Sleepwalker
Author's note: I own nothing. Yu-Gi-Oh is property of Konami, a might fine company that would never be petty enough to sue the likes of me because they're all so very nice.
Chapter One: The Sleeper
It had been a long time since I had seen one, but I have a feeling I would have remembered this one even if he had been an anonymous face a crowd of his kind. Not that there ever are crowds of sleepers, or sleepwalkers. No, in actuality they are rare, so it's always an event when I come across one during my wanderings.
I walk quietly, as a rule. In the realm of shadows there are many things that dislike being disturbed, especially the sleepwalkers. Few things are more dangerous then a sleepwalker, walking through its strange pantomime of life with eyes wide open, seeing nothing. I pity them, much more then I pity the dreaming sleepers.
I remember him. He was standing, which alarmed me because I worried he might be a sleepwalker. But he stood stark still, so I approached, cautiously.
His build was slight. His amazing hair stood up and swept back, the blond bangs on the red-black making it look like he was crowned by lightning. Even in slumber he stood, head down, arms crossed. This was a spirit who never surrendered to anything, not even his own condition.
Who was he? How long had he been standing there, that crowned head lowered, the challenging eyes closed? All sleepers are waiting for something. The aura of this one told me he had been waiting a very long time, and would wait longer.
It is not my place to disturb sleepers. He will awaken, when the time comes. I left him alone.
"Professor Champollion!"
The thirty-year-old didn't answer, his head bowed in contemplation of the texts that covered the wall before him, face fixed in the utmost concentration.
"Monsieur Champollion!"
His head came up. "What is it?"
"Monsieur, we have found something!"
The Professor looked up reluctantly, then back at the wall. "I was translating these inscriptions, I hate to stop in the-"
"The wall will still be there sir. From what the guides tell us, we've stumbled on something big!"
Professor Champollion was convinced. He came running.
"Professor!"
The female assistant and the guide, standing sentinel, called out in greeting, but the wall behind them instantly captured Champollion's attention. He rushed up and ran his hands over the inscriptions, as if rubbing would make them divulge their secrets.
"We believe sir," said the young assistant, "that this portion is a good deal-"
"-Older then the surrounding temple," finished the Professor, rubbing the wall. "Look at the way the walls are constructed. This must be a piece of an older temple. For some reason, instead of tearing this wall down and completely re-building the structure, they left it and built an entirely new temple around the remains, like a shrine…but why?"
Why indeed. The fragment of a wall was small, but it was clear what it was. A map of the Lower Egypt valley, with an X marking a place…
I didn't see that crowned sleeper again for a long time. One does not walk the shadow plane like one would a field; because the plane is always shifting and you never really know which direction you are going. I have seen many sleepers, as I said before, but this one intrigued me. I decided to find out something about him, his life. That wish was what took me to Professor Champollion, one of the most famous Egyptologists ever. At the age of twenty, he had accomplished what had long been deemed impossible: using a copy of the Rosetta stone, he presented the world with a code for deciphering the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, making him an instant legend. A man of impossible energy, he was made curator of the Louve's Egypt exhibit, and when he was thirty-four years old he had earned up enough money to accomplish his lifelong dream of a real trip to Egypt, the land he had dreamed of since he was a boy.
Among the places he visited was this old temple, the roof long since torn off, letting the sunlight play upon the ancient texts. And it was here that they discovered something that had not been noticed before…a portion of the wall a good deal older then the rest. There was an inscription in the corner that seemed to be some sort of compass, sporting a strange symbol. A symbol not unlike the Eye of Horus, although the Professor insisted it could not possibly be the same sign, for the Eye of Horus was always the left eye, which (according to Egyptian mythology) had been torn out in his battle with Seth the god of chaos and set to watch over the House of Osiris AKA the royal family. This symbol was missing all the distinguishing features that marked the Eye of Horus, as this eye was neither right nor left. The Professor was ecstatic, pulled out a large sheet of paper, and promptly made a rubbing of the map. They followed it, searching for the place whose record had been both preserved and lost for all that time…
"This is it!"
"You're kidding…"
The guide, the two assistants, and the professor all stood looking at nothing more then a bare, rocky hill.
The blond assistant boy crossed his arms and scoffed. "Of course, the building would have fallen down ages ago. Hell, we don't even know what it is we are looking for."
"Unless the Egyptians used some other compass points then we do, this should be the place," said the girl, examining the rubbing. "And the professor deciphered these hieroglyphs, which turned out to be directions."
"You sure we followed them correctly?" asked the boy?
"This hieroglyph, the one that looks like a boat with its sail full of the breeze? That means travel south, because the Nile flows north, and to travel this way you must use sails against the current." The girl turned to Champollion. "Right Professor?"
"What? Oh, right, right." The Professor barely looked up from his examination of the rocky slope of the hill, as if he could really see something there. "That wall we found in the temple, I think it was Middle Kingdom…Spread out, there must be something here!"
Reluctantly, the assistants fanned out, but before the professor could do likewise the nervous guide tapped him on the shoulder. He said that he should go back, there was something about this place that chilled him. He said he would go back and keep the porters from running away with their camels and equipment. The professor was annoyed but waved him away, saying the guide better not run away himself, he isn't going to be paid unless camp is safely set up by nightfall.
The professor and the kids ran around the hill all day, but no trace of evidence could they find that anyone had built so much as a hen house on this hill.
But their presence was noticed, and two people stood on a bluff, overlooking this valley and the one hill that rose up in the center of it, and the three suntanned creatures in khaki who swarmed all over the hill. A young man with a tattoo of hieroglyphs on his cheek, and a small person in a turban with hard black eyes and a key around his neck…
Alexander Wheeler didn't know what he was doing here. Yes, Egypt was the most fascinating place on earth, and yes, he was fortunate to be assistant to someone like Champollion (someone who could have had the honor students of Oxford falling all over themselves to join him, and instead he only took two had been studying under him of their own free will at the museum) but really, there was nothing here. It was times like this when he wondered why he had ever left his family in America…Eeeeeyaaaa!!!
He had just tripped on something and went sprawling on his face.
"Very graceful," drawled Sarah.
Great. Rescuing what he could of his shattered dignity, he picked himself up, spat out several rocks, and began shaking the sand out of his hair when he heard Sarah breathe in sharply. "Ooooooh!"
"What is it?" Alex turned around to see her crouching on the ground, staring at something.
"Professor!" she screamed. "PROFESSOR!!!!!"