Chapter 3 – Prince Khufu and Princess Chay-Ara, Guardians of Ancient Egypt

Part 1

The sphere's exterior remained a solid white for at least sixty seconds, long enough that their jammed together position was shifting from humorous to awkward. Finally, the sphere went back to transparent and Sara could get a glimpse outside through the gaps between the capsule's equipment and Nyssa's body. The sphere was suddenly filled with light and she could see the green of vegetation. They were somewhere out of doors in broad daylight. It made an abrupt change from Nyssa's almost dark and gloomy bedchamber in the League's hidden fortress.

With a sharp pop of equalizing air pressures, the sphere's hatch hissed open. Immediately, the sphere filled with hot, humid air. The air was ripe with the smell of vegetation and the dank decay that Sara mentally associated with a tropical jungle, although her limited memories contained no recollections of ever having been in a jungle. Still, she must have been, if her mind had conjured up that association. At least it was one more hint that some of her old memories were still there, if she could just start accessing them.

Since she was on top of their little pile of bodies, Nyssa extracted herself from the sphere first. It was a lot more cumbersome then their initial entry with hands and knees and elbows hitting Sara and Hunter in awkward locations. Once she was out, she reached her hand back in and helped Sara out next.

Hunter moved to follow, but then paused to open a small compartment inside the sphere. He rummaged around in it for a few seconds before locating and extracting several small items.

By the time he climbed out of the sphere, they were all already drenched in sweat from the impossible heat and humidity. Sara's sheer white negligée had gone from almost transparent to fully transparent as it soaked up her sweat and clung tightly to her body. Nyssa had already removed her heavy cloak and the next three layers of clothing and protective padding leaving her in just a burgundy sports bra and matching burgundy leggings.

Hunter opened his left hand, revealing three disks about the size of old silver dollar coins from the 19th century. The surface of the disks contained intricately carved patterns where the raised portions were silver and the more recessed features were gold in color.

"Take one and press them against your sternum just above the start of your cleavage. They're self-adhering."

"What are they?" asked Nyssa making no move to touch them.

When neither girl took up his offer, Hunter closed his fist and set about removing his own outer garments has he explained. "These are universal translating devices. They interact directly with your brainwaves so that you will understand any language you hear or see. And any person you are talking with will believe you are speaking in their language. They are really right jolly clever and extremely useful for adventurers like me. Makes me almost ashamed to admit I didn't think of them myself, but borrowed them from a civilization up in the 42nd Century."

By the time he had finished speaking; Hunter had removed his duster, suit coat, shirt and cravat leaving his upper body covered by just a white tank style tee shirt, which highlighted his nicely muscled torso. Again opening his left hand, he selected one of the disks and pressed it against his chest just above the collar line of his tank top.

"Where are we?" asked Sara, as a shiver ran through her body despite the temperature. The heat was bringing back memories of her time in Hell, although that place had been filled with hard rocks and sprawling lava flows rather than lush vegetation.

"Ah, the correct question is actually - when are we?" responded Hunter with a boyish grin that belied his apparent early thirties age.

"Okay, when are we?" asked Nyssa in a tone that implied she was a cut-to-the-chase sort of person who wasn't into childish games.

Sara found herself staring at the other girl. She still had only fleeting memories of Nyssa and their time together, but she suddenly suspected the brunette's straight-forward, decisive manner was one of the things that she had found attractive about her. Well, that and the smoking hot body now obvious in her current skimpy attire.

"Well, since you asked nicely," Hunter began, maintaining the same quasi-humorous manner, intentionally or unintentionally ignoring the warning tone in Nyssa's voice. "We are in Egypt, during the time of the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom, about forty-six hundred years before your time. So, unless you just happen to speak ancient Egyptian, I suggest you take one of these translating devices."

Nyssa just gave him a hard stare not certain anymore what was going on. Her life as an assassin had been hard, but in the overall scheme of things relatively mundane. She had travelled the world killing whomever she was told. Other than the Lazarus Pits, she had rarely encountered anything that qualified as supernatural. But in the last few minutes she had brought Sara back to life and then learned she had been in Hell, or at least believed she had been in Hell, the whole time she had been dead. And now this, after a mere minute in a strange sphere she was supposed to believe she was in ancient Egypt. Granted, the device had been able to instantly transport them from the Fortress in Nanda Parbat to some faraway place, but it was a huge step beyond that to believe they had traveled way back in time.

Sara could see the other girl was lost in thought, trying to grasp what the man had said. But at least to her, Ancient Egypt was still a huge step up from being in Hell, even if it was almost as hot as Hell here. Therefore, she reached out and accepted one of the offered disks and pressed it against her chest. When she gestured for Nyssa to follow suit, the other girl did, but reluctantly and with a continued frown.

"So, why are we in ancient Egypt?" asked Sara. Even though she still hardly felt like she was back in the real world, she felt a need to attempt to mediate for her two disparate companions.

"There's another girl I would like to recruit, who hasn't yet come into her true gifts. She needs something from here for that to happen. Once we have acquired that device, we'll be on our way back to the future," Hunter replied. The last part was somewhat muffled as he had leaned back into the sphere. He placed his neatly folded outer garments on the seat and then retrieved the two halves of Sara's fighting staff and her sword. Finally, after handing them to her, he reached in and extracted an ornate silver walking stick for himself.

"So, are you just going to be recruiting women like we're going to be your own little personal harem?" asked Nyssa in a dangerous tone.

"Now, now, Nyssa, don't be like that. I know enough of your history to realize you would never be into anything like that, unless, perhaps, you were the recipient of all the attention. Oh, I'm sorry, is it okay that I call you Nyssa or would you prefer Ms. Al Ghul? Or since your father is dead and no longer Ra's al Ghul, would you prefer Ms. Raatko? Or, perhaps, Mrs. Queen?"

Queen - Sara instantly knew that name held significance to her and it wasn't in connection with Nyssa. Where had she heard it before? Why couldn't she remember? And why was Nyssa suddenly looking at her with a horrified expression?

Nyssa turned back to Hunter, her eyes now dark and glittering. Her right hand pulled her sword halfway from its scabbard, which she had been holding in her left hand. "You overstep yourself, mister."

Sara quickly reached out and placed a staying hand on Nyssa's sword arm.

"Whether her memories come back naturally, or the events in her old life have to be explained to her, Sara will eventually learn the truth. And she will need to know all of it, if she is going to be able to trust you and the other members of the team from her old life. We have a good hour's hike in front of us, this is as good of time as any to make a start," stated Hunter with just a slight nervous tick visible at the corner of one eye indicating he understood how dangerous Nyssa could be.

Nyssa stood rigid for a solid ten seconds. She knew Hunter was right; Sara would need to know of her past even if her memories never fully returned. But she had hoped to start any such conversations with the times they had spent together and not with the dangerous topic of Oliver Queen and the relationship her father had forced her into.

But life seldom seemed to go the way you hoped and dreamed, she thought philosophically, as she slowly slid the sword back into its sheath.

Once Hunter saw the dangerous assassin had calmed a little, he stooped and gathered up her discarded clothing and tossed them into the sphere on top of his own. Then pressing a hidden button on his walking stick, the hatch closed and the sphere shimmered and shifted into camouflage mode. From five feet away, it was now effectively invisible. Then with a sweep of his arm he gestured in the direction they needed to head. Immediately, he set off, trusting the women would follow and giving them space for a private, necessary conversation.

"Does the name Oliver Queen ring any bells?" asked Nyssa once their small party was in motion. It seemed like one of those times where ripping the Band-Aid off fast was the best solution. And Oliver's relationship with Sara and his unwanted relationship with her was at the heart of everything.

Nyssa was watching the other girl out of the corner of her eye and she instantly saw at least a small flicker of recognition. It might not have brought a complete return of her memories or even all of her memories of him, but it was more than she had experienced at seeing her or learning her name. And it made Nyssa ache inside. Why couldn't Sara have had that reaction to her?

"That name brings up images of a couple of ships, one a large luxury yacht and the other a horrid old tramp freighter. And days and days spent adrift on the ocean," replied Sara with a faraway look in her eyes.

"And what about Oliver himself? Can you picture his face or hear his voice?"

After a few seconds, Sara shook her head and Nyssa felt a small burst of joy in her heart. But she quickly quelled it; they needed to get through a conversation about Oliver and the convoluted relationship they shared before she could risk the tight control she always maintained over her heart.

"So who is Oliver? He obviously is important or you wouldn't have brought him up first," asked Sara, feeling little more than simple curiosity.

Nyssa sighed. "I guess I better start at the beginning and your connection with Oliver starts long before I was ever in the picture. But shortly after we met you told me all of your history in detail so there wouldn't be any secrets between us.

"Oliver Queen is a couple of years older than you. All through college he dated your sister . . ."

"Wait a second," interrupted Sara. "I have a sister?"

Nyssa nodded. "You have a sister, Laurel, who is a lawyer in Starling City," she stated while her thoughts turned to the tall girl. They had only become friends after Sara's death and they had mostly shared a mentor/mentee relationship as she had helped Laurel with her martial arts training. Laurel was a very different person from Sara, but the sisters definitely shared a fierce inner strength. It was probably what had let them survive all the things they had been through. Sometimes she wondered if she hadn't met Sara first, if she could have fallen for Laurel instead.

Shaking her head to clear her reverie, Nyssa continued. "Your father, Quentin, is a police officer, also in Starling. Your mother, Dinah, is a professor of Greek and medieval history at Central City University. Your parents divorced six or seven years ago."

Sara was stunned by this revelation. She had a family. Why hadn't that thought even occurred to her? She had spent so much time in Hell; nothing normal like that even seemed possible.

And then she realized they had to believe she was dead. Hell, she had been dead. She needed to get word to them that she was alive. But obviously she couldn't do anything about that while they were tramping about in a jungle in ancient Egypt. They were going to have to do whatever they could to speed Hunter's mission back here so they could return home and she could contact her family.

She could feel a stupid, loopy grin adorning her face. She had a family! But finally she forced it down and turned her attention back to the other girl. "You were saying about Oliver?"

"Oliver dated your sister all through college. Somewhere around the end of that time, you started a secret relationship with him, too."

"I was cheating on my sister with her boyfriend? He must be quite the jerk."

Nyssa shrugged. "Actually, from what you told me, you were the instigator. But Oliver could have turned you down. All men can be such jerks."

She had almost no memories yet of the other girl and therefore it was just a feeling, but Sara suspected Nyssa was strictly into girls, whereas she simply knew she was much more ambivalent about the gender of her partners. However Nyssa's sexual preference didn't in any way explain why Hunter had referred to her as Mrs. Queen. Obviously, there was a lot more going on than what she knew so far. It probably was best to let Nyssa get out the whole story and save thoughts about why she would have stolen her sister's boyfriend for later.

"Okay, so I was cheating on my sister with her boyfriend, what then?"

"Oliver's father was sailing his boat to China for a working vacation. Oliver convinced his father to let him go along. Then Oliver secretly snuck you aboard.

"There was a storm and the ship sank. You and Oliver got separated and you both thought the other was dead. You got picked up by a merchant ship run by an insane doctor with a homicidal crew. You were held captive on that ship for a year before your path reconnected with Oliver, who had been stranded on a remote island during that same period."

Despite the heat, Sara once again found herself shivering. Captive on a merchant ship for a year, she was almost glad she had no memories of those times.

"Go on."

"You and Oliver were together for a couple of months battling the bad guys and trying to escape. There was a final battle where the merchant ship was destroyed and again both you and Oliver thought the other was dead.

"With the sinking of the merchant ship, you were again adrift at sea. And that's when I found you. You had been adrift for at least ten days and were delirious from dehydration and hunger. I should have simply killed you, but I found myself drawn to you. So I took you back to Nanda Parbat with me.

"Of course, the only way you could stay in Nanda Parbat was if you joined the League of Assassins. And, at least at first, you were okay with the required training after the hardships you had endured on that merchant ship.

"But once you reached the point where you had to start using your skills, I don't think you were truly happy. Oh, you could kill and did, but you didn't have the heart of a killer. I think you spent a long time looking for any excuse to leave and when you heard your family was in danger back in Starling City, you broke with the League and ran."

Of course, Nyssa wasn't sure that was the whole truth. Yes, she knew Sara had come to hate being a killer, but she suspected Sara's decision to return to Starling had been influenced as much by word of Oliver's return as by the danger her sister and father were in.

When Sara made no reply, Nyssa continued. "In the end Oliver had been gone from Starling for five years, too, before he returned. You and he reconnected briefly, but then the League found you and forced you to return to Nanda Parbat. No one leaves the League except through death."

Nyssa paused for a moment. The next part was probably the hardest part to say. "Actually, I was the one who forced you to return. Oh, my father would have continued to send assassins after you, after your family, until you were dead, but I'll admit to being selfish, too. I wanted you back in my life. After being with you and learning what love was all about, the months you were gone were the hardest thing I had ever experienced."

The pair walked in silence for several minutes both lost in their thoughts. Finally, Sara spoke.

"And Hunters' whole Mrs. Queen comment?"

Nyssa had been expecting her to ask about her death, but perhaps she wasn't ready for that particular topic yet.

"After the attempts the League made against you and others in Starling City, Oliver got on Ra's, ah, my father's radar. And for whatever reason, my father saw him as the best candidate to replace him has head of the League.

"My father was old, at least two hundred, but I never knew his exact age for certain. He still looked fit and appeared to be a man in his prime as he had been using regular dips in the Lazarus Pits to sustain his existence. But I guess he was mentally tired of life.

"I had always assumed I would be his successor, but he apparently didn't feel the same way. I'm not sure if it was simply because I was a girl or if it was due to my relationship with you.

"Anyway, after your death, father started ramping up the pressure on Oliver, directly and by threatening his family and friends. Finally, he injured Oliver's sister such that the only way she would survive was by being immersed in the Pits and he would only allow it if Oliver agreed to become the next Ra's al Ghul.

"What I didn't realize, is that he would also insist I marry Oliver to cement the transition and the family lineage. So, technically, there was a ceremony and I am married to Oliver."

Sara couldn't suppress a sudden grin. "So let me get this straight. Oliver dated my sister for years, had an on and off relationship with me, but ended up married to you, the only one of us who has no interest in men?"

Nyssa sighed. This conversation could have turned out worse. "Yeah, we're just one happy little soap opera. I had never heard of them until I spent some time in Starling after you were gone. Your sister almost got me hooked on The Young and the Restless and we could have fit right in. Well, except for all the combat and deaths."

Abruptly, they heard a hiss from in front of them and realized Hunter was crouched down and gesturing for them to follow suit. Quietly, with all the stealth skills they both possessed, they made their way forward, their ongoing conversation tabled for the time being.

Part 2

Hunter was crouched down in the last bit of cover at the edge of the jungle. A wide, green plane stretched out before them. In the distance they could see a wide river.

"The Plateau of Giza," whispered Hunter.

Nyssa turned her gaze on the man. "This should all be desert. And where are the pyramids?"

"The climate is much more temperate back here then up in your time. How do you think one of the first great civilizations could have ever started here if it was nothing but desert? And the Great Pyramid of Giza, the first of the three large pyramids, won't be started until next year when Prince Khufu succeeds his father and becomes the next Pharaoh."

Suddenly, Hunter's words were drowned out as a pair of great winged figures flew by from their right towards their left. Human figures. At first, Sara thought she was back in Hell; she had seen countless winged demons there. But she didn't get the same demonic sensation from these that she had gotten from the one guard back in the pool chamber.

"What the hell?" whispered Nyssa, fiercely. What were winged people doing back in ancient Egypt? If that was where they truly were. Could this day get any crazier?

Just then a dozen chariots thundered passed, all of them with charioteers armed with bows and all of them were sending a flurry of arrows in the direction of the winged pair. And then one of the winged figures was hit and appeared to almost crumple in mid-air. The other figure barely caught the first one in time, but could do little more than slow its descent. In seconds, they were both on the ground, the second one standing protectively over the first and waving a giant mace menacingly towards the approaching chariots.

"Demons!" shouted Sara, jumping up from where they were crouched and sprinting towards the action.

Nyssa remembered what Sara had done the last time she had shouted demon; she had single handedly defeated ten of the League's best assassins. She wasn't certain if Sara meant the winged figures or the charioteers, but she knew either way she had to watch her friend's back. She quickly raced after the other girl.

Sara had never expected to encounter Blaze's minions nearly five thousand years in the past, but then she remembered how time operated differently in Hell, if it operated there at all. Certainly the handful of months she had been dead in the real world had seemed a thousand or ten thousand times longer in Hell.

But her target at the moment wasn't the winged figures, but the charioteers. At least eight of the dozen had the same shimmering countenance in her vision as the guard back in Ra's al Ghul's fortress.

The uninjured winged figure remained on the ground protecting its fallen companion; its mace and giant, dark metallic-looking wings deflecting the incoming arrows.

The chariots were circling the pair like Indians circling a covered wagon in some old western. And Sara saw that many were now unlimbering weapons that looked like throwing lances.

She didn't hesitate, but sprinted straight ahead. Her course intersected with the chariot which happened to be momentarily on the nearer side of the winged pair. The charioteer's full attention was on his intended foe and he never saw Sara make a running leap. She slammed into his side while the tip of her sword cleanly pierced his throat. Even as his body was tumbling off the back while engulfed in brilliant blue flames, Sara was grabbing the reins and pulling the horse into a tight circle to attack the others head on.

Nyssa couldn't believe what she was seeing. Most new members to the League always said it was time to put away their traditional weapons and move into the 21st Century. But anyone could use a gun. It took a lifetime to master the bow and the sword and all their traditional weapons. And that long period of training provided plenty of time to master the necessary mental régimes to be a successful assassin.

And from the day she had started training at the age of five, she had worked steadily until she had mastered every weapon in the assassin's arsenal. But her training had never prepared her to deal with chariots. God, chariots had gone the way of the dodo millennia ago. She never in her life thought bringing back Sara would mean they would end up five thousand years in the past battling chariots!

Sara had just gotten the chariot turned around when Nyssa caught up with her. Nyssa quickly grabbed the fallen charioteer's bow and then jumped on the back of Sara's chariot.

"Freaking chariots? Really?" exclaimed Nyssa, even as she grabbed an arrow from the large sleeve of arrows mounted on the side of the small platform.

Sara laughed even as she whipped the horse into motion. "That's what you get for bringing me back from the dead. I was perfectly happy rotting in Hell. NOT!"

Nyssa fired arrows through the right eye of the first three opponents before the other charioteers even seemed to realize one of their own chariots had turned on them. Two of the three burst instantly into flames and the soul of the other one was immediately sucked down into Hell, but only Sara saw that.

"Fish in a fucking barrel," shouted Nyssa before being forced to duck when one of their opponents began firing back and nearly found the range.

"Just kill them already," shouted Sara in turn. The nearest three opponents were all demons and she had no problem sending them back to their master.

But now that their opponents were aware of their presence, they became much harder targets. Nyssa only managed to wound two of the next three and the third was a complete miss as she ducked incoming projectiles and Sara had the chariot jinking left and right.

Then everything changed as an explosion ripped the air with a brilliant flash of light and a loud thunderclap of sound. It was quickly followed by a second and a third. Nyssa took a quick glance behind her and spotted Hunter using his walking stick as a golf club and using its handle to hit golf ball-sized explosive rounds a hundred to a hundred and fifty yards to land among their enemy.

Flying men and opposing chariots didn't intimidate their opponents, but exploding projectiles did. Quickly, at a signal from their largest opponent, the others began to withdraw. The one who was obviously their leader lingered for a moment. He was a big brute, standing at least six foot four. He had long dark hair and a matching beard, broad shoulders and massive pecs tapering to a slim waist. His only adornments were a giant golden collar that had to weigh twenty pounds and a white breechcloth. Sara was almost surprised that he was merely a man and that he was able to command demons.

"I have marked you," the man shouted. "And you will rue the day when we meet again."

Without another glance in their direction, he wheeled his chariot and headed off in the direction of the river.

Nyssa felt herself sag. This had been one of the most intense battles she had ever endured, even more so than the battle against the Mirakuru enhanced opponents in Starling. Chariots, freaking chariots.

Sara turned the chariot in the direction of the winged creatures even as Hunter jogged towards them from a slightly different direction. They reached them at almost the same moment.

Part 3

"Well, you just met our opponent. What did you think of him?" asked Hunter.

"Who?" replied Sara and Nyssa, in near perfect unison.

"The big guy, the one who couldn't walk away without issuing a final threat, I don't know his name here, but he goes by Vandal Savage up in your time."

"He's another time traveler?" asked Nyssa.

"Worse. He's immortal. Even here he is like 50,000 years old. By the time he reaches your time he will be another forty-six hundred years older and wiser and meaner.

"He's gone by many names down through history and the ones you will recognize like Genghis Khan, Blackbeard, Vlad the Impaler, and Jack the Ripper are among the vilest excuses for men.

"And this little firefight won't deter him for long. We need to get what we came for and get out of here before he returns," concluded Hunter.

Nyssa's gaze just turned from Hunter, to the winged man now kneeling by his fallen comrade and then on to Sara. Why did her life as an assassin suddenly seem so utterly ordinary, sane, and safe?

As they moved closer to the winged man, Sara leaned closer to Hunter. "Could you tell that some of the opponents were demons? Did you see them burst into flames when they died?"

"Demons?" echoed Hunter. His face was turning ashen as he added, "You can see demons and you saw them among Savages' men?"

Sara nodded.

"Shit. Things are worse than I thought. We are going to have to speed up my timetable and recruit even more members to the team, perhaps some of the really big guns. Thanks for the head's up."

Sara nodded again and wondered exactly what he meant by really big guns.

"Prince Khufu, how is Princess Chay-Ara doing?" asked Hunter towards the winged man.

After everything she had seen in the last couple of hours, Nyssa was almost surprised that the winged man was exactly that – a man with wings. He wasn't some kind of monster or creature from mythology. He wore a dark metallic helmet shaped to look like a Hawk's head and she could now see the giant wings were also some kind of dark metal. But underneath, he was a man of about twenty-five with dark Mediterranean features.

He pressed some hidden button on his companion's belt and the helmet and giant wings turned to liquid and flowed into the belt. The belt's volume didn't seem in any way sufficient to hold all that extra material, but somehow it did. Then he touched his own belt and his helmet, wings, and giant metal mace faded away, too.

And now it was clear, his companion was a woman of no more than seventeen. And it was equally clear that the arrow piercing her breast had been fatal.

"She's . . . she's gone," whispered the Prince while fighting back tears. Carefully, he reached out and gently extracted the arrow from her chest. The girl's body gave no reaction; she was definitely dead. "How can I go on?" he nearly wailed.

Hunter knelt down and rested his right hand supportively on the other man's shoulder. "You must. It's your duty to protect your people from the invaders."

Even with tears still streaming down his face, the Prince nodded. "I know, but it will be hard without my Chay-Ara."

"Who are you and how can I thank you for your help?" asked the Prince, as he rose back up into a kneeling position. "If Chay-Ara hadn't been injured in their vile sneak attack, we would have gotten clear. But with her wound she was barely able to fly and we couldn't gain the height needed to get beyond the reach of their bows. Then once she was hit the second time, there was nothing I could do and I couldn't just leave her to die alone."

Sara took a second look at the Princess' body. And that's when she saw the second arrow sticking out of the side of her left thigh.

"My name is Rip Hunter and my companions are Sara and Nyssa. It may be hard for you to accept, but we have travelled from the distant future to be here this day.

"Do you know of reincarnation – the rebirth of the same souls in new bodies allowing them to live life after life?"

The Prince nodded. "Of course, all followers of Ra, the sun god, know of the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth."

"Good," responded Hunter. "Then you will understand when I tell you the story of you and Princess Chay-Ara is the best known series of reincarnations in my time. Perhaps it is some special consequence of you both having worn the metal wings of Thanagar, but many of your future reincarnations are known. In some lives, the two of you never meet. In others you only meet when one is a child and the other in their old age. But sometimes you meet and fall in love again and live glorious lives.

"I am here on behalf of a future reincarnation of Princess Chay-Ara. She will live in a time of great peril and will need the wings of Thanagar, if she is to have a hope of surviving long enough to find your reincarnation of that time."

The Prince lowered his hand and lightly ran it along the heavy, dark metallic belt encircling the dead girl's waist.

"You do know that after we discovered the strange ship crashed in the western deserts of Libya, only Princess Chay-Ara and I were ever able to make the belts work and produce the wings?"

"I know," stated Hunter quietly. "I have no idea how the connection works, but you and the Princess and your future reincarnations are the only ones who will ever be able to make the Thanagarian belts work. I am not trying to steal her belt for myself."

The Prince climbed to his feet and then looked long and hard into Hunter's eyes before finally giving a small nod. He bent down and slowly and carefully removed the belt from his dead love's waist. Handing it to Hunter, he said, "Now, I need to take her body to Memphis so the funerary rituals may begin."

"Prince Khufu," said Hunter solemnly. "You must place her mummy in an underground chamber dug at this exact location. Then, once you are Pharaoh, you need to build your own funerary pyramid directly over this spot. You must take other wives and concubines to ensure the future of your family, but your funerary pyramid needs to be here to honor her."

With a nod, the Prince's gaze swept around, as though to memorize this exact location. Then he knelt down and gathered up his beloved's broken body in his arms and climbed back to his feet. With a touch of one finger to his belt, the hawk-shaped helmet once again encompassed his head and the broad black wings sprouted from his back. With one massive sweep of his wings he was aloft. Quickly, he climbed to altitude and then turned and flew south.

Nyssa found herself dabbing a tear from her eye. She had assassinated eighty-three men and six women during her career. And she had killed almost countless others when it had been necessary, like today. But something about the death of the Princess and the endless cycle of reincarnation the Prince and Princess would experience touched her heart.

"Right," said Hunter, interrupting Nyssa's dark, bleak thoughts. "We should hop to it before Savage rounds up some reinforcements and decides to come sniffing back around."

Then Hunter turned and started marching back towards where the edge of the jungle began about one hundred yards to their right.

Sara stepped up beside Nyssa and intertwined the fingers of her left hand into Nyssa's right hand. "Are you okay, Nyssa?" she asked.

Nyssa nodded even though tears were still streaming down her cheeks. "How much of Hunter's story do you believe?"

"Probably more of it than you do, but then I've been to Hell and then brought back to life. How much harder is reincarnation to swallow?"

Nyssa just shrugged. Sara was right; she had been through a lot more than her.

"I'll admit I still don't know what to make of Hunter and the convoluted tale he is slowly spinning out," added Sara, "But I think I am intrigued enough to stick with him for the moment."

Nyssa nodded. And with their hands still clasped, the pair set off after the Timemaster.

End of Chapter 3

Coming soon – Chapter 4 – The Nth Metal