Disclaimer: We don’t own Stargate: Atlantis or The Mummy franchises. They belong to MGM, Universal, etc. – in other words, their respective owners (who we repeat, are not us). We’re writing this fic for entertainment purposes only, not monetary gain. The original character Ráidah, however, is ours, and we would appreciate any heads-up if anyone wants to borrow her… LOL

Summary: A year after Imhotep’s final banishment to the Underworld, the O’Connells and their friends encounter his famous pupil, who has similar goals but is ten times more powerful. This might be a battle they can’t win… [x-over with Stargate: Atlantis] Pairings listed inside…

Rating: T (rating might possibly go up later in the story)

Warnings: Violence, character death, kissing

Spoilers (The Mummy): For the first two movies, since the Evy in this fic is still Rachel Weisz’s Evy.

Spoilers (Stargate: Atlantis): None

Pairings: Ardeth/OC, Rick/Evy, Jonathan/OC, Ronon/Teyla, John/Elizabeth, Rodney/Jennifer, Ramses Nefertari

Title: The Cursed

Author: AthosianMedjaiTwins (a.k.a. jewel of athos & fyd818)

Author’s Note: Welcome to our The Mummy/Stargate: Atlantis crossover fic! This idea was born from an idea we both had separately, then decided to combine into this one big fic. The prologue is very confusing, but we promise that things will slowly be explained along the way. We both adore and crave feedback, so please feed starving writers and drop us a few lines, let us know what you think. Thank you so much for checking out our fic, and we really hope you enjoy it! ~AthosianMedjaiTwins

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The Cursed

AthosianMedjaiTwins

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-Chapter 1-

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~Thebes, Egypt: 19th Dynasty~

Ancient Egypt is in chaos. Seti I is dead, murdered by his future queen, Ankh-su-namun, who then killed herself; the Princess Nefertiri dead from suspicious circumstances; the High Priest Imhotep forever cursed by the dreadful Hom-Dai, forever doomed to be the living dead in his sarcophagus beneath Anubis’s guardian feet.

The rule is left to Ramses II, the boy who is barely a man. With the grief from losing his father and his half-sister fresh in his heart, the young pharaoh takes the throne with the young bride picked for him, Queen Nefertari. Angry at the loss of his family and his mentor, Ramses proceeds to command a sweep of Egypt, changing everything in his path. The old is new again – and all about Ramses.

As Ramses grows older, he becomes consumed with making Egypt his own. The only other thing important in his life is Nefertari, whom he’s come to love more than his land. Continuing his transformation of Egypt, Ramses starts placing statues of his beloved Nefertari – as large as his own – on his temples and monuments. Egypt, swept into a frenzy by the changes, comes to see their king and queen on equal footing, the two most powerful people in the world – even greater than Seti I and his vengeful almost-bride. Ramses and Nefertari were loved for what they did.

What no one knew was that Ramses had been Imhotep’s pupil before the priest’s death. All the incantations, spells, and secrets in the Book of the Dead and the Book of the Living – as well as the two books themselves – had been passed down to the young boy. As a man, he revolutionized Egypt with what he’d learned at Imhotep’s knee.

Until the day Nefertari died.

The one spell he’d never been able to conquer was the spell of bringing the dead back to life, thus leaving him without his beloved queen, and Egypt without the balancing force that restrained Ramses’s zeal for change. He channeled his grief into his work, not only continuing the changes in his land but taking wars to the neighboring countries to conquer them, too, and expand Ramses’s Egypt.

Among his projects and battles, Ramses continued to try to grasp the one spell that had eluded him. To his dying day he kept trying, but never succeeded. But he did know another spell, one that would help him at just the right time. One that would come into play at just the right time so he could once more try to bring Nefertari back to life so, together, they could rule the world, just like his teacher had wanted so badly.

If Imhotep was the thorn in humanity’s side as the living dead, Ramses was the rose itself, beautiful on the outside but full of thorns inside – ten times worse than his teacher, and far more consumed by living so many years without the one he loved.

~Medjai Encampment, somewhere in the Egyptian desert, April 13, 1934~

Ardeth Bay took a deep breath of the hot, dry desert air, and smiled. He loved this country with all of his heart. In spite of the loneliness of being a Medjai, and in spite of the great evils that he fought to keep hidden under the sand, there was also much beauty here.

He took another deep breath, and turned to enter a large tent, lit with torches and candles and small fires to ward off the darkness of night.

Inside was a scene of lively activity as his Medjai brothers crowded the edges of the tent to watch the fast, intricate dance being performed in the middle of the room. Twelve girls---all sisters or cousins of at least one of the men---in colorful skirts swirled around, veils, skirts, and hair flying, occasionally brushing up against one of the men if they intruded upon the dancing ground.

"Hey," a low, rumbling voice beside him took his attention away from the dancers as his best friend and second-in-command---Ronon Dex---stepped up beside him. "Where were you?"

"Outside, enjoying the cool night air," Ardeth turned his eyes back to the dancers, enjoying the intricate rainbow that they wove.

"There is no ‘cool air’ in Egypt, at night or otherwise," Ronon reminded him. "What were you really doing?" Ardeth shrugged.

"There is too much smoke and wine in here; I was clearing my head." Ronon laughed softly.

"You got back in time for the dancers, I see," he said teasingly. "Have you had your eye on one in particular?"

"No, my friend," Ardeth said, even as his eyes flicked around from girl to girl. "They were all away for so long, I hardly know them at all anymore. I have not seen them since we were all children." he paused, glancing up into his taller friend's face. "Do you have one in mind to settle down with?" he asked. His friend's face turned red, and he looked away as Ardeth laughed.

"What? Ronon Dex wants to settle down?"

"No," Ronon shook his head helplessly, flipping his dreadlocks out of his face as he averted his eyes from Ardeth's in favor of the dancers again. "But there's not much point in guarding Hamunaptra like this; it's gone, buried, and Imhotep's dead corpse with it. What's the point?"

"Ronon, ancient magic is a very powerful, very dangerous thing..." he was about to say more, but the music stopped, and all of the girls turned to face him---the leader of the Medjai---and bowed low.

One girl in green caught his eye---she appeared to be the leader of the dance---as her eyes traveled up to meet his and Ronon's, despite her bowed head. None of the other girls dared to look up.

Those eyes took him by surprise, so rich and warm and deep they were. He realized that those eyes could hold unspeakable power over any man on whom she chose to wield them.

Ardeth nodded to her---noticing absently that Ronon copied the gesture---and touched his forehead in a sort of half-salute. She gave the tiniest nod in return, and lowered her eyes again as if she had never seen them.

~Medjai Encampment, somewhere in the Egyptian desert, April 13, 1934~

Ráidah Kaydin looked mournfully at the dress draped over her sleeping pallet. The bright red fabric, lined with silver threads and thousands of shiny, jingling coins, made her want to go hide in a corner for the rest of her life. As leader of the female branch of the Medjai, she had always been lighter on her feet with a sword in her hand instead of a scarf. But that was exactly what she was going to do tonight, go dance with the other women in that silly outfit draped across her bed like a waterfall of crimson blood to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Imhotep’s final banishment to the Underworld.

Had she lost her mind?

As she stripped from her normal outfit of dark pants, shirt, and headdress, reluctantly slithered into the skirt, then pulled the loose, filmy top over her head, she decided she hadn’t lost her mind – just misplaced it temporarily. Hopefully she would find it the next morning, before she made even more of a fool of herself.

Hesitantly, Ráidah went over to the little wooden chest where she kept all her jewelry. It was a paltry few pieces, for she had never been interested in dressing up. She could count on the fingers of both hands the times in her entire life she’d worn a skirt. But tonight she would change that. Tonight. . . Well, tonight, she would be beautiful.

Yielding to her womanly pride, Ráidah snatched up a pair of large silver hoops, roughly made but smooth enough to pass as fine jewelry. She slid the only set of silver bangles she owned onto her right wrist, then wound around her neck the only necklace she owned, which she’d received from her mother, allowing the small red stone to nestle into the hollow of her throat.

This was positively ridiculous. She was bound to die of mortification before this night was finally over – and now it was only just beginning.

She looked down at herself, wondering if there was any hope of salvaging her dignity. Probably not. Sighing, she went to her small mirror and tried out several different ways of winding her hair, hating each new style even more than the last. At last she muttered a curse and pulled it back at the sides, letting it fall down to the middle of her back in whatever way it wanted. Her hair was much shorter than most women’s; the only woman’s hair that was shorter than hers was her sister-friend Teyla Emmagan, because she was attempting to hide among the Medjai as a man. She was already scorned enough for being so different, so no one seemed to notice anything amiss about her hair length. For all Ráidahnew, the men probably thought Teyla was trying to join Ráidah’s tribe. That was fine – it would cast their suspicious somewhere other than toward the truth. She took a brief moment to admire her friend’s bravery, then reluctantly turned her attention back to the matter immediately at hand.

Ráidah grabbed the sheer red veil Teyla had dropped off earlier, along with the rest of the dancing ensemble. It was long and cumbersome-looking, with a thick, opaque headband to keep it in place atop her head. Cringing, she settled it onto her thick hair, then scowled even more as she fastened it with two simple hair pins she’d made herself. It would have to do. She snatched up the red-and-silver scarf she would use during her dance, then decided she couldn’t do much more damage to herself.

She started to turn, then hesitated and ran a finger along the scar that marred her left eyebrow and cheekbone. She had had it since she was a little girl, and tried not to let it bother her, but she knew everyone looked at her differently because of it. The scar was one of the many reasons she had scorned the male Medjai and formed her own army of exclusively women. Sighing, she wrapped the scarf around her shoulders for safekeeping before stepping out of her tent and heading for the male Medjai’s camp. Teyla had talked her into dancing, and Ráidah had accepted in hopes that she would be anonymous and unrecognized among the other dancers. Not many people had ever seen her in a dress before and would hopefully not realize it was she. Celebrating the death of Imhotep was just as much of a right to her as any other Medjai, after all. . .

The night was still warm as she hesitantly stepped outside her tent. Barefoot, she wove her way among the tents until she reached the largest, the sand still warm beneath her feet from the daytime sun. Already the sounds of celebration were drifting out of the wide opening, with soft music a backdrop to the babble of voices. It would seem she was running on time, for the music would be louder and the voices quieter if the dancing had started.

She kept to the inner wall of the tent as she hesitantly moved along, trying to spot a familiar figure in the crowd. At last she spied Teyla, who was dressed similarly to Ráidah, save for the fact that her dress was green and gold instead of red and silver. One hand was raised and gesturing, the gold bangles on her wrist flashing in the light of the candles and lamps lit around the tent to provide light. Uncaring whom she was speaking to, Ráidah seized her wrist and dragged her to a halfway secluded corner. “How do I look?” she asked anxiously.

Teyla pushed aside her veil, uncovering the lower half of her face. She’d pulled her short hair, spun through with golden red highlights, back away from her face to allow her beautiful facial features to shine beneath her sheer green veil. “You look fine,” she said, her eyes briefly moving past Ráidah, undoubtedly to whomever she’d been speaking with before. “I do not see what you are so concerned about. We both learned to dance when we were young girls.”

Ráidah bit her lower lip. “I know,” she said mournfully. “That is the problem. I believe I have forgotten everything I learned.” She glanced quickly around, glad to see that Ardeth Bay had not yet arrived. A few simmerings of hatred stirred in her stomach at the thought of him, but she shoved them away. The point of the evening’s activities was to celebrate, not bring about more hatred and fighting. She was interested to notice, however, that Ardeth’s second-in-command, Ronon Dex, was standing by the entrance to the tent. He was looking around for someone, and Ráidah realized that he didn’t know where the Medjai commander was, either.

Sighing, Teyla jerked her veil back up and took Ráidah’s hand. “Follow my lead,” she said softly. They wound their way through the crowd of men, who were all laughing and partying. This was what came about from a great Medjai victory. . . It was all about to make Ráidah sick. Why had she come? She should have stayed in the safe, lonely comfort of her tent. She could only get into trouble here.

The other women, twelve in all, were waiting when Ráidah and Teyla arrived in the open center. Dressed in all the colors Ráidah could imagine and more, they quickly took their positions so they could begin the dance.

Toward the back corner of the room, the soft background music suddenly silenced. As if it were a signal, all chatter in the tent ceased as well, leaving it utterly silent. For a long breath Ráidah kept herself completely still, though she wondered if the pounding of her heart was making her entire body shake as badly as she thought it was. She should have stayed home. . .

Before she could second-guess herself again, the music suddenly started once more, much louder this time. The lonely, haunting call of a flute trembled alone on the thick air, hanging much longer than Ráidah thought possible. Then, abruptly, it quit, replaced by throbbing drums, chiming zills, and lastly the flute once more.

The women around her burst into life. Flustered, and having lost sight of Teyla already, Ráidah quickly spun into action, desperately praying for guidance for her feet – and that she wouldn’t trip over herself or someone else – as she joined in. She used her long scarf to cover most of her movements, knowing she was badly executing most of them, and totally losing some others. She tried to stay hidden as best she could among the other dancers, suddenly hating the color red for being so flamboyantly noticeable. She swore right then that she would never wear another scrap of red clothing as long as she lived.

Suddenly everyone around her halted, turning toward the entrance. Flustered, Ráidah followed their gazes, then flushed deeply when she realized the Medjai commander had finally made his entrance, gaze focused on the dancers who were now bowing in his and his second-in-command’s direction. Quickly bending her body at the waist, Ráidah took the time to look for Teyla out of the corner of her eye. Noting her position, she stood with the others as the music started back exactly where it had left off as the two high-ranking Medjai worked their way closer to the front of the crowd.

It took her a few seconds to get back into the rhythm of the dance, but soon Ráidah found some sort of tempo she could follow with her limited remembered knowledge of dancing. She knew the last thing she should do was close her eyes, but the urge to do so was lingering unacknowledged at the fringes of her mind. It was a good thing, then, that she couldn’t, for her eyes were frozen wide open with shock and fear. She had been flung into a situation that was so far outside her comfort zone it hardly existed, and everything around her was starting to blur into one haze. She realized she was still spinning around. She stopped abruptly, trying to calm her heart and breathing as she forced her fumbling feet to find a comfortable rhythm to move to. At that point, it didn’t matter if her rhythm matched the music or not.

For a very brief moment she caught a glimpse of a swirling green scarf, but as quickly as it was there, it was gone, leaving her once more lost since she couldn’t follow her friend’s moves. Ráidah gulped, wishing she hadn’t just missed her chance of trailing Teyla. But there were too many other people between her and her friend, and she had little hope of finding her now. Swallowing down the panic that was careening its way through her chest and up into her throat, she slowly shimmied her way toward the crowd, hoping she could find an open spot that she could slip through to the outdoors. By Isis, how had she ever thought she could do this?

So focused was she on her goal, she wasn’t entirely paying attention to where she was going. Suddenly she found herself falling, her nose smarting, eyes filling with tears of pain from where she’d smacked into what had felt like a solid wall. She squeezed her eyes shut, praying for her humiliation to be over soon when she hit the ground – maybe Anubis would take her right then and spare her the misery of embarrassment. But before she felt the impact, hands grasped the fabric at her waist and yanked her upwards again. Once more she slammed into that wall that was actually, she found to her mortification, a chest. A male chest.

Ráidah didn’t dare look up into her rescuer’s face, for hers was flushed so deeply she knew it matched her dress. Her only hope was that the color of her sheer veil was at least partly masking her embarrassment. She hoped to slip back away into the dancers, but had no luck when a powerful hand grasped her wrist and dragged her through the crowd of men toward the doorway.

Fear was not something Ráidah was entirely familiar with. But at that moment she felt it very acutely – for there were only two things she felt confident would happen to her now. Either she would be reamed out for being such a horrible performer, or she was being dragged off to some drunken rascal’s tent for further “entertainment.” She still couldn’t bring herself to look up, even as she stumbled her way after her rescuer-turned-captor.

Suddenly they were outside. Ráidah drew in a deep breath, realizing that even the hot desert air felt cooler than the even hotter, stuffy air of the inside of the tent. She eagerly reached up and dragged her veil down so she could draw in huge gulps of its fresh, albeit dry, comfort.

“What were you thinking?” At the same moment the stinging words met her ears, her wrist was released.

Ráidah thought briefly of running, but her ire was sparked by the voice – and its tone. Spinning to face the leader of the Medjai, she planted her hands on her hips, all her jewelry clanking and the coins on her dress jingling, as she stood on her bare tiptoes so she could try to get closer to his face. “I was doing a favor for a friend!” she stormed.

Ardeth’s face was dark with anger, his eyes black over dark, shadowed cheekbones. He looked tired and irritated. “Your poor friend,” he said scathingly. “Did no one teach you anything when you were child?”

Bristling, Ráidah hauled back and punched him in the chest. Ardeth took a step back, but otherwise seemed unfazed. Shouting an unkind word at him, knowing no one else could hear her over the music, she shook both her fists at him and trembled with rage. “I learned plenty, thank you! Plenty to know that being a ‘woman’ is not for me. Teyla begged me to come tonight so I could have some fun and maybe unwind a little from all the stress you have put me under – since I have to clean up all the messes you and your men make – but all I get is you giving me even more grief!” She was practically screaming at him now.

His face twisted, at first in what she thought was anger. Then suddenly he burst out laughing, throwing his head back as he howled his amusement to the sky. He laughed so hard he had to double over and plant his hands on his knees to keep himself upright.

Incensed, Ráidah planted her hands on his shoulders and shoved him as hard as she could. His laugh strangled into a shout of surprise as he tumbled backwards, landing on his rear in the sand. “And that,” she shouted angrily at his startled form, “is what you get for insulting a woman’s honor!” Spinning on her heel, she took off toward her tent, not caring if Ardeth managed to regain his feet or not. As far as she was concerned, the jackals could eat and enjoy his carcass.

She didn’t notice Ardeth shift onto his knees, then pick up the veil that had dropped from her head during her tirade. If she had looked back, she would have seen him tenderly fold the red material and then carefully tuck it into his pocket.

If only they had known what was happening at that very moment in Cairo. It was something that would turn both their worlds upside down and make their feud seem extraordinarily insignificant. . .

~The Cairo Museum of Antiquities, Cairo, Egypt, April 13, 1934~

It had been over ten years since Evelyn Carnahan-O’Connell, librarian-turned-adventurer, had worked at the Cairo Museum and had her great and somewhat infamous blunder in the library. Many changes had come to the museum since her departure, including the construction of a special room designed specifically for the royal mummies that were being discovered almost yearly.

In that room, among other famous Pharaohs in ancient Egyptian history (including, for a time in the coming future, the great Tutankhamun himself), lay one Ramses II, also known as Ramses the Great. He was quite the legend in his time, living to be over 90 years old -- almost unheard of in that day and age. He conquered many lands, had over two hundred children with his over five hundred wives and concubines (he even outlived most of those children, wives, and concubines), and built many monuments to glorify himself.

Ramses was not a terribly remarkable mummy, and received few visitors. The tourists tended to flock toward the more macabre mummies, whose visages wore screams even in death, or whose skin had drawn back over time, leaving their long-yellowed and decomposed teeth bared in sickly grins, their eyelids sunken into empty sockets, and deformed noses twisted at odd angles. Ramses, however, was a rather peaceful-looking mummy, with a few tufts of hair still left on his head, his hands crossed nobly across his breast in the fashion of the Pharaohs in death and life, and his face remarkably preserved in a surprisingly serene expression. He looked like a man who had died at peace with the world after ninety-four happy, long years of life -- though that was certainly not the case.

At the stroke of midnight on April 13, 1934, the most remarkable thing happened in the mummy room of the Cairo Museum of Antiquities.

It began as a whisper of a breeze that stirred a few loose leaves of paper laying upon a table on the far side of the room from the door. The stack was only slightly upset: at first. Seconds later an even stronger wind completely stirred the stack into a frenzy, whipping the sheets about the room as if in a whirlwind.

Then, among the glass cases that were now home to the many mummies discovered in Egyptian tombs, there began to appear bodies. Several bore horrific wounds, inflicted by knives, swords, poisoned darts, and more modern bullet holes. One in particular stood out -- a large dark-skinned man, more than half decomposed, dressed in bright red with a ceremonial medallion around his neck and gold earrings through his pierced ears. He bore only two wounds on his body -- crisscrossed slashes on his chest, inflicted by the curved blade of the great Chieftain of the Medjai, Ardeth Bay, a little over a year before. His name was Lock-Nah, and he was the unchallenged leader of the band of red-clad warriors around him.

At the same time Lock-Nah and his associates were appearing in the mummy room, their skin slowly returning to the health only life can bring, Ramses was undergoing a transformation himself. His skin, drawn tight over his bones from the drying-out it had undergone during the mummification process, began to take on the color and texture it had held over three thousand years before. The rich bronze color solidified as his fingers and toes began to twitch. His hair grew until he had a mane as dark as a moonless Egyptian night, not a hint of grey among the strands. His mouth opened, allowing him to draw in a long, satisfying breath. At last his eyes opened, his gaze darting around the room so he could ascertain his location.

A young man of twenty-three years old (as impossible as it seemed), Ramses murmured a spell in ancient Egyptian as he slowly began to sit up. The glass lid of the case that had been his tomb for almost thirty years lifted and then shot away from the rest of the structure, shattering against the opposite wall. Glass shards sprayed everywhere, coming to rest on the red-clad warriors that were themselves staring to re-animate.

Ramses had expected, when he placed a spell on himself with his dying breath so very long ago, to wake in his tomb. However, now that the time had come, he found himself in a strange place, with dried out corpses mingled with newly healed men from a more modern era. He turned to the large dark-skinned man closest, who was already snapping orders at the men around him in an unfamiliar language. But Ramses had made a provision for this -- he had an army, the enemy of the Medjai he hated so much, the “bodyguards” who had failed his father -- raised from the dead with him. He had left it up to the gods to choose the best, and apparently they chose this rather strange band who spoke a language he couldn’t interpret. He figured to make the best of it, though.

“You!” Ramses snapped at the apparent leader of his new bodyguards. “Do you speak the language of the kings?”

Immediately the man scrambled to his feet, swaying a bit as he tried to regain his equilibrium after almost a year of being dead. It wasn’t easy to regain one’s balance after such an event, after all. Ramses knew that better than most -- save, perhaps, for the living men in the room with him. “Yes,” he replied in the same language. “I am Lock-Nah, and we live to serve, my Pharaoh.” He sketched a deep bow, seeming more at ease on his feet now even after only a few seconds. His hand swept out to include those around him, who had scrambled to their knees and now lay with their faces pressed to the ground in respect to their new master.

Ramses, still in the tattered remains of his mummy wrappings, looked around. “Where am I?” he demanded.

“A museum in the modern city of Cairo,” Lock-Nah replied. “You will find the world a much different place now, my lord, for the year is 1933. At least, it was when I died -- I do not know how long I was dead, my lord, but I do know over three thousand years has passed since your death.”

Frustrated, Ramses ripped the last of his wrappings away, then used the rough woolen blanket that had been covering him from the waist down as a robe. He wrapped it several times around himself under the arms, then climbed from his glass sarcophagus to stand before his new subjects. “Whom did you formerly serve, Lock-Nah?” he demanded.

The big man still had not looked up, and neither had his fellows. Ramses was pleased at this development -- they were obviously a loyal lot, sycophants that would well serve their purpose.

“The High Priest Imhotep, my Pharaoh,” Lock-Nah replied. “But he abandoned us to die, at a cursed place called Ahm-Shere, from where you rescued us and brought us back to life. We owe you our lives, my lord.”

Ramses smiled as a murmur of agreement rustled through the other (living) men in the room. So that was it, then. He would command the troops his mentor had abandoned so callously, demand and receive their respect and loyalty until they once more embraced death in service to their king.

Turning his face upwards, Ramses smiled at the sky he could not see because of the ceiling of the strange crypt Lock-Nah had referred to as a museum. Now that he was alive once more, re-animated at the prime age of his long life, he could do what he’d been waiting over three-thousand years to do: He could bring his beloved Nefertari back to life. And, once he did, they would be an unstoppable force together. The world would be theirs to command, as it should have been during their reign.

Ramses would make sure of it this time.

-To Be Continued-

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Thank you so much for reading this first chapter, and we hoped you enjoyed it! Please let us know what you think?