The pounding of the horse kept rhythm with Rick's heart as they neared the cursed City. The Med-jai were very angry, but in a deadly, focused way; it was frightening to see. He rode in back, trying to be unobtrusive and a part of the group at the same time. He knew that they didn't really want him there, but he wasn't leaving- he had to save his wife. He didn't know what exactly had happened to Ardeth, but for some reason, it appeared that he had lost his mind. And disappeared with Evy. Literally. The squatting sand-colored walls came into view like a cloud of pollution on the horizon. Rick tried not to think of Evy, alone in that terrible place with a crazy man. He hoped to the Lord that she was all right. The man leading the Med-jai called something in Arabic, and everyone halted. The man turned to face the grim-faced warriors and began to speak. Rick ground his teeth. He couldn't understand a word. He hoped they weren't discussing an important battle plan. Knowing the Med-jai, they probably were.
Evy sat on the altar, massaging her temples. Imhotep had already begun the preliminary incantations, the cleansing of the temple room and the prayer for guidance from the Lords of the Underworld. His rich tones echoed off the walls. His attention was totally focused on his words, leaving Evy free to examine the room for possible escape routes. It had been perhaps forty minutes since they'd been transported here, and still she had found no way out. Perhaps that was why Imhotep ignored her now, raising his arms, eyes closed. She squinted up at the ceiling, thick and cracked in places. It was too high to reach. It seemed that the only way out of the room was past Imhotep, or into that ghastly pool that Evy supposed led to the Underworld. Neither way seemed feasible or pleasant. The only moment that Evy had felt real hope was when Imhotep had failed to respond to her question. When she had been little, she had observed her mother doing the same thing to her father. By asking him questions that made him think, she had often been able to divert him from the most absurd of projects, such as the time when he wanted to move and build them a new house in Wales with his bare hands.
"Imhotep," she said. He ignored her and continued to chant. She recognized that he was nearing the end of the cleansing incantations. "Imhotep," she said again. With the final words and a flourish, he was done. "What?" he asked irritably. "You don't have to do this, Imhotep." He sneered. "A last act of morality? Trying to divert me from the baser act? Don't waste my time." He began the incantation of prayer. "Imhotep," she said in the insistent tone that a child would use on an inattentive parent. He stopped chanting and shouted, "Quiet!" Evy looked at him, not quite as frightened as she would have been an hour ago. "What will have changed?" She asked him. "If you kill me, what will you have accomplished?" He looked at her and smiled. "I will have done to you what you have done to me." He held up his fingers. "Twice." Evy shook her head. "And what will that mean when you are done? Will it change anything?" Imhotep descended a few steps and looked at Evy intently. "Yes," he said. "It will. You will be dead. And I will be at peace!" "Will you?" she asked, sure now of her argument. "Will it hurt any less once I am dead?" He sighed. "Evelyn Carnahan O'Connell, you try very hard. But it does not change the fact that you are going to die." Evy stood. "If I die, you will still be angry," she said. "You will still be sad. And no matter how many people you kill, you will still be sad and angry, Imhotep."
Imhotep looked at her inscrutably. Then he raised his hands and began the prayer again. Evy hid a smile of triumph. She had seen for just a moment in his eyes a sickening realization. He knew that what she was saying was true. Evy was very close to saving herself, and she knew it. "She's not coming back, you know," Evy said, raising her voice to be heard through his chanting. Imhotep continued, raising his own voice to block out hers. "Why don't you want to listen, Imhotep?" she shouted. "Are you afraid of what I'm saying?" He stopped and gave her a venomous look. "I am not afraid of you." "Then why won't you listen to what I am saying?" Imhotep didn't say anything, refusing to be baited. "You spent months planning this, didn't you?" she asked rhetorically, working it out in her mind as she spoke. "You thought about it day after day. It was the only thing keeping you going, wasn't it?" Imhotep scoffed. "Wasn't it?" She watched carefully as Imhotep clenched Ardeth's fists, ground Ardeth's teeth. She understood exactly why he was here. It was freeing to know this, to understand the way his mind worked. It was also a little sad.
Imhotep looked at her, this infuriating girl who thought she knew what he had been through. Who thought that she understood, thought that she could sympathize. This arrogant woman had no idea what she was saying. "Do not presume to think you know these things, Nefertiri." The words hissed out of him like steam. She was trying to make him think that killing her was unnecessary, that it would not help his pain. It would help. It would make all the difference. He would be free after she was gone. "Don't you see?" she asked softly, looking up at him with her big eyes, trying to look motherly and sympathetic. "I don't have to know these things. It's plain, right there on your face. And a simple death is not going to heal that much pain." She disgusted him. Disgustingly selfish, trying so hard to save herself. "Nefertiri," he said, voice shaking with rage, "you are overstepping your bounds." She was silenced for a moment. Unsettled that she had made him so angry, relieved and more than a bit calmed by her silence, he began his prayer to Anubis. "O Lord of the Underworld, clear the path and welcome with open arms, for a new child is to join your kingdom…"
Evy watched him warily. She had thought she was close to breaking through his delusions, but now it seemed that he was slipping away. She knew that she was making him unreasonably angry, that was a plus. But unless she could make him snap without killing her, she couldn't see how he would understand. "I just…" she stopped. Sympathy was just making him angry. "Fine," she said. "I will be honest, Imhotep. I do not want to die. Do you hear me?" she cried. "I do not want to die. I have a son, and a husband. If I die, what will become of them?" Imhotep froze. She blinked, thinking that she must have struck a chord. "Your husband will be crushed," Imhotep said a little too loudly. "He will weep for days. He will be in shock and desolate. And you," he said, "you would not in his place, would you?" he shouted. "Perhaps you do not love him as much as you thought you did!" Evy didn't understand. What was he saying? Imhotep glared, his face twisted with rage. "You are not as devoted, not as good as he. You do not deserve-" his own anger choked him off.
Confused and angry, Evy shouted back, "Stop trying to blame me for what she did! I love Rick more than she ever loved you!" Imhotep froze, and in an instant, Evy knew she had gone too far. Imhotep clenched his teeth. Shaking, he swept his hand towards her. She couldn't see anything, but she knew something was happening because she could hear the air rushing in the room. Suddenly her heart clenched and squeezed. Her mouth fell open, but she couldn't make a sound, because her lungs held no air. Her eyes filled with tears of pain so that she couldn't see Imhotep, his face twisted with agony and tears falling down his indifferent cheeks. His hand was outstretched, somehow holding her heart in his fist. The last thing in Evy's mind before the world fell black was that she had never said goodbye to Rick… and he would never see her again.
