APLR - 6
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Disclaimer : I make no money nor do I own this. As much as I'd like to … maybe within my own insanity? [closes eyes and sees lawyers waving papers and frightening looking subpoenas] … not even there.
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AN: Lucretzia - LOL, although the scimitar threat was a tad much. Oh, and the groveling worked nicely.
But seriously, school began again this last week and considering that I'm transferring at the end of this semester - studying is a must. So things might get delayed when schoolwork takes precedence.
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The next morning Harry was down with the sarcophagus, his cousins and Rick as they propped the sarcophagus against the wall. Today was the day they were going to figure out who was inside the coffin.
"Evy," he said as he noticed the sacred spells that had obviously been chiseled off. "This man was truly condemned."
"How can you tell?" Rick asked.
"The spells. They've been chiseled off. He must have been condemned not only in this life, but in the next as well." Evy concluded
"Tough Break." Rick said as he leaned slightly against it and preparing his handholds for the lid.
"I'm all for tears," Jonathan said as he used the key to open the coffin. "Now let's see who's inside, shall we?"
A loud roar hit their ears and immediately Jonathan and Rick dropped the lid to the coffin and looked at the mummy within.
That wasn't what shocked Harry. The first thing he saw were the scarab skeletons. 'The Hom Dai.' he thought with dread.
"Oh, I hate it when these things do that!" Evy exclaimed.
Rick looked in a mixture of shock and fear at the mummy, "Is he supposed to look like that?"
"No, I've never seen a mummy that looked like this before. He must be…"
"At least three thousand." Harry said as he looked back from the journal that he was keeping and turned back a few pages. "According to the hieroglyphics, this man was buried after the death of Seti. It doesn't refer to him in any other way other than to say that he would forever remain unnamed as punishment for his crimes against Egypt."
"Yes, but still… he's still…"
"Juicy." Rick and Jon said together.
"Yes, he's at least three thousand years old and it looks as if he's still… decomposing." she said as she gazed at the mummy in a mixture of disgust and curiosity.
Harry pried his gaze from the scarab skeletons and looked at the lid. "Evy…" he said as he read over the message left by the mummy. "I think he was buried alive."
Evy leaned over the lid and ran her hand along the markings. "Fingernails… what must he have done to deserve such a fate?" she asked before she saw that he left a message. "He left a message…"
Harry leaned over the lid, "Death… is only the beginning." he translated and they all gazed at the mummy's corpse.
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"Say, O'Connell, what do you think these babies'll fetch back home?" Henderson asked as he shook one of the sacred canopic jars while Burns grinned at him.
Harry looked at him from his position on the side of Rick while Beni sat on the other side. For the last hour or so, Beni had explained to them - to the best of his ability- about what the Americans had found. Needless to say, Harry was slightly disturbed over their care-free attitude regarding the cursed chest they had opened. Fortunately, all he did was raise an eyebrow as he continued to sharpen the blade of his scimitar.
"We hear you boys found yourself a nice gooey mummy." Daniels chuckled as they all sat down on the other side of the fire. "Congratulations, you know if you dried that fellow out you could sell him for firewood."
Harry continued to ignore their jests before he and Rick noticed Evy coming up to the fire. He knew what most people thought of his ancestor's remains - that they were some sort of joke to be on display for the rest of the world. But the truth of the matter was that they were the ones who were disgracing themselves, showing off the remains of ancient kings and nobles for their own sick amusement. Not funny nor entertaining in any way.
"You're in her seat – now." Rick snarled and Beni jumped away with a quickly yipped, "Yeah."
"Look what I found!" Evelyn exclaimed from beside them, clearly excited by whatever she held. Harry knew that she must have found the scarab skeletons for her to be so excited. The mummy they found was one of the first to have actually been found to have suffered the Hom-dai. "Scarab skeletons, flesh eaters; I found them inside our friend's coffin. They can stay alive for years, feeding on the flesh of a corpse. Unfortunately for our friend, he was still alive when they started eating him." Evelyn explained as she sat down on the other side of Rick where Beni had previously been sitting.
"So, someone threw these in with our guy and they slowly ate him alive."
"Very slowly." Evelyn assured them.
"Well, he certainly wasn't a popular fellow was he?" Jonathon murmured.
"No," Rick said, deciding, suddenly, to cheer things up a bit, "probably got a little too frisky with the pharaohs daughter." Rick said with a grin.
Evy slightly laughed. "According to my readings, our friend suffered the Hom-dai, the worst of all ancient Egyptian curses, one reserved only for the most evil of blasphemers. In all my research I've never heard of this curse actually being performed." Evelyn lectured, trying to bring a serious light on the event, thinking they weren't taking this seriously enough.
"That bad, huh?" O'Connell muttered.
This was where Harry took over, Evy's lack of faith wasn't going to help the explanation of this. He knew she didn't respect ancient curses. "The Hom-dai has only ever been previously written about in fragmented texts. Trust me when I say that they didn't take the curse lightly. It is written that if a victim of the Hom-dai should ever arise, he would bring with him the ten plagues of Egypt." he said as he noticed the Americans look nervously between them. It was obvious they hadn't paid heed to the warning on the chest. It was for that reason that the chest was above ground.
Harry had read it and then he realized who it was that must be in the coffin. It was Imhotep, Pharaoh Seti's high priest and the one who had tried to raise the murderer of Seti (his mistress Anck-Su-Namun) from the grave.
He sighed as he yawned, he really needed to get some decent sleep. "I'm ready for sleep. I've got the shift before sunrise." he said to the others as he claimed guard duty over the area from the Medjai (which certainly explained their presence now that he knew who was buried under the sands).
AN- in his past life, Haru was involved with Imhotep for a short time. Should that remain or should he be with someone else?
Ardeth
Imhotep
Other (please specify in a review, NOT Jonathan - incest is not an option)
THERE IS A POLL ON MY PROFILE PAGE. IF YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW IT IS GOING THAT IS PROBABLY THE BETTER SOURCE.
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