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The cavernous chamber was falling down around their ears, with giant slabs of rock crumbling from the ceiling to the floor. The two women were in the shelter of a doorway, both watching with different emotions as their men struggled to hold on, above the abyss. To one side, the young boy watched his father, held back by his uncle as the room pitched and tossed with the convulsions of the magic being taken back.
"Evy, no! Get out of here, just get out of here!" That was O'Connell, trying to ward off the mad plan in his beloved wife's mind. Heedless to the danger to herself, defying death though just back from the realm of Osiris, she rushed out into the falling masses of rock to save her husband.
"Mom!" The boy, crying out in disbelief at his mother's heroics gave both parents the focus to try even harder to survive.
"Hang on, Rick!" The boy's uncle, believing in his sister and his brother-in-law, rallied them both.
Their bond was apparent, and the sorcerer trusted in his own bond now to save him. "Ankh-su-namun!" His anguished cry for help lashed at the fear-ridden woman. "Seb-e-wey! Seb-e-wey!"
The reawakened Egyptian looked with incredulous fear and shock at the man she had chosen eons ago. A firm shake of her head preceded her defiance.
"NIY!" The woman backed out of the arch, intent only on preserving her own skin. She had died before, and that was no experience for repetition.
"Ankh-su-namun?!" New levels of grief were in that protestation, as his carefully constructed world crashed around him. "Ankh-su-namun." The quiet acceptance of the fact that she loved him far less than he had loved her crept into his simple declaration of her name. He turned his gaze to the O'Connells, seeing in them the love he had thought he possessed, the love that had led him to sacrifice every principle, every shred of decency he had ever known. There was no grief now, as he looked to the couple; in his own way, he was pleased that they had survived, even as he let go of the ledge and fell to his judgment.