Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine a story of mine reaching 20 chapters. Thank you all so much for reading and reviewing :) The lack of updating I can't apologise enough for, I let my life get ahead of me and that isn't right; my writing should always come first. A sneaky mention also to hansolo for pm-ing me to get on with it all! Here is another installment of prelude, I hope you enjoy. a/n I have played with this scene a little. No rat I'm afraid :P This was all written at 3am. No breaks, no sleep just Rob Dougan for background music :)
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Groggyness replaces the dull, incessant ache that flows over me, ebbing like waves. There is a sickness in my stomach I have never felt before and it makes me feel uneasy to the point of collapse.
I struggle, shaking, screaming, kicking out as hands hold me down and bonds strain against my force. My back feels like it is chained to uncut rock, my arms heavy with shackles. My chest rises and falls dramatically. I can feel its unusual rhythm tremor through every inch of my being. I don't even bother to open my eyes for I know what I will see; death. The end will face me and I will be lost to it. I mustn't look at it, I must not let it see me peek.
"Stop struggling."
I don't reply. I let my breathing steady. I have never felt panic rise in me like that. Does he not know that Imhotep will probably kill him to?
"What am I supposed to do now?!"
He is speaking more to himself than me, afterall he knows I won't be here much longer. One tear escapes through my lashes. I can't even raise a hand to wipe it away...
"Er, erm no don't do that don't- don't cry-"
I feel rough coarse cloth scraping at my face in an attempt to remove the tear. I wait to hear his footsteps retreating. "Aren't you going to get your prize now Beni?"
I slowly open my eyes, and the room starts to take focus. It is musky because of the laterns. Smoke is bellowing but not to the point of marring vision. "Well aren't you?" My voice is shrill, piercing even. I see him flinch. The coward.
The coward that has stayed by my side.
Why? What more can he do?
He doesn't answer my question. I never expected him to. He looks at me, taking me in. It's unnerving as men only usually look at women like that before they leer. But theres a flicker of something else. It's fleeting, but it was there.
"I'm sor-"
There is a huge clatter before he can finish. We both turn our heads to face the direction of the disturbance, and there is a fallen sacrificial plate. Slow and jaggard, another (still bandaged) mummy is struggling to make its way over to us.
My breathing begins to break again. Where is my brother, where is O'Connell?
By the time I turn my head back to Beni he is gone.
Even he has finally fled me. Just like my resolve, my trust, my strength.
I long to wipe away the beads of sweat that have formed on my forehead and chest. I sigh.
And so...
The blunt truth of it is, you don't walk away from situations like this alive. That's why they're unheard of. That is why in a few months we three will be forgotten. It will be assumed that Jonathan drunk himself to death. I will be assumed missing or to have eloped with a foreigner. And as for Rick...he had nobody to start with. He was as good as dead when we met him and everything will come full circle. Time won't stop for us, but I can make it stop for me now.
I close my eyes.
There's an acceptance that breaks you. Makes you forget about everything and remember all at once.
I hear them all surround me. I can hear ever creak, every snapping bone, every crumble of skin and dusty flesh fall from their linen frames. Then the smell reaches me. My nostrils try to fight it, the odour of millenia old flesh. I squeeze my eyes tighter shut. Let it end. Let it end now. At least I got to kiss O'Connell. At least I tried. I tried didn't I? Did I make you proud father? Heaven knows I've done better than Jonathan. I held the book of the dead in my arms. The complete volume. I was so close. I fell in love with a man. A man who should run a mile from me, and me from him. A man who might die trying to save me but it will be too late. I can't keep up with how many priests are around me, for I refuse to open my eyes. I sob when I hear them chant. I sob until I can barely body shakes and my wrists and ankles burn from the shackles chaffing.
The creak next to me breaks my promise- my eyes break open. Next to me is Imhotep, laying down a mummified one is different. It isn't moving it's-
it's a woman.
"Anck-sunamun..." I breathe. Even in death she is beautiful. Being this close I can make out her bone structure, her slender frame.
The scar from where she must have taken her own life lies just under her bosom, deep and gaping. It wouldn't have been a pleasant death.
"Mi pharos, she sleeps well doesn't she? And soon she shall sleep no more, and you shall lie still for eternity."
I look at him. My eyes are empty. I am broken.
"You fight no more, woman? Finally you see it is fruitless. You must accept your fate. Think of all the blessings you receive for offering yourself to my love-"
"Let me get this clear. I offered nothing. You took-"
"I shall take everything."
His eyes are hard until he speaks this. They begin to warm until they reflect a shed of humanity. He offers no apology. Standing tall he takes the blade from his robes, runs a hand over it and places it next to me internally relishing my lines the canopic jars religiously, perfectly. Re-arranging them two, three times. I watch in silence. The faces that crown the jars stare back at me. Hapi, the baboon-headed god representing north, Imseti, the human-headed god representing south, Duamutef, the jackal-headed god representing east and Qebehsenuef, the falcon-headed god representing west. I make a mental note of the lion...I can't quite place it.
These thoughts are destroyed when I see Imhotep reach to his feet- rising with the book of the dead in his hands. He closes his eyes, muttering charms in a dialect I can't catch. Either that or he is speaking at too great a speed for me to translate. At broken time, raspy voices join in his spell- voices that have no tongue, no lungs!
His priests are helping him, as the curator told us he did 3000 years ago.
A shiver curves its way down my spine. I hear bubbling, and then I see the detrius pool. Each bubble bursts as though it is boiling. Bones rise and fall with the force of each evaporation until they clear and float to the sides. Not a dark drop splashes the sand. The next verse I can translate-
"Rise up, bring forth your bones from dust and decay, allow soul to rejoin body in all it's splendour.
Come forth from the waters, which let themselves innundate me. May it see its body; may it rest on its perfected body.
May it not be slain; may its body not be destroyed, for ever.
O holy Anubis make haste with winds to shatter mens knees, blood of the Gods, secrete your truths-"
The splashing of the water eloping itself drowns out his voice. I can see a shape forming, rising out of the liquid. Moaning begins to emit from the pool, faces push against the surface mouths writhing in agony. The consistency is too gloopy for it to be true water. Painstakingly slow out of the faces a head and shoulders rise from the water as one would rise from a bathtub. It all seems so ridiculous but it's happening it's real, it is happening right before my eyes. If I wasn't a believer before...
The form is clearly that of a woman. It rises to full form, standing gracefully atop of the pool, barely causing a ripple. The black muck flows over each curve. The swell of her breasts, the length of her arms- pouring down her face. It takes a step forward-
but doesn't touch the floor. Instead it begins to rise, spreading onto the air until it is almost as wide as the annexe we are in. Floating above the ground and the priests heads the thing begins to growl, shriek, hiss. It gets nearer to the table.
It's her soul. Anck-Sumanums soul has come back from the dead, the pool must be a gateway to the underworld. My mind spins. Everything questioning itself at once.
As it passes over me, the coldness numbs my torso. Ice cold.
Lowering itself onto her corpse, it seeps into every inch, every bandage until there is not a drop left.
The chanting continues, deafening me now. Surely the ritual must almost be complete?
"Yatuwey Yatuwey Yatuwey!"
The board that hold her creaks and her arms stiffen. Her eyes rip open sending bandage flying. "AAAHHHH!"
She takes her first breath for a millenia, and I prepare to take my last.
One thing that doesn't need translating, is the action of him slowly raising the blade above his head, ready to make it's final deadly journey into my breast. I can't take it anymore, I can't be still I can't let this happen-
"O'CONNELL! JONATHAN!...please..."
The tip winks at me, daring me to reject it. "AAAAHHHH!" I scream, every muscle in my body is tense. Something has got to give.
"I shall be invincible." sneers the High Priest, dropping the blade closer to my breast.
I'm going to die.
I wonder if the pain will subside when he stabs me.
I wonder whether it will join the ache or leave me numb.
Will I see my parents?
I wonder whether anyone will save me.
O'Connell...
He is going to be my last thought.
"I'VE FOUND IT EVIE I'VE FOUND IT! THE GOLD BOOK-"
Perhaps not.
"Jonathan...!"
I can't, I can't believe...gift from God indeed!
Imhotep turns, growling as though Anubis would at losing a potential soul. He places the blade next to me again. I strain against my bonds, peering to get a better view of my darling, darling brother.
"The book of Amun-Ra...you fool you shall never recite-"
"Read from the book Jonathan!" I scream over Imhotep. "Open the book Jon it's the only way to kill him! Open the book and find the inscription-"
I stop when two eyeless sockets bear into mine. Can...can she see me?
"I can't Evie it's locked with something...the key! We need the key Evie!"
"It's inside his robes!"
Jonathan scuttles away as he usually does...but wait that means if he's here-
"O'Connell!"
Vaulting over a felled pillar, the american swings his blade down at my arm.
Has he gone mad?!
No...my arm is free he's broken the bonds. "O'Connell I-"
"Not-" He swings at the priests. "Now Evelyn."
He's pushing, shoving, kicking each priest away as it scrambles for him. They can see him...she must be able to see me. I squirm and try to reach for my feet to untie myself. I need to get off this altar I need to help. A priest scrambles over me, trying to grab O'Connell from behind. A yelp escapes my lips and O'Connell punches it in the face, covering me with dust and decayed flesh.
Spluttering, I tug harder. They're going to surround him...Jonathan and Imhotep...
At last my right foot is free...in my attempts I have kicked off three of the canopic jars. As a priest advances on O'Connell I grab one and throw it.
The struggling pays off and at least most of my limbs are free apart from my left wrist. No matter how hard I tug it won't release...
He swings at the severed head of one of the last Priests that I can see. "Mummies!" He quips.
I give him a small, grateful smile. He raises his sword to cut the last bond-
but he is pulled out of view.
I strain to get a better look. The torso of one mummy is dragging him, effectively pinning him down. "Watch out there's one over- O'Connell!"
On the approach is a fully intact creature, wielding a heavy stone tablet. Each step is labouring, its knees buckle against the weight. Another torso crawls towards the Americans head, headlocking him. He is unarmed. Surely he's going to be crushed!
At the last moment he reached out and clutches a stray hand and uses it to swing his blade, separating the mummy from it's ankles.
It gets a taste of it's own medicine and is crushed by its own tablet.
Getting to his feet, he swings the last blow needed to free me, and pulls me off the altar. He grabs my hand.
"You okay?"
I have the sickening feeling that this is far from over. I squeeze his hand and give him a small nod. Every negative thought is washed from my mind. He is here, he has rescued me.
Then I hear Jonathan call out the last verse from an inscription.
"No!"
A door flies open. It is too armour clad soldiers march out. The highest generals from Pharaohs army; when the pharaoh died his generals, viziers and advisors would be slain also to accompany him in the afterlife. A practice that was inevitably cut short, but here was the proof that the practice was followed and passed from dynasty to dynasty. What has my bloody brother done?