By: Lady Harlequin
A "Gensomaden Saiyuki" Fic
DISCLAIMER: Gensomaden Saiyuki is NOT mine, and never will be!! I'm just borrowing the characters and some of the plot so I can have some fun. The characters will be returned when I am through. Those who say otherwise shall be whacked with Sanzo's Paper Fan of Doom.
NOTES: There is a whole slew of Egyptian mythology in here, and maybe some other mythologies tossed in for good measure. I researched these babies, and they can all be found in a magnificent book entitled "The Friendly Guide to Mythology" by Nancy Hathaway. If you can find this book, then please, do pick it up and read it. It makes for a very interesting tome, and has produced a lot of ideas for most of my fics, this one included ^_^. And I mess around quite a bit with the Egyptian creation myth, particularly the members of the Ogdoad, so I hope no one gets mad at me for playing around with them ^^;.
PAIRING: ? x Amaunet Mitchell x ? (heheh, you guys guess ^_^)
MY MARY-SUE DILEMMA: Okay, I have realized, after writing a lot of fan fics, that I tend to write Mary Sues. This fanfic is an attempt to avoid that sort of character. I try to give Amaunet her own set of faults, and she doesn't become endeared to everyone in the Sanzo-ikkou right away. Hopefully Amaunet will become a well-rounded character and not cross the line into the Land of Mary Sue ^_^.
EMAIL: ladyharley2002@hotmail.com
SUMMARY: Amaunet Mitchell, daughter of world-famous archaeologist Edward Mitchell (a Briton) and museum curator Shelie Arkanensis-Mitchell (an Egyptian), always believed that she had a wonderful life. After all, being born the daughter of an archaeologist and museum curator DID have its perks. A born linguist, she mastered the complicated Egyptian hieroglyphics and other such languages both of the ancient and modern worlds, and had quickly become an invaluable aid to her parents. But she never knew that she was meant for more than just translating ancient texts…that she was, in fact, the reincarnation of the most powerful and beautiful goddess in the Egyptian pantheon…
Prologue: The Legend of the Ogdoad and the Fate of AmaunetEvery nation, every civilization, has its own tales and variations on the creation of the world. Egyptian mythology, in particular, has quite an interesting tale to tell.
According to the ancient myths, the eight gods and goddesses known as the Ogdoad created the watery abyss that would eventually become the world as we know it. The gods were named Kuk, Huh, Amun, and Nun, while the goddesses, their sisters, were known as Kauket, Hauhet, Amaunet, and Naunet. After creating the watery abyss, the god Amun, the most powerful of the gods of the Ogdoad, then created the rest of the world. He was eventually immortalized in the Egyptian pantheon as the god Amun-Ra, god of the sun and the Supreme Deity.
When the other, non-Ogdoad gods took power Amun gave a special duty to his brothers and sisters: to govern and decide the fates of all men and gods save himself. This duty they accepted willingly, but only one did not. And that was Amun's sister, Amaunet.
The myths vary on why Amaunet turned down the offer of her brother. There are myths that say she did not want to rule in a world that was not created by her own hands, for Amaunet believed herself to be powerful enough to be the supreme goddess of any world she should so choose. She was the foremost among all the members of the Ogdoad. It was she who first created the watery abyss. And she believed that it was she who should rule this new world that they had created. But she loved her brother, even though he had, supposedly, usurped her role as the Supreme Deity, and so she simply turned down his offer to govern the fates of men and gods like the other members of the Ogdoad.
Other myths tell a different story. These myths agree with the others only in the fact that Amaunet was the foremost and therefore the most powerful of all the members of the Ogdoad. In fact, it was through her sheer power that the watery abyss came about. However, in creating the platform for the rest of the universe she became severely weakened, and desired no longer the power to rule over the fates of gods and men.
These myths all end in the same way: with Amaunet becoming a mortal because she was wearied from her duties as a goddess (which would concur with the second myth idea). They also agree with the fact that at first, Amun her brother did not want her to do so, and forbade her from doing such a thing. Amaunet then threatened to destroy the new world with her powers (which concurs with the first myth idea) unless Amun let her go. Faced with watching his new world blow up or merely letting his sister have his way, he went for the latter. Amaunet chose a place in the fabric of time, and entered that place to be reborn as a mortal.
However, there was just one catch, or so the myths say: when Amaunet became mortal, that placed her under the jurisdiction of the Ogdoad. They had to decide her fate for her. And they gave her one that wasn't exactly what one would call peaceful…
* * *
"Ama! Ama, come down already! Dinner's served!"
Amaunet Mitchell sighed as she snapped her book shut, and called, "I'm coming, I'm coming!" She bounded down the stairs to the dining room, where she found her parents sitting down at the table for dinner.
She turned to her father then. "How was the dig, Dad?"
Edward Mitchell, world-famous archaeologist, smiled at his only daughter. "Quite well Ama, quite well. We've found a new side-chamber, and the hieroglyphs seem to reveal an entirely new part of the Legend of the Ogdoad."
Amaunet grinned. "Ooh, more info on my namesake!"
Shelie Arkanensis-Mitchell, museum curator at the National Museum of Egypt, shook her head. "It surprises me that you would have such great interest in that particular legend."
"You named me after the most powerful goddess of the Ogdoad, so don't be surprised. It's like…trying to find one's heritage, I guess. The name is a part of me, so I think it's like trying to find a piece of myself," Amaunet explained.
Edward laughed. "Sometimes I cannot help but wonder if you are more of a philosopher than anything else! My dear, there is not a lot of room for philosophy in archaeology."
"I know, but remember, I'm planning to be more involved in the translation of glyphs and in the interpretation of the legends. Going to the digs is fun sometimes, but my home is in the libraries and with the thick codices and crumbly scrolls."
"What are you reading now," Shelie asked as she passed the dish of lamb chops.
Amaunet reached for the plate, and placed two pieces of lamb chop on her plate, along with a generous portion of gravy and mashed potatoes. "The Rig Veda. It's an English translation, but I'll get around to the Sanskrit one when I'm through with the English version."
Edward nodded. "Do you think you could lay it off for a while?"
Amaunet glanced at her father. "Why Dad?"
"I want to show you the glyphs at the new side-chamber." He winked. "And I want to establish your credibility as a translator."
Amaunet giggled. "Okay, I'll take a crack at the glyphs tomorrow."
* * *
Edward glanced at his daughter, a small smile of pride flitting on his face. They were currently standing in a tent just outside the new dig site, which was located some twenty miles from the Valley of the Kings. Research had proven that they had uncovered a little-known temple that was dedicated to the worship of the Ogdoad, the pre-Egyptian pantheon gods and goddesses who created the base of what would eventually become the world – according to Egyptian creation mythology, that is. In fact, one of them, Amun, eventually became the Supreme Deity Amun-Ra, who was revered above all the other gods of the Egyptians.
The Ogdoad had always intrigued Edward. There was always just too little research done that looked into them, and the ancient Egyptians didn't really seem to care about them much, preferring to write about their other gods like Osiris and Horus and Isis and Bastet. The missing pages of Egyptian mythology concerning the Ogdoad were the ones that Edward wanted to find, and this was his big chance.
Amaunet was carefully tying her jet-black hair into a thick braid, and then winding it into a bun at the base of her head. After doing so, she secured a few more buckles on her boots, which hid the true, dainty shape of her feet. She turned to her father then, blue eyes twinkling merrily in the tempered desert sun. "I'm ready."
"Let's go then," Edward replied with a grin as he handed his daughter a strong waterproof flashlight. He put his own on a hook that hung from his belt, and added also a length of rope and a grappling hook. One never knows, he told himself as he and Amaunet headed out into the sandy desert.
A wind was starting to pick up, he covered his face with a piece of cloth of prevent inhaling any sand. He gestured to Amaunet, who did the same. The others who were working on the dig – mostly graduate students from Cambridge and Oxford – were scurrying around, trying to tie down anything that might blow away, or anything that might be adversely affected by the sand.
One of the students, George Kirkpatrick – more affectionately known among his fellow grad students and Amaunet as Al (from "alien") because his skills with the computer were so extraordinary as to have come from an extraterrestrial source – was rushing up to them, his precious laptop wrapped thickly in rough linen. His eyes twinkled with the smile that was hidden beneath his facemask. "A good morning to you, Doctor, and same to you, Ama."
Ama giggled, and waved a hand in greeting. "Hullo Al. Looks like there's a storm kicking up, eh?"
Al sighed, and nodded. "Got that right. Doing all we can to make sure the sand doesn't get into any of the electronics. Last thing we need right now is for the computers to go on the fritz. Not when we're so close to making a new discovery, right Doctor?"
Edward laughed, and nodded. "True, George. We wouldn't want anything to go wrong, not when we're very close to getting to the heart of the mystery of the Ogdoad."
"And not when we're so close to finding out just what is up with Amaunet's namesake," Al added, which earned him a non-too-gentle jab in the ribs from Amaunet.
"I don't know whether I should consider that a compliment or an insult, but for the meantime, I will consider it an insult," Amaunet said.
Al frowned; rubbing the sore spot in his ribs with one free hand while the other clutched his laptop. "I don't think I deserved that…"
"You did. That was just payback for dunking me in the oasis last time."
Edward laughed, remembering that story. It had happened during one of Amaunet's first trips to the dig site. He didn't really know why, but it seemed that camels and his daughter just didn't mix. She was practically chased by one for quite sometime. And then Al came to her "rescue": he picked her up and tossed her into the shallow oasis nearby. After that, the camels left her alone. However, Amaunet never let Al forget about it, and so she tried to get back at him as many times as she could.
"Are you going down to the new chamber, Doctor?" Al asked then.
"Yes George, I am. I want to let Ama have a look at the hieroglyphics," Edward replied.
Al stared at them for a while, before nodding. "Alright Doctor, you go on ahead. Just be careful in there, all right? The sandstorm might loosen something in there."
"Yes, I understand. Thank you for the warning, George." With that, Al trotted off towards the safety of the tents.
Amaunet turned to him then. "Are you sure we should go on ahead, Dad? You heard what Al said…something might loosen in there. Who knows, we might find ourselves trapped."
Edward shook his head. "Do not worry about it, Ama. The side-chamber isn't that far from the entrance. And what is more, the main hall is wide; we have enough space for running should anything happen." He winked. "Wouldn't that be an adventure, Ama? Like the Indiana Jones movies…"
Amaunet laughed. She loved watching the old Indiana Jones movies as much as her own father did. "Yeah, I know… Well anyway, why don't we go in now? The storm's just going to cover us head to toe in sand if we don't get a move on."
Edward laughed. That was another thing he liked about his daughter: her well-timed, if occasionally incisive, bouts of practicality that struck at any hour. "Yes, yes, you're right. Come on, let's go." The two of them ran the remaining distance between the tents and the entrance to the temple, the sand swirling behind them like an ephemeral Arabian slave dancer.
* * *
CLICK!!
Amaunet listened to the sound as it echoed off the bare walls of the desolate temple, magnified several times over. That sound is spectacularly creepy… She had watched "The Mummy" movies over a dozen times already, and although it was fun to point out the rather silly historical discrepancies ("Scorpion King? Since when was Egypt invaded by one?"), the chill factor of having an actual mummy walking around freaked her out. And the fact that these winding hallways reminded her of the city where the original Mummy was found made her skin crawl.
I truly am not made for this, she thought as she followed her father deeper into the freshly excavated corridors. I belong in a musty library, with books by the stacks at all sides. I don't belong here. I really, REALLY do not belong here.
"Ama? Are you okay?"
Amaunet turned to her father, and grinned, nodding. "Yeah, I'm okay. Just taking a look at these paintings over here…"
Her father came over then, and shone his light on the walls. He smiled. "Yes, they are rather unusual, aren't they?"
Unusual doesn't justify them, Amaunet thought as she shone her light over the figures painted onto the wall. The mural depicted a set of half-human, half-animal figures, which was quite traditional of ancient Egyptian art. There were four snake-headed women, and four frog-headed men. Though to most Westerners this was strange and reeked of all things Satanic, Amaunet and her father knew that this was REAL ancient Egyptian art. What was portrayed on the wall before them was the Ogdoad…as the ancient Egyptians perceived them.
"Incredible," Amaunet whispered, wanting to touch the painting, but afraid to do so, because she felt that the paint would flake and she would end up damaging the mural. "We've read written descriptions of the Ogdoad…but never have we found any art actually DEPICTING them…"
Her father nodded. "Which makes this site all the more special. It would seem that there was a small sect, a very select group of people, who worshipped the Ogdoad themselves." He smiled slightly at her. "And it would seem that our knowledge of the Myth of the Ogdoad is incomplete."
Amaunet raised her eyebrow as she and her father continued walking towards the recently discovered side-chamber. "What do you mean?"
"I found some scrolls in the side-chamber," her father explained, "and I tried to read a few of them, as best as my knowledge of hieroglyphics will allow. And I found out that the Ogdoad were not just the creators of the watery abyss from which the universe sprang. It is they who control the fates of not just mortals, but of gods as well."
Amaunet stopped dead in her tracks. What? "Then they were like the three Moirae – Klotho, Lachesis, and Atropos – in Greek mythology. They were like the three Norns – Urd, Verdandi, and Sculd – in Norse mythology." She shook her head slowly. "I didn't think that Egyptian mythology would also have the concept of the Fates."
Her father sighed. "I did not think so either, until we found this place."
They were now standing at the doorway of the newly discovered side-chamber. Amaunet cast the beam of her flashlight into the interior, and pierced the shadows to uncover a series of murals on the opposite side. Drawn as if by a mysterious force, Amaunet stepped over the threshold, her eyes focused on the murals.
The moment her feet were planted on the stone floor of the chamber, it happened. A loud rumbling sound filled her ears, and the ground quaked violently beneath her.
What the- She turned around, trying to find her father, but he was nowhere to be seen. A thick cloud of dust had surrounded her, making her unable to see too much around her.
"DAD!!! DAD, WHERE ARE YOU?!?!" Amaunet screamed as she whirled around in the dust cloud in a vain attempt to find something, ANYTHING, that looked vaguely liked her father. In her haste, however, she tripped on something, and that something sent her sprawling to the ground. As she did so, she knocked her head against something hard, and lost consciousness.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Okay, that was good ^_^. If anyone out there knows the REAL story of the Ogdoad, I hope you guys will be able to forgive me. I just wanted to play around with it and see where it would bring me ^_^. Also, my version of the Legend of the Ogdoad is not entirely true. I only took the names and the situation, and added more to suit what I wanted to do for this fic. So if anyone thinks that my version is the true one, sorry to bust your bubble, but it isn't. If you want to use my version in a fic, you're more than likely going to have to ask my permission.