...Judas grabbed her hand before she could attempt another chord, his smile twitching wider. "Not an instrument made for wide-open spaces, is it?" Her skin was warm, and the flickering light of the campfire licked at her fingers and tinged them red, like blood. He released her hand almost abruptly and drew his own back, running the other through his hair to cover up. He wasn't that desperate, not yet; it wasn't close enough that he had to strike in the open just yet. "You collect stories, don't you? I have one for you."

Across the clearing, Ashlin snorted. "You couldn't tell a decent story to save your life, hunter."

"Oh no?" He abandoned Raeger for the moment and bounced to his feet, twisting to face Ashlin with a swirl of his coat. "I admit, it's gruesome... but such is the reality of war." Hands spread, he turned the full force of his smile upon her, and quelled the urge to laugh at the narrowing of her eyes.

"Just tell it, already, and get it over with." Her tone was snipped, and her hand wrapped around her sword hilt. Wasn't it always, these days? He'd not had a chance to observe her before their arrival at Lorien, but her nerves seemed gratifyingly taut. "Try not to scare the princess," she added.

Jelanda shot her a sharp look. "Don't worry about me. I'm sure I've heard worse."

Judas laughed and hooked his fingers on his belt, spinning on his heel to pace before the fire. "Yes, you probably have, princess. This is an old story, and the details of what happened have been lost. The suggestion is enough."

"A true story, then?"

He glanced at Claira and nodded. Time to be serious. "Yes, true. The legend was passed through the generations of my tribe until it reached my ears, and I've never forgotten it." She had beautiful eyes. That they were colorless only made them more interesting. They soaked the firelight in the way a dark spell would swallow light.

"Aren't you a little pale for a desert dweller?"

"We all have our flaws, don't we?" He turned his most pitying gaze on the valkyrie and smiled. "Yes, we do. But they only make us more interesting." Facing the fire again, he looked into the flame. The story he wanted to tell had fragmented and changed so much over the ages as storytellers tried to embellish it that the product that had reached him hardly resembled the true events at all. It was only the writings of Akhetamen's tomb that allowed him to reconstruct it and find the truth.

The hand that wrote those stories and catelogs decorating Amenti's walls was still a mystery to him. There was no name, and no record of an artist in Akhetamen's employment at the time of his death. That event, like so many others on that day of disaster, had been unforseen.

So it must be magic. If those mages were still alive - if they were the ones who recorded these things - then he had another goal to achieve before the pharaoh's resurrection.

"Buried in the distant past, for those of us who know what to look for, is a story about a kingdom of splendour. It rivaled the realm of the gods, they say." Judas summoned a memory of the first mural, and smiled. The art was primitive, but the symbols were clear: great riches. Power. "This paradise, called Egypt was ruled by a just, beloved king, and a council of mages this world has not seen the like of since. They were the creators of such things as golems, towers of metal that reached the heavens, and spells that are now lost: teleportation, levitation, even resurrection.

"That kingdom is now known as the 'Scorched Land' to its natives. That wonderful kingdom was consumed in hellish fire." The campfire cracked to emphasize his words, and he met Ashlin's cold gaze over the flames. "There was a woman very much like you in it, dear, but her hair was dark, and her armor black as pitch." He glanced at Claira. "Perhaps you might be familiar with her - she was a servant of the gods, but I think she was more akin to a butcher.

"Many reasons are given for the king's fall. Some say he was too powerful, and the gods grew jealous. Others say he was manipulated by his mages into committing a sin so terrible that the miasma of his deed was enough to draw the valkyrie to him and spell doom for the entire kingdom. It certainly is true that, whatever the cause, a great disaster befell his people, and everything was reduced to ash. Their shadows are burned into the stone, their spirits forever chained to the ruins of their home."

"But you said you were one of the desert people," Jelanda cut in, her attempt at mincing herbs forgotten. "How can that be, if everyone was killed?"

"Not everyone," Judas replied, shaking a finger at her and grinning when her eyes narrowed to match Ashlin's. If there was one person in this group as amusing as the valkyrie, it was this pouty little princess. Shame they were so determined to protect her. Taking her would be like cuddling a pretty porcelain doll for his breakfast. "What kind of a lesson would this be if no one was left to tell the tale? Some were spared, but not many.

"It must have been a glorious sight. Imagine it: a valkyrie soaring through the cloudless sky, a shadow against the blue with bright crimson wings and a spear like a lightning bolt. Her voice rang across the kingdom, proclaiming the sins of the king and the punishment his people were to suffer as a result.

'Prepare to be cleansed!'

"The light she summoned was like none seen before, brighter and more frightening than anything the king's mages had discovered. She hurled it from the sky and it struck the palace with a flash of light, and it was no more. When the light faded, there was nothing left of the royal city, nor of the innocent citizens. Men, women, and children perished in the blinding fire, and the only mark of their passage is on the walls. Where the palace was is only a pit of glass.

"That light was a beacon to we desert dwellers. The tribes were not touched by the disaster, for by refusing to obey the king, they had been judged innocent. Each leader sent representatives to the city, but all returned with grim news that the nation of Egypt was no more."

"What was his sin?" It was Claira who spoke up this time, knife and file held carefully in her hands.

"Who knows?" Judas shrugged and released Ashlin's gaze. It had become icier, if anything, and he wondered if he'd somehow hit a nerve. Surely a valkyrie would not be bothered by such a ritual cleansing. Would she? They were all so predictably self-righteous. "There are many theories, but none can be proven. Everyone who was there is dead, and they are more likely to hunt visitors to their realm."

Ashlin cocked an eyebrow. "Don't the records say?"

Ah, she knew about that, did she? But he'd sensed no trace of any gods during any of his visits. "Who wrote the records? You know what they say about that. One can't trust anything written after the fact."


----------------------------------
Notes:

This is flawed, of course. If I use this for a real story post, I will of course flesh the other characters out more and improve the dialog, and such. The purpose of this ficlet was to let Judas tell his story, nothing more.