A Tomb-Keeper's Lot, Chapter 4
Marik awoke with a terrible throbbing in his head, unsure of where he was and confused on what had happened.
He distantly knew that the last place he had been was in his underground home; as he thought back, memories started surfacing of seeing his uncle, his talk with the Chief, his sentencing to be a captive of his own family, of Ishizu being carried away - ISHIZU!
Quickly Marik sprung to his feet, but his head was not ready for his movement and he slumped down again as white spots swam before his eyes.
Before he could hit the ground however, he was caught by a strong pair of arms, and a deep voice said "Careful my brother, you have not yet regained your strength."
Once again Marik was hit by a wave of dizziness as he spun in his brother's arms to face him.
His eyes were pleading, his face showing despair.
"Odion… Ishizu! That- that horrible man has our sister! We have to go save her Odion!"
"We will Marik, and soon. But… there is a complication."
Marik gave his brother a questioning look. What could possibly be problematic enough that it could keep them from helping their sister?
Odion simply gestured towards the surrounding room.
Marik looked – and froze in horror.
There were several stone slabs lined up in rows in the middle of the room, each surrounded by trays of sharp utensils and surrounded by jars and pots, and strewn around the room were dozens of stone sarcophagi, open and waiting for bodies to be placed in them.
This was the embalming chamber.
The mummification room.
He couldn't tear his eyes away. He had always known this room existed, and that past heirs of the clan had been mummified after their deaths to preserve the sacred marks on their bodies and allow them to live on in the afterlife, but he had only seen it once, for it was a dangerous place to go.
Already he could smell the strange ointments and oils used in the embalming process, and were it not for the fires burning in torches along the walls, the fumes would have long since choked him.
But the worst part of the room was that it was so easy to become trapped.
It was one of the few places in all of the tombs to have a door, and the only one that was not made of wood.
The door, a heavy slab of solid rock, opened inward and fit the door jam in a jigsaw manner, with the wider part of the door on the inside as it narrowed towards the tunnels on the other side.
It could not be pushed from the inside, but was also too heavy to pull.
The only way anyone was able to enter was for several men to push the door inward, then hook a rope to it so that it could be pulled closed again once everyone was out. There was always a door jamb when someone was inside.
There was no door jamb now.
"Odion," he asked quietly, "What is the meaning of this? Are they trying to bury us alive?"
"It's alright Marik, I believe they are only trying to scare us."
Marik ran a shaky hand through his wild blonde bangs, breathing raggedly. "Yeah, well… it's working."
Odion smiled sadly, gathering his brother to him in a reassuring hug, and Marik could do nothing but hug him back and squeeze his eyes shut.
A crashing sound from around a bend in the room caused Marik to jump and pull away from his brother to see the source of the noise, only to find his uncle stumbling over to the both of them, brushing dust and debris from his robes.
"It's no use, the vent is blocked up. It seems our dear Chief no longer needed an embalming room and decided to turn this place into a prison. It's doing quite an effective job, I must say."
Odion looked grim, but the mention of the Chief sparked something in Marik as he turned on his uncle saying "How does he know so much about this place? I only left six years ago – how has he gained so much power in just six years?"
Fenuku was stone-faced as Marik stared him down, but the young man was not finished with his tirade. "What happened to this family? I haven't seen anyone I recognize so far, apart from you, and for some reason you don't have any authority over anyone! How? How could you let some stranger waltz in and take over this place?!"
"Marik."
The young man was surprised to hear a reprimanding tone coming from his brother, and looked up to see Odion looking at him with brotherly chastisement.
"It is not fair to blame your uncle for this when we do not know the whole story."
Marik lowered his head, guilt building inside him. He knew his brother was not angry with him, but when it came to his family, disappointment was sometimes worse than wrath.
Fenuku raised his hand for silence, and both brothers turned to face him, though Marik couldn't bring himself to look him in the eye, his eyes peering from beneath his bangs instead.
"No Odion, it is true that some of this is indeed my fault. But Marik" Fenuku turned stern eyes on Marik, who shrank even further, "you ask what happened to this family? I'll tell you. Your father died. You left. And you took with you everything that gave us purpose in life. There were no other heirs to carry the Pharaoh's secret, and no one to bestow that ritual on anyone else. We didn't even have the Millenium Items to protect anymore. Marik, what were we to do when we had nothing to hope for but that this would all solve itself, or perhaps that we were wrong and the Pharaoh would never come back; we had to change. Because the alternative was that one day the Pharaoh would come to us, and we'd have nothing to give him, and nothing to say but that we failed."
Marik couldn't look at either of the men.
He already knew it was his fault.
He had gotten used to blaming himself for things.
And yet… he always wondered whether or not he wasn't entirely in the wrong.
After all, it had all worked out in the end.
He had found the Pharaoh and delivered to him what was his.
But in the meantime his family had suffered. He didn't know if things would have been better if he had never left; he didn't know if the Pharaoh would ever have found them anyways.
However he still couldn't bring himself to say that the ends justified the means.
With eyes burning, he leaned against the stone wall behind him, sliding down to sit on the ground with his head in his knees, trying desperately to hide the hot tears making their way down his face.
He deserved nothing less than this.
Suddenly he was enveloped in warmth, the familiar form of his brother wrapped reassuringly and lovingly around him.
Odion didn't blame him for this; he would never blame him for any of this.
He heard his uncle speaking, in a much softer tone than before, "Master Marik, I don't mean to blame you; only to point out that many things have led to this current situation, and as I have already pointed out, one of those factors is myself."
Marik raised his head slightly, rubbing his eyes on the back of his hands, taking away his tears as well as some of the Kohl liner.
"I'm sorry Uncle," he said, his voice choked with the emotions still running through his head, "But… what exactly happened while we were gone?"
Fenuku looked at him steadily for a moment, and then sighed wearily. Pulling a stool from a nearby work table, he sat across from Marik and Odion, leaning his face on his woven fingers, evidently gathering his thoughts as he prepared to speak.
"For the first couple years… we were alright. Master Najja managed to keep everyone's hopes up, saying that we had sources above ground that would find you three and retrieve the Items. That was the best we could do at the time, and I certainly had no other options.
However… he was sick. I still don't know just what was wrong with him. Our doctors tried all they could, but our medicines and practices are based in ancient methods, and this was something we had not faced before. He must have picked it up outside the tomb, because we knew how to treat every other ailment our kin had contracted.
At any rate, just before he died, he introduced the clan to his 'son'. I was suspicious from the start. I had known that Najja had gone to the surface many times, but I always thought he was smart enough not to get involved with the outsiders. I couldn't believe he had had a child with one. While he was certain the boy was his, I always harbored doubts.
For one thing, the boy looked nothing like him. And he was too greedy. He wanted to know more about what it was we guarded, and no answer we gave seemed to pacify him. When he became Chief after Najja's passing, he ordered me to tell him everything about our duties. And I'm sorry to say I did. I wanted to believe in him; he seemed to be just what we needed at the time. He understood the outside world, and I believed he could find the three of you and help us. So I told him. But I don't think he understood it. He never really believed the story of the ancient, nameless Pharaoh – and how could he? He was Arab, not Egyptian. He didn't know our history or our beliefs.
At any rate, I believe he thought my story to be a cover up; that the key to the Pharaoh's power on your back was just that – a key to a map, or instructions or something to the lost treasures of the Pharaoh. The Items he simply thought of as being a part of that horde of treasure. He was quite furious to find that we had lost not only the key but priceless artifacts as well.
So he turned all remaining members of our clan to searching through ancient records and scriptures to find any other clues on the whereabouts of such a treasure, since we could read and understand ancient Egyptian, and he could not. At first he told us that it was to find information on the Pharaoh so that we would continue to be useful to his memory, but after a while he dropped this act and simply had us searching for any mentions of treasure. Meanwhile he filled in roles such as guards and laborers with his own people.
Our family, Master Marik, is always deep in the libraries and record vaults now, reading every bit of print we have over and over again and roaming the walls to read the hieroglyphic inscriptions, teaching the rising generations ancient Egyptian and many other languages so that they may be part of the search as well.
For four years this has gone on, and despite our resentment of this man, no one has had the power to stop him. I am the only one who holds any sort of authority anymore among our family, and yet you saw how much influence I was able to have."
Marik was stunned. Shocked. Horrified. His family. His poor, poor family. In their hour of need there had been no one to guide them. They had turned like sheep to the first bit of order and power they could find, because there was no other choice for them. And now they were trapped.
They needed someone to lead them out into the light, and back into the position of pride and honor they had held before.
But this brought another question to Marik's mind.
"Uncle, I still don't understand; how did he become chief before you did?"
Fenuku lowered his eyes and sighed once more, a weight seeming to drop down on his shoulders.
"I was useless when Master Najja was sick. Always he had been raised to be a Chief, and I had been raised to support him and my other brother, your father. But I… was unprepared for the duties and responsibilities of a Chief. I honestly didn't know what to do after you left. I didn't know how to carry on with our duties. I was so impressed with how your uncle handled everything, but I still didn't understand how I could do what he did. When his son showed up, I admit I felt… relieved. Even if I didn't trust him, it was a burden off of my back, and I desperately needed that at that time."
Marik gazed at his uncle in understanding. He knew what it was like to carry a burden; he also knew how strong a desire to be rid of it could be.
He found he couldn't blame his uncle for that.
As Marik thought, he slowly became aware of a pressure building around his throat and chest. It was stuffy in the room, and getting stuffier by the minute. He pulled off his leather jacket, his black sleeveless shirt providing some relief, but he was still having difficulty breathing.
Suddenly it hit him.
"Uncle… did you say the vents were closed off?"
Fenuku stared, puzzled. "Yes, I did."
Marik gulped, his throat going dry as he said "How much time have we been in here do you think?"
It was Odion who provided him an answer.
"At most two hours, since I awoke. I believe that was right after we were left here."
Marik turned to face his brother, his eyes wide with fear as he said, "And how much longer do you think we have before the oxygen in this room runs out?"
*Author's Note:
Dun-dun-dunnnnn!
Hey everyone! It's only been like, a week, and already I have another chapter! Truth be told, I finished this one right after I uploaded chapter 3, I just took this past week to edit it.
SO. I now have a schedule for this fic, since it's not going to be that many more chapters before it's finished… I hope.
This story will now be updated every Monday, most likely Monday evening. So please, go ahead and follow this story if you find it interesting, because it *will* be finished!