Author's note: Well, this is definitely the longest chapter I've ever written for this story. It has a lot of action and adventure (about ¾ of the chapter) right after some info regarding the past life of the priestess. Hope you like it.

Ocecat - I can't call her "the Priestess" because she's not really a priestess. Her name's Manyia. I just need the perfect time to introduce her name in the story and since the Prince didn't bother to ask her again …… .

Hannah - The urn …. well, I'm not sure what it could do at the moment, but it's time will come. I just need to straighten some other things first. Manyia's actually very cat-like and yes, it has much to do with the goddess she worships, namely Bast. But all of that will be explained soon enough in the story.

Saddened Soul - "Something very naughty?" Yeah, I guess that's one way to call it. Yep, I've played Sands of Time, but because I played Warrior Within first, it seemed quite short and the fights … not so exciting. But the story, the music and the views were superb (some even better than in WW), so all in all, it was a cool game to play.

As for the Dahaka chases in WW, though they were very cool and original, it took me ages to get over them, and I got really annoyed at some points.

Episode X : "A different fate for each"

The first rays of the warm, morning sun had begun to scatter the grisly darkness of the night, when the woman reached the gates of Babylon, after a four hours' journey on horseback, through rocky landscapes. Normally, it should have been a tiresome journey, but for her, time flew by unexpectedly, along with her thoughts of distant memories. Seeing how much the youngest prince had changed since she had last seen him, made her realize, as well, how much she had changed –perhaps more than he did, much more than he did.

Born a slave, from parents coming from generations of slaves and servants, she had been sold from one master to another after her parents died –or were killed, she didn't really know, since that happened when she was of a very young age. When she turned fifteen, fortune smiled upon her, and she was freed from slavery by a kind, elderly woman by the name of Delasa, who took her as a servant in the royal palace of Babylon, after the girl's former master –an acquaintance of the woman's– passed away. Delasa gave her a basic education, teaching her to read and write, and for three years she had done all sorts of chores that were meant to ease the already facile life of the so-called superior class of society.

She had never been abused or mistreated by any of her masters and for a slave, and afterwards a servant, she had lived a decent life. But although she was of a kind and submissive nature, always hurrying to do whatever she was asked to do and swallowing without retorting, the sometimes cruel and unfounded accusations and complaints of her masters, she had always felt like something was wrong, like she was not doing precisely what she would like to do. At one point she had had a dream of becoming a priestess, but it was shattered by Delasa, who told her that only women of noble ancestry could occupy such a privileged position.

Now these memories made her smile. Society did not allow her to fulfill her dream of becoming a priestess, but fate offered her a life like few are destined to live. Her thoughts drifted back to the present times only for a short while, when she had to urge the horse to go right, to avoid crossing the large bridge, and entering the city through the main gates, so as not to arouse the suspicion of the guards. As she rode towards a smaller bridge, situated to the south, on the lower course of the river, where there was a more secluded entrance, she began to think once more at her past life, which she often chose to forget.

She remembered the very first event that marked the beginning of her transition from her old life to her new one, namely the present one. Of course, at that time, she paid no attention to it, for she could have not possibly imagined what life had in store for her. She was in the bazaar one morning, sitting on a stone bench near a fountain, when a woman approached her. She was a tall, thin woman, with pale skin, long, curly, light-brown hair and eyes like two emerald stones; she was a beautiful woman, although she might have already passed the age of fifty. She was dressed in a sleeveless, black, silk dress that touched the ground and wore exquisite jewelry –earrings, necklace and bracelets. She had a golden shawl over her shoulders, but no veil covering her hair, which attracted disapproving glances from most of the women who passed by.

The woman, who introduced herself as Nadira, seemed preoccupied by the girl's sorrow and as the two started talking, the girl, who felt the need to take the burden from her heart, confessed her misfortune. She told the woman about how she would never be able to fulfill her dream of being a priestess, but the woman simply smiled and told her something she would always remember, though at the time it only deepened her suffering, for it sounded completely implausible.

"Sometimes when the gods don't give us what we want is because they have prepared for us something greater than we could ever imagine."

Then, Nadira got up from the bench where she had sat next to the girl, and before leaving, gave her a silver pendant, representing the profile of a sited cat.

"Keep this close and it will fulfill your innermost desires."

After her meeting with Nadira, the girl remained puzzled for a while, but that feeling lasted only until she resumed her daily chores at the palace and by the time the sun disappeared behind the hills into a pool of reddish light, she had forgotten all about it. Morning came soon and the girl leaped out of bed as soon as the first rays of light made their way inside her small, deplorable and almost empty bedchamber. She rapidly put on the gray, stripped dress and cream-colored veil she always wore and was about to exit the room when the insistent mewing of a cat made her approach the only window of her room, with no curtains, no grating, no shutters –just a square shaped hole in the wall.

On a higher ledge on the opposite building there was a cat, looking down directly at the girl and mewing as if asking for help. It was Nasmat, but the girl did not know that back then and considered it just an ordinary cat.

"Kitty, what's wrong?" she asked from the window. "Come down from there."

But the cat wouldn't move and continued to mew at her.

"Come on, it's easy. Just jump on that beam over there. It's right below you," the girl pointed towards a beam coming out of the wall.

"What, are you stuck?" she asked when she saw that nothing would make the cat come down. "Don't make me come after you," she sighed deeply seeing how the cat kept mewing at her.

Gathering the little courage she had in her, the girl climbed out of the window onto a beam coming out of the wall, about two feet below. Praying to all the gods she knew, the girl stretched out her arms to maintain her balance and with small and very insecure steps she walked across the beam till she reached its end. Every inch of her body was shaking violently, knowing that there was a thirty feet distance to the ground, but she was looking straight forward, trying not to make any wrong moves.

When she reached the end of the beam she realized that in order to get to the cat, she would have to jump forward and grab onto an upper beam, coming out of the wall in front of her. She cringed at the thought, and regretted her decision, wanting to go back but something inside her urged her to go on, not to mention the cat who seemed to be crying for help with her mewing. Putting her faith in the hands of the gods, the girl jumped with her arms stretched forward, in order to grab the beam. Unfortunately, she had forgot to take into consideration the ten feet distance between the two beams, plus the fact that her dress was too tight for her to make such a jump, and she fell about three feet down, when she somehow managed to grab onto another beam below. She hanged from the beam for a while, until her sweaty hands could not hold on anymore and she fell again, screaming. Luckily, she landed on a canopy that served as a roof for the market place that stretched along the narrows alleys between the buildings, but as soon as she made a move the linen tore apart and the girl fell flat on her face on the dusty, stone pathway. Groaning in pain and still shaking with fear, the girl slowly raised her head from the ground when she heard the cat's mewing, which, this time, sounded as if it was coming from somewhere very close. Pulling aside the strings of her messy hair that fell over her eyes, she blinked a couple of times in total stupefaction when she saw the cat standing a few feet away from her.

"Kitty? How did you …… ?"

Finding herself at a loss of words caused by the state she was in, the girl instinctively looked upwards, towards the ledge where she had first seen the cat. Though it took her a fraction of a second to do this, when she looked back down, the cat was nowhere to be seen.

It was late in the morning when The Prince, accompanied by Markug and about a dozen soldiers of the royal guard, left the encampment, heading towards Babylon. Up to this moment, the Prince had still not discovered a good reason for the priestess' sudden disappearance, but then again he didn't give it too much thought, being glad to take one problem off his mind, though a part of him regretted his incapacity to control himself.

Towards noon, when the sun was burning fiercer than ever and the hot air was hardly breathable, they had covered almost half of the distance, riding through a semi-desert region, with the Prince leading the way and the others trying to keep up with him. They had reached the point where the main road split into two –a longer one, but leading straight to Babylon and a shorter side-road, leading through a canyon of some sort– when a soft breeze started blowing from nowhere. At first, none of them gave this too much importance and they continued riding along the main road, but before they could realize it, the soft breeze turned into a powerful wind, trapping them in the middle of violent sandstorm. Barely seeing one another, the men were finally able to make their way out of the vortex of sand, taking shelter behind huge blocks of rock, at the entrance of the southern canyon.

"I suppose we'll have to wait here for the storm to pass," Markug told the Prince, while watching the most devastating-looking sandstorm he had ever seen.

"No. That may take too long. We'll go trough the canyon," the Prince decided quickly and as he spoke, he urged his horse to take the narrow path that wound through the gigantic, stone walls of the canyon.

"But my lord," a soldier called out, "This is said to be a very dangerous place and none of those who have taken this path are known to have returned."

"They say demons live in the caves of these mountains, creatures that are half man and half snake," another, more frightened soldier, added.

"Oh, those are just old wives tales," Markug smiled, "But indeed, this is a very dangerous crossing."

"Whatever creatures or men may dwell here, for their sake, they best not cross our path," the Prince said aloud, more to himself.

Knowing that it was an almost impossible task to make his commander change his mind after he has taken a decision, Markug, followed by the other men, took the narrow path downwards, to catch up with the Prince who had already reached the bottom of the valley. They rode at a slightly low pace through the sinister valley, more or less by twos, in a straight line, until they could see a big hill ahead of them, and the path they were following going up, and leading out the canyon. As the path led them closer and closer to the hill, they took notice, for the first time, of some vultures standing on some rocky edges along the path they were to take, but also around them, at the top of the canyon.

"Vultures feed on corpses and never attack people or any living creatures," Markug informed the Prince, seeing how he slowly drew out the sword on his back, at the sight of the large, frightening birds.

"It is better to be prepared for anything," he answered as his vigilant eyes scanned the surroundings.

As the group of men came closer to the ascent, the vultures flew out of their way and onto higher surfaces. The men were relieved to see that those winged creatures would not pose a threat after all and quickened the pace of their horses to climb up and out of the canyon as soon as possible. But just then, something totally unexpected happened. Reacting as if someone had given them a signal, tens of vultures, resting on rocky edges on either side of the canyon, spread out their immense wings and rushed upon the riders, descending in circles towards them.

Before the men could realize the impending danger, the vultures were upon them, attacking them savagely with their talons and sharp beaks. Almost all the men fell to the ground, either thrown by their terrified horses or because of the wind produced by the constant flapping of the five-foot long wings of each bird. The Prince and Markug had managed to draw out their swords in time and slay many vultures before they could get too close to them, unlike the other men, who died a painful death, after having their flesh ripped off, their eyes torn out or their ears, noses and fingers cut off by the steel-like sharp beaks of the flying predators.

A totally chaotic situation had arouse: the soldiers were now all lying dead on the ground with more than twenty vultures fighting over each body, tearing apart the already mutilated corpses, the horses that had not been taken down, as well, by the vultures, were running like mad in every direction and some more vultures were still circling the are, while a thick cloud of dust had covered the entire portion of the valley.

"They're are too many. It's best to take cover in one of the caves here."

Cutting off the heads of two vultures at a time and then slashing a couple more of them, the Prince replied, moments later, to Markug's suggestion.

"I see no cave anywhere in sight."

After bringing down the vultures that were near him at that moment, Markug took a moment to look behind him, but that was enough for a more agile vulture to dig its talons in his back and tear part of his shirt, besides leaving deep cuts on his flesh. Having been taken completely by surprise, the man let out a cry of pain and almost lost his balance, but his anger gave him sufficient strength to spring around and severed the bird's claws with one blade. Shrieking terribly, it backed away and rose a few feet into the air, only to lunge at him more furiously.

Fighting off his own attackers, the Prince took notice of that and threw a big stone at the head of the bird against which Markug would not have been prepared to defend himself. As the dead bird's body fell at his feet, Markug looked at the Prince and nodded in sign of gratitude, after which he grasped his sword more firmly in his hand and blocked the attacks of some more vultures. If in the eyes of men, saving his friend's life was a most praiseworthy dead, the beasts seemed to think differently for his slight inattention caused him severe cuts on his arms and small bites on the exposed portions of his skin, between the straps of his armor. Overwhelmed by rage, he cried out loudly and began to literary chop in pieces every bird that approached him.

For what seemed like an eternity, the Prince and Markug defended themselves against the perilous creatures that kept appearing from nowhere, until Markug spotted an opening in the stone wall, hidden behind some tall rocks.

"Over here! I think it's a cave," he shouted at the Prince, who rapidly made his way towards him, through the cloud of dust, while trying to avoid the restless, bloodthirsty predators.

Reaching the narrow gap, they squeezed in rapidly, just as three vultures were rushing in their direction, and found themselves in an obscure cave, illuminated here and there by a few rays of light, reaching inside through some small cracks in the high ceiling.

"We'll have to find another way out of here. There's no going back there." Markug spoke as he began to descend inside the cave, following the singular rocky path, slightly similar to a stone staircase.

"What the hell was all that about?" the Prince demanded, as if Markug had any fault in it, remembering how he told him vultures never attacked people.

"I could not say. It was completely unnatural. I've seen animals gone mad in my life but this was too much."

Not finding any appropriate topic to start a conversation, they both walked in silence until they reached the bottom of the cave, after descending the semicircular path.

"There seems to be another way out," Markug informed the Prince, who was a few feet behind him, holding one hand pressed against his left shoulder, where he had a more severe wound.

Walking straight in the direction from which the light was coming, where he had assumed there was another opening leading to the surface, Markug disregarded the possible presence of any dangers and as soon as he stepped from the stone pathway onto the sandy ground, he was absorbed by quicksand before he could have the chance to grab onto something solid around him.

"Markug!" the Prince cried out, running towards the place where Markug had disappeared.

"I'm down below. It's not really quicksand," came his response a few moments later.

"Stay there," the Prince ordered before jumping into the camouflaged hole.

After a harsh ride through a rocky tunnel filled with sand, the Prince fell twenty feet to the ground, landing in a pool of sand.

"Don't make any sudden moves," he heard Markug's whispering voice, who was standing close to where he was, on a stone surface.

"Why?"

Before Markug could give him an answer, the Prince saw a snake crawling along the surface where his companion was standing and without taking into consideration the possibility that the snake might have had no intention of attacking either of them, drew out his sword and cut off its head.

"I hate snakes," he muttered while climbing out of the sandpit.

He grimaced at the sight of the dead snake and kicked its body away with disgust. Then, he noticed that Markug was simply staring forward and wanted to ask him something, when the corner of his left eye caught sight of a shocking image that made him gasp in surprise. Before them, in a huge, lower sandpit, thousands of black snakes were crawling about as far as the eye could see. Observing the snakes for a few moments, the two men noticed that their number was slowly decreasing and shortly afterwards they were able to see how each of them was disappearing under the sand, until not one snake remained on the surface.

"Something tells me you shouldn't have killed that snake."

"Let's just find a way out of here."

Both men looked around for an exit and for the first time they realized that the reason they could see inside the cave, although there were no rays of light reaching inside, were some peculiar crystals fixed in the walls. The cave sunk in total silence, as they stood still, admiring the astonishing and yet eerie view, until the Prince whispered to Markug.

"We should go."

The man nodded and they both started walking slowly along the stone walkway they were on, hopping it would eventually take them at least out of the snakes' lair, if not to the surface. Some faint hissing sounds flying past their ears made them quicken their paces and they were right in front of a corridor leading out of that section of the cave, when two figures jumped in front of them. At first they thought they were men, but as they stepped forward and into the light, the Prince and Markug saw that, although the form of their bodies was identical to that of a human, they had features that no person could possibly have. For a start, they had no hair whatsoever on their bodies and their yellow skin was similar to that of a snake, with black scales on some parts of their legs and arms, on their hands, fingers, toes, on their back and on either sides of their had. They had no ears, no nose –just a small protrusion with two little holes–, their lidless, bulging eyes were completely black and their long, forked tongue was coming out of their thin mouths –with no lips–, as they produced the same hissing sounds as a snake. Besides the fact that they were wearing nothing except some sort of animal skin tied like a skirt around their waste, and the fact that both their fingers and toes ended with a long, sharp, black claw, perhaps the most astonishing feature regarding these creatures was their long tale. Though they had natural means of defending themselves, each of them carried two completely black swords, attached to a leather belt around their waste.

As he and Markug were standing there, facing the two snake-creatures, the Prince suddenly felt something wrapping around one of his legs and pulling him to the ground. He grabbed onto a ledge just as he was pulled with force to the ground and looked behind him to see that another snake-creature had wrapped its tail around his leg with the intention of pulling him into a pit full of snakes. Quickly taking out the sword on his back, the Prince cut off the creature's tail, freeing his leg and jumped to his feet. The creature screamed in pain and crawled back down into the pit from which he had come, while the other two creatures standing in front of the men drew out their swords on the spot and charged at them without hesitation. More creatures crawled out of the sandpits, others dropped down from the ceiling and very soon, the Prince and Markug were surrounded by almost thirty snake-creatures, each of them armed with two of their black swords.

"Careful not to be cut by their blades. I think they're poisonous," Markug advised the Prince, noticing an unusual shine of the edge of the black swords, just before the creatures were upon them.

The Prince and Markug fought side by side for a while, guarding each other's back, until a stronger snake-creature wrapped its tail around Markug's neck and threw him to a farther side of the cave. Seeing this, the Prince dispersed, with rapid strikes of his two blades, the creatures around him and ran towards the larger creature. When he got close enough to it, the creature intended to hit him with his powerful tail, but the Prince dodged the attack by rolling forward. The minute the creature's tail rested on the ground, near him, the Prince impaled his sword into it, immobilizing it to the ground for a short while. While the creature roared in pain –proving that snake-creatures could make other sounds except hissing–, the Prince removed the sword and ran towards the creature, pushing with one foot against its chest, to help him leap upwards and flip over the creature. Standing now behind it, the Prince impaled both of his swords into the creature's stomach and then took them out and used them both to perform a perfect decapitation. The creature's body collapsed to the ground, soon after its head was sent flying in front of some smaller and more frightened snake creatures, and the yellow-greenish liquid it had for blood spilled out, forming a big puddle on the stone floor.

"What's the matter, already tired? Or am I too good for you?" the Prince taunted the creatures, more to his own delight, not knowing whether they could understand any human language.

Either way, his words did not seem to please them, and the remaining snake-creatures charged at him frantically.

"That's it, come to me. You'll make things so much easier."

Spinning around, the Prince decapitated with a single strike the first two creatures that approached and afterwards quickly adopted a defensive stance, blocking a powerful blow from a braver creature. Their swords remained locked for a relatively long period of time, when each of them tried to overpower the other, but were faced with a strong resistance. Two devious creatures, wanting to help their fellow kinsman, could have slain the Prince from behind if Markug, who had been fighting his own share of creatures in the opposite side of the cave, had not stopped them.

Gathering all his strength, the Prince pushed the creature backwards just as it was on the verge of throwing him to the ground. Since it was still standing, the Prince swept its feet off the ground, and the minute it fell to the ground, he drove his most powerful sword through its heart, extracting one last gulp from it. Two more creatures charged at him, one from the right and the other from the left. Putting his sword back in their place, the Prince ran towards the creature on the left, vaulted over it, and right after reaching the ground, while being still in the air, he kicked the creature in the back, with both feet at the same time, pushing it against the creature coming from the right. The impact was too great for the second creature to pose any resistance against it and it stumbled backwards, until it reached the edge of a deeper bit behind it. Trying to regain his balance, the creature grabbed onto the one in front of it, but instead it pulled the other creature towards it and they both fell into the dark pit with sharp rocks at the bottom.

"Now we really must find a way out of here," Markug stated after slaying his last attacker.

Following the tunnel they had spotted earlier, taking a few turns and climbing up some ledges, the Prince and Markug were lucky to find themselves back in the part of the cave they had been before Markug had fallen through the sand trap. Walking towards the light they had seen then, the two men managed to reach the surface and get back to the main road.

The sun was still shining brightly, but taking into consideration its position on the sky, it was not difficult to tell it was late in the afternoon. The two men continued their journey, walking along the road they had been forced to abandon a while back. For almost half an hour they walked in silence, each one sunk in his own thoughts. Markug had trouble getting over the uneasiness he felt, thinking back at the bizarre events he had experienced, but also at the loss of some many good soldiers, while the Prince was more concerned with the meeting with his father, since it wasn't the first time he had to deal with the world of the supernatural. Just when they were both starting to think they would most likely have to spend a night in the desert, they saw their own horses in a small valley with some scattered vegetation, among a few other horses that had been able to escape the massacre in the canyon.

Darkness had scattered the last rays of the sun when the two men rode through the gates of Babylon. Eager to know why his father had requested a meeting, the Prince quickened the pace of his white stallion and sped towards the royal palace with Markug following behind. They were only a few feet away from the main entrance, when the Prince unexpectedly brought the stallion to a stop. A strange wind had began to blow and he had had the impression that he could actually hear faint voices, reaching out to his ears like echoes, mixed with the whistling out the wind. At first they sounded like many voices, that passed by as fast as the wind, but then they blended together into a deeper and more mysterious voice, which although was still hardly discernible, could be heard by the Prince, calling out to him.

Totally ignoring Markug's questions, who was intrigued by his sudden change of attitude, the Prince carefully scanned the surroundings, from where he thought he had heard the voice. A flickering torch, lighting the entrance to a side alley, caught his eye and as he continued to watched it with growing interest, he gasped in surprise as the flame faded away when a dark fog passed before it, disappearing inside the alley; the same kind of fog that he had seen when he had been attacked in his tent, a few nights before.

Whether that had been real or not, this would be the night he would find out.

"This ends tonight," he shouted and kicked the horse, making it go faster and faster, until they both became one with the darkness of the alley, much to Markug's astonishment, who remained starring after the Prince.