There are some who say that there are no beginnings and endings, only continuations. But everything has to start somewhere, and on one hot day in early summer, as the sun beat down on the ancient land of Khemet, something... continued. It was the merest of stirrings, as a young boy, pale hair just peeking out from an oversized hat, and holding tightly to his father's hand walked by a stall in the bazaar.

He didn't want to be there, in that hot dry place, surrounded by funny looking people in strange clothes, all shouting in a language he knew only a few words of. He wanted to be at home, in Japan. With his mother and sister, who he couldn't quite convince himself were dead and gone. He wanted to see them again. But that's what dead means. They go away and you can never see them again.

Which meant that, instead of being at home, where he wanted to be, he was here, in Egypt, with his archaeologist father. In spite of his father's profession, this was the first time that the boy had ever been out of Japan, much less to one of his father's digs. His mother had always maintained, and his father had agreed with her, that the Middle Eastern venues where most of the digs took place were far too dangerous for a young boy. However, this time the man had no choice; he had to bring his son with him. The only other relative the boy had was an elderly great-aunt - to elderly to care for him. So he had brought his seven-year-old son with him, and, with the vague notion that culture was good for children - and children shouldn't be cooped up at camp all day - he had brought the boy to see the bazaar in a small town near his dig site.

The boy shivered with a sudden chill. For the first time since his father had brought him to the bazaar, he stopped and looked at one of the stalls. It was as if his eyes were drawn there. The merchant manning it was strangely silent as the pale-haired boy tugged his father over.

"See something you like, son?" the boy's father asked him. The boy didn't answer. He let go of his father's hand, and leaned against the downward-slanting table. Even on his toes, his chin just cleared the bottom edge. His eyes ran over the trinkets displayed there. Nothing about them was any different from any of the other trinkets on display at the bazaar. The boy was about to return to his father, when a strange pendant in the upper-left corner of the table caught his eye. A chill ran through him again.

"Dad? How about that?" he asked, pointing at the pendant.

"I don't know, Ryou. Do you like it?" the boy's father asked. Ryou hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. "Then I'll get it for you." Father smiled down at son, and then began to haggle with the merchant in Arabic. A few minutes later, money and pendant exchanged hands.

"Here you go, son," Ryou's father said, handing the pendant to the boy as they were walking away from the stand. "You take good care of that now. According to the merchant, it's one-of-a-kind."

"Really?" Ryou asked, examining his shiny new possession. It was made entirely out of gold; a ring with a pyramid in the middle, an eye in the middle of the pyramid, and five other pieces of gold hanging from it. Investigation proved their points to be sharp. "What elsh did 'e shay?" Ryou asked around the bleeding finger that was now in his mouth.

"Not much," his father replied. "I think he was confused, or maybe it was my Arabic. He said that it was very old. Called it the 'Millennium Ring,' whatever that means. But he also said that it has something to do with that American card game, Magic and Wizards. I think he may have just been saying that, although I don't know why..." He continued talking, but Ryou ignored the extrapolations on the likelihood of the Ring being a genuine artifact in favour of actually pulling the brown leather cord that the Ring hung from around his neck.

"Wah!" he exclaimed, as he nearly tripped over the Ring that was now hanging somewhere near his knees.

"Careful!" his father said. "Here, let me fix the cord for you." He reached for the Ring, but for some reason, Ryou was reluctant to let his father take it from him, even just to adjust the cord. "Okay, okay," the man said. "I'll just shorten it back here." He went behind Ryou, and pulled the cord up, until the Ring was hanging in the middle of the boy's chest. He tied the cord in a knot, and tucked the end into Ryou's shirt.

"There. Much better, isn't it?" Ryou nodded. He didn't know why, but it felt right to have the Ring hanging over his heart.

"Yeah," he said with a smile. "I like it. Thank you, Dad."

"You're welcome, son," Ryou's father said. "Did I tell you what else that merchant said? He-" the man broke off, and laughed, seeing the look of suffering his son was giving him. "All right, I get the picture. It wasn't really important. How about some lunch?" Although most of what his father said went right over Ryou's head - the man didn't really understand how to interact with children - this was something he understood perfectly.

"Yeah!" He grinned. Before his father could reply though, the orderly chaos of the bazaar was shattered by a loud explosion ahead of them. Ryou's father flung himself over the boy, sheltering him from any shrapnel. There was a brief moment when the world seemed to hold still, and then people began screaming, and running away from the explosion.

"Hang on, son!" Ryou's father said a minute later, as he scooped his son up and began running. Ryou held on, but as his father ran, the Ring around his neck jostled loose, and almost came off. At the last moment, Ryou grabbed it. Then his eyes widened in shock, as the sharp, hanging pieces rose into the air, two pointing toward the explosion, three pointing the way they were going.

"Dad-" he started.

"Not now, Ryou!" his father snapped. And then abruptly, he stopped. Ryou caught only a glimpse of the trio of men, guns in their hands and scarves covering their heads and faces, before his father pushed the boy behind him, and began speaking franticly in Arabic. "Please," Ryou recognized. "Don't," "I am," "father," and "son." The rest was incomprehensible gibberish. One of the gun wielding men spat out a phrase that Ryou didn't recognize, and pointed his gun at Ryou's father. There was an ominous 'click.'

"Ryou, run!" his father screamed. The men opened fire, and his father's blood spattered across Ryou. He couldn't scream, he couldn't move, and then suddenly he was filled with an odd strength, and he was running. Somehow, he managed to escape being hit by even a single bullet. Somehow, he managed to duck into an alleyway, and find a place to hide as the gunmen went by. He knew he had to find a way out of the town, and back to the camp at the dig site. If he could just get back, he knew, everything would be okay. His hands were clutched around the Ring, holding it like a lifeline. Tears ran silently down his face.

If he could just get back to the camp.

The town wasn't very big, he knew, so if he just kept going in one direction, he would eventually get out. If he could get out, he could get back to camp. He kept that thought firmly in his mind, to the exclusion of all others, as he went deeper into the alleyway, and across the street it opened onto, always going the same way. He noticed that the sun was going his way too. That means I'm going west. It was getting on towards evening – his watch said seven-oh-three – when he finally stumbled, dusty and blood-spattered, past the last line of buildings.

He looked around then, unsure of which way to go. Then he spotted a curve of the dirt road, one that wound its way around an odd – and unmistakable, it looked like a rose – rock formation, and he knew that that had to be the road his father had driven down that morning. He started to walk.

Hours later, when the sun had set, and the moon and stars risen, Ryou was still walking. It was a full moon, and the stars were bright, but he wished he had a flashlight. Or his fa- He wished he had a flashlight. His right hand was still wrapped around the Ring, and his left held a half-empty bottle of water. Where is the camp?

Then he stumbled, tripping over something on the ground. He looked at it, and as soon as he realized what it was – a fallen tent pole – the shadowy shape around him resolved into the familiar profiles of tents and boxes.

"Dr. Kent!" he called. "Dr. Mishimoto! Mr. Ibrahim! Someone?" There was no reply as Ryou wandered through the camp. There was, in fact, no sound, except his own breath and heartbeat. Not even the night insects were singing. He tripped over another half-fallen tent, this time landing with his hand on a flashlight. It was big and heavy, but he gratefully picked it up, and switched it on. The beam was bright and wide, and its sweep over the camp revealed what moonlight and shadows had hidden.

Ryou's eyes went wide, and his suddenly nerveless fingers dropped the flashlight. He was surrounded by carnage. Bullet-riddled bodies were scattered everywhere – archaeologists, local guides, labourers. It was through sheer luck that he hadn't tripped over one. An anguished scream tore from Ryou's throat, and something – shifted.

As he collapsed to the ground next to an empty crate, Ryou irrationally felt as if he were being embraced by something warm and dark. And, had he been in any kind of state for rational thought just then, he would have sworn that he heard a voice, not unlike his own, whispering to him.

"Shh… No need to cry, my little host. I am here. We are together now. You belong to me, and I don't allow anything to damage what is mine. We shall have our revenge; I mine and you yours. We have a lot in common, little host, and I am glad. So don't cry…"

When Ryou woke the next morning, the voice seemed all a dream. But his eyes were dry, and somehow, he knew what he had to do.