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Author's disclaimer: I do not own Ardeth Bay, Rick or Evelyn O'Connell, Alex O'Connell, Jonathan Carnahan, Imhotep and Anck-Su-Namun. Stephen Sommers and the guys at Universal do, for which they have my utmost respect and no copyright infringement is intended. Original characters are my own creation, if you want to use any of them please talk to me first. Original material presented here is © Eirian Phillips 2005.
I can be reached by email. Feedback is always welcome and emails are usually answered n- time permissing... maybe not straight away, but hang in there.
This story is rated M. However, some readers may find parts of it disturbing due to content - reader discression is advised.
The characters and events in this story are purely fictitious (well, with the exception of WWII – more's the pity), and any similarity to anyone living, dead, undead or disincarnate, is purely coincidental.
This story is the third part in the trilogy that began with Power is and was continued in Angel of the Heart. While it can be read without the knowledge of the preceding parts of the story, greater enjoyment may be gained by having read the first two parts before starting the final one.
Star of the Morning Chapter 1
It always happened in his dreams, that he would fly… fly like a hawk over the golden sands beneath on strong wings that carried him in the warm embrace of the desert's breath. There was rarely any direction… any reason to the flight. He just flew, Horus surveying his kingdom, ready to protect where he was needed.
Tonight was different…
Tonight he heard something that made him tilt his wings, wheel in the sky to find the source of the disturbance. Find the voice that had cried out… screamed wordlessly for mercy – the shrill cry of one tormented… damned… lost…
The air became cold, stilted and no longer bore him up. He spiralled downward, picking up speed with the fall, fear grabbing his soul… at the darkness that was spiralling, equally as quickly up to meet him, and swallow him.
The scream came again from the darkness, just as shrill, just as piercing, more desperate than before; closer than before…and in the swirling of the darkness, he saw shadows…grotesque and deformed, almost like emaciated men whose limbs had been twisted and broken, like goblins... They were reaching and clawing… tearing at someone, a woman. It was the woman that was screaming. She reached for him from the midst of the terrible creatures that were tearing into her, twisting and squirming as though they were trying to climb inside her, as though they were feasting on her body.
One of them turned its head… noticed him… turned away from the woman to swipe at the air, as if trying to reach him… trying to catch him… trying to let those sharp claws tear his flesh as they tore the flesh of the woman…
Terrified, still falling, he opened his mouth to echo the woman's cries with a scream of his own…
She picked him up and slipped behind him, so that she could hold him… run her fingers over his fevered brow, smooth back his hair… give him comfort until he should wake from the bad dream.
His head rolled to the side as she moved him with the heaviness of someone deeply asleep. She passed her hand first over one side of his face, and then the other, worried at how warm he felt. Her hand came away wet and sticky.
"Suhayl," she gasped, and shook the child a little. He did not wake, only whimpered, his head rolling from side to side. Panicking she called out for help, before trying once more to wake her son. "Ardeth! Ashna!"
Still Suhayl would not wake, in fact cried out again in the same tone of fear that had brought her to his side bringing tears to her eyes. Tears of helplessness, tears of fear that something dreadful had happened, they fell in a stream down her cheeks when she looked up toward movement in the doorway.
"Ardeth, he won't wake… and there's blood. He's bleeding!"
He came into the room, crossing it in two long strides. "Set him down," he said, urgently.
"No," she moaned, fearful of letting her firstborn out of her arms.
"Put him down," Ardeth commanded again, coming to his knees beside the bed and reaching for Suhayl. "You cannot help him this way."
Still reluctantly, she let go and allowed Ardeth to lay the boy against the bed, twisting her hands together as Suhayl moaned again, almost fighting his father.
"What's happening?" her voice trembled as she spoke, more as Ardeth shook his head.
"I do not know. Bring a lamp, and have Ashna go for a healer."
Meiri hurried to obey, meeting Ashna in the doorway and taking the lamp from her hand. Then she asked her, terrified, to go and bring a healer – preferably Ayesha, though any would do – to help Suhayl. Ashna nodded as Meiri returned to Ardeth's side.
"His nose, Meiri," Ardeth told her as soon as he could see. "It is his nose."
Meiri let out a trembling sigh, and leaned her head against Ardeth's shoulder, shaking as he ministered gently to their eldest child.
"I thought-" she started to say.
"I know what you thought," he too sighed, "but it is nothing more than a bleeding nose. Perhaps he and one of the other boys were to close in practise today, and he was bumped. Ayesha will be able to tell us."
She nodded and sat up to watch the gentle pressure Ardeth applied to the bridge of Suhayl's nose, to try and stop the blood.
"At least his dream seems to have calmed," she said at last.
Even in a slum like il-Nihaaya – 'The End,' as the local citizens of Cairo named this quarter – a woman needed the means to live… and while caring for lost of il-Qaahira kept Miranda busy in the daytime, she could not; would not stay in the hostel as the previous incumbent had done. She did not feel that she deserved the chance to do so, even though they asked her time and again to stay. They knew where to find her if she were, in desperation, needed.
…the airlessness of the night stifled her, adding to the weight of the man that pinned her to the cushions as he slept pillowed on her back, sated of his passions. His passions had paid enough for her meals for the next few days, perhaps even a new dress, if she were careful with the money, but he had used her hard and she was sore… sore and feeling almost suffocated from the clammy heat of the night and the press of his sleeping flesh.
She longed for morning, for the early hours at the hostel where, as always she would wash away the stains of her night time life, at least from her body, for nothing could wash away the stains from her soul. They were stains given her by her folly. She would never forget them. Though the memories of what she had done when she had served the Cult of Nephthys as High Priestess haunted her, they were a shield against her ever committing such wickedness again. She feared that, for she believed that once a soul was touched by evil, it was so easy to fall again into evil. She would not, even though it stalked her nightly. She had turned her back on the evil she once did, that she once served, and fled the Temple of Nephthys, embracing a life among the lost rather than the decadent torment that her life had been, under Ananiah and Nebkhat.
She shivered at a sudden breath of chill that raced through the one roomed hovel and blew over her sticky, naked body. She reached up a hand to touch the three puckered scars that marred her right cheek, another reminder, another shield to keep her honest against the evil that still whispered to her in the dead of night, and sent such terrible nightmares to punish her for her rejection.
We are not yet done… we must have one…soon… now…
Moving carefully, not wishing to wake the man that still slept away his exertions, she slipped from beneath him and from the cushioned bed. She needed to breathe, she needed air. Quietly she picked up a dress from the chair where it had fallen and wrapped it around her as she moved to the door and opened it, breathing in deeply of the heated, stale air and though it was stale, it was better than the fetid air inside which carried the scent of sin and fear; a scent that rarely left her.
Miranda leaned against the doorway, letting the tears come freely, welcoming the salt taste that washed away the lingering tang of soured goat milk kisses lavished on her by the trader in her bed. Silently she prayed the moon would wash away the touch of wickedness that lingered on her and allow her to live a normal life… so that she might consider the hostel, and not have to come back here night after night at the whim of the gods, and whatever man had the money to pay for the right to take his relief at her expense, for none of them knew what she paid for each touch.
Shivering again, she pulled the dress around her tightly, and watched the two figures moving through the shadows cast by the moon. Sending herself out into the moonlight she watched and listened… the young one, following the older one through the tangle of dwellings out there beyond her door.
"But what are we doing here, Papa?"
"I'm looking for someone, Meren, now hush, child. People are sleeping here."
Miranda was suddenly grabbed and pulled away from the door, back into the hovel and the door was shut, roughly, though without a sound. Before she could catch her balance, she was tossed back toward the bed, where she landed face down with the weight of the trader behind her.
"Going somewhere? I paid well for you, and we are not yet done," he said hotly against her ear. She whimpered as he pulled the dress away from her body, and she pressed her scarred face against the cushion, to hide the tears as he spread her open, and took her again, hard and fast.
The scream… though she did not voice it… echoed across the plains.
"A… Alex…" she called out, barely above a whisper. Her brother's room was closer than her parents' room. He was home from school. He would hear her if she called. "Alex!"
He didn't come.
Where was he? Why didn't he come?
Slowly, she sat up, tilting her head at the whispering of the leaves on the tree outside her window. What was it telling her? Outside things always talked to her… especially in the dark. She listened harder, a little frown on her face.
"What is?" she asked. "Talk louder. I can't hear you. I can't understand."
Again she fell silent, listening… after a moment she forgot about all the unfriendly things that inhabited the corners of her room and ran toward the window… pressed the right side of her face against the cool of the window pane.
"New what?" she asked, starting to be a little afraid again.
"Kat?"
A small voice moaned her name from the doorway and startled her. She jumped away from the window and turned to face her little brother. He was wiping away tears from his face and pushing at the dark curls of hair that framed his cheeks.
"Sam, what's wrong?" she came to him, to put her arm around his shoulders. "Did you dream?"
"Bow-wow," he said, "Nake."
Katharine frowned. "Where? In your room?"
Sam nodded and her frown deepened. The dog, perhaps… the housekeeper had a dog, and never kept it shut in her own apartment very successfully, much to her father's chagrin, as he often stepped in the little gifts the animal kept leaving in the middle of the hallway, but the snake? How on earth would there ever be a snake in the house. Her parents wouldn't hear of it. They both hated snakes. Uncle Jonathan too. She had once found a grass snake in the meadow by the lane and brought it back to where her family were picnicking under the chestnuts, and Uncle Jonathan had slapped it from her hand and stomped on it until it was nothing but a pile of bloody pulp under his heel. It had scared her terribly and to this day she had never gone near snakes and knew that none of her family would either.
"There can't be a snake in the house, Sam, Mother would never allow it," she told him, and reached for his hand. "Come on."
"No," he pouted, snatching his hand away, "seep here."
"You can't sleep here, Sam."
"Why?"
"Because…" she faltered, looking back over her shoulder to the whispering tree, "…it's too noisy here, that's why." Then she smiled, and took his hand saying, "But I'll come with you and we can both sleep in your room."
Sam smiled, the full pout disappearing beneath the rising sun in his face that she knew would be twinkling in his eyes. It always did when he smiled. He nodded and allowed her to lead him back along the hallway.
As they neared his room though, his steps became slower. He dropped behind her and began to tug on her hand. When she listened, she became sure she could hear something hissing and not like the wind in the trees. The hallway was empty, but the shadow… on the wall…
She peered again at the space between the railing and the wall. Again she saw nothing… nothing that would explain the shadow cast in moonlight from the opposite window that swayed and danced on the wall, like a cobra waiting to strike.
"Sam…" she whispered to him as she stopped moving. "Get back there…" she gestured toward the far railing and let go of his hand so that he could do as he was told, watching as he backed away.
A loud hiss made her turn back to the shadow in time to see it bob and weave more angrily on the wall. She almost screamed when it lunged, but from inside Sam's room came a low growl, and before the shadow-snake could move any closer to her, or to Sam, another dark shape leaped from out of the room catching the shadow as it flew.
Sam ran to cling to her as there was a brief cacophony of hissing and growling, and she held tightly to her brother, holding his head against her shoulder and watching as the housekeeper's dog seemed to wrestle with something there on the landing in front of her. She tilted her head, watching – becoming almost impassive as their canine bodyguard fought for them… and then it was over. The hissing was silenced and the dog, limping slightly, came to lie down beside her feet.
"Good boy, Dale," she said softly.
"Oo bis." Sam said, pulling away from her.
"You want to give him a biscuit?"
Sam nodded, and after a moment's thought, Katharine did too. "All right," she told her brother, "but you get back into bed. I will go and get him a biscuit from the kitchen and come back."
She could not have been gone for more than a minute, perhaps two… but when Katharine returned, the landing was empty except for a small pile of leaves and Sam was sound asleep in his bed. She slipped in behind him and wrapped him up in her arms, smoothing down his hair.
"Iset simuey," she whispered softly, kissing the side of his head, before she laid her head beside his on the pillow. I will always keep you safe.
"Faithless woman… we must have one…"
The darkness around her formed into shadows, the shadows moved, all coming toward her… climbing and tearing at her. She closed her mouth tightly, moved her arms so that she was leaning on her elbows with her forearms over her ears, refusing to listen, keeping them away from her… trying to keep herself safe.
"We must have one…"
One of the creatures crawled over her back… pricking her with its claws as it moved over her to get to the man behind her, to melt over him like ice cream over a hot apple pie, coating him like a second skin.
"No," she moaned as the man pulled away from her rear, and turned her beneath him.
"I paid you-" he argued
"Not well enough for that!" she tried to push at him, push him away as he pressed down on her. She could not allow him there, not now…
"I think so," he said coldly, reaching between the two of them to fumble himself into position between her legs.
"Please don't," she tried to reason with him, offer him an alternative, "What if I-"
"I paid you," he said again. "I will have you, or the authorities will."
Caught, she sobbed, but stopped struggling with him. He gave her a superior, cold smile, and apparently approving of her acquiescence, entered her as slowly and as deeply as he could.
What intelligence had given them this knowledge, the terrible surety of the way to reach her? She bucked and writhed under them as they played and fed, her body their plaything, their table… pain from all sides making her powerless. She couldn't fight, she couldn't move of her own volition, could barely even breathe, used as she was, descending deeper and deeper into darkness. What would it mean? What would happen to her…? . She screamed… terror.
Her breathing was shallow… in snatches… she was becoming faint, light headed, trembling at this assault of darkness.
"We must have one… surrender…"
"Please," she gasped, appealing to the trader that sweated over her, "I can't… breathe…"
Lost in his passionate possession of her flesh, probably the first woman his body had touched in years, he did not hear her… did not stop. His eyes sparkled darkly in the scant moonlight as he rutted there with her, his movements becoming wilder, faster, hard as before…
"Please," she tried again, "He- Hel-"
As she screamed there was a flash of light in the darkness over her… a light that began to fall, falling toward her. It looked like a bird; a hawk… surrounded by starlight.
"Please," she gasped, "Hel—Help!"
Still the starlit bird fell.
"Help..." she gasped, "…me!"
She did not feel her father's arms supporting her as he turned to her and crouched before her.
"Just see… child," he told her gently.
"Help… me… Help… me…" she chanted, as though she couldn't catch her breath. He tenderly caught hold of her arms, crouching down to support her.
"Just see… child," he said softly, "Breathe… do not let the vision blind you."
"Papa…" she clutched at his arms, "it's dark."
"Allah and His Prophets speak to us all in different ways, Meren," his voice was soft, patient, and full of love for his daughter. "Your fear darkens your sight. Trust… and see."
"No," he screamed trying to move away from the creatures as they came closer, but finding he couldn't move.
"Help me, please!" the woman begged him. "A touch from your hand… a word… just a moment of your starlight, PLEASE!"
She was cursed. This was her curse. This was the vision Nebkhat had shown to her in the Temple of Nephthys just before she had fled.
"Please!" she implored him, "Stop!"
"Stop him… Please…" She turned her head to face the young man that settled to the floor of the darkened pit on shining feathered wings, as though he were some angel. He was bronzed from the sun, Egyptian mystical symbols painted over his skin. She could not see his face, but the shape of it was handsome, his long hair held a slight wave, and from the fine scented oils that anointed his hair and body, he reflected the dim starlight, "He brings-"
She screamed again, as heat and cold both at the same time exploded through her soul… pain driving her pleasure, dragging her into oblivion…
He moaned, and then gasped sharply. Mirranda cried out sickenedand terrified at the horror which came after.
The trader began to shrivel… wither and decay even as he slumped over her,until he was nothing but a dried husk of a thing… until even that was gone as he shattered apart, nothing left but fine black sand that drifted lazily to the ground.
He made a desperate attempt to move to the woman, to help her, to give her something that would take this terrible sight from his eyes...
"It isn't time." The new voice stopped him from moving. "You will help her, but now is not the time, my star."
He turned to face the speaker, a woman… no, not a woman… a goddess…she was so beautiful. Her face was a flawless oval, her skin unblemished, her eyes, shining with life… all framed by exquisite long brown hair. She was perfectly exotic… giving off the strength of a dragon, and the peace and gentleness of a dove.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"I will find you," she told him. "Go now. They are worried about you."
"But I-"
"You were not meant to act," she said, answering him as though she knew what he was going to say, "only to see. Just see…"
She reached out a tender hand and pressed her fingertips to his lips to silence his argument. "Remember…" she whispered.
"Daiman," he breathed in response, "Ahteenyamhai…"
"Gently, Suhayl," Ayesha said softly, "You are safe."
She smiled at Meiri, withdrawing. In truth Meiri knew that she had not been able to do much more than clean up after the nosebleed that had made them send for her. She had determined that he had not broken his nose, had not had a bump on the head and apart from the bad dream and bloody nose, was probably perfectly healthy.
"You had a dream," Meiri told him, as he looked up at her, and then past her, confused at the presence of his parents in his room, not to mention the healer. "Do you remember?"
He closed his eyes and sighed, a moment later Meiri saw he paled again and knew he must have remembered. She reached for him, meaning to pick him up and rock him in her arms, lay her head along side his… but at their heads touched together it was as though a spark had leaped from one to the other, and the images of his dream rushed at her thick and fast, making her feel dizzy and sick. She gasped…
Her face was a flawless oval, her skin unblemished, her eyes, shining with life… all framed by exquisite long brown hair. She reached out a tender hand and pressed her fingertips to his lips to silence his argument. "Remember…" she whispered. "Daiman," he breathed in response, "Ahteenyamhai…"
…and pulled away, looking at him in shock.
"Meiri?" Ardeth came to her side then, a worried frown on his face, "What is it.?"
"Allah forgive me," she whispered, horrified, "I have given the curse of sight to our son."
