Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The Leader of the Med-jai

They had to wait at the airfield for Izzy to return, and Rick found himself losing patience with how slowly things were going. He knew Jonathan had not been happy at losing two days before making this trip, and he knew, too, from past experience, that sometimes even a single day mattered. He hoped that would not be the case this time, but the cynical hopelessness that had overtaken him back in London told him that he could count on it.

He felt bad about the things he had said to Jonathan on the plane ride, but he was used to this kind of guilt. All his life he had been doing it: making sarcastic or cutting remarks, and regretting them later. With Jonathan, he felt doubly sensitive, for not only was the man family, but it was clear that he had been trying to reform. Accepting responsibility for the diamond was a huge step for a man as notoriously carefree as Jonathan Carnahan. Rick did not want to be the one to discourage Jonathan from continuing on this path.

He sat on a wooden chair by the airfield gate, watching as Alex ran about in circles, playing an invented game that seemed to involve a lot of running and ducking. He envied his son's energy under the brutal heat, and wished he were a few years younger; he might have joined in then. But at thirty-eight, he wasn't about to leap up and start running around out there. He preferred to sit here in the shade, right where he was.

Inevitably his thoughts turned to Jonathan. The last time they had been in Cairo, Evy had asked, Do you think he'll ever grow up? And he had said no. It looked now like he had been wrong to say so, and it was a bit sad that he could feel surprised over this. When you had given up on a person and decided they would never make something out of their lives, what did that say about that person?

What did that say about you?

He squinted up into the sky and sighed. "I just can't be angry with him, you know? He obviously tried real hard."

"Not hard enough." Evidently Evy found it harder to forgive her brother. Then again, she had been putting up with him for a lot longer than Rick had. "He should have told us. We would have kept the diamond safe together. All of us."

"He promised he wouldn't tell," Rick said, looking at her curiously. Was that it? Did it rankle that Jonathan had, for once in his life, kept a secret from his baby sister?

"Well, he should have known he couldn't keep a secret like that. He never has. I don't know what he was thinking when he promised Ardeth he would guard that diamond." She had adopted that tone of voice she always used when nagging Jonathan, or going on about his selfish, hedonistic ways. Rick was so inured to it that he hardly paid it any attention anymore. Even Jonathan never seemed to take offense, only growing more insouciant and breezy in the face of her scolding.

It occurred to him then that maybe Jonathan had simply grown tired of hearing his sister nag him so. Maybe Jonathan, after Ahm Shere, had taken a hard look around him, and not liked what he had seen.

The drone of an airplane's engines split the afternoon, and Rick looked up in relief. He held his hand over his eyes as he squinted into the azure sky. "I just don't think you should be so hard on him," he said, standing up.

He walked out to meet the plane, and Alex went with him. "What happened to the dirigible, Dad?"

"I don't know." He turned aside as the plane taxied forward, shielding his face from the sandstorm that rose from the plane's propellers.

Behind him, Evy said, "I'm not hard on him. I'm realistic."

He turned toward her. "All I'm saying is, give the man a chance." He turned back to the plane, grinning as his old friend emerged from the cockpit. "Izzy!"

Almost immediately, his smile died. Izzy looked anything but overjoyed to see him. "O'Connell! What did you get yourself mixed up in this time?" The pilot hurried over to him.

Taken aback by the intensity in his friend's voice, Rick waited until Izzy stood in front of him. "What do you mean? What's out there?"

"Where's Jonathan?" Evy demanded.

"I left him there, like he wanted," Izzy said. He shook his head. "But I don't know why. There's not much left."

"Left of what?" Rick said. The rope that had settled about his neck in London tightened another notch.

"Somebody went in and attacked your friends. The Med-jai." Izzy grimaced, then brightened. "Oh, but I did see your friend, the tall one, the one who had the bird."

This was something of a comfort – until Rick remembered how guilty Jonathan had felt about telling a stranger about the Med-jai. Oh, God. He's going to kill me.

"Izzy! Get this plane ready. We've got to get out there." Ardeth might or might not kill Jonathan, but whoever was out there in the desert clearly had no such scruples about murder.

"Wait a minute. I just got here! You can't—"

"Now!" Rick shouted, and was gratified to see how quickly the pilot leaped to do his bidding.

****

They gathered in a tent that had been erected in the middle of the camp. A large hole let light in through one side, and the edges of the tear were charred black. Jonathan sat outside the circle, huddled as small as he could make himself. Occasionally one of the men would glance at Jonathan but whenever this happened, that man's eyes would glaze over and he would look away hastily, as though it was a crime to be caught looking.

Maybe it was now, for all he knew, Jonathan thought. The Med-jai talked in Arabic, effectively shutting him out of the discussion. Once he thought he heard his name, and a few times he swore someone said "O'Connell" but he couldn't be certain.

Ardeth did not even acknowledge him. The Med-jai chieftain led his people in the debate and did not once look at Jonathan. He was quiet and calm, without the passionate emotion of some of the other men. When he spoke, the others fell silent, and when a question was asked, nobody answered until Ardeth had done so first. Without being able to speak the language, Jonathan watched and listened to this debate and realized that every single man in this camp would lay down his life for his leader.

It was a sobering thought. He had been deluded enough to feel a sort of kinship with these people, and a tentative amity with them. And now? He had single-handedly destroyed their lives, and torn apart his friend's family. It would make no difference if Ardeth was a common peasant scrabbling for an existence on the fringes of the desert, or the leader of a nation of warriors directly descended from the days of Pharaohs. The guilt was still there, and he could never take back what he had done.

But he had to try.

"Excuse me." He barely heard his first attempt, and had to clear his throat. He tried again. "Excuse me. Would someone tell me what you're talking about?"

Now they all looked at him, and in their eyes he saw the truth: they did not know. Ardeth had not told them. They looked at him with curiosity and annoyance and even hope, but there was no anger there, no hatred. They did not know.

"We are deciding who will go, and who will stay," Ardeth said. "There is help on the way from the other tribes, but we cannot wait for them. Until they arrive, the camp will need to be protected."

He nodded. "Right."

"When the others arrive, most will follow us into Ahm Shere. We will need all the help we can get."

"Rick and Evy are on their way," Jonathan offered. "Izzy went back for them. They should be here by nightfall."

Ardeth nodded and said something in Arabic. This time the word "O'Connell" was clear as day.

"You should know," Ardeth said to Jonathan, "that they have more than just the diamond. They also have the Book of Amun-Ra."

"What?" He jerked in surprise. "But how?"

Ardeth's eyes narrowed in anger, and Jonathan wanted to bite his tongue. Of course the book had been stolen. The camp had been attacked at night, and the people had been too busy defending themselves. He saw now that the attack had served two purposes. Not only had the Med-jai been effectively erased as a threat, but the Book of Amun-Ra was no longer in their hands.

"I—I'm sorry." He glanced about the circle. "Maybe they know the man who stole the diamond. Did anybody recognize their attackers?"

"They are Imhotep's men," Ardeth said coldly. "Those who survived the events of three years ago. The men we took prisoner at Hamunaptra were released, on my command. I did not wish for any more bloodshed. Now I have lived to regret that decision."

Jonathan closed his eyes. Now he understood why Ardeth had not told the Med-jai about his role in all of this. Ardeth blamed himself.

Guilt twisted sickly in his stomach, and he winced and opened his eyes. "His name was Khalid Hassan, if that means anything to you."

"We must finish laying our plans," Ardeth said. Then he began speaking to his men again in Arabic, his sentences short and clipped, as though he was giving orders.

Jonathan hunched his shoulders about his ears and waited for them to finish.

****

One night, shortly after they had been married, his wife had taken his face in her hands and gazed at him seriously. You are a mystery, Ardeth Bay. You have the ability to look far into the future, to see what awaits the Med-jai and to plan accordingly. Yet you also have the ability to look deeply and truly within yourself and use what you see.

He was enchanted by her, and still a little awed that she had consented to become his wife. Why is that a mystery?

She had smiled. Because most men cannot do either of those things. It is a rare man who can do both.

He wished now he had tried to explain to her that there was no mystery. It was very simple. He was the leader of the Med-jai. It was his duty to look ahead, to anticipate what would befall his people in the months and years to come.

It was Ardeth who, two years after Hamunaptra fell, first realized that the Year of the Scorpion was approaching, and understood what that meant. He had foreseen the fight in their future, and calmly begun the process of turning the Med-jai into an army ready for battle. When the first messages had arrived from Cairo about the planned dig at Hamunaptra, he had not been surprised; he had only wondered why it had taken them so long.

And despite all his planning, the events of Ahm Shere had almost killed them all. The woman had kept such a close watch on the Books that he had never been able to steal them. He could not have guessed the O'Connells would find the Bracelet of Anubis and take it with them to London. His journey to England had been an act of desperation, one last attempt to keep it all from falling apart. Rick had not known his despair upon finding the Bracelet on Alex's wrist, and Ardeth prayed the man never would.

Not even the best of men could plan for everything.

And introspection was not always a good thing, he might have told Ranya, had she lived. The ability to look truly at himself often meant he was his own harshest critic. When others would have forgiven his sins, he freely accepted the blame that ought to be levelled at him.

As it should be now. The men they had captured at Hamunaptra three years ago had been angry and hostile; most had made threats of one kind or another. But Ardeth had thought of them as subordinates, men who, lacking leadership, would drift aimlessly away, never amounting to anything.

He had fatally underestimated them. Clearly one of them had emerged as a new leader, rallying the others to his banner. More than likely there were even new recruits, new members of the cult eager to prove themselves.

And now the Med-jai had paid the ultimate price for his mistake. Ranya and Khaira were gone, and Aarif was badly traumatized by what had happened. Many of his people were dead and the grieving would last for years.

Death was a part of life, and more so for a Med-jai. He had always accepted that there would be casualties in the war against evil, a terrible but inescapable fact of their lives. Death, no matter how horrible, could be understood.

Failure could not. Twice now during his tenure as leader, the Creature had been raised. Now the Book of Amun-Ra was in the hands of the enemy, and the diamond of Ahm Shere was theirs, too. When they got to Ahm Shere, they would seek the Book of the Dead and use it to raise Imhotep for a third time.

The ability to see truly was both a blessing and a curse, and Ardeth admitted reluctantly that things might be even worse than he had let on to his men. It was possible that the diamond alone could raise the Creature. And if it was possible, then the chances of stopping the enemy were virtually non-existent. For they needed time to reach Ahm Shere, time they might not have.

The meeting broke up, and the men returned to their duties, doing what they could to help. Ardeth lingered, knowing that Jonathan Carnahan would want to talk to him.

"Why didn't you tell them?" Jonathan asked hoarsely.

Ardeth did not look at him. "Tell them what?"

"That this is all my fault."

He was struck suddenly by an old memory, one he had not thought of in years. After Imhotep had taken Evelyn the first time, and O'Connell had driven them to the Royal Air Corps airfield and that madman Winston Havlock. Jonathan had looked squarely at him and apologized. "This is all our fault. If we had known--"

"You would have done it anyway," Ardeth had said. "Man cannot change what he is."

"And what is that?" O'Connell had asked.

"A seeker," he had said.

Now he looked at Jonathan. "The blame is not yours. It is mine, as it should be."

"But I--"

"They meant to take the diamond," he said harshly. "Be glad they got it in the manner they did. They would not have hesitated to kill you, had it been necessary."

Jonathan swallowed hard. "But I told them how to find the Med-jai."

"I let them live three years ago," Ardeth said. "It was my mistake." He stared through the hole in the tent, watching two women gather water from the river. "It will not happen again."

He had sworn this, an oath to himself as he had knelt over his dead wife and child. Whoever had done this to his people would not live to do it again.

No one would leave Ahm Shere alive.

**********