AN: Enjoy!
"The Medjai's purpose is to protect Hamunaptra, and it's greatest secret. The legends behind the City of the Dead are well known, and many people have tried to find the city. Many, thankfully, have failed. Others...obviously have been successful," Ardeth began to explain pacing back and forth across the table from where Fallon sat.
"Greatest secret?" Fallon asked. "The mummy that we found and Evy raised from the dead."
"Correct," Ardeth confirmed. "For 3,000 we had been protecting the city and the mummy. So when diggers and explorers and thieves come around and find the city, we must prevent them at all costs from finding the book and raising the Creature."
Fallon had grabbed her journal and an ink pen from her pocket and began to take notes, an act of habit when she was learning something new. She knew that this information hadn't been taken down before, or maybe it had, but someone had ripped it out of the Medjai book that she accidentally left in Hamunaptra. The least she could do was make up for lost information.
"So you were just doing your job. I understand at least that much," Fallon said.
"When your parents arrived at Hamunaptra with diggers, we knew that it would just like the few other explorer's. Just scare them off, warn them," he said. "I was young, but old enough and able enough to come along with my father. I remember seeing them, I knew that they were not bad people, but we still had to do what my people were meant to do," he said.
Fallon leaned into the table. "You were the young man my mother wrote about while she was in Hamunaptra, weren't you? The one who looked like the chief?"
He nodded.
"How many times, did you say exactly you read my mother's diary while you had it for 10 years?" Fallon asked.
"You are changing the subject," he dissuaded.
"I think I'm entitled to some answers in that regard as well, I mean it's a very personal diary regarding my family, and you've been reading it and-"
"How long did you say you had?" Ardeth interrupted. Fallon pressed her lips together in a small line. "That is what I thought. Now, the second night we came to warn them, we only burned a couple of tents. But we were still surprised when they did not leave after that. I had been having strong feelings about the diggers that they brought with them. They knew things. Things that weren't impossible to learn but they were very persistent."
"Like what?" Fallon asked. "And, please, sit down, your pacing is making me very nervous."
With a nod, he sat down at the chair across from her. "The Book of the Dead and the Statue of Anubis where the the Creature was buried at its base. The following day, your parents and the diggers still did not leave. So, we had to return the following night to continue to threaten them. We had no plans on harming them that night. But when we got there we noticed something was strange. They were gone, but all of their tents and supplies and horses and camels remained. The city was quiet...until we heard screams coming from inside the the crypts."
Fallon placed her pen down.
"When we rushed down into the crypts, armed, we found it was too late for one at the legs of Anubis where it was said that one of the books rested. There was a digger, dressed in red and black, standing over a body. We shot him. Others rushed ahead, searching the rest of the temple. But I stayed. It was the woman..."
Fallon placed her hands to her face, covering her mouth and nose.
Ardeth continued. "She was barely alive, struggling for breath. When she saw me, she held out her hand, but all I did was move closer. She told me, speaking barely above a whisper so I knelt down to hear her better, that the diggers had betrayed them. That they were searching for something evil there. Then she handed me her diary. And with her last breath she told me...that she wished she had been able to see her children one last time. And something about the Goddess Wedjet, and you. She was fading in and out, and muttering, so I couldn't completely hear her."
Fallon looked up at him through watery eyes. How could he have known about that reference, especially since she had no personal connection to it until recently?
"When she finally passed I had caught up to the rest of my men and my father, they had made it down to the corridors right underneath the Statue of Anubis. They had encountered the other diggers, searching something on the ground, we shot them, only to find that it was your father. When we got to him he was already dead. But...one of the diggers was still alive, so we questioned him. The only information that he would give us was that they used the employer's, your parents, to come to Hamunaptra to try to find the Creature and bring him back from the dead. They obviously failed. But that they would not fail next time."
"Wait," Fallon started. "So what does that mean?"
"It was planned. There are some who know enough to try to deliberately come to Hamunaptra to awaken the Creature. They truly believe it is possible," Ardeth explained. Fallon took all of this in. His story was plausible, but what other evidence did she have, and did he present her with, other than just his word?
"How do I know you're not just telling me lies right now?" Fallon asked him.
"I can tell you, he is not," a voice came from behind the bookcases. Fallon turned and saw the curator walking towards them. Ardeth stood up from his seat and went to greet Mr. Bey with a familiar hug.
"I-wh-do you two know each other?" Fallon stuttered, her mind boggled.
"Yes, he is my nephew," Dr. Bey replied. Fallon's mouth gaped open for a second. It's true she could see a slight resemblance, but it didn't stop her from being completely shocked.
"So, does that mean you're-?"
"A Medjai, yes," Dr. Bey finished and confirmed for Fallon.
"So..." She had to get her mind straight. "How do you know he's not lying?"
"Because, Miss Carnahan, I was there. When your parents went on the voyage to Hamunaptra anyway, I trailed slowly behind them. I kept with my family with the Medjai, watching their digs from a distance. I was there on that night when your parents were betrayed and killed. If you do not trust Ardeth, then I must assume that you would trust me instead."
Fallon continued to gape. A sudden realization came over. "And you didn't do anything."
"By the time I learned that something was wrong, it was already too late."
"And that's why you tried warning me about Hamunaptra," Fallon added.
"Like parents like children, I suppose. Only this time you actually succeeded in ruining everything that Medjai were fighting to protect the world from!" He said.
Fallon stood up. "It wasn't me who read from the Book of the Dead! I didn't even want to open that sarcophagus in the first place but no one would listen to me except for Kelly. I had been having strange dreams about for nights warning me about it but we did it anyway! And I hadn't realized that the Book of the Dead had even been found!"
"Dreams you say?" Dr. Bey inquired. Ardeth gave him a nod. "What are these dreams, Miss Carnahan?" Dr. Bey asked.
Fallon turned completely pink and eyed Ardeth. "I, um, it's nothing. Just a few strange dreams and nightmares here and there, just like everybody gets from time to time. It's nothing to worry about. They've...well they haven't stopped, but, I assure you-"
"What is she rambling about?" Dr. Bey turned to his nephew.
"It seems we have been having subsequent dreams for at least, maybe even over a year now, all of them about the same things, the past, the present, and the near future, we appear in each other's dreams as well," Ardeth explained. Fallon glared at him for entrusting that information with her boss.
"Miss Carnahan, what else do you wish to talk to me about concerning these dreams since you have already brought up the conversation?" Dr. Bey asked, putting on his glasses.
"I-I-I...Dr. Bey, this is something that I do not feel comfortable sharing with you. And besides," she looked at Ardeth, "I'm not the only one who has stories to tell. I still have questions that you never answered that night after the raid, and I would like them now."
Dr. Bey looked between the two curiously in the silence they had made. "Perhaps that is something you both would like to discuss without me, and once you have sufficient information and answers, as you say, you shall report back to me, so that we may piece some things together. Do I make myself clear?"
"Perfectly," Fallon said, still glowering at Ardeth, who still did not look prepared to have this conversation.
There probably wouldn't be a better time. As far as he knew the Creature was not in Cairo, yet. And Ardeth was finally alone long enough with this woman that he hardly knew, and yet knew so well, to talk about why he had been dreaming of nothing but her for the past year without her bothering him to tell her what happened to her parents. He gestured with his hand to her seat at the desk.
"You might as well sit down."
AN: Thank you all for reading! We got some answers here! And we are headed to answering some more! Also, the information the diggers gave the Medjai is very important ;D Please Favorite, Follow, and Comment!