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Title: Hand Of The Goddess

Author: The Duchess Of The Dark
Teaser: Ever wonder just how Ardeth Bey escaped Imhotep's undead priests at the end of 'The Mummy'? There were hundreds of the buggers! Well, now we find out…

Rating: PG 13

Disclaimer: All recognisable characters belong to Universal Pictures. Isis, Queen among Goddesses, belongs to herself.

Genre: action/adventure/general. For more fiction (not fanfic) visit my page at Illona's Place Vampires www.bloodlust-uk.com/helenmurphyfiction.htm

Archive: Yes, but ask me first, please.
Notes: Accompaniment piece to the 'Avatar Of The Gods' series. Yes, yes, I know Ardeth miraculously escaped cos the director decided it was a very bad idea to kill off such a great character (as the script originally intended), but in practical narrative terms, it was a 'huh?' moment. So I decided to expand on the scene… text in italics indicates thought. And yes, the mysterious lady is who you think she is…. J J J

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Shambling and groaning, the mummified priests filled the low-ceilinged passage, unseeing eyes fixed upon the Englishman, the American and the Bedouin. Withered limbs jerking like grotesque stringless marionettes, they spun and howled as countless bullets tore through desiccated brown flesh. Hefting the massive machine gun he had ripped from the ruined plane carcass, Ardeth Bey squeezed the trigger, hosing the advancing hordes with streaking metallic fire. Risking a glance back, he saw O'Connell and Carnahan desperately digging at the rubble with their bare hands, tearing away chunks of crumbling masonry.

"Keep digging!" he barked over the chatter of the gun, hands beginning to numb from the vibration.

"Well, actually, I thought I'd stop for a breather!" Jonathan retorted, fear making him waspish.

The cavalier Englishman blanched when the Med-Jai's black eyes momentarily snapped to him, blazing ferociously, and redoubled his efforts. Beside him, Rick worked with a ruthless determination, beaded sweat plastering his fair hair to his brow. Each new terror flung at them by Imhotep was more inventive and deadly than the last, stretching the boundaries of their imagination, shattering the constraints of the feasible. Jonathan envied Rick's hotheaded fearlessness and Bey's remarkable equanimity. Nothing they had seen or endured had pierced his indefatigable calm. The Med-Jai possessed the quiet strength of generations of his people, an acceptance of the incomprehensible, and a willingness to lay down his life for the cause.

I'm not bloody well going to be a martyr! Jonathan thought, trying to ignore the unearthly shrieks as he dug.

The deafening rattle-clatter of the machine gun fell silent and three hearts dropped to their respective stomachs. Quelling slowly rising horror, Ardeth looked down at the pile of spent shells at his feet and realised the bullet strip had expired. Clambering over their fallen brethren, the mummy priests continued their inexorable advance, gnashing toothless shrunken gums in anticipation of working pliant flesh between them.

"Oh, shit," Rick muttered unhappily, blue eyes piercing. We are so in trouble now.

Unhooking the makeshift strap from his shoulder, Ardeth tossed aside the useless machine gun, ignoring the ache and tingle in his arms from grasping the heavy weapon. Wrenching his scimitar from his belt, willing his numb fingers to loosen, he pivoted to face the other two men.

"Save the woman," he ordered, gaze skipping between them. "Kill the Creature!"

Filling his lungs with dusty, dry tomb air, he bellowed a resonating war cry and hurled himself into the writhing, screeching mass of flake-skinned mummified limbs. Whirling, he slashed, hacked and decapitated, a small part of his mind musing on the complete absence of blood. Jamming his elbow into a screaming mummy maw, shattering the fragile jaw, peppering the ground with tooth fragments, he fetched off its head with a flick of his wrist. Struggling against hundreds of scratching, grasping skeletal hands, he saw Rick O'Connell light a stick of dynamite and toss it into the mouth of the corridor.

Dark eyes widening, he took a running dive, ploughing half a dozen growling mummies to the sandy floor. A muffled explosion rocked the underground corridor, precipitating a rain of mangled body parts and limestone rubble. Spitting out a strip of befouled binding from a disembodied arm that had landed squarely across his face, Bey clambered to his feet and wiped the dust from his watering eyes, vision clouded. Almost gagging at the decayed, foetid stench from the clustered mummified priests, he stood his ground as they regrouped and lunged with horrifying speed. Cheek stinging from the graze of a yellowed nail, he yelled defiantly and charged.

He fought hard, under no illusions that he would escape or anyone would come to his aid. Dropping low, scimitar ripping through papery skin, juddering against millennia-old bone, he decapitated a one-eyed specimen, stamping on the skull of another, crushing it like a dried gourd. Biting back a cry as sharp teeth cut into his sword hand, he staggered as two more leapt onto his back, seeking to drag him to the ground. Fear began to seep through the battle rage as Ardeth realised he could see nothing but eyeless sockets, mould-mottled brown skin and randomly twitching appendages.

So I die, he thought, throwing off his clinging passengers, only for others to replace them. Let it be enough, let O'Connell find the Book and kill the Creature…Allah be merciful, let me take as many of these soulless minions of Imhotep with me as I can…

Lips skinning back over his teeth, Bey consciously allowed rage to fill him, to blot out reason, fear and lingering hope. Roaring, he flung himself at the nearest knot of walking corpses, blade singing out. Breath whistling between clenched teeth as a bony foot caught him in the abdomen, purple spots appeared in his vision as he was clipped about the head. Ragged-nailed hands tore at his clothing, pinching, gouging, seeking vulnerable flesh. His scimitar was ripped from his grasp, borne away on a turbulent sea of fleshless fingers. Ardeth howled as he was wrestled to the floor, thrashing, struggling, fighting for his life. He was disarmed and alone, scant moments away from death.

"STOP!" the command snapped through the jammed corridor, rolling and echoing with undertones of desert thunder.

Rushing, screaming wind tore up licks of sand, whipping tattered bandages. A tall, slender figure robed in black appeared in the midst of the mummies, form partially obscured by snaking green lightning. Lower face covered by a thick hijab, only her luminous golden eyes visible, she flung out a hand. To Ardeth's utter astonishment, the mummy priests gibbered, cowered and shrank back, touching withered hands to brows in obeisance.

"BEGONE!"

Moaning and shuffling, reluctant to disobey Imhotep's commands, but clearly unable to defy the glowing, terrifying woman, they slowly began to retreat. When they did not move quickly enough for her liking, she stepped forward menacingly, raising shrieks, and pointed a long white finger. The nearest mummies imploded, collapsing and disintegrating, showering Ardeth with choking brown dust. Breathing fast and hard, aching from countless small injuries, he stared up in open-mouthed awe as she approached. She looked down at him, and it seemed she smiled behind her concealing veil, eyes winking from molten gold to a less threatening emerald green.

"It's not your time to die, Ardeth Bey," she said softly, shifting from formal Coptic to a marginally less ancient Aramaic dialect. "You have a destiny."

"Who…" He broke off and swallowed to moisten his dry throat, suddenly feeling light-headed and extremely tired as the adrenaline surge began to wane. "Who are you, lady?"

She laughed, the sound silver bells against the muted mutter of Imhotep's priests. All other sounds, other perceptions, had faded into the background, leaving only the radiant veiled woman whose footsteps left shining impressions in the almond-coloured sand.

"Someone you won't remember," she replied, making a swift upward motion with her right hand.

An invisible force scooped Bey up and set him on his feet, his scimitar floating into his grasp. He glanced around and saw the mummies, waiting impatiently, skulking, and lurking in the shadows. They were afraid.

"I will not forget you," he blurted out.

"You will," she assured, passing her hand before his face. "You will."

A gentle silver glow emanated from her palm, bathing his features in flickering mercury light. Inky eyes momentarily unfocussing, he blinked and shook his head. The woman pointed down the corridor towards a shaft of sunlight.

"Go," she said. "They won't harm you while I'm here. They dare not."

Dazedly, Ardeth did as he was instructed, placing one weary foot before another until he stood in the reddish light of the setting desert sun. He turned and looked back at the black mouth of the ruined temple, a puzzled scowl creasing his dirty brow. Running back, ignoring the complaint of his battered body, he stopped a short distance inside and gazed around. The mummified priests lay motionless, scattered about like hideous balsa wood dolls, beginning to disintegrate as he watched. All the unnatural life was gone, leeched away. Realising the only reason for this was Imhotep's destruction, the Med-Jai chieftain grinned broadly and strode away, out into the fresh air. Halting, he turned back and peered through the gathering twilight, sure he had missed something. He frowned, some subconscious part of his being knowing he could not have escaped unaided.

Maybe God reached out his hand and saved me, he mused, wondering why he felt an inclination to amend the thought to 'goddess'.

A nasal bray drew his attention, and he turned to see the long, vaguely disgusted features of a saddled camel. Reaching for the bridle, recognising the tool work on the halter as Med-Jai, he swung up into the saddle and set of at a brisk canter to survey Hamunaptra for signs of O'Connell and the Carnahans.

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