"Your majesty I'm not going up to those flight of steps till you tell me who are they?"
"The guards that are guarding the Holy Ankh of the bright Sunrise, the Holy Cross. Their job is to try to stop us from taking it from the Egyptian realm. They will do everything they can to stop us. Let us not waste time."
Nigel followed her up the flight of ten rocky steps shaken by her words. He never knew what to expect with Sekhmet. His plight with her was full of surprises. Needless to mention his carefulness that he must keep with her in fear of his life getting threatened if he ever dared anger her; and now a new endeavor into the unknown, a vicious battle to overtake what will save the world.
A new warning made him snap out of his contemplations. "Nigel and remember, no weapons."
Suddenly a big door opened in front of them. They walked through it and stood in their place awed by what they saw. It was in the middle of the spacious temple, the torches that Nigel lit still glowing revealing its magnificence. The door, being originally camouflaged with a painting of the god Amenram, closed behind returning to its place. The much sought after Holy Cross was resting inside an open box on a small square table but positioned in the middle tile of thirty square floor tiles colored white and beige. There were three rows of ten tiles erected in the rectangular shape design of the Senet game board. Four sticks colored beige on one side and black on the other rested silently beside the board.
Nigel walked up to the Senet board but suddenly jumped back as all twenty nine tiles lit with fire.
"WATCH OUT NIGEL!!!"
"WHAT IS GOING ON? Someone here wants us to play Senet but what's with the fire games!" he said feeling the blazes of heat against his face and body. Nigel's spine suddenly chilled as he felt something uneasy about to happen. An invisible entity wrote with a red ink on a tile besides the Senet in Hieroglyphics, "Nigel I challenge you to fight for your life on death Senet; there are twenty nine squares of death on the board. I'm writing with the blood of the last loser against me on this game."
Sekhmet screamed hysterically, "No Seti!!! It's my fault!!! Punish me!!!"
Nigel yelled back, "Why do you want to challenge me? What is going on?!"
Sekhmet explained, "He thinks I'm in love with you. He's trying to punish me. He went jealous because of the glance I gave you while we were in front of the pool of water earlier!!!” She continued “Please forgive me. It is all my fault.”
She explained to Nigel, “He was able to read my mind."
"But I don't understand…"
"I messed up everything. He hungers for my love as I wear my full royal glamour…I still awaken his passions as if we married just yesterday…But your beauty overpowers me from time to time when those two passions just clash together within me as I stand still wearing this mortal vessel connected into two distinct worlds, ”
Nigel eyed the board with wonder. "Doesn't he know that?"
"No. He's so jealous of you he is unable to think anymore."
Nigel placed his hands on her shoulders and stated with understanding, "It seems there is no other way out." The blazes on the board raged and a tongue lashed out towards him. He jumped back a distance shouting with surprise. Sekhmet knelt down before the Senet board game and begged, "Please my Lord. Forgive him!!!" The Blazes calmed down as Nigel stood up savoring some relief.
He kept a distance away from Sekhmet and asked, "What are the rules of the game?"
Tears suddenly ran down Sekhmet's eyes as she spoke, "I don't know; with its blazing squares there are no safe blocks. It was basically about a number of pawns that advance on the squares based on the throws of four sticks. The pawns move according to the number of white sides that are upwards after they roll. There are five safe blocks only on the board." Sekhmet studied the board, "But this is not the Senet that I know."
"So the odds of my survival are nil to thirty." He eyed the blazing tiles as the vicious tongues of flames crackled on them. There were no pawns other than his soul to play with. Soon he announced, "Seti I accept your challenge!"
Sekhmet's heart shuddered with fright as Nigel headed towards the board game. The box with the Holy Cross closed and the blazes died down as he stepped on the first tile. "But who will be his opposing pawn?" Soon the entity wrote on the ground in Hieroglyphics "Play."
Sekhmet picked up the four sticks and threw them on the floor. The sticks settled on the floor with three of them having there beige sides up. She ordered, "Nigel move three spaces up the floor." Nigel did as ordered. As he stepped on the third tile the grounds wavered underneath him. Before he knew it he was crashing down.
Sekhmet ran up to the board as Nigel yelled for help, but the tiles blazed once again preventing her from helping him. Nigel hands bounced on the hot grounds attempting to maintain their grip on the ledges as the pieces of rock crashed a short distance down underneath on what seemed to him as pointed spades.
Sekhmet yelled out and backed away making the blazes diminish, "Seti stop this! Please! I have been always faithful to you! Please spare this poor young man!" However the only answer she got was a cold current heaving the sticks up a short distance off of the grounds and shuffling them together.
Nigel released a sigh of relief as he attempted pull himself up. The cold currents around him very soon ended leaving behind them a clanking on the floor. "It was obviously his turn," he thought. A wild crash made him turn his head back towards the first tile. Sekhmet stood petrified as the vicious beastly howling filled the atmosphere. The Ammit stood around the broken rock he tore through hurling menaces at Nigel. He dashed towards him with unseen speed.
Sekhemt's opponent's three meant that his pawn could bash the opposing pawn and send it back to square one, only his vicious pawn meant he was intending to kill hers'. A thousand waves of terror tore through her as her eyes filled with the image of the beast with his awkward limbs attacking Nigel. Her heart beats raced uncontrollably and panic filled her soul.
Nigel stood with his legs open standing on the edges of the ledge calculating the Ammits heavy thuds. As the Ammit closed up on him he leaped towards him. Nigel jumped up with his full strength and landed on the Ammit’s back pressing him downwards. Sekhmet released a gasp and covered her face as the beast hurled downwards releasing a chilling howl while the spades tore up his body. Nigel fell through the gap but managed to grasp the ledges again. His plan miraculously worked saving his life. He pulled himself up and stood at the side of the open tile breathing heavily.
Sekhmet slowly removed her hands and looked towards the board. A huge relaxation engulfed her as she saw Nigel standing on the edge of the board incredibly unhurt. "Seti please this is enough!!! Release the Holy Ankh and Nigel!!!"
The entity wrote with blood, "Turn the sticks of fate."
Sekhmet knew her husband’s stubborn temper. Not a single human being can make him change his mind when it was set on something. She nervously picked up the sticks and threw them. All came down with the same suite of colors; a miraculous five moves.
She ordered, "Nigel move five paces up." He moved accordingly and looked around with nervous anticipation for his new opponent.
The winds heaved the sticks one more time. They came down with the same count and color. Sekhmet snapped back, "Stop it!!! This is not fair!!!" Her voice that echoed through the vast temple was followed by something unforeseen. It suddenly appeared out of the blue, a mere bundle of blackness, jumping from pillar to pillar with unseen briskness. They both watched with fear as it turned around them in circles. Sekhmet shouted, "Seti what is this!!!"
"Sekhmet throw me the gun!!!" Nigel demanded as his head toiled with the motion of the light being.
"I don't think this is a good idea."
"I don't feel safe without it anymore. Throw it Sekhmet. Now!!!"
Despite her awed soul she managed to pick up the shotgun. She threw it with a good swing at Nigel. He caught it but he instantly froze in his place. The hair on his head and body rose. His spine chilled with terror and his heart beats raced wildly. His body shook uncontrollably, his teeth clattering very quickly together. His soul was screaming with help and prayers.
Sekhmet eyed the macabre bundle of blackness begin to engulf Nigel in it. Her petrified legs were unable to move and her tongue was as heavy as a boulder. Six human arms extended from inside its sinister color and locked on to Nigel's shuddering body. Nigel screamed with agony as he felt his blood begin to gash from his body. He screamed from pain as the sinister being sucked the life out of him. Within seconds he felt something wanting to depart from within his body. He knelt down weakened by the mounting pain, helpless within the creature's grasp.
The creature howled victoriously as each pump of blood from Nigel's body gave him more shape and size. He eyed elated as his flesh and body regained their form once again and his strength increased. He sucked quenching his thirst, making his victim scream more from agony and pain, nearing him to his death. It was the red essence of human life that refreshed his presence and elated him.
Sekhmet's teeth clattered against each other and her soul shreiked with fear. Massive sweat attacked her body and tears gushed involuntarily from her eyes from the big panic she was in. She began hysterically shouting, "Mercy! Help Me!" Instantly a bright light swirled around her. Three armored mummified guards appeared kneeling before her with respect. She screamed out, "Kill that disgusting creature quick!"
The guards dashed with unseen briskness towards the Senet table. They raised their pointed spears and dipped them inside the fleshy parts of the creature making him bleed and dance around with pain. He turned around and grabbed them by his human arms and crushed their necks to pieces. They fell to the grounds and disintegrated instantly. Part of his blood gushed out of his body and shot back into the six canals that were open in Nigel's body making him release petrifying deafening howls. Nigel wailed from the pain as the blood entered back and the wounds healed, leaving his assailant feeble. He wavered in his place gasping for air and control over himself. The creature continued to swing in his place with pain and bumped into the Holy Cross's table. A fire gushed through him making him simmer and melt to the grounds. Soon his melted remains seeped through the lined edges of the tiles on the floor and headed towards the statue of Amenram then disappeared completely. A big silence prevailed in the atmosphere in the temple.
Nigel spoke despite his pains, "Enough is Enough!!!" He feebly approached the box containing the cross and picked it up. "Sekhmet come on. Hurry"
"Seti leave us depart peacefully!!! Please!!!"
"Sekhmet we have no time, we must leave now!!!"
Sekhmet ran up to the senate board where Nigel was standing but only to find the mighty statue of Amenram moving. A deep loud voice suddenly announced, "The Holy Cross must never leave Egypt!!! Kill, Kill the plunderers!!!" The statue jumped off of its rocky base and stood on the floor making the grounds quiver mightily. Cracks made their way across its body as it flexed its limbs. Its rocky appearance began to drop to the floor gradually revealing its fearsome contents. It was the skeleton of a lion with areas of muscle and flesh covering it randomly and incompletely.
Nigel stood in his place as the creature looked at him and Sekhmet with its' only eye. "Now I knew what the temple priests were feeding exactly. They fed the statue so much blood that they turned it into the lion they were so afraid of."
Sekhmet replied nervously, "What are you talking about? We have disturbed our war god."
Nigel pumped his shot gun and screamed out as the lion went on all fours. It took steps towards them making the ground tremor underneath them, "SEKHMET, THIS IS NOT A WAR GOD. THIS IS A DEMON. YOU HAVE INVITED A DEMON INTO YOUR CULTS OF WORSHIP!!! IT ALMOST KILLED ME ON THE BOARD!!!"
The lion's skull had fleshy parts on its head and sides. Nigel fired a round on the fleshy parts of the skull making him bleed. The lion's roar thundered loudly in the temple causing cracks within the colonnades around them. Nigel aimed his shotgun and fired twice, one round at a fleshy part of his front limbs and the second at his only eye. The beast roared with pain as his eye dropped with splashes of blood around them. He beat about frantically in the temple unable to see, bumping into the colonnades, making some of them break. The ceiling of the temple began to collapse causing the temple's closed entrance to open. Both rushed out into the empty streets of Thebes but stopped at the pointed guns aimed at them just outside the temple. Soon commands followed, "Soldiers on guard! Aim! Fire!"
Machine gun firing through a big opening in the temple walls that was caused by the lions' wild attack hurled it into a vicious tantrum of roars. It beat itself into the remaining walls and colonnades making some of them waver out of place and collapse. Soon it died in the midst of a huge pool of blood.
The figure having them at gunpoint was a tall Caucasian gentleman. He had a revolver aimed directly at them. Soon the four soldiers firing at the lion caught up with them and surrounded them with their weapons. The gentleman finally spoke with an American accent. "Our chief wishes to see both of you."
He took out a piece of paper and read in ancient Egyptian, much to Nigel and Sekhmet's surprise, "Lords of the other realm, whose magnificence we honor send us back the world we came from…"
Within seconds clouds of mist engulfed them then cleared away. The world around them immediately moved in circles. Both their heads swayed as the fanning motion sped up making them kneel on the floor dizzy in the middle of the cyclone they were in. Eventually the circling disappeared and they found themselves in a modern elegant estate in an unknown world.
*****
The handicapped studied his two shaking guests with a big smile. They were lying on the floor of his spacious living room between his guards helpless like prey in a hunter's nest. His hands moved the wheels of his chair advancing himself towards them. He motioned the guards to make way for him and stopped his chair right besides them. Nigel looked up at the stranger and asked, "Where are we. Who are you?"
He gave him a mocking smile and answered, "I know you but you don't know me. Introducing myself is a politeness I will not give you."
"I don't understand anything."
Sekhmet spoke in ancient Egyptian, "Nigel who is he and what does he want?"
"I don't know. He doesn't want to tell us."
The handicapped ordered the guards with a hand gesture to do something. Soon one of them hovered over Nigel and grabbed the golden box in between his hands. Nigel pulled the box back resisting but another guard punched him on his mouth. He fell back to the floor with pain unable to do anything while the guard handed the box to his chief whom was seated calmly on his wheel chair smiling with pleasure. He answered, "That is mine thank you."
"You will never get away with this!" Nigel snapped back with frustration.
"Disarm the gentleman Ally, and don't leave them until I tell you what to do with them."
The soldier took away the bullet belts, the shotgun and rifle. "You are one big disgusting creep do you know that." Nigel fired back at his captor.
The handicapped retorted with bitterness, his eyes shooting spears of madness at them, "You almost cost me my life one day Nigel." Nigel gasped with surprise at his name.
"Don't you ever explain anything, I don't know you. How the hell can you accuse me of such a thing?"
Sekhmet's eyes bounced back and forth between the men perplexed as the handicapped figure answered back, "You know something, you probably won't live long enough to find out who I am." He looked back at Ally and ordered sternly, "This guy is a very feisty one. They are both to remain under surveillance around the clock till I come back."
He rolled the wheels of his mobile chair towards a spiral staircase that lied exactly in front of them in the middle of the living room. Two guards soon followed him and carried him with the chair up the stairs to the upper floor. They guards came back and joined their mates fulfilling their orders.
Sekhmet cuddled afraid in his arms as she watched him sit in despair lamenting his luck. He hugged the poor queen back as the handsome Louie the sixteenth styled furniture in the spacious living room blurred behind the tears in his eyes. He totally felt sorry for all the hardship he faced and the dangers that he subdued in order to reach the Holy Relic and perform his duties as a faithful member of his community. He totally missed Angel whom was nowhere to be found and pitied the royalty whom was probably granted to him as a free guide to overcome the dangerous corridors that led to the Holy Cross. He was afraid himself of the guards that might shoot him at the orders of a sinister being that was bitter with him for reasons he didn't know. The entire situation didn't add up.
Sekhmet didn't understand the hassle around her any more than Nigel did. The mocking faces of the crippled man, the armed soldiers with their unfriendly faces. The foreign language estranged her from the conflict happening and the weaponry made her go very nervous. She knew the weapons that the guards carried with them were like the violent weapon that Nigel had used in the past and feared their effects tremendously. Didn’t those people know she was a queen? If she were still in her realm her guards wouldn't have allowed her to be imprisoned in this manner at all. However she felt that if she stayed still and did what her captors want they would just maybe keep her alive.
Nigel looked at the fancy living room that they were in. Beige walls, beautiful stylish furniture, breathtaking renaissance paintings that were probably original buys, and extravagantly sized chandeliers up on the high ceiling above them. "This guy must be loaded to live like this," He thought. However four wooded human sized statues of Ancient Egyptian soldiers were randomly dispersed in different corners of the living room. He calmly spoke to Sekhmet, "Your majesty, do you recognize the ancient soldier statues in the living room."
She suddenly stood up but to find the guards waving her to sit down with their weapons. Suddenly the handicapped man called from the top of the stairs.
"Ally, Esmat, come and help me."
Both guards left towards the staircase and ascended it. One guard came down carrying him while the other carried the wheel chair downstairs. He was quickly placed in his seat while he ordered, "I am leaving. They are all yours guys," the golden box glowing in his hands from the sunlight that filled the room.
Nigel hugged Sekhmet closely while the atmosphere very soon filled with car engine sounds. A stillness followed as the car took off interrupted only with their breathing and the firm footsteps of the guards marching towards them, their frowning faces heralding their menacing thoughts and intensions. They halted exactly above them. One of them studied Sekhmet with delight while the other said in a broken English accent, "I'm first."
Nigel embraced Sekhmet strongly as Esmat extended his arms towards her. She yelled, "Get away from me!!!" Nigel pushed him away but only to find another soldier raise his machine gun and slam his waist with its wooden handle. He cringed yelling from the pain and knelt down. Sekhmet wasn't more than a stiff log in the embraces of the foreigner. She looked at the gentleman's oval face and black eyes that had want written all over them. His dark complexion was all sweaty and a foul smell arose from him. He attempted to kiss her but she smacked him across the face. Ally caught her gown and tore it at its front revealing her upper body. Sekhmet screamed with fear as Nigel that was still crouching down from the pain stood up and punched Ally on the mouth. Sekhmet covered herself with the pieces of her torn robe. Ally rubbed his mouth and aimed his machine gun towards Nigel. Sekhmet jumped in between them and said in her native tongue, "Stop! Don't kill him. I will give you what you want."
Nigel refused, "No your majesty! Don't give yourself to those bastards!"
Ally asked, "What is the bitch saying."
Suddenly heavy shuffling stirred up in the distances. The four Egyptian soldiers that were dispersed around the living room suddenly marched with life and gathered together a short distance away from them with a one man's march. The mouths' of the four bulky guards dropped with awe as the fully armored soldiers screamed with bitterness at them, "Death to the traitors!!!"
With unseen precession they raised their spears and hurled them at the four guards striking their arms and pinning them to the walls behind them. The guards screamed with pain as their weapons dropped to the floor. They danced feverishly grappling with their wounded arms. The soldiers approached them and raised their swords. One of the guards managed to grab his machine gun again and fired towards one of the ancient soldiers. The bullets shot through him rendering him unharmed and struck the other end of the wall of the living room.
Nigel looked at them sarcastically and commented, "Didn't you know from the crown on her head that she's a queen?"
The guards screamed for mercy as the soldiers grabbed their other arms and sliced them off. They twisted like madmen from the woes of agony, their screams thundering through the premises. A huge pool of blood gathered around as their blood gushed from their bodies.
The soldiers knelt in front of Sekhmet, whom was still covering herself with the pieces of her torn gown, asking, "Does your Majesty require anything else?"
She answered with a royal disposition, "No. You may leave."
A luminous glow circled her then they marched back with utmost precession to their original places in the living room. In moments they were lifeless wooded boards again. Nigel gasped as he saw her in a fresh gown. Sekhmet eyed the slaughtered guards. She spat at them as they lied in their pitiful pains pinned like pray to the spears. One of them was still awake shaking from the killing. Nigel knelt beside him and grabbed him by his blood soaked army shirt. His dark complexion and face was full of torment as he spoke feebly, "Please help me."
"Where are we? Which country are we in?! Speak to me."
"Egypt"
"Who is he? Where did he take the Holy Relic?"
He stopped speaking as his body convulsed. He managed very feebly after a second's time, "back...sixty" then rested lifeless on the grounds.
Sekhmet asked, "What is he saying Nigel?"
Nigel stood up and kicked him in Frustration. He died without telling me where he took our Holy Relic. We could wait for him and when he comes back we will return it to our possession."
Sekhmet liked the idea although she felt it wasn't necessary at all. "Do you know Nigel…Nigel? What are you looking at?"
Suddenly his eyes came upon a paper calendar that hung on the walls. His eyes grew wide with shock as he read the date that was written in Arabic and ancient Egyptian numbers, "15/5/1964..." A lotus flower, nine coils of rope, six cattle hobbles and four strokes followed afterwards.
"What is going on? What is this papyrus?" She grabbed it and recognized the numbers. She read out loud, "One thousand nine hundred sixty four. What is this number?"
"Sekhmet I'm from the future."
"What do you mean?"
"Do you recognize a head priest in your kingdom called Setekh?"
"Setekh?" Sekhmet drifted into a phase of deep thought and concentration. It has been a long time since she has heard anyone pronounce this name. What did he have to do with their present dilemma? She finally spoke, "Setekh is a name forbidden on every Egyptian tongue in our lands. Ramses my step son announced that after hearing him speak of treason he beheaded him. He was buried in a far away land so Egypt will bear his memory no more. This is what I know about him. But what does he have to do with what we are in right now?"
"This is not the complete truth. Setekh caused your son Ramses big pains and toils. He attempted to steal the throne in collaboration with your sister in law Princess Isis."
"Hold your tongue Nigel. Isis is a very good person."
"Sekhmet I know the truth is shocking but there is a complete page in your history that was eclipsed from your knowledge."
Sekhmet turned her back to him and kept her silence encouraging him to continue.
"Sekhmet listen to me. Setekh was a very evil person. He dealt with hidden powerful evil forces that gave him powers beyond any regular person's attributes. He used those powers to attack Ramses and halt his sovereignty over Egypt. He caused Seti's death. When Ramses sped off with one hundred thousand soldiers accounting for almost half your population in Thebes and Memphis to fight the Hittites he killed the other half of the population with his evil magic and turned them into vicious walking dead people; he had the families of the soldiers that remained after the army in your cities to attack the soldiers upon their return from the wars and suck their blood. He attempted to pave the way for an evil entity to rule the world. But our Lord is a very mighty Lord and helped Ramses fight to save his Kingdom and kill Setekh with his evil lords. Isis knew all about this and wanted to betray Seti because he married you while you served in his palace. She loathed you for this…"
Sekhmet turned around and replied firmly with tears in her eyes, "ENOUGH NIGEL! SILENCE! YOU ARE OUT OF YOUR PLACE! Don't you dare speak ill of Isis! If we were back in the court I would have imprisoned you for accusing her of treason!" She wiped the tears from her eyes continuing, "I don't know of what you are speaking to me. It's true at first Isis had problems accepting me in their royal family and she was mistreating me but we became friends upon Seti's death. His death pained everybody and brought us together to support one another upon his departure." Sekhmet's eyes sparkled with sorrow as she spoke, "I don't know of what you are telling me."
"It's best I keep silent about the rest. But you have to understand that I know all of this because I'm from the future. I'm from a time that comes after your civilizations ended in a very long time. I'm three thousand two hundred fifty six years after your time! Your world returned you to our human world and united our paths together to save my world from a similar dark fate that struck your world. A man similar to Setekh threatens to reopen Setekh's tomb, thinking it contains golden treasures, and fate will have it that the same history will repeat itself. That is why I have to regain the Holy Ankh. In my time it is called The Holy Cross and it is what stopped Setekh in your world."
"Your words are startling me."
"The reason I told you this is that if we cannot retrieve the Holy Cross we are going to have to retrieve the scriptures of the Priests of Thebes…"
"I can't…we can't…"
Nigel snapped back in surprise, "Why?"
"They are totally hidden in a distant unreachable land like the Holy Ankh."
"But that is not true. Although my information has it that they perished much after your time in a war with another ruling empire, they have been retrieved in our time. But I need to know where they are kept when Seti was ruling?"
"No, that is not true. Before Seti's rule, when Amenophis was in command he attempted to impose his religious beliefs on the priests and on our great grandfathers. In the midst of their brawling he forced them to tear them up. However it has been believed that the temple priests with their utmost cunningness had the scribes make an extra copy and cast a magical spell upon it hiding it in a place preceded with long corridors and mazes full of perils."
Nigel thought, "Nothing is impossible as he was just in a time warp that modern science would take years, and if at all possible, to prove through research." He smacked his forehead with his hand and exclaimed, "Not again."
Sekhmet suddenly remembered Ally and the incantations he read to take them out of the time warp and bring them to the estate they were in. "Nigel we can go there. Search Ally for the inscriptions he read while we were fighting the god in the temple."
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