Ch 8

Ch 8, House of Anubis, opowiadania, Paragon & Osirian, Surviving Ouroboros

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Chapter 8: Double execution

It was a crime against the gods. A crime so horrible that even the king's advisors begged him not to go through with it.

And yet the arrogant man ignored their pleas. All the pain and anguish that was about to be wrought, would be his fault and still he did not care.

He was the pharaoh after all, a mortal god that all were made to bow too. What he wanted, he received.

So how dare that spiteful bitch refuse HIM of all people! Any women should be grateful that he even acknowledged their existence.

Normally every woman, from the lowest of maids to the highest of nobility WOULD have bent over backwards to ensure his happiness.

In fact all woman did; all except the one he truly wanted.

This time however, she had gone too far in her rejection of him.

The night prior he had ordered the pale-skinned priestess to be brought to his bed chamber. He had decided that she had sufficient time to heal from the arduous birth of his daughter, the Princess Nepthi, not two months earlier. Now it was finally time to take that which belonged to him.

However even after trying his patience and having to be forcibly dragged to his quarters, the purple eyed woman still refused to do as he wished. She refused his right to bed her.

Forgiveness may not have been his strong suit, but he was still willing to give it despite her refusal to comply.

Unfortunately for her, his forgiveness ran out the moment she bit right through his lip, as he attempted to force himself upon her.

And so it was that the crime against the gods was being committed.

Today was the day, that the High Priestess Amneris of the Temple of Anubis, Blessed Daughter of Isis, was due to be executed.

The news had spread quickly through out the land, that one of the blessed had committed a grievous crime and had tried to kill the Pharaoh himself. Upon hearing this news, the majority of people agreed that she deserved execution, that death was the only thing good enough for someone who tried to kill the great king of Egypt.

They could not have known that the young woman's only crime was trying to protect herself from the forced ministrations of a cruel man.

But Khai knew. Khai knew right away that his lover would never do any such thing without good reason. Khai knew that the girl with the sharp tongue and the steel will would never attempt to hurt anyone who did not deserve it.

This knowledge was what led Khai to race across the desert on horseback, in a desperate attempt to prevent the death of the mother of his child.

He only hoped he was fast enough. That his horse would reach the palace before his love was judged guilty and tossed to the sacred crocodiles as was the fate of all attempted assassins.

To kill a Blessed in cold blood was an automatic blemish on the heart of the one responsible; a blemish that would burden the heart with guilt.

A heavy heart had no chance of balancing the Scales of Anubis and would automatically be destroyed by Ammut the Devourer. As it was warned by the god Thoth in the Book of the Dead.

The Pharaoh however was arrogant enough to assume that his title would protect him. Arrogant enough to assume that having the blood of an innocent godling on his hands would not prevent him from ascending into the afterlife.

His arrogance in this matter would be his undoing.

"On this day, as ordered by the Pharaoh Tutankhamen, the High Priestess Amneris the Blessed will be executed for her crime of attempted regicide by way of the sacred servants of Sobek."

Amneris only half listened to the words that marked her death with anger boiling inside her.

She knew she shouldn't have fought the Pharaoh, but she also knew that if she hadn't that the remainder of her life would be marked with nothing but consecutive rapes.

At least now she could die with dignity, instead of the shame of knowing she hadn't tried to fight him.

The announcer continued rambling on with esoteric curses for her eternal damnation. She cared little for it, as she knew the prayers could not harm an innocent person, and instead she turned to face the pharaoh.

Like the bastard he was, the vile man was smirking smugly at her as he surveyed the ceremony. Her precious daughter was sleeping in the arms of a female servant who was standing beside the king.

Regret filled her as she realized that she would never see her daughter grow up.

"Move forward," a guard ordered as he pressed the tip of his spear into her back, forcing her towards the edge of the stone platform. A few more feet and she would find herself as dinner for an enormous scaly beast.

Steeling herself for the pain, she stepped to the edge and suppressed a shudder as she looked down at the sharp-toothed crocodiles that were impatiently awaiting their meal.

With one last breath she prepared to step off and meet her fate.

"STOP!" a familiar voice echoed over the stone accompaniment of the Temple of Sobek.

The Pharaoh waved his hand towards his guards who immediately swarmed, the newly arrived blessed. The blonde haired, pale skinned young man was dragged before the Pharaoh.

"Speak and tell me why it is you have interrupted this execution," Tutankhamen ordered.

When the boy did not answer right away, Tut narrowed his eyes and followed the line of sight of the interloper.

The boy's eyes were locked onto the sleeping face of his own golden haired daughter.

"I would advise you to keep your line of sight way from the princess if you wish to keep your eyes. Now, tell me your name and why you are here," The Pharaoh demanded, his patience wearing thin.

That seemed to get the green eyed boys attention, "My name is Khai and I've come to stop you from killing Amneris."

Fury flashed across the young king's face as he jumped to his feet.

"Now I understand, you must be the boy that the priestess Hedrea informed me of," he growled. The lower level initiate of Anubis had sent news of a 'blessed' boy who had shared Amneris' bed still been a priestess. The news had been what had clinched the blessed girl's fate.

No one made a fool of the Great Pharaoh Tutankhamen and lived.

Grabbing a spear from the closest guard, he lunged at the defenseless and struggling boy, who was being held in place by no fewer than four of his largest guards.

A shriek of distress pierced the air, just as the head of the spear pierced the boy's chest.

"KHAI!" Amneris screamed from her place on the edge of the platform, not fifteen feet away, "You FUCKING bastard! I'll KILL YOU!"

Gathering all the magic in her body, Amneris cursed the man with everything she had.

"Death! I swear death and plague upon you and all who share your blood! The blood of the blessed will bring the end to your existence!"

Pure, hate-filled magic surged from her body as she struggled against the binds that were holding her arms behind her back.

Waves and waves of promised death washed over the occupants of the courtyard as the marble beneath their feet cracked and crumbled with Amneris' unbridled fury.

Using the last of her waning powers to break the wrong around her wrists, she sprinted to Khai, who was lying in a pool of his own blood. Blood that soaked the white linen she had wrapped around her torso as she kneeled by his side.

"Khai?" she whispered as grasped his shaking hand, "Don't die on me Khai! I need you."

"Pr-UNH" he managed. The spear had gone clean through his lung, causing dark blood to leak from mouth as he attempted to talk.

Instead of trying to speak, he simply brought his dimming eyes to hers.

'Promise you will end him,' he ordered with his thoughts.

"I promise!" she promised, tears flowing from her eyes as the last of the life in his eyes was extinguished, leaving her clutching his blood covered corpse.

"A fitting end. Dying, stuck in the chest like the useless pig he is," the Pharaoh growled as he grabbed the sobbing girl by her long blonde hair.

Amneris no longer had the energy or will to fight him off, and allowed herself to be dragged back to the edge of the crocodile's pit.

"Any last words?" he snarled as he readied to toss her over the edge himself. He stopped short when he saw her unsettling smile, "Do you think it its funny that you are about to die?"

"No, I'm merely enjoying the thought that you won't live much longer than me," she replied coldly, with a smile so cold that it could have frozen the Nile.

Bringing his other hand down, he relished the feeling of his hand striking her face. It was this strike that caused her to fall backwards over the edge of the ten foot drop and into the pit of ravenous reptiles.

The feeling of triumph he felt at seeing the frigid bitch ripped to shreds was short lived.

"My lord?" the voice of one of his advisors called.

"What is it?!" he snapped, not turning away for a moment from the churning red waters beneath him.

"Y-your skin, your Majesty…i-its blackening!" the man yelped in surprised.

And with the blood of the two blessed lover spilt, the Pharaoh and the last vestiges of his corrupted family were plagued with the Black Death; a sickness that killed in minutes and caused its victims' flesh to blacken and rot.

An exquisitely painful death that was so swift that the once pristine courtyard was soon littered with the rotting corpses of the entire corrupt royal family.

The only survivor of the massacre being the Princess Nepthi, who would go on to rule over all of Egypt and bring about an unprecedented age of prosperity.

Nepthi would have two children, a son who would become the next king and a daughter who went on to marry a nobleman from a country known as Greece. Her daughter's daughter would then have a son who would marry a princess from the nation of Gaul. After several generations the line would culminate with the daughters of the Duke of Aquitaine, William the tenth, whose daughter, Eleanor of Aquitaine would become the Queen of France and then after an forced annulment of her first marriage, the Queen of England.

Amneris' eyes shot open as she sat up in bed. Her breathing was heavy as she confusedly took in her surroundings.

"My Lady?" a servant asked concerned from the foot of the bed, "Are you alright?"

She was sitting in an enormous canopied bed, surrounded by lavish velvets and the like.

"Where is Khai? Where am I?"

"Khai, my lady? I don't know anyone by the name of Khai. But as to your second question, you are at Castle Aquitaine," the woman informed her, "Are you feeling alright? I know loosing ones father can be distressing. The king should have known better than to arrange your marriage so soon after the Duke's death.

"I'm quite alright, thank you Meredith," Eleanor replied, "I don't know what came over me."

With a curtsey the handmaiden left the room, leaving Eleanor once more to her own devices.

Her thoughts returned to the fading images of the nightmare she had been having.

It was odd, the more she tried to focus on the dream she had been having, the fuzzier it became.

Perhaps it was best if she were to forget the horrifying thoughts of being eaten by crocodiles and to instead get out of bed and get ready for her first meeting with her new fiancé, Prince Louis the VII.

She knew it was her duty to marry well. She was the Duchess of Aquitaine after all.

So as much as she loved her father, she had to put his death behind her and work towards making her new life work.

"NINA!" a male voice called out, as large hands shook her from her troubled sleep.

"Huh, what?" she answered as she was shaken awake.

"Nina, I have to talk to you," Eddie answered as he continued shaking her.

"Unh, about what? I'm trying to sleep," Nina groaned.

"Did we die?"

That woke her up.

Sitting up, Nina turned to look at the boy.

"I was really hoping that was a normal nightmare," she sighed deeply.

"Shut up and go back to bed! I need my beauty sleep," Amber complained. The couple had only been together a little over a week and she was already sick of having her sleep interrupted every time Eddie decided it was a good idea to barge into their room and talk to Nina about something.

"In a minute," Eddie answered Amber before turning back to Nina, "So you do remember dying?"

Nina sighed again in exasperation.

"Yes, Eddie I remember you getting stabbed and dying, and then getting eaten by crocodiles. Happy? Can I go back to sleep now?" Nina growled.

She was so used to the dreams and then the sequential wake-up call by her boyfriend, that she was more irritated that she had been woken up before four, than by the fact that she had been painfully murdered.

"And that doesn't bother you?" he asked incredulously.

"I'm sure, that when the sun comes up or I switch to Neri that I'll feel something. Until then I'm too tired to care. GOOD NIGHT!" she finished by pulling the covers over her head.

"Do you remember anything about the crusades yet?" he asked.

"I think so, now go AWAY?" she ordered from under her pillow which she had just put over her face.

Eddie chuckled at her antics. He supposed she was right. The pair of them hardly got any restful sleep with all the memories being crammed into their heads each night.

Giving up his attempted interrogation, he decided to leave the room in favor of his own bed.

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