"To Manifest Me Rightly"

The same shall be my age, as now my youth;
No time shall find me wanting to my truth.
-Virgil's Aeneid

Author's Notes:
Set a little while after TMR.

Feedback/Comments? The continuation of the story really quite depends on them.

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Prologue -Repining Hours

He could not stop the recurring vision of dull red blood that fell in sporadic drops. They hung at the edge of something silvery, grew larger under the weight of gravity and resembled teardrops before falling off. But he couldn't see where the droplets fell, just heard their drips somewhere far below And he was frantic, for even in that hazy world of dreams he knew that it signalled urgency, that he had to act, soon.

But for what cause? For whom?

The labouring in vain to recapture the past was never more keenly felt; all intellectual efforts must surely prove futile. Hidden somewhere outside this realm, in some dreamlike state of which he had no inkling. And it depends on chance whether or not he came upon it before he himself must die.

But he was tired, physical energy sapped, cuts and wounds fresh from the recent abysmal assault and emotionally spent. He struggled against the bonds of duty that held him captive, wishing nothing more than to hoist a sail down the Nile river, down to El-Iskandariya and beyond and avoid like the plague all those who persuaded themselves that they have found what they sought.

For the longest time he was disoriented, weary eyes that were trained on the vastness of the desert became unfocussed as he swayed slightly from the brilliant flash of white that obliterated that vision. And the recollections of the past few days overcame him, making him feel like swaying again, this time with worry and angst.

The Army of Anubis.

The moving cloud of black, seething shapes below that noxious powder that swept across dunes with lightning speed, with the power to halt any fearless warrior in his gallop. The tribes of the Medjai had faltered, and he too, the son of the Medjai tribe and commander of their army. The first wave of the fierce black dog-warriors running tirelessly, pitted against an all too human army robed in black -and the strength of the supernatural became evident by the time the second wave appeared. He remembered looking about him with despair, seeing nothing but the beardless young warriors who had yet to complete their training, breaths heaving from the exertion. He was convinced that looking the supernatural army was no different from looking into a mirror that reflected eternal death at them. It would be an honourable death, he had chanted to himself repeatedly, to die in the face of battle, in combat with an army that was not of this world.

And was brought back to the sad reality of the many dead Medjai that dotted the sand dunes. Black spots that appeared on their golden crests, a sight to behold. The contracting pain in his chest hastily replaced the joy of the knowledge that the O'Connells had destroyed the sources of evil in Ahm Shere. A great deal of housekeeping had shown that there was barely enough of his people left to guard the Pharoahs and whatever remaining warriors he had now had returned back to their camp to tend to their wounds and seek comfort from their families.

What did he have then?

Ardeth Bay stood up from the edge of the cliff that he had been sitting on and shielded his eyes from the brilliance of the rising sun, his ears appreciating the silence that deafened him now; for a while he was free from the thundering noise that always accompanied destruction and death. It was a vile memory, and the fulfilment of lifelong duty became momentarily incomprehensible to him, before his now passive heart. The desert watch was a marvellous chance to allow him to be half-lost; in the darkness he was also another darkness that moved and his youthful idealism merely ghosts in white dresses that conversed fleetingly with shadows in the night. The abandonment to happiness was unknown to him; there was nothing worth the winning save the humdrum of the daily round -the loneliness without hope of consolation, magnified by the shadow of death that surrounded him in the faces of his beloved tribesmen.

"Your desert watch is over, Khaliq." Ardeth turned to his deputy commander, who nodded and mounted his horse quietly.

"Thank you, my friend. Do not grieve yourself so, Ardeth. Peace be on you." Khaliq inclined his head with deference, his eyes communicating the same weariness that Ardeth felt. The gallop of horses behind him signalled that the next watch had arrived.

He still had to see the O'Connells off at the docks in the early evening. His friends for nearly a decade now; he allowed himself a slight smile at the progress of their friendship, from deep distrust and to unwavering loyalty. The triumph of knowing them as friends had brought a glaring impoverishment in his own life when he saw their thriving family.

"And peace on you," he whispered back with great heaviness, he mounted his own stallion and rode back to camp, the gaping hole in his soul remaining.