"What?!"

Satiah slammed her hand down on the table so hard, it knocked over one of the paperweights holding down the scroll, causing the corner to roll up on itself.

Atem looked stunned at her outburst, and Satiah felt a small twist of guilt when he slowly lowered himself into one of the chairs beside the table. "This book…" he said, tracing the glyphs spelling out the tome's name. "I can't be sure, but I believe this is referring to the Millennium Tome. It's an ancient spellbook that's been under lock and key in the palace since before I was born."

"You mean to tell me," Satiah barked, "that the Pharaoh knew this book was hidden in the Valley of the Kings, and he lied to my face?"

"No … That's not possible," Atem whispered, more to himself than to her. "That's not how it happened."

"What are you talking about?" she pressed, anger still thick in her voice.

Atem looked up, his violet eyes brimming with uncertainty. "The Tome wasn't found in any tomb or chamber."

"Well then where was it found?"

Atem lifted a hand and pressed it hard into his forehead, as if trying to draw forth his memories. "Two decades ago, the area around Thebes was struck by a series of earthquakes," he said slowly. "The same tremors that destroyed Ramesses' mortuary complex also struck the Valley of the Kings. Most of the tombs were unharmed … except for the sites along the southern ridge."

Satiah lowered her eyes, the wheels of her thoughts turning. "Ramesses' tomb," she whispered.

Atem nodded. "His burial chamber survived, but many of the tunnels and antechambers were upheaved. The workers who were sent to repair the damage found dozens of relics and artifacts strewn about the southern ridge — and the Tome was among them."

Satiah shook her head with disbelief. "I don't understand," she said. "How has your father been able to keep such a discovery secret all these years? Why hasn't he invoked any of the spells it contains?"

But then it hit her. Satiah lowered her eyes to the Millennium Ring around Atem's neck.

"The Tome is written in a language unknown to even the most skilled linguists in these lands," Atem explained, finding his confidence again. "It took the Royal Conclave seven months to translate just one, single spell from the book."

Satiah sucked in a deep, quivering breath. The pieces were all beginning to fall into place, but the picture they painted was even darker than she feared.

"For a long time, my father was hesitant to even use the Tome at all," Atem said, lowering his head. "But we had been at war with the Nubians for almost a decade at that time, and when they finally invaded … he knew the kingdom was in danger of collapse. He agreed to let his priests conduct the ritual they'd translated … And thus, the Millennium Items were born." Atem brushed his fingers along the dangling spikes of his Ring. "After the Nubians were repelled, peace was once again restored in Egypt. So my father saw no reason to continue translating the spells within the Tome. He had it locked deep in the palace, swearing never to open it again."

Satiah slumped down in a chair beside her husband, her eyes dancing across the surface of the scroll. "So your father never knew of the true origins of the Tome."

Atem shook his head. "Knowing him, he likely had his suspicions," he said. "But he feared the power in its pages all the same. Had the kingdom not been under siege, I don't think he ever would have used it at all."

Satiah looked up when her father grunted in frustration. "Damn," he said. "I always knew there was something wrong about those Items."

"But Father, we don't know that the spell the Pharaoh used was the one penned by Amenhotep," Satiah urged, though she had her own doubts. "If this scroll is to be believed, then the Tome was originally a gift from the Gods of Light. The chances are much more likely that the spell was benevolent… Right?"

She looked from her father to Atem, whose eyes were filled with the same doubt she felt. She laid her hand over his where it rested on the table, but he was quick to draw it back.

"What does it matter?" Atem said. "The book is safe from the thief's reach. He can search for it all he likes, but he will never find it in the Valley of the Kings."

"But Bakura doesn't know that," Satiah urged. "And if he ever found out that your father was hiding the Tome, it would only serve to escalate his brutality—"

Atem suddenly stood. "Let him try," he said. "So far, he has been one step ahead of us. But no longer. If he is foolish enough to attack us again, we will be ready."

He turned to leave, and Satiah grabbed his wrist. "But—"

"Isn't this what you wanted?" he said sharply, pulling his hand away again. "For me to stand up and face my enemy? Well, now I will. With or without you."

Before Satiah could even speak another word, he was gone — melting into the dark aisles like a shadow in the night.

Atem did not speak to his wife for the rest of the day. After they'd returned from the temple, he split from her and made his way to the training complex to while away the hours watching his comrades duel. Spectating their matches helped to take his mind off the dizzying revelations uncovered at Karnak, at least temporarily. But by the time the sun set, thoughts of the scroll and the Tome and Bakura were soon chasing each other around in his head again.

When night fell, Atem returned to his bedchamber to find Satiah already asleep, her shoulders rising and falling peacefully where she lay turned away from him. Quietly, he undressed and joined her beneath the sheets, careful not to wake her from her dreams.

For a long time, sleep refused to come to him, his mind still wheeling with unwelcome thoughts. It had been years since Atem thought about the Millennium Tome, and even longer still since he'd even seen it. When he was very young, just after the Nubian invasion was quelled, his father had taken both him and Tefnak down into the chambers beneath the palace to show them the spellbook responsible for bringing forth the Millennium Items. Atem remembered clutching to his father's robes as he looked upon the weathered pages, the spell no more than a jumbled mass of symbols and images he couldn't even begin to comprehend. His father had admitted that even he had not heard the true spell spoken aloud, and that all the priests who helped to translate it had perished in the fight against the Nubians.

Ever since those days, the topic of the Millennium Tome was seldom discussed in the palace, and it began to fade from Atem's memories as if it had been no more than a legend all along. In all his years, Atem never had any reason to suspect that the Tome was a source of dark magic — powerful, yes, and perhaps even divine, as the scroll had indicated — but never would he have guessed that evil might be held within its pages. Even worse, the idea that such evil might have been used to spawn the Millennium Items was all but unthinkable.

After staring at the ceiling for what seemed like hours, Atem looked over at his wife. He suddenly felt guilty for being so short with her in the temple that morning — it was clear she was only acting out of concern for his safety, even if her clandestine activities had only served to complicate matters further. Despite all this, Atem knew he'd have been lost without her support and encouragement over these last weeks. Even now, her presence alone was enough to calm his racing thoughts. As he watched the steady pulse of her body beneath the sheets, Atem could feel himself being pulled gently toward the brink of sleep. Before dreams took him, however, the sound of gentle chiming made his heavy eyes fly open again.

Atem sat up and snapped his head toward the door. Behind it came the all-too familiar sound of the Millennium Ring's spikes vibrating. At first, he thought perhaps the Guardians were changing shifts — it was Shimon's turn outside the door, and so far he hadn't managed to make it through a full night on guard duty. But as Atem stared at the door, the chiming continued — still as loud and as constant as when it had first woken him. Worrying it might soon wake Satiah too, Atem quietly rose and crossed the room, opening the door to peer out into the hallway.

Sure enough, Shimon was fast asleep in the chair outside the door. In his hands was clasped the Ring, all five of its spikes stirring restlessly above his lap. Gritting his teeth, Atem moved fully into the hall and closed the door behind him, coming to stand above Shimon. He thought about waking the old man, but as he stared down at the Ring, his curiosity stopped him. It both thrilled and disturbed him, the way the spikes strained upward, all of them pointing in vaguely the same direction. Was this perhaps the Item's way of "speaking" to him, despite him not being its true owner yet? And if so, why now? To what desire would the Ring lead, if he chose to follow?

Against his better judgment, Atem reached down and carefully peeled the Ring away from Shimon's slack fingers. He slung the rope around his neck and, almost immediately, the spikes snapped taut in one direction — down the hall toward the palace proper. On shaking legs, he followed the pull into dark passages and around sharp corners, realizing only when the halls grew deeper and colder that the Ring was taking him toward the throne room at the center of the palace.

There, he stopped before the entryway and peered into the void. The torches inside had all been snuffed out, leaving nothing but a yawning chasm of darkness. But the Ring continued to strain forward, so he pressed on, sinking anxiously into the shadows. He squinted his eyes, but the only thing he could see was the subtle glint of the Ring catching light from the doorway.

After walking what had to be nearly the length of the main aisle, the Ring's spikes finally stopped their strained vibrations and clattered limply back against his chest. He, too, froze dead in his tracks, and deafening silence engulfed him — so quiet he could hear the rush of blood through his temples.

"Hello?" he called.

But nothing replied, except his own voice reverberating back down from the high, arched ceiling.

Then suddenly — light.

Torches roared to life all along the outer perimeter of the room, forcing Atem to reel back from the sudden brightness. When he opened his eyes again, it was not to the familiar shape of the throne room, but a different chamber entirely — smaller, closer, and somehow older. All on either side of the chamber were rows upon rows of tiered seats, leading the way up to walls etched with masterful paintings in the richest of hues — blues and greens and golds and reds, depicting great battles, divine interventions, and myths of legend. Hypostyle pillars held up a low ceiling painted with millions of shimmering silver stars, all perfectly aligned and glinting down on him as if they had their own light. Before him was a low, wide dais, not unlike the one in the royal throne room, but with two understated chairs atop it instead of one.

Atem turned in a circle, taking in the sights and trying to orient himself to these new and yet somehow familiar surroundings. But his inspection was interrupted by the arrival of a new presence that drew his eyes back to the front of the chamber — which had, until that very moment, been completely empty.

Now, sitting in the chairs upon the dais, were two figures dressed in ornate, gilded robes. Their faces were concealed by shadow, but one was clearly a man, and the other a woman. Between them, very clearly vaulted atop a small stone pedestal, was the Millennium Tome. But before Atem could inspect the dias any closer, he realized the tiered seats on either side of the chamber were now also filled with people — dozens upon his count, though their faces were concealed as well.

Suddenly, a voice erupted from the front of the chamber: "Come forth!"

Atem spun, seeing the male figure on the dais had risen and gestured his hand toward where Atem stood. Before he could react, he felt the arrival of yet another presence — this one emerging from the darkness behind him. He watched the figure, also male in shape, making its way into the light. His heart was struck to a standstill as the flickering torch lights crawled up the figure's body, revealing not the head of a man, but of a beast — strange and twisted, like a cross between a bull and a lion, its body covered in the smooth, black scales of a snake. From its gnarled head sprouted two horns, curving downward along its jaw, which split with fangs as long as a normal man's arm.

As he followed the half-man, half-demon with his eyes, it became clear to Atem that this was some kind of dream or vision — and that the apparitions before him could not see or hear him. With this new revelation, he walked behind the creature to where it stopped and knelt before the dais. There, Atem turned his eyes up to the two figures standing over him.

In this new light, he was finally able to make out the vague shapes of their heads, shocked again to find that from the male's shoulders sprouted a long, curved neck and head not unlike that of an ibis, covered in shimmering green feathers. He'd seen this image often enough in tombs and temples to know immediately — this was Thoth, the god of knowledge, wisdom, and mysticism. Atem's theory was confirmed when he moved his gaze to the right to see Thoth's consort, Ma'at, emerging from the shadows, her stern face glowing in the torchlight. She carried in her arms the Scales of Truth, and from her elaborate headdress sprouted the ostrich feather of her namesake.

"Zorac!" Thoth shouted, and Atem looked back to see the demon-headed beast turning his black eyes up to the dais. "You stand accused of conspiracy to overthrow the Order of Light. Your attempts to gift man with the powers of Darkness would have surely resulted in untold death and chaos. How do you answer these charges?"

"Innocent, wise Thoth!" Zorac shouted, his voice a deep void. "For too long we have coddled the race of men, showering them only with light and denying them the freedom they so desperately desire! I sought only to bestow upon them the power to choose their own destinies."

"Heresy!" Ma'at cried. "You know well, Zorac, that we are but stewards to the race of men, and your meddling will only cause pain to ripple through their generations for millennia. It is our duty to care for and guide the humans, not to empower them. To do so threatens the very existence of our Order."

Zorac grunted. "Listen to yourselves! You are frightened of your own creations. Men are not our playthings — they are our successors! How long will we go on picking and choosing those humans who are worthy of godhood and those who are not, when their race holds nothing but untold potential!" Zorac suddenly stood, turning to face the figures observing from the tiered seats on the flanks of the chamber. "Anubis! Tell me you do not wish to grace mankind with the knowledge of the deep — to let them explore death's mysteries in ways we have never thought possible! And Set — the race of men needs your ambition! Your guidance would surely lead to a new evolution among their kind—"

"Silence!" Thoth boomed. "I have heard enough of your blasphemy. The Council has already convened and decided your fate. The result was unanimous — you will be cast out from our Order, and your ka forever sealed in stone so that you may never again commune with man."

Zorac lowered his head. "So be it."

Thoth raised his arms, and suddenly the floor of the chamber split open, revealing an enormous stone slab carved into the shape of a sarcophagus, with the visage of a man etched on its surface. It rose up from the earth and stood erect before Zorac.

Thoth then turned to his consort and nodded once. At this, Ma'at raised her scales above her head, and the chamber was filled with a blinding light. It cascaded from the heavens, striking Zorac where he stood. The demon-god howled in pain as light engulfed him and eroded away his physical essence. Though he knew it was a vision, Atem could still feel the heat, and his nose was filled with a scent reminiscent of burning flesh. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the light faded, leaving nothing but the wisps of Zorac's blackened ka floating in the air. Ma'at closed her fist and gestured toward the stone sarcophagus, and, obeying her command, Zorac's ka was sucked into the stone like water to a cloth.

In the silence that followed, Atem felt the illusion around him beginning to ripple and swirl, the colors running like a painting. He looked down, finding his eyes met with an endless void where the floor had once been. All the air left his lungs as his body suddenly plunged into the pit of darkness below. His flailing arms reached out, desperate to find a handhold to save him, but the chamber above quickly grew to nothing more than a flicker of light among the surging blackness.

He squeezed his eyes shut for an impact that never came. Slowly, the air rushing by his ears grew to no more than a quiet whisper, and he turned to face the direction of his fall, opening his eyes just in time to see solid ground rising up to meet his feet. He touched down lightly, then, feeling the laws of nature acting on him again, he crumpled to the floor, his chest heaving with panicked breaths.

Rising to his knees, Atem cast his eyes around another cavernous chamber, this one lit by tiny pillars of light, all shining out of the wall behind him. The pinpricks of light illuminated only vague shapes in the dark, but as Atem's eyes adjusted, he recognized the scenes painted on the close walls and hypostyle pillars. It was the same chamber he'd been in moments before, only it somehow seemed different now — the rich pigments on the walls were faded and the floor was cracked and crooked in some spots.

Atem stood and crossed to where the dais had been in the previous vision. Thoth's and Ma'at's thrones were still visible, as well as the stone pedestal, but the Tome was now gone. On the ground before it, the shower of scintillating lights illuminated the sarcophagus in which Zorac had been entombed. Atem stood above it, feeling a strange desire to reach out and touch it. But before he could lift his hand, a loud cracking sound filled the chamber, drawing his eyes quickly to the back wall. The weak rays of sunlight soon split down the center with a thin, vertical slit, and Atem shielded his eyes just in time for it to grow into a blinding orb as two hulking doors crept open, revealing shadowy figures standing on the threshold of the chamber. Excited shouting drew the attention of more people, whose bodies blocked the light enough for Atem to see one of the men climbing down the crooked stairs into the chamber, carrying a lit torch at his side.

The man crept carefully toward the sarcophagus, raising the torch high above his head and casting his form in a softer light. At this, Atem felt a strange wave of familiarity washing over him — the man was dressed in a Pharaoh's regalia, and upon his head sat a striking blue and gold nemes. Soon, the man came to stand beside the sarcophagus, and with the torch extended in front of him, Atem caught sight of another flash of gold — this one at the man's waist. His belt buckle was formed in the shape of a cartouche, and even in the dim light Atem was able to make out the hieroglyphs clear as day — the symbols spelled "Amenhotep."

Atem's eyes flew wide, and he watched with bated breath as Amenhotep stretched his arm out, reaching for the sarcophagus in front of him. His fingers brushed across the etching on the surface, and as if made of glass, the stone suddenly cracked, leaving a shallow pit in the carving's forehead. A moment later, more cracks spidered outward, traveling down the etching's arms, across its chest and ending at its feet. Amenhotep flinched back, causing Atem to do the same. After the eerie crackles had settled and the chamber grew silent, the Pharaoh raised his torch again, casting the sarcophagus in an orange glow.

Atem's heart nearly stopped at the sight.

On the surface of the tablet were seven new carvings, each taking the distinct and unmistakable shape of a Millennium Item. On the etching's forehead were indentations for the Necklace and Eye; in each hand, the Key and Rod; at its feet, the Scales; and on its chest — the Pendant and Ring.

Frozen, and with his eyes locked on the indentation meant for the Ring, Atem nearly missed it when dark mist began to encircle the tablet. Amenhotep stood his ground, holding the torch higher to greet this apparition as if he had been expecting its arrival.

But the sight struck Atem with utter horror. He stepped back, watching as the apparition took a familiar, haunting shape. At the sound of deep laughter, he turned, desperate to escape this rising threat, racing into the waiting arms of the darkness, stopping only when his body collided with something soft.

"Atem!"

A warm voice brought him surging out of the illusion, his eyes flying open to meet the worried gaze of his wife. Beside her stood Shimon, looking guilty as he held a torch above his head. Satiah took hold of Atem's shoulders, and the torchlight cast creeping shadows on her face that made Atem question whether or not he was still dreaming.

"Are you alright?"

But her voice was clear and untainted — her touch warm. Atem would have pulled her into his arms, if not for a sudden sting of pain lashing across his bare chest.

He gasped and looked down, greeted with the sight of the Millennium Ring glowing hotly, as if it had been smoldering in burning coals for a day. The sound of searing flesh followed, and dazed, he looked back up to see Satiah's eyes flying wide. Without hesitation, she reached out, grabbing the Item by its curved outer ring and ripping the rope forcefully from his neck. She hissed in pain and threw it across the floor of the throne room.

Shaking, Atem looked back down at his chest to see a red mark in the same shape as the Ring pulsing angrily on the surface of his skin.

At the sight, Satiah spun to address Shimon: "Call the Guardians."