Here's chapter 5! It may take me longer now to update this story now since I've posted everything I had written before and now must write each chapter as I go along. Sorry if that bothers anybody, I will try my best to update ASAP as long as you all like this story! And just so you all know, this story is not based on any historical facts, as my brother would say, I just pulled this out of my butt because it made a good story!
Thanks to all of you who reviewed, I'm going to reply individually to you just so you know how much I really appreciate your words!
DangerousMutanxXx004 (a.k.a. AnimeChick91, you changed your pen name on me but that's okay!): This update is especially for you since you have been one of my most loyal reviewers so far! And to answer your question about Ardeth… well, just read on to find out!!
Lilylynn: Thanks for the compliment! I have been writing since I was very young, and everybody made fun of me about it and told me I wasn't any good. I am glad that at least one person thinks I am! Sorry, no R/E moments in this chapter since they didn't really fit, but I will put some in later chapters just for you!
immortalwizardpirateelf-fan: I was hoping that somebody would figure out that the Medjai were down at the pyramid! I was trying to hint at it without giving too much away, and I'm glad you picked up on it! To answer your other question, I think that as long as there are humans on this earth, bad guys will never learn!
Captain Melissa Sparrow: I just have to tell you that I love your name! My name is Melissa, it is a good name! Anyways, thank you for pointing out the spelling of Hourus to me. I had not a clue that I was spelling it wrong. You will be happy to know that I've fixed the problem and reposted it with the correct one. Thanks!
Also I must give a big shout out to my little bro! He helped me enormously with the ideas behind Samir-hi and Rathshad. Thanks for your help, Cubby! I really hope he isn't reading this because he hates it when I call him Cubby! But just in case you are, Cub, grins innocently I love you!
Now on with the story!
Chapter 5: He's ba-ack!
"What creature?" asked Leah, turning over her left shoulder to look at the stranger, her face indignant. However, the look on her delicate, freckled features left as she caught sight of him. Her breath caught in her throat as she took in his dark, handsome features and the flowing robes he was wearing.
Ardeth Bay did not answer her. (A/N: Yes, you were all right, the man on horseback was Ardeth!). Instead, he raised his hand into the air, and at that point, Leah noticed that the other men on horseback had closed in on her and Ardeth and were thundering side by side with them.
Leah looked about, a wall of men and horses surrounding her. On a couple of horses just ahead of her, she saw Alex and Jonathan with several other men dressed just like the stranger that still held her tightly. Alex was sitting patiently in front of his rescuer, and when he caught sight of Leah looking at him, he waved happily. Leah waved back.
Jonathan was sitting with his rescuer, pretending like he was a cowboy. "Giddyap! Let's go!" he was shouting, and it was all Leah could do to keep from laughing. She had to look away, so she checked out the scene behind her. She noticed that the mob of screaming men had been left in their dust, and that the pack of horses had successfully outrun the mob and the swarm of locusts.
Suddenly, a thought hit Leah. "Evelyn! Rick!" she shouted as the entourage veered off to the left, afraid that her brother and his wife had been caught in the mob. But she needn't have worried, because at that moment, she saw two of the camels that the family had ridden to Rathshad come galloping from the direction of their abandoned campsite. Her brother and sister-in-law sat atop them, safe and sound.
"Oh, thank God," she whispered to herself.
A few minutes later, the caravan was completely out of sight and ear shot of the horror that had just happened. Everything was silent except for the clip clop of the horses' and camels' hooves, and desert sand stretched around them in all directions. The stranger who was still gripping Leah for all he was worth raised his hand again, and the group slowed from their break neck gallop to a comfortable trot, and then a slow, leisurely walk. Leah felt Ardeth release his death grip until his hands were just comfortably circling her trim waist.
Rick rode up along side Leah and Ardeth. "Lee, how are you doing?" he asked, looking down from atop his camel.
"Pretty good, considering that a man on a horse basically knocked me off my feet and rode off into the desert sands with me, and I still don't know who he is," said Leah. She smiled at her brother and turned her head quickly, her hair swooshing out behind her. "So who are you, anyway?" she asked the man.
"Ffwww!" said Ardeth, and he spit out a mouthful of dark red curls. He unwrapped his left hand from her waist and held her mane of hair in his hands. He looked at it strangely. "I have never seen hair of this color before," he said. "And why does it look so… bent?"
"Bent?" asked Leah. "What do you mean, bent?" she said, yanking the pile of hair out of the stranger's hands and throwing it over her shoulder, letting it tumble gently down her back to her waist.
"These… these rings," he said, pulling on a stray piece that was hanging by Leah's cheek. "They are so… strange."
"Strange?!" exclaimed Leah, insulted. Her hair color and shape were not common, especially together, but she had never heard it called strange! "I beg your pardon, Mr… I don't even know what your name is! Do you want to know something strange about yourself? Well, what's up with these tattoos on your face?" Leah reached up to touch them with her fingertips, and winced as she felt electricity flowing through them at the contact of her body with a man's. "Nobody in their normal frame of mind walks around with little black symbols on their cheeks! So if my curls are strange, then your tattoos are even stranger!"
Ardeth opened his mouth to argue back, but Rick interrupted, busting up into laughter.
Leah glared at her brother. "Excuse me, Rick, did I miss something?"
Rick just continued to laugh as he urged his camel on to check on Alex a few yards ahead.
Leah stubbornly crossed her arms over her chest and looked straight ahead. She and Ardeth were quiet for a few minutes, until suddenly she felt a tug on her head. She turned quickly. "Would you please kindly stop touching me, Mr… whatever your name is?"
Ardeth pulled his hand quickly from the tempting tresses in front of him. "I am sorry, this just fascinates me. Our women do not have hair of this color, and they do not have these… what do you call them… curls?"
"Yes, my hair is curly, okay?" Leah knew she was being mean, but the man sitting behind her on this horse was really starting to unnerve her. After all, the last man that had admired and stroked her hair was Andrew and he had broken her heart. "Get over it already, Mr… I still don't know what your name is!"
"Ardeth," said the dark haired man with the tattoos, leaning closer to her and placing his head on her shoulder so his mouth was right next to her right ear. "Ardeth Bay. And what is yours, Bent Hair?"
Leah pursed her lips at her new nickname, but did not force Ardeth to move. Something just felt so right about how he was sitting with her, but she would never admit it. Instead, she answered Ardeth's question. "My name is Leah, not Bent Hair. It is a perfectly fine name, and I wish you would use it. And by the way, is this how you normally hit on women?"
"I do not know," said Ardeth. "What is 'hit on'? I do not know what it means. And I shall call you Leah, though I am quite partial to Bent Hair."
Leah just glared at him and turned to face the desert spread out in front of her. Slowly, her eyes began to drift shut as sleep overcame her.
Another man on a horse rode up next to Leah and Ardeth. Ardeth and the warrior conversed in another language, and then the warrior rode away.
"Wow," said Leah, shaking herself awake, unable to understand any of the words that had just been said in front of her. She had always thought of herself as well versed in foreign languages. She excelled not only in her native tongue of English, but in French, Italian, German, Latin, Portuguese, and even Japanese. But the language she had just heard was none of those. "Like, what nationality are you, exactly?"
"We are Medjai," Ardeth said simply as the cluster of horses and camels rode through the desert night. "Now, we must ride all night to reach our destination by daylight. I suggest that you rest now, while you can."
"What's that supposed to mean? While I can?" asked Leah indignantly, confused beyond belief at what had happened in the last couple of hours, but feeling sleep returning.
"Do not ask questions," said Ardeth softly. "You will find out soon enough."
Leah felt herself drift to sleep, but not before she felt Ardeth's hands slip back around her waist and pull her close. She would have protested, except that she was too tired to care, and so she laid her head on his broad chest and let slumber overcome her.
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"Why did it happen? I don't understand," commented Evelyn early the next afternoon as she, Rick, and Ardeth sat around a small table in the suite they had just rented at a hotel in Thebes, about a six-hour camel's ride from the ruins they had left so quickly.
"That part is easy," said Rick. "Our little friend decided that since he couldn't have his back-stabbing girlfriend that he should at least have our newfound princess all to himself. The question is, why does he want her?"
"That part is even easier," Evelyn answered her husband. "Everyone thinks that Samir-hi was Rathshad's daughter, Seti's niece. But there were rumors—very concealed, not well publicized rumors-- that most Egyptians thought were false but could very well be true and would explain why Imhotep has come after Samir-hi."
"Samir-hi was not Rathshad's daughter," said Ardeth matter-of-factly.
"That's right," said Evelyn. "There was a myth that Alshirem, Samir-hi's mother, had been having an affair with Imhotep. Alshirem died while birthing Samir-hi, so there was never any living person who knew for sure that Samir-hi was Imhotep's daughter, except for Imhotep himself. He never came forward for fear of—well, we all know what happened with Anck-su-namun, just imagine that, only worse."
"Well, that's just great," Rick said, setting his scotch down and standing up. "But the even bigger question is, why did our little friend rise from the dead again? After all, you promised me no more mummies, Evelyn!"
"Well, uh, that I don't know," said Evelyn guiltily. She looked apologetically at her husband, and then set her sights onto Ardeth. "But I'm sure he knows. Otherwise, why would he have shown up in the middle of an abandoned desert at three o'clock in the morning? Do you care to enlighten us, Mr. Bay?"
"It was those men, wasn't it?" asked Rick before Ardeth could answer. He began to pace. "Those stupid, low-down drunken men who were running across the desert in the dead of night, nearly killing my family! Why did they do it this time?"
"The legend of Samir-hi is very complicated… her father Rathshad and his twin brother Seti the first often disagreed over who was the rightful ruler of Egypt. Seti, being the older twin, was given the throne, but Rathshad often thought that his brother's beliefs were too strict and wrong," explained Ardeth.
"Like Seti's belief in keeping Jewish slaves," offered Evelyn.
"Correct," confirmed Ardeth. "That was the main reason that Rathshad started the civil war. The country was divided, one part siding with Seti, the other part with Rathshad. Samir-hi was instrumental in gathering support for Rathshad, as she was a good orator and people seemed to like her personality. She felt strongly about her cause, and crusaded heavily with her father, lobbying for followers. And when the war started, Samir-hi felt so strongly that she disguised herself as an Egyptian warrior and fought in the war."
"She was killed in the Battle of Rathshad," broke in Evelyn. "And while the war raged on, Rathshad's army contracted an awful disease that killed over a hundred men a day. Which is the main reason Rathshad lost the civil war. We know all of this already!"
"No, we don't," said Rick, who was still pacing. "This is all news to me!" He looked over at Ardeth. "What does any of this have to with why those stupid men in the desert raised Imhotep?"
"It was rumored that when Samir-hi died, Rathshad built a grand pyramid for her to house her body and her belongings. In her tomb, he placed an emerald that Samir-hi's mother had left to her daughter to be given to her on her twentieth birthday," Ardeth continued.
"The birthday that she never had," whispered Evelyn.
"Correct. After she was buried, Imhotep—
"Her real father," interrupted Evelyn.
"Oh, not that guy again," moaned Rick, rubbing his temples as he continued his circle around the room.
"Imhotep opened up her tomb and attempted to resurrect his beloved daughter. However, the god Anubus interfered and Imhotep's plan of bringing her back to the living was halted. In his grief, he promised that he would be back to resurrect her some day, and he cast a curse upon the emerald of Alshirem, to keep grave robbers out of the tomb until he could return. He then joined Seti's court, met Anck-su-namun, and we know the rest of the story."
"What curse did he cast, exactly?" asked Rick.
"The curse of the Hapti Res," Evelyn put in, standing up and walking over to a leather bag she had flung onto a small table by the door to the suite. She retrieved a book and sat back down at the table, next to Ardeth. Rick continued pacing. "It's a biological curse. There's a chapter in this book about it. Who ever comes in contact with an object that has this curse placed upon it will suffer from a nasty, horrible disease that was wiped out with Rathshad's army and hasn't been seen in almost four thousand years. Rathshad contracted it after the war was over, and it eventually killed him. The moment he breathed his last, the entire city of Rathshad sank into the sands of the desert, never to be seen again, and with it went this contagious disease."
"So why were we digging around in this pyramid?" asked Rick. "I'm not sure about you, but I really don't want to die of some ancient sickness!"
"It's just a myth," said Evelyn. "I don't believe that there is any truth in it."
"You said that about our dear friend Imhotep, and look what happened there!" said Rick.
"I am afraid there is much truth in this story," Ardeth said. "It is very real. We, the Medjai, protect the Pyramid of Samir-hi, so that this disease is not unleashed into a world that is not immune as the Egyptians were. This emerald, if it gets into the wrong hands, could bring about an epidemic that could wipe out over half of the world's population."
"That's why these men were out there digging around in the pyramid!" said Evelyn. "They think that by wiping out the population, that they can rule the world."
"Oh, great, the old 'take over the world' ploy," muttered Rick. (A/N: I'm sure you all recognize that line from The Mummy Returns… I believe it was Jonathan who said it—don't hold me to that, I can't remember for sure who said it, and I don't feel like destroying my house to find the DVD-- I just love the line so much that I had to put it in my story!).
"But weren't they afraid of catching the disease themselves?" asked Evelyn, still paging through her book. Rick continued pacing.
"That is why they raised the creature," Ardeth said. "Imhotep is the only one who knows exactly where the emerald is, and he also has natural immunities to the disease. What you saw last night was the beginning—and the end—of the men's search for the jewel. Because--"
"Because our friend began to regenerate last night," Rick finished for Ardeth. "He took his first sacrifice, and then brought on the wave of locusts. That's what we happened to be in the middle of last night. And now he wants to resurrect this princess and take over the world."
"We must stop this before it happens," said Ardeth. "Before it is too late."
"We? What's this 'we' stuff?" asked Rick. (A/N: yes, this is also from The Mummy Returns… I just couldn't help myself, I love how Rick said this in the movie and so it just had to be in my story too!). "I don't remember a 'we' being in this."
Evelyn, who had been paging through the book in her hands, shook her head. "It's all beginning to make sense now." Her hands stopped moving through her book suddenly as she came across a full page picture of a young Egyptian woman. "Rick, look at this," she said.
Rick stopped pacing and came to look over his wife's shoulder. "Yeah? So? It's a picture of Princess Samir-hi. Big deal."
Ardeth heard this and he stood as well to look over Evie's other shoulder. "It is a big deal, I am afraid, my friend," he said.
"Why?" asked Rick.
"Well, doesn't she look familiar?" asked Evelyn softly. "Like someone we know?"
Rick looked closely at the picture, intrigued.
Suddenly, the door to one of the two bedrooms of the suite banged open. "Good morning, all," Leah said as she entered the dining room, looking fairly fresh for having been nearly trampled to death and riding on a horse all night. "Hi, Rick, Evelyn—oh, it's you," she said to Ardeth. She saw him staring intently at her, and pursed her lips, beginning to get angry. "So what is it this time? My ears are too pointy? My knees are too knobby? My eyes are too close together? What?"
Nobody said anything. Instead, Evelyn just held out the book to Leah.
Leah inched forward until she was standing in front of Rick, Evelyn, and Ardeth. She glanced at all three of them, confused, and then took a look at the picture that Evie was holding in front of her. Leah gasped as she realized that she was looking at a picture of herself.
