By Iceshiva16
Disclaimer: The character of Ardeth Bay, Rick and Evelyn O'Connell and Jonothan Carnahan belongs to
Stephen Sommers and Universal Studios. No infringement intended. All other characters belong to the author.
This story is rated R
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Prologue
To my left, Rick and Evelyn O’Connell were fending off more of the bandaged fiends while their son Alex, now 14, clutched the Book of Amun-Ra to his chest in an attempt to keep it from the vile creatures that were orchestrating this assault.
Jonathan was nowhere to be seen, which I had quickly discovered was usual for situations like this.
Who am I, you ask? I’m an Egyptologist, just like my dear sister Evelyn.
That’s right. Evelyn O’Connell is my sister. Jonathan Carnahan is my brother, Rick O’Connell is my brother-in-law, and Alex O’Connell is my nephew.
What persuaded me to pursue this profession after everything I’ve seen in the past 16 years, I’ll never know. I suppose that since Egypt is in my blood, it’s hard to get away from.
Not to mention the fact that I now live there with my husband.
Let me tell you something about my husband. He’s a Med-Jai warrior. If you knew anything about Med-Jai warriors, that would be enough right there. But, assuming that you have no idea what I’m talking about, let me explain.
The Med-Jai are a people who are loyal, just, and devastatingly beautiful. They also commit to tasks of such an impossible nature that it’s hard to believe that there are so many of them still alive today. That’s why I’m standing here right now. Being the wife of a Med-Jai, I’ve picked up these traits from my husband and his kinsmen.
Plus, I’m not going to let some damn mummy kill him after I worked so hard to snag him in the first place. Med-Jai are also very stubborn, which can be a good thing in certain situations, but a very bad thing in others.
With a war cry fit for the wife of a Med-Jai, I spun around and launched myself into the air, smashing in one of the mummies’ heads with my foot. That I learned how to do from my brother-in-law, Rick.
Sarah Carnahan-Bay, Egyptologist extraordinaire, at your service. I am a veteran of raising priests from the dead and killing them after the fact, and I am also quite experienced when it comes to fighting creatures that just won’t die.
This is the part where my dear husband, heartbreaker that he is, grabs my arm ever so politely and tells me to run. Med-Jai also know when they're losing and when to run away. “Live today, fight tomorrow.” That’s one of the first things I ever heard my husband say that made any sense to me at the time.
You probably think that I’m a bit off my rocker, right? Well, you’re still reading, so you must be interested. You probably want to know how I got into this whole mess.
To find that out, however, I’m afraid that you’ll have to start at the beginning…
Chapter 1
My father was an explorer. He loved to traipse around the globe to places of any kind, and he thrived on the few discoveries that he made in his life, the most notable being the tomb of the boy pharaoh Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. Eventually, he stayed in one place long enough to meet my mother, who was an Egyptian, and a pistol at that. They got married and had a few kids, namely my brother Jonathan, my sister Evelyn, and me.
I hate being the baby of the family. Some people think it’s great. They think you get all the attention and that everybody adores you. They obviously never grew up in my family.
My parents died when I was 18, and I knew everything about Egypt and nothing about anything else. So naturally, I followed my sister and brother to Cairo, where I was to become a librarian at the Cairo Museum of Antiquities.
It all sounded very exciting at the time. I soon discovered that being a librarian isn’t all it’s cut out to be.
The curator of the museum didn’t trust me much. It wasn’t that I was clumsy or stupid or anything like that, it was just because I was so young. Not to mention the fact that I was a girl. He finally told Evy that she could catalog the library and teach me how to do it, but that I wasn’t allowed to touch anything.
Life was very boring. My brother was always off on a “dig” somewhere trying to make some money so he could gamble it away and drink for the whole night. He was a good role model.
(I get my sarcasm from my dad. My husband doesn’t appreciate it much, he says it’s not very distinguishing for a woman to be so cynical, but he’s not going to be able to break me of the habit, so he might as well give it up. Plus, I’m the only one who can make him do whatever I want him to. To think that the great Med-Jai chieftain can be vanquished by a simple kiss…)
(That’s right, he’s not just a great warrior, he’s the chief of thousands of other great warriors. I have high standards.)
Anyway, to get back on track, life was very boring. I couldn’t touch anything in the museum, and I didn’t have anything else to do but hang around the museum, so I was kind of stuck for ideas.
Then something happened that changed my life. It wasn’t all that cataclysmic, really, but Ardeth has taught me to appreciate the intricate chains of events that lead us through our lives. And I’ve come to believe that if Evy hadn’t knocked the library down that day, I would never be where I am now.
That’s right, my sister knocked down the entire library of the Cairo Museum of Antiquities. All because she couldn’t move the ladder to put that damn Tuthmosis book back in the ‘T’ section where it belonged.
It was quite spectacular to see, really. Like the dominos that my dad would have me play with when I was kid when rudimentary games still amused me. Of course, who had the brilliant idea to set the thing up in a circle anyway? I guess they never planned on my accident-prone sister, eh?
The library being knocked over (which we never fixed, by the way) was just the first of a long chain of events that lead me to today, when I am being grabbed by disgusting mummified… mummies… while valiantly trying to protect my husband and my children from not-so-certain death.
Yes, Ardeth and I do have kids. Can you picture me as a mother? Ardeth’s people really believe in that whole it-takes-a-village-to-raise-a-child thing, so I think our kids will actually turn out okay. And it’s not their father that’s the problem, it’s me. Have a mother like me and they’re definitely screwed.
I hope none of them got my sense of humor.
After Evelyn knocked down the library, my brother showed up. Which is always an occasion to be celebrated, at least in his eyes. Inebriated is a word that often applies to Jonathan.
That was the day that Jonathan showed us the key. The key is actually a small black box with Egyptian hieroglyphics covering it. If you press and twist, the whole thing opens into an elaborate key that once held a map.
The map was supposed to lead its owner to the fabled Egyptian city of Hamunaptra.
Hamunaptra was a great legend among tourists and Egyptologists alike in 1926. The city was supposed to be the resting place of Egypt’s wealth (which is true, by the way) and one of the greatest cities built in all of Egyptian history.
As soon as he heard that resting place of Egypt’s wealth part, my brother Jonathan wanted to find it. Unfortunately, the curator (who we later found out was in cahoots with the Med-Jai) burnt off a part of the map and we were forced to find an alternative route to Treasure Island.
Turns out that my dear big brother stole the key off of some drunk at a bar. This drunk was actually my future brother-in-law, Rick O’Connell, although you never would have guessed that at the time.
Throughout this whole thing, I’d been kind of a third wheel. I was just hanging around looking over shoulders to see what was going on. As a result, I paid a lot more attention than everyone else and managed to get us out of a few tough spots, but it was really nothing compared to what I got myself into later.
We went to visit the aforementioned drunk, my sister Evelyn chastising Jonathan the whole time because he’d been dishonest with her. He’s done a lot worse; I don’t know what she was so upset about.
This was the first time that I actually got to help with something on this little adventure. They were going to hang my future brother-in-law at this point in time, and Evy never was a very good person when it came to bartering. No matter what she promised him, the warden (a smelly, nasty, disgusting little fellow) of the jail would not give her O’Connell’s life. He really wanted sex, and I can’t blame my sister for saying no to that, I would have too. But, just for the record, he was looking at me too and I’m gagging just thinking about it.
I finally told the jerk that O’Connell knew the way to Hamunaptra. After a little heckling, we agreed to give the warden 25% of whatever we found and he cut O’Connell down. My sister kind of took credit for this, but at least the warden wasn’t staring at me anymore.
So that was how we got ourselves into this whole huge mess. On to Hamunaptra!
Chapter 2
My sister was talking the whole time about what a scoundrel O’Connell was. Can you believe that she married the guy? Well, let’s just say that he cleans up nice (I was impressed) and Evelyn shut her mouth.
The boat ride was actually pretty relaxing until the Med-Jai showed up. It turns out that they’d been sent by the curator (I knew he was trouble) to retrieve the map and the key. Well, we didn’t need the map, and it probably would have been better for everyone involved if we hadn’t had the key either, but it’s funny how things turn out, isn’t it?
I’ve been mentioning how no one was paying attention to me, right? Well, nothing much changed from the prison to the boat. I kept trying to deny the fact that I was still a kid, but I think that I knew I was just a scared little girl trying to be brave for everyone around me. I never was good at the whole feelings thing until I met Ardeth. He’s taught me a lot about myself, and I don’t think I regret any of what I’m going to tell you. I can be serious at times, and at heart I really am a serious person. But stress and sarcasm are the way I deal with hard times, so that’s the only way I can make it through this story without it being excruciatingly painful for everyone involved.
I was talking about the Med-Jai. One of them attacked my sister (and later, me) to get the map and the key. Well, she told him about the map, but at that point, we didn’t know that the key was a key, so we couldn’t tell him about the key because we didn’t know about the key. Follow? Remember how I said that Ardeth taught me to appreciate intricacy?
The confusion about the key was just what we needed to waste time until O’Connell got there. He came in, guns blazing, and saved my sister and me. The map burnt up in the fire that he started (okay, so that wasn’t a very good idea) and Jonathan retrieved the key at some point during this adventure (but that was probably after Rick threw my sister and me overboard).
After braving the Nile, our small party (which unfortunately included the warden) regrouped on the bank, where Evy and I stood shivering and practically naked until we thought of a plan that included buying us new clothes.
We traveled to the nearest town and Evy and I played dress-up with the Arab women while my brother bought camels. He was very worried about prices, but I don’t think he should have been. After all, we were going to Hamunaptra to find the greatest treasure stash ever known to man (and we did come away with a pretty good haul).
Well, to make a long story short, we finally got the camels and set off for Hamunaptra. The trip there was quite uneventful in itself. It was the morning that we arrived at Hamunaptra that this trip really started to get interesting.
O’Connell had us stop on a dune that was apparently in the middle of nowhere to wait for the sun to rise. We were met by our competitors; a team of arrogant Americans led by a former friend of O’Connell’s, Beni.
The Americans were impatient, but Beni wouldn’t tell them what we were waiting for, so Evelyn asked Rick. All he told us was that we were “about to be shown the way.”
I don’t quite know how the Ancient Egyptians accomplished it, but it really was an amazing sight to see. The city seemed to appear out of the sands at the very touch of the sun’s rays, and a frantic race ensued. My brother, of course, had made a bet with the Americans, and whoever made it to the city first would win $500.
Luckily, my sister is one hell of a camel rider and we won the bet. Then we started to dig.
Chapter 3
After a brief argument with the Americans about who was going to dig where first, we relinquished the statue of Anubis where the Book of Amun-Ra was hidden (for the record, it wasn’t there, the Book of the Dead was) and went back to the first room we had entered, which had once been reserved for the making of mummies. After a bit of fooling around (during which I did absolutely nothing at all), Jonathan (who was playing golf) dislodged a sarcophagus from under the base of the statue of Anubis.
It was not customary for important people to be buried under statues in hidden chambers in Ancient Egypt. They were buried in pyramids or underground tombs, with treasures beyond any archaeologist’s wildest dreams. Which is why we considered this to be very weird.
We had just managed to figure out that the key we had opened the sarcophagus when our friend the warden graced us with his last appearance. He flew past us screaming and then smashed into the wall, promptly killing himself. Tragic, I suppose, but I’ll let you in on a little secret. None of us were very sorry.
Chapter 4
That night was the first time I ever met my husband, Ardeth Bay.
We were reclining happily by the fire, my brother getting drunk off of the warden’s leftover alcohol, when Med-Jai horsemen attacked our camp. Granted, I didn’t know that they were Med-Jai horsemen at the time, but since I’m telling this story years later, I can take a few liberties, now can’t I?
Rick told my sister and me to stay put, but Evelyn didn’t listen, so I didn’t either. She almost knocked herself out using a rifle. I grabbed a handgun, which I fortunately didn’t know how to shoot.
I say fortunately because the first thing I came upon to shoot at was my husband.
I obviously missed. I don’t even know where that bullet ended up (although I have the sneaking suspicion that it was the cause of one of our American friends’ injuries). I was scared to death, and I suppose that I thought I was going to die. Even now, the thought petrifies me so much that I don’t think I’ll ever remember what I was thinking.
I didn’t die that night (as if you couldn’t have guessed that), although what did happen didn’t make me any happier. When my husband had reached me, he was ready to kill me, but then he saw what I was. I was a girl, and I was a child.
I remember everything he has ever said to me word for word to this day. And the first words that ever came out of his mouth as he looked at me were, “This is no place for a child.”
So he rode off after my brother, letting me go even though I had tried to kill him. I didn’t even go after anyone else after that. I knew it would have been useless, and I was upset by the whole child comment.
It was only when Rick threatened to blow the whole place to smithereens with a stick of dynamite that my husband’s tribe consented to leave. That was when I first saw his face. Even though I was mad as hell at him, I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful he was.
Ardeth has dark olive skin that sets off the tattoos on his cheeks and forehead, as well as his hands. The black robes he always wears make his skin seem even darker. His coffee-colored eyes were baleful on that night, but I’ve seen them reflect the gentleness of ages, and now whenever he looks at me, it’s tenderly, and there’s not an ounce of malice in those eyes. I think it was his eyes that captivated me on that first night.
Then again, it could have been his hair. My husband’s hair is something else. It’s thick and dark, and it falls down to his shoulders in a nest of curls that I love running my fingers through. Our children got his hair, and for that I’m very thankful. I remember times when I’ve tangled my fingers in his hair and cried my heart out, and it always makes me feel better. But I think I’m getting nostalgic. I’ll get back to the story.
The Med-Jai departed after warning us to leave Hamunaptra. Did you expect any of us to listen to that? We went to bed anticipating a good dig the next morning.
Chapter 5
What we found inside was one of the vilest things I’ve ever seen in my entire life (excepting the warden, of course). It was a mummy, but not the traditional kind. This one had no bandages, and it looked like it was still decomposing after 3000 years of being buried.
I was the one who figured out that he’d been buried alive. While the others ranted over how it was impossible for a mummy to look like this one did, I studied the lid of the coffin and found fingernail marks and a message.
The message was written in Ancient Egyptian and said, “Death is only the beginning.” The fingernail marks were simply a reminder of the torture that this man must have endured over 3000 years ago.
Later, Evy found scarab skeletons in the coffin as well. Turns out that our mummy had not only been buried alive, he had been slowly devoured by flesh-eating scarabs.
Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? I never did ask him what it was like to die such a painful death. Of course, I’m getting ahead of myself.
The Americans had had much better luck than us that day; at least, that was what we thought at the time. As it turns out, they’re all dead now and we’re alive precisely because of what they found, so who was lucky?
The Americans had found a cursed chest containing five canopic jars. One was broken, but the other four were intact, so they split them among the principal members of their team. Their other find, however, was much more interesting. It was what my sister had come to Hamunaptra for – the Book of the Dead.
The rational part of you is probably thinking that the Book of the Dead doesn’t sound like something you would want to mess with. And you’re absolutely right, it’s not. But we did mess with it, so that’s that and there’s nothing else to it.
I said that “we” messed with it. Well, that’s not true. Like every other interesting book I’d ever come across in my life, I wasn’t allowed to touch it. So it’s pretty accurate to say that my sister Evelyn got us into this whole mess.
You see, my sister stole the book from the sleeping Egyptologist traveling with the Americans and opened it with our key. In reading from the book, she woke our mummy up. This has a few bad connotations.
First of all, the mummy brings with it the ten plagues of Egypt. Just what we needed. Second, it will kill anyone who opened the cursed chest (namely our American friends) until it has fully regenerated. Once this is done, it’s invincible.
So you see what Evy had done? A swarm of locusts promptly flooded into Hamunaptra, forcing us to flee into the catacombs of the city. We were trying to figure out what to do (no one was paying much attention to me here, I was just hanging around and listening as usual) when we were attacked by scarabs. Rick shot a few of them, but a hell of a lot of good that did us. They just kept coming.
Evelyn and I took shelter in a small outcropping of rock as the scarabs flowed past us like a river. As it turns out, there was a trap door here that we both fell through.
Offhand, that probably doesn’t sound so bad. We were away from the scarabs, right? Sure, we didn’t know quite where we were, but it should have been easy enough to find our way out, right?
Wrong.
Evelyn and I ran into one of our American friends, Mr. Burns, once we’d fallen through that trap door. Our resurrected mummy had attacked him, and his eyes and tongue had been stolen.
Shortly after this discovery was made, Imhotep (our mummy) paid Evelyn and I a visit as well.
This was one of the few times that Evelyn actually paid attention to me on this little trip. We were gripping each other so hard that our knuckles were white, and we were both very afraid that we were going to die.
As it turns out, Imhotep only wanted to kill me. Go figure.
You see, Imhotep had been condemned because of his love for the pharaoh’s mistress, Anck-Su-Namun. He had killed the pharaoh and attempted to resurrect her after she was killed, but he had been caught and made to endure the Hom-Dai, the worst of Egyptian curses. He was buried alive, and now that he had come back, he wanted to raise Anck-Su-Namun from the dead so that they could be together again. It’s really very romantic.
Unfortunately, he wanted to use Evelyn as his human sacrifice. And that meant that I was expendable.
I don’t know what I would have done if Ardeth, my dashing husband, hadn’t come and saved me then. I didn’t have anything to defend myself with, and mortal weapons couldn’t kill Imhotep anyway.
Getting back to the point, the Med-Jai showed up again. It was their job to keep this curse in check, and that’s why they had tried to convince us to leave the night before. Of course, we hadn’t listened, and now their job was that much worse.
They had come down into the tomb to rescue Burns, because as long as the creature didn’t kill anyone who had opened the chest, he couldn’t regenerate and was therefore not as powerful. Two of the Med-Jai took Burns out of the tomb, and Ardeth saved me because I happened to scream at the very moment that he turned the corner.
Of course, you might scream too if a 3000 year old dead guy was lunging towards you.
He saw that the creature needed my sister, and he knocked the creature out of the way in order to grab me and sling me over his shoulder (he did this all very bravely, I might add). I wasn’t very happy once I was out of harm’s way. He carried me out of the tomb kicking and screaming. I was no match for his strength, and it wasn’t very long before he had unceremoniously dumped me on the sand outside of the tomb entrance.
I remember the conversation that ensued very well. I didn’t make a very good first impression. I’m surprised that Ardeth married me at all, at least based on this.
“What the bloody hell did you do that for?” I had screamed, my British roots taking hold as my anger overtook me.
He had glared at me menacingly, which calmed me down a little, if only out of fright. “The creature would have killed you,” he answered (in that luscious, oh-so-sexy voice of his).
(I love my husband’s accent.)
“And what about my sister?” I said heatedly, no longer yelling, but still with quite a bit of gusto.
“Your sister will be fine. The creature will not harm her.”
“How do you know that? She could be dying down there right now, and you carried me away without giving her a second thought!” I was honestly trying not to be distracted by his overwhelming beauty.
“I did what was required of me. Your sister is safe from the creature as long as he is not fully regenerated.”
“I…!” I began to protest, but he crossed the sand in two long strides and grabbed my arm, his grip stern, but not bruising.
“Are you telling me that I should have left a child down in that city to be killed by that godless creature? I would not do such a thing. What business does your sister have bringing a child to this place?” His voice was low and ominous, and I was trying to hide the fact that I was frightened.
“I am not a child,” I whispered, at the same moment that tears sprang to my eyes. His grip on me loosened, and his expression softened. I think I remember wanting to kiss him in that moment, and part of me may have fooled myself into believing that he wanted to kiss me, too.
“You are still just a child,” he said, “even if you look like a woman. I see the fear in your eyes. You are a child who needs guidance and comfort. You would do well to listen to me once you leave here.”
I was stung by his words. My infatuation with him (which was turning into love even as I stood there) allowed his remark to penetrate deeper than it probably should have. I sat down on the cold sand, my face buried in my arms, crying silently.
I told you that my husband is gentle around me now. Well, he was gentle with me on that night as well. He saw that I was crying, and shivering as well, and he came over to me. I felt his large hand on my back, and I looked up at him, my eyes shining in the moonlight.
“I am sorry,” he said softly so that only I could hear. “As I have said, you are only a child, and I should not have upset you so. I promise that your sister will be all right, but you must leave this place. My people will help me stop the creature.”
The Med-Jai’s robes are made in layers, and on that night, he gave me the outer layer of his robe, wrapping it around my shoulders gently to protect against the harsh desert wind. And, in quite a paternal fashion, he kissed my forehead gently before standing to give his men orders.
I know that that was the moment that I truly fell in love with Ardeth Bay, but it would take 12 years and two more great ordeals to express that love to him. And boy, am I glad that I did.
I left Hamunaptra soon after, certain that I would never see that place (or him) again. He was right, my sister was safe, and we left for Cairo as soon as we were all together again. The Americans had suffered their loss with Burns’ eyes and tongue, but other than that they were none the worse for wear.
We left together, not knowing that Imhotep would pursue us and kill off the Americans one by one until he was fully regenerated, and then we would have a new and altogether worse problem on our hands.
Chapter 6
I cleaned up and changed clothes, and something possessed me to wear the robe that Ardeth had given me. I put it on over my clothes and exited my room in time to hear my sister and Rick arguing about whether or not we were going to stay and fight the mummy or leave with the Americans. I found myself a bit taken aback by the thought and rushed into Evelyn’s room.
“Evy, what are you talking about? Stay and fight the mummy! Ardeth told us that…”
“Ardeth? Who’s Ardeth?” she had replied, flinging me off like an old carpet bag. “It is our duty to stop this thing, we let it loose!”
“We?” O’Connell countered. “There is no ‘we,’ Evelyn. You let this thing loose!”
“He’s right,” I jumped back into the conversation. “It almost killed me!”
Evelyn shot me a pointed look and I shut up. I wasn’t in the mood for a big argument.
Well, Evelyn decided to stay and O’Connell decided to leave. Then he went down to the bar to have a drink with my brother. That was when all hell broke loose.
Imhotep had followed us back from Hamunaptra and had killed Mr. Burns in his quarters. That was where he threw Rick halfway across the room and tried to kiss my sister Evelyn, a decidedly gross thought. I managed to stay out of his way and we rushed to the museum, where we thought the curator might be able to give us some answers about what we were facing.
When we arrived at the museum, I was surprised to see that Ardeth was there. I stopped in my tracks, fingering the fabric of the robes in between my fingers as he briefly stared at me. That was when I realized that everyone had guns pointed at him.
I sighed. “For Christ’s sake, put those down!” I said, brushing O’Connell’s gun down to his side with my hand. “He’s not going to hurt us, the creature is!”
I looked at him and he nodded his thanks briefly. That was when he and the curator told us the whole story.
I already told you most of what you need to know about Imhotep. He was killed because of his love for the pharaoh’s mistress. Well, he was back now, and what he wanted was the same thing he had wanted 3000 years ago. He wanted to raise his lover from the dead. And he wanted to use my sister as her body.
The Egyptologist had run off, so O’Connell decided that the next best course of action would be to find him and save him so that the creature couldn’t regenerate further. There was a solar eclipse and then Rick and my brother set out to find the Egyptologist while Evelyn stayed locked in her room at the fort along with the other two Americans. I stayed in the anteroom of the museum with Ardeth.