lets me go with all my limbs intact, I might just tell you." He added as incentive, "I promise not to run. I am not so much a fool as to overestimate my odds against three armed men."

"Release him."

"But, Captain--"

"Let him be, Reshed. He is mine to deal with as I please." The captain extended a hand as Reshed relinquished his prisoner, and he helped to set Labarnas back on his feet. "Now, your name."

Labarnas flashed the Medjai his most dazzling smile as he stretched his offended arm. "I've changed my mind. A name holds a great deal of power, so I will give mine only in exchange for your own, Captain."

The air quivered as a blade sliced through it, the point coming to rest in the vulnerable hollow of his neck. Young Reshed was trembling with rage. "You will address the captain with more respect, or I will carve out your throat."

"Enough, Reshed. It is not your place to make such decisions," the captain chided in a quiet voice that was far more menacing than any bellow. The weapon withdrew reluctantly. "A trade is only fair. My name is Humay."

Labarnas glanced once into the face of Humay, outlined in the brilliance of the sun, and realized he might be seeing the reflection of his own features for the final time in those dark eyes. A Hittite had become a hated creature in the Two Kingdoms ever since the late Pharaoh Seti had launched a campaign to regain territory lost to the Hittites by the preceding dynasty, and his son Rameses had followed his father's example. To be a Hittite was to be an enemy, and to be a Hittite prince was inexcusable. His dignity would allow him to do nothing less than pronounce his own death sentence in the streets of Thebes, but it was a far better fate than living his life in secrecy in these alien lands.

"I did not steal any ring. I am not ashamed of who I am: Larbarnas, a prince of the Hittites."

"Are you certain, my friend, that you did not steal another's name as well? Be careful how you answer."

"I am who I say I am."

"Very well." Emotion flickered in the corners of the captain's lips like the taste of something sour in his mouth, but was quickly suppressed. "Then the sentence is death--but," he let his eyes rest on Reshed, "no hand but mine shall deliver it."

Humay drew his curved sword from the sheath at his side, and the flash of its shining surface in the sun elicited a gasp from those who had stopped in the streets to watch the exchange.

"Wait!"