The Baited Trap

Again we had gained victory by the thinnest of margins. Now it was time for us to go to the one place in Egypt I had never wanted to go again.

Home...

17 HetHert, Inundation, Year 4 of the Reign of Rameses II (October 3rd, 1275 BCE)
Tkarr

We had thought that perhaps we would go through Pi Rameses on our way up the Nile, as all seemed to agree that taking care of whatever the situation with Ay was probably our first priority. I tried to convince the others that we needed to find a necromancer who was either friendly or bribable, with the thought that a necromancer might be able to fix the problem of Usi being split across two bodies. The others nixed that, Mayet muttering something about me really wanting to avoid Gebelein.

Of course I wanted to avoid it. Whatever happened, my leaving triggered it. Would you want to go back?

I shrugged and sighed, and suggested we ask Gabel if he would take us there in the doorknob, thereby avoiding weeks of travel. He was amenable, so off we went. Raam sent a message to the people who were guarding the boat, telling them to bring it to Giza. We loaded the camels into the doorknob and went east. Mayet alternated between declaring that she wasn't speaking to me and being snappish at me, which I returned in due kind.

18 HetHert, Inundation, Year 4 of the Reign of Rameses II (October 4th, 1275 BCE)
Gebelein

We slept and recovered that night, and mid-morning we arrived near Gebelein. We sent Terik and Amunet into the village, to scout it out. I'd scried on Ay early in the morning, and discovered that he was writing a scroll somewhere that I'd never seen. Mayet did an augury, and proclaimed that Ay was not in Gebelein.

It was a very small relief. I'd had visions of having to walk into the village and confront Ay, and now I at least knew I wasn't going to have to do that, yet.

Terik and Amunet went out and were gone for about a half hour. When they came back, both of them were a bit pale. They said, "We can't really describe it. You're going to have to come see."

So we did, apprehension like a hand around my throat. The place was deserted, a town of ghosts. At what had been the granary, Amunet stopped and pointed. "There are people hanging in the rafters. Well, they used to be people. Now they're just...dry."

I stuck my head in and looked up.

The people of my village, men and women I had grown up with, children I'd seen grow to adulthood, were hanging in the rafters. Each of them looked as if they had been drained of blood, with multiple puncture marks in their necks. One of the ones near the front was very, very familiar. Mshai. One of my sons. With a fierce effort of will, I controlled my nausea and looked away.

Behind me, Mayet began to scream.

Raam grabbed her as she thrashed and fought him, her voice echoing in the silence of the village. We could not calm her down, so we shut her in the doorknob, asking Xeres to keep an eye on her.

Terik said that there were people who visited here, the latest probably not more than twelve hours before.

"There's more," Terik said. He showed us the marks in the dirt where something heavy and box-shaped had been dragged from the granary to the house that Soren built when we were first married, the house in which all of my children were born. That box would be about the dimensions of the one that had been delivered here that held Usi. The house itself was surrounded by an impenetrable shield, powered by a rod and a crystal that were outside of it. Within the house, at the windows, were two or three people. One of them was Senit, my eldest daughter, Mayet's mother.

They looked all right, neither sucked dry nor decomposing, but they were so still.

I wanted to be screaming, like Mayet was, but I could not afford the luxury of the emotion. Amunet pointed out that he could try to disarm the shield, but it was trapped such that if he made an error, lightning bolts would be unleashed in the shield, destroying everything inside.

Usi was in there, and what little remained of my family. I wasn't willing to take the risk.

Mayet finally calmed herself down and came out of the doorknob. She glared at me but didn't otherwise speak. Terik pointed out a place where one of the fields was still green, as if it were being watered, and had some sheep in it.

We followed at a distance, letting him scout. He went into the miller's place, and then came out and motioned us forward. The building had been gutted, and inside was a boat. A funerary boat, like the kind they used to bury pharaohs and rich people with in case there was an occasion for them to sail, so Pepy said. It was magical, highly so, with a number of spheres including the elemental power of Air.

We looked at the boat, and then at the wide doors that had once been used to let full carts of grain into it. We had found a conveyance that was used by someone powerful, likely Ay. If that boat flew...

Terik was following some footprints that led down to that lone green field. We followed behind, willing to let him surprise whatever it was he was following. About ten feet from the fence, he stopped cold. He called back, "There's something in here. Something like a big insect."

I cast my undead detection spell. Oddly enough, nothing in the field set it off.

Six feet below us, however, there were about forty undead. After a very quick conference, Terik turned on the Osirean longsword, and we braced for attack.

Attack they did. Bony flying things with faces that were like nothing I'd ever seen, creatures called skirrs, burst out from the ground. Pepy and I caught them while they were still clustered with a pair of fireballs, and then they spread out and began to attack us, diving from every direction.

It was a nightmare of a battle. They hurt me badly, felled Amunet, and then after Mayet healed me they managed to knock me unconscious. When Mayet healed me again, I got up and to my surprise discovered that I still had all of my spells. That's not supposed to happen! I have to ask Usi about it.

We finally cut down the last of the forty of them, and stood bloody but victorious. Patching ourselves up, we investigated the field.

The insects that had originally caught Terik's attention turned out to be scarabs, grown to a monstrously large size and taught to keep the sheep in the fence. We didn't bother with them, as they weren't threatening us, though they hissed warningly at our approach. I pointed out that there was one more undead, about thirty feet under the ground, moving slowly towards us. Terik turned off his sword and it started moving away from us at a good clip.

Worried, Terik, Pepy, and Amunet went after that undead. The rest of us went back towards my house, Mayet wanting to put a shield around the rod and crystal so nothing could touch it. I found myself wishing for Tetikare's familiar snark, anything to lighten the grim mood. I looked down at the Usi who was walking beside me, and I could have wept.

But I kept a tight grip on those emotions, gritting my teeth. I kept thinking, I wish I'd never returned. But I had to, some day. Ay had finally found a way to make me come.

There was another undead ahead of us, a stronger one, behind what had been the miller's house, heading towards the boat. Rounding the corner, we saw an undead who didn't look particularly undead, an old man with straggly grey hair. Not Ay. Raam hit him in the side of the head and stunned him, and I delivered a point-blank lightning bolt. We laid the undead out unconscious, and took the opportunity to divest him of all of his belongings and tie and gag him. He returned to consciousness a few minutes later, struggling, his eyes filled with rage.

We decided to wait to kill him until Pepy returned, to see if he could identify the man. Eventually, Pepy, Terik, and Amunet did come back, Pepy carrying a dead woman over his shoulder. The woman was named Amun, and was a wife of the pharaoh Horemheb, the one who had ruled after Ay. The tied man was Muhaden, Horemheb's vizier. This made us, of course, wonder if Horemheb himself weren't around here somewhere.

Amun had not been a bad person when she'd been alive, and we elected to bring her back to true life with the Osirean longsword. Terik accomplished this and then looked somewhat surprised when the woman draped herself over him. Surprised and pleased, I hasten to add. Mayet noted that Amun wasn't a bad sort, which coming from a priestess, we tend to trust.

We questioned Amun, and she said that Horemheb had sent her and Muhaden here to locate Ay's base of operations. Evidently, Horemheb has a hatred of Ay, and the two pharaohs were attempting to kill each other. (In death as in life--Horemheb ruled just after Ay, and tried to wipe out every last trace of Ay's rulership. Amun and Muhaden had been trying to get into Imhotep's laboratory, but a shield had stopped them. They'd found the tunnel where the skirr had come from, and it led to what might have been a door. There was writing on the door, but it was incomprehensible.

We asked Amun if she cared about Muhaden, and she shrugged and said that while he wasn't a bad person, he was old, and he'd had a drinking problem that had killed him the first time that was unlikely to be any better if we brought him back to life.

At this point, Mayet was beginning to grow impatient. She finally slit the throat of the undead that we'd tied up and walked off towards our house, leaving me gaping in her wake. When she gets a spine, she gets a spine. Pepy and Amunet decided to go look for Imohotep's laboratory, and we told them we'd catch up.

Terik questioned the corpse. Horemheb, said Muhaden, was somewhere south of here, chasing Ay. The skirr were left to guard this place, and there was a pack of vampires that were also left that never came out but at night. Horemheb, also, would probably not be averse to at least a temporary alliance with us.

That was all Terik could get out of him, and so we decided to follow Pepy and Amunet. We swung by the house, making sure it was still intact, and convinced Mayet to come with us.

Away we went, down the tunnel.

We had fortunate timing, as Amunet appeared to have just gotten the door open. The door was waiting for us, of course. (Imhotep makes me nervous. I'm impressed, of course, but still nervous. I am beginning to wonder what he wants from us in return for this.)

Behind that door was a long hallway, lined with statues. Amunet went first, and as he stepped past the first pair of statues they opened their eyes. Amunet froze. A green light shot out from the statue's eyes, scanning him up and down, at last focusing on his earring, his Imhotep artifact, the one made for him. The statues' eyes then closed once more.

We left Amun behind and nervously proceeded down the corridor, leaving Amun behind. Each of the statues scanned us in turn, and let us pass. At the end of the corridor was another door, which we opened.

Behind it was a room lined with stone shelves, scrolls stacked high. In the center of the room was a large table.

Sitting at the table, glancing up with mild eyes, was Ay.

I squeaked something to that effect. (Damnit. A beautiful moment for a really thundering round of curses and I react like Mayet. In my defense, it's tough to come up against a figure that's been haunting your nightmares and remain entirely calm.)

In response, Ay flung a handful of needle-edged crystals at us. They went around everyone and headed straight for me. I couldn't dodge, and felt quite excruciating pain as they borrowed into the back on my head.

I began to back away, afraid. What were those things? Death, I thought.

I was about to learn that they were somewhat worse.

Pepy cast fire at Ay, and then Raam caught him and dragged him into the corridor, where the golems made very short work of him. I stared. This can't have been that easy, could it?

There was suddenly a great pressure inside my head, a feeling of darkness washing over me as Ay shuddered and was still. The shards of crystal in my head were suddenly lances of pain, reaching for me, seeking to control--

And a smooth barrier interposed itself between me and the reaching fingers. I heard a roar of anger as the presence battered itself against that shield, and then faded into quiet. I could have thought I'd just imagined it, but then I felt a brooding presence in the back of my mind, inarticulate with anger.

I would have been more upset about this, but as my vision cleared I saw another, stranger sight. Suddenly, standing before us, was....

Rameses?

A very obviously badly injured Rameses, at that. He did not stand so much as stagger, and Raam caught him without thinking. The pharaoh said, "My time is short. I can't go on. But Rameses cannot die this day. It's your turn, brother." He touched Raam's shapechange amulet, and changed Raam into a copy of himself. Then he touched the twin of that amulet, that hung around his own neck, and was suddenly our Raam. "Farewell, brother."

He closed his eyes, breathed out, and died.

Raam/Rameses stood, smeared with his own blood and that of his brother, and swore like a sailor.

Mayet, having not much care of the affairs of pharaohs, had ransacked Ay's badly mutilated body and found something that appeared to be a key made of the same material as the rod that anchored the shield around our house. She ran and I followed, and without too much trouble she brought down the shield and then woke Senit, her mother.

After a moment of startled recognition (she'd been held in a time-stopping spell, and the last thing she knew she had Ay casting a spell at her), my daughter caught Mayet up in a bone-crushing hug. "What happened? Where is everyone?" she asked.

Mayet burst into tears. Senit cast me a very suspicious look, and I said, "It's a very long story. In a bit."

"And what is that box doing in my house?" Senit pointed as best she could while holding Mayet.

"It holds a friend, I think." I opened the box, and inside of it, curled up in the blue fluid, was Usi. I reached into it hesitantly and touched him, and his eyes came open, his whole body jerking.

He scrambled out of the box, coughing and shaking himself off. "A hyena? What is a hyena doing in my house?" Senit's voice was rising.

I ignored her for the moment and knelt and hugged him, fiercely glad that he was still alive. The other Usi poked its head around the door, nose working inquiringly. This is Rememberer, then?

I blinked. The clone Usi's voice was a bit different than I remembered. Somehow lighter, a little higher.

Female.

And she had spoken not in hyena but in my head, which could only mean that she was still my familiar, or I was hers. Has there ever been a mage with two familiars, or two mages who shared the same familiar? I can't recall any stories of it.

Usi cocked his head at the other Usi. That's very strange. The story-lines are diverging. They claim that there are now two Rememberers. He raised his head and sniffed at me. What do you have in your head, Chosen? My memory of the last few weeks is fogged. But you are not alone any more.

I shrugged. "I seem to be sharing my head with Ay at the moment. I'm hoping that this is a temporary state."

No, there's something else. I can see Ay. But there's another presence as well.

I paused and closed my eyes, looking within myself. There was Ay's raging presence, held tightly bound. I could feel my pulse in the wrist that had my bracelet around it, spikes driven deep into my flesh. There was something there, something seated in the bracelet, a deep, calm presence that was holding Ay like a mouse in a fist.

A presence. A calm, intelligent, powerful presence. A presence who smelled of starlight and scrolls. A presence who, with a shock, I realized that I recognized.

I looked at my bracelet, and then at Usi. "Imhotep was born one of us. He went through at least one Rememberer-Chosen cycle, didn't he?"

He did.

I heard another voice in my head, this one a rich voice, supremely confident. Nicely done. But your family is looking at you very strangely, Sitefnut.

I resisted the urge to swear. I looked up and saw that not only Senit was looking at me very oddly, but the rest of the peoiple in the room--my grandchildren, most of them--had been woken. It was very odd...there were the women, but where were all of the rest?

She saw my glance and correctly interpreted it. "All of the men were killed, including all of the boys over sixteen." She swallowed, pressing her lips together. "Badrun was one of the first to be killed. Then the rest. The man, if man he was, killed them in front of us. We could do nothing." There were nightmares simmering in her eyes. She'd loved her husband Badrun passionately.

I had two sons. I had six grandsons, all grown. I'd thought I'd come to terms with their deaths, while we were traveling. I realized then that I had not, that I'd been operating on shock and willpower since I'd seen the bodies in the granary, and I desperately tried to hold onto that numbness. There was still work to do. I coughed and said, "The one who did this is dead, or close enough as to make no difference." It was very small comfort.

Mayet's sister Asut came and slid her arm around her shoulders, leading her away. Out of the back room came Nafrini, my other daughter, who embraced me. She said, "Mother, I thought you weren't coming back."

I gave her a crooked smile. "I had to. It's a very long story."

Senit was staring at me, her eyes narrowed. She's always the most intelligent of my children. "Do you know why we were attacked, Mother?" she asked, suspicion creeping into her voice.

I sighed. "I don't think you're going to believe a lot of it. But come on. I have some people all of you should meet." I led what little was left of my family out into the late afternoon sunshine, the two hyenas falling in to either side of me.

"We're going to have to find something else to call you. It's going to get confusing otherwise," I said to the clone Usi, the one who was now (and perhaps had always been?) female.

My name is Isu, she said. But my name is also Rememberer.

Why do I have a feeling that this is going to get very complicated?

Quotes:

"Mayet could use Charisma."
"Watch it!"
--Kris, Laura

"This is all your fault. You have to fix it."
--Mayet

"I'm down. I'm going to go get a drink."
--Ray

"Miss, miss, and...critical miss."
--Graham

"They're all down."
"Now we have to fight the sheep!
----Storm, Laura

"They're...herd scarabs!"
"Sheep bugs!"
--Sitefnut, Mayet

"I know what I do!"
"It doesn't help, but it's fun!"
--Ray, Laura.

"If you run after him with your sword out, I'm going to stab you."
--Amunet

"I have my suspicions about Mayet's sexual orientation."
"Um, I blush."
--Sitefnut, Mayet