Pharaoh’s Curse Pt. 07

"Good evening, and thank you for giving me and my peer," waving to Mal, "this opportunity to present our work to you," Halima spoke in a warm, kind tone beside her ten-year-old laptop. Feeling her heart racing, knowing she could really use that ten thousand dollars. While it wouldn't take all of the burdens off her parent's shoulders in funding her schooling, it would, however, ease some of the strain she knew they were under. "When word got around about what you were wanting, and given how I am Egyptian going back countless centuries," casting Mal a look of forgiveness if she sounded rude, "I thought who better than an Egyptian to design this," she said, waving to the mockup she had painstakingly made. "While this only gave you a general sense of what it would look like when it's complete. I thought I'd show you, at least, the way I see an Egyptian temple looking like with the help of modern technology," Halima stated; her heart was in her throat when Andrew gave her the nod to continue as she turned towards her laptop. Praying that her computer didn't fritz out on her and crash the program she would need to run the model she had made. She hadn't come this far just for her laptop to act up on her. Blowing out a breath in her mind when it had no trouble linking up with the projector in the rear of the room. Biting her tongue as she brought up the program to run the model. Turning her head when she heard the gasps across from her, only to see Anta's and Carla's hands covering their mouths, and noted how wide Andrew's eyes were.

"The new Karnak[5]." The words left Andrew's lips before they even registered in his mind. Not only that, the words left his lips in ancient Egyptian, something Carla and Anta didn't miss as they looked at him. However, the two who were new to the strange language, which hadn't been heard since 30 B.C., looked at him hoping to understand what he'd said. Andrew's eyes couldn't look away from the reds, yellows, whites, blacks, greens, and most importantly, Egyptian blue. His body moved on its own as if the Gods themselves had control of it as it raised off his seat. He barely felt the tips of Carla's and Anta's fingers leaving his back as he did. With every step he took toward the projector screen, he felt the eyes of one god after another on him or, should he say, looking through him as if they, too, were mesmerized by the sight before them.

"I've never heard that variant of Coptic[6] before," Halima said, bringing Andrew out of his daze.

"Huh?" Andrew muttered, having no earthly idea what that word meant.

"Surely you know what Coptic is, given how you're speaking it?" Halima stated, rather confused when she saw Andrew's own confusion on his face, given how no Pharaoh had ever spoken that language.

"Have no clue what you're talking about," Andrew admitted, his eyes glancing down to the nape of Halima's neck only to see the flash of gold of her Uraeus[7]. His mind flashed back to the time when Menes[8] first donned that symbol, only for his mind to move rapidly forward in time to when the Pharaoh's Guard took up using that symbol to identify one another. Shaking it off, he wasn't about to divulge his weirdness to this woman he didn't even know, turning his attention back to the screen. "Can you show me what the inside would look like?" he asked, not taking his eyes off the front of the temple.

"I can," Halima stated, eyeing Andrew very suspiciously. She knew what he had spoken; she had only thrown out Coptic to see how he would react. She had always thought the myth that ran through her order, which you had to be born into, who operated in secret due to the Muslim's and Christian's intolerance of other religions or sects that didn't follow their way was untrue and impossible to foretell. Still, she did not once believe what her father, her grandfather, or her great-grandfather believed would happen was actually happening right before her. "Are you the newly risen Pharaoh?" she asked in a low whisper in ancient Egyptian, only to gasp in her mind when she saw his right eye glancing over to her knowing full well Andrew understood what she had just said. "I must tell the council of this," Halima said to herself, watching Andrew intently as he studied how the interior of the temple complex would look once it was built if it was going to be built. Something she had a very high suspicion that it was.

"The design is nice, yet I'd like to do a little modification to it," Andrew said, his finger lightly tapping his chin as he contemplated what was going through his head. His eyes glanced to the left when he noted how Mal's shoulders sagged, knowing he had lost. "Your design was nice as well; just hers had something yours lacked. Stick around; I think we can work out something," he offered, holding out the debit card and slip of paper to Halima, seeing Mal nod in understanding as he began to pack up his belongings.

"Certainly, I'll be happy to change it any way you want," Halima said, happily taking her prize from Andrew. Quickly hurrying over to where her bag lay, digging through it for her notebook so she could take detailed notes of what he wanted to be modified from her original design, "Now, what actually are you looking for?" she asked, stepping up to him.

"Seven alcoves running along the walls, in the rear... how tall will this thing be?" Andrew inquired, looking over at her.

"As big as you want it," Halima stated. "This is all in the drawing board stage, so nothing is set in stone." Trying not to crack a smile at her own pun, knowing what it would actually be made out of if Andrew was adhering to the old ways.

"Then let's make the roof twenty feet high, and make the alcoves concave in stretching from floor to ceiling and make them ten feet wide, yet on the rear wall, do the same thing, just double the size," Andrew instructed, pointing out on the screen how he wanted it to look.

"I only count fifteen," Halima said, knowing why he was doing such a thing. It was to symbolize the sixteen main Egyptian Gods.

"Oh, already got a plan for that," Andrew replied offhandedly, feeling Bast's amusement washing over him when the image of her statue in the center of the temple appeared in his mind. Also, since he was Pharaoh, it was only fitting that the 'Protector of the Pharaoh' guard his tomb for eternity, seeing how her statue would sit over the entrance to it when the time came to lay his body to rest.

"I'll get right on it; I'll contact Carla when I have the revised design finished for you," Halima said, seeing Andrew nod before hurrying to pack up her things. She just didn't want him to change his mind, at least not while she was still in the room.

"Give me the room, will you?" Andrew asked politely as he peered over at Anta and Carla, who had remained silent throughout the whole thing. Although he knew they would pepper him with questions to no end once they were off campus. "Now that we're alone, let's talk, you and I," he said warmly, gesturing for Mal to take a seat so they could discuss the design of his Palace; after all, he was the King of Egypt, and what King didn't have a Palace?

******

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Egypt

Deep within the tunnels that were cut from the very bedrock of that ancient civilization, the chorus of voices was faint as they twisted through the maze of turns that ran beneath Giza. The very heart of the order that had waited patiently for the return of their Lord, their Pharaoh, since the days when Khnemibre[9] ruled and fell to the Persians. Torchlight led the way as a lone figure moved through those chiseled walls lined with gessum, the ancient plaster their forebears passed down through the generations since time immemorial. Her ears twitched at the bickering sounds that played along her eardrums as she approached one of the main chambers that their order operated in to keep from being found out if someone were to manage to find the ancient tunnels that have been in use since the Fifth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom.

"This boy isn't even Egyptian!" Cried out a voice, a voice she knew all too well. Normally she wouldn't fault him; his paranoia had saved them many times. Yet she knew, in this instance, he was wrong; after all, she had just met the man. She couldn't put her finger on it, yet there was just something about him that screamed, "I am your Pharaoh!' She knew it was silly to think like that in this day and age. Nevertheless, that was her impression of the man, and she wondered how this would affect her order and Egypt. She prayed this would not lead to unnecessary strife among the masses. She had no wish to see her country torn asunder in civil war.

"The signs are there, Karin; we have the evidence to say he has returned in this boy no less," came the voice of their leader who has held the title for thirty long years. "He has shown the world things that even we, Medjay, have forgotten. And unearthed the heretics from their sealed prison where they should have stayed in their eternal damnation of the Gods!"

"Karin has a point, Mido; how do we even know if the signs are real and not some ploy from Apophis[10] to sow more chaos into this world?"              Breathing in deeply of the incense that laced the air in its flavorful smoke, taking her back to her childhood as she neared the exit to the great chamber. Her mind flashed back to the first time she remembered when her father and mother first took her to her first gathering. Reminiscing the feeling of her father's hands on her shins when she sat on his shoulders to see over the heads of the gathered crowd. The stalwart tapestries hung ffrom the upper walls from ages long past. Of a time when Egypt was a power few would trifle with. Wondering where this turn of events would lead her country in the coming days.

"I don't know about that," Halima stated, causing the chamber to grow quiet as all turned to peer at her as she stood on the landing of the stairs that were cut out of the stone thousands of years ago. "Sorry for speaking out of turn," she said, in reverence to Mido.

"Halima, what do you mean, have you met this man?" asked her mother while pointing at the screen that was hanging by the council table with a still image of Andrew upon it.

"Well... long story, Mom," Halima answered as she carefully walked down the steps.

"Acolyte, come up here so we can all hear," Mido commanded just so he could read her body language better than halfway across the chamber. Watching how the crowd parted, allowing her to be unmolested as she ambled towards the front of the chamber where the council has governed since its exile into hiding.

"Yes, Potiphar," Halima replied; she knew she would always be an acolyte. The lowest rank within their order. Not that she cared, really; she had seen how those that coveted the council's positions had gone mad with power. She wondered if that was why they were so eager to denounce the risen Pharaoh so they could keep their hold on their power. Feeling everyone's eyes on her as she climbed up the few wooden steps of the stage and moved to stand where Mido had waved for her to stand.

"Now, please, tell us all here how did you meet this man," Mido ordered, gesturing for her to start.

"Well, it all started when a friend from my college received this strange request; I don't think he was all too concerned about it, given the prize money involved."

"And what was this request?" Mido asked curiously.

"To design a temple," Halima said factually, hearing the gasps rolling over the crowd. Also, seeing the council members sitting straighter in their seats when she said those words.

"This temple, what kind of temple was this man asking you or whomever to design for him?" Mido asked, knowing if the boy was a servant of the Great Serpent, then he and the others would have to use all their skills to take Andrew out.

"He liked the exterior of it, given how he said it was the new Karnak in ancient Egyptian," Halima stated, seeing a few people fainting in the crowd, including her own mother, who was caught by her younger brother. "Although he did request a modification to the interior," she said offhandedly.

"And what was his request?" asked the woman to the left of Mido.

"That I put fifteen alcoves into the side and rear walls," Halima stated, letting the gravity of what she had just said sink in.

"Fifteen?!" asked the same woman, yet confused as to why only fifteen when they all knew there were sixteen major Gods in their religion.

"He said he already had something planned for the sixteenth one; what that is, I can't say," Halima said with a shrug of her shoulders.

"What was the name this man introduced himself as?" Mido asked, giving Karin a very pointed look that said, 'I told you the signs were real.'

"Menes II," Halima noted how all those sitting at the table's eyebrows rose at that name.

"Thank you, Acolyte; you may step down; you've given us much to think about," Mido said with a smile as Halima nodded her head. "Everyone, return to your homes; keep this news to yourselves for now while we convene on what to do about this new Pharaoh," he spoke, rising from his seat.

Chapter Two

Early the next morning...

"Andrew, honey, can you come in here for a minute?" Alex called out to her son, who was using her bathroom at the moment. Her hands fidgeted with the pens she sat beside the notebooks, rechecking to see if the audio recorder was functioning correctly. She would have used a video camera, yet she doubted her son would have gone for that. She just hoped Andrew would indulge her. She could only do this since she had no classes to teach, given how her classes were taken over by another professor while she went on tour with the items Andrew had found.

"Yeah," Andrew stated as he walked through his mother's bedroom and into the living room, seeing his mother's dark red hair held up by a hair clip as she turned towards the sounds of his footsteps. "What are you playing at Alexandria?" he asked, watching his mother's cheeks heat at the sound of her given name.

"Nothing?!" Alex answered innocently, seeing her son arching his eyebrow, not believing a word of it. "I thought since we have some time before the party tonight, and we won't have all that much time for such things when we're out at Amkhakha. That you can regale me with some information about the Frist Dynasty and the Second since we have so little information on the Second one," she said, giving her son the best puppy dog eyes she could.

"Only if you do it topless," Andrew countered, walking around his mother's couch.

"Andy?!" Alex gasped in mock shock, laying her hand over her heart as she looked away from her son. "Whatever signal did I give you that I would even contemplate that notion?" she asked in a flirty voice. "But... seeing as this is to advance our understanding of six thousand years ago... only this once," Alex said in a cute, little voice as she slyly glanced over to her son as he stood across from her.

"Oh, so you'll get topless for science not because your Pharaoh asked it of you?" Andrew teased, watching his mother's face going through shades of red.

"My goodness, what's gotten into you," Alex said breathlessly as she fanned her face with her left hand. Feeling her nipples starting to harden as Andrew stood with his arms crossed on the other side of her coffee table.

"Well?" Andrew mused, lifting his right hand and giving it a little roll.

Alex stared into those blue-green eyes of her son, noting the blue light of his divinity burning within his pupils. Biting the inside of her cheek as she noted the regal stance her son had taken, something she doubted Andrew knew he did as he gazed down at her. "Yes, my Pharaoh, your Queen hears your command," Alex said in a husky ancient Egyptian voice, feeling her body heat as her son's eyes ran over her midriff as she lifted her shirt off her shoulders. Her nostrils flared when her eyes caught movement within the shorts her son was wearing at the moment as she reached forward and undid the front clasp of her bra. A taunting smile formed on her face when Andrew's eyes were glued to her 32C breasts as she casually dropped her bra onto her sofa. "Well, Andy, you have what you wanted, my breasts for your viewing pleasure," she purred, cradling her orbs just to tease her son. "Now, will you help with our understanding of that time period?" Her eyes glinted as her son sat down on her floor, and her body trembled slightly as she pinched her nipples.

"Okay, what do you want to know?" Andrew asked, watching the sway of his mother's breasts as she reached for a pen and notebook.

"Let's start off with the beginning since I didn't record it the last time," Alex said, reaching forward and hitting the record button on the device. "Can you tell me what it was like when Menes, or Narmer as some call him, unified Egypt?" Nodding along, quickly writing down what she deemed important and left the rest for the tape to capture. Circling back to some things that she thought required more clarification. It was thirty minutes later, she found herself with three pages filled with important information on the founder of the First Dynasty. "That was very insightful, Andrew; thank you for sharing it with me. Let's move along to Hor-Aha[11]..."

"Teti," Andrew interjected.

"Excuse me?" Alex asked, confused.

"That's his name, Teti," Andrew informed her.

"Oh? Is it?" Alex mused, even though she already knew that most of the people in her field of work knew too.

"Mmmhmm," Andrew hummed as he nodded. "He preferred Teti instead of Hor-Aha."

"I see, so tell me, what was it like for him to take the throne from his father after Menes died?"

"Well, trade with Egypt's neighbors was largely cut off during his reign. He tended to exploit the land instead of living in balance with Ma'at[12]," Andrew said factually. "The principle, not the goddess," he corrected. "Djer[13] corrected that when he came to the throne."

"Let's talk about Djer for a minute since you brought him up," Alex said in a teacherly voice.

"Okay, what about?" Andrew asked, leaning on his elbow on the coffee table, waiting for his mother to gather her thoughts.

"If what the records say is true, why aren't their more structures dedicated to Djer?"

"One: it was still the Chalcolithic age," seeing how his mother's eyes grew wide at that term, "thought I didn't know that term, did you?" Andrew asked, getting a nod from his mother. "Well, the first Dynasty wasn't built on structures, except their tombs; of course, they were mainly content with maintaining the status quo. Plus, what structures they did build they were made out of wood and not stone. Egypt back then was very different than it is now."

"How so?" Alex asked, intrigued.

"Back when Menes took the throne of the two lands, Egypt was just as green as Kentucky is today. The Blue Nile and the White Nile flowed in different paths than they do now. There used to be many channels that the two rivers would flow into, bringing life to this arid place. Yet, with the fall of Pepi II[14] and the connection to the Gods severed Egypt entered into a decline. Sure, many of the other Pharaohs might have brought prosperity to the land, yet they were only pretending to be true Pharaohs. Ra didn't see those from the Seventh and onward as kin to him. With it, Egypt began to dry out, and the once rich and bountiful waterways quickly dried up and were filled in with sand."

"But what about the flood we saw in that shop in London?" Alex asked, eager to know what the Gods had in store for her son and what Andrew had in store for Egypt.