10Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea ~ "Ozymandias"
by Dash O'Pepper
Author's Notes: Loosely based on the third season episode "The Mummy" (#3.20) written by William Welch.
• This is my attempt to put the pieces together and explain the events that occurred in "The Mummy". Where necessary, some original dialogue has been included.
• This work is set around the timeline for the TV series (the 1980s).
• Some locations, terms and names are both Romanized and modernised: due to source references; the multiple languages that were spoken and written over five millennia; fonts, keyboard language presets, and fanfiction site capabilities; and because this story is written in English. I apologise in advance for any missing diacritical marks, especially if such have changed the meanings of words.
• As with most science fiction series, technology is more advanced than the same time period in our own universe.
• This story may also be found on AO3.
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Prologue:
29th July 1917
To Field Marshal Sir William Robert Robertson:
Preparations for battle are underway. Despite the war and the support of the Arabs⁽¹⁾ against the Turks, there still remains among these people a superstitious belief that one would assume to have been quashed through the centuries by both Moslem⁽²⁾ and Christian faiths.
Last night a man entered camp: one such as I have never before seen, and hope never will again. Despite the intense heat and the beastly, unbearable sun here in Egypt, his skin was bleached and weathered like parchment, and his underlying skeleton stuck through the few miserable rags that remained covering his body. Though, by all estimates, he was in his thirties; his hair and beard were long, silver, and matted. He was stone blind: his eyes were milky, and it was impossible to judge what colour they once might have been. So dehydrated and malnourished was he, it was a miracle that he survived his trek through the Al-Saḥrā'. The Arabs wanted nothing to do with him, and demanded he be removed from camp immediately, believing him a harbinger of some malevolence.
I had him brought to the infirmary, but there was little that could be done for him, short of making him comfortable until the end came. Swiftly, for his sake, we hoped.
But before he died, he had an incredible tale to tell…He was part of a British archaeological expedition, which had arrived in Alexandria in 1904 in search of one of the legendary ancient cities in Upper Egypt, where Menes was believed to have united and ruled the Two Lands: Lower Egypt in the North and Upper Egypt in the South. He claimed they set out travelling southward along the Nile, but because of storms and flood they became side-tracked, instead following one of the Nile's tributaries, their guides having long-since abandoned them.
He didn't recall how long they wandered through the Al-Saḥrā', but the further they travelled, their original number of forty dwindled to a mere twelve. Believing the desert would be their tomb, eight chose to remain at one of the few oases they discovered, while he and the remaining three continued their peregrination. He was the last survivor, more dead than alive when he stumbled upon a great city—not in ruins, as one would expect, but as though recently built: its spires gleaming in the sun. Surrounded, he said, by lush gardens and farmland—not what one would expect to find anywhere in the Al-Saḥrā'. He spoke of being rescued by its inhabitants and nursed back to health. He must have been in and out of delirium for weeks before he was well enough to stand without aid. As a heretofore never seen stranger, he was brought before the great city's ruler. Though, they spoke no common tongue, this man seemed to have the capacity to read his thoughts and communicate by mind and not words. He said never had he been in the presence of such a man: a being with inhuman powers over the people and the land itself. They spoke over the course of several days: the ruler intrigued by the world outside his city. He was to be brought again before this ruler, when a sandstorm erupted, engulfing everything in its path. The city was gone, and he was alone, sheltering behind a dune. Either what he saw or the storm itself had caused his blindness, and he walked the Al-Saḥrā' for days before stumbling into Rafa. He died soon after recounting his exploits. The tale was incredulous: no Westerner could survive for thirteen days, let alone thirteen years, in the Al-Saḥrā' unaided. So, his account was believed to be the last ravings of a man driven mad by heat, hunger, and thirst. Yet, a casual inquiry to Alexandria did reveal the record of an expedition from Oxford that arrived in 1904, and was believed to have been lost within the Al-Saḥrā' shortly after their arrival. Whether or not he was a part of this expedition is lost to the sands of time.
As he was English, we had the Chaplain perform the funeral rites, and he was quickly buried. We were later to learn to our horror that some of the Arabs dug up his remains and burned them, scattering the ashes God knows where.
This incident, and the obvious tribal superstition that imbues these people, does make me consider whether or not Lawrence is correct, and that Faisal and the rest of the Arabs can be trusted when the time comes for an assault on the Turks. Lawrence knows these people far better than I, and we do need their help in the defeat of the Ottomans; so, I am therefore forced to leave things in his hands and that of Providence.
Respectfully, I remain
Gen. Edmund Allenby
Egyptian Expeditionary Forces
Footnotes: ⁽¹⁾ The author knows that the majority of Egyptians are North Africans and only a small percentage are Arabs, but am trying to replicate the imperialistic style and beliefs someone like Allenby would hold.
⁽²⁾ The archaic use of "Moslem" is due to the time period in which the above letter is written. No offense is intended.