Author's Note: I did not want anybody to read this without warning them that this is an extremely gory, violent chapter. There is a little angst, but a lot of cruelty to the Pharoah. Do not read on an empty stomach, or probably not a full one, either. You have been warned!
My scars bear witness to the torment-
Of these falling chains in the forms of years-
A forgotten memory that none but I may lament-
As I bear the burden of these tears
And there, my uncertain beasts of twin hope and angony-
Rise higher than the clouds, as they might a swarm-
Only to fall back into me-
As they churn unseen in my inner storm-
They have said that shackles cannot be these pretty things of gold-
Nor can any truthful tear be allowed-
To pierce the self-restraint of my trembling that's taken hold
Only a glimpse of a wound that turns to scars-
Borne a burden so heavy, and proud-
Though I may be remembered, or reviled-
I hope I am recalled with kindness and not renown-
A mortal enfleshed, whose devinity could not be reconciled-
Between the trembling fear of such frail flesh, and that
Proud and Bitter Crown-
Hielo Warrenbeck, 2007---
He sensed, rather than felt, that bueatiful dagger, etched to sharp, deadly perfection, glinted silver . It was poised high over his throat in a gentle arch. He did not see who welded it, but he hoped that his executioner had a steady hand, and was merciful enough to slay him quickly.
He heard Isis murmuring a sleeping spell, and felt her hands on his temples, as he felt the familiar lull of peace lapping at the edge of his consciousness, as he felt his body growing gradually more torpid and unresponsive. His breathing slowed, gradually, his blinking grew more languid, and he was content to let himself drift away from his mortal container like a cloud might drift away from the sun. He hoped that the dagger would be entirely unnecessary.
None would know if the horror that followed was simply the ignorant act of a servant unfamiliar with humane methods, or if some unknown monster decided to butcher him.
Yami felt himself dying...his flesh becoming colder, his breathing less important, his body yielding to his silent plea of granting him freedom.
If fate had been merciful, Yami would have been carried away in a drifting sleep to the blessed afterlife, without waking again. His eyes shot open when he heard Isis's shrill cry of horror. Yami saw the glittering point of that dagger rising like a star from the murky darkness around him, and watched the descent of that blade hilt deep into his throat.
Soft flesh yielded to harsh steel, bones unable to do anything but break shattered, hands that could not do anything now but clench into helpless fists balled up and curled until his nails made mean, moon-shaped marks across his bleeding palms. Defenseless, quivering, pale flesh flowered forth in brilliant red, as his throat was slashed open from ear to ear.
Yami felt the searing anguish but could no longer cry out, except to hear his own breath hissed out from the gaping wound in his throat.
It was two halves of the same beast that was ripping him asunder, it was dark velvet draping itself over his blackening vision,and settling into his lungs, it was the hitched breath that was forced out from the grinding jaws, now cemented together as his body went into its death throws.
Isis would recall very little but that sickening gurgling, the scarlet burbling up from Yami's snarled lips, as his eyes full of dying light and slow tears gazed up at her imploring her to make it stop. It was too cruel to be possible. The four attendents stood there, transfixed in horror as Yami spent his last moments in blinding, searing anguish, his groping, shackled wrists raised in a futile attempt to reach his bleeding throat. Time itself seemed to halt its vicious plan to watch the agonized convulsion of the dying Pharoah, as he slowly bled and shuddered.
Isis could take no more. She dropped the attempt at the spell when she felt her own throat suddenly flare as if her own flesh had been mutilated. She grabbed the dagger, in trembling fingers, and nearly vomited when she felt the warm blood that coated it. Yami locked eyes with her, gurgled, and lay one twitching hand over his heaving chest, in a silent plea. Isis plunged the dagger hilt deep into his chest, grimacing with the effort as it sliced through his sternum, and then to his beating heart.Yami's whole body arched as if in rebellion, then went lax and still, as he breathed once more, the disgusting hiss gurgling out of his slashed throat.
That dagger slid from her slack fingers, and clattered to the floor with a metalic clang.
Isis was silent in her misery and guilt, and she fully intended to do her penance. She first forced herself to look at Yami's face. His eyes were eerily wide, the frozen panic and the anguish he suffered in his last moments quite evident from the fixed snarl on his face, to the hands that were still balled in desperate fists against the pain.
His cheeks were smeared with blood and tears, and his whole body was still clinched in the attempt to battle for his breath. Isis stood over him, heaving, her fingers gripping the dagger, making no noise.
She heard the gasp from the remaining servant, and her swirled to face him, with a violent jerk. She took in the trailing scarlet that his sleeve was bathed in, and realized with revulsion that this was the one who had committed such a violation to her king.
"You! Servant! Show yourself!" Her voice was reduced to a gutteral rasp, trembling in her fury. She watched as the servant bowed deeply, the hands climbing into the folds of his cowl and then sliding it back to reveal the sharp chin, dark hair, and glittering eyes of ice. "Seth?!"
Seth smirked, coldly as his eyes narrowed to drink in the splayed corpse before him. Isis shivered.
"It was the king's due, Isis. He wished to die, did he not? Was it so wrong to help him in his final wish? Were you not the one who made the killing blow?"
Isis's eyes grew even wider as Seth bent to pick up the dagger, and casually wipe it clean off of Yami's tunic.
"As an act of mercy, Seth. Had you given me time, he would have drifted to sleep, never to wake up again. There would have been no need for this!"
Seth regarded her with a sneer, and raised the dagger to eye it appraisingly, with a pointed glance at her quaking throat.
Isis spluttered in shock, her eyes agog, as she fought the urge to disolve in animalistic howling. "How could you do this to the king? What sort of viciousness could drive you to be so monsterous?"
Her hands instinctively flew to her neck, as she took a few shuddering steps backwards. Seth's eyes followed her, but he made no move towards her.
"You still have your duties to our king, Isis. Our dear, dead king."
Isis's eyes slid away from Yami's body to scathe over Seth with eyes that could burn his flesh to ash. Her own mouth twisted, as she turned towards him.
Seth felt cold fear curl in his gut when he saw the deadly, glittering promise that seemed to reverberate from the Priestess.
"I will do my duty to my Pharoah in honor of his memory and his sacrifice. I will seal his soul away with all the hope and promise that he may be repaid richly for his
kindness to all. And, one day, he will be free."
Her eyes had taken on deeper shadows, and Seth had noted with idle curiosity the sudden darkening of the room, as Isis bent from caressing Yami's bloodied hair to rising again. Seth was alarmed, however to note that the fleeing light was not caused by the sun's natural shift. They were too far underground for that, anyway.
Isis herself seemed to be radiating with the silvery promise of retribution, and holy, rightous revenge, as she gazed him down, her eyes blackened til he was staring into the bottomless abyss itself.
He gulped in genuine fear, and raised the dagger in a shaking hand to defend himself, as Isis was engulfed in the hungry, eager darkness. He could only see her burning eyes, and the glitter of her pearled teeth, as she offered him a bitter, broken smirk.
She eyed the dagger, cooly, arching one eyebrow in bitterless mirth, as she slowly raised arms, and uttered an ugly, gutteral command.
"Raise your weapon against me, if it pleases you. But know that for your cruelty, and your betrayal, I banish you,body and soul, to the Shadows. May your treachery earn you a rich reward in suffering!"
She flung her arms in a wide arc, and did not even recoil at the bleeting scream as Seth was literally mutilated by the bared teeth of the dark creatures
'Be gone,and be damned." The gaping darkness vanished, carrying the wails of Seth with it. Isis set her mouth in a grim line of satisfaction, but she did not savor the revenge. Indeed, it left her shattered and scarred that she could be capable of such a thing, even if it was just and right. It was a duty she ferverently hoped she would not have to do again. She wasn't sure that Yami had ever intended his power to be used as punishment, and she did not bother deluding herself with pretty illusions of banishing Seth to an eternity of suffering being anything less than an act of savage revenge. Rightly deserved, and completely just. But she could still not help but be perversely grateful that Yami had not lived to see the death of his High Priest, or that she had committed something so raw and ugly. It would have broken his heart.
"Indeed, my king." She whispered aloud, as she kneeled beside Yami's corpse.
Flinching at the coldness, and the stiffness that was already cloying to the body, Isis ran torpid fingers over the still face, and drew his eyes shut. Eyes that she herself closed in weary submission to the inevitable, to at least shut away that knawing emptiness that filled those glossy amyhest eyes..
It was not meant to be like this. Yami's broken, bleeding body, lay draped over the stone table as if he had been tossed away like trash, his face still drawn in that agonized mask, the scarlet dribbling down from the gaping wound to his throat, in a steady, slow drip. With a considering frown, she took off her own cowl, and draped it over him, her cloak covering his small body from his chin down. There. At least that violated throat was covered, and some of his dignity preserved.
She swallowed hard, and paused for breath before she proceeded to her next unpleasant task...the sealing of the Shadow Realm. Grimacing, she dangled the dagger with disgust between two fingers, and carefully set it beside the dead Pharoah. She raised beseeching eyes to the heavens beyond the stone ceiling, as she prayed, fervently, for the resolve and the strength to carry out Yami's final request.
Isis groped along her neckline for the heavy golden chain, with its dangling pendant that was warm from resting against her heart. She drew it out, slowly, each link slithering from her fingers, flowing down like water as the Pyramid bit its sharp corners into her flesh. She smiled, bitterly. As if any more blood would be enough to undo this evil. Indeed, if blood really could undo all of this, Yami would be resurrected and taken with great rejoicing to the afterlife, and Egypt would be a paradise to rival the dwelling of the gods. But, to see his still, silent form, and the injustice of it all, shattered any comforting thoughts of certain faith. She would hope and pray that Yami was at peace-wherever he would eventually go. And he would, if she had any say at all.
She held the cold, dead Pyramid beside the equally cold, dead corpse, and took the dagger, ghosting a cut over her own palm, then pressing her bleeding hand against the top point of the Pyramid. "With the power of the Pharoah, I command that the Pyramid be opened, and that the soul of the just may reside in peace there!"
She shuddered when she felt the Pyramid's dark intentions flood over her, and surround her in cloaking radience. The gold seemed to catch fire and glow with eerie vitality, as her blood ran in scarlet trails down each sleek side. She cringed against the unexpected onslaught as the power surged through her frail veins, rippled down her trembling frame, flowed over her failing heart with tortmenting ease. It was relentless, hungry, indifferent consumption. It was the quickening of creation curling into inocence, only to emerge as destruction. It was a power that no mortal with any regard for the sacred should ever attempt to control. Isis realized this with terrifying clarity as she felt her own soul quake within her being.
Bracing herself, she placed a hand on Yami's temples, and uttered the incantation, as she internally recoiled at how icy his flesh had become. A soft light illuminated her fingers against the gaping dark, and she felt the uncertain essense rise up from its battered shell.
"Come forth, my king. Please."
The shadows wafted, and gave way to the pearled light that was slowly climbing its way upward from her templed hands, coiling in soft swirls, before taking a transparent shape. The violet eyes glowing from its depths, the sharp chin,and the tendrils of tri-colored hair, the set jaw, the slender arms characteristically braced against his hips, as Yami gradually faded into view, the light shining through him like jewels.
Isis felt the bitter tears, and the overwhelming physical pain that radiated from his wounded spirit, as well as the demanding plea for an explanation of what had transpired.
Yami looked stricken, staring wide eyed at his own corpse, the hand climbing to cover his mouth, and that horrible mask of wounded betrayal contorting his face until it was ravaged with lines and tears.
He swirled to Isis, the question lingering on his face, as he sent a torrent of anguished confusion and sensation into her mind in one, chaotic flood.
Isis nearly swooned, as she raised a hand, pleading, "Please, my king. Control your emotions! I know that you are full of fear and confusion, but please...try to ask your questions instead of letting raw emotion brutalize me."
Yami shuddered, in helplessness, and she felt both the apologetic wince, and the breaking futility that gripped him. At the moment, Yami was far too stunned, and too shattered to understand or do anything besides radiate that raw, bleeding anguish.
"My king! " Yami startled to hear her shout, and he turned to her, clearly waiting for her question.
Isis smiled softly, and did not move her lips, but Yami's eyes flew open wide when he heard her familar voice.
My King, You notice that I am communicating with you, by my thoughts. I know you can hear me. I know that you are so afraid, and so alone, and I wish so much to ease that for you.Please, please, try to answer me..
Yami hesitated,closed his eyes, and she felt the timid attempt before it shuddered and died. Yami was choking back sobs, too overwhelmed and stricken to do more than cry.
It was too much, his brutal murder, his futile sacrifice and seeing the bloody aftermath of his demise splayed out like some sick trophy. He felt somewhat like a tortured cloud, unable to do anything but linger in anguish, since he no longer had flesh, and had no solid form enough to even speak. He raised one shaking hand to his throat, and felt nothing...not even air, just emptiness. But, if he was no longer physical, how could he still cry, and how could he still recall the terror of his final, bloody moments?
Isis cringed when she felt Yami's horror and helplessness.
"My king?" Yami looked at her, flung his arms up in a shrug. He raised an eyebrow, waiting for her question.
My king, you can speak. Please, please, let me help you!"
He gestured frantically to his throat, pointed to the dagger, and then the bloody corpse.
What went wrong?
Yami's eyes widened at the sound of his own voice, allowed himself a brief smirk of triumph. His smile vanished when his eyes drifted towards his remains.
I know that it was not your intention for me to suffer so much. In fact, it was your stabbing my heart that saved me from that ...lingering in so many tortured moments...
moments where I could not breathe, could not speak, or move, or see, but only lay there under their merciless hands and bleed my last. I never knew that the human body could feel so much torture and not just...cease. Do you know why Seth betrayed me, Isis?
Isis could only shake her head. She winced when she felt Yami's white hot rancor sear its way through her with so much brutal rage. Yami narrowed his eyes, and raised one corner of his mouth into a twisted grin that held nothing but a smug and sated appetite.
I happened to encounter dear Seth on his way to his just reward, and I know that you would think me ashamed of you for sending him there. I don't know what sort of
corruption consumed his soul while he dwelt amoung the living, nor what blindness stayed my hand from doing what you accomplished.
He gave Isis a tender smile of understanding when he saw her brows knit in confusion.
My king?! I would hardly consider banishing anyone to an eternal suffering an accomplishment. I committed an evil act!
Yami shook his head vigorously, as he crossed his arms in deadly earnest.
Would it ease your guilt to have a change in perspective, my lady? I was the one who died under his hand, and I was the one who could see his true nature--as he was hacking mine away.
Isis shuddered, and paled. My king, please, spare me of any more knowledge of your demise. I was there,and it was more than enough for me to see it carried out.
Yami gave her an apologetic look, as he regarded her with concern.
I am sorry, my lady. It was never my intention to add to your suffering. Concerning Seth...I offered him forgiveness, and a means of salvation, if he would have just taken it.
Even in those final moments, I tried to be merciful. But, he refused, laughing.
Yami's face contorted in disbelief as he stared down at his hands, now clenching into fists, and digging into his arms.
Isis, he laughed! Never have I ever sensed so much viciousness. I do not know what sort of evil gripped him, what corrupted him. But, he refused me as he continued downward. He told me his only regret was that I had died so quickly, and that he was no longer going to have the chance to draw out my suffering longer. Please, believe me in all truth when I say this, Isis. Seth was corrupted beyond any chance of change or redemption, and if you had permitted such an evil to live, he would have slain many more. That monster who cut my throat was not the loyal high priest who nobly served Egypt. I don't know what happened, and I don't know why. Mourn Seth as a fallen friend, if you must, but remember that his own choices delivered him to his own destiny-not yours.
