Author's Notes:
Apologies to certain famous authors whose exceedingly excellent quotes I have used or modified as dialogue material. ;-) We are getting there, we really are! I hope it can only get more exciting after all those numerous chapters I've written!
Chapter 15
Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
Todays of past Regrets and future fears -
Tomorrow? -Why, Tomorrow I may be
Myself with yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years
-The Rubáiyat of Omar Khayyám
The Medjai were a touch and go people, at least, that was what she was finding out with great alarm.
Ardeth had been waiting by the horses when she emerged from breakfast just slightly after the dawn, dressed very much the way she had seen him from day one, clad entirely in black, folds upon folds of cloth hiding what she suspected might be too fine a physique.
She was irrationally incensed, at herself, at Ardeth, maddened that she all she noticed was the physicality of him, of the stray thoughts that she had no control of, or rather, had no desire to control. The academic backing she had built her confidence around was difficult to appreciate, when emotions that were suppressed for long had resurfaced.
Dressed in her oldest pair of black pants and white shirt, hair tied up most conveniently as possible, Alex hoped for the hundredth time that she knew what she was getting herself into.
Arabian stallions, one black, one white. Beautiful, strong horses, saddled and unruffled, the powerfully built man besides them stroking their manes, whispering melodies of encouragement, readying them for their journey into hell's hole. She loathed interrupting the moment that she was savouring with her own eyes, watching the warrior's extraordinary gentle handling of the creatures, amazed at the open emotions in his eyes and face.
But the sweetness in his face hooded itself perceptibly into a coolness as she approached.
"Are they Salwaqi horses, Ardeth?" Alex asked softly.
He looked at her in surprise, delight flooding his face.
"They are of mixed breeds." His face softened, as he continued, "Come, let us be away. We will talk more when we are well into the journey. There is a hard journey in front of us."
It was not as if she was unused to travelling with little, but the speed by which she was whisked to the front of the O'Connell house was dazzling. The O'Connells were waving somewhat cynically, hands raised halfway in midair with identical smirks on their faces as they watched her mount her stallion with difficulty. But she did not have the time to consider that lay behind those smirks; Ardeth reined his horse and kicked away from the house.
The soreness that she felt after the first hour was forgotten as the first rays of the sun rose to greet them. They rode in silence, as silhouettes framed by the varying landscape of the desert, hard-edges of the plateaus and blue dunes that transformed gold at the coax of the sun's rays as their silent company.
"We stop here, for a while," Ardeth announced firmly when the sun crawled upwards signifying midday, and they slowed the horses to a trot.
They dismounted and grabbed their waterskins, quenching their thirsts, sitting in the crevices of the hard-edged mesa, thankful that the sharp drop of the cliff provided them with a miniscule amount of shade.
"You were asking about the horses this morning, Dr. Khalan. The black one," he motioned to the stallion, "he is indeed a beautiful horse. He is a valued Dahman, an ideal blending of the Kuhaylan and Salwaqi horses. He has the elegance of the Saqlawi, and the endurance of the Kuhaylan. Strong, dependable, thought to run in the courts of King Suleiman." Ardeth affirmed.
Alex stared, transfixed at the beauty of the horses, particularly the pure white stallion.
"And the white one?" she questioned.
"A straight Egyptian stallion. Also with the Salwaqi strain. They are good horses, and they serve the Medjai well."
"I can see that, Ardeth. I shall loathe to part with them." She said fondly.
He looked curiously at her then.
"May I ask how you came by with the knowledge of horses? Many women are not very fond of them."
Her eyes grew distant with the memory.
"This is the second time that I am in Egypt actually. Not as if I do have many hoarded memories of Egypt, since the last time I visited was at the age of 4, but well, I've seen Morocco and Hadhramout when I was older and hence the more developed brain remembers horses like these there."
"Ah, yes. The holy city of A'ad. My grandmother came from Aynat, the east of Tareem in Hadhramout. You are very well travelled then, Dr. Khalan. The history of ancient Yemen is very interesting. " Ardeth complimented.
Alex waved the compliment away and chose to press on.
"Tell me, Ardeth, the extent of your education. It is not an insult, if you are wont to misunderstandings. I wish to know more about Medjai culture, if that is what you also wish to tell me."
He raised a brow at her, unsure at how to approach her question, and then decided that perhaps honesty was best. Brutal honesty had worked well when the Medjai threatened those who disturbed the sleep of any Pharaoh, and he decided that it would work well now with Dr. Khalan.
"The amount of education given to one is proportional to the amount by which he wishes to be educated and knowledgeable. Basic reading and writing are given to all, but obtaining further knowledge begs deeper studying, of course."
"And you chose to learn more?"
I am not the eldest in my family and therefore had a lot more time to spend with teachers who spent a lot of time beating me over the head with books." His lips twitched as he regarded her sideways.
Alex could not stop the unbidden smile that appeared on her face as she imagined a young Ardeth, carefree and playful, disciplined into perusing his books. The young Ardeth then did not worry about the burdens of having to become Medjai chief; who could ever predict the series of deaths that had made him the leader?
"I am grateful for those teachers," he continued, "for they taught me all that I needed to know. The heroic side of a warrior, must after all be balanced, don't you agree?" Ardeth told her wryly.
She nodded her head sagely, and took another sip from her waterskin.
"Stop that, you will not have enough for later," he involuntarily placed his hand on her wrist to stop the flow of the water into her mouth and jerked backwards -he was hit once more by the same vision of the blood, the knife and the man and the woman. He shut his eyes tight for a moment, willing it to leave him, begging Allah for his mercy and took a look at her face.
By the expression that he saw, he knew then that she had seen it too. There were many questions -did she dream at night too? Did she see the exact same things he saw? How is he linked to this certain Dr. Khalan if they were able to see the same things at the power of a single touch? He needed to ask her if she knew the answers to all that he had asked, but found himself strangely at a loss for words, confounded even further by the fact that he had just easily talked with her.
"If not Allah, you, doctor, would help me," He whispered shakily, not trusting himself to speak in the tongue of the foreigners, comforted in the Arabic that spouted out involuntarily, past his lips.
It was a plea, Alex realised, a plea to the heavens, or to her, that he wanted to be relieved of the strange occurrence that plagued him, and now, her.
"Ardeth, I'm just another blind person trying to help you across the same dirt paths I can't see too!" She murmured back to him, wanting to offer comfort, but not knowing how to.
He nodded slightly, seeing that they were both unready to examine what had happened, knowing also that they had to get down to it; jumping away from each other was not going to stop this cursed ailment.
"And we will find out that it is, Ardeth, we will."
"Yes," he agreed heavily, "We must move on now. There will be no more stops until night falls."
They did not speak anymore after they mounted their stallions, each preoccupied with his/her own thoughts.
The sun hung low in the sky, the unchanging landscape taking on an azure hue. Ardeth let it go by largely unnoticed; he had seen enough spectacular sunsets to take this particular one for granted.
The admiration that he thought he felt for Alexandra Khalan was growing; that woman had not complained and nitpicked about the length of time that they had stayed on her horse. But there was a centeredness about her that was not unwelcome at all; she seemed an unusual person who assuredly dealt out riches through her speech, measuring wealth that was given out and the wealth that returned, all in the currency of words. No woman had challenged him like this one did; she was razor sharp when she needed to be, with the elusive charm like a butterfly that he struggled to catch.
She had not said a word ever since the midday break at the edge of the rocks; yet the weariness compounded with a sudden sense of disorientation had made her incapable of sensible communication.
He was beginning to tire as well and imagined that it must have been infinitely worse for her, since she was unaccustomed to horseback riding.
Ardeth turned to her solemnly.
"The skies do not seem to be favourable. We must stop here for the night."
Alex shrugged; her head had been in a haze from the excessive heat of the sun and was thankful that her expectations of fainting halfway were still unrealised; whatever the desert man said was alright with her.
They set up their tents tiredly, sitting on the small mat that she had spread in front of the fire that Ardeth started.
She did not think that there was anything amiss with the extended silence that hung between them; she was comfortable with periods of stillness, in which she felt dwelt the lesser things that were appreciated.
"There is a missing section in Medjai history", Ardeth broke the silence as he thought necessary. "I did not tell you then, but I am telling you now, Dr. Khalan. The scribes you have spoken about, from your Babylonian writer, who writes of men with marking branded on their flesh, are none other than the Medjai. I now have reason to believe that the records that the ancient Medjai were destroyed, or perhaps, as you say, hidden."
"Are you saying that there has been, or rather, is a missing section in your annals, because the scribes who recorded the history of the Exodus and the plagues never survived?" It was getting too difficult to think, much less analyse what he said. "Please, I ask that you speak plainly."
"There is truth in what you wish to find, Dr. Khalan, if you wish to know that you are not merely chasing after mirages of the desert." He provided.
"You believe in myths and legends?"
"Myths and legends sometimes are called such because they are separated from us by a long period of time. It is not to say that all are untrue. Because the Medjai have deep roots in Egyptian royalty does not mean now that it applies no longer."
"So you do agree with me then? I mean, you do not believe that I am insane?"
"I never indicated otherwise, did I? The O'Connells and I only recoiled because you mentioned Hamunaptra. The Medjai annals are more or less complete, save for the glaringly empty hole during Ramses' rule. Hamunaptra then, must be visited once more. What you are researching is also very important to the tribe."
"Did your people not try to salvage what you could then?"
"There are stories, Dr. Khalan. But the reverse of what I just said is also right. Sometimes stories can merely be the children of imagination."
"I disagree, Medjai. The stories are after all, part of your heritage, are they not? A Medjai who forsakes his history is perhaps only one who is half complete." She objected, yet inwardly criticising herself for censuring him when she had chosen the path of not dwelling on her own past.
"You play devil's advocate, Dr. Khalan," He gave her an assessing look. "My duties as Commander of the tribes demand me to discern what is truly important and what is not."
"Aye, that you are then," She sighed, not wanting to argue any longer.
But Ardeth continued as if he had not read her expression, his face catching the firelight, haunted and unseeing, staring into the flames that danced and cackled before his stillness.
"Stories that are passed down by word of mouth, through thousands of years. You do not know how pure they are. You, Dr. Khalan, as a student of history, should know above all, that not all sources are to be trusted." He said pointedly.
"Ardeth," she sighed again. "I work with ancient sources, all of them thousands of years old. If the time difference is the factor that renders the sources unbelievable, then my research is all for naught. You know how every bit is precious to me. From travel writing, to word of mouth stories, small pictograms; these may inadvertently be the small pieces of the jigsaw."
"Perhaps you are right, Dr. Khalan. You speak very academically." He agreed. "But an inquiring mind can also harm one. Those who exalt the tangible and the empirical may one day be taught a lesson."
"What are you alluding to, Ardeth?" She asked baldly.
He murmured something so softly in Arabic; she strained to hear him.
"I am sorry, sometimes my English fails me."
Phrases, fragments of sentences, which she stumbled over and did not quite understand, feeling the familiar constriction in the chest that urged her on to discover the deeper need for the recovery of the scrolls, rather than to purely look to the satisfaction of Bembridge as a stimulus for their recovery.
"I did not say this aloud before Dr. Khalan, and the truth is that I did not, and still do not completely trust any expedition that is sent out to haul up the ruins of Egypt." Ardeth looked her in the eye. "There is much more trouble that what it always expected. Rick O'Connell was never a believer in things that cannot be touched or seen. But I think he might now."
"Yes, your adventures with the O'Connells, so I have been told. The poise against fatality takes more than endurance, don't we all know that." She muttered exasperatedly.
"I never meant it offensively, Dr. Khalan," Ardeth countered seriously. "It was not under the best of circumstances that O'Connell and the Medjai met nearly a decade ago."
"All at Hamunaptra?"
"All at Hamunaptra," He confirmed, falling silent.
But she could not let it go, not when Ardeth and the O'Connells had referred to that legendary famed city of the dead in terms so real.
"Will you not tell me what happened in Hamunaptra? Is your silence on that to last forever?" She pressed in, enslaved to curiosity, haunted by this inner impulse that had only throbbed harder and louder ever since they neared Hamunaptra.
"I ask for your patience, Dr. Khalan. We all have not yet recovered from the shock of events. Perhaps I will tell you later."
"But it was a decade ago." She argued calmly.
"Yes, but trouble reared its ugly head again very recently."
Alex regarded him for a moment longer, before staring back into the fire. He did appear to be a devotee of solitude and silence as much as she did, guarded in every way, cutting a very striking but lone figurehead of his tribe; his encounters with the unknown meant to always be more penetrating than those of the ordinary man.
His thoughts are weightier, she thought, stranger and seldom ever without a tinge of sadness. Images and perceptions that might otherwise be easily dispelled by a glance, a laugh, or an exchange of comments, possibly concern him unduly.
"You are tired," Ardeth interrupted her musings on him. "Sleep. See these tents? That's what they are for. I will keep watch."
"Show me your scimitar, Ardeth. Let me clasp it in my hands." She suggested, disregarding his quiet command.
"When I have only met you a few days ago?" He said lightly, waving off her request.
"Please, Ardeth. Satisfy this urge." She insisted.
"So that you might run it through me? I think not." He raised a brow at her half-seriously.
"Would I be so asinine as to run a sword through my only guide in the desert and to Hamunaptra?" She challenged dryly.
He eyed her suspiciously before consenting, knowing that he would not act impulsively such as this, holding the handle of his blade, relishing its comfortable feel before handing it to her.
She held the blade horizontally, the silver curve of the blade winking unabashedly in the dim light, boasting stridently about the amount of blood that had graced its tips. Its grip felt familiar in her hands, and stretched her arm out, imitating an attack with the scimitar, twirling the blade anticlockwise before it lay in her hand in its starting position. At the back of her mind, a memory nagged at her, telling her knives and daggers were secure in her hands, although the only real memory that flashed before her eyes was that of her as a young girl standing next to Aunt Cordelia, learning to domestic skills, something so banal as the slicing of vegetables.
He noted it all, perplexed, watching her handling of his weapon with fluid grace and ease. The technique in which she had just twirled his blade was the exact same movement that he executed, riding his horse at a breakneck speed towards the Anubis Army, scimitar high in the air, war cries of the Medjai from his lips, the pointy tip aching to run itself through the heads of the dog-like creatures.
"Are you also trained in the arms of war, in addition to being a scholar of ancient cultures, Dr. Khalan?"
"Such flattery. But the answer is sadly, no." She laughed then, tossing the blade back to him, which he caught perfectly with an alarmed look.
The sheathing of the long blade had a sonorous ring that he never tired of hearing; now he felt as if he needed to plumb the depths of this certain Dr. Khalan.
"Perhaps you do not have remembrance of it."
"No remembrance?" She laughed again. "Why? Think you that I might have a clandestine past? I think I would remember something as significant as having fought with a sword before. All that I know of scimitars come from the lores of A Thousand and One Nights which I have been ardently infatuated with for a long time."
"You are so many things, Dr. Khalan; in the house of the O'Connells you talk about the ancients as if they rule you, and then you spoke of your preference for night instead of day, and the way you held my scimitar is not what I might expect of someone who clumsily handles a weapon for the first time"
"I'm not sure if you got that right."
"...and you slip through the fingers of anyone who tries to catch a hold on any part of you," He said honestly.
Alex was bewildered; the multitude of sides that Ardeth was talking about felt as if he was only waxing lyrical, and she knew that he never meant it in any other obtuse way than what he had said.
"Then maybe you are only seeing an illusion. I might say the same of you."
"I am what you see," He smiled slightly.
"As am I, since you have replied my question as such," Alex gritted her teeth in frustration. "Everyone finds as much of the great complexity as he carries in himself, from the diseases of the soul to pointless aspirations and the dark lords that battle within."
"'To behold the unseen then,is a gift bestowed'," Ardeth quoted.
"What?"
"The Sufis believe in the bounty of Allah. What I just said is their creed. They seek the unseen or things not yet revealed." He gazed upwards and frowned at the clouds that patched the night sky, preventing the stars that told him the position of the sun. "Is it not useful in this case?"
"The gods are never obedient to the humans who serve them," she answered wryly.
"But now the gods you speak of surely watch over your slumber at night. You do see what I am telling you?" He said to her slowly, as if one would gently chide a disobedient child, yet not admitting that the choice of not sleeping was also due to the horrifying vision of blood and blades that he was helpless against.
"You are right, Ardeth. I hear you loud and clear. All sand and the colour brown, that Egypt is." Alex said in jest. She got up and stretched her wobbly calves before lifting the flap of the tent.
The description of Egypt as brown and sandy wanted to make him laugh.
"You do not know Egypt yet, Dr. Khalan, even though you proclaim to have visited before. It may be a good idea if I show you a place that is almost unimaginable before we proceed on to the city of the dead." He called out.
