The Chains of His Own Choosing-

Maybe it was the alien shimmer of the blinding golden haloing his vision, all around him, or the strange sensation of cold bricks against his back. The first stirrings of awareness were quite subtle, and easily ignored. He felt so tired, so comfortable, so...undisturbed, by the passage of time, and he had no need, or interest in the history that was flowing, or the world that was changing outside his golden cocoon. The velvet dark, and the heavy peace held him willingly captive. Obligation and leadership were twin shackles of the prison he would never willingly enter again. He felt the Pyramid's prodding, on occasion, but he could simply roll over and resume his slumber. There was no need for him do anything else. Blissful awareness, full, and free of any sort of pain, predictable and secure was much more desireable than anything else. To stay forever in the womb, a child inocent of all the cruelty that lay outside, a catapillar that never flew, or a seed that never became more than a dead thing in the ground-

Yami was quite content to willingly stay in his comfortable prison. At least these were chains he chose. The Puzzle had drank in his memories, of course. It considered his essense- the history, and the sadness, and the volital emotions that lay below Yami's awareness-to be the elixir of life.

So, while the former Pharoah felt completely justified to ignore the growing danger-of the Puzzle taking him over, of losing his defenses to his own willful ignorance, or his twisted justification- the Puzzle grew. It was insidious, and subtle. Maybe it would gently lap away the face of an aquaintance when the Pharoah dreamed of his childhood, or maybe drink away the color of a particularly brilliant sunset that shimmered in Yami's long distant past. Or, it ate away at a painful memory that Yami would have no interest in keeping anyway, due to his terror of reliving it. It was a good arrangement, on a superficial level. Yami was allowed to slumber to his heart's content, deluding himself that he had suffered enough and was perfectly entitled to do nothing more than whatever he pleased--which was nothing. And the Puzzle was allowed to gorge itself with the Pharoah's essense, until it grew from sated, to bloated, to dizzyingly famished with greed and want for more. It was tragic, in an ironic way. Yami had not lived long enough for the Puzzle to truly have that much to play with. But, in the weaving of the years, and the flow of time, it mattered little.

The flow of time itself ceased inside the Puzzle, and Yami, no longer being of flesh, did not age, but rather, reverted, to a pompous, egotistical child. The Puzzle coddled its pet's whims, perfectly.

If Yami craved a great feast, the Puzzle was happy to conjur the illusion of a dazzling buffet of the finest food, complete with the images of taste, smell, texture. It might have been an eerie, or at least disjointing sight, to see a violet-eyed man presiding over an empty court of shadows, with empty hands bringing nothing to his mouth, as

he babbled merrily to nobody about topics that nobody was there to hear. It might have been written off as Yami being tragically deranged, but there was nobody but the Puzzle to tell him otherwise. Indeed, the Puzzle only indulged, and gave, and caressed Yami's ego and delusions. It was much easier to keep a happy captive content and ignorant of his own true condition than it would be to harness a broken soul full of rage.

So, even if Yami was aware of the Puzzle's slow consumption of him over the eons, there was nothing left for him to cling to but what remants of his fragmented past the Puzzle allowed him to view. The Pharoah's memories were little more than toys to the Puzzle. Casual things, that it would pick up on a whim, and set it down where it wished. The destruction of the life that Yami lived once was hardly a consequence. Indeed, the Pharoah seemed to be so taken by his plush, comfortable existance, there was no reason to disturb him with nasty reality. There were a few things that the Puzzle could not consume. Things that were rooted so deeply in Yami's core, that to extract them would be impossible. These were the much dreaded anchors that tethered Yami's soul to the knowledge of his existance. And that which the Puzzle could not destroy, it could certainly pervert and distort. The Puzzle could not destroy the image of Yami's father, or even attempt to desecrate the memory of Isis-at first.

The Puzzle's shifting through the discarded pieces of Yami's past brought up a great deal to work with.

There was nothing to point out the decadent sloth or the decay that Yami was happily shackling himself to. And the Puzzle would have been quite content to keep its pet ignorant and captive forever.

-

Egypt----

It was the first act of the new Pharoah Isis to give Yami the full pomp and splendor of a memorial that she could concieve of. She ordered his memory cherished, his name lauded, his body to undergo the full purification and rituals to cleanse it of the evil that was inflicted upon it. It was swathed in soft linen after the mummification was complete, and encased in a gold coffin, buried in the deepest tunnel under the pyramids, and guarded at all times by armed soldiers. It was considered by some to be a fanatical devotion to a dead friend, or an endearing quirk of loyalty by a few. Yami was laid to rest beside the body of his long missing mother and father. Under her watchful eye, the tomb was sealed shut, with the fervent hope that Yami was finally at peace. Seth's remains were hastily burned, and for added spite, she ordered the ashes to be scattered into the muck of a pig pen. She could not help but sneer as she watched the flames rising.

The golden pyramid itself was kept in a secluded corner of Isis's royal chamber. It was shelved in a magnificant box, enfused with magical protection, and hidden in a small, hollowed out shelf that she herself concieved, and covered with bricks and canopy, and so cleverly disguised as part of the wall, that nobody, except those who already knew it was there, would disturb it. Isis would not suffer for Yami to be violated again.

Her next task was far more daunting--reviving the broken, bleeding country that had been so fractured in the onslaught of the Shadows. Yami's sacrifice had indeed sealed them all away. They had vanished in a moment, and left no trace of their evil except the dying and injured, and the hopeless. The infrastructure of the country was wrecked,the people reeling first from the horrors they had endured, and then the complete confusion that followed once it was removed. Crops were burned, the army mostly useless, and the number of the poor and homeless soared.

Isis had immediately ordered that the riches in the royal treasury be set to good use to buy grain from the neighboring countries, and dispatched sentries to each major city to take an inventory of how severe the damage to her country was. She upset the royals by ordering a redistribution of her own wealth to aid the floundering economy, and

got both praise and irrate tyrades as she pushed her reforms, and stood like a pitbull when her authority was challenged. She had been forced to reorganize her advisors, and made all bluntly aware that she was not going to tolerate those who cared more about their positions than the people they served. They were free to leave of their own accord, or adjust their actions accordingly. Gone was the soft, gliding inocent she was as a Priestess. In her place, was a world-weary, but wise woman, tempered by suffering, shrewd in her judgement, harsh in her enforcement, but reputed to be fair to those who were at her mercy

.Isis, for a time, found herself in the awkward position of living under beloved Yami's shadow. His charisma, nobility, and untimely death, combined with his heroic sacrifice

made him fodder for legend, something she thought he would blush at. Yami may have been forced to present that indifferent regal mask to the world, but in the last precious days of his life, she had come to know him in a way that the rest of the world would not. And, she cherished his memory all the more, while she made the delicate attempt to move her country and the people forward. It was an uncertain path to trod- to honor his memory, but not be so shackled to the past and mourning for all he would not be that they could not move forward. She knew that Yami would not want that. She always made certain that when he was mentioned in public, it was with the upmost respect and love that she could enforce, as she mourned his loss in the private weeping of her chambers. It was an interesting polarity.

It was a hard, lean time. But, slowly, in the healing of years, and the grace of the future, Egypt regained her place as Queen once more. The dead were buried, the wounds healed, the crops restored, the cities rebuilt. Egypt flourished under Isis. The years had taken its toll on the Pharoah. Her obsidion hair was glinted with silver. Age had made her proud back stoop, and cares had left their scars in gently worn lines around her ocean deep eyes, and mouth. Isis had to lean heavily upon her staff to manuver her way to the chambers, and she found herself shuffling where she used to glide. The span of forty years had gone too quickly for her to count, and she was very aware of the passage of time. Few remembered Yami. He was the "Nameless Pharaoh" the honored dead prince of a legend, reduced to the golden pyramid still wedged in the wall, or the etchings of carvings in the tomb. A fragment of song, a beloved face in her heart, and memory.

It was on the 43rd year of Yami's sacrifice, that Isis was taking a rare moment of solitude as she peered out of the royal balcony. The stars were soaring high, and silver, the moon was a delicate crescant, and the night air brought with it a refreshing coolness to the deepening shadows of her room. It was a bueatiful, but melancholy night, perfect for remembering. Isis noted with a start that it was also the day, 43 years earlier, that Yami had lay down his life. After giving orders that she was not to be disturbed, she scraped away the bricks in the corner, once again, to remove the gold box. The familiar glitter and the feel of the strangely warm metal in her hands brought fresh tears to her eyes as she lifted its lid, hesitated, and then reverently took the Pyramid out. It was exactly the same as she remembered it, the sharp points, the brilliant sheen, the delicate eye of Horus carved on its smooth side.

Tenderly, she placed both palms on the Puzzle, gently probing for Yami's spirit in the vast golden world she now held in her hand. She sensed nothing. With a frown of trepidation furrowing her wrinkled forehead, she made a stonger attempt, and smiled when she felt Yami's spirit, peacefully slumbering, the same blissful oblivion she had sensed from him over the last 40 years. On occasion, she would recieve a fragment of a dream, or an irritated growl at being disturbed. One time, she had felt Yami as he was shuddering from the throes of a nightmare. She hastily errected a mental shield to draw out the vicious dream, and was rewarded by Yami's overflow of gratitude.

Those moments, however were exceedingly rare. From the little she could understand, Yami existed in almost an embriotic state of dark peace, waiting for the right time to re-emerge. Whether or not his memories would be torment or boon was not for her to know. Yami was at peace, Egypt was safe, and she was content.