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.
____________________________________________

The Mummy's Shadow
Chapter Five

'Treasures Made & Found'




Egypt, 1068 B.C.


"With all due respect my brother," Akehton said incredulously from his chariot as their caravan moved across the desert just beyond the Nile delta, with Thebes still 3 days away. "You're not serious!"

"Perfectly, my brother." Rameses replied, an amused look on his face as he handed the reins of his golden chariot to his driver.

"But you can't give him to her!" his younger brother protested "He's a savage! You heard what Sekhnet said!"

"You must learn to listen more, Akehton," Rameses cautioned him "It behoves a Prince well to truly hear what is being said. What Sekhnet said was that it was reported that the tribes to the north were savage. Does he behave like a savage to you?"

"Well....no...but still!" Akehton protested from weaker ground. "You can't give him to Nefertiri as a gift."

"You have yet to give me one good reason why I may not, brother." Rameses "We have seen these last weeks how quickly he learns, how hard he tries. He is quick of wit and strong of body. Would he not make the perfect bodyguard for our sister? He is perfectly suited for it, striking, strong, fast, intelligent and a quick study." He mused. "Beyond Sekhnet's lessons with him, I have watched him this past while. He was watching the Medjai as they train, watching and mimicking their movements, the way they wield their weaponry."

"My brother, that does not ease my concerns!!!" Akehton snapped.

"He has sworn to my service, Akehton." His brother brushed some dust off his skin. "You have seen his actions while honour bound. He has made great efforts. He will serve loyally."

"But, bodyguards have always traditionally been chosen from the Medjai, or at the very least from the most trusted of the army!" Akehton shoved the reins of the chariot at his own driver, and grasped the side rail of the vehicle to face his brother.

"In case you haven't noticed, my most favoured brother, the army has, for the past two hundred years or so been mostly made up of Nubian, Hittite and Libyan mercenaries. Tell me, which do you think the more worthy of trust? The man who swears allegiance for gold? Or the man who does so out of a pledge of honour?" Rameses levelled the rhetorical question at his wiry brother.. "Besides," he smiled. "Traditions only become so, because someone took that initial step."

Akehton stared at him for a long moment. "I don't know whether you're a fool or a genius. You will either be the greatest Pharaoh Egypt has ever had or you'll be dead within a week."

Rameses chuckled "Only the Gods can say, my brother." He leaned out towards his brother's chariot "And of course when I'm Pharaoh, I'll be one, so I'll tell you then."

Akehton sighed, Rameses was as easy to dissuade from a course of action as the Nile was from flooding her banks. Although he had to admit, in general, both turned out to be beneficial in the long run. "She is our sister, Rameses." He tried once more "Born to the royal blood, destined to be your wife and Queen of Egypt, does it not concern you that you will be putting her with one who, apart from the fact that he has not even proven himself loyal, does not know our ways. She could be offended, impugned even compromised!"

Rameses laughed. "Akehton, you do me good. You know our sister well, you know she is no wilting lily of the Nile, and you know it is one of the things I love best about her. Nefertiri will be well capable of meting out punishment for offences received, even with her own hands."

"Well at least have him castrated!" Akehton insisted. The Celt had cleaned up well and revealed himself to be both young and handsome in a strange foreign way. His sister was beautiful. Why place temptation in either path.

Rameses response was a question. "Do you not trust Isephet?" he referred to his brother's beloved wife.

"More than anyone in the world!" Akehton retorted hotly.

"Would you trust her with him?" his brother asked mildly.

Akehton didn't hesitate. "Yes! Absolutely!"

Rameses nodded "As I trust Nefertiri. Therefore there is no need to make him a eunuch. Besides it dulls a man's edge, and would make him a blunt instrument."

He looked across once more at his younger brother, a smaller, thinner version of himself and saw his shoulders slumped unhappily.

He sighed. "Akehton,, you must trust me. There is something about this man, something that makes me feel this is right. It's as if something or someone, the Gods perhaps, is telling me so, here and here." He pointed to his gut and head. "But, if you mistrust my judgement, and it makes you feel better, Sekhnet, is continuing to teach him the ways of our people and the correct form of behaviour. He will tell me when we reach Thebes whether Keeahn will make a suitable protector for our sister."



Egypt, 1926.

"Ow....ow...ow...ow...OW!" Rick O'Connell, Legionnaire, slayer of 3,000 year old mummies and rescuers of librarians in distress, groaned as he inched his leg over the now seated camels back and slowly slid down it's left side to the ground with the guiding hands of Evelyn helping him. Normally he would more than welcome her touch, but right now every inch of him was either numb or sore, and as decency dictated that she couldn't have her hands on the part of him that was numb from the camel ride, her hands were resting on bits of him that he'd rather they weren't.

"Oooh..." she winced in sympathy for him. "Are you alright?"

Aching, he considered a quippy response to a question whose answer was patently obvious, but on seeing her solicitous face and concerned eyes, he just smiled, a warm glow spreading over him, and replied. "I've been better."

In the bright sunlight of the morning, her eyes roved over his battered face and clothes, seeing the welts and bruises beginning to show on his face, and knew his body must be in similar shape. "You poor thing." She crooned, released his arm, to his great relief, and reached up to delicately touch his face.

Or so she planned, unfortunately her fingers swept over a deep graze on his chin and he gave out a swift hiss and pulled his head away.

"Oh!!" she half pulled her hand away wincing this time at her own clumsiness. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
To her relief he smiled at her, amused and affectionate, and she returned the smile, shyly. "Now you know why I didn't pursue a career in medicine." She mocked herself.

He reached up, very slowly, and grasped the fingers of her hand that were still poised in mid air with his own. "I'm fine," he assured her "and you can doctor me any time you like."

She blushed, but with a surge of the beginnings of a new found confidence in herself that had not previously existed, she tipped at his nose.

"That's not broken is it?" she asked, knowing full well from his nose play with her yesterday, that it wasn't. Her finger still on the end of his nose, he shook his head, grinning, enjoying her playfulness around him. And she leaned forward and kissed it's tip, before moving off around the back of the camel quickly, to it's far side.

"Hey," he called after her, and pointed at his lips "Neither are these you know!"

She came to a screeching halt, and stood there, her eyes wide. For a moment he thought she was going to come back, then, when she didn't move, there was a fleeting moment of worry that maybe somehow, in a way that totally escaped him, he had overstepped the mark with his flip comment. But, slowly, her eyes fixed on the camel's rear end, she turned 180 degrees, and he realised that whatever had stopped her in her tracks, it wasn't, unfortunately, the thought of kissing him.

With great effort he pushed himself upright from his leaning position against the body of the camel on the far side from her. "What is it?" he asked loudly, concerned. His question, was met by silence from her, but attracted Jonathan, who was in the process of removing some blankets from the camel he'd been riding, and which now sat placidly just beyond Evelyn.

"What's the matter, Evy?" Jonathan walked towards her, wrinkling his nose as he threw the camel smelling blankets over his shoulder. He was within two steps of her, when he came to the same shuddering stop, his eyes not so much wide as bugging out of his head.

On the far side of the camel, unable to see what they were seeing, O'Connell, looked back and forth from one to the other, waiting.

"What? What is it?.....Hello? Excuse me?" he sang in an ever so polite, sing song voice. As one, the brother and sister, eyes still wide raised their heads and looked at him, their eyes glazed. "Hi," he smiled "I was just wondering if you might, if it's not too much trouble that is ...." As he was in mid sentence Evelyn's hand plunged forward, flipping back the lid of a leather saddle bag, and then he heard a sound that was half the scrape of metal against metal, and half jingling, as she pulled her hand back out and up above the horizon of the camels back so he could see.

In that hand she held the curved gold handle of a knife sheathed in a scabbard that looked like solid gold and was decorated in elaborate fashion with more precious stones than he had ever seen in one place in his life.

His eyes did an impression of theirs. "...what the hell...." He finished.

With a sudden lunge, Jonathan brushed past his sister and dove two hands towards the same place she had extracted the knife from, with a mighty heave, he pulled them back, and in them was what could only be described as a mess of treasure.

Gold, jewels, and coins, boxes, statues and other objets d'art made of gold and jewels twinkled in the sun, coins slipping through his fingers to the sand below.

"Holy...." Rick began, but stopped remembering Evelyn's presence. Adrenaline pumping again, and momentarily forgetful of his condition, he hobbled around the camel to join them. "Mary, mother of God." He breathed on seeing the full contents of the large saddle bags.

"How...how...umm...how..." Jonathan gabbled, managing to drag his eyes off the hoard he held in his hands, to look at his American companion. Rick shook his head not knowing the answer to Jonathan's fully unexpressed but quite clear question. Then it hit him.

"Beni." He said softly, confidently. Evelyn looked at him, a picture of the unfortunate weasel-like little man, they had had to leave entombed in Hamunaptra, popped into her head. "It must have been his 'reward' for helping ol' Imhotep. He must have been planning to beat it with this little lot."

Jonathan breathed out loudly, his face becoming a picture of ecstasy as he looked back at the treasure. "God bless his little red fez."

"Yes." Evelyn said softly, her eyes drifting back towards the direction they had come. "Yes, indeed."

Rick saw the tone in her voice and the look in her eyes,

"Hey." he touched her lightly on the shoulder trying to make her feel better. Her smile of acknowledgement was weak, her voice remote.

"I told him, that people like him always got their comeuppance. I'm just not sure anyone deserves that kind of comeuppance."

Rick was less sure, but for her sake, nodded in silence. She took a deep breath, trying to put the unpleasant thought of being buried alive from her head, stuck the knife back in the saddle bags, before grabbing hold of the blankets Jonathan had over his shoulder and sliding them off him from behind.

"I'll go and set up the shelter so you can get some sleep." She said to Rick determinedly, then smiled. "You keep an eye on my big brother. Things like these have a habit of...being borrowed, when he is around."

"Hey!" Jonathan said indignantly, but didn't argue. Rick chuckled, missing the look she gave him.

"I'm hoping the two of you might cancel each other out." She said lightly, walking away to find some place to hang the blankets so they would provide some shelter from the rapidly approaching noon sun. It took a moment for the words to sink in.

"Hey!" he called after her in the same indignant tone as her brother. Her mischievous laughter rang out over the air like spring water over stones.



He'd only wanted to sleep for 2 or 3 hours at the most, knowing that they had to get moving. A further search of all the bags on the camels revealed what he had feared. There was no food and worse, far worse, no water.

But Evelyn and Jonathan had left him sleeping in the shade of the awning they had set up by tying the blankets together and draping them between the high saddles of the seated camels. When he finally awoke half a day had passed by, and evening was setting on again.

Normally, that would have been the way they travelled, resting by day, moving on at night. But the lack of water left him concerned, especially for Evelyn.

He and Jonathan, had been out here less time than she. They had refreshed themselves for the onslaught of rescuing her at Havlock's airbase, and had brought water with them. Water which of course had gotten buried in the plane crash.

Evelyn on the other hand had been taken the night previous to that again, and had not had a drink since they had left the hotel at Fort Brydon to go to the Museum to track down the book of Amon-Ra. 3 days without water, could prove deadly in this heat, shelter or no, and she was entering her third day. Even taking into account what progress they had made, they had had almost 2 full days ride to go before they reached the Nile.

That was before he had slept the day away, now that progress was wiped out, and time was beginning to run against them. He'd surprised them by the force of his orders about getting moving, yelling at Jonathan to stop cataloguing every piece in the saddle bags and get them back on the camels.

They had said nothing, assuming he was probably sore and testy and not a good 'morning' person, and he had said nothing either. There was no use in worrying them with his worries. But, already he could see Evelyn beginning to wilt, her normally lively step becoming more of a forced slog as she moved around dismantling the awning so they could put the blankets back on the camels.

He stopped her.

"Sit." He told her, pushing her down in the shade of one of the camels. "I'll do that."

"But, you're hurt!" she protested.

"I'm fine." He insisted, then groaned as she sprang back up from the ground.

"And so am I!" she replied, suddenly feeling very tetchy from the heat and the constant dry rasp of her throat. "What do you think that just because I required 'rescuing'," she emphasised with derisory vehemence "that I'm no longer capable of pulling my weight, of doing my share, that I'm some kind of weak ninny who...."

He grasped her by the arms. "Evelyn." His voice was determined. "You know that's not the case. I'm asking you, please. Sit." Her chin was raised, and her eyes were steely. "Please," he repeated. "For me." And he took advantage of their closeness to kiss her softly on the lips. Lips that were already parched from lack of moisture.

That threw her. "Alright," she said as grudgingly as she could considering her eyes were now as soft as a puppies "But only because you asked politely."

"Thank you," he smiled, and was favoured with a small smile in return as she sat in the shade again. "Jonathan," he said turning around, feeling as stiff as a board. "Have you got those saddle bags up yet?"

His back turned to them, Jonathan grunted with effort. "I'm trying! But they're dashed weighty! And my arm is giving me gyp." Indicating the gash in his upper arm where Rick had neatly excised a scarab that was intent on working it's way towards Jonathan's skull.

"I notice you didn't have any trouble getting them off." Rick responded smoothly, trying to keep the tone jovial, while taking a look at his companions arm, which looked a little too red to him, something else to worry about. "And I also notice you're not putting them back on our camel."

Jonathan coughed, and smiled at Rick as he arrived by his side. "Yes, well....If you must know I felt sorry for the poor thing, what with having to carry both you and Evy, and the bags..."

"And you thought it might be best if, you spared it the extra weight and took it with you?" Rick said brightly.

"Spot on, old man." Jonathan breezed "Always been a bit of a humanitarian animal lover type me."

"Funny," Rick said grabbing hold of one side of the bags and grunting with effort and pain as he helped Jonathan hoist them onto his camel. "I could've sworn you called them disgusting smelly fleabags, before."

"Yes..." Jonathan scratched his head, "There was that of course...but then you know," he patted the rump of his ride affectionately "I do find they rather have a tendency to grow on one."

Rick quirked a smile at him, amused.

"Yeah...it's funny how things that irritate the hell out of you at first, can do that." He said meaningfully to his travelling companion, before walking back towards Evelyn and their mount, a grin on his face and Jonathan's glare on his back.