In the halls of the dead I strode. A knife at my hip and a cloak around my shoulders, the sum of my defences in this chamber of ill thoughts and abruptly ended journeys. The walk here had opened the skin of my feet a dozen times over, sand and stone and rot clinging to my soles, sticking to the dull brown and black of clotting blood. I pressed on; paying only the slightest attention to the ache in my flesh, or the sting that seemed to run through each inch of my veins.
As the walls began to stand closer together, and the stone roof above me became no more than a few inches from my head, I saw my goal. Smooth and shimmering, the black stone surface closed off the rest of the passage ahead, squatting in the tunnel, watching me approach, reflecting my own image back at me so I could take in just how the journey here had ravaged me. I stopped and dropped to my knees, my head bowed before the reflection.
"One day," I said, "I will be able to forget ever making these journeys."
"One day," my reflection told me, "I'll make all the journeys for you. And you can have a well-deserved rest."
My thoughts turned to rest. To be able to just fall back, collapse in the desert and turn to sand. To become indistinguishable from the golden tides, and drift in sleep forever. One day, but not yet.
"I have work that needs attention first." I told my reflection. "I need my revenge."
"You need to get them back."
"What would I do with those… Things?"
"Those things are your friends. They are your family. The pharaoh took them from you in every way he could. You can get them back."
"They're all dead. Stealing away those trinkets won't change that."
"So you would leave your own family in the hands of the pharaoh and his court of murderers?"
I had no response for that. I kept my head down, staring into the black dust on the floor, trying to find something to say amidst the swirls and curves of the grains. I could see the feet of my reflection pacing back and forth, stopping, one foot tapping impatiently.
"You need to get them back." It repeated.
"Do I? Or do you just want me to get them back?"
"What am I?" It asked me, "If not you?"
"They won't just hand them over." I said, raising my head, looking my own reflection in the eye for the first time.
"And if they did, where would the fun be?" It was grinning. A grim, clumsy expression, more like a parody of a smile than any true show of glee. "No, perhaps they will be interested in a trade…"
"A trade?"
"They stole the last remnants of your family. Tore them away and held them from you. Perhaps you could work something out if you followed their example."
"The pharaoh has no living family." I informed the reflection; sure that it already knew that.
"Then you should think yourself lucky. The dead are much easier to hold to ransom…"
My reflection chuckled as it began to fade. A low, scratching laugh. It echoed down the halls that I had journeyed through, sending a cascade of dust from the rough walls and a skittering of insects dislodged from their hiding places. By the time the laughter had died away, my reflection was long gone. The stone was dull, dark and lifeless. I was left alone in that dismal place, my new journey clear to me.
A petty thief would steal a Pharaoh's trinkets. A great thief would steal a Pharaoh's treasures. But a King of Thieves. Well… He would just have to steal a Pharaoh…