Disclaimer:
Sadly, I do not own any of the characters in this story except the ones you've never heard of. Which is quite unfortunate really, as if I owned the ones you had heard of, I would probably be quite wealthy and could sit on some beach all day writing this kind of thing. Which, come to think of it, from your perspective is probably something of a relief.

Undoubtedly some small liberty taking with history, ancient mythology, the bible (yes I know some people would regard that as the same thing), and with a take on some characters history that may clash a little with the novels but not (I hope) with the movies. Apologies to those any of that might annoy. But then this is only a story.
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The Mummy's Shadow
Chapter Four


'Worlds Apart'

Egypt, 1926

The desert moon continued its rise towards the zenith of it's reflected glory, it's huge crescent shape hanging low in the sky. The sun, already setting when they set out, had disappeared no more than an hour into their weary journey home. Elated at first, the trio of battle worn adventurers on their two flea bitten but sturdy camels, had spent that short time in animated discussion about the events of the past few days, congratulating each other, and making light of the danger they had all been in, in the way that people who have looked death square in his face, and don't really want to think about it anymore have a tendency to do.

Throughout the history of the world people had always done the same. Rather than remembering the real terrifying visage, and the nauseating, stomach clenching fear at death's approach they undertook a breath taking revision after the fact and turned him into a precocious child into whose face they'd chuckled while tweaking his nose.

It was an all too human necessity, a safety mechanism to stop you from shutting down from the realisation of how close you had come, ending up with a constant nagging fear of another fatal encounter and spending the rest of your life in a locked room, with the curtains drawn and a pistol under your pillow. Denial and bluff at least allowed them to ride home secure in the knowledge of their safety.

Well, their safety from un-dead mummies intent on bringing long dead lovers back from the dead so that they could rule the world together, at least.

But, while they may have escaped Death's bony clutches, there was no getting away from his better looking twin sister, Sleep. All of them had been up for 48 hours straight, with little enough rest prior to that and all the physical exertions in Hamanaptra since. The danger over, their adrenaline levels settling back to normal, sleep had finally caught up with them, and their exaltation on their escape, had soon been replaced by a bone deep weariness and drowsy silence.

The chill of the night had quickly set in, causing the two new sweethearts on one of the camels to cling even closer to one another, seeking extra warmth. Curled up, wrapped in Rick O'Connell's arms, nestling snugly against his chest, Evelyn Carnahan, exhausted after her ordeal, and despite the swaying of the camel, found more than enough comfort in her position to happily fall asleep.

Over on the other camel, Jonathan Carnahan's chin rested on his chest, his hands and feet wrapped firmly in the rope grips that would allow him to stay in the saddle while he slept. His gentle snores were the only sound in this desert world apart from the plodding of the camels padded feet on the soft sand, and the merest whisper of a breeze.

Only Rick was awake, and though his eyelids felt like someone had placed a nice shiny 2 tonne grand piano on each of them, and his aching body, bloodied and pummelled, pleaded with him for rest, he refused to allow himself to fall asleep.

They may have been safe from nigh on invincible High Priests, but they were out in the middle of the desert, days from anywhere and had been in such a rush to hightail it away from the collapsed city before ol' Imhotep could spring up and yell 'April Fools!', that they'd just grabbed the camels and never thought to check for provisions.

There were bags on both camels but the way things had been going, luck wise, they were probably going to have to go hungry for a while. That didn't concern him. The possible lack of water however, did.

He figured, or rather he hoped, providing there were no delays or need for detours, they could make the journey okay as they were. They couldn't make it back to Fort Brydon, but it was only 2 days straight ride to the Nile and that trading post, where they'd stocked up after the riverboat raid.

The riverboat may be gone, sunk to the bottom of the river by the Medjai attack, but hopefully Jonathan had enough money on him to get them some provisions for the 4 or 5 day ride back to Cairo from there. But it would all be a moot point if the camels weren't kept on track. They'd all wake up to find themselves hopelessly lost if someone didn't keep awake. And that someone had to be him.

Still, common sense was one thing, exhaustion was another and the temptation to just let his head droop and nod off, especially with so inviting a pillow to rest on as the soft mass of dark curls that was Evelyn's head, was immense. His head did dip, but instead of resting his cheek on top of her head, he took the opportunity of her oblivious state to take in a breath full of her scent.

Filling his lungs up as far as he could with oxygen and her perfume, he opened his eyes wide and straightened, gaining enough zest to last him for a little while longer.

He looked around, a tall escarpment, back lit by the moon, smaller but not unlike the one where he had seen Ardeth Bay and the other Medjai riders on his first trip back here with the Carnahans was on their right as they rode.

By that geographical marker, he reckoned he only had to hang on for, oh say, another 5 hours or so. Then, he'd either have to pull up the camels and get some sleep, or just topple neatly in a sleeping heap to the ground.

Neither Evelyn nor Jonathan would be sufficiently sure of the way to risk letting him sleep while they rode on. And with both Evelyn and he on board there weren't enough grips to ensure they'd both stay on. It was one thing, him holding her on with his arms, it was quite another to expect her to keep him on in a similar fashion.

Not that he'd object to her wrapping her arms around him and trying of course, he smiled to himself.

And she would try, that was the thing about her. Evelyn 'never give up, never admit defeat' Carnahan. Even in the face of overwhelming odds she'd stand her ground, and if she went down, she'd go down swinging, verbally at least, chin held high, eyes glinting, defiant to the end.

It was quite possible, that out of all the brave men he had encountered in his life, soldiers, legionnaires, Tuaregs, Bedouins, Medjai, this small, prim and proper, slightly clumsy, librarian was the bravest person he had ever known.

He knew if she hadn't been involved in this expedition, and Imhotep had been raised, he would have been long gone. As soon as they had gotten back from Hamanaptra the first time, with Imhotep hot on their heels, dispensing plagues to the local populace of Fort Brydon and Cairo as if they were candy, he was planning to get the hell out of Dodge. To hell with the world, save your own ass first, that's what he'd been thinking.

But not her. Even if she hadn't felt responsible for unleashing Imhotep on the world she would've stayed and found a way to try and kill him. She was that kind of a girl. She had her principles and she lived by them. He'd gone down to the bar furious with her, furious with himself for caring whether she went with him or not, and truth be told, ashamed of his own behaviour when compared with hers.

She'd taken him by surprise. He'd been so long away from principled people that he'd forgotten they even existed.

The last truly principled person he'd known before her was his mother, and she'd died when he was 10, just before he and his father had left Chicago to seek their fortune in Egypt, with another of his dad's hair brained get rich quick schemes.

Both his parents had emigrated from a destitute Ireland, still haemorrhaging it's people by the hundreds of thousands as a long term result of the Great Famine. Despite being just above the poverty line themselves they were able to get away thanks to the generosity of a local priest who had raised the money for them. His father had leaped at the chance.

His mother, had been pregnant with him at the time, and he knew she never really wanted to leave. Her family, her whole life was there. But she'd loved his father dearly. Despite all his grand talk and blather, and plans that never came to pass, or worse, collapsed spectacularly, it was her belief that a wife stuck by the husband she loved, through thick and thin.

He was born 3 months after they arrived in Chicago. Named after the priest, Richard Coughlan, who had helped them start a new life in the new world. Despite the roller coaster ride his father put them through, his early life had been a happy one. His mother the anchor and rock, not just for him, but for his father, was the one constant in his life, and through her hard work, laundering or sowing, they always seemed to have enough put by to stop from starving to death or being evicted when once again his father would almost reduce them to penury. She was the hardest working person he ever saw, and like the woman sitting nestled in his arms now, she would never give up on a task she knew had to be completed, or a stance she knew was right.

He never recalled her saying a bad word against anyone, and she spent a great deal of her time helping their neighbours in bad straits or at the local church helping with the work for the poor, even though, as he had commented to her, he was fairly sure that the likes of his school mate Jackie Wyczkwi and his family from 3 blocks down, were better off than they were.

The rest of the time she spent making sure he was getting a good education, and trying to keep him on the straight and narrow. There was no problem with school, but was a bit of a loose cannon like his father and he became the leader of a gang of kids in the area, who would cause all kinds of mischief in their search for adventure. It had all been relatively harmless though until he'd shamed his mother by stealing apples and cakes from grocers and bakeries to impress the local girls. The greatest regret he had in his life was seeing the look in her eyes when she heard about it from the cop who'd come to report it to her.

He apologised of course, and without her having to tell him, he went to the men he'd taken the goods from and worked off their value. But he never really got the chance to make it up to her for letting her down and betraying her trust. She had died from influenza that winter. His father, their latest pitiful savings having literally gone South, in a con man's pocket, was left without the means to pay for the heat and medicine in a bitterly cold Chicago winter, that might have saved her.

It had been 2 days after Christmas.

His father, Jack, contrary to the stereotypical view of Irish men, had never taken a drink in his life, needing no addition to his naturally ebullient, erratic and restless nature. But he did then, and what's more he kept on drinking, and ten year old Rick had been forced to drop out of school and get a job as a newsie to make sure he had something to eat in the evenings. His father would disappear on binges for days at a time, lost in his drunken grief, until 6 months later having been gone 2 days he suddenly came home sober with a new suit and 2 tickets to Egypt in his pocket.

Rick had never gotten a straight answer from his father about where he gotten the money to do all this. He'd mumbled something about his mother watching over them and guardian angels from the old country, and the next thing he knew his whole life was turned upside down, much, he supposed, like his mother's had been before that. Then they were on a boat and bound for Southampton, England, and from there onto Cairo and a new life.

And at first it seemed that that was exactly what it was. His father had a job waiting for him, a clerk in a tourism firm, where he would work until he could become a guide for the rich folk who flocked to the likes of the Continental Hotel.

And amazingly Jack had worked hard, was soon operating as a guide, and proving immensely popular. His gift of the 'gab' as his mother had called it, prying praise and high tips from the tourist office's clients.

Rick had even settled back into school with some other lower class ex-patriot children, and was desperately hoping that his father would keep things going. But inevitably his father found an opportunity to blow it.

As always, his father despite outward appearances, had had other schemes in mind. All around them great finds of ancient Egypt were being made, great wealth was being dug up and names and fortunes were being made. As he thought back now the idea occurred to Rick, for the first time, that it was probably the likes of Howard Carnahan, the father of his travelling companions, that influenced his own father into that final flawed deal that would ultimately end his life.

Through a fellow tour guide, a local called Abdul Faziz, he had learned that there was to be an expedition to Memphis, and that if he raised £500.00 pounds he could have a 20% share in what was almost guaranteed to be a find as wealthy as that of Tutenkhamun's tomb.

His father was convinced by the presentation of an Oxford trained Egyptologist, with a list of degrees as long as your arm, and a load of 'ancient' papyri, telling of the resting place of one Satahk, a famed merchant who it was rumoured was almost as wealthy as Pharaoh Rameses IV himself, in whose time he had lived.

His father's exhaustive research had extended to checking that there was a Satahk, that he was rich, and that was that.

He went to a local moneylender, who purported to be his friend, and who did indeed lend him the bulk of the money he needed. Appropriately a King's ransom of £350.00, at the time.

Needless to say, the Egyptologist and Mr Faziz disappeared. The moneylender, however, did not.

His father was found beaten to a bloody pulp, in an alley not far from their home, the day after he missed the deadline for his second instalment. Perhaps the moneylender's hired men had been a little over vigorous, perhaps it was deliberate, but either way his father died from internal injuries in Cairo hospital 3 days later.

He remembered sitting there, holding his dead father's hand in his own, desperately trying to keep it warm with his own. Wondering in the disbelieving numbness that had settled over him, how his Pop could feel so cold on a day as hot at that one He'd sat there all day, no tears, no grief, in shock. It was ten hours before anyone even came to check on how he was. It wasn't until they tried to pry his father's stiff hand from his that he'd finally cracked. They'd had to drag him from the room, from the last vestiges of what family he knew, and were forced to sedate him to stop him from doing himself damage in his desperation to get back to his father.

He never spoke to any of the doctors, just lay there in the bed they'd put him in. An orphan now, future images of life alone scaring him silent. Still, the staff got what they needed from his father's papers, found on his body. A day or so later someone from the U.S Embassy arrived at the hospital.

Without any U.S relatives, and with no names to give him, other than 'O'Connell' for people somewhere in Ireland, the 11 year old Rick was placed in Cairo orphanage, where the remainder of his education shifted from the class room proper to the twin schools of 'hard knocks' and 'dog eat dog'.

In the midst of his thoughts he glanced once more over at the escarpment. And did a double take.

Peering into the gloom, the night not as well lit as it had been when he'd seen the watching Medjai, there appeared to be a shape that could be a lone figure atop of the expanse of rock. Before he could rein in the camel and establish whether or not he was imagining things due to a lack of sleep, a massive yawn overtook him, and his eyes scrunched close involuntarily even as his mouth gaped wide. By the time he opened them again and focused them on the top of the escarpment, what he had seen, if he had even seen it, was no longer there.

Recent events having made him cautious he watched for a little longer before Evelyn stirred a little in his arms, and gave a soft sigh. He moved his head to look down at her face and see if she was alright. From the peaceful look on her face, she looked content and he found himself relaxing.

The orphanage hadn't been far from the richer areas of the centre of Cairo, probably so that the wealthy locals and Euro elite who resided there didn't have to travel far to dispense the small amount of charity that made them feel better about spending vast sums of money on newly excavated trinkets and lavish parties.

Cairo's Museum of Antiquities had only been 3 minutes walk away. He used to be able to see it from his dormitory window. He wondered now whether once upon a time he had ever seen the girl in his arms as a child with her parents, coming in and out of the building they patronised so much.

Maybe he had, maybe that explained why he felt he had known her far longer than the couple of weeks since she had walked into Cairo prison and rescued him from the hangman's noose. Maybe, as an orphan, walking back from his day time job to support himself in the orphanage, and gain him the privilege of a plateful of food, he had seen a pretty, pigtailed, girl with green blue almond shaped eyes, dressed in white and holding her father's hand, and maybe in some childish way he'd fallen in love with her.

Maybe, that would explain why he felt the way he did about her.

Maybe. But he doubted it.

Nothing really explained why he felt about her the way he did. By rights she wasn't remotely even his type. His type had always been blonde, blue eyed and voluptuous, but this was Egypt after all, they weren't exactly plentiful, so failing that, his type was voluptuous, adoring and of easy virtue...though he had been open to the adoring and of easy virtue with the blondes as well.

Smart, principled, stubborn and argumentative hadn't come into it much, as they had an annoying tendency to clash with the adoring and easy virtue categories. In general the girls he went for were vain and shallow and easily impressed by his looks, a good display of manliness or whatever trinkets he gave them,

At the age of 14 he'd left the orphanage for good, with only a strange tattoo on his wrist applied by a wizened old man he had never seen before and who he never saw again, to show for his time spent there. Resentful of having to work all day in order to hand his money over to a place that didn't even feed him right, he decided to strike out on his own.

Even at 14 he was rapidly approaching 6 ft, and was filling out well, although that was mostly down to the nourishment he'd gotten from pilfering food on his way home to the dormitories. He had justified the stealing on the grounds that he was almost starving, and reckoned his mother, rest her soul, would forgive him. But, once free from the orphanage, his life from that moment on was not something that would have made her proud.

At first he did what he had to, to survive, but as he got older, and made a name for himself on the streets, he did what he had to do to prosper. Dubious transactions, shady deals, a little muscle work, all resulted in good pay, nights carousing with cohorts and loose women, not to mention the occasional scrape with the law. It all had gone pretty smoothly for a while, until one particularly ill advised job, which left him beating a hasty retreat out of Egypt for a while.

He headed into Algeria, got a job as a driver, learned a smattering of French and dallied with a French girl, serving there as a ladies maid with a wealthy diplomat's family from Paris. When they headed home, as the Great War was over, he decided to follow, and see a little of Europe, Paris in particular.

He never did see the maid again. When he arrived in Paris, he met and fell for the first American girl he had encountered since leaving the States 11 years previously.

She was heaven sent, blonde, blue eyed, voluptuous and of easy virtue, from a wealthy family and slumming it in Paris with some colourful artist friends of hers, bohemians all. He'd struck pay dirt.

She delighted in his background and took him under her wing, paying for his wardrobe, his keep, and taking him to all the fashionable places and promenading him. And to repay her, he had to sleep with her, frequently. Oh the humanity.

Back then, he thought it was love. He thought she was a class act, a real lady, but brother, now that he thought back on it, how wrong he was. Growing up in the gutter obviously warped your perceptions about things like, what constituted class. She was no lady and what she had wasn't class, just money and flash, and he'd been dazzled by her and it.

Evelyn's hair tickled his chin. No, a real lady, with real class, took quite a different form.

It took him quite a long while to realise, that far from being besotted with him, he just fit his American flame's current slumming fashion for low class guys with shady backgrounds. He was an accessory, like her purse or her shoes.

It took him an embarrassingly long while in fact.

Even when she started to cool on him, he didn't get the hint, but then subtlety was not his forte. It wasn't until she started to show some serious interest in a young French soldier, a decorated captain from the war, that he sat up and took notice.

His male pride wounded at the attention she was giving to this urbane, and sophisticated man who was everything he was not, he reacted as he always did, around women, and showed off. Just like the girls he had tried to impress back in Chicago, and almost every woman since, he flexed his proverbial muscle, flashed them a grin and puffed out his chest to show them just what a manly man they had. In this case it took the form of proving that he was as brave a man as the French soldier, and returned to her having joined the French Foreign Legion.

Her reaction had been something like "Nice uniform." Before she and her cohorts began their snickering.

Up to that point it had never once occurred to him, that it wasn't the fact that he was a brave soldier that she found attractive. In the end it took one of their mutual bohemian friends to point out to him that the soldiers full name was Captain Jean Michel Girard, Compte de Bougonville.

The man was a nobleman, and while America remained steadfastly against such trappings of aristocracy, there was simply nothing more fashionable for a well born American girl to get than a title.

He was history. And worse, he was in the army. He had signed the articles and was in the Legion for a full tour. 3 years.

Running away was not an option. He had no money to run with, and deserters pictures were posted all over France. The French shot deserters from the Legion, they were very good at that. They had had lots of practice at it during the War.

With no money, and no girl. There seemed little option, so, like many a man in the Legion before him, he left for Marseille, vowing never to get involved with a woman again, and joined his regiment. They sailed for Libya soon after.

He served with them a year, before rising to the exalted rank of corporal, promoted for saving his new friend Beni's butt from irate Bedouins when, unbeknownst to the Colonel, the little weasel had tried to sneak a peak at the ladies of a local sheikh's household. Then he proved himself as a soldier during a brutal raid on a fort by a local Tuareg tribe. His colonel had given him a field commission to lieutenant as half their officers had perished.

The officers uniform had proven to be a boon with the ladies, but with pride wounded rather than heart broken, he proved as good as his word, and honed his skills at making sure he was always in control of the situation, cultivating a "women, they're all the same" chip on his shoulder, and a "take me as I am lady, 'cause you ain't gonna change me" attitude.

His tour was almost up when, suddenly the rumour started about the lost city, and the Colonel approached them with a map that had come into his possession. The stories of the mountains of gold in Hamanaptra, were well told even in the taverns of the countries surrounding Egypt, and it didn't take long for the men to be convinced by their Colonel. With only a couple of months left, he thought it might be a good idea to leave the service with a little more than just a legionnaires pay to his name, and went along with it.

And so it had all begun. And now finally, 3 years later, it was over.

Evelyn started to mooch again in his arms. Well maybe not completely over, he amended. She shifted a little and her head tilted back a bit. He lowered his right arm so that her head rested in the crook of his arm and chest, and had a clear view of her sleeping face.

Bathed in the glow of the moonlight, he wondered did she realise how beautiful she was. At first he had thought her merely pretty, but with every passing day he came to see how short sighted he was.

It was one of several lessons he'd learned on this particular journey. Lessons to live by Rick, he thought to himself. First, like the books she catalogues, you should never ever judge a librarian by her cover.

This of course would be closely followed by lesson two never ever let the aforementioned librarian open the big black metal book with the symbols of death on it's cover.

Lesson three? Well that was still in progress, and he may need to do some serious study in order to see whether he could pass the course. He wondered was there a book on how to stop being a bum and win the heart of a girl who was far too good for you? He smiled to himself, just his luck that the only trained librarian in Egypt was the one person he couldn't ask.

His smile faded a little, as the dilemma he faced came a little more seriously home to him.
Right now, there were only three things in the world of which he was absolutely certain. One, that every muscle in his body was either bruised or aching. Two, that he was a poorly educated street smart, opportunist with a good aim, no family to speak of, no friends in the proper sense of the word, and a lousy credit rating. And three, he was totally and utterly in love with the well brought up, respectable girl that was currently fast asleep in his arms.

Number one would have to be attended to before he seized up completely, but it was numbers two and three that presented him with his current dilemma.

They were worlds apart. She was 10 times smarter than he was, moral, principled and expectant of a certain standard of behaviour from those around her. Then there was the fact that she was of a certain social standing and used to a certain kind of lifestyle.

He on the other hand was all the thing he had listed before, and more.

Her smarts didn't phase him at all, in fact he got a kick out of hearing her tell him things. Despite everything, he'd quite liked school when he was a kid, and she was, despite her brothers comments, pretty interesting to listen to. She'd certainly be the prettiest teacher he ever had.

And who knows, he grinned, maybe he could teach her a thing or two as well.

His own harmless, silent, slightly lewd comment, gave him pause and managed neatly to bring him to the whole 'moral, principled, expectant of a certain standard of behaviour thing...'. This is where things really got bumpy.

As he had already reminded himself, she was a real lady, and he'd have to buck up his behaviour. The only problem was that he wasn't entirely sure what the right behaviour was.

Etiquette, sure as shi....he paused....that is, etiquette was not a strong suit of his. Neither was delicacy or tact, for that matter. His stunningly gallant comment, an hour or so back at Hamanaptra, about 'not leaving empty handed', had earned him his first real kiss from her, and to be honest had stunned no one more than he. It was a spur of the moment, didn't think about it, reaction comment, straight from the heart.

Unfortunately for him, him saying the perfect thing at the perfect moment occurred oh say once every millennia or so, and speaking straight from the heart was even scarier than seeing a tidal wave of sand with a grinning face chasing you. The real him, around a girl like her, was the bumbling stumbling fool who had tried to present her with a gift of digging tools. He shook his head remembering his god awful awkwardness. She had seemed pleased, and had certainly smiled at him, which had pleased him in turn, but still, mostly he remembered feeling like an idiot.

Suave and sophisticated just weren't his thing, he didn't have the words. Someone like Jonathan, even half soused would beat him hands down there. It was quite possible then, that in private he would make a fool of himself with her, and in public prove an embarrassment.

In public....that thought brought him to the other quandary he had. Her social standing. Well not social standing exactly. Evelyn's behaviour had shown from the start that class didn't mean that much to her. She judged on a person's character and behaviour and not their dress or bank balance, treating them all with decency and respect, unless or until their behaviour warranted otherwise. Even our late stinky warden friend with his roving eye and hands was treated politely.

No, it was more to do with the social standing in which she had grown up. She was accustomed to a certain kind of life. No matter what way you looked at it, she was, despite her willingness to put up with discomfort on trips like this, a woman used to a half decent lifestyle. Jonathan had informed him that their father had left them a house in London, and the one here in Cairo, and they each received an annual stipend of £500.00 per annum from the trust he and their mother had left. It may have been modest, but it was comfortable and respectable.

He on the other hand had spent much of the last quarter of his life, with no fixed abode, living hand to mouth, running from the law, and continuously renewing first name acquaintances with several rats in the gutters of Cairo where he would on occasion spend the night.

He had no money. So never mind keeping her in the manner to which she was accustomed, how was he even supposed to take her out, for a nice meal? He blinked.

Where, was he supposed to take her for a nice meal?! Nearly every well known place in Cairo had blackballed him years ago!!!

He sighed again. Face it O'Connell, he thought miserably. You're not good enough for her.

"This is never going to work." He spoke out loud without thinking.

She shifted again, her arms tightening their grip around his waist, and she took a deep breath, before murmuring in a matter of fact tone,

"Will work...just have to dig 'n the right place." And settling back down to sleep. He grinned, and tried not to laugh, knowing the rapid movement of his chest would wake her up.

Even in her sleep she was dreaming of her work. It was what she lived for, what she loved. There were no nightmares of Imhotep, not even the horror she'd seen and experienced could overwhelm her love for her work and this place. His face grew reflective, maybe, that might be true of bad experiences and some 'one' she loved too.

With this as food for thought, he glanced once more up at the escarpment and, on seeing again that there was no one there, he pondered on that food over the coming hours.

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