Chapter 3: Faisal's Mission
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By morning, the trail was gone. Evy stared at the sand disconsolately. She had done a lot of things in her life, many of which might have been called impossible by someone else. Normally she managed to stay optimistic, but right now she was having a very hard time doing so.
"All right, let's be logical about this," Rick said, surprising her by the sheer rationality in his voice. "If you were them, where would you go?"
She struggled to stay calm, to be logical, as her husband said. She took a deep breath. "The Med-jai live here," she said. "They know the desert. There can't be that many places for anyone to hide that they don't know about."
"Maybe they went back to Cairo," suggested Jonathan.
Rick shook his head. "No. They'd be too far away. They need to stay close, so they can be in touch with the Med-jai."
"Why don't we go see the Med-jai?" asked Alex. "Maybe they'll have some ideas."
Evy looked at her husband. Was it a good idea? She knew the Med-jai would not bargain for Ardeth's life, not when Hamunaptra was the price. But would they sit still and allow their leader to die?
She thought maybe they wouldn't.
Rick was obviously thinking the same thing. "We could join up with them."
"Or," Jonathan said, "we could stay out of their way and let them do it."
Evy turned and gave her brother a withering glare, and he subsided into silence. She couldn't say why, but she felt very strongly that they must not wait. Every hour mattered now. A man's life was at stake.
"We don't know how to find them," she murmured, gazing at the horizon.
"Hamunaptra is west of us," Rick said. "We could just head in that direction and wait for *them* to find *us*."
"No," Evy said. "We can't wait." She had seen the blood on the sand. The longer they waited, the worse it would be for Ardeth.
She had never told Rick, but Alex was not the only one to suffer from nightmares on their return from Egypt last year. Some nights she dreamed of the battle that had raged in the foyer of her house, and in those dreams she watched helplessly as Lock Nah killed first Ardeth, then her son, then advanced on her, smiling all the while. Other nights she dreamed that Rick didn't run fast enough, and Alex died just outside the temple in Ahm Shere, and that she and Jonathan came running up to find Rick sobbing over the lifeless body of their son.
Egypt haunted her. She had wanted to return here for the same reasons as Alex, only she had not been brave enough to say so. And if this ended badly... If a man died because he had believed that she and her family -- his friends -- were near, she would never forgive herself.
"Ah, people." Jonathan sounded torn between relief and alarm.
Evy looked up and saw the source of his tension. Ten riders were approaching, fierce men in black robes riding the beautiful Arabian horses that were so carefully bred in this region of the world.
Med-jai.
She stood a little straighter, watching as Rick raised his hand in the traditional greeting.
The Med-jai rode up and stopped thirty feet away. The man in the center looked to be fifty years old and he had a grizzled beard. He stared at them for a long moment, then said, "O'Connell?"
Evy started, then relaxed as he reminded herself that of course the Med-jai would know who they were. She realized suddenly that she had never really known how they had fared in the battle against the Army of Anubis. From Izzy's dirigible, it hadn't looked too bad, but she knew that appearances were often deceiving.
"That's me," Rick said. He had one hand resting near his gun, but he had not drawn it.
The Med-jai frowned down on them, and Evy wondered if they knew the trick that had been played on Ardeth. Did they, perhaps, blame the O'Connells?
"We want to help you," she said.
The man with the beard looked at her speculatively. "Help us?"
"Find Ardeth." The warrior's expression did not change, so she said, "Alex, my son, saw the men who took him."
This gave the man a start. He looked at Alex. "How did you see them?"
Alex told the story carefully, and Evy felt a fierce pride rise within her as she listened to her son. Rick was right: they had raised him well. Alex was bright and brave and a joy to have in her life.
At the end of the story, Alex described the four men and added, "One of them was named Kadyn, and he looked like Lock Nah."
The ten Med-jai exchanged glances at this, and some of the younger ones, who did not have the self-discipline of the older men, looked worried.
"You know who this fellow is?" asked Rick.
"We do. He is Kadyn Nah, brother to Lock Nah, who was cast out of the Med-jai by Ardeth Bay."
Evy didn't bother hiding her surprise. The man in her house, the man who had tried to kill her son -- he had been a Med-jai?
"I am Faisal ibn Sheik." The Med-jai extended a hand, indicating them all. "We would be honored if you would ride with us."
"Honored?" Rick raised an eyebrow.
Faisal ignored him and looked at Evy. "Ardeth has told us the truth of your past."
"Oh." Evy didn't know what to say to that. Most days she forgot all about her past life and the things she had seen when she had died. She and Rick had talked about it on the first night they had returned to Cairo after the destruction of Ahm Shere, but never again.
"Do you, ah, do you know where you're going?" asked Jonathan.
"We do now," said Faisal ibn Sheik. He looked at Alex and the stern cast of his features softened briefly into what might have been a smile.
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They rode northwest across endless dunes and scorching sands. Alex pulled his bandanna over his face in an imitation of his father and tried not to think about how sore his bum was getting from all this riding.
He was pleased with how things were turning out. The Med-jai would lead them to a camp where Kadyn Nah had been known to stay, and then they would all rescue Ardeth. There were fourteen of them against four of the bad guys, so things would certainly go well. Maybe nobody would even get hurt.
Faisal ibn Sheik rode between his parents, talking quietly with them. Uncle Jon was by himself on the fringes of their little group. Alex rode in their midst, and when two of the Med-jai behind him began to talk, he turned his head slightly, straining to hear.
"What do you think?"
"About what?"
They spoke in Arabic of course but Alex understood them, for the most part -- they talked fast, so he missed some of the words.
"About them."
"Ardeth Bay trusts them. That is enough for me. And the American has twice defeated the Creature. He will be good in the fight."
The fight! Alex thrilled to hear this. They really were on a rescue mission.
The first man sighed. He sounded older than his companion, more weary. "Do not be too hopeful. You know what will happen if we cannot do this."
The second man said nothing.
"Faisal is a good shot," the first man said, trying to sound reassuring. "He will not miss. It will be quick." He paused. "Probably it will be a mercy after three days at the hands of Kadyn Nah."
Alex gasped and clutched the reins tight. Surely he had misunderstood them. They could not mean what he thought. He turned around to stare at the two Med-jai.
The younger one tried to smile at him, but the older one merely returned his stare. Alex pulled down his bandanna and swallowed hard. "You wouldn't," he said in Arabic.
Surprise registered on their faces. The older man said, "If you have been listening to us, then you know we may have no choice."
"You can't just kill him!" Alex burst out. "You can't!"
His cry carried ahead to his parents, who turned around to see what the commotion was. Faisal ibn Sheik frowned.
"You can't!" Alex repeated. He kicked poor Horus, sending the startled horse into a trot. The Med-jai parted to let him through and he pulled Horus back into a walk as he drew even with Faisal.
"You can't," he said again, giving the Med-jai his sternest glare.
"Alex?" His mum looked worried.
Faisal said, "You speak my language very well, Alex O'Connell."
Any other time he would have been pleased at having someone notice. "Don't change the subject," he said angrily.
"Alex!" His mum probably hadn't understood what he'd said, but she could not have missed the note of insolence in his voice. No doubt she was mortified over his behavior.
"Do not be angry with him," Faisal said in English.
"What's he saying?" asked Rick.
"They're going to kill Ardeth!" Alex exclaimed, wanting his parents to know the duplicity of the Med-jai. "This isn't a rescue mission at all."
His dad's eyes narrowed. His mum looked shocked. "What?"
Faisal pursed his lips. "Alex has heard only half the story," he said, not unkindly. "Our plan was always to free Ardeth, if we could." He paused. "But if we could not..."
Alex eyed the rifle sitting in a saddle scabbard beside the man's right leg. "You'll just shoot him," he said, disgusted to discover he was close to tears.
"The Med-jai will never give up Hamunaptra," Faisal said. "And we will not negotiate. Ardeth Bay knows this."
Alex fought back the tears. It wasn't easy being nine years old -- everybody either ignored him or treated him like a baby. And here was someone finally treating him as an adult. It would not look good to cry now. "Why don't you just pretend?" he pleaded. That was what he would do, if it was up to him. "Let them have the treasure and when Ardeth is back, you can go after them and get it all back."
"Oh, Alex--" his mum said, and could not finish.
His dad, however, did not have that problem. "That's a good plan, Alex. Unfortunately, it won't work."
"Why not?" he demanded.
"For two reasons," said Faisal ibn Sheik. "First, these men do not want Hamunaptra's treasure. Perhaps on the surface they do, but they also want more. They want all of the City of the Dead, to take it from the Med-jai and make us powerless.
"And second, they are led by Kadyn Nah. Even if we were to give these men everything they ask for, Kadyn would still kill Ardeth."
"Why?" Alex asked, afraid he knew the answer already.
"Because Ardeth killed Kadyn Nah's brother in the Oasis of Ahm Shere," Faisal said.
Alex stared at that rifle by Faisal's knee and gritted his teeth so hard his face hurt. He would not cry, he told himself viciously. No matter what happened, he would not cry.
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