Chapter Eleven: Anjelica

***

Rick sighed in relief as the bells that signaled the end of the workday clanged. He abruptly dropped the chisel he was holding and turned away from his task, leaving the tool laying on the dusty ground. He groaned as he stretched his aching muscles, rolling his exhausted neck and shoulders.

His body was getting used to the labor, and, he admitted reluctantly, so had he. The work had become a way to work out his aggression and anger, and as time passed he found his rage and helplessness receding.

Even the mummy guards had gotten tired of bullying him, it seemed. While they would occasionally sneer at him, it seemed that, ironically, they were just as bored watching the slaves work as the slaves were working. It was a small relief, at least, Rick thought.

Rubbing his sore neck he walked steadily towards the long food line already forming, each hungry man waiting anxiously for the stew and bread that would fill his empty stomach.

When he had first been made a slave, he had lost hope, angry and bitter in his own personal misery. But slowly he had begun to come away from that mindset. As terrible as times were now, they would get better. Times had looked bad in the past, and they had always come out of them together and healthy. He had defeated Imhotep before. Rick knew that if he waited, if he bided his time, helpless as he was, a time would come when he could strike back at the man who had caused him so much agony.

As he waited in line, used to the long periods at dusk while awaiting his evening meal, his eyes roamed over the women who were serving the food. There were at least a hundred of them to serve all of the laborers, set up at different points with steaming stew in huge pots. These women–the ones who cooked and served the breakfast, lunch, and dinner, who cleaned the barracks they lived in–were the women who had fought against Imhotep in the great, final battle at Mount Blanc.

Rick of course had not been there, but locked up in a shack for four months while Imhotep conquered the world. Not that Rick’s presence would have made much of a difference. And so many people died such horrible pointless deaths that Rick was almost secretly glad he had not been there. He had enough nightmares to haunt his dreams.

He purposely waited in line #4, because that was where Anjelica always worked.

Initially he had had no idea who she was except that he always got a complete helping and a larger slice of bread when she served him. No one else seemed to notice, and Rick was glad. But he was intrigued by this woman, who never said anything to him but knew who he was and wanted, in her small way, to help him.

One of the many nights he had lined up for his food with everyone else, and she gave him his usual large helping, he leaned forward and met her eyes. “Thank you,” was all he said.

Her eyes had widened and she had nodded brusquely, but between them a kind of connection had been formed. It was such a relief; he had been desperate for any kind of human connection. The captured Med Jai would not look him in the face, and most of the other prisoners knew who he was and stayed away from him. Their emotions towards him were a mixture of awe, admiration, and fear. But she, the woman who he came to know as Anjelica, a Mexican military strategist who had commanded her own military unit and fought against Imhotep in the great and final battle, became his companion.

At dinner time he would always count on a warm smile from her as she handed him his bowl. Those few moments of kindness each day were, along with his memories of Evy and Alex, enough to sustain Rick.

One night, long after the meals had been served and the exhausted men lay around outside under the glittering Egyptian sky, she had come to him. It was extremely rare for a women to be there, especially at that time of night, for the women were separated from the men and encouraged not to associate with them. The female slaves had legitimate fears of harassment or rape if they ventured into the male part of the camp alone. But she strode firmly and surely toward where Rick was lying next to a blazing fire, her determined face–and the surprise at seeing her–enough to keep any men from bothering her.

When she got to Rick, she sat down on the sandy ground and stuck out her hand. “Anjelica,” she said, not offering anything else–no last name, no reasons, no explanations.

When Rick has expressed his surprise, and admiration, for her bold move through the men’s area, she had laughed. “Mortal men don’t scare me,” she explained.

They talked long into that night, about everything and nothing. She was in her late thirties, like Rick, but had no family or children. The military had been her life. She would have been pretty, Rick thought, but slavery and loss of hope had crushed the youthful aspect of her eyes, flattened her dark, long hair. But it was her mind that drew Rick to her, her intelligence, her shrewdness, her uncanny way of voicing exactly what he was thinking or feeling.

It had felt so good to talk to someone, to just express what he was feeling. It was a huge relief to his soul.

After that first night she was able to visit him about once a week, whenever she did not have duties or menial chores. It pained Rick’s heart to see such talent, such great people humbled by slavery.

By then, the other men knew that she was a friend of Rick’s, and out of deference to him they left her alone. They did not want to mess with Rick O’Connell, a legend, a myth of heroism.

As Rick ate his stew in the falling twilight, he remembered how their relationship had begun and smiled. It had come to mean so much to him. He realized that she had became his closest friend, sharing his heart in those dark hours after midnight, when they would sit by the crackling fire.

For a short time, they could even forget that they were slaves.

He had told her all about his childhood, about growing up in an orphanage in Cairo, about joining the French foreign legion. She had told him about growing up in Mexico, about her father the General, about being sent to England for schooling at sixteen.

And then, he had begun to tell her about meeting Evy, about fighting Imhotep, about having a child. She loved to hear him tell those stories, for she had no children and no family now that her father was dead. He had explained how much they meant to him, how life would not be worth living if they were taken from him. Then he had told her about the second time Imhotep arose, about the kidnaping of his son, about holding his wife in his arms as she died.

Remembering Evy, her sweet, honest face, her love for him, made Rick weak inside. He missed her so much. He would spend nights lying awake so as not to dream, just picturing her face. She was everything to him.

But to speak about them, to share those memories, helped Rick deal with his emotions. And to listen to Anjelica talk about her own emotions helped Rick to realize the scope of Imhotep’s rule. Everyone was grieving. Tragedy was everywhere.

And later, she told him about losing her mother to cancer, about joining the military to please her father, about her lover in England. Rick’s heart broke as she told how they had fallen in love, even though he was married and older. They continued their affair for over fifteen years. She explained how, after her father died when she was 26, she almost never went home to Mexico but on her leaves of absences went to England. But tears came to her eyes when she thought of where he was now. “I haven’t seen him since the day I left to fight the Priest. I do not know if he is dead or alive.” And Rick could share her pain.

For what does one do when everything has been taken away?

She laughed when he told her about Alex’s birth and the antics of Jonathan. She listened breathlessly when he told of the ancient cycle, of who they had all been in the past. He explained about the Med Jai and Ardeth, about his former life as a warrior for God, about his wife the Princess Nefertiri.

And she would listen silently when he talked about Evy. About how a smile from her could make his day. About how he feared that she might be dead or that Imhotep might hurt her. About his feelings of rage and helplessness. And she could share his pain.

That night, long after the meal was finished and Rick lay under the stars, he felt her presence near him. He looked up into her eyes as she sat down, and they were fierce and ignited.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, touching her shoulder lightly. But she was caught up in memories.

“It’s all coming back to me,” she whispered. “I keep reliving them, over and over, nightmares when I wake.”

“Tell me,” Rick urged. “Share your burden.”

She shook her head, covering her face in her hands. “I hate to give you some of my burden, you who are bearing so much.”

He put his arm around her. “You have shared much of my burden. Tell me.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath. “You know I fought and was captured at the battle of Mount Blanc.”

He nodded his assent.

“We were pinned down for hours in the mountains,” she remembered, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “Hour after hour we tried to keep him back, hold him off. But he was relentless.”

Her voice changed, encompassing a kind of awe. “I have never seen anything like it. The Priest tossed human beings like pebbles. He crushed tanks, with our men inside them, like they were cardboard boxes.” Her head shook with disbelief as a tear slipped down her cheek, the first time Rick had seen her truly cry. “It was unbelievable.

“At one point he stepped into my line of fire between two boulders. I had a clear shot of him. We had led him into an impasse in the mountains, hoping to surround him. We didn’t know then, of his powers.” She paused, swallowing hard. “I took a shot with my bazooka. This flaming, high-speed missile headed right for him. It was a perfect shot.”

She stopped and gave a short, hard laugh.

“What happened?” Rick asked, squeezing her hand.

“I watched the whole scene as if it were in slow motion. The missile sailed cleanly through the air, rotating slowly, heading straight for Imhotep. I remember thinking, ‘this is it. I’ve got the bastard. It’s all over.’ How naive I was.”

She sighed and looked down, rubbing her calloused hands together. “I keep seeing this scene over and over. It replays in my mind like a movie clip I cannot stop. I see it when I am cleaning, when I look into the bubbling soup, when I try to sleep at night.” She paused, looking down, fear and pain in her voice. “It will not let me be.”

Rick held her as she rocked in her own private pain, held her until she could continue.

“The rocket sliced through the air. This beautiful, silver rocket, gleaming in the sun.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “You know that bazookas are anti-tank weapons. They’re made to smash through thick metal, to crush and destroy what is made of steel.” She shook her head as if to clear away the past.

“The Priest turned, and watched it coming. He stood, watching this bomb come sailing through the air aimed for his heart. At the last moment, when it was only a few meters away, he put up his hand. Just a gesture, a hand movement. But the missile stopped in mid air. It stopped short. It went from traveling at 150 miles an hour to 0 in a quarter of a second. That practically defied the laws of physics. That is magic beyond what I can even comprehend.”

Rick nodded, looking into her eyes. There was nothing he could say, all he could offer her was his silent comfort.

“It seems silly, now that we know of his powers, to be surprised that he could control and manipulate flying objects. But we had been pinned down in the mountains. We had not seen the terror that he had wreaked on our comrades above and below and before us. Seeing him do that ended it for me. I knew we were going to lose. There was no way we could defeat someone like that.” She paused, blinking back tears.

“I haven’t talked about this since it happened.” She looked up into Rick’s eyes. “I ordered my artillery unit to surrender. And so here we are now.”

Rick reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. “You were very brave. You made a decision that saved the lives of your unit. That is what a commander is for.”

She shook her head, her dirty brown hair falling from her bun and hiding her eyes. “I could have let them die honorable deaths, fighting for their country, for this world that they believed in. Instead I turned us all into cowards.”

Rick shook his head adamantly. “An old friend once said to me, ‘live today, fight tomorrow.’ You survived. When the next battle comes, you will be ready for it.”

She shook her head slowly, and beneath her tough military exterior Rick could see a woman. An ordinary woman who was brave and intelligent but also full of shame and regret and inner turmoil. Her eyes met his.

“You truly believe that there will be another battle? After all you have been through with that man, you think he can still be defeated?”

“Twice he has risen, and twice he has been returned to the earth.” Rick smiled, a smile of sadness but also of hope. “Yes, I believe that he will be defeated. When or how I do not know. But I am ready and alert each day in the hopes that there is something I can do.”

She smiled gently at him. “Thank you. You, who have done so much in the past, who is rightfully a hero for our time.”

Rick looked down. “Hardly a hero,” he said honestly. “I did not want to get involved either time. It was only because of my wife and son that I fought Imhotep. Without them, I would not have had the will to fight him and live.

“But he has gone to far this time,” he continued, speaking in low tones, his voice strong and rising in anger. “I hate Imhotep. I swear, on everything that I hold dear, that I will have my revenge.”

His eyes were fierce and adamant. And in them was the bell tolling, the ominous signaling that Imhotep’s rule would, someday, fall.

***

Far away from earth, in that place that can only be called the home of the divine, the Ancient Gods discussed the situation on earth dispassionately.

“Each principal player struggles alone, but only the labors of one will bear fruit,” the Goddess observed, the words not physical sound but thoughts like fluid. “Their destinies are all intertwined, and each will play a principal part in the finale of the play.”

In the mystical silence that followed another, dissenting, voice spoke, asking the question with a hint of mockery. “And what of the man, the Med Jai who is now a slave?”

The first voice answered calmly, smoothly. “The Med Jai slave is not yet needed. When the time has come, he will be called upon.”

“But I have not come to ask about the others. I have come to plead the case of the High Priest and the Concubine.” It was silky smooth, ethereal, the voice of a God.

“There is no case to plead,” the first voice rejoined. “As of now, we can do nothing. We set up the chessboard, but we cannot control the individual pieces.”

“But you began the game with stacked dice,” the second voice argued, floating lazily in and above space, a fragment of sound in the wind. “You gave the book back to the mortals, the book that should have been gone from the world forever.”

The first voice carried a hint of a smile. “Very well, my daughter, you are learning. The book was needed, in times such as these. We have seen to it that it will be used well.”

There was a pause, and then the divine intonation continued. “The Priest and the Concubine were given a second chance, but they went too far in their conquest of the earth. We must provide the world with the tools to reclaim what is theirs.

“As always my daughter, we are but light and dust, shadows and air...”

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