Ano
Seto Kaiba smirked down at me, viciously. "It's time to duel." He announced to the oasis. The Pharaoh nodded in agreement as the arm of his pale companion lashed out towards the water. "Kaiser Sea Horse -"
The depths of the oasis at my back erupted into a pillar of water as the great blue and purple sea creature sprang from its depths in a torrential rush of waves and spray.
"Celtic Guardian -" The Pharaoh shouted too with every bit of his pale companion's ferocity.
The greenery in front of me shifted swiftly. In a chorus of rustling leaves a shadow that was neither palm nor shrub rushed forward from its veiled vantage point in a whirl of green and brown.
"Attack!" The two bellowed in unison, thrusting their hands towards me and spiriting their servants into action.
An ambush?
With the flash of a silver blade the Celtic Guardian bared down upon me in a great lunge that drove me back towards the water, until the gold-tipped trident of the Kaiser Sea Horse struck a blunt blow to my back that staggered me back towards the Guardian's sword.
"Be careful of Mahad's body." The Pharaoh lectured Seto Kaiba, as if the foreigner himself had landed the blow.
"Hnh! I know." He argued back, the discord of the exchange contrary to the efficiency with which they had executed their strategy.
I had not prepared to face them yet, but trapped between sword and spear I had little choice but to retaliate. The Master's magic surged to my defense, a bleak black festering lump of a contraption bubbling onto my arm like a sickly boil, and with it the first of Mahad's spells answered my call as I put it into play.
"Thousand Knives!" A hail of daggers rippled outward from my body in every direction. The Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba pulled their arms up to shield their faces and were driven away from me as the wave of blades rained upon them.
"Celtic Guardian, protect Isis!" The Pharaoh commanded.
The pressure of the Guardian's blade and the blockage of my path forward vanished as the Guardian leapt away from me and back to the priestess's side in one powerful jump, stopping only to cover her with the heavy folds of his cloak. I side-stepped the spear of the Kaiser Sea Horse as it lunged to attack and was thankful for my host's magically heightened reflexes. My escape was short lived, putting only several men's worth of distance between me and my foes before the magical Knives finished their flurry.
The Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba lowered their arms from their faces and glanced each other over for a moment, seeing that neither had been damaged. Seto Kaiba was the first to recover his stance and threw his head back in deep mocking laughter.
"Mwhahaha. One thousand knives and not a single hit? Your aim is lousy!" He taunted, a dark amusement playing on his features. "I was hoping for better."
The Pharaoh was not so easily deceived. He frowned down at the Knives that had embedded themselves into the earth at his feet as they vanished into nothingness. "Or perhaps not." He countered. Seto Kaiba's malicious glee lessened into a wary irritation as he glanced side-long at the shorter boy.
"Isis -" the Pharaoh called back without turning away from me. Behind him the Celtic Guardian shook several daggers free from his cape and pulled it back to unveil the unharmed priestess, much to my host's relief. Seto Kaiba shifted at the Pharaoh's side, enough to draw his gaze for but a moment. Sharp blue eyes imparted a message to their red counterpart and in reply there was a curious perk of his eyebrow and then a decisive hum. "- Stay back with the Celtic Guardian." He concluded.
The priestess inclined her head respectfully. "As you wish, Pharaoh."
He nodded with an air of finality and darted his eyes back toward Seto Kaiba. "I'm going first." The Pharaoh added, smirking at him.
Despite the paler boy's ire-filled stare he crossed his arms in disinterested acquiescence. "Get to it then." Seto Kaiba grunted.
The Pharaoh could clearly sense something else was afoot. It mattered not. I would press my attack before he could draw any conclusions.
"Dark Hole." I summoned Mahad's spell with a shout, conjuring a mote of pitch blackness no larger than a grain of sand and bidding it destroy everything in sight as my magic made it swell and twist. In my hands it grew to the size of an egg, and then to be as large as a skull - pulsating with the fury of a dark star.
The Pharaoh steeled himself with a confident yell. "White Hole!"
No sooner had the Pharaoh declared his spell than a whirlwind of pale magic burst into life, spiraling around the growing void of my Dark Hole to sap it into non-existence. The two spells drank in each other's power and negated one another as they shrank away into nothingness and were both destroyed.
"I see you've helped yourself to Mahad's spells." The Pharaoh commented as he addressed me once more, "Even the obscure ones." Despite his words and the clear understanding that I had stolen this Magician's tricks, his stance reflected only surety and enjoyment.
"I'm glad." He added belatedly, his gaze unflinching as he trapped me beneath it.
Seto Kaiba's exaggerated boredom quickly reshaped itself into a reluctant curiosity.
The grin the Pharaoh had aimed at Seto Kaiba remained in place, though became darker in nature as it was aimed toward me. "As his Pharaoh I've often wondered if Mahad obliges me by holding himself back in our duels."
Seto Kaiba's expression became attentive once more with each new word the Pharaoh spoke.
"Now I'll have my answer." The Pharaoh concluded, tilting his chin upward in challenge as he beckoned me to do my worst. "Pit his magic against mine and attack with everything he has!"
A smirk of approval cut across the lips of the taller boy standing behind him.
As though by sense alone the Pharaoh reacted to it; adjusting his stance to stand ever more erect and puffing out his chest despite the fact he had no way of having seen Seto Kaiba's appreciative leer. The rapt expression lasted for only a moment before the paler boy schooled it instead back into a boredom that was clearly false.
The Pharaoh leaned back, one hand placed upon his hip as he pushed them forward into a pose both arrogant and self-assured. His confidence told me without words that he had conviction his spellcraft would triumph, and from the back of my mind Mahad echoed this. Though well matched at the prime of his power the long days of flying without nourishment or rest had left my host's body far from the pinnacle of its abilities and unlike Teleia I was not so foolish as to ignore that fact. Even if they battled me one by one, defeating the Pharaoh and then Seto Kaiba as well was impossible for now. As it was I would need an enhancement simply to avoid being captured.
"Magic Formula." I beckoned, a brown leather grimoire bound by lock and key appearing in the air before me.
"Magic Jammer!" The Pharaoh eagerly parried, tensing the muscles of his legs and flexing his arms outwards as he rebuffed my cast in an overly athletic manner that urged the muscles of his arms to rise up against his skin. His attention flickered to the side and he tilted his head subtly to check if Seto Kaiba was still watching. The target of his ostentatious display only narrowed his eyes at the fugitive glance, but the light in his cold blue gaze danced in enthusiasm.
The thought of being the potential victim of their attacks while they performed for each other in this strange futuristic courtship ritual entertained my host – enough so that I could feel his muted amusement as Magic Jammer conjured ring of magical runes encircling the Magic Formula, turning it a blazing red as columns of thick purple smoke erupted from its cover. I cursed him and his derisive spectation as the tome disintegrated into ash before my eyes.
"Great. You can counter each other." Seto Kaiba droned sarcastically. He uncrossed his arms and his stare slid from me to the Pharaoh. "Are you gonna get serious now?" He questioned tonelessly.
Without even a backward glance the Pharaoh grinned, with a soft "Aha." of amusement as his reply. "Am I boring you, Kaiba?" The Pharaoh added, tossing the question over his shoulder with a familiar tone it took me a moment to place; veiled flirtatiousness. "Tag in at any time." The Pharaoh by no means inferred it as shamelessly as Teleia, but the suggestive undercurrent was the same in essence.
Whether Seto Kaiba was immune or oblivious to the coy taunt was unknown to me, but his answer was guileless and blunt. "Your fun little magic show is wasting our cards."
"Ha." The Pharaoh laughed at the tart reply and I sought to use his momentary distraction to my advantage.
I raised my hand into the air and lifted a finger, channeling my host's magic into the point. Though I was unprepared to face them both at once perhaps one of my host's more complex spells could even the odds. It would require the bulk of my remaining energy, but I could not allow myself to be caught.
I cast Illusion Magic.
From the point of my finger two illusions split from my body, ethereal and transparent for just a moment before their forms solidified to resemble my perfect duplicates. Wasting no time my Illusions took point at my side, the three of us moving in perfect synchronization.
"Dark Magic Attack" we announced in concert, an orb of thunderous black energy collecting at the end of each of our rods as we leveled all three of them at Seto Kaiba and the Pharaoh both. Formidable foes as they may be, a triple blast from such an attack would not be so easily dismissed.
The Pharaoh's head twisted back around to focus on me and his eyes widened as he beheld the rapidly building charges.
I could not say if the desire to do so had been mine, or if the movement had been the manifestation of some small sliver of Mahad's will, but as my Illusions and I held out our fingers and shook them chidingly at the Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba the taller boy's feigned indifference was brutally cast aside as his shoulders tensed in anger.
"Step off. This one's mine!" He abruptly demanded, cutting in front of the Pharaoh with a look that wished me a gruesome death.
The vehemence of his manner did not bode well but the attacks could not be recalled. With a thrust of our staves the three spheres of crackling magic tore away from us and towards the pair.
There was a rapid movement of his angular elbow and a flash of his pale hand. "Magical Trick Mirror-" Seto Kaiba roared over the sound of the incoming blasts, his voice turning slightly hoarse from the effort.
A bizarre metal creation awash in mirrors and garbed in a dark cloak and pointed hat sprang forth in blue light.
"-Reflect Teleia's Mystical Refpanel!" He barked.
The odd golem hastily answered its summoner's call. Within the depths of each mirror's face the reflection of the oasis around us was switched with the image of a child-like figure levitating an orb. A globe of perfect white-blue magic appeared in the mirror monster's non-existent hands. It vacuously devoured all three Dark Magic Attacks, the thundering dark orbs vanishing into the white depths.
"Don't blink; you'll miss the best bit." Seto Kaiba jeered at me and just as surely as the Pharaoh had been performing oddly for his gratification, so did Seto Kaiba pose in a manner far from practical. He took a single step forward, the motion opening up and throwing backwards the fabric of his coat away from his body to extenuate his long limbs and pert abdominal muscles.
The Pharaoh hummed softly, closing his eyes with a countenance of lordly approval as Seto Kaiba turned to him.
"You think you're the only one with tricks up your sleeve?" He remarked, a mild reciprocation of the Pharaoh's playful tone stirring beneath his dry words.
The Pharaoh opened his eyes once more to fix Seto Kaiba with an appreciative look as two shared a foreboding smirk of mutual mirth, the tensed and posed language of their bodies matching each another in both outlandishness and exhilaration.
The Magical Trick Mirror's copy of Mystical Refpanel writhed and churned, struggling to maintain the sphere's shape before finally bursting outwards, returning all three Dark Magic Attacks toward me and my Illusions.
We contorted and thrashed in unison as our attacks were returned to us, striking us squarely in each of our chests and burning us with shocking whips of dark energy that left my limbs heavy and weak. By the nature of my spell the pain of my Illusions was mine to share in as well and my agony was threefold. I sealed my teeth, refusing to voice my pain, yet instead smelt the odor of old iron and tasted rancid meat upon my host's tongue as the necrotic filth that now made up my true body oozed free from Mahad's nose and lips. I coughed, clearing his throat so the Magician may breathe without impediment and spat out a mouthful of my own carcass.
A pair of blood colored eyes beheld the grim vomit that now stained the earth of his family's most sacred of places and slowly his countenance dropped to something stern and unflinching. "That's enough now." He told the paler boy. "We need to seize his true body and ignore the false ones."
Seto Kaiba scowled at me, his eyes flashing between me and my Illusions with studious intensity. "And that is?"
The Pharaoh simply shook his head in reply, the confidence in his voice never waning as he admitted "I don't know. Mahad's illusions are perfect."
"The one on the left is the true Mahad." The priestess announced from the sidelines as she raised up her arm, her finger pointing at me evenly. That was impossible. My host's mastery of this technique was flawless – unparalleled. There was no known method for distinguishing the true caster from his twins and yet the priestess had identified me among my Illusions so easily.
"You can tell?" The Pharaoh questioned curiously, his eyes fixating on the true me as I stood in line with my duplicates.
The priestess stared into my face.
No.
She stared into my host's face, seeing Mahad in a way that even the Magician's broad understanding of the magical arts could not explain. The priestess's hand slid to cover her heart as she inhaled deeply.
"I feel it." Was the only answer she gave.
Seto Kaiba surprised me and my host both as he quickly took her words to be true and acted on them without hesitation.
"You better be right." He sneered as he drew a new card, the sliver of strange light that made up his artificial magic gleaming in his hand. "Because I play Attack Guidance Armor!"
A breastplate of silver steal launched itself toward me from its foreign summoning stone, steadfastly ignoring the Illusions at my side to grapple its cumbersome bulk around my body. It near knocked me over as it bound itself to my host without mercy to weigh down our bones, yet struggling to stand with it was the least of my concerns.
I recovered my footing and straightened my spine once more only to find my Illusions now impassively stared not at my foes, but at me.
Mahad's reactions were slowing, but still proved fast enough to conjure a Dark Magical Circle to banish the closest of my Illusions. The rune-covered spellcraft encircled its feet to freeze it in place as the second turned on me with reckless abandon.
I dodged and parried five of its magically empowered strikes but the Illusion's blows were relentless - the magical duplicate feeling none of my injuries as each attack I repelled drained away a little more of Mahad's magical reservoir. Without needing any instruction from its Master Seto Kaiba's Kaiser Sea Horse joined the assault to divide my attention - its spear and the staff of my rebel Illusion landing strong hits to my host's body and dropping me to kneel on one knee.
The Pharaoh, Seto Kaiba, Isis, the Celtic Guardian and Kaiser Seahorse began to converge on where I had been felled, nearing to stand over me like wounded prey as I coughed up yet more necrotic slurry.
The priestess's gaze held my own as once more Seto Kaiba threw back his head like a rearing horse and roared with a second round of blusterous laughter.
"Mwhaha! I hope you're taking notes, Pharaoh." His eyes cut away from me to behold the Pharaoh as his mouth coiled into a shape both gloating and exhilarated. "Because this is what taking control of 'fate' looks like." His expression was one I recognized. It was the flaming elation of a warrior's high - stoked by a passion for victory.
Despite the jab the Pharaoh's features moved to mirror Seto Kaiba's as the paler boy's excitement seemed to feed his own.
"So I see." He wryly countered, the calmness of his face at war with the thrill in his voice.
Quicker than a snake bite the two lunged for each other's lips as though intending to devour each other. The ferocious display both began and ended in a single heart beat and with matching smirks the pressure of their focus returned to me as though their attention had never shifted. It seemed through battle their relations were destined to mature quickly.
"Andro Sphinx, I assume." With the march of a conqueror the Pharaoh strode passed the Illusion I had banished, pulling the Magician's Rod free of its paralyzed grip as he did so to hold threateningly over my head. "You're outmatched."
Seto Kaiba stood attentively at his back, now leering at me as though he were the Pharaoh's enforcer as he flashed a view of the card Soul Demolition in front of my eyes. Mahad knew it, and so too did I. That would indeed eradicate me from this merciless existence, but my duty was not done yet.
"Submit to us, or be destroyed." The Pharaoh decreed, his eyes searing me with the promise of his words.
Against my better judgment I closed my eyes to the imposing sight of my would be captors and smirked at them, the expression hollow of feeling. Teleia for all her foolishness had lured them here, to this place, for a reason. She'd had a plan in mind, though it had been quickly waylaid by her own impetuousness as she became too enamored with the idea of molesting Seto Kaiba to implement it.
The time was now.
In my stolen voice I announced the spell that would herald my escape.
Atem
"Call of the Haunted." The imposter within Mahad's body announced.
I'd dueled the most maniacal of opponents at the very height of their madness, but such malevolence was absent from Andro Sphinx's borrowed voice. He called forth his spell without emotion and calmly allowed it to envelop him.
A thick purple mist spilled from his trap card to fill my Mother's oasis with a blanket of heavy fog. This technique didn't belong to Mahad, but was a creation of the sem priest who had come to call himself Anubis. The necrotic aura was a testament to its creator's perverse magical experiments. It lingered as an unnatural chill in the air of my afterlife, the sudden drop in temperature peppering the skin on my arms with goose flesh and drawing strangled coughs from Kaiba and myself as the cold attacked our mouths and lungs. The lips that our adrenaline-fueled kiss had set alight in a flush of passion quickly lost all memory of that warmth as I gritted my teeth against the spell's icy embrace.
Out of the depths of the haze rose up the shadows of men, women and children, each lumbering with the steady gait of the risen dead.
The ghosts surrounded us on every side, undulating and shifting, licked by the frigid wind like smoke but always returning to their gaunt and gnarled human shapes. These were not the immaculately prepared dead of my people's funerary customs. Instead they wore dented armor, blunted weapons and frayed bandages. They were hardly much of a threat. Most were bandaged so tightly they could barely shift their limbs. Each had difficulty seeing us through blind eyes and struggled to move with their thick wrappings and taut, dry skin working against them.
I backed away and beside me Kaiba followed as the army of spirits slowly swarmed around us, blocking the sight of Mahad's kneeling body from our eyes.
"Now what?" Kaiba leapt back from one, his long legs propelling him away easily as the toneless and colorless wraith of an elderly man near mummified in bandages and rough linen scraps lazily swung a clawed hand toward him.
"Keep your distance and they'll be unable to perceive you." I noted.
Despite his propensity for having his soul stolen I had confidence in Kaiba's ability to defend himself from physical aggressors. I glanced passed him to Isis. With her arms tightly wrapped around her body for warmth my priestess merely watched the ghostly figures shamble and groan from beside my Celtic Guardian with her paling lips pressed shut in concern.
"These are the ghosts of the past, called forth by the spell to relive their trauma." She explained to Kaiba as he directed his Kaiser Sea Horse to cut down a ghoul, only to watch through narrowed eyes as the disembodied fog limbs knitted themselves back together in the aftermath.
"Great." Kaiba deadpanned. "Another card that doesn't work the way it's meant to."
With a flick of his wrist he set a card down, bending his knees, leaning forward slightly and exhaling sharply as Burst Breath produced a torrent of orange flame from the depths of his throat. His coat tails thrashed behind him as the blaze incinerated the phantoms that crowded our view of Mahad's body, blowing them away from the site of our downed opponent in a long blast of fire and heat befitting a master of dragons. I leaned into it as I pulled what remained of my cape over my quickly cooling skin.
The charred earth smouldered as Kaiba's Breath ended, leaving behind only scorched earth and the half-melted empty shell of his Attack Guidance Armour to lie broken in the sand. Any embers or ashes that remained were quickly smothered by the mist's oppressive cold.
"Andro Sphinx has escaped." I observed.
He had commanded Mahad's abilities with competence. He must have known that my Magician had better spells that were much less costly to cast and would have made an easier distraction.
"Tch!" Kaiba, his Kaiser Sea Horse and I backed away in unison to regroup with Isis and the Celtic Guardian as the phantasms vaporized by the inferno began to reform in front of us, their bodies coalescing once more in thin wisps of freezing smoke. We stepped away from the tide of phantoms, leaving the range of their senses as they moved with purpose to each assume positions only they knew of as though each one of them were an actor readying a performance.
All around us they divided, the spirits peeling apart into two opposing factions, both equally devoted to reliving their shared past. One, a side singularly composed of men dressed in simple kilts but wearing the skull caps of the palace guard and equipped with tall spears or bows cornered and trapped the second, an assortment of barefooted villagers in bandages and worn robes.
Lead by a Hand of the Pharaoh the royal guard cut through the cowering crowd with a gory efficiency, dispatching anything that came within their range. The Hand glanced out across the scene with a grim expression, a red glazed amulet of Sekhmet that he wore around his neck identifying him as the most elite of my warriors. It swung against his chest as he turned back to the rest of the guards. "Dispatch them cleanly and gather the bodies together. Do not allow them to touch your skin." He ordered, shouting to make himself heard over the cacophony. "None must escape, lest the sickness spread."
Kaiba was stone faced by my side. The only indication of his emotions was the vice like pressure of his jaw and the way his words were hissed through clenched teeth. "What is this?"
"A mistake." Was the only answer I could give, but Kaiba's sharp look told me that it wasn't enough. I could understand his silent demand for a better explanation as the spirits of the villagers scattered and screamed around us.
I carefully chose my next words. "I told you that this oasis was named for my Mother?" Kaiba grunted in acknowledgement so I continued. "That was not the extent of her involvement with this place." I paused as the words became elusive and began to sound like excuses even before I'd had a chance to speak them out loud. "In her great affection for this place, it was her wish that upon her death this would be where she was laid to rest."
The sem priests and tomb builders had balked at the unorthodox location but my Father had insisted and the Pharaoh was never denied.
The oasis was untouched, beautiful, and the secrecy surrounding its location would keep out tomb robbers and thieves. It'd been a great comfort to me as a boy - a place where I could still feel my Mother's presence and tenderness even after she was laid to rest in the tomb secretly carved into the sprawl of the canyon caves. At that age it'd been sometimes difficult for me to remember that she was safe and untroubled in the afterlife with the Gods. Even knowing that was little comfort on stormy nights when lightning or sandstorms kept me awake and I couldn't crawl into her bed for comfort, breathe in the lingering scent of temple incense in her hair or hear her voice delicately whisper to me as the palace slept on unaware. I'd missed her desperately after she'd departed, but every time my Father and I visited this place after her passing it felt as though our three souls had been temporarily reunited here.
It'd been a perfect choice for her royal tomb, to honor her and preserve everything she'd loved.
"However, the oasis's location didn't remain a secret for long."
I struggled with how to phrase the rest.
The Gods had been merciful to remake this place in my afterlife in its original flawless condition, before my men swept over it. Recalling what had happened felt like a hand had reached through linen, flesh and bone straight into my chest to squeeze my heart in its grip.
"They are lepers." Isis noted, speaking in the lull as I contemplated how to admit to my failing of character to Kaiba. He was hardly immune to them himself, but after what we'd begun to share I wanted him to see me at my best. This was far from it.
"Yes." After a pause I could do little more than nod at Isis's keen observation.
How they'd found it I still didn't know, but the oasis's natural resources had attracted droves of the afflicted as the outer villages in my kingdom became the prey of an outbreak of the disease. I had a inherited a more modern understanding of the malady from my time in Yugi's world, but during my reign it was believed to be a punishment from the Gods themselves. In an effort to please them the homes of the sick were often razed to the ground by their terrified countrymen and neighboring villages. The canyon here was the only natural shelter within three day's walk from where those villages once stood. Its high cliff-face provided shade in the valley below during the day while the caverns and caves provided shelter at night.
"I feared the illness they carried would corrupt my Mother's resting place, so I took action."
A foolish action.
"The palace guard went through the encampment, putting everyone they found to the sword and burning their remains." I admitted as the cold urged my limbs to start to shiver and shake against my wishes. Back then I'd thought it was necessary to secure my Mother's peace. If I'd never met Yugi and experienced the temperance of his gentle heart perhaps I still would. That realization sat heavily in the pit of my stomach.
"I knew nothing of this." Isis murmured as she thoughtlessly rubbed her hands together for warmth. It could easily have been an accusation, but it wasn't. My priestesses words were mournful and consoling in understanding.
Few did. It wasn't a story I'd wanted to retell.
My warriors had been more devastating than any plague and the blood I'd inadvertently spilled by their hands had poisoned the oasis more effectively than the ailing men and women who'd sheltered here. I had ordered my men to dispose of the diseased bodies and for the sem priest who became Anubis to re-sanctify the oasis grounds, but that instruction had gone ignored. By the time the day was done the canyon was a smoking wound in the ground, smouldering for nights on end as a mere scar of murky water and human remains. The truth behind what happened had remained a mystery. None of the guards I'd left to carry out my wishes had ever returned to the palace; I'd suspected to avoid facing punishment for defying my command.
Close to us an ethereal unit of Egyptian soldiers lead by the Hand of the Pharaoh rounded on a group of half-starved women and children as they cowered against the canyon wall. In a courageous display the lingering spiritual imprint of one older boy darted to stand in front of the others. He spread his discolored arms and fingers out to create a barrier between them and my men, standing firm even as the soldiers drew back their spears ready to strike him down.
From my side Kaiba bent slightly to collect something from the canyon floor and threw a rock, hard enough to concuss knowing his effortless strength. It sailed right through the head of the lead soldier as his spear arm recoiled.
"What?" Kaiba barked, stepping forward to directly intervene even as I placed my hand on his arm to hold him back.
"There's nothing you can do." I suspected it was the boy that had riled Kaiba. He looked to be about Mokuba's age when last I'd seen the younger of the two Kaiba brothers, though it was difficult to tell with a face so thin.
In one strong lunge the spear of the Hand of the Pharaoh struck true. A plume of spectral blood erupted from the boy's small body as the weapon skewered him through the abdomen and lifted him up into the air. Without care his ghost-like corpse was slammed back down onto the ground and a heavy foot applied to his chest so the Hand could leverage his spear free of the boy's stomach. With a trio of short yanks and a sickly noise the weapon came loose from the child's body as the other soldier pursued the rest – each of the trapped villagers screaming and crying while the smaller of the children darting off left and right in terror.
An arrow flew passed us, pining one of the fleeing children through the leg and dropping her to the ground. In a whirl of his coat Kaiba turned on his heel to glare at the archer who had fired it.
The lingering shadow of a second me rode through the canyon confidently astride a fit white mare. She tossed her mane and snorted in aggravation as a spray of blood marred the pristine coat of her hind-quarters as I passed an unfortunate who came near enough to warrant a swift beheading at the hands of my personal guard. Behind my ghostly double a platoon of archers marched attentively, plucking their reed arrows from their quivers to fell any threats to me as my counterpart urged the mare onward.
Bringing up the rear behind my archers on two less remarkable beasts were two men riding side by side. One I recognized to be the priest who would soon after the events of this day come to call himself 'Anubis'. The second was a man who was otherwise oddly absent from my afterlife, despite beckoning me toward the gateway between the world of the living and that of the dead after Yugi defeated me in our ceremonial duel.
"Aknadin?" Isis gasped.
Kaiba scowled at the unfamiliar name. There was no remembrance in his eyes as he warily watched the one-eyed rider, most likely recognizing the Millennium Eye and the threat it represented but nothing else.
"My Father's younger twin brother and Guardian of the Millennium Eye." I added in explanation, for Kaiba's sake.
"Oof. That's your uncle?" He jeered, looking over Aknadin with a critical eye as if he were a poorly rendered hologram before turning back to me. "So you're a genetic anomaly even in your own family." He concluded with a scoff. I didn't bother to respond to his taunt. In my time unusual features were believed to be a sign of a child's heightened magical potential and seen as a blessing. Not only that but Kaiba's attempt at his usual sardonic humor had been addled by clipped words. I suspected the barb was in an effort to appear unaffected by the shrieking of panicked children echoing all around us.
The shifting recreation of Aknadin sat straight-backed in the saddle of his horse and spoke in a hushed mutter to Anubis.
"Why must the Pharaoh be here?" Aknadin's question to the neatly kept Anubis was dry as desert sands and conspiratorially quiet. With a single eye he looked out over the villagers as they tried to flee and hide. "Culling lepers is beneath the station of the Pharaoh of Egypt"
I recalled Aknadin to have been strict, indifferent, kindly at times and stalwartly aloof at others, but despite his many flaws had been both a firm and fair mentor to my High Priest and had cared greatly for my Father. Learning from this vision that he had conspired with Anubis so early in my rule stung like a fresh cut.
Anubis's reply was a deep chuckle. "It is not enough for them to merely die. If it were so easy as that we would have no need to flush these cattle into this place for slaughter."
In a low growl he continued, ignoring Aknadin obvious distaste. "They must suffer. They must look upon the face of their Pharaoh and feel only hate. That is how we will create souls worthy of forming the Pyramid of Light."
Aknadin broke from their muted conversation to catch the attention of an archer and pointed toward a hooded woman as she sprinted towards the small girl with the arrow through her calf.
"There, another!" He commanded.
The archer missed as the woman abruptly changed course, darting over to the injured girl and pulling the arrow out of the floor, but he didn't relent. With the dutiful focus that all of my loyal palace guards shared he knocked another arrow, this time striking the child in the back of her neck. Her head lolled backward as her spine was broken from the impact.
The woman spun around on her heel to snarl at them like an animal. Her hood fell backward to free a long shock of hair and a voracious rage swam in her eyes.
Lesions marred her skin and her eyebrows were missing, but despite the yawning eye sockets, emaciated cheeks and thin spindly limbs I looked into the human face of Sphinx Teleia. Much like Mahad and the Dark Magician her ka manifestation had strange coloring compared to her mortal body, but it was her without doubt.
"Mwhaha." Anubis delighted in the bloodshed, despite still wearing the rank and clothing of a priest. "Do not dare to betray me, Aknadin." He continued, "I did not waste my time setting this in motion at the very threshold of the Queen's tomb only to have your pathetic conscience undo my hard work."
Aknadin chose to remain silent and didn't reply to the fallen sem priest's implied threat.
The woman who was Sphinx Teleia yelled hysterically with a commoner's accent native to my kingdom's most distant villages as Anubis laughed down at her. With an expression pinched by rage she threw a vial of something at him that smashed over his robe to coat it in filth.
"Impudent wench! Bind that one and bring her to me." Anubis called down to a guard who grabbed her as she writhed and spat at him.
At the head of the procession my wispy double pulled his horse to a stop, letting the archers and Anubis pass before realigning his mount with Aknadin's so that they could talk. I imagined Kaiba was lip reading the conversation based on how intently he stared at my echo's mouth, but I could recall the conversation as if it had happened yesterday. Overhearing what Anubis and my uncle had just been discussing threw it into a new and malicious context.
My specter's face was tight with grief and anger and flames of wrath burned in my eyes as I absently watched Teleia be bound at the wrists with thick rope and pulled to Anubis's side. She snapped and bit at everything that came close to her and my past self frowned at the display, though obviously I hadn't cared enough to commit Teleia's features to memory. "I know these villagers cannot be permitted to defile the grounds of my Mother's tomb, or spread the God's sickness-" I began, speaking to Aknadin stiffly, "But isn't there a better way?". My phantom glanced over the devastation. "This doesn't feel right, Uncle." I added in a low voice, softening my tone and using a manner of address that otherwise was reserved for only more intimate family moments.
My uncle cast his single eye over my face. His aloofness faltered for a second but the expression behind it was revealed and hidden again so quickly I didn't have time to decipher it. "It is a mercy. These unfortunates are not long for this world." Aknadin eventually counseled back and it was impossible to read his true thoughts or feelings from his tone."
"What of those that don't bare any signs of sickness?" I pressed, frowning at my uncle. Some of the younger children had seemed unaffected.
"Even the few unaffiliated ones are too weak from wandering the desert sands without water or food. They will not survive the journey to another place of respite. It is better for them to expire with the rest of their kin." Aknadin's reply was brisk and to the point, so grimly confident that his assessment seemingly left no room to be doubted. "It is the will of the Gods." My uncle concluded. I didn't doubt Aknadin's words, yet sick or not I was still these people's Pharaoh and I wouldn't allow them to be dismissed so easily.
"Then leave them here. Once the guards have removed the remains of the diseased this place can be a sanctuary for them." I countered as my expression tightened.
"My Pharaoh." Anubis interjected from the side lines as he wrangled the woman now leashed to him. His bow was respectful but I could see in retrospect the deep contempt for me lurking behind his dark eyes. "Their very presence here desecrates the sanctity of the Queen's resting place. Should they shelter here the Gods may become dissatisfied with your royal mother in the afterlife."
My phantom glanced down to his hand and flexed his fingers.
I recalled this moment very well, remembering the feeling of my mother's hand in mine as she passed so peacefully, knowing that the Gods would embrace her and make her healthy again in the next life since she'd been a kind and devoted woman.
I considered Anubis's words carefully, my doubles eyes flicking around the canyon as he took in the chaos.
The towering long-haired priest was among the most talented of the palace sem priests and I had brought him along at my uncle's suggestion to consult on the integrity of my Mother's tomb. At the time I'd thought deferring to the opinion of someone better informed in securing passage to the afterlife was the action of a wise Pharaoh willing to heed the advice of others, something that would make my late Father proud. Now I saw I'd been deceived. Seeing the evidence laid out before me it was obvious now that corralling these unfortunate villagers into the Jewel was likely the work of Anubis or Aknadin dressed to appear as an accidental coincidence.
I clenched my hands into a fists, feeling my nails prick the inside of palms as my fingers coiled tighter and tighter.
How dare they! I shivered in righteous indignation and from the coolness of my body.
At the time I'd believed myself to be doing the work of the Gods to protect my Mother's remains from corruption - I'd thought learning of the villagers intrusion and arriving in time to end it before any damage came to her tomb had been the work of fate! Watching this now from a new vantage point I could see both of those assumptions had been wrong.
Anubis wrenched on the reign connecting him to Teleia as she tried to cut through the ropes with her yellowed teeth and turned back to me after subduing his captive. "What do you believe to be warranted to ensure your Mother's peace in the next life? It is your choice to make, my Pharaoh." He was baiting me - that was obvious now. A cruel eagerness flashed through his eyes as he waited for my verdict.
"Mercy! Please, Pharaoh! Permit us mercy!" Teleia squawked, barely able to breathe as she strained against her tether.
I frowned, answering the feral villager though I had no reason to. "My permission is irrelevant." It was only the Gods permission that mattered.
To be Pharaoh was my divine destiny. It was a gift and an obligation. I enjoyed the pleasures of my birthright and so I was fated to carry the weight of its duties too, and they were many. They tied me to my people, to my family and to the Gods themselves. The scales had to be balanced, but measuring one of the three against the other two wasn't as simple as my Father had made it look during his reign. I'd wanted to be the sort of ruler that he'd been; a peacemaker, compassionate and calm. But even my Father had been unafraid to punish anyone who threatened our family, and that was what I'd judged this to be: a threat to my Mother's very afterlife.
I hesitated in passing judgement before finally reaching my verdict, one that would leave me lying awake in my bed the nights the followed unable to sleep because of it. "Give them quick deaths and consecrate their remains." My haunt decided.
"Of course, my Pharaoh." Anubis's agreed, bowing once more in a bare-faced mockery of true loyalty.
"Noooo!" Teleia shrieked and screamed beside us, thrashing on her leash until her throat was sliced open. Her body fell to the dusty floor in a slack-jawed silent scream. The cut wasn't deep enough to kill her and she watched us through panicked eyes trying desperately to hold the wound shut with her hands around her neck as she bled out.
My phantom lingered near her as the blood slipped out between her fingers in red rivulets to cascade down her hands and around her knuckles. I didn't recall this part of that day at all. Perhaps I'd chosen not to. The idea of willingly discarding a memory, any memory, seemed foolish now after thousands of years spent without any at all.
"Come, Pharaoh. Leave the soldiers to their work." Aknadin suggested, drawing his horse closer to mine to pull my attention away from the woman as she spluttered. With a swallow and a nod my ghost and the specter of my uncle took their leave to ride off further down the canyon and out towards the desert wastes, parading in front of countless suffering villagers as we did so.
"You idiots really think the living are worth less than the dead?"
Kaiba's semi-sarcastic question from my side caught me off guard.
I'd almost forgotten that I was here with an audience and not watching this alone, in private. Reliving all of this felt so intimate, even through the illusion of spellcraft.
"It's not that simple, Kaiba." I replied as evenly as I could, trying to stop my teeth from chattering as the frigid haze seemed to will itself through my clothing. I noted with a glance to his face that though Kaiba was a shade paler than usual and he had crossed his arms tightly across his chest he seemed largely unaffected by the cold and the visions. There was none of the disapproval that my actions deserved on his face. Instead his piercing blue eyes watched me carefully, intensely, like he was trying to see something inside the very depths of my soul.
From my side Isis inclined her head.
"Entry into the afterlife is not given freely, nor guaranteed regardless of wealth or station." Her voice was wet pressed silk over a sunburn, giving me the time I needed to recompose my thoughts as she spoke softly but at length. "Many priests devote their entire lives to pleasing the Gods so as to secure their place in the next life." My priestess glanced to me sympathetically, knowing better than Kaiba the intricacies of our Gods and that the day the haunts had recreated had come so soon after the death of my Father. It wasn't an excuse, but I felt the shameful temptation to cling to it and make it one. "It is a place of never ending youth, health and happiness, yet even once earned it is a placement that the Gods may rescind at any time, as they see fit, should the deceased person grow to displease them." Isis's deep eyes swept over the sea of bodies slowly and sorrowfully, carefully challenging Kaiba's growing scowl with a question I hoped he understood was hypothetical. "What value have the wills and pleasures of those who's lives are but the fast-burning wicks of short candles, compared to the eternal flame of one who has already earned their place in the afterlife? Very little, to most." She concluded.
"You're not subtle." Kaiba countered, aiming all of his ire at Isis.
She replied serenely, "Subtly was never my intention."
"Yeah, well do me a favor-"
"I am already trying to."
"-Next time you feel like throwing some long-winded metaphor at me as a cautionary tale, keep it to yourself. I'm not interested in anything you have to say." Kaiba sneered over her, leering at my priestess as if she'd offended him.
"Very well." Isis agreed neutrally. She endured Kaiba's rage better than I would of in this moment and I nodded to her in thanks for her service. Briefly I thought I'd been spared dealing with his quick temper, but just as I got comfortable with that idea Kaiba rounded on me.
"Do you believe that bull as well?" His tone was sharp and there was a note in it of something I didn't recognize. I kept his gaze for a long moment, trying to gauge his mood before answering as truthfully as I could.
"I do." I confirmed.
Or I did. While I was alive I most certainly had and now I was myself again - by that merit I should do so once more, but that would ignore everything that I'd learned from my time as Yugi's partner and the rest of our friends. If I had to weight my afterlife against saving their lives I'd make that sacrifice for them, exactly as I'd done when I risked appearing to them in the living world to thwart Diva. I'd had no guarantee that the Gods would smile on my choice to help as I intervened to save them, but the lives of Joey and Yugi had been worth that gamble.
I caught that thought and turned it over to examine it. It was by omission an acknowledgement that I valued their lives over the God's themselves. That realization was uncomfortable.
"Life's the middle of a duel - anything can happen" Kaiba glared at me pointedly. "Death's the end. It doesn't matter if you won or lost because you don't get to play again."
"An interesting notion from the reincarnation of a High Priest." Isis calmly defended.
She was right but I could scarcely imagine a statement more perfectly formed or timed to push Kaiba's anger to what I suspected was near its breaking point.
"Tch!"
He turned on his heel to show me his back and I could see from the shadows of his shoulder blades that his shoulders were tensed. As heavily clothed as he was I doubted it was because of the freezing fog. "Don't ever tell me this clown kingdom is better than the real deal." He threatened and began to stride off.
"Where are you going?" I called out. His long legs covered ground quickly when motivated and he put distance between us at the speed that meant he was currently very motivated.
Isis and I watched as his Kaiser Sea Horse quickly leapt to Kaiba's side and he stormed away from us with an irritated flick of his coat.
"To play the game." He hissed back over his shoulder without stopping or turning back.
AN, June 14th: The Atem section of the this chapter didn't sit right with me after a few days of publishing it so I've gone back and changed some of the finer details. The basic events play out the same way but I've shifted the villagers/refugees to being lepers instead to make the Pharaoh's actions feel more reasonable. I'm still not completely happy with it so I'll continue to massage chapters 25 & 26 retroactively to improve them. Let me know what you think!