Thebes; City of the Living; crown jewel of Pharaoh Seti I; a golden city upon golden waters under a golden Egyptian sun. Thebes, with its wide ways and statues that dared the gods with their soaring heights. Thebes, with its royal palace overlooking a sparkling city and sparkling waters, to which Seti on this day was making his glorious return. Thebes, the home of Imhotep – Pharaoh's high priest, Keeper of the Dead; birthplace of Anakh-sun-amun, the Pharaoh's mistress. No other man was allowed to touch her. But for their love… they were willing to risk life itself.

They met at sundown, the priest and the mistress, behind golden doors and shimmering curtains. The lesser priests Imhotep had stationed as guards looked like part of the statuary, their gilded skin blending almost completely with the doors behind them. He took her in his arms with all the urgency of knowing their time would be short and their further opportunities few. But they had forgotten their limitations; Anakh-sun-amun's arms had been covered in sacred painted symbols and shimmering oils. Now they were covered in unmistakable smudges, in the shape of Imhotep's hands.

Pharaoh Seti I threw his weight against the golden double doors, barging through the line of frightened priests set to guard them. His kohl-darkened brows came together.

"What are you doing here?" But he didn't wait for the answer to his question. Instead, he made his way expectantly toward the private room behind the curtains. With a snap of his wrists he flung back the gauzy linen partition, revealing Anakh-sun-amun – a coy look on her beautiful face and one arm resting innocently on a golden statue of Sekhmet. Despite his mistress's stance, Seti's quick eyes soon found exactly what he had expected. He pointed accusingly at her arm. "Who has touched you!?" The girl's eyes drifted guiltily down to the smeared paint; as she lifted her gaze, she unwittingly caught the eyes of the man who stood quietly at the Pharaoh's back. Seti caught the glance and turned. "Imhotep?! My priest!!"

These were the Pharaoh's final words in his beloved Thebes. Imhotep took Seti's sword from its scabbard and plunged its gilded length into his ruler's body. Anakh-sun-amun followed suit, piercing Seti's back with the dagger she had kept hidden behind hers. Their hearts thumped loudly in their chests – but not so loud that they couldn't hear the marching approach of the palace guards.

"Pharaoh's bodyguards!" Imhotep gasped as he pulled the sword free of its bloody sheath. Anakh-sun-amun grasped his arm.

"Go, save yourself!"

"No!"

"Only you can resurrect me!" Imhotep's jaw clenched; her eyes implored him to go, to prepare for the rituals that would bring her back from the death that was now unavoidable. His priests had taken his arms now, pulling him toward a hidden door.

"Get away from me, leave me alone!" He continued to struggle with them until he met her gaze again; he only just stopped his tears as she silently traced his face with her trembling hand. Then he was pulled backward from the room, calling to her as he went, "You shall live again! I will resurrect you!!" The secret door closed on them as the curtains were ripped open. A dumbfounded squad of guards stopped short over the body of the Pharaoh, then stared at Anakh-sun-amun questioningly. She answered with defiance.

"My body is no longer his temple!" Before any of them could stop her, she buried the dagger hilt-deep in her own torso.

To resurrect Anakh-sun-amun, Imhotep and his priests broke into her crypt and stole her body. They raced deep into the desert, taking Anakh-sun-amun's corpse to Hamunaptra, City of the Dead, burial site for the sons of pharaohs and resting place for the wealth of Egypt. For his love, Imhotep dared the gods' anger by going deep inside the city, where he took the black Book of the Dead from its holy resting place.

Anakh-sun-amun's soul had been sent to the dark Underworld, her vital organs removed and placed in five sacred canopic jars. These now stood in a careful arrangement around her black-shrouded body, which had been laid out on a stone table in the lowest chamber of the city. Imhotep's priests knelt in a circle around it, intoning sacred verses, waiting for the ritual to begin. With one wistful glance at her lifeless face, Imhotep began reading from the black Book. The sacred pool nearby began bubbling as the gateway to the Underworld was opened; a dark, fluid shape emerged from the waters, making its way to the body on the table. The corpse shook, its eyes flickered open. Anakh-sun-amun's soul had come back from the dead. Imhotep, his eyes flashing, lifted the ritual knife high; but he couldn't bring it down – a strong hand held his wrist firmly in place. Pharaoh's bodyguards had followed him, and they stopped him before the ritual could be completed. Anakh-sun-amun's soul returned to the sacred pool with a resounding splash; Imhotep let out a strangled cry as his tried to follow her. The guards wrestled the knife from his hand as they dragged him to the sah-netjer, the embalmers' room, to meet his fate.

Imhotep's priests were condemned to be mummified alive. As for Imhotep, he was condemned to endure the hum-dai, the worst of all ancient curses, one so horrible it had never before been bestowed. His tongue was removed, his writhing, struggling body wrapped in layer upon layer of linen; he was then placed, wriggling and half-suffocated, into an un-engraved and unprepared coffin. This was then filled to the brim with the hissing contents of a cauldron – thousands of flesh-eating scarabs, their bodies iridescent in the flickering torchlight as they searched for an opening in the bandages. Then the coffin was closed, forever, locked with a key held by the head guard and buried under the watchful stone eyes of the god Anubis.

He was to remain sealed inside his sarcophagus, the undead for all eternity. The guards would never allow him to be released, for he would arise as a walking disease, a plague upon mankind – an unholy flesh eater with the strength of ages, power over the sands, and the glory of invincibility.

I

A Desert Battle

Hamunaptra, 1923

For three thousand years, men and armies fought over this land, never knowing what evil lay beneath it. And for three thousand years, the Medjai – descendants of Pharaoh's sacred bodyguards – kept watch. This day was no different.

Formed up for battle against Hamunaptra's ruined outer walls, the ranks of the French Foreign Legion quivered collectively at the piercing war cries of an approaching Arab army. Their commander did more than that; he spurred his horse and left the field, attacked by a sudden wave of cowardice. Two soldiers turned to watch him go. One of them, a slim and weasely Hungarian named Beni, turned to the man beside him.

"You just got promoted," he said matter-of-factly. Richard O'Connell simply turned his chiseled face back toward the advancing enemy. It was a face that had been tanned by the sun of countless places, and that had taken little real pleasure in any of them; a face that had taken the blows of countless fists without damage, and the acid of countless jeers without even blinking. Sharp green eyes took in everything and gave away nothing. A bead of sweat slipped down the slightly creased forehead to trickle down the channel cut through the right eyebrow by a scar almost old enough to be forgotten. Rick allowed his cheek to caress the steel of the gun that was tucked against his shoulder like an old friend, a childhood toy. Sometimes a gun was the only thing a man had that made sense, that never changed, that could always be counted on. Taking his place in the stead of his runaway commander, he called out his first orders in urgent and unfamiliar French. The fierce battle cry of the Arabs was ringing in their ears, unsettling a few of those men less accustomed to the field of combat.

"Steady!" Rick called to calm his men. Turning slightly to Beni he asked, "You're with me on this one, right?" Beni nodded nervously, his Hungarian accent growing thicker with his increasing fear, sounding shrill and out of place against Rick's smooth, flat American baritone.

"Oh, your strengt gives me strengt." Rick curled his lip slightly, unconvinced. It had been his experience that his comrade in arms most often had a strength that lasted a grand total of five seconds. He didn't even need to look to confirm his suspicions. Beni's nerve failed him as the Arabs approached, their horses' hooves shaking the ruins around him. With a shake of his head, the little man jumped up, threw down his gun, and ran after his former commander, calling to him in desperation. "Vait for me!!" Rick shook his head quickly in disgust, returning his attention to the advancing enemy. They were closing. It was all about timing, now. How many times had that rule saved him? That instinct his father had trained into him as a child, matching his pulse with the movements of his opponent, and choosing the right heartbeat with which to time his shot? He took a deep breath, watched, and waited.

"Fire!!" Scores of French Foreign Legion bullets flew into the ranks of the enemy, and Rick's heart skipped a beat as he caught the harsh metallic scent of gun smoke. It thrilled him, as did the jolt of the gun against his collarbone, the thud that traveled down through his core and made his limbs tingle. But, in war as in all else, turnabout was fair play. The Arabs fired as the Legion soldiers struggled to reload, thinning the ranks around Rick by nearly a third. He looked up and cursed through his teeth; clearly the mounted and mobile Arabs had the advantage, with newer guns that were much quicker to reload. He took out three or four with well-placed shots before backing away reluctantly as the enemy's frontrunners galloped over the wall, nearly trampling him. He fired again. 'Last shot,' he thought blankly. 'And... a hit! That would be what, number 24 today, I think… whoa – !' The Arab horseman was almost in his face, having charged up from behind. Deciding against reloading, he shoved the muzzle of his gun into the man's face, pushing him off his horse and likely taking off half his nose. Again there was no time to reload. He threw the rifle and pulled a pair of pistols from the holsters at his sides. Going at a backwards run, he shot in a fanning motion, felling Arabs in a semicircle. 'Great. Out again.' He tossed these guns aside like the first and pulled two more from holsters at his back. Having then used every lethal projectile in his possession, he brained two Arabs with the empty pistols and ran from the three now on his tail.

Taking a flying leap over a low wall, he spied Beni crouching in a doorway pock-marked by time and bullets. He called to him. "Run, Beni! Run!" Beni turned with a start to see his old partner and new commander being pursued by a posse of several determined-looking Arab horsemen. "Get inside. Get inside!" Rick screamed, although a part of him paused long enough to wonder why he was bothering. Without hesitation, Beni followed Rick's advice. He scuttled inside the ancient shrine…and began pushing the door closed. Rick saw the motion and groaned inwardly – not that he hadn't expected as much. "Hey, don't you close that door – don't you close that door!!" Too late. He whirled around and ducked as two shots ricocheted off the now sealed door. Running a short distance, he threw himself into a somersault over an overturned column, landing in a cloud of sand. Two of the Arabs were still chasing him, and he stopped short as he caught sight of three more coming at him from another direction. Finding a gap in the oncoming ranks, he ran – until he found himself cornered against a statue that looked as worn as he did. Turning to face the horsemen, he realized with a defiant smirk how much he resembled a criminal before a firing squad (a situation he had already evaded twice in his life). They readied their guns. Richard O'Connell took a deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut, and prepared himself for what he guessed had been all of his twenty-odd years in coming. What he found instead, upon opening his eyes a few uneventful moments later, came as a pleasant surprise.

The Arabs were falling off their horses in their haste to get away from…something. Slowly Rick relaxed his face. They were gone. He was safe. 'Wait…' He turned around to look for whatever had frightened them off. All he saw was the statue. Anubis, ancient Egyptian god of the dead. Nothing abnormal… except for the strange whispered chanting that seemed to leak from its stone mouth. Then something else made him turn back around. A rogue wave of sand hit him like a breaker on a beach. He dodged right, then left; everywhere he went, another wave of sand lunged up to meet him. In a half-panic, he dropped to his knees and crawled out of the way. Where he had been standing moments before, an open-mouthed face stared up at him from the sand, and a roaring noise filled the air. He had never been one to run from a fight, never been shy about confronting a threat… but sand that moved like a living thing? Sometimes retreat was the most sensible option. He found his feet and was out of the city before the last of the sand had settled.

It was near sunset. The Arabs had fled. Rick began making his stumbling way across the desert, unarmed, unprovisioned, and uneasy. From a high rocky outcropping above the ruins, a band of Medjai watched him go.

"The creature remains undiscovered," their leader declared quietly. One of them stepped up to question him.

"And what of this one?" the older man asked, indicating the shrinking figure of Rick O'Connell on the sands below. "Should we kill him?"

"No." The leader shook his head. "The desert will kill him."