Author's Note:

I've been told that there ought to be more than just intellectual interaction between Alex and Ardeth, something veering preferably towards the physical, of course. So I had to write this. More foreshadowing in here of course. I started out wanting to prove that Ardeth is not all brawn and muscle but has quite a bit of intellect that accompanies it, but well, maybe it's now time to reassert the physical again.

All thanks for Ann who suggested that Alex needs to realise that she is not immune to the gorgeous man next to her and to have all eyes open to Ardeth and perhaps vice versa s well.

Tell me what you think of this! Thanks for reading! I unashamedly say that the story lives because of your comments.

Chapter 16

A realm of pleasance, many a mound,
And many a shadow-chequer'd lawn
Full of the city's stilly sound,
And deep myrrh-thickets blowing round
The stately cedar, tamarisks,
Thick rosaries of scented thorn,
Tall orient shrubs, and obelisks
Graven with emblems of the time

-Recollections of Arabian Nights, Lord Alfred Tennyson

They slept very little that night, rousing into action as the desert awoke with the sun. Alex strolled a few paces away from the tent, arms around herself, pensively inhaling the slight morning dew and the musty smell of the nearby horses. The remnants of the monstrous plateau lay in chunks around her, much untrodden, dotted with an occasional tree.

Ardeth was readying the horses, his robes fluttering in the cool morning breeze, his head and long hair free of its usual turban, lines of weariness etched in his face.

She walked back to their makeshift camp, humming an old tune absently, mounting her stallion. It was strangely far easier than the first time she had struggled to get up at the O'Connell residence, the familiarity of her seat on the horse inexplicable even to herself.

"The triumphal march from Aida!"

She looked at him in great surprise.

"A very memorable tune." He glanced up at her sitting on her horse, his hand stilled on her saddle, eyes turning into a warm honey colour in recognition at the tune she hummed.

"Indeed it is," She drew back in surprise. "But I never expected you to know this!"

"The myth of the savage native, who only knows how to wield a sword in attack or defence?" He questioned ironically.

She reddened in embarrassment, speechless that he had read her instantly.

"That an Egyptian might not know of an opera written about his own country? An opera that exalts the ancient past of Egypt?" He teased further.

"I, well..."

"Aida was my first 'western' encounter," His eyes crinkled with the memory.

Alex watched him, entranced at what he was saying.

"With opera no less. My brother and I had visited the Cairo Opera house when it was last performed. We never knew what to expect, our experiences being limited to the Arabian belly dances and music that was played with it. The voices of the women singers had startled me out of my skin when they sang at an impossibly high pitch. But the foreigners were very much enjoying themselves, pleasured into half-lidded eyes and shallow breaths."

"One must have particularly tuned ears and a romantic heart for it." Alex smirked, remembering her own brush with Verdi's Aida when she was with Cordelia in Bulgaria.

"Perhaps so, Dr. Khalan. Anyhow, only after a while was I able to stop fidgeting and enjoy the foreign tunes that simply grew sweeter and sweeter in my ears. They sang in a language that I did not understand, which I found out was Italian. An Italian man had sat next to me, and translated nearly word for word all that they sang, taking pity on my lost looks." He mounted his own stallion and urged it on, pacing it with hers.

"It must have been an experience then for the young Ardeth, but on hindsight? The ignorant foreigners romanticising Egypt and the ages of the Pharaohs? You probably walked out with brows twitching at the ill-mannered portrayal of the Orient." She laughed.

"Not at all. The times of the Pharaohs are so ancient that any imagination in recreating them is embraced."

"I find Verdi's eloquence heart-wrenching," She said simply.

"You understand Italian then?"

"No, I don't; I've only read his libretti, translated, of course. Academics aren't almighty beings, Ardeth." She reprimanded gently.

Ardeth smiled sardonically at her reproof, envisioning the unshakable Dr. Alexandra Khalan struggling with languages other than those in the Semitic branch.

"You like Opera then?" He asked of her, seeing her wrinkle her nose slightly.

"Just Aida, actually."

"'My heart foreboded this thy dreadful sentence, and to this tomb that shuts on thee its portal, I crept unseen by mortal. Here from all where none can more behold us, clasped in thy arms I resolved to perish'." He quoted, wondering why it was this particular sentence that was fixed firmly in his memory, wondering about its prophetic worth.

"You are an amazing man, Ardeth Bay," Alex nodded her head in approval. "There is no man of my acquaintance who can remember the name of an opera they have attended, much less remember its libretto. Who would think a hardened Medjai chief might know anything of Verdi?"

"We do not remember things which are of no importance to us." Ardeth said cryptically.

"Aida is nonetheless a romantic opera," She insisted. "One can never take its idealism too seriously."

"Idealism you say?" His eyes widened in protest. "When Radames and Aida die together in a sealed tomb?"

"Idealism is not just confined to a happily ever after, think you? They die together, in peace everlasting as Isis greets them on high, as Amneris so sings. Idealistic doesn't even describe it." She snorted with no slight amount of distaste.

"I do not understand you, Dr. Khalan," He stated again. "How can one so passionately strive for the things of the old, and yet not carry a grain of idealism?"

But that moment was lost. He stopped in mid-sentence, eyes turned towards the sky, so she thought.

Ardeth's eyes had narrowed on the looming sand dune above, silently upbraiding himself for not taking precaution as they rode under the mammoth dunes; he was becoming less careful ever since he found himself preoccupied with his dreams.

There were 7 riders who charged noisily down at them, its leader impressively large; they were not the typical nomadic tribe that was subsistent in nature, and possibly bore symbols of a fearsome Nubian tribe that often conflicted with the Medjai.

The stallions that they sat on reared their heads in fright, Ardeth drawing his scimitar in grim anticipation as he fought for his balance on the skittish horse.

"Enemies, Ardeth?" Alex shouted in a panic, trying to calm her stallion down.

"Stay behind me!" He yelled back, drawing his short dagger in the other hand, feeling uselessly for more weapons when the odds seemed so against him.

But the odds against them had been infinitely greater when he saw the second wave of the Anubis warriors descending on them beardless young warriors who had yet to complete their training, breaths heaving from the exertion.

"We have to ride fast! Away from them! Ardeth, do not stay still!"

"No!" He said roughly. "Our horses are not well rested enough to ride fast and extensively. We stay, and fight."

Ardeth now fought a mental battle, frantically clearing the repetitive superimposed visions of the helpless Medjai remnant against a supernatural army, revanche coursing through his hands and his blade, reminding himself that these were riders who were mortals and could be taken on, with the help of Allah.

The Nubian tribesmen galloped closer, speeds increasing as the momentum of the downward slope threw them in the direction of the wind current, catching and matching their speed.

The white stallion backed off as Alex anxiously looked around for a weapon. The riders were closing in, their riding formation no longer horizontal, but semi-circular, its leader in the centre and his tribesmen cornering off any path of escape. Their war cry sent chills through her, and she saw out of the corner of her eye that Ardeth had gone stock-still, readying himself, judging from the tensed straightness of his battle stance. Without warning, he charged forward on his horse, a lone rider moving to be swallowed by the gaping mouth of the semi-circle.

She heard the first clash of metal against metal after seconds and looked up to see the leaders of their own tribes sparring furiously on their horses, the slender and engraved blade of the scimitar pitted against the thick vertical sword of the Nubians. The swordfight, perfected into a high art by the warrior's game, was epitomised in the circling of the sparring men, clashing again and again.

The tribesmen that had formed the edges of the semi-circle had surrounded her, the one on the right hauling her violently off her horse as she kicked and struggled with her booted feet, yelling for Ardeth as loud as she could. Her captor's sword was trained on her throat, pressed hard enough that she bled from the neck. He yelled at her in Arabic, as she tried to twist away from him with as much movement as she could.

Ardeth had heard her too clearly, but the warriors who fought on horseback were however, caught in their world of swordplay; he was fighting 5 men at once, slashing strongly at one, blocking the attack of another, as the leader relentlessly kept up his assault.

God help us, he remembered saying, once more that lone figure who stood in front of his young Medjai soldier, watching the dog-like creatures run with inhuman speed, multitudes upon multitudes, from crest to crest of each dune, waves that showed no sign of slowing down until they crashed upon the hard cliffs.

The momentary lapse had cost him his centre. The block he tried to make was unsteady, his scimitar sliding off the tip of the sword of the tribesman, while the sword connected securely with his right shoulder blade, nicking the flesh much less deeply if not for the thickness of his robe. A Nubian had successfully kicked his short dagger out of his left hand; it landed a few feet away from where she was struggling.

An accidental but vicious stray kick in his crotch had made him loosen his grip on her arms temporarily and she stumbled free, diving in the direction of the lone blade, grabbing the head of the dagger and without further thought, turned so that she was lay with her back in the sand and threw it with deadly accuracy at her captor.

It struck him in the middle of the forehead, but she was already running towards him as he whirled from its blow, pushing him downward into the sand, grabbing the blade from his head and sprinting free to gain distance, before spinning rather gawkishly on her heel to throw it again at the other captor with shaky hands this time, the blade finding its target deep in his belly either by accident or by choice, she honestly did not know.

She could not stop now. The rise of nausea was unmistakable as she removed the dagger slowly from the second man, not knowing if it was from the loss of blood or the reaction to the people she had just fatally injured.

Ardeth had brought down 3 men; the other 2 fought indefatigably on.

She saw the slight strain in his arms and posture, the lack of sleep from the night before weakening his reflexes and dulling his senses.

She had forgotten about the handgun that Rick O'Connell had loaned her. Running towards her white stallion, she rummaged through her sleeping pack for a solid object. Finding it, she took aim at the Nubian leader, firing off target instead with shaking hands, hitting his horse in the head, unseating him as he fell painfully down from the side, hitting the sand in an awkward angle.

Ardeth had found his advantage; two rapid moves of his wrists in a split second saw the remaining fighter fall away into oblivion. He descended from his horse, the dark avenging angel who carried death in his wings, standing over the fallen Nubian leader, placing his now red scimitar at the man's throat.

"Ardeth, no!" He dimly heard her call out.

The Nubian leader was weakening; his eyes were still glittering from the adrenaline of the attack, but pained from the broken ribs as he fell; the pride in him exceeded the potential humiliation of surrender.

He spat out something in Arabic, causing Ardeth to stiffen, and ran his own sword forcefully into his chest before Ardeth could react, gurgling, eyes defiant, before finally falling silent.

She sank to her knees in the sand then, face in hands, too numb to heave an empty stomach out, tears falling freely onto her face without sound, holding his dagger that had slain 2 men rammed into the foot of the dune, the gun flung far from her side.

Ardeth sheathed his sword, glancing around at the bodies that littered the ground, marvelling silently at her expert marksmanship that had saved both their skins.

Their conversation last night returned to him.

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.

He did not doubt that she spoke the truth, and had not handled weapons as such before, but her confident throws corresponded with all that had surpassed the night before; her twirl of his scimitar and now her accuracy with his short blade defied all her claims.

Perhaps you do not have remembrance of it.

He remembered saying this much to her, challenging her that her memory did not allow her to remember any of it yet. Perhaps this much was true; plumbing the depth of memory was not a task that one chose opportunely in one's own time, to command the way troops could be commanded. But he highly approved of her courage and her help, her deft moves had been his rear guard and the sudden elation of being alive with her filled him.

He collected the gun from where she had flung it, sinking down on his knees in front of her, gently removing her hands that shielded her face, holding her forearms tightly -and faced another assault of a different kind.

He did not let go of her this time, as he did for previous occasions, and the sight that greeted him in his mind's eye was nothing short of extraordinary.

Sukh'chet huy Mene'wa Het
Nu'uk Ka kat'ankh Ashet
I will not tear myself away,
My heart is glad beyond all measure

That was what he heard, a voice that told to a beautiful Nefertiri as she lay on her bed, and then saw with the greatest amazement, himself dressed scantily, with only the lower body covered, with the same beard and flesh markings, but the hair was now close-cropped, holding a spear of sorts.

I thank you again, Medjai. You have truly great tolerance towards Enheduana.

Ardeth heard another familiar female voice say in the ancient tongue, and saw the same couple who embraced on a deserted balcony as he did during the night he spent in the O'Connell house. Their faces were still shielded from his view, and yet he thought the woman he embraced to be Alexandra Khalan, life in its seductive banality, perhaps. The mist in which he found himself swirled around his own fading consciousness; his heartbeat increased as that same woman now leaned over him, holding a dagger - his very own, sliding it smoothly along the upper regions of his chest, blood dripping away, sporadic and too red to behold -

Alex Khalan was shivering violently and he let her go abruptly, breaking all contact, the control of the vision on his consciousness broken. Still reeling from the skirmish with the Nubians, he was filled with renewed dread at now possessing the knowledge that he was killed some point in time with his very own blade, by a woman whom he had first embraced, and by whom he was later betrayed.

But the lure of the physical was irresistible, drawn back to reality, he noted with significant worry that the woman whom he had gripped so tightly before, although breathing steadily, was now limp in the sand, her eyes half-open and unfocussed. Her neck was filled with blood that was slowing drying; the cut made by the Nubian had thankfully not sliced open major blood canals.

"Sukh'chet huy Mene'wa Het.."

She was muttering under her breath and with great shock he heard the same words on her lips repeated. He now knew that she was afflicted with the strange and repetitive visions that became clearer each time they made contact, but still wondered if they saw the same apparitions.

"I will not tear myself away," He kneeled close, bending his head and murmured against her ear, promising her that much of himself, yet afraid of touching her any further, for fear that she might not be able to master any further jolts to her emotional and physical state.

Ardeth removed his sash and pressed it gently to her neck; he did not know how long they stayed this way, with the sun now high and hot on their backs, she lying motionless on the sand, half-conscious, he, leaning close over her, comforting her with his presence, the landscape once more desolate and noiseless.

She dimly heard his voice through the haze that she fought to overcome, the overwhelming emotional overload dissipating as she forced open her eyes, and saw his vexed eyes above hers.

Ardeth pushed away from his prayer position over her, remaining on his knees as she sat up slowly, ignoring the sand that had lodged itself in her hair and the wound in her neck.

"We should move, Ardeth." She said tiredly, trying to sit up and caught sight of the tear in his robes at the shoulder. "You are bleeding too."

He gestured away her observation dismissively.

"I had meant to show you an Oasis southeast of Hamunaptra, when you joked last night that all Egypt was brown with sand. But it is now a necessity." He studied her dusty face keenly, picking out the reddish-gold strands of her ebony hair that were highlighted more fiercely in the glare of the sun, and frowned over the cut in her neck that was in danger of an infection.

"Strange how a city of the dead is built near to a life source," She smiled weakly.

Ardeth seemed to be fighting a battle within himself, the need to help his injured companion warring with but triumphing over the worry that their touch might result in less than pleasant repercussions.

Calling the horses to them, he transferred their sleeping packs and their belongings onto the white stallion, and hoisted her up his own horse, ignoring the brief flashes that accompanied this movement, seeing doubly through gritted teeth, living two lifetimes in a space of a heartbeat.

"What is this I see, Ardeth? Am I hallucinating?" She asked in confusion, her hands gripping the front of his saddle, as she made weak motions to wave away the queer visions that now came frequently with each touch they shared. He swung himself behind her, his injured right arm stretched past her, grasping the reins of the horse, urging it into a smooth gallop, his left hand controlling the reins of her white stallion, demanding it to match the pace he had set.

"Bear with it for a moment longer, Alexandra. We will sort things out when we reach the oasis." He said quietly behind her now, her full name rolling off his tongue the way streams glide effortlessly off rounded rocks; conscious that it was the first time he was addressing her intimately, wanting himself to mean so much more to her than what he meant to her now.

She had discerned it immediately as the momentum of the gallops threw her forward; so attuned were her ears to hearing her formal salutation fall from his lips that she had struggled for breath as he whispered her name, unprepared for the helpless desire that formed and pooled in her, held a willing captive by his voice. He had been so formal with her, addressing her as nothing more than the salutation that museum officials called her; she now felt overcome not by his remarkable show of might against the Nubians, but by the uncharacteristic tenderness he showed her.

They rode hard and fast, the scourging wind that whipped through their hair sending swirls and eddies of sand that bit their faces, physical demons that added on to the flashes of remembrance that passed in the mind's eye. Two separate existences had come alive, giving warning that they were yet about to culminate explosively.

The present and the past were brought to broil, indescribably dependent on each other; she saw herself dressed oddly, holding a knife to another man's belly, saw herself running without looking back from the marshes, and then running with Evy, who was dressed similarly, the lack of chronological order telling her of the large degree of her own ignorance.

The lush greenery that materialised at the edge of the desert was more than a welcome sight; they had lost sense of time, the only indication that it was nearing the end of the day was the long cast of shadows of the bountiful leaves on their bodies as they slowed at the entrance, bringing the horses to a trot. Ardeth let their thirst guide them to the nearest pool of water that fell from large upper crevices of hard rock, before bringing both of them down onto the dampish grass, collapsing in front of the same pond surrounded by craggy rock, that promised to heal their dehydrated and wounded states.