Cruelty comes in many forms. Some of those forms are easier to see than others.
We were about to be given an example of one overt cruelty, and one that was quite a bit more subtle...
15 Thuthi, Inundation, Year 4 of the Reign of Rameses II (August 4th, 1275 BCE)
I called around the others to look at the dead hyenas. I cast a quick detect magic spell, and immediately noticed two things: one, there were small stones glowing brightly in the hyenas' cut throats, and two, the Osirean longsword was putting out waves of energy...as if it were calling to something.
It figures. The damn sword's business in life is to kill undead. So what does it do? Call undead to itself. Probably major undead, knowing it. I'll bet its bearers never live very long. (Note to self: do not get too attached to Terik.)
We wrangled for a while over what to do with the stones, and finally, impatient, I simply dug one of them out. When I touched it, the dead hyenas' mouth began to move.
They said, "We know what you and your granddaughter have become. If you follow the noses of the dead you will find your line has ended."
I looked at the hyenas. All of their noses were pointing south and vaguely west. I reviewed in my head where we were, and how far we had traveled, and a chill broke over me.
I dithered aloud about what it might mean, mostly for Mayet's sake. But the message truly had only one meaning, for me. My children and their children are likely all dead. Four living children, eleven grandchildren I left behind.
I never expected to see them again. But to know that they have been killed is almost too heavy of a burden to bear. One is not supposed to outlive one's grandchildren--and certainly not almost all of them. I felt Usi's muscular form leaning against my legs, in silent comfort.
I will not tell Mayet yet that her mother and her sisters and brothers are likely dead. She doesn't need that, not right now, at least. If she figures it out for herself, I'll deal with it then.
(Truly, I suspect deep within myself that this may be a selfish impulse. It hard enough to hide my grief; to control it while Mayet was also grieving would be too much. And of all things, I dare not show weakness.)
A discussion broke out about the longsword's call but nothing was decided, except for that it was high time we should be moving on. Our next destination was the Wadi of the Fig, in the western desert.
Tired of traveling the desert on foot and knowing that we had forty miles to go into the desert, we decided that it was time to purchase conveyances for ourselves. Into Thebes we went, a bit nervously, and some of us went to find chariots and horses to purchase and others of us went to find Sekath. I wanted to talk to Sekath about the nuts, and ask him a few other questions, besides.
Oddly enough, when I showed him the nuts that I'd borrowed from Raam, he said he'd never seen them before, but he wanted to see if he could make them grow. He planted one and then mumbled over it, and much to our surprise it shot upwards, unfolding into a large bush that bloomed with wonderful-smelling flowers and then fruited with those same nuts. We told him that the nuts seemed to be good for clearing out the affects of mind-affecting substances, such as alcohol. He gave Raam some plant growth potions that he could use to make the nut bushes grow very quickly, if he wanted.
Amunet seems to be under the impression that he could sell them as a hangover cure. I, myself, want to plant them in the gardens of the rich. It's a lovely plant, after all; who would not want two or three in their garden?
It is not that I think it would be a particularly good thing for all of the Unas to be free. I just believe that drugging them is something of a dirty trick. Perhaps if they were freed little by little, it would not be so bad.
Perhaps if my father had been royal I'd be Pharaoh. I'm planning on leaving Egypt anyway; do I care what mess I leave behind me?
I also talked to Sekath about the message; still hedging, I said I could not tell if it had been a threat or not. The druid looked puzzled, and then came over to Usi, and laid his hand on the hyena's head. Usi's eyes glowed green, and then (so I am told) mine...and then Mayet's. I asked him, "What did you do?"
He said, "I just followed the magic. It seems to be flowing along some sort of strange bloodline."
I looked at Sekath, then Usi, then back at Sekath. "I was born a human, as far as I know. Not a hyena."
"Perhaps you have were blood somewhere in you."
I have to admit, it fits in with everything that Usi has hinted at, and the story he told me about the deception of the gods. Hyena souls born into a human body, Mayet and I related in some obscure way to Usi.
Mayet, at this point, burst out, "Grandmother, you made me a hyena? I don't want to be a hyena!" Telling her that if it was my fault, I certainly hadn't done it on purpose, fell on deaf ears. She looked at me, scared and angry, and I remembered myself, younger than her, screaming at my father that I would not get married, that I was going to be a mage instead...
He won that argument. I adjusted. So will Mayet.
We were interrupted at that point by the arrival of several of the others, who had gone to dispose of that evil longsword, have some things we got off of Huni identified, and acquire chariots. I didn't get a chance to ask Sekath about his limp and offer the remedies I use for my arthritis; I thought he might have some ideas for improving my formula. Ah, well. We told him where we were off to, and as the sun came down from its zenith we left.
16 Thuthi, Inundation, Year 4 of the Reign of Rameses II (August 5th, 1275 BCE)
Traveling today. Chariots are so much more comfortable than walking, even Raam had to agree.
During the break we took to wait out the hear, I asked Amunet if I could borrow his identify ring. With it on, I approached Usi and laid my hand not on him, but on that collar.
The collar is meant to contain his mage abilities (not a surprise) and pull the familiar's soul into the dead body of its host. Startled, I asked Usi, "But why?"
He gave me the equivalent of a shrug. To carry on the line. He would say no more.
I spent a lot of time thinking about possibly being a hyena. Part of the one that is now many. Part of Pack. Is this my fate, then, to be neither human nor hyena but something in between?
17 Thuthi, Inundation, Year 4 of the Reign of Rameses II (August 6th, 1275 BCE)
The Wadi of the Fig is well named; the valley contained what appeared to be an abandoned fig orchard. The fruit was just coming ripe, which made me happy as I enjoy figs. The village I was born in didn't have quite the correct weather to keep fig trees happy, so they were a rare treat.
Terik noticed footprints leading to the largest fig tree, and to a flat stone at the base of it. Amunet looked it over, kicked it, and declared it safe to pull up. We did so, and from beneath the stone came a rush of cool, moist air, that smelled for some reason like a garden. There was a sloping corridor that lead down and in. We, of course, did not hesitate to wander inside.
Pepy read the Hieratic on the walls for us, most of it having to do with the life and times of a pharaoh named Zoser, whose tomb we guessed this was. I cast a spell to detect undead, and there was one, but it was oddly intermittent, flashing only every few minutes. It was ahead, where the corridor opened out and abundant light spilled from the opening, lighting our way.
Usi said, There is someone dying ahead. I smell old and new blood, and pain. I nodded and warned the others. The opening spilled into what was easily the most lush place I have ever been in. It was nearly indescribable. So much plant life, everywhere I looked. I wished Sekath had joined us; what a place for a druid!
Are there places in this world that look like this naturally? If so, I believe I would like to go live there. Perhaps I will, some day.
We found the source of the undead flicker; a girl who, when we greeted her, shrank back in fear. Usi said, The dying smell does not come from her. This way.
I followed him. Behind me, I heard Pepy ask, "Ah...what's your name?"
She replied, "Xeres..." I heard no more, because what I found was distracting. Distracting in a horrible way.
The dying person had once been a man. I hesitate to call what had been done to him torture; this went beyond torture into psychotic, obsessive mutilation. All four of his limbs had been removed, his eyes and tongue had been cut out, and his ears had been cut off. His genitals had been mutilated, and his belly had been opened. From the smell, I gathered that bits of his intestines had been removed.
And yet he lived. He breathed.
Usi's ears were flat to his skull, and he stared at the tortured man. He is one of us, he said, pain in his voice.
I called Mayet over, who confirmed my opinion that there was no reason that this man should be alive. He was beyond her arts to heal, far beyond the arts of any, truly. The sweet voice of the girl who we had found before drifted over. "Huni was keeping him. This place keeps him alive."
One of us. The man was a hyena-souled human, like me, like Mayet. Terik had joined us in looking at the man who, blind and deaf, could not know that we were there. "We have to end it. Let's take him outside," I said.
Terik picked up the man and he, Mayet, Usi, and I went to the surface. Terik set him down just outside the entrance. Usi moved forward and stared into the man's ruined eye sockets. Both of them flashed green around the eyes, the man's glow flickered and faded and Usi's glowed more strongly. The man exhaled for the last time, then died.
Mayet fluttered her hands, disturbed by what she had seen. Usi would tell me only, he was one of us. He returns. In his voice I could hear echoes, as if it were not one voice speaking but the echoes of many.
My skin crawled. I wondered, yet again, What have I bound myself to?
Inside, Amunet was in paradise. The walls of the cavern were lined with jewels and filled with secret compartments. The inscriptions on the walls continued, until the elf stopped and called out, "This one's not Hieratic. It's a regular hieroglyph. And it says, 'open'."
The girl, Xeres, evidently remembered Pepy...only she called him "Plinth". And she remembered Menes. Oh. She was that Xeres. You know, Menes' wife, who Pepy impregnated and then ran away with, and then had to kill? Who now shows up, intermittently reading as undead, in the tomb an undead pharaoh had been hanging out in? Who has very little memory of her previous life and shows a startling lack of knowledge about things like, oh, the existence of nighttime?
Right. Poor Pepy. I don't envy him this one.
When Amunet pointed out the glyph, he also pointed out that there was a space for a hand below the glyph. Looking at it closely, it seemed to be one of those things that will kill you if you're not the right person. Plans to tunnel through the wall were interrupted by Xeres stating, "I can go in there. Huni used to go in there, too. I'm not supposed to go in there by myself."
She turned back to Pepy, who she had been talking to. "But I'm afraid I have a horrible disease. Every month, I bleed from my groin..."
Mayet decided to have a little chat about female things with Xeres. Amunet asked if Xeres would open the door and go in with them, and she consented. Pepy and Mayet went with them. Away they went; the rest of us decided to explore.
When the four of them came back, they said there was a sarcophagus with something evil and sleeping inside, a blue crystal whose light was shining on the sarcophagus, and a secondary crystal that appeared to be creating a hole in the floor. The girl said that putting her head in the light that was shining on the floor gave her interesting dreams, dreams about a handsome man striding among groups of people, counting each one.
In the meantime, the rest of us were looking around. Beside a pool of water that seemed perfect for bathing in (I made a note of it, as Usi's getting a bit on the ripe side again, as are the rest of us) there was a shack that was completely magical. Tetikare said it wasn't trapped, but we got Raam to come over and open it up for us anyway. Well, Tetikare taunted him into it, that is. (It's really too bad that Tetikare isn't male. I'd marry her off to Mayet any day.)
We looked inside the shack, which had grown, seemingly to accommodate Raam's height. Two half-giants, scantily clad, met him at the door. The place was far larger on the inside than the outside, and it appeared to be an artifact that was a small shack on the outside, and a large house on the inside.
Well, I guess it keeps land costs and property taxes down.
Terik, disturbed, pointed out that the half-giants were actually blobs of energy and the walls were actually sort of rubbery and shifting. We frowned and closed the door. When Raam turned the doorknob, the shack disappeared, and he was left holding only the doorknob.
I think we'll keep it. It might come in handy. Even if, under the illusion, it's very strange.
Amunet and the rest brought out a jewel that glowed redly and tingled when I held it. They asked me to identify it, so I settled in, asked Usi to keep anyone from interrupting me, and began to cast an identify spell.
Eight hours later, I'd discovered that the jewel was designed to give flesh with the appearance of being alive to the undead, and that almost everyone had gone to sleep while I was studying it. I noticed that Xeres had curled up next to Pepy, and was sound asleep.
A moment of overwhelming sadness, there. I am not a romantic and have never been, but sometimes...I wonder what I missed. I suppose I must have loved my husband in my own way, and I certainly loved my children. And I outlived each one of them.
It makes no difference. I curled up on my own bedroll next to Mayet, and Usi pressed himself next to me. I took comfort from that, shed a few silent tears for my children, and went to sleep.
18 Thuthi, Inundation, Year 4 of the Reign of Rameses II (August 7th, 1275 BCE)
I reported to the others what I had found out about the stone. Amunet and Xeres went to gather the rest of the crystals that Amunet had discovered, and Mayet and Pepy went along. They came back, looking shaken. The sarcophagus had been moved, and the evil that had resided inside was gone. Whatever it was, it was loose.
Mayet went looking for evil. I was amused but was pleasantly surprised when she found and stunned a small gnome, who we tied up. That wasn't the big evil; he was instead a very small evil.
The big evil was lying in the pond that the shack had sat beside. The water was red as blood, having been turned into unholy water by whatever lay beneath it. We girded our loins, I raised my hands to be ready to cast a spell, and Mayet cast Bless Water on the pond.
The next thing I knew, someone had both of my wrists in a very tight grip. About a half-second after that, I heard a horrible snapping sound and the world went all sparkly as the worst pain I've felt in a number of years suddenly radiated from both of my arms. I heard laughter as whatever it was sprang away from me and I crumpled, discovering that the being that had burst out of the water so quickly it had left not a ripple on the surface had broken both of my wrists.
Spellcasting was entirely out. Trying to free one of my healing potions to take it was the most excruciating experience I'd had since Senit was born, when I was thirteen years old. Beside me, I heard Usi groan, and knew that my pain was his, as well. The potion helped, but did not heal the breaks entirely. However, it did allow me to (painfully) cast spells again.
I heard Terik's voice. "It's a revenant. It's strong and fast, and it can't be killed until it fulfills its purpose." Pepy attacked it with his sword and that shield he got off of Huni.
The revenant, who was most likely the pharaoh Zoser, laughed again and said to Pepy, "Do you really want to see her die again?"
We ignored him; Pepy instead asked what his purpose was. Zoser replied, "To return to life." Amunet used the blue crystal, which he had pried out of the ceiling or the sarcophagus chamber, to slow Zoser down. Hit even a revenant enough times, and it'll go down. Terik took his head, and that, we thought, was that.
Until Pepy gave a startled grunt and then a strangled cry, and we saw him stagger away from Xeres, who had a bloody dagger in her hand. She said, with a cruel smile, "I told you you'd have to kill her again."
There was that "can't be killed" clause, right there. Terik engaged, and Zoser, using the girl's body, simply grabbed his sword's blade. Terik ran it into her and then activated it, a flash of bright light ensuing.
The girl collapsed. When we turned her over, it turned out that she was nine months pregnant...which she had been when she was last alive. She was no longer at all undead. She woke, and while her memory still has not returned, I assume it really is better that way. She was very confused about why she was pregnant, and Mayet took her aside to give her the other half of that chat about female things with her.
Just to tie up loose ends, we questioned the gnome, who was full of good information. His master, Khafre, was an undead pharaoh, and had sent him to wake Zoser. Khafre had been in Thebes and was now traveling towards Pi Rameses.
Menes was the one bringing the pharaohs back to life, and each of them was going to come back as something different. How charming. New and different undead are going to try to kill us, it seems.
The gnome had been out looking for the shack, the doorknob to which is in Raam's pocket. Evidently, the shack is impervious to the undead; the guards on the door hate them and kill them on sight. Useful to know, and the shack will come in handy out in the desert. It had been stashed here because it was too useful, and Menes did not want it running about the world.
We decided, on the balance, that the gnome wasn't worth killing, and sent him away.
Finally, the dust settled, and Mayet took a long look at Xeres. She took Pepy aside and had a chat with him; Usi did a bit of spying for me and reported that Mayet strongly suspected that Xeres' child was Zoser's soul reincarnated. Even if it is, perhaps good mothering--and fathering--will make all the difference here.
Xeres is only about three days away from giving birth. We'll wait here, in this lush tomb, for her to give birth, and then try to catch up with Khafre. The prospect of a baby has distracted Mayet from her temper tantrum about possibly being a hyena, and tonight I suggested to her that she might want to think about Raam for marriage, if she decides she wants to get married.
Her reaction was amusing; her eyes went wide, and she said, "But he's so big!" I told her that she was a priestess of a fertility goddess, she'd be able to figure it out if anyone could. When she kept protesting, I told her, fairly bluntly, that, well, things stretch.
Mayet seemed to think about this, and then went to broach the topic with Raam. (There's my girl! She takes after me, even if she doesn't think she does.) Alas, Raam reacted typically, with, "You're a pretty girl, but you're tiny!"
Of course, that's just an opening salvo in the game of mating. Nothing's over till you've stood through the ceremony. If nothing else, there are some very interesting thoughts dancing through my granddaughter's head right now.
I asked Usi about the man who had been tortured, and Usi said that the man was another like me, like Mayet, like himself. A member of this mysterious "us". I raised my eyebrow. "You were born as a human?"
I was. But he would say no more to be then, shivering his skin as if flies were biting him. But I know the questions I need to ask, now.
Tonight I will think about a man who might have been related to me, who was kept alive for days, perhaps weeks, past when he should have died. That could have been me, I think, or me and Mayet, or me and Usi. It occurs to me that Huni was carefully gauging his blows, when we fought him. What if he was not trying to kill us, but capture us?
There are some things much worse than death. The thought of being trapped here and tortured like that, or, worse, being trapped here and having Usi tortured like that, that is far worse than death. His fate could be ours, some day.
There is someone out there who has a hatred of my kind, whatever that turns out to be, that is both obscene and obsessive. And whoever it is is hunting us. Sending messages. Letting us know they are on our trail.
I believe I may not sleep, tonight.
Quotes:
"Hey, if you didn't kill it, it's not cannibalism."
--Amunet
"I'm going to make those someday."
"You mean potions?"
"Yeah! Not the undead!"
--Mayet and Sitefnut
"Let sleeping pharaohs lie."
--Mayet
"So what we have here is a pharaoh we don't want to wake up and a gate we don't want to go through. Shall we go?"
--Pepy
"I'm getting such a bad case of lever-puller's disease."
--Amunet
"what is your fascination with putting grapes in my body parts!"
"They're cold!"
--Kris, Bryan
"The fact is, she's not a vampire, or a zombie."
"So she's eminently fuckable?"
"Well...look at her! Yeah!"
--Pepy, Raam
"Is it unethical to sleep with someone you killed?"
--Raam
"How do revenants come into being?"
"Mommy Revenant and Daddy Revenant have a special hug..."
--Pepy, Tetikare
"Raam...?"
"Yes"
"Am I attractive to you?"
*Raam looks astonished* "You're a pretty girl, but you're tiny!"
--Mayet and Raam
