"Papa?" Bahira asks softly, opening the door to his office.
"Yes, Bahira?" he asks, before taking notice of the worry, and fear in her eyes. "Come, child," he gestures to her, waving her around the desk. She rushes to obey him, and buries her face in his shoulder. He feels her shaking, and realizes something is desperately wrong. "What has happened?"
"I-I don't know. Mr. Rick found a puzzle box, and I don't know how, but I know I've seen it." She takes a moment to work up the nerve to look into his eyes. "I think it's the key to the Creature, Papa. I remember you telling me about what it should look like. I didn't find the button before Miss Evy's brother took it, but I saw the marks on the top where it opens up."
He clutches the girl tighter to himself. "I will… have to get in touch with Ardeth once more, my little Bahira." He runs his fingers through her waist length, slightly wavy black hair, doing his best to soothe her. "It will be alright, I promise. I won't let anything hurt you."
He lays her down on the sofa in his office as Ardeth enters the room. "Ah, Ardeth, I am glad to see you could make it here on such short notice," he greets his nephew.
The young Chieftain nods to his uncle. "I wish I could be here under better circumstances." He glances to the sleeping child, who seems troubled even in sleep. "I take it that she is still upset over the discovery of the key?"
"Yes. I had trouble convincing her it was safe for her to sleep, she's so scared." He sighs, rubbing his eyes tiredly. "I fear that Miss Carnahan has already made plans to seek out Hamunaptra, as she has already approached me about returning to work in a couple of weeks."
"The woman who sometimes watches over Bahira, I assume?" He receives a slight nod of affirmation. "I will be sure to take great care in keeping this group from discovering the Creature."
Terrence sighs in relief. "Thank you, Ardeth. It will ease her worries tremendously, knowing that her friends may not end up following the same fate as all the others."
"I do still wonder how she found out about the Creature, when we have only ever mentioned it was a key," Ardeth muses quietly, glancing at the small child with deep concern. "None of the Medjai would dare to speak of it within a mile of her hearing, and we have been too careful with the information."
Terrence sighs with resignation. "I fear that she may have been visited by one of the few gods whom would know of this." He meets his nephew's gaze steadily. "And if that is so, then it is possible she truly is the reincarnation of… Imhotep's daughter, Lady Rania."
"I do not wish the memories of her final moments with the Creature upon anyone." He shudders at the thought, a memory from his past life showing him holding her after her father screamed his child's innocence in his evil scheme, but not believed before her tongue had been slightly cut by the knife.
He tries to soothe the traumatized girl he had come to care for from afar as she bites down on the bit of linen to stop the bleeding of her tongue. She trembles in his grasp, tears cascading down her pale cheeks, as she is forced to watch her father suffer the Hom Dai for his crimes. Though he wishes he didn't have to force her to watch, he has no other choice.
"Please forgive me for allowing this, Rania," he whispers into her hair, even as he knows she probably hadn't heard his quiet apology in the room echoing with the shrill, agonized screams of her father's priests.
She shivers, both at the horrible sounds in the chamber, and the cold draft that found it's way to her, affecting her through the thin cloth of her nightgown. Even though many of the Medjai believed in her innocence, she had been taken from her bed in the dead of the night by the Medjai due to the chances of her involvement. Something he wishes he had spoken against more loudly as the Chieftain's son.
As the lid closes over her screaming father, he is forced to step away from her to seal the sarcophagus. He pulls the key from the now locked Book of the Dead, and moves it to the identical lock on the lid, feeling Rania's eyes on both himself and the key he now holds with every movement.
Hours pass as she is forced to watch her father being buried at the feet of Anubis, and they finally leave the cursed City of the Dead, praying to every god they can as they journey back to Thebes in the early dawn light of the morning. He holds her as she sleeps in his arms, and prays to Anubis for her sake when the people realize what her father had done.
Terrence recognizes the focus on his nephew's expression as his recalling of a previous life. "Remembering life as Bes?" he asks.
"Remembering his greatest regret," he answers shortly. "When does Miss Carnahan's group leave for Hamunaptra?"
"The day after tomorrow, Ardeth. They are going to be on the boat heading down the Nile," he informs his Chieftain. "Do be careful though, Ardeth. From what I have gathered of Mr. O'Connell, he is a former soldier, and was the survivor of the battle three years ago."
The younger man raises a brow. "I had not thought him so strong," he comments lightly, though he now has a higher respect for the man who could survive the cruelty of the desert with no supplies.
"My recommendation?" Terrence starts, "Keep the mission as quiet as possible. Let them go to Hamunaptra, but get the key back if at all possible. Although… I have been debating the merits of destroying the key, and sinking the city lately… if only to ensure the Creature can never be raised, even if he is found."
He receives a stare in return for the proposal. "It does have its merits, but… I am reluctant to order the destruction of the city. Perhaps only the destruction of the key would be enough." Ardeth looks over to the girl he now has more proof is the Rania his past self had fallen in love with before her brutal exile and murder.
"Bes!" his mother cries out, tears in her eyes as she reads the scrap of papyrus.
He comes running into the small house, looking worse for wear due to his worry for his exiled friend and secret love. "Mother, what is it?"
She raises her eyes and moves aside, revealing a bloodstained box in the doorway. "This was delivered just a moment ago. I took off the wrapping, and… I found it was addressed to you." She offers the note to her eldest son. "I am so sorry, Bes."
He takes the note, reading it silently. 'We found this foolish little girl wandering the desert, and realized who she was, her father, and we remembered your eyes when you were near her. She had the same eyes for you that you held for her. We find it to be a shame you allowed her to be exiled, sending her right into our hands. Enjoy what is left of your love.'
His hands shaking, he pries open the wooden box the size of his torso, only to gasp in horror. He doesn't see the mutilated flesh of her bare upper torso, the lack of her right hand and limbs, or the blood and bruises marring every inch of her pale, dead skin. All he sees is the terror, the agony, in her lifeless, emerald eyes, and he knows all the things her attackers did to her before murdering her.
"Rania…" he whispers, voice breaking as he speaks her name for the last time. "I will never forgive myself for this. And I pray… I pray we see one another again, in another life…"
His father and younger brother, seeing the agony in his eyes, don't look into the box as they close the lid once more. "She will be honored by our people, who know of her innocence, and will not be forgotten, my son," his father says to his son, in an effort to console his heir. He places a callused, darkly tanned hand on his son's shoulder gently. "She would never blame you for what happened, and asked that, if something did happen to her, that I tell you this."
The elder son nods silently, unable to trust his voice.
"I am simply stunned that I had not recognized her before," he whispers, moving to kneel beside the girl. He moves a strand of hair that had fallen across her small nose gently. "It is no wonder that seeing the key today has caused so much fear in her, one that she hasn't known since that night so many thousands of years ago." He turns to stare back at his uncle. "You will watch over her until I return?"
Terrence nods, and places a hand over his heart. "Unless death takes me as I protect her."
The young Chieftain nods in acceptance, and rises to leave. "I will not allow the same fate to befall you a second time, Rania," he whispers, allowing the side of him that is Bes to address her once more, before striding quickly out of the room.