Ronin Warriors Fan Fiction ❯ The Way of the Jackal ❯ The Inbetween ( Chapter 2 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Faia Saiyajin 
Anime/Manga: Ronin Warriors Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Drama / Comedy / Adventure / Action / Occult | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 04.06.2003 | Pages: 1 | Words: 2.0K | Visits: 165 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: Ronin Warriors Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Drama / Comedy / Adventure / Action / Occult | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 04.06.2003 | Pages: 1 | Words: 2.0K | Visits: 165 | Status: Completed
The body was carried in a casket of woven reeds, borne on the backs of 4 men, men that had pledged their lives to Nefer in life, and would now honor him further by aiding him in the afterlife. They stood at the head and feet of the casket, as the barge sailed down the blue ribbon that was the Nile. Dais was at the head, watching the squat square temple approach. The capital of Thebes was behind them, and so was Giza, with Pharaoh Khufu's great Pyramid, still polished to a white splendor in the sun. Nefer's tomb would be a modest, lowly place in comparison with the limestone and granite monstrosity. It was nestled in a narrow crevice in a cliff wall, cradled by rock like giant hands. Outside, a statue of Horus flanked the left side of the door. On the right, was Anubis. Not the jackal-faced God, but a startlingly large, accurate replica of his son. Inside, the combined burial chamber and treasure room indicated Pharaoh's love of familial pleasures. A frieze of he and his son walking by the Nile. His wife kneeling by his side…
Dais flinched, as he led the litter-bearers to the temple. Nefer's corpse was reverently extracted from the reeds, and placed on a long table, with drainage holes in the corners, the copper surface shining in the torchlight.
His helpers swirled around him, anxious to set to their tasks. Dais resisted the urge to spit. Vultures, all of them. Their morbid fascination with death, especially the death of a man thought of as a God, was evident in the sweat-shine on their faces, the almost mad look in their eye. 'Now I understand why Anubis hates them. I feel like a cornered hare.' Fists tightened in his robes, and he took a deep breath. Pharaoh's body lay behind him, and the longer he waited, the more difficult his task would be. "Prepare the bath. I will begin the desiccation."
Beside the table, another smaller one was positioned, and this contained the tools needed for mummification. He threw his attention into making sure these were sharp and ready, as his helpers set about to prepare the bath of harsh alkaline salts, which would dry out the eviscerated body, thus retarding decay, giving Nefer a whole, complete body with which to enter into the next world.
While the other Priests were busy, he lifted a copper scalpel, and tested its sharpness against the ball of his thumb. Pleased with its edge, he placed it at Nefer's collarbone, and cut swiftly, deeply, the length of his abdomen, to the groin. What happened next sent a gasp from his throat loud enough to send the whole temple into a shocked stillness.
The blood that oozed from the incision was dark, almost black, and foul smelling. Dais swallowed back bile, and made another cut, this one deeper, revealing the ribcage and internal organs. He worked swiftly, his arms coated to the mid-forearm in the royal blood. Working from the intestine up, Dais cut free all of the King's innards, placing them in special containers that preceded their entombment in the canopic jars. The black blood still could not be explained. When he reached the heart, the most important of them all, his fingers froze. It came away from its shield of bone in a single mass, thank Ammon-Ra, but it was…
It looked like it had exploded within his chest, the cavities and veins inside of it exposed, like it had been cut open. This was, indeed, the source of Pharaoh's death. Holding it in his palms, Dais' eye narrowed. "Murder…" He turned sharply, still holding the ruined heart. There were two guards stationed at the mouth of the temple. "Send word to Thebes. The Prince could be in great danger. Alert Kale and Sekhmet. …what are you staring at me for?! I gave you an order! Move, NOW!"
The Priests in the temple stared at him, speechless. Dais almost growled. "The rest of you leave as well. I will finish this myself." But before they could bustle out, he gave them chilled glare. "You are all sworn to silence. Utter no word of this to anyone. The results could be disastrous. Do you understand?"
With silent nods and murmured responses, his men rushed out, making their way to the departing barge as quickly as they could without running. When they'd gone, Dais finally set the ruptured organ down. This would not do. Without a heart, Nefer could not be judged, and enter into heaven with his predecessors. Without a heart, Nefer would not be allowed to even stand at the gates. His soul would wander.
Putting the heart aside, he quickly finished the embalming process, emptying the head of that strange pink-grey matter, draining all the blood --that fetid, tainted stuff left black trails as it ran into the drainage holes--, and packing the empty cavity with treated linens. Sewing up the cut, he then laid the body in the bath of natron salts, the head above the mixture, wrapped in linen.
He realized that he was out of breath, leaning over the sides of the granite tub, clutching them tightly. Almost on the verge of vomiting, he straightened, slowly, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm, near the elbow. Now was not the time to loose his cool. He still had to tend to the organs, and do something about the heart. The body would soak for almost a month, before it would be wrapped and buried.
Staggering away from the tub, and the sharp smell it gave off, Dais went back to the table. Now was not the time to be weak. Anubis was in trouble. Pharaoh Nefer had been killed. His fingers found the amulet under his robes, squeezing the pale stone tightly.
"You will not have him, Seth. I have worked too hard to loose Anubis now. I will not throw away my life's work to leave him in your clutches."
A gentle touch on the back of his head made Anubis look up. He hadn't moved for hours, his fingers stiff around the falcon head. Wincing at the light, he found himself staring at Mia. She smiled gently, and knelt, her hands resting lightly on his forearm. He wiped the tears from his cheeks with the back of his left hand, not knowing what to say to the kind-eyed woman that was at his side.
"I know it is hard…" she stumbled over the words, unsure as to what to call him. "But you must realize that…"
He turned his head away, staring at the medallion. He was sulking like a child, and weeping like a woman. This was not the way a King acted. But what did he care? "What do you know?!"
Instead of shying away from his tone, like any well-trained slave would, she instead got more determined. Tightening her jaw, Mia stood, her fists on her hips. She looked on the Prince as her own son, be she a slave or no, and she would not tolerate his behaviour. "I know what it's like to have everything you hold dear ripped away, and to be thrust into a new and strange world all alone! …or have you forgotten, Anubis?" It was ill-mannered, for her to speak of her conscription when she was still a small girl. "But I did not weep for what was lost! I had a new life ahead of me, a new path I had never imagined." Yellow-spot fever had swept over her village years ago, and she would have died… had it not been for a young Queen who had taken a liking to her. That was when Queen Mem had been recently crowned. She and her King had traveled down the Nile from their Thebian palace, to try and strike a pact with the Hykosians, her people. A small group of rebels started a skirmish, and when the King and Queen fled the royal city, they had come to her hut. Her mother was dead, her father dying, and the rest of her family already taken to the palace of the Hyksos' ruling family as paiges and serving girls. She was the only one left, because her case of the deadly fever was too advanced to cure. It was a wonder she'd even survived…
Mia stared hard down at the sniveling Anubis. With a sigh, she saw the in-between then. Still trapped in that world of not-belonging. He and his father were undeniably close. And now that Nefer was dead, the Queen would most likely die of grief in the near future. Egypt would mourn their deaths for months, perhaps years. It was an irrefutable sign of how much love the King and Queen had earned in their time trying to perfect This Very Egypt. And now, like a boat without a sail, Anubis was forced to carve his own path in a river full of angry hippopotamus and crocodiles. A man, but in appearance only. The lines that worried themselves into her forehead and corners of her mouth vanished when she loosed her face from the frown it had been in. He was barely paying attention to her, his head turned towards the pool. Those green eyes of his, however, were not seeing anything in this world. Anubis was oblivious to the tears that left damp trails on his ruddy cheeks, and to the sniff and occasional shudder one suffered from after crying for so hard and so long. Dropping her head, cursing herself for not being able to stay mad at him for very long, Mia knelt again, and draped an arm across his shoulders.
"Come now, my King." she touched his chin gently, to get his attention. He turned his head towards her, slowly. Trying to be gentle, she smiled, and lifted the hem of her shift to dab at the tears on his face. She'd done it before, many times, when he was a child. When he'd been roughhousing with Kale, and gotten hurt… or when she'd find him in a dark corner, hugging himself, hiding from the torments of High Priests and loose-tongued slaves.
He recognized the familiar attention, and managed a small smile. "I think that perhaps I am to big to sit in your lap now, Mia."
His tone was so heart-breakingly sweet, that she nearly wept from it. Gathering his head and shoulders in her arms, she edged her way onto the couch, holding him in an improvised form of how she'd done it when she was small. His forehead pressed against her shoulder, when in old times his whole face, snotty and wet from crying, would be buried in her neck. He would have wrinkled her linen dress from his grasping fingers, and left sandy, muddy smears on her knees and thighs from his sandals and his Seth-cursed inability to sit still for very long. Now, he was very quiet, his head was on her shoulder, his entire body motionless as she stroked his sweat-dampened red hair. "See… you aren't too big to be held."
"Mia… I don't want… to be Pharoah…" He said softly, suddenly. "I'm… afraid."
"Hush hush. You must accept your responsibility. Even the hatchling falcon must some day leave his nest. He is afraid to fall, but he knows it is his destiny to soar. Your wings are strong, Anubis, and you must use them. It is time you left the nest. You will not fall. There are many here who will support you. We all shall be the guiding wind, the sun on your face, the stones that rise up to stumble your prey, and the home to which you return."
"There are those who will conspire against me."
"That is the problem that all Kings must face. You will face it, too, in time." She cooed softly, as Anubis' shivers dissipated. She could almost feel the pull of near-exhaustion on him. "Sleep, Anubis. You have faced your first hardship with great strength. Sleep, and let no ill dreams trouble you."
Dais flinched, as he led the litter-bearers to the temple. Nefer's corpse was reverently extracted from the reeds, and placed on a long table, with drainage holes in the corners, the copper surface shining in the torchlight.
His helpers swirled around him, anxious to set to their tasks. Dais resisted the urge to spit. Vultures, all of them. Their morbid fascination with death, especially the death of a man thought of as a God, was evident in the sweat-shine on their faces, the almost mad look in their eye. 'Now I understand why Anubis hates them. I feel like a cornered hare.' Fists tightened in his robes, and he took a deep breath. Pharaoh's body lay behind him, and the longer he waited, the more difficult his task would be. "Prepare the bath. I will begin the desiccation."
Beside the table, another smaller one was positioned, and this contained the tools needed for mummification. He threw his attention into making sure these were sharp and ready, as his helpers set about to prepare the bath of harsh alkaline salts, which would dry out the eviscerated body, thus retarding decay, giving Nefer a whole, complete body with which to enter into the next world.
While the other Priests were busy, he lifted a copper scalpel, and tested its sharpness against the ball of his thumb. Pleased with its edge, he placed it at Nefer's collarbone, and cut swiftly, deeply, the length of his abdomen, to the groin. What happened next sent a gasp from his throat loud enough to send the whole temple into a shocked stillness.
The blood that oozed from the incision was dark, almost black, and foul smelling. Dais swallowed back bile, and made another cut, this one deeper, revealing the ribcage and internal organs. He worked swiftly, his arms coated to the mid-forearm in the royal blood. Working from the intestine up, Dais cut free all of the King's innards, placing them in special containers that preceded their entombment in the canopic jars. The black blood still could not be explained. When he reached the heart, the most important of them all, his fingers froze. It came away from its shield of bone in a single mass, thank Ammon-Ra, but it was…
It looked like it had exploded within his chest, the cavities and veins inside of it exposed, like it had been cut open. This was, indeed, the source of Pharaoh's death. Holding it in his palms, Dais' eye narrowed. "Murder…" He turned sharply, still holding the ruined heart. There were two guards stationed at the mouth of the temple. "Send word to Thebes. The Prince could be in great danger. Alert Kale and Sekhmet. …what are you staring at me for?! I gave you an order! Move, NOW!"
The Priests in the temple stared at him, speechless. Dais almost growled. "The rest of you leave as well. I will finish this myself." But before they could bustle out, he gave them chilled glare. "You are all sworn to silence. Utter no word of this to anyone. The results could be disastrous. Do you understand?"
With silent nods and murmured responses, his men rushed out, making their way to the departing barge as quickly as they could without running. When they'd gone, Dais finally set the ruptured organ down. This would not do. Without a heart, Nefer could not be judged, and enter into heaven with his predecessors. Without a heart, Nefer would not be allowed to even stand at the gates. His soul would wander.
Putting the heart aside, he quickly finished the embalming process, emptying the head of that strange pink-grey matter, draining all the blood --that fetid, tainted stuff left black trails as it ran into the drainage holes--, and packing the empty cavity with treated linens. Sewing up the cut, he then laid the body in the bath of natron salts, the head above the mixture, wrapped in linen.
He realized that he was out of breath, leaning over the sides of the granite tub, clutching them tightly. Almost on the verge of vomiting, he straightened, slowly, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm, near the elbow. Now was not the time to loose his cool. He still had to tend to the organs, and do something about the heart. The body would soak for almost a month, before it would be wrapped and buried.
Staggering away from the tub, and the sharp smell it gave off, Dais went back to the table. Now was not the time to be weak. Anubis was in trouble. Pharaoh Nefer had been killed. His fingers found the amulet under his robes, squeezing the pale stone tightly.
"You will not have him, Seth. I have worked too hard to loose Anubis now. I will not throw away my life's work to leave him in your clutches."
A gentle touch on the back of his head made Anubis look up. He hadn't moved for hours, his fingers stiff around the falcon head. Wincing at the light, he found himself staring at Mia. She smiled gently, and knelt, her hands resting lightly on his forearm. He wiped the tears from his cheeks with the back of his left hand, not knowing what to say to the kind-eyed woman that was at his side.
"I know it is hard…" she stumbled over the words, unsure as to what to call him. "But you must realize that…"
He turned his head away, staring at the medallion. He was sulking like a child, and weeping like a woman. This was not the way a King acted. But what did he care? "What do you know?!"
Instead of shying away from his tone, like any well-trained slave would, she instead got more determined. Tightening her jaw, Mia stood, her fists on her hips. She looked on the Prince as her own son, be she a slave or no, and she would not tolerate his behaviour. "I know what it's like to have everything you hold dear ripped away, and to be thrust into a new and strange world all alone! …or have you forgotten, Anubis?" It was ill-mannered, for her to speak of her conscription when she was still a small girl. "But I did not weep for what was lost! I had a new life ahead of me, a new path I had never imagined." Yellow-spot fever had swept over her village years ago, and she would have died… had it not been for a young Queen who had taken a liking to her. That was when Queen Mem had been recently crowned. She and her King had traveled down the Nile from their Thebian palace, to try and strike a pact with the Hykosians, her people. A small group of rebels started a skirmish, and when the King and Queen fled the royal city, they had come to her hut. Her mother was dead, her father dying, and the rest of her family already taken to the palace of the Hyksos' ruling family as paiges and serving girls. She was the only one left, because her case of the deadly fever was too advanced to cure. It was a wonder she'd even survived…
Mia stared hard down at the sniveling Anubis. With a sigh, she saw the in-between then. Still trapped in that world of not-belonging. He and his father were undeniably close. And now that Nefer was dead, the Queen would most likely die of grief in the near future. Egypt would mourn their deaths for months, perhaps years. It was an irrefutable sign of how much love the King and Queen had earned in their time trying to perfect This Very Egypt. And now, like a boat without a sail, Anubis was forced to carve his own path in a river full of angry hippopotamus and crocodiles. A man, but in appearance only. The lines that worried themselves into her forehead and corners of her mouth vanished when she loosed her face from the frown it had been in. He was barely paying attention to her, his head turned towards the pool. Those green eyes of his, however, were not seeing anything in this world. Anubis was oblivious to the tears that left damp trails on his ruddy cheeks, and to the sniff and occasional shudder one suffered from after crying for so hard and so long. Dropping her head, cursing herself for not being able to stay mad at him for very long, Mia knelt again, and draped an arm across his shoulders.
"Come now, my King." she touched his chin gently, to get his attention. He turned his head towards her, slowly. Trying to be gentle, she smiled, and lifted the hem of her shift to dab at the tears on his face. She'd done it before, many times, when he was a child. When he'd been roughhousing with Kale, and gotten hurt… or when she'd find him in a dark corner, hugging himself, hiding from the torments of High Priests and loose-tongued slaves.
He recognized the familiar attention, and managed a small smile. "I think that perhaps I am to big to sit in your lap now, Mia."
His tone was so heart-breakingly sweet, that she nearly wept from it. Gathering his head and shoulders in her arms, she edged her way onto the couch, holding him in an improvised form of how she'd done it when she was small. His forehead pressed against her shoulder, when in old times his whole face, snotty and wet from crying, would be buried in her neck. He would have wrinkled her linen dress from his grasping fingers, and left sandy, muddy smears on her knees and thighs from his sandals and his Seth-cursed inability to sit still for very long. Now, he was very quiet, his head was on her shoulder, his entire body motionless as she stroked his sweat-dampened red hair. "See… you aren't too big to be held."
"Mia… I don't want… to be Pharoah…" He said softly, suddenly. "I'm… afraid."
"Hush hush. You must accept your responsibility. Even the hatchling falcon must some day leave his nest. He is afraid to fall, but he knows it is his destiny to soar. Your wings are strong, Anubis, and you must use them. It is time you left the nest. You will not fall. There are many here who will support you. We all shall be the guiding wind, the sun on your face, the stones that rise up to stumble your prey, and the home to which you return."
"There are those who will conspire against me."
"That is the problem that all Kings must face. You will face it, too, in time." She cooed softly, as Anubis' shivers dissipated. She could almost feel the pull of near-exhaustion on him. "Sleep, Anubis. You have faced your first hardship with great strength. Sleep, and let no ill dreams trouble you."