9. The Vizier
Rage welled up in Yugi as he absorbed what Evan was saying. All around him he could feel the anger in his friends coming off them in waves. It fed the darkness in the room, at first seeming to clear his head, but then overpowering him and making him even woozier.
"You?" Kaiba shouted. "You did this?" But he sounded weak, his words thick and heavy. "The ship? My brother?"
"I knew I hated that guy!" Joey seethed.
"You bastard!" Mai growled.
Evan merely laughed, taking them all in as if it were a grand joke. It made Yugi all the more furious, but the effect from the stone tablets in the cavern was still making him dizzy and he was having trouble getting his thoughts together to figure out what to do.
Evan, meanwhile, turned to Mai, seeming to enjoy her response most of all. "What's the matter, Mai? You don't like the tables being turned? Here you thought you were using me when all the while I was using you. I have to say, you have definitely added an extra element of fun to this whole task."
"I'll kill him," Joey bit out through gritted teeth. He made a move as if to lunge in Evan's direction, but he was sluggish from the strange atmosphere in the chamber. Evan threw up his left arm in front of him, activating his duel disk and brandishing it like a shield.
"Uh-uh-uh," he said imperiously. "Fistfights are so gauche. If we fight, it will be in a Shadow Game."
"Fine by me!" Joey snapped, activating his own disk.
Without even realizing he was doing it, Yugi also activated his disk. Four other duel disks hummed to life around him as Kaiba, Mai, Mokuba, and Rebecca did the same.
"No!" Téa cried, grabbing Yugi's arm. "That's what he wants! You can't beat him, not here with all this weirdness!"
Yugi's head cleared slightly and he nodded at her, lowering his arm. At the same time, Serenity was holding back both Mai and Joey and they, too, stood down. Yugi saw Rebecca looking both enraged and very pale and put a hand on her shoulder. She looked at him and he shook his head slightly until she, too, lowered her disk, leaving only Kaiba and Mokuba standing ready to duel.
"Kaiba, Téa's right," Yugi said. "We can't do this here and now."
Evan laughed again. "Seto Kaiba and the great 'King of Games' himself can't take on a nobody?"
Kaiba made a sound in the back of his throat, but was unsteady on his feet.
"I wanna know one thing, Evan," Mai said, her voice steely. "The night the ship sank. Did you try to stop Tristan from rescuing Joey on purpose?"
Yugi saw Joey shoot Mai a confused look while Tristan set his face in a hard grimace.
"Of course," Evan said breezily, "although it was nothing against your little boyfriend here, Mai. I knew Tristan was one of Yugi's entourage. I took a chance that it was Yugi down there. Would've saved me a lot of trouble later." He laughed again. "I can't believe you bought the whole story about the gym being closed. There have never been closing hours. Ever."
"You—" Mai began, but Serenity, who still looked like the only one besides Evan who wasn't being adversely affected by the chamber, held her back.
"No, we have to get out of here!" she urged.
"There is no way out," Evan assured them, "not without going through me. And a close personal friend," he added.
It was then that Yugi noticed a glow coming from the direction of the altar where the Millennium Stone was. It was growing steadily brighter and a throbbing hum was starting to fill the cavern. That was when he realized what the monster was that was carved on the huge tablet above the altar.
"Reshef the Dark Being!" he said. "He's been distracting us while performing the Final Ritual of the Ancients! He's summoning Reshef!"
Téa looked to where the glow from the cavern was getting brighter.
"Reshef the Dark Being?" she asked Yugi. "What's it do again?"
"It controls an opponent's monster every turn its controller discards a magic card."
Téa shook her head. "It's like Weevil said. He's been controlling us all along. We have to get out of here!"
"I'm open to suggestions," Yugi said, inclining his head in the direction of the ravine behind them.
Kaiba, who had never lowered his duel disk, cried out, "I don't care what rituals you perform. I've got three Blue-Eyes in my deck. They can beat any monster!"
"Kaiba, don't summon Blue-Eyes!" Yugi shouted. "He'll take control of her and use her against us!"
"No one controls Blue-Eyes but me," Kaiba insisted, but Téa could see that he wasn't quite in his right mind. Mokuba, too, looked out of it, though Joey, Mai, Yugi, and Rebecca seemed more themselves.
"Don't be stupid, Kaiba!" Yugi growled in his game voice. "This is what he wants!"
Ignoring Yugi, Kaiba summoned Blue-Eyes and immediately afterwards Mokuba summoned Spirit Ryu. As the two monsters materialized above them, Evan summoned something in defense mode. Blue-Eyes attacked first, destroying Evan's monster, which turned out to be something called Gravekeeper's Spy. Apparently it allowed Evan to immediately summon another Gravekeeper's monster and he called for Gravekeeper's Curse, an evil-looking man in a long robe surrounded by a glowing green aura. He was kneeling down in defense mode. As soon as he appeared, Kaiba doubled over in pain.
"Kaiba!" Yugi and Joey both called out.
"What happened?" Téa asked.
"When Gravekeeper's Curse is successfully summoned, the opponent loses Life Points," Yugi explained.
"Life Points? Is this a duel?"
"No, it's a true Shadow Game. It operates with some of the same rules as a duel, but not exactly. Gravekeeper's Curse attacked Kaiba's Ba, his life source. Kaiba and Mokuba could summon Blue-Eyes and Spirit Ryu because they're their personal guardian monsters, the ones they're most connected to. I could summon Dark Magician and Joey could summon Red-Eyes without having to draw them or tribute lower level monsters for them."
"NO! You can't duel!" Téa insisted.
"I know," Yugi placated her while Mokuba attacked with Spirit Ryu. Gravekeeper's Curse dissolved and Evan set another defense monster and a trap or spell. She knew he was trying to protect himself until the ritual finished and Reshef the Dark Being emerged.
We've gotta get out of here, Téa thought wildly, looking around her. She turned toward the ravine and could see the drawbridge and the mechanism that would lower it, teasing her from across the gap. Not a wide gap, but still...
She frowned, looking at the gap while Yugi and Joey tried to convince Kaiba and Mokuba to stand down. Behind her she heard Kaiba summoning X-Head Cannon and Evan shouting, "You've activated my Trap Hole," which she knew would send X-Head Cannon immediately to the graveyard.
Concentrate on a way out, she told herself, trying to shut out the Shadow Game behind her and Joey and Yugi trying to convince Kaiba and Mokuba to stop. The ravine… It was a fairly narrow gap. Too broad to just hop across, but it wasn't as far across as the stage she danced on in New York. And there was that one number where the dancers in the chorus all leapt across the stage in a series of grand jetés. Well, it wasn't a true grand jeté, really. More of a cross between that and a gymnastic move, but she could cover some a pretty long expanse with that move.
She squinted, trying to judge the exact distance. It was definitely shorter than the distance she could jump across on stage, but this was on uneven ground and she wasn't warmed up. She hadn't practiced or even so much as stretched in a week and she was stiff from all the walking and sleeping on cave floors, and she was dressed in jeans which inhibited her range of motion more than her usual dancing attire. The atmosphere in the cavern wasn't helping either; it didn't get to her as much as it did Yugi and the other duelists, but she still felt a bit light-headed. And it was an awfully long drop if she misjudged and fell short.
But the humming was getting louder, sounding more like a rush of wind now, and the glow was getting brighter. She glanced over her shoulder to see what was happening, but could barely see anything in all the glare. However, when she was facing the gap, the glow illuminated the entire area.
Like lights on a stage.
They had to get out of here, before that ritual finished and he summoned Reshef. Taking a deep breath, Téa gathered herself mentally. In her mind she heard the music from her show, saw the stage, the other chorus dancers make the leap before her with ease.
When she heard Kaiba call another attack from Blue-Eyes, she took off at a run. Just before the edge of the ravine, she sprang up, her dancer's legs propelling her up and forward. She was stiff and more awkward than usual and couldn't quite pull her legs up into the grand jeté position. She could tell she wasn't going to get as much distance as usual, either. Normally she would keep her weight carefully neutral so that she would land correctly on her feet, but in this case she cared less about landing on her feet than about making it across. She threw her weight forward to increase her momentum, and then she landed, hitting the limestone floor about a foot beyond the gap. Mind the gap, she thought irrationally, the image of the London Underground logo on one of her roommate's t-shirts flashing into her mind as her legs buckled under her. She rolled forward, hitting her shoulder hard, but at least she was rolling away from the drop.
Vaguely through the roaring behind her she heard Yugi call her name in shock. Ignoring him and the screaming pain in her shoulder, she scrambled to her feet and dove toward the drawbridge, releasing the mechanism. With a clank of chains and a loud crash, the drawbridge lowered across the ravine.
At the exact moment that Kaiba attacked with Blue-Eyes, Yugi felt Téa bolt from his side. He turned just in time to see her launch herself across the ravine. "Téa!" he screamed, his heart in his throat until she landed on the other side. She landed badly, her legs buckling under her and sending her rolling forward onto her shoulder, but she'd made the other side and Yugi felt his lungs collapse in relief. She was up almost immediately and running for the drawbridge.
Behind him, he heard Blue-Eyes destroy Evan's defense monster, Old Vindictive Magician, which in turn destroyed Mokuba's Spirit Ryu as Téa hit the release lever for the drawbridge, lowering it with a crash. Obviously Evan was sparing Blue-Eyes so he could take control of it when Reshef was fully formed. However, thanks to Téa's risky gambit—which still had Yugi's heart thumping a little too hard—they might be able to get away before that happened. He still felt sluggish, however, like he couldn't quite get his body to do what his brain knew it should be doing.
"NO!" Evan screamed when he Téa lower the drawbridge. "YOU MUST FIGHT ME IN THE CHAMBER OF WEDJU!"
It was Serenity who finally got them moving. As Evan set another monster in defense mode and another trap or spell, she grabbed both Mai and Joey by the arms and pulled them in the direction of the drawbridge, Tristan and Duke on their heels. Yugi gave a tremendous shake of his head and pushed Rebecca after them. Seeing that Kaiba and Mokuba hadn't moved, he went for Mokuba, who was nearest him, and shook him by the shoulders.
"We have to get out of here!" he shouted, barely hearing his own voice over the din created by Reshef's summoning ritual.
"Seto!" Mokuba shouted back, lunging for Kaiba.
Kaiba seemed to notice Mokuba for the first time since he'd activated his duel disk. "Go!" he shouted at his brother, then looked up at Yugi. "I'll hold him off while you get across!"
"When Reshef is fully formed, he'll take control of Blue-Eyes!" Yugi warned.
"Got it covered, just take Mokuba and go!" Kaiba shouted back over the din as he set a trap and summoned Blindly Loyal Goblin. Yugi smiled at Kaiba and nodded; Blindly Loyal Goblin was immune to effects, spells, and traps that changed control of monsters.
Yugi and Mokuba raced for the drawbridge and thundered across it as Kaiba attacked Evan's defending monster with Blindly Loyal Goblin. He heard Evan activate Spellbinding Circle, which kept Blindly Loyal Goblin from attacking, then Kaiba used Blue-Eyes to once again destroy Evan's defender as Yugi and Mokuba reached the other side. Yugi pushed through the others to find Téa leaning against the wall rubbing her arm as Mai was saying to her in an awe-filled tone, "Just a dancer, hon?"
Pulling Téa into a tight embrace, he told her, "What were you doing? You could've been killed!"
"Grand jeté. No big deal."
"You don't have to prove anything!" he shot back, scared and angry with her for taking such a huge risk.
"Not to—" she started, but then the light flared and dimmed suddenly and it was too dark to see.
"Run for the tunnels!" he told the others as he turned around. On the other side of the ravine he saw Blindly Loyal Goblin, still trapped in Spellbinding Circle, and Blue-Eyes White Dragon facing a mammoth monster. It looked like the carving on the giant stone over the altar with dark bronze armor that spiked out from its shoulders, bronze claws, and a chain mail skirt of bronze. The three energy bands connecting its arms and lower torso to its chest glowed greenish-white, with blue, yellow, and orange balls of fluorescent light in the middle of each band.
"Kaiba, Blue-Eyes!" Yugi called out as he dashed along the edge of the gap until he was directly across from Evan and Kaiba. Joey was right behind him and they stopped together, duel disks at the ready. He knew it was a bad idea for he or Joey to join the fray as it would bring out the darkness in them, not to mention the fact that he was feeling fuzzy-headed again, but he had to be ready to back Kaiba up if necessary.
"Taken care of!" Kaiba shouted back and instantly a white and green spiky machine appeared, enveloping Blue-Eyes then winking out of existence taking Blue-Eyes with it. Interdimensional Matter Transporter, Yugi thought. It removed a monster from play for one turn. This not being an actual duel but more of an all-out war, Yugi wasn't clear how long a "turn" would last. Kaiba clearly had the same thought. Blue-Eyes had no sooner disappeared when Kaiba was running for the drawbridge, leaving the bound Blindly Loyal Goblin behind to defend them.
"You cowards!" Evan roared in rage. "You will fight me in the Chamber of Wedju!"
"We're not fighting under your conditions!" Yugi shouted back, trying to draw attention away from Kaiba and the others. "If you want to duel us, it will be a fair duel above ground!"
"I don't think so!" Evan insisted. "The only way out of this cave is through here, and the only way through here is by dueling me!" To emphasize the point, he activated a magic spell, Fissure, which destroyed the weakest monster on their side of the field. As Blindly Loyal Goblin disintegrated, Yugi realized they had nothing left to defend themselves and Kaiba was only halfway across the bridge.
"Kaiba!" he cried as he reached for his deck. He could summon Dark Magician, his personal guardian, without drawing, but Reshef would merely take control of him and then Evan would have two monsters with which to attack. Swords of Revealing Light, he thought, closing his eyes as he drew. Heart of the Cards, I need you….
Before he could even pull the top card out of the deck, however, there was a bright flash that burned red through Yugi's eyelids. His eyes flew open and he looked around him, expecting to see some sort of attack from Reshef, something like an energy beam or a slash with his clawed hands or something, but all he saw was the three colored balls of energy glowing more brightly than before. The room had a strange energy, however, not like the dark energy that was making them feel sick and unsteady. It was more like he might imagine it would feel in that split second before lightning was about to strike; an unnatural stillness and silence so complete he felt as if he'd gone deaf. And then abruptly everything went back to normal.
Confused, he looked at Joey.
"What just happened?" Joey asked.
"I don't know," Yugi said slowly, but he had a very bad feeling. He looked around at the others, all equally confused. Kaiba had stopped short at the end of the drawbridge about five feet away from Téa who apparently had been waiting for him to make it across so she could hit the release again and raise the drawbridge. He was looking around him warily, clearly expecting to have been the target. His eyes met Yugi's and he gave a half shrug as if to ask what the hell…?
"What's 'a matter, Evan?" Joey called out with a little nervous laugh. "Your monster short out?"
Yugi didn't want to give him time to answer or try another attack. He pulled the card his hand was already on clear from the deck and started to turn it see what it was.
"Yugi?" Téa said suddenly, her voice sounding strange. He turned toward her. She had a puzzled expression on her face. "I feel—"
And then her face went completely pale, as if she were a digital image and someone had just removed all the color, and she crumpled. Time seemed to slow to a crawl and Yugi watched in horror as she collapsed like a marionette whose strings had been cut, toppling forward toward the ravine.
"TEA!" Yugi screamed, wanting to run to her, but he couldn't move. She was too far away, too out of reach, but then Kaiba was there. He lunged for her, grabbing her by the back of the jacket and yanking hard, pulling her backwards into him. Yugi's knees almost buckled beneath him as Kaiba gathered Téa into his arms and took a long step backward away from the edge. Dragging his eyes away from the sight of her cradled in Kaiba's arms, alarmingly lifeless, Yugi faced Evan and demanded in a low and dangerous voice, "What have you done to her?"
"What? The vaunted 'King of Games' doesn't know how Reshef the Dark Being attacks? He is a creature of both light and dark, of war and of plagues, of thunder and silence. He uses sonic energy to destroy his targets from the inside out!"
"You pathetic spineless slime! You're no warrior, attacking a defenseless bystander!" Kaiba roared.
"She got what she deserved for interfering with the battle!" Evan retorted, and in an instant the shock and immobility in Yugi was gone, replaced by a rage so deep, so beyond any anger he'd ever felt before he thought he might ignite and fill the whole cavern with flames. As he faced Evan across the ravine, and in that moment he wanted the man dead. Not subdued, not unconscious, not even sent to the Shadow Realm. He wanted him dead, disemboweled, torn apart until there wasn't even enough left for the most brilliant medical examiner to identify.
"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" he snarled, his fury bursting from him like flame from a dragon's mouth.
At that moment, Blue-Eyes White Dragon reappeared, hovering over the ravine between Kaiba and Reshef. Yugi knew then exactly what to do. He would summon Dark Magician and destroy Reshef before it could take control of any of their monsters. Then he would use Kaiba's Blue-Eyes to assault Evan directly. She would obey him, Yugi was sure. She would know that he and Kaiba were allies, she would read Kaiba's own anger at the unscrupulous and cowardly attack on an innocent bystander and she would unleash her wrath on their shared enemy. Her white lightening attack, far more powerful than Reshef's, would reduce him to ashes, and if there was anything left, even if it was a body empty of its soul, he would cross back over the bridge and personally wrap his hands around Evan's neck—
But before he could even summon Dark Magician, Joey was there, in his face, gripping his shoulders. His face was ashen but his eyes were strong and determined. "No, Yugi, not now, not here. We have to get Téa out of here. She needs us."
His words melted through the anger, turning it to anguish and fear. Téa! he thought in despair, and he knew Joey was right. Remembering the card in his hand, the one he'd drawn just as Reshef attacked, he looked at it. Swords of Revealing Light. Too late, though, too late for Téa,he thought wildly, but he gave Joey a short nod of understanding, then slapped the card onto his duel disk.
Several swords of brilliant light dropped down from the ceiling of the cave, surrounding Reshef and Evan, pinning them into place, unable to attack or retreat for three turns, although again Yugi had no idea how long that would actually be. Joey nodded at him and squeezed his shoulders, and as one they turned away from the ravine toward the bridge where Kaiba was still cradling Téa. Their eyes met again, then Blue-Eyes White Dragon winked out of existence.
Behind Yugi and Joey, Evan began laughing. Yugi turned to face him, the man who sank their ship, would have left Joey for dead, almost had Téa and Mokuba crushed by a boulder, and now had attacked and maybe—no, I'm so not going there, he shut his mind down firmly. And the worst part, he was merely the servant, the Vizier, the tjaty. Somewhere out there was the Master, the man who had conceived this entire plan just to gain access to a power that should have never been born to begin with.
"You can run if you like," Evan grinned maliciously, "but you can't get out. The only exit is back through here, and the only way to come through here is to duel me. You will return, and I will be waiting right here. The duel of the ancient pharaohs will be decided right here in the Chamber of Wedju, before the Altar of Reshef!"
It was close to dusk when he felt it. He'd been conducting business from his penthouse that day and was on conference call to Europe, something trivial and mundane, when he'd felt the energy welling up within him. Distracted, he quickly extricated himself from the phone call and moved to the sofa near the large bay window overlooking San Francisco and across from the fireplace, which he'd lit early even though it was a little warm for a fire. Staring into the flickering flames, he let the power build inside of him, felt it flowing through his veins.
Reshef was being summoned.
Closing his eyes, he waited as the energy rode in waves through him. Reshef, his personal guardian, his Ka. After being out of contact with his Vizier for four days, he was finally going to see for himself what was happening on the island.
The energy within him reached its apex and he saw a flash of light behind his closed eyes. When he opened them, he was no longer sitting in his penthouse. No, that wasn't true. He could feel the leather of the sofa beneath him. He could see the flames from his fireplace dancing before him, but they were dim, like trying to see through a window into darkness when the room behind him was brightly lit, the world outside nearly impossible to see through the bright reflection in the glass. In this case, the "reflection" was a cave, and he recognized it immediately. It was the edge of the Chamber of Wedju, right where it butted up against a ravine. Before him hovered two monsters. The first was a short, muscular, bald humanoid, trapped within a Spellbinding Circle. The second was a huge dragon, glistening white with brilliant blue eyes.
Kaiba, he thought with a frown. Apparently Evan had been unable to get rid of him as planned.
From behind the monsters, he heard someone shout, "Kaiba, Blue-Eyes!"
The furrow in his brow deepened. That was Mutou, the reborn Nameless Pharaoh himself. Both of them, still in the game, then. At least they were in the Chamber of Wedju, as he'd ordered, but something else was very wrong. Mutou was on the other side of the ravine. Yes, there it was, the drawbridge to his right, and it was down. Surely his Vizier would not have been so careless…
"Taken care of!" he heard another shout, this time from the near side of the ravine. That was Kaiba. But then Blue-Eyes White Dragon disappeared within a white and green machine which itself disappeared. Interdimensional Matter Transporter. A pathetic attempt to keep Evan from taking over the powerful dragon; it was only a temporary safeguard. But as soon as Blue-Eyes disappeared, Kaiba took off at a run toward the drawbridge.
"Stop him!" he roared, knowing his Vizier would sense his command.
"You cowards!" he heard Evan shout. "You will fight me in the Chamber of Wedju!"
"We're not fighting under your conditions!" That was Mutou. He was standing on the other side of the ravine, one of his little clique next to him. The blond. Wheeler. "If you want to duel us, it will be a fair duel above ground!"
"I don't think so!" he heard Evan call back. "The only way out of this cave is through here, and the only way through here is by dueling me!"
He felt something behind him, magic of some sort, and then the bald humanoid—Blindly Loyal Goblin, he realized—disintegrated. Now there were no monsters opposing him.
He frowned again. Surely Mutou wasn't that stupid. But looking at Mutou and Wheeler, he saw that while both of them had duel disks activated and at the ready, neither of them actually had any cards in their hand.
They're not dueling! he thought in amazement. They're afraid of the Shadow Games!
His respect for the Nameless Pharaoh, already dismally low, dropped even further. Afraid of a Shadow Game? He was unworthy of the title of Pharaoh!
"Kaiba!" he heard Mutou cry, then finally saw him reach for his deck. The young man closed his eyes as he drew, but it was already too late. He could feel the power surging in him as Reshef prepared to attack. Smiling in delight, he anticipated the magic that would eat away at the so-called Pharaoh's soul from the inside out. Or maybe that insufferable egomaniac Kaiba. Whom would his vizier have him attack?
Neither, as it turned out. When the energy released from him in the form of a flash of light and a sonic wave, it was neither Mutou nor Kaiba who crumbled. Instead it was a young girl who wasn't even fighting, who didn't even seem to be wearing a duel disk.
What are you doing, Evan? he thought darkly as the girl slumped forward, about to topple into the ravine when Kaiba dove for her, pulling her back by her jacket and gathering her into his arms.
"TEA!" he heard a distraught voice shriek, and he realized then that this was Gardner. His lips curved into a smile as he finally understood Evan's plan. Good, very good.
"What have you done to her?" Mutou demanded, his voice thick with implied threat.
"What? The vaunted 'King of Games' doesn't know how Reshef the Dark Being attacks? He is a creature of both light and dark, of war and of plagues, of thunder and silence. He uses sonic energy to destroy his targets from the inside out!"
"You pathetic spineless slime! You're no warrior, attacking a defenseless bystander!" That was Kaiba.
"She got what she deserved for interfering with the battle!" Evan. Interfering with the battle? In what way had she interfered? Interesting.
"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!"
That one was so powerful, so filled with pure hatred, he could feel it from nearly two thousand miles away. He laughed, delighted by this turn of events. The Chamber of Wedju was working exactly as he'd planned! And such power from young Mr. Mutou! Perhaps there was hope for him yet.
But before he could fully enjoy the sensation of Mutou's dark wrath, it was gone.
"What? Why?" he shouted aloud to his empty penthouse. Looking down, he saw Wheeler standing in front of Mutou, his hands on the shorter man's shoulders.
No! Could it be?
His answer came in the form of Swords of Revealing Light. They surrounded him, hemming him in, blocking any further attack, at least for the time being. At that moment, his Vizier began to laugh. "You can run if you like, but you can't get out. The only exit is back through here, and the only way to come through here is to duel me. You will return, and I will be waiting right here. The duel of the ancient pharaohs will be decided right here in the Chamber of Wedju, before the Altar of Reshef!"
Of course, it wasn't true that the only exit was back through the Chamber, but they weren't listening anyway. They were running away from him. Kaiba, carrying the girl, Gardner. Mutou and Wheeler not far behind. They were leaving, leaving the battle, leaving the Chamber of Wedju. But even though Evan had lied about there being no other exit, they would have to come back anyway. For two years he'd had ample opportunity to examine how Mutou's mind worked, and there was no way he was going to leave the Shadow Realm open. He would face Evan, along with Kaiba, if for no other reason than it was their destiny to face him. Kaiba would try to run from destiny, but never Mutou. Never the reborn Nameless Pharaoh.
Then it was over. The cave disappeared and his penthouse and his fireplace swam back into view. With no one left to fight, Evan had clearly recalled Reshef and ended the duel and his connection was lost.
He leaned back heavily against the back of the leather sofa and wiped his brow, which was wet with perspiration. Connecting to his Ka monster from such a long distance was draining and he was exhausted from the effort. Exhausted and troubled. Things had not gone exactly as planned. Somehow they had found a way to escape the Chamber of Wedju. Perhaps the girl had something to do with it? Evan had accused her of interfering. Even more troubling was the way Mutou had been broken out of the power of the darkness. If they realized how they'd done it, if Evan didn't realize how they'd done it, all would be lost. Without the power buried beneath the stone tablets in the Wedju Chamber and hidden under the gold of the false Millennium Items, Evan would never defeat them. And if he lost, the Shadow Realm would close itself again.
All that work and it could all be lost in a moment.
Fortunately, he was the reborn form of the great Pharaoh Ramesses. He would not be defeated by a Nameless Pharaoh and his even less worthy successor. There were other ways to get what he desired.