Disclaimer: Jonathon and Alex, Nefertiri and Anck-sunamun, Imohtep and Rick O'Connell, and Ardeth and the Scorpion King aren't mine.
They waited the half hour, then Caitlin led them through the city. Jonathon would have felt guilty at making her move, except that her strength seemed to be increasing with amazing rapidity. They'd picked up some torches, and the light flickered and danced as they headed down some half hidden steps leading into the earth below. Jonathon was reminded of Hamunaptra. They followed a corridor along, turning left or right at various forks in the passage. When they finally reached a door at the end of the passage Caitlin switched her torch to her left hand, and reached out with her right, stretching up on tiptoes and pressing the right hand corner of the door, which swung open silently.
Inside, gold shone in the light of the torches. Jonathon swallowed, and looked at Caitlin. She smiled reassuringly. "None of this is cursed in any way, it's all safe. I would suggest you don't try looking for any other treasure." Jonathon nodded, then hesitated again.
"Is it all right to take it?" Heavens knows he'd pinched enough stuff in his life, but this felt different.
"Moral doubts? From you?" Alex mocked, but Jonathon noticed that he didn't make any move to take anything either.
Caitlin smiled, a distant, dreamy smile. "This room contains objects made as practice, or the attempts which failed. They kept a room devoted to these things to remind themselves of the need for practice in order to succeed, and the ever present possibility of failure." Her smile faded. "They were interesting people" she added quietly. She shrugged. "Try not to tell to many people where it all came from" she suggested. "My people may still be a little… touchy about this place, and we don't want too many treasure seekers getting killed."
She turned away from them, and asked "Will you be all right to get back? There's something I want to look at, and I'd like to be on my own for a while." They both gave assent, and she strode out of the room. Jonathon stared after her in concern for a second, then turned back to the objects. They were fascinating - they may have been termed as failures, but he'd never seen anything like some of them before.
"Do you think I should go after her?" Alex asked.
Jonathon shook his head. "When she wants company, she'll have it. Don't push things."
Caitlin walked back along the corridor, taking a different route until she reached a huge pillared chamber, the walls of which were covered with fading pictures. She walked to the end of the room, then stopped, hesitating uncertainly. Finally she reached out and tentatively touched one of the symbols embossed on the wall. A sudden premonition gripped her as she did, and she threw herself down and to the left, while at body height several small darts ripped through the air to stick in the wall on the opposite side of the room.
She rose shakily, and looked at the wall again. Although the memories in her head had been just clear enough to guide her here, she still didn't know what she was looking for, and wasn't certain that she knew how to open the door safely, although she was sure there was a door there. The flood of images that had been in her mind when she'd woken earlier were fading now, although she could feel that they were still at the back of her mind.
She studied the wall for a long time, frowning as she struggled to understand the symbols. Finally she reached out again, tensing as she did so and preparing to move quickly. This time, a split appeared in the wall, and it swung inwards silently, revealing the two halves of the door. She stepped through cautiously, then stopped, staring at the objects in front of her in appreciation. The room was plain, and bare except for a single pedestal with a gold ring lying on it, and two swords hanging in scabbards on the wall.
Caitlin circled the pedestal warily, and went up to the swords. Gently lifting one down from the wall, she slid it out of the scabbard, testing its weight and balance, then nodded in approval. The blade was made of plain metal, still razor sharp despite the time passed, and the handle and grip were comfortable, despite being etched with several symbols. She replaced it in the scabbard and hung it back on the wall, then picked up the second blade, which was identical to the first. She stood with it in her hand, thinking. She'd lost the sword she'd picked up off a fallen Med-aran, and her second sword had shattered after she'd hit the crystal, but could she really take these to replace them?
Something told her that to do so would be right, and she finally unstrapped the empty scabbards from her waist and shoulder, then slipped on the two new ones. They were surprisingly comfortable. She slung both her old scabbards over her free shoulder, then turned to go, but stopped again at the sight of the ring.
It lay on the pedestal, shining in the torchlight. It was a simple thing - not a solid band, but rather several slender wires twisted together. She fought an internal battle, knowing, as the daughter of a Med-jai, that taking treasure was often not a good idea, but again something urged her on. Finally she reached out, and swiftly picked it up. For a tense moment she waited, expecting something terrible to happen, or the roof to begin to sink (she'd heard her father talk about seeing the collapse of Hamunaptra), but nothing seemed to happen, so she finally slipped it on the fourth finger of her right hand. It fitted perfectly.
Could I have been fated to find it? On the face of it the thought seemed ridiculous, but she remembered the story she'd heard of the Scorpion King's bracelet - how Evelyn O'Connell was the reincarnation of Nefertiri, the guardian of the bracelet, and she'd found it after various dreams and visions. Had that been fate?
There were other things Caitlin had wondered about, things she'd heard when hiding at night and listening to the stories told by the Med-jai. Was it just coincidence that Nefertiri and Anck-su-namun had been reincarnated in the same time span? That Evelyn O'Connell was the person who had raised Imohtep from the dead - had found Hamunaptra, and the Creatures body? Oh yes, she'd been guided, but even the guide raised questions of his own. To hear her father tell it, (although she had never been officially allowed to hear him tell it), O'Connell had been fated to find and marry, and protect, Evelyn.
And what about you? The question made Caitlin feel uncomfortable. You seem to be acquiring coincidences as well. You meet, and fall in love with, the son of the O'Connells, you're a reincarnated De-nai, and you're the one who destroyed the crystal and are now having visions of the past.
She sighed quietly. "I don't know the answers" she whispered softly. "I wish I did."
She stared at the empty pedestal for a long time, then turned, taking the torch with her as she left the room. The huge doors swung silently closed behind her.