Chapter Thirty-Two: Anck-su-namun

 

 

***

 

 

Evy stood across the massive throne room from Imhotep.  Silence echoed in the chamber.  Evy took a deep breath, her eyes locked on the priest’s.  The two stared at each other, three millennia of tangled history spread out between them.

 

Rick still lay on the ground behind Imhotep, holding his throbbing neck.  Evy tightened her grip on the gold book, completely unsure of what to do.  Panicked thoughts raced through her mind.

 

In the corner, behind the pillars, Evy could make out the forms of Ardeth and another Med Jai fighting two soldier mummies.  But she could not look to them for help.  This was her own battle, and she must face it alone.

 

Imhotep broke the tense silence.  “Give me the book, Nefertiri,” he commanded, taking a few steps towards her.  In fear Evy backed away, looking towards Rick.

 

“Rick!  Where is the key?” Evy screamed, her question echoing in the marble hall.

 

“Jonathan,” Rick gasped out, making painful eye contact with his wife in a desperate attempt to help her, his bruised body still curled up on the floor.  “Jonathan has it.”

 

Where the hell is Jonathan? Evy thought frantically, taking another step back.

 

Suddenly, the main door of the throne room banged open.  All the eyes in the room turned in unison, looking in shock towards the door.  With a groan and a shuffle, the army of the dead advanced.

 

 

***

 

 

Evy watched over her shoulder in surprise as the dead began stumbling into the room.  There weren’t many, just five or ten, but they marched awkwardly forward.  Groaning and shuffling their feet, their papery skin and dry flesh crunched horribly.  Evy winced, repulsed by them even as she knew that they had been raised to help her.

 

For those few seconds the entire throne room watched silently as the dead moved into the room.  And as the seconds passed the numbers began to increase.  They moved forward, rigidly and sightlessly, and a shiver of foreboding ran down Evy’s spine.

Imhotep watched in shock as the dead began entering from the entrance across the hall.  How had the dead got past the army of Anubis, the army of jackals?  Was it possible that they were losing the battle outside?  Impossible, he told himself.  The Gods were on his side.  He could not lose.

 

But Imhotep knew that the dead would head for him, trying to bring him down.  Although he could easily toss them away, they would be a nuisance.  A distracting nuisance.

 

Enough was enough.  Imhotep knew he had to get the golden book back into his possession.  He returned his steely gaze to Nefertiri.  She would be first.  He turned to begin striding towards Evy, ready to stop her at any cost.

 

But, at that moment, Anck-su-namun made her final appearance.

 

 

***

 

 

Ardeth sunk his blade into the soldier mummy, watching with immense satisfaction as the carcass fell heavily to the marble floor.  Quickly wiping the sweat from his brow, Ardeth looked over at Pierre and Adil, who were both battling the last mummy.  The undead creature was putting up quite a fight, but Ardeth knew that soon it too would be slain.

 

Ardeth moved away from the corner of the room where he had been fighting, eager to see how Rick was faring against Imhotep.  Coming out from behind a marble column, Ardeth froze.

 

The army of the dead had begun to enter the throne room.  He had been so intent on fighting he had not realized that the battle had taken another turn.  His eyes quickly scanned the room.  Rick lay, bruised and immobilized on the ground.  Ardeth sucked in his breath quickly and hoped that his friend was alright.  His gaze shifted to Imhotep, who was standing still, staring across the room.  What was he looking at?

 

Ardeth swung his gaze around and his eyes finally came to rest on Evy.  Evy, holding the Book of Amun-Ra.  Triumph surged through the body of the Med Jai chieftain.  Evy was coming to end this, once and for all.  Victory seemed so close and so certain Ardeth could practically taste it.

 

But where was Jonathan?  All they needed now was the key.  Ardeth grasped the hilt of his scimitar and began moving out of the shadows, toward Rick, who lay near the huge golden throne on the marble floor.  But why wasn’t Imhotep moving?  What was he staring at?

 

Ardeth looked again, and his eyes came to rest on the figure of Anck-su-namun.  The queen stood, her body trembling with uncertainty, just inside the doorway at the far end of the hall.  Only fifteen feet from where Evy stood, Anck-su-namun waited, her hands clenching the beautiful ceremonial robes she wore.  Evy and Ardeth, across the room from each other, both stopped, staring at the queen in surprise.  But she only had eyes for Imhotep.

 

She did not speak.  Finally Imhotep’s voice echoed, and Ardeth was surprised by the confusion in the priest’s tone.  “Anck-su-namun, what are you doing?”

 

 

***

 

 

Rick finally managed to pull himself into a sitting position.  His leg screamed in agony but he forced himself to sit.  He would be of no use to anyone laying prone on the ground.  He stifled a moan.  As his eyes scanned upwards, his gaze fell on Evy.

 

She still took his breath away.

 

His chest tightened.  Now that he had her again, now that he saw her, safe and beautiful, he knew that he could never bear to lose her again.  He had lost her once.  Losing her a second time would finish him.

 

His eyes swept across her face, her proud, beautiful eyes.  He was one of the strongest men he had ever known, and yet as he looked at Evy, across the room, he knew that he was only strong so long as he knew that she was safe.  His love for her gave him strength.  If he lost her he would be nothing.

 

His leg was stiffening and Rick leaned over it, bending and stretching it by clutching his knee to his chest.  Pain shot up his limb and he groaned.  He did not want to know how badly he was hurt.  In any event, it did not matter.  If there was a job for him he would do it.  He had pushed himself beyond the limits of pain before.

 

Wiping his hair out of his eyes Rick’s gaze swept back across the room, and abruptly fell on Anck-su-namun.

 

He had not prepared himself for seeing her at all.  But now, watching her standing there, the golden fabric draped around her slender form, the look of sadness in her eyes...the memory came upon him, hot and vivid.  He remembered a day, a day many millennia ago when he had gone to meet secretly with Nefertiri in the gardens...a day he had come upon Anck-su-namun, who had known his secret: his love of the princess he could never have.  Anck-su-namun and Menmet had not been friends...but they had formed a strange alliance, a sorrowful kinship of understanding.

 

He could hear her lilting voice, her words of warning, as though they had been spoken yesterday, not in the faraway land of a previous life.  A time may come when I am your enemy, as much as you are now my friend.  A time may come when you will be forced to kill me, as much as you are now supposed to protect my life.  She had warned him, but he had not wanted to hear.  And then she asked him for a promise, he who took such oaths as seriously as the bonds of blood.  In return for my secrecy, you will make me a promise...when that day comes that I speak of, you will treat me and my beloved with mercy.  That is all I ask.

 

And his own tempered response: Mercy comes in many forms.

 

She had known the truth of his response, she who was wise beyond her years.  Rick shook his head gently as the memory faded.  She had asked him for mercy but it was no longer in his power to grand such a reprieve.  When he had made that promise she had been but a concubine.  Now she was murderer, queen, a woman who ruled the world on the arm of a madman.

 

But still something twisted inside of Rick, a lingering sorrow for her, and he was surprised at the tenderness he felt towards Anck-su-namun.  Those feelings were completely foreign to Rick.  Only Menmet had felt them, and the feelings surged forward, shadows of a former lifetime.

 

Rick looked at her, immediately recognizing the sorrow in her eyes.  But he looked deeper and also saw determination there.  With a start, he knew what she was going to do.  Something in him knew her, knew her as though she were an extension of his own self.

 

Struggling with his thoughts, Rick felt the form of his best friend kneel by his side.  He felt Ardeth’s arm go behind his head as the Med Jai helped him forward.  Rick groaned in pain.  But his mind was not on his injuries.

 

Perhaps mercy was not protecting her or saving her life, as Menmet had thought.  Perhaps she had not been asking for that at all, those many years ago.  Perhaps she had been asking for freedom.  Perhaps mercy was giving her a choice, allowing her to choose her own fate.

 

Rick slumped against Ardeth.  He could do nothing for her.  And yet inexplicably, deep down, he knew that his promise was being fulfilled.

 

 

***

 

 

Imhotep paused in confusion.  His eyes flitted back between Anck-su-namun, the love of his life, and Nefertiri, who stood calmly holding the golden book–the one book in the world that could kill him.  What was Anck-su-namun doing?  What should he do?  He hesitated, unsure, as Anck-su-namun stood silently.  Her eyes bored into his own and for a moment Imhotep lost himself in her gaze.  She was not afraid, or angry...with a shock Imhotep realized that she was sad.  Why?  What was she doing?

 

He tore his eyes away from her own to sweep across the marching dead.  He noticed, worried, that they were nearing the two women as they continued to march across the main hall.  In a minute they would be upon them.  Imhotep hesitated, not knowing what to do, his gaze flitting back and forth between his queen and his slave.

 

Silence echoed, the only sounds those of the dead, as they groaned and shuffled their feet, moaning and stumbling forward.  And getting closer and closer to Evy.

 

Who was only fifteen feet from the queen.

 

“Anck-su-namun, get away from there,” he called out, his usually confidant voice slightly shaky.  His eyes begged her to move, to respond to him, but she just looked back, her eyes full of sorrow.  What was she doing?

 

 

***

 

 

“How do you feel?” Ardeth asked Rick urgently, stealing a glance up at Imhotep.  Ardeth couldn’t believe that Anck-su-namun was accomplishing what their raised army of dead could not.  She was distracting him far more than the dead soldiers.

 

“I’ve been better,” Rick muttered as Ardeth wiped away the blood from his face using the sleeve of his dark robe.

 

“Can you stand?”

 

Rick groaned as he tried to place his weight on his injured leg.  “Ok, ok,” Ardeth muttered, quickly checking the injury.  “Stay here.”

 

“Ardeth,” Rick muttered urgently, “you must protect Evy and the book.”  Ardeth nodded and placed his hand on Rick’s arm reassuringly.  As Ardeth crouched by Rick’s side, both men looked up.  The army of dead had almost reached Evy.

 

 

***

 

 

At that moment, Jonathan bounded in through another entrance into the throne room, skidding to a halt.  Anck-su-namun stood not twenty feet from him, and beyond her were the dead, moving slowly towards him.  “Whoa!” he cried to himself.

 

“Jonathan!” Evy screamed, not noticing the small form of her son hiding in the shadows of the doorway.  Her heart leapt into her throat.  Her brother lived!  He looked the same as ever, and Evy wondered if it was possible it had been two years, if it was possible any time had passed at all between them.  Gods, she had missed him.

 

“Evy!” he yelled joyously, waving the gleaming silver object in his hand.  “I have the key!”

 

 

***

 

 

The key!  Imhotep’s eyes alit on the gleaming silver box, held in the hand of Nefertiri’s brother.  Imhotep had not seen Jonathan Carnahan in over two years, but he still remembered what he had done twelve years ago at Hamanuptra: order the soldier mummies to kill Anck-su-namun.  Imhotep flushed with anger at the memory, but as Jonathan waved his arm, and the key moved, glinting, in the air, Imhotep’s anger faded away.

 

Momentarily forgetting his surroundings Imhotep took a step forward.  “The key,” he murmured, almost entranced by its gleam.  Without the key his enemies could not open the book or read the spell.  And then Imhotep would defeat them.  And keep his powers forever.

 

Imhotep took another silent step towards Jonathan, his eyes locked on the key.  But Jonathan did not notice.  He only had eyes for Evy.

 

 

***

 

 

Evy felt her face might crack her smile was so huge.  Her brother had come for her, with the key, as he had twelve years ago at Hamanuptra, when they had been but children...they could not lose now, not when they were so close, not when all of the pieces were falling into place.  “Jonathan!” Evy yelled.  “Throw me the key!”

 

But as the words left her mouth, the stream of the dead finally hit.

 

“Auggghhh!”  Evy cried out.  She flinched instinctively as the army swarmed around her.  Suddenly Evy was surrounded with moving carcasses, and she shuddered at their rotting flesh and empty eyes.  Sightlessly they made their way around her, not touching her, but they were so close Evy could smell their breaths, hot and foul.  Shivering in disgust, Evy cowered, hugging the book tighter to her chest.

 

 

***

 

 

Nefertiri’s cry jerked Imhotep out of his trance.  He turned, seeing that the dead had marched around Nefertiri, and were still heading towards Anck-su-namun.  Why was she not moving?  Did she not realize the danger that she was in?  He had to get the key!  What was she doing?  She could take care of herself!  He had to protect his immortality.

 

He took another step towards Jonathan, who still held the gleaming silver key tightly in his hand.

 

 

***

 

 

Jonathan’s mouth hung open as he watched the dead surround his baby sister.  “Evy!” he yelled, but as soon as the cry left his lips he could see that she was unharmed.  The dead were leaving her alone, streaming all around her but leaving her untouched.

 

“I’m alright!” she shouted back, her voice almost drowned out by the droning of the army of dead.  Jonathan took a deep breath with some relief, his eyes wide as he watched the scene before him.  No matter how many times he saw the undead rise, it never failed to amaze him.

 

 

***

 

 

Imhotep took another step towards Jonathan.  But Anck-su-namun still stood there, silent and still, watching as the army of the dead groaned and stumbled towards her.  Imhotep stopped again, completely unsure of what to do.

 

 

***

 

“Uncle Jon,” Alex whispered urgently behind him, peeking out from behind the doorway.  Suddenly remembering Alex’s presence, Jonathan turned and crouched next to his nephew.  What to do with Alex?  He owed it to Evy and Rick to keep him safe.  He had to stay near Evy to deliver the key, but he should find a safe place for Alex.  Where was Rick?

 

Jonathan took a quick look, expertly scanning the grand hall.  In the back he could see Rick on the ground and Ardeth crouching by his side.  He exhaled quickly, hoping that Rick was alright.  But Ardeth appeared to be unharmed, and what better place to send Alex than into the arms of his father?

 

Jonathan turned to look at Alex.  Alex’s young blue eyes stared back expectantly, and Jonathan’s heart swelled at the trust in them.  They sure did make quite a team.  “Go to your dad,” Jonathan urged.

 

Alex did not need to be told twice.  His face soaring with happiness, Alex moved away from Jonathan, towards his father.  “Dad,” he murmured.  Without another word Alex began sneaking down the side of the throne room, making his way towards the man he hadn’t seen in two years.

 

Jonathan gripped the key tightly in his right hand.  He would never admit this later, but he used his left hand to rub across his damp eyes.

 

 

***

 

 

 “Anck-su-namun, what are you doing?” Imhotep called frantically as he watched the army of dead near her.

 

But she just stood there silently, a tear sliding down her face.  Evy’s heart wrenched in pity.

 

The dead were almost at Anck-su-namun.   “Anck-su-namun!” Imhotep cried out, torn in frenzied shock and horror, trapped by his own indecision.  “Move!” 

 

But he did not understand.

 

 

***

 

 

Adil slid his scimitar through the last mummy, grabbing onto Pierre for support.  “We did it,” he murmured, sweat pouring down his bronzed skin.  But his face was flushed with victory, and the deep satisfaction in his eyes reflected their triumph.

 

“We sure as hell did,” Pierre replied, grinning.  Turning and quickly assessing the room, the two warriors ran out of the shadows in the corner.  They quickly made their way over to Ardeth and O’Connell, ready once again to follow the orders of their chieftain.

 

And still the dead marched towards the queen.

 

 

***

 

 

No one understood.  Anck-su-namun blinked back a tear as she looked into the face of her love.  He was staring at her with such horror, such confusion, such fear–she could not help but pity him.  But her heart ached that he did not know her.

 

He was expecting her to move.  He was expecting her to run away from the approaching army of dead.  But she could not.  This was mercy, the mercy that she had been promised: the ability to choose her own destiny.  She took a deep, shuddering breath, mentally preparing herself for what she must do.

 

Anck-su-namun smiled grimly.  She had lived long, been many things: daughter, concubine, murderess, lover, queen.  She had never given up, had never accepted defeat.  She watched as the dead neared, their rotting bodies coming closer and closer.  In a moment they would be upon her.  She shuddered, shivering with revulsion and foreboding, but she forced herself to remain still.  This was what she wanted, this was the fate she had chosen for herself.

 

Because in her heart she knew that Imhotep’s time was over.  His immortality would be ripped away from him, as it had twice before.  And she would be left with the ruins of the world, with the knowledge of his pain and suffering, with the desperate loneliness.   No.  Imhotep’s time on earth was over and so was hers.  She knew it.  All she was left with was the chance to decide how she would leave the world.  A fighter to the bone, Anck-su-namun knew that she would only do so by her own hand.

 

She would accept her own death.  But only on her own terms.

 

 

***

 

 

And with a throaty, collective groan of triumph, the dead finally reached her.

 

The first stumbling corpse reached her, grabbing at her arm.  The second the dead body touched her Imhotep snapped out of his indecision.  The cry ripped out of his throat, disbelieving and utterly horrified.  How had it come to this?  How could their lives have become so warped and twisted that Anck-su-namun was choosing death?

 

He cried out in agony, his voice filled with misery.  His scream of defiance echoed in the marble chamber.

 

“No!”

 

Evy watched as Imhotep began to sprint across the huge room.  Soon a second and a third and a fourth corpse were upon her.  They tugged at her flesh, her hair, clamping their decaying skin against her own.  They wanted to suffocate her life, make her one of them.

 

Imhotep sprinted, his legs pumping, his bronze body dashing across the hall.  But for every pounding step he took across the marble floor another corpse surrounded her.  It wasn’t enough.  Crazed thoughts whirled through his mind as he watched more and more dead enveloping Anck-su-namun.  More and more clustered around her, covering her, pulling her down under their rotting bodies.

 

He wasn’t in time.  It wasn’t enough.  He knew his own failure before it happened, saw his own defeat even as he struggled towards the love of his life.  He could taste the metallic flavor of blood in his own mouth...but even as he ran he knew he was immortal, it could not be blood he was tasting.  Perhaps it was the taste of ruin, bitter on his lips.

 

He opened his mouth to cry out again, but no sound come out.  His lips parted in a wordless cry of pain, of defeat, of the knowledge of utter failure.  And still the dead surrounded the queen, tugging at her, grabbing at her, pulling her down.

 

And Anck-su-namun went down beneath the mob without so much as a cry.

 

 

***

 

The rotting bodies were pulling her down.  She could feel their dead, twisted hands on her flesh, smell the putrid smell of rotting skin near her own.  She gasped in pain and fear, but not regret.  She had made her decision, and she would live with it.

 

Suddenly the light overhead was blocked out as more and more bodies covered her.  In the darkness she felt marble beneath her back, and she knew that her time was almost over.

 

Suddenly, the horror of what she was doing came over her.  She was leaving Imhotep, who she loved more than her own self, she was leaving the land of the living, the only place she had ever known...She was dying, suffocating, she would never be free again, she would go mad...they were killing her, murdering her, she must fight for her life...she struggled and tried to cry out against the dead faces that held her down...

 

...but no.  With a last jerk and a sigh, her fear subsided.  Suddenly she was calm again, calm as the waters of the Nile that had flowed past the palace at Thebes.  So many lifetimes ago she had waded into that clear water!  With a start, with a sudden dawning comprehension, for the first time she fully understood what it meant that three millennia had passed since the day of her birth.  In that time kingdoms had risen and crumbled to dust.  Oceans had dried and become deserts.

 

An eternity had passed.

 

She was a relic of an ancient time, a time whose glory had passed long ago.  Her time was over.  She allowed the rotting bodies to cover her mouth and throat.  It was time to depart this life, this unnatural lifetime she had been granted by some unseen force.

 

And Anck-su-namun knew that, just as she no longer belonged in this world, neither did Imhotep.  His time would come, soon.  But the mere thought of him brought a smile to her face.  Gods she had loved him.  He had been the sun, the moon, and the stars for her.  He had sacrificed and done everything in his power to bring them together.  But their love was not meant to be.  No matter what they tried, they had been unable to live together in peace and happiness.

 

Anck-su-namun did not, could not, blame him.  They had both made their choices, walked into their decisions with their eyes wide open.  And they had both lived with the consequences.

 

And now it was the hour of death.  When she had taken her own life in the palace at Thebes she had believed that Imhotep would resurrect her.  She had murdered herself but had never truly believed that it would be the end.  Death had not felt like death.  She had welcomed it as a gateway to a new rebirth, to a new life with Imhotep, away from Seti and the palace and everything she had hated there.

 

But she knew that this was truly death.  She would not be coming back.  She struggled in a gasp, her body jerking, her physical body desperately needing air.  Moments in her life appeared, unbidden, in her mind, the memories sliding through her as effortlessly as rain.  It was only now, when she would never have it again, that she realized how precious life was.  But her life was fading.

 

And she knew that Imhotep would soon follow her.  Maybe they would meet again, in the afterlife, if the Gods were merciful.  “Goodbye, my love,” she whispered, before a corpse covered her mouth for the final time.  Her chest racked, needing oxygen to flow through her lungs, but more and more dead bodies moved over her, covering her body with their rotting ones.

 

She hoped Imhotep would understand.  And she prayed, fervently, her last prayer in this life, for Imhotep.  She owed him her final prayer.  She prayed that one day the curse would be removed from his soul, and he would find peace.

 

 

***

 

 

“No!  Anck-su-namun!”  Imhotep’s final wail of anguish echoed.  Lowering her head, Evy turned away from the pain in his eyes.

 

Imhotep neared the crush of dead bodies.  Despair and fury coursed through him as he reached out, desperate to pull the corpses away from her.  His heart called out her name–Anck-su-namun, my love, my queen–

 

She heard his cry.  But she was leaving life in the manner of her own choosing, dying with a final prayer for Imhotep on her lips.

 

And Anck-su-namun surrendered her body and welcomed death with open arms, finally ready to face the afterlife and the judgment of her Gods.

 

 

***