Yay, chapter six. Go me. Anyway, a guide to names might be an order:

Tesemet: Egyptian for "Greyhound."

Keh: Egyptian for "Bull."

Nebenkeku: Egyptian for "Lord of Darkness."

Sekhmet: Goddess of war and killing stuff.

Gwydion: Old Welsh for…something. I really don't know.

Take a deep breath and jump into…

CHAPTER SIX

Hail to the Thief

The sky was beginning to lighten by the time Ryou, with his self-proclaimed "honor guard," reached the outskirts of the thieves' camp.

Now that hew as past the danger of being sacrificed upon the altar of darkness, they were willing and even eager to speak to him. One, the dark man with the quick grin, chatted incessantly as they walked along.

"We are mostly freed slaves. You see, when the Nebenkeku captures a town or a village, he doesn't harm the slaves. He'll release them, and give them the choice of dying with their masters, taking their chances with free life, or joining his band. Unsurprisingly, a lot of them join him. He treats us well, and gives us a fair share of loot. There's very little malcontentment and almost no mutiny, but he seems to know when there is. And Lady Sekhmet help the ones who try to kill him. But mostly it's good times. He, the Nebenkeku, likes slaves. You see, his mother was a slave."

The Nebenkeku, Ryou mused. 'Lord of Darkness.' He assumed he was speaking about Bakura. Of course they would not know his name.

"Is that how you came to be here?" Ryou asked the dark man.

The man flashed his quick white grin, wry wit sparkling in his black eyes. "No, the Nebenkeku found me on the streets of Waset, making a living by stealing bread. My name's Iniko, and don't ask me what it means 'cause -"

The fair-skinned, one-eyes woman gave him a frank look. Her yellow hair was cut short as a man's, and she wore boiled leather armor with a sword at her waist. All in all, a very intimidating figure. "Iniko, he doesn't want to hear you blabber and neither do the rest of us. So do us all a favor and shut up."

He gave her an innocent, lamb-eyed look. "Oh, but Tesemet, my darling…."

"Tesemet?" Ryou asked, puzzling at the name.

"Yes," she said courteously to him. "My former master gave me the name, and yes, it was meant to be a mockery. He treated his dogs better than he treated me.

"As for you," she fixed Iniko with her one-eyed gaze. "I'm no one's darling, least of all yours, and I'd advise you not to call me so again."

A familiar sight saved Iniko the humiliation of an answer.

They had been climbing what appeared to be a steep hill somewhere in the wasteland. Having reached the top, Ryou realized there was a small bowl-like valley nestled in it, and this valley held the thieves' camp.

Cookfires burned in the early morning gloom, horses whinnied, hounds barked; tanners prepared leather armor, smiths forged or repaired various weaponry, and children and dogs raced yelling through the maze of tents.

"Ah," Iniko spread his arms melodramatically. "Home sweet home."

Ryou wondered that he had not seen or heard this place earlier, but then he saw something flicker in the corner of his eyes, and felt the chill that accompanies the presence of the dead.

So the living were guarded by the dead, and this place was veiled to all those who did not know how to find it. Bakura was, after all, a master of spirits.

Two identical boy-children, very young, came running up to greet the warriors. They stopped short at the sight of Ryou. They gave him identical appraising looks, and one of them, asked, in his sweet, clear child's voice, "Sir, why are you wearing a dress?"

He was clad in the plain white shift of an acolyte of the Goddess. He looked down at himself and blushed.

Iniko answered for him. "Kalil, Keydi, it's not a dress it's a robe."

"It is so a dress," the other one - Keydi - answered.

"Is not!" Iniko snapped.

"Is so."

"Is not."

"Is so."

"Is no- hey, respect your elders!"

Kalil made a few suggestions as to what Iniko really was, using words that made Ryou blush.

"Oh, that's it, you're done, you little…" Iniko lunged at the two.

Keydi was carrying a short staff. He swung it at Iniko's head, and his aim was unerring.

The two boys took off down the hill. Iniko would have followed, but a massive figure detached itself from from the rest pf the band and delicately picked Iniko up by the back of his tunic. Iniko was a toy compared to him. It was the grizzled, simple-minded giant.

"Keh hates it when we fight among ourselves," Tesemet said to Ryou. She looked completely unperturbed. "Anyway, you're hungry, aren't you? Come on, let's take you to Yenuveh's.

888

Bakura's tent was set on the outskirts of the camp, near the walls of the valley; he preferred to be well removed from the general chaos of his people. The ten of the King of Thieves looked much like any other, small and earthy-colored. Quite average, until one noticed the chill and the aura of darkness that lay over it like a shroud.

Bakura pushed back the entry flap and entered its darkness. Not natural dark, this, but that was no surprise. The Shadows seemed to follow him as carrion birds follow and ravening army.

"Anu." The name was a command.

The shape of a jackal appeared in the shadows. One moment it was not there; the next it was. Tragic golden eyes pierced the darkness. Yes?

"Anu, tell me - what am I going to do about this boy? He will destroy me."

The dead, being not of this world, are better able to objectively view it. Yet even Anu was quiet for a long time.

No, he will not destroy you, and this is the reason for your terror. But to kill him would be to kill yourself. I can tell you no more than that.

As suddenly as he had come, Anu was gone. And Bakura was left to ponder the meaning of his words, and puzzle over this strange boy who had turned his life upside down.

888

Yevuneh, as it turned out, was an elderly Hebrew woman and a former kitchen slave. Her husband had died in slavery, her children had marched off with the rest of the Hebrew people during the recent Exodus, and she remained to help with the cooking for Bakura and his band.

And, Ryou thought as he nibbled one of her honey cakes, what fine cooking it was.

There being no permanent furniture in an impermanent thieves' dwelling, he was seated on the ground, wedged between the giant Keh and Tesemet's young son. Yes, Tesemet a son. Ryou had been surprised, too, when a tiny, scruffy boy flung himself on the warrior as soon at their group entered the camp.

She had laughed with pure joy, and scooped him up in her arms. The little child smiled at her, and she smiled back. Ryou hadn't seen her smile before. "Gwydion," she said softly. "My son."

"Gwydion?" Ryou blinked. "What a strange name."

Tesemet didn't look away from her son's grinning face. "My mother was a slave from the Isles of Mist to the far, far north. She was used for breeding, and she was sold when I was six years old. But before that, when I was very young, she would tell me the legends of her homeland, and one of my favorites was about a hero named Gwydion. Those stories are all that I have left of her."

"I am…sorry for you, Tesemet," Ryou said. Gwydion caught sight of him, and flashed a dazzling smile in his direction. "Who is his father?"

Tesemet froze like a rabbit in a snare. Her smile vanished, and when she turned to meet his eyes there was only darkness there. "After my mother was taken from me, I was sold into a brothel. I was, as I have said, six years old. And there I was sold again and again, night after night. When I tried to run away, my master put out my eye. He said he would have fully blinded me, but he wanted me to see the faces of the men leering down at me night after night. So no, I don't know who Gwydion's father is, and frankly I prefer it that way."

Her single eye blazed with green flame. Her features were ravaged by war and sorrow, but there was the shadow of great beauty there.

"Oh Aset…" Ryou whispered.

"You'd best leave Her out of this," Tesemet said. "She's never cared much about my life before. Anyway, after the Nebenkeku freed me, I found my former master. And I killed him with my own hands." She turned back to Gwydion, who was looking very worried.

At the moment, in Yevuneh's tent, Gwydion was nibbling a biscuit and staring at Ryou. They were all listening to Iniko, who held a poultice to the side of his staff-whacked head, and in between angry rants would tell Ryou the stories of the people in the camp.

Currently he was speaking about Keh, who was also nibbling a biscuit, and gazing at Iniko with mild amusement in his eyes.

"…You see, his parents were field slaves, and they were 'mated' by their masters. That means they were bred like horses or oxen for their strength. Only I think Keh here could take down any beast of plow or field. He's mostly impervious to bodily pain, which is why he has so many scars - his masts had to really whip him hard to get him to behave. But he's gentle by nature, and can't stand to see the people he adores fighting. He can't speak, though; he's a bit simple. Had the strength of an ox but the mind of a child." Iniko beamed at him. With the earnestness of one who does not know how to lie, Keh smiled back.

And with he swiftness of one who cannot long concentrate on anything, Iniko was shouting at Yevuneh, "Hey, don't I get one of those biscuits too?"

She was tending a pot boiling over a pit of coals. She didn't even look up at him. "No," she said flatly.

The smile vanished from his face, and he muttered a single word. A very nasty word.

At this, chaos erupted.

Yevuneh was stirring the pot with a wooden spoon. A second later, the spoon was flying end over end through the air. It struck Iniko square in the face, engendering a lot of yelling. Yevuneh yelled back, cursing him soundly in what might have been three languages. The spoon was followed by the boiling pot, a laying hen (still alive and very much indignant), fruits, vegetables, and assorted cutlery. To prevent further injury (both to the man and to the tent), Keh was forced to drag Iniko out by the scruff of his neck.

With a little sigh, Ryou followed.

888

They'd settled down again near the center of the camp. Iniko was holding a second poultice to the spoon-shaped bruise that was beginning to purple even through his dark skin. He was ranting in earnest now.

"Always I've been a good man, always loyal, and what do I get for it? ABUSE BY A KITCHEN MAID…!"

Ryou, of course, ignored him. His attention was focused more on a group of warriors making their way across the camp. As they drew closer, Ryou realized they were all women.

Iniko followed his gaze. "Ah yes, Tesemet's warriors. Scary, scary people."

"But…they're all -"

Iniko clapped a hand over the boy's mouth. Don't say it. Not if you value your manhood, don't. Those who say that women are the gentler sex have never met them." Iniko removed his hand and continued.

"They and their kind are more common than one might think. A lot of warlords keep fighting women in their parties - they just don't like to admit it.

"If you think about it, it makes sense. A woman can get places a man can't - no man can get into the bedchamber of his enemy, for example, at least not without a lot of confusion and uproar. Women's clothing lends itself to disguise. It's not sexism when they say women are more dangerous than men; another man won't castrate you in your sleep. And Sekhmet protectress, they're fierce. Would you like to face Tesemet or one of her women in combat? I know I wouldn't. I think even the Nebenkeku is a little afraid of them."

Though he already knew, Ryou asked, "Iniko, why do you call him the Nebenkeku?"

For the first time since Ryou had met him, Iniko looked afraid, the shadow of dread creeping over his features. Quietly, he whispered, "He do not like to speak of it. Why do you think he is called the Robber of the Tombs? He takes not only the gold and jewels there, but also the souls of the sleeping dead. The Lord of Darkness, he reigns over the dead and the living alike, and even the spirits bend their will to him."

"Why, Iniko, you flatter me."

They both turned. There, behind them, was the King of Thieves himself.

Being dark of skin, Iniko could not blanch. Instead, he turned the color of old dust. In a flash, he was gone.

Ryou did not move. A stranger to fear, he smiled up at Bakura, and said, "You have made a little Kuru Eruna here, my lord."

A chill ran through Bakura upon hearing the name of his dead village, now surely no more than dust beneath the sands. But he hid it well. He hid many things well. "I am the King of Thieves, and this is my court."

Ryou looked at him curiously, and tilted his head to the side. "What are you trying to accomplish here, Bakura?"

Bakura looked at him soberly. He would insult neither the boy nor himself by telling a lie. "I vowed long ago to destroy the Millennium Items and the ones who bear them. They are a blasphemy. I shall kill the Pharaoh, and I shall usher in a new age."

"The reigning Pharaoh is not the same one who set the dogs of war upon Kuru Eruna," Ryou replied.

Bakura's expression darkened. "No. But do you think Kuru Eruna was all full grown thieves? There were children there, too, and it was not they who robbed Pharaoh's tombs. I know, I was one of them. But that did not stop him from killing them all.

"Their only crime was to be of the blood of the condemned. The Pharaoh has inherited the blood of his murder father, and it is this blood that I will shed upon him as vengeance."

Ryou met his gaze coolly. "It is still not right."

"Not right?" Bakura gave the mockery of a laugh. "You have been among these people, you have heard their stories. Was it right, what the Pharaoh's people did to them? I do nothing more than reply to his savagery. What we are is what they have made us."

Ryou's gaze burned through all his subterfuge. "There is nothing that justifies the destruction of any life."

Bakura opened his mouth to reply. But at that moment there was a puff of feathers and a strangled squawk as a slinger shot down a desert bird.

An answering cry came from the camp, a cry of the most profound sorrow Bakura had ever heard, a sound that made every man, woman, and child in the camp listen and shiver. A sound, Bakura realized, that came from right next to him.

In the stillness, Ryou crossed the camp. He knelt in the dust, lifted the dead bird in his hands, and pressed it to his heart.

He closed his eyes. Back and forth he rocked in the stillness, back and forth. When he stopped and his eyes opened, he raised his hands…and the bird flew out of them, alive.

Bakura gasped. Everyone can bring death, but only a very, very few can bring life.

The others, however, did not look impressed and most of them were simply annoyed. Ryou felt suddenly embarrassed. "It…I couldn't…" he stammered.

"Child," Iniko said, unaccustomed seriousness in his voice. "Why do you think these people joined the Nebenkeku's revolt? Because they had nothing more to lose. We don't want riches; we just want to survive. We are slaves, lowest of the low, the toys of any who has money enough to purchase us. We are the innocent, and always it is the innocent who suffer. We leave mercy to those who have the power and leisure to choose whether or not they will kill. For us, there is only this."

Tesemet was there. "Iniko," she said. "You talk too much. You have an attention span shorter than a Libyan pygmy, and most likely you will have completely forgotten about this by tomorrow. We have dried food stores, and Yevuneh would appreciate your help."

Predictably, Iniko forgot his anger at Ryou in favor of his anger at Yevuneh. "She wants my help! She threw a chicken at me, Tesemet…"

Dinner - a soup of indiscernible substance - passed without further event, more filled with the wolfing down of food than with conversation.

The sun was lowering in the sky by the time they all finished. Tesemet set down her plate, and looked around at those gathered. "The boy will need a place to sleep. Blankets, as always, are scarce, but-"

A voice interrupted her, and Bakura recognized it as his own. "There is no need. My bed is large enough. He may stay with me for the night."

Again, where Bakura expected banal whisperings, there was only silence. They retires shortly after that.

888

A soon as they were alone in the tent, Bakura whirled on Ryou. "The others may believe it, but I am not such a fool. You are no child of the temple. Where did you come from?"

Bakura turned his back as Ryou stripped for bed. As was the custom with most in Khemet, thy slept naked.

It was only when they were both under the linens of Bakura's bed (Bakura himself refusing with a King's discipline to acknowledge the feelings this boy's nakedness inspired in him), that Ryou answered. "I came the night of the storm. The great storm that came with cold winds and dark clouds, choking the sun and turning the day as black as night. The skies opened, and a river fell from heaven. Yet in this darkness, strange lights lanced the sky, and the Gods themselves roared in the thunder.

"But the people did not remember the year by that storm; they remembered it instead by the stranger who came at twilight, bearing a strange pale child in his arms - me.

"He was clad in rags, and he looked like he had been running a long time. He was nondescript, the people of the temple told me after, except for his eyes - they were the eyes of one who has seen spirits, and the ghosts of the dead.

"He came to them sodden and weary, begging them only to take his child and raise him as one of their own. The High Priestess took me in her arms, and gave him her word. He nodded, and went back into the night. They never saw him again.

"This is only what the priests and priestesses of the temple told me. I remember nothing; I wasn't a year old when my father left me. Everyone at the temple liked me, though, because they said I had beautiful eyes and I never cried. They called me Atet, which means Water From Heaven, until I turned one and a half, pointed at myself and said Ryou. For that is my true name."

Ryou turned his head to look at Bakura. "Before, when you tried to kill me, why did you…kiss me?"

Bakura felt a shock run through his body. He turned away from Ryou. "To capture your soul as it left your dying body. I do the same with all those I sacrifice."

Neither of them said anything after that. Both wanted to, but neither dared.

888

Bakura woke, once, late in the night. At some point in the innocence of sleep, Ryou had thrown an arm around Bakura.

A shaft of moonlight cascaded from a tear in the fabric of the tent, and gilded Ryou's features. Like Endymion in the fields, like one of the Angels descended to earth. Something not of this world - something more. He took Bakura's breath away.

Such beauty, such innocence…in the reflection of Bakura himself. Bakura reached out a hand to caress the boy's cheek.

My innocence has been returned to me, in the guise of a boy so like and yet so different from myself. And he felt the long darkness of his life fading before this boy's light.

Ryou's lips were parted slightly. With a tenderness strange and wonderful to him, a peace he had never known, Bakura leaned down and kissed him.

Peace followed him down into the well of his dreams.

To be continued…

…W00t. Boy love. And it'll probably be another four months until the next chapter, because I have original stories to finish.