“This pointless violence must end at once!” the Unpharaoh declared. “What was I doing? What was I thinking?”
She surveyed the destruction she’d caused – the ruined gardens, the shattered buildings. A strange sound came out of her hairy mouth as realisation struck her. It was a heartbroken moan.
Bab stood up, wincing at his bruises and cuts. “Now do you see, Andica?” he said. “All those thousands of years of ruining lives, just to be number one. There’s no need for that now.”
“I do,” she said, her voice breaking. “I do see. These feelings, Cainus, gushing into me from your chin. This is what it feels like to truly care for someone?”
Cainus blushed as red as the Egyptian sunset. “It is, Your Majesty. My Majesty. My darling Majesty, who I love more than fashionable clothing itself. What you’re feeling are my feelings about you.”
Tears welled in the Unpharaoh’s newly white eyes. “You love me so much, Cainus. You always have, and you always will.”
“It’s not bad, is it, Andica?” Prof Sharkey asked her. “And if you can feel love, then . . . perhaps you and I can begin to love each other. As we should have all those centuries ago.”
“Indeed we can,” Andica replied. She swished over to Bab. “And you, Bab Sharkey, I should feel like this about you too. My wonderful, funny, clever nephew.”
She reached out a hairy tentacle and gently ruffled Bab’s hair. It made him feel very peculiar.
“Cainus,” she said, turning to her faithful jackal, “let us leave this world together. I want to settle down somewhere comfortable in the Afterworld, with you by my side. Forever. To think I didn’t like that lovely place, with its five-star facilities and family-friendly water sports!”
Prong broke into a round of applause. “This is the sweetest love story I ever heard,” she honked, wiping away joyous tears. “Except maybe for that one about the Ostrich Mummy who fell in love with a tray of dustburger crumbs.”
“That’s a real tearjerker,” Scaler agreed. “You need a whole box of papyrus tissues to get through that one.”
Bab couldn’t help grinning at the idea of Cainus and the Unpharaoh living happily ever after in paradise. “So now you know you’re not alone,” he told her. “Cainus has always been there for you.”
The Unpharaoh patted Cainus with a tentacle and he quivered with glee. “You have, haven’t you, Cainus?” she cooed.
Then she frowned. Which made Cainus frown too.
“Thank goodness you sent your feelings into me through the Beard,” she went on. “Otherwise I would have gone on thinking of you as . . . just a jackal.”
Cainus’s ears pricked up and he chuckled. Bab heard a nervous edge to the laugh.
“Very amusing, Your Majesty,” Cainus replied. “‘Just a jackal,’ ha-ha! Just a jackal who you always cared for, don’t you mean? A jackal who shared a small, special place in your eternal heart? Just a little, that is?”
A tear rolled down the Unpharaoh’s hairy face. “No. That’s the shame of it, Cainus, I never cared for you at all.”
Cainus cocked his head to one side. “Come now, Your Greatness. Not at all? Not even a teensy, tiny, weeny little itty-bitty bit?”
“Not one bit. It breaks my heart now to realise just how little you meant to me. You were just a useful jackal slave – and not even that useful, if truth be told.”
Bab swallowed as he saw a terrible change come over Cainus. The jackal’s blushing complexion turned grey. His pointy ears folded back against his head. His body stiffened. He looked like a dog ready to attack.
“It’s true,” Cainus said in a low growl. “I feel it through the Beard. I can feel your nothingness. Your total lack of feelings for me.”
The Unpharaoh’s face began to change too. She was absorbing Cainus’s fury from the hairs attached to his chin. Her eyes flooded red once again. The hair she was made of bristled, and her prickles stood on end. She bared her horn-fangs and hissed.
“Cainus’s anger is feeding back into her, Bab,” warned Prof Sharkey. “This will undo everything.”
“No, no, no,” Bab said. “Cainus, stop sending her your feelings!”
The Unpharaoh howled. “Never have I felt such rage,” she cried. “Even my own is not as strong as this bitter anger of yours, Cainus, bursting forth like a torrent of sour blood. This is bliss! I shall use this to fuel my ambition anew!”
She planted a finger against her nose and blasted a fireball straight at the Egyptian Museum. But this wasn’t just any fireball. Fuelled by the rage she’d absorbed from Cainus, it was ten times the size of her usual missiles.
WUBBA-WUMP!
Bab crouched and covered his head as the enormous ball of flame flattened the entire museum. All its priceless treasures were obliterated, and vast chunks of blackened stone hurtled skyward. Bab rolled aside to protect himself from the searing heat.
The hundreds of Animal Mummies squealed and scurried for shelter among the ruined buildings nearby.
Cainus snarled at his mistress. “Curse you, Your Majesty. No, not Your Majesty – Your Nastiness. Your Selfishness, Your Emptiness. Your Worst-ness! I will destroy you!”
Prof Sharkey gave a grief-stricken sigh. “And I thought love might solve this,” she said.
Bab felt impossibly sad. Cainus is right, he thought. Now she has to be destroyed. Or she’ll destroy the world.
Cainus bit savagely at the base of his Beard, then yelped as his teeth clamped onto something hard.
CLONK!
It was the dark shen rings. Bab noticed them for the first time, just as Cainus’s fangs bounced off them.
That’s it! he thought.
“Cainus, listen to me,” Bab said, trying to keep his voice steady. “Before your heartless boss’s nostril recharges.”
“Careful now, Bab,” said Prof Sharkey.
Bab continued. “You wear the Pharaoh’s Beard now, Cainus. You don’t have to let that selfish sorceress push you around any more.”
The Unpharaoh cackled at Bab. “That idiotic mutt has no power, boy. Surely you see by now, I am the Beard. It
