Disclaimer: I own nothing, blah-blah-blah…
Author's note: Ok, guys, here you go: I used some fragments from
TMR in this and the next chapters,
but, honestly, I'm not going to keep TMR line, which looks pretty
weird on my mind. Why all this racing
after Army of Anubis, if Imhotep was powerful enough without it?
And how he was supposed to kill
Scorpion King after gong beating thing, without any weapon and with
his magic gone? So don't blame me
if you'll see some discrepancies with TMR, so the story goes.
Seti the Last
P.S. No, Llarian, I'm not smoking, so bucket of ashes will do.
P.P.S. Sorry, but I have really nasty exam in four days, so I'm going
to be absent for a while (not that
I'm going to study but I have at least to pretend…and then also
hung-over, so on…), may be week. Don't
drop the thing, please, I'll post the next chapter as soon as possible
(I'll post the message about it in
TMR club, too, so you can just check for it). Now back to the story
at last!!!!!!!!!!
Chapter 3: Night at Memphis.
"You", hissed O'Connell, addressing to Imhotep's back "You abominable son of a bitch, you knew it, didn't you?!"
High Priest didn't bother even to turn, watching placidly the approaching city.
Rick rushed to him (which caused violent swaying of a boat and almost
sent Jonathan in splashing water) and nearly
grabbed his shoulder…Nearly, because next moment he was jumping and
groaning in pain, his palm covered in fierce
swelling boils. In his rage O'Connell clenched his healthy fist and
planted a good-aimed blow…in thin air. Boat performed
a final, especially potent jerk, and with perfect grace Rick soared
in the river.
"No!" cried Evelyn, dashing to the prow to see damp head of her sweetheart,
pocking out of the water. Head blinked and
cursed so intricately that Randy whistled in admiration and Evy blushed
like heavens on windy sunset.
"Anyway", muttered Randy, when he and Jonathan pulled O'Connell out
of the water back in the boat. "Anyway, it's better
than sitting in damned dungeons. We even have a chance to become Pharaoh
or something. Pharaoh's concubine goes for
ladies…Or-I got it-great innovators, we can invent railroad and sell
out our shares in Babylon and Greece, or even Rome".
"You nitwit", giggled Evelyn, relieved now when her beloved was out
of danger. "Rome has something like 2000 years to
be built yet!"
"Well, I think Babylon and Greece will do", answered Randy carelessly.
Then all the company (including still dribbling O'Connell) turned to Imhotep and peered at him askance.
"I say kill him, O'Connell", suggested Jonathan wisely.
"He tried already", noticed Julian, no less wisely. "As a result my shirt is drenched, and your, by the way, too".
"I said don't trust him, Evy, didn't I?" complained Rick.
"Shut up you all and let him speak, he's trying to say something!" snapped Evelyn.
And indeed he was. Randy frowned at sounds of Egyptian, now too familiar for him.
"We didn't have a lot of choices", drawled High Priest, squinting dangerously
at glaring O'Connell. "It was the only way
out of sealed chamber. And even after that our chances to get right
to Underworld were much better than to get out. This
talisman", he nodded at Scepter of Osiris, laying abandoned on the
bottom of the boat. "It had led us down the river…to
the year when it had been created. Year of Scorpion".
***
Moon blinked on the silent waters of Nile, paving a silver road across
the river, when they reached the half-rotten
remnants of wharf in Lower City. Tangled shreds of something unpleasant
bobbled on the black surface and floated under
the ruins of wooden planking. Whole spot smelled of rotten fish, urine
and cats.
"And where is the orchestra, greeting brave travelers from the future
with triumphal hymn?" muttered Randy. Next
moment he stepped in stinky cold water and nearly tumbled down the
planking. O'Connell snatched his collar and stopped
his fall, but instantly Jonathan behind him tripped over the loose
board, staggered and dropped in the river with howl.
When he appeared again on the surface, his clothes drenched and stinky, he hollered "I've lost it! I dropped the scepter!"
"You idiot!" shouted Evelyn. "Probably it was our only key to return in our time!"
"It's not deep here, let's go and get it back", said O'Connell and jumped
in the water without spare word. Randy cursed and
followed him. Evelyn was about to do the same, but Jonathan, now back
on the shore, grabbed rim of her dress and snorted
"Let the action guys do their job".
Evelyn scoffed derisively, still determined to dive, but horrible howl
stopped her dead on her tracks. Randy burst out of
the water, waving his hand madly.
"It bit me, it bit me!" cried he, scampering back to the planking.
"What?" gasped Evelyn, anticipating the worst.
"Fish! Little creepy fish sneaked to my back and bit my…Oh, sorry, I see the ladies here", smiled he slyly.
"Damn you", puffed Jonathan. "You scared wits out of me, I thought it's something poisonous".
"Okay, may be it was poisonous fish", chortled Randy. "And I gonna die
in terrible convulsions. Speaking about terrible
convulsions, where is our reverend?"
Only now the company realized that Imhotep was gone.
O'Connell burst out of the water, gasping for air and apparently unsuccessful
in his search, to see three perplexed
physiognomies, peering at each other with unspoken question in their
eyes.
"What, lost something else while I was amusing myself in this stinky pool?" asked he exasperatedly, crawling on the shore.
"Yeah, precisely", muttered Julian. "High Priest bastard".
***
"I didn't do it on purpose!" cried Jonathan defensively, wringing the
water out of his shirt. "I tripped, I fell, that's all! Why
should I always be a scapegoat for you? Where have your eyes been,
O'Connell?"
"In the river, looking for damned staff which you had dropped!" barked Rick in response.
"Shush", whispered Evelyn fiercely, pulling her brother out of the opening. "I hear something".
"I can bet it's a horde of rampaging decomposed priests or something
nearly as pleasant as them", hissed O'Connell
viciously.
They crouched behind the pile of garbage on the edge of the wharf, listening
intensely. Wind whispered in the dry
palm-tree leafs, jackals howled on the outskirts of town, looking for
waste and carrion, woman cried somewhere, her cries
echoed dully in the silent lanes. Then the sound of approaching steps
emerged from the mixture of night noises.
O'Connell moved to the edge of a pile and looked at the deserted street
cautiously. Three figures stepped in the strap of
moonshine, one, tall and broad-shouldered, walking in front, two following
and carrying something strange on their
shoulders, cubical shape looking like large cage. Rick growled, recognizing
in the first figure High Priest.
"What another mean trick is he planning now?" muttered he under his breath.
"Looks like miniature guillotine for me", whispered Randy in cheerful tone.
"You know how to say proper thing in proper time", replied Rick sulkily.
"Looks like palanquin for me, guys", interfered Evelyn.
"Taking into account our friend Imhotep, I wouldn't be so optimistic,
little sister". That was Jonathan. "I stake on
guillotine".
"Shut up, he's coming".
Imhotep and his strange companions, who turned out to be short and thin
guys wearing only shabby aprons, approached,
and High Priest said coolly, addressing to pile of garbage "You better
go out of there. I've brought some proper clothes
for men and palanquin for woman".
All of our adventurers dropped their jaws, but then collected them hastily
and scampered from behind the pile, looking
abashed.
"We thought you…" muttered Evelyn, surveying the toes of her shoes and
addressing directly to Imhotep at the first time
since they left the sacred pool cave.
"I know what you've thought", smiled High Priest crookedly and tossed
a bundle of clothes to O'Connell. "Change into it
and let us leave this place, it's not the best part of city to hang
around. At least, it's what the legends say".
Rick, Julian and Jonathan examined their new garments, and chorus of whining complains soared to the dark sky.
"Go and put it on!" ordered Evelyn in I'm-taking-command-in-my-hands voice.
Men grumbled and retreated behind the garbage, and soon the squeaking cries drilled in Evelyn's ears.
"It looks like skirt", - O'Connell
"It is a skirt", - Randy
"I'm looking like idiot in it!" - O'Connell
"You are an idiot!" - Randy
"Shut up or I'll kill you!" - O'Connell
"Yeah, kill him, then I'll take his fashionable apron", - Jonathan
After what looked like half of eternity the guys emerged from their
'changing room' and Evelyn burst into fit of giggles.
Rick in cute little leather skirt and Jonathan in molded old apron
were as pretty as Hell. However, when she turned her
glance to Randy, she crooked her brow and clicked her tongue appreciatively.
"Hey, you looks just like some cool Egyptian priest or nobleman, only need to change your haircut".
O'Connell looked at Julian daggers, Jonathan snickered, and Randy smiled
proudly. Indeed, with his bronze tan,
dark-brown, slightly slanting eyes and refined features he managed
to fit Egyptian clothe as if he was born to wear it. He
forgot already that his strange, absolutely non-Yankee face caused
several fierce fights in saloons of California and New
York, where he persistently was mistaken for Mexican or Spaniard.
"But", continued Evelyn. "Just one more question - where did you get
the thing dangling on your neck?" She pointed at
golden pendant, shaped as head of jackal with kind of cross or lope-sided
T engraved on its forehead.
Julian glanced down and shrugged "Example of instinctive behavior. Snatched
it from some golden guy back in treasure
chamber. I kept it in my pocket, but now I don't have any, so…"
Instantly he stopped. Imhotep, until now cool like fish in bucket of
ice, was staring at the amulet with really strange, almost
hungry expression in his eyes.
"What's the matter, guy?" muttered Randy in English.
"I don't like the look in his eyes", announced Rick.
"That's the old song", scoffed Evelyn. "By the way, it must be somehow
connected with the cult of Anubis, probably it's
one of his sacred symbols".
Imhotep tore his glance from the pendant at last and said flatly "We
must go now. You and you", he pointed at Rick and
Jonathan. "Help the porters. You, woman, get inside the palanquin,
it's not proper time or place for women to walk on feet.
And you, priest, go with me ".
It took something like minute for Julian to understand that Imhotep was addressing to him.
"Me, priest? You gonna be joking or as close analog of it in Egyptian as he managed to forge>!" blurted he as last.
Rick and Jonathan stared at them blankly.
"He said Randy's priest", explained Evelyn placidly. "And that you have to carry this palanquin, guys".
"Oh no, only not me, my whole body is aching, I cannot…" moaned Jonathan,
but got a good kick from O'Connell and
silenced.
O'Connell awarded Randy with one of his famous suspicious glances and
helped Evelyn to get in. Then he and Jonathan (after
additional poke) lifted the carriage, and, joined by two skinny porters,
started up the street.
Randy, still feeling slightly dizzy and moving like ailing marionette, followed them, accompanied by grinning High Priest.
They moved along the narrow lane, winding upward between two rows of
squat low buildings with flat roofs and shadows
of palm-trees and banana-trees, waving at the soft breeze. Several
dark silhouettes crossed the road behind them and
sneaked through the shadows aside, but no one tried to stop them, possibly
repelled by their considerable number.
Soon the ' priests couple ' passed puffing porters (Rick glared at them
and Jonathan sighed mournfully) and took a leading
position in front of procession. Julian recovered from the first shock
already and asked Imhotep "Why did you call me
priest?"
"Because you are wearing Anpunakra, sign of Priest of Anubis", stated Imhotep flatly.
"This thing?" Randy gripped the pendant and looked skeptically in the
golden eyes of jackal head. "Look, guy, it has
nothing to do with me being the"…
But at that moment terrible high-pitched scream rang through the silent
lane. Scream of Evelyn.
Again, sorry for possible inconvenience, i'll be back with the next
chapter (which gonna be pretty
exciting one) as soon as possible.
*Bows and exits*
Seti the Last