Author's Notes:

There is a reason why I am updating so fast - firstly; the story really begs to be written and what better time it is to write when it's exams and I'm supposed to be busy with something else. Secondly, *self-delusion alert* the quicker I finish this, the faster I am able to start on my thesis. Do please give your reviews - that is why the story is written! Would not want to post something that everyone absolutely hates.

Someone told me that an ordinary reader might not understand certain Egyptian customs - so I thought it might be wise to explain a little before I go on. Weighing the Heart against a Feather - The deceased had to have his heart weighed against a feather of truth in his last judgment. If his heart were "heavy" with misdeeds, then a creature named Ammit would eat his heart. If, however, his heart was "as light as a feather," the deceased entered into the kingdom of Osiris.

Chapter 3

1931, Cairo, Egypt

The busy morning, the bustle of Cairo -how she missed it, since the days she worked as a librarian. Dr. Almighty Bembridge was to arrive today. Evy heaved a sigh. At least she did not have to pick this doctor up from the docks -she figured that she did have quite enough of doctors from the time Alex was born, to the time she moved back to England to pursue doctorate studies, from the time she had to negotiate with academics for her current position in Cairo. She took a deep breath -and promptly choked in a cloud of dust when an unsuspecting car zoomed past her.

Entering with Cairo Museum with light steps, smoothing her long skirt and her white blouse, accompanied by nostalgia of her being a librarian once again, she entered her office to find Dr. Whitsun at her door.

"Good morning, Dr O' Connell. Bright and ready today, I see, to meet and welcome our -" He boomed out.

"Would you like a cup of coffee, Dr Whitsun?" Evy supplied quickly, not yet quite willing to talk about Dr. Almighty Bembridge when it seemed that the entire Cairo Museum was buzzing with the news of this new arrival.

"Oh no, no, Dr O'Connell. The Cairo Museum has made Dr. Alex Khalan your responsibility, aren't you pleased?" He said with an ironic smile on his face. "By the way, our scholar has just arrived. I'll give him to your room." He walked out and closed her door, leaving Evy to wonder what he meant by that. But she didn't have much time for that.

Ardeth knocked only a few seconds after Dr Whitsun left and slipped himself inside, an imposing presence of black among her sea of books and papers.

"Ardeth! I hear that news travels fast. So you are here to meet Dr Khalan as well, I gather? I'm going to meet him now."

"It was my intention to let you communicate first," Ardeth said heavily, refusing the miniscule place that she offered him for a seat. "I am sorry; I did not know that he was going to arrive in the morning. The museum has been quite alive with the news of his arrival that it is quite impossible to keep secrets, even if one wanted to."

Evy exhaled in exasperation. "Why is everyone simply losing their heads? It isn't as if -"

A knock on the door interrupted her tirade.

"I am sorry Ardeth, looks like you are going to meet him along with me. Look, I'll introduce you as an important patron of our museum alright?" She whispered conspiratorially before realising the foolishness of her words. Patron?

She swung open the door to find a confused woman glancing up at her salutations printed on her door.

"Good morning!" Evy chirped immediately, not missing a beat. "You must Dr. Khalan's secretary? I see that he's sent you to look me up first before he decided to -"

"Dr O' Connell?" The woman smiled tentatively and held out her hand. "I'm Alexandra Khalan. I apologise for giving you any shock. People always refer to my shorter name -as Alex Khalan."

Evy wanted to kick herself. Of course an academic could be a woman also! She gave that woman another once over, noting with great surprise that she wasn't all that old, perhaps nearing thirty, dressed against all women's fashion, clad in a suit, black hair tied up in a bun. Her eyes - brownish grey with golden flecks, an olive skin tone, but with no doubt a British accent. Of mixed parentage then.

"Where are my manners, Dr Khalan? Please, do come in. I'm sorry for the mess you see here, you see, I didn't think that you were going to arrive in the morning," Evy tried frantically to clear up some space. "And yes," she finally straightened up, "Please, I'd like you to meet Ardeth Bay, a very important person who has exceptionally close ties with the Cairo Museum." Evy congratulated herself for thinking fast as she watched Dr Khalan extend her hand again to Ardeth.

"Pleased to meet you, Mr Bay."

"Dr Khalan." Ardeth bowed his head slightly and took her hand, which she promptly snatched out of his the moment the point of contact was made.

Alexandra Khalan could not explain what in the world just passed. Neither could Ardeth Bay. Evy watched in fascination as they shrank from each other's touch, at that simple handshake, for heaven's sake! But before anyone could move further, another knock on the door sounded.

"Please, come in." Evy called out.

"Honey, it's me I wanted -" Rick O'Connell looked slightly embarrassed at interrupting the tiny party of people that had congregated in her office.

"Not at all. This is my husband, Rick O' Connell." Evy breathed, "And Rick, this is Dr Alexan-dra Khalan." A small smile played on her lips as she introduced the doctor to her husband.

"Ah. Nice to meet you, Dr. Khalan."

"Well, it seems that my arrival is truly unexpected." Alexandra Khalan remarked. "I will return later at our stipulated time, Dr. O'Connell." Without another word, she turned and strode through the doorway, her strides confident, back upright, a contradiction to the panicked emotions that were already apparent on her face.

"As frosty as a winter morning. Surprised me on both counts. First, who would have thought we traded Alex for a woman, second, who would have thought she was British!" Rick supplied a verdict immediately.

"Rick, surely you understand that woman is tired from that boat ride!" Evy was beginning to feel a kinship with a fellow female academic, frosty or no. "But you're right there Rick, she doesn't look quite Western to me, but who am I to mention, darling, me being half-Egyptian and all -"

She was interrupted by Ardeth's agitated footsteps in her office, whatever space it afforded him to pace.

"There is something about that woman which is not quite right." The words came through gritted teeth.

"Yes, I quite noticed both your expressions when you shook hands, if you decided to call that a hand-shake, Ardeth." Evy eyed him curiously. "Care to explain what was that all about?"

"I do not know myself, Evy, so I cannot tell you, but it was a blinding flash of white that shook me at that touch. The contact was broken immediately after, praise be to Allah."

"Ardeth Bay struck by lightning! Or should we say the spark of a certain type of electricity, hmm?" Rick looked insolently at his warrior friend with half-closed lids, eliciting a dark frown from the remaining occupants of the room.

"Nothing that you have not ever experienced, O'Connell." Came the cool reply. Turning to Evy, her said, "I will go now. But I will come by your house tonight." Ardeth strode out of the door in a similar manner to Alex Khalan, leaving the O'Connells speechless.

Evy blinked, Rick went through a series of motions that started from a scratch of his head and ended with a frown.

"That man only knows how to give orders." Rick snorted. "I'd like to see the day he acquires a wife."

That woman, with her Mediterranean features and her glacial touch - Ardeth Bay felt the unpleasant and bitter taste of fear that ran through his spine at the thought of her. Somehow he knew she had something to do with the blood that flowed down a silvery tip of a knife that flashed before his eyes in his unconscious hours.

Drops of blood that dripped down a silvery sharp edge which materialised into an ornate blade.

Intricate carvings that appeared to be the creed of the ancient Medjai themselves; he could not be too sure. And without any doubt he knew that those drops of blood belonged to him; and the blade from which blood had rolled off had belonged to him.

Slain by his own blade and weapon -what had rendered him so helpless that he would shed his own blood by his own knife?

The Dream's tentacles caught a viselike hold of him while he rode his horse tenaciously back to camp. It was difficult to wish it away when it was determined to part of him that insisted it was integral to his survival.

He had seen the unusual colour of her eyes and the composite colours of her hair did not escape his sight. But he caught her in an unexpected moment during that brief and electric handshake -her lovely eyes - cusp of the Nile's glory on an overcast day that ran through the golden sand and brown bedrocks - that widened in great alarm as she shrank back from him. The electric field around them shuddered and clamped shut once again, unwilling to allay his frustration.

The state of agitation in which she threw him was sickeningly real and cold to the touch; the lack of multiplicity of gestures on her part had surprised and petrified him. She was in no way any remarkable woman, wasn't she? What distress she had caused him? Ardeth Bay was no man who swayed like a willow to any woman; he thought that the day he became slave to frivolous emotions would be the day he also yielded to one who had the complex mastery of his soul.