Sitefnut led her family out into the sunshine, and introduced them to the others. As babble broke out among her friends and her family, she slipped away, one hand on her aching head. She found a spot she knew of old, with a carved stone bench, in a small clearing screened from view by foliage. This was a place used for assignations by lovers, she remembered. Right now, it was as private as she was able to manage. Usi and Isu lay near the opening to the small clearing, not speaking.
Gently, Sitefnut probed the place in her mind where Ay had been. Sometime during the last few minutes, she realized, his rage had abated and then faded completely. "Wonder what happened to him?" she said, aloud.
Ay is dead. I killed him myself. Osiris took him to the special place for the truly horrible. Sitefnut jumped as that confident voice sounded in her head once more.
She had almost managed to forget that she apparently had a god inside her head. A little miffed at the intrusion, she replied, "Well, that's a relief. So, you're a god, eh? What on earth are you doing in my head?"
Imhotep chuckled. Watching. Wondering how many more emotions you can bottle up in here.
"I can handle my emotions just fine, thank you. I'm not Mayet, who seems compelled to broadcast to the world what she's feeling."
At least she feels something.
She snapped, profoundly irritated, "Feeling things has never gotten me anywhere. Besides, I'm a mage. Control's everything. You were a mage, you'd know."
The response was I am, and control is a great many things--but not without passion and fire. The items I created would have just been items, not artifacts, without passion.
To herself, she muttered, I think I'm being scolded. By a god. The hells? Aloud, she said, "Well, maybe I'll find that out for myself, one of these days."
I am sure you will.
Sitefnut winced. "Besides, I've kept myself under this control since I was a girl. It's been too long."
No happiness, no joy. Just some bitterness. You could at least revel in it and have forty cats and throw stones at kids.
She stared down at her hands, clenched in the fabric of her dress. "I was going to take off and travel. I thought I was going to be able to find some peace, if I could keep my distance from Gebelein."
Life sometimes has a grander purpose for you. If you don't see it, sometimes it hits you instead. His voice was gentle, but it hit her like a punch anyway.
She took a long breath before she replied. "And here I find myself, back home, every wreckage I've ever made in my past staring me in the face. And now there's you. I'd just gotten used to being a familiar to Usi, and now there's Isu as well. But now I have you living in my head, too."
You know, resenting me isn't going to do you any good. Imhotep paused, his voice taking on a sterner tone. And yes, you are being scolded.
Sitefnut sat bolt upright, a blush spreading across her cheeks. "Wait. Usi wouldn't have been able to read that thought..."
I am not Usi, or Isu.
It occurred to Sitefnut that if she had any sense, she should be afraid. "No, you're not, are you?"
Not even remotely. I built your mind control ability and I could take it away. Something even Usi can't do.
Now she was afraid. That had not been a threat but a simple statement of fact. She answered, "You could take me over, couldn't you? Why haven't you?"
There is no need to take you over. I could, if I wanted. I came to make sure you didn't give up.
Had she been thinking about giving up? She thought about it. "All right, I have to admit that the temptation is there. Stay here and help rebuild. Or just take off. Leave Mayet with the others and walk into the desert."
Thought you might. That is why I am here and I will leave when the time is right. She got the impression that if he'd been present, he would have been smiling at her. But for now, I am here for you to talk to, to ask questions of, to make you see the tapestry.
She chuckled, fear waning enough for her to see the humor in the situation. "You do realize that the rest are going to think I'm insane. Well, they already think I'm insane. Batty old lady, with her pet hyena. Hyenas."
Better than cats.
"They catch bigger prey, after all."
That they do. How do you feel?
She began to reply and then shut her mouth. It wasn't any use trying to lie to Imhotep, she reckoned. She said, "Honestly? Afraid. And angry. And I'm pretty sure this is going to hurt a lot when the shock wears off." She thought about the numbness that had encased her soul since she'd stepped into the village, and thought, All the boys, all my boys, just gone... Tears pricked her eyes and she rubbed at them.
Imhotep's voice was gentler than it had been. If it makes you feel better, they all passed the feather test.
Wryly, she said, "It's a small consolation, but it is one. You expect to bury a child or two in your life. But not all of your sons and all but the youngest of your grandsons."
It never gets any easier. I outlived all of my children. There was tinge of grief in his voice. Tell me, would this be easier if you could see me?
She blinked. "Actually, it would. It feels strange to be talking to a voice in my head."
Easy enough. Here. Before her faded into existence the image of a man. Imhotep was middling to tall, with a medium build, wearing a grey-green shirt and black trousers, a cloak that matched his shirt thrown back over his shoulders. He was perhaps a few years older than her, his face lined but still handsome, his grey hair receding a bit in front. He carried a staff but did not lean on it. He looked at her with his dark eyes and said, "You can see me, as can Usi and Isu, but nobody else. Remember that."
"I'll keep it in mind. Well, at least the others can't think I'm crazier than they already do. Usi, Isu, could you do me a favor and let me know if anyone approaches?"
Usi chuckled. We will.
Imhotep sat down next to her. She asked, "So, how many times were you Rememberer?"
"Just once, and not for very long."
"Your Chosen died young?"
He nodded. "She died trying to save a group of Unas about to be killed by the pharaoh Menkaure."
Sitefnut blinked. That name...they'd heard it recently. From the mouth of one dead. "That's a name we heard recently. Evidently he's still trying to kill Unas. I suppose we'll run into him soon enough."
"He sees them as cattle. And you will. Believe me, all of them will be coming for you soon enough, though some of them will be more wary, now."
"I'm certain they might think twice about coming after us. Though the only reason we killed Ay is because I was a trap set for him." She chuckled, turning and planting one of her feet on the bench they were sitting on, her knee against her chest, facing him. "Nice job on that, by the way. It wasn't much fun being bait, though."
He smiled, and his eyes glittered briefly. "It's always fun to kill a really bad person. Osiris has a particularly good time with those."
Sitefnut tilted her head thoughtfully. "You know, I'm...not certain I'd ever thought about whether or not Osiris gets satisfaction out of his work."
Imhotep chuckled again, and she found herself liking the sound of his laugh. When the god laughed, it seemed as though all the horror the world could contain might stay away. "He has a little dance that he does every time you whack one of these pharaohs. Rather cute."
Suspiciously, she said, "Osiris is supposed to be dignified, as I recall."
"Even he has emotions. Don't tell him I told you. But you can ask him if he will do the dance when you get there."
She gave him half a smile. "I will, if I remember. Considering that I'll be dead when I get there, I might not." She shifted, a thought occurring to her. "Was it supposed to go like this? Did I bring this down on my family and my village by leaving?" She found herself being afraid of the answer, and yet looking forward to it. She had been carrying that burden, that shame, with her for a long time, now. Confirm or deny, at least she would know.
Shaking his head, Imhotep replied, "No, it wasn't your fault. Had you been here, you would have been your old self. You would have probably tried to do something to them and died." He shrugged, looking at her. "Ay would have slaughtered your whole family had you been here. He had to make you come back for a reason. So he had to keep some of them alive just to bait you back."
Bitterly, she said, "But it wasn't enough. He had to steal Usi to really get me to come back. You know, if I spend too long thinking about that, I'm going to really start hating myself."
His question was mild and simple. "Why?"
She looked at him, astonished. "I was afraid of Ay--more afraid of him than I was worried about my family. I'm supposed to protect them, and not only was I not there when something happened to them, I didn't come back even after I knew that there might be something I could do to help. Fearful and selfish."
"He got to you, Sitefnut. That was the way he worked. He scared you by taking Usi away, the one thing you truly cared about, and left you with a copy that was betraying you." Imhotep was not laughing, now. "He was to be feared. Had I been in your position I would have been scared too. But your friends reminded you that you have a duty and for them you came to set things right. Now you have seen that lesson. But did you learn it?"
She thought about that, thought about how her pack had more or less chivvied her into coming along. She thought of how Ay had struck at the very heart of her by taking Usi. Slowly, she replied, "I suppose only time will tell."
"It will, great things are happening. Be a part of them, not watching them."
"Spoken like a god, Imhotep." She smiled at him. "I fear I'm no longer the person I used to be in Mayet's eyes, and that's probably for the best. It's part of growing up. She's a good girl, and she's going to be a great priestess." Pride colored her voice briefly as she thought of how much she loved her granddaughter, how proud she was of her. "And I'll try to be a part of things. I've had it brought home to me recently that I am not exactly the captain of my own destiny, as much as I hate that thought."
Imhotep shifted and sighed. "Here's the long and short of it. Yes, you may have a destiny, but you don't have to make it play out the way anyone wants. Not even the gods know for sure what's going to happen. They are guessing but they can see things you can't, so they have a better chance of getting it right. Even gods have faith in something. I think you may need to, as well."
She stared down at her hands, clasped around her knee. "Faith. Such an odd thing, that is. So many different manifestations of it even within our own little group. Mayet loves Hathor with all her heart. Pepy believes in Sekhmet with great force, though I'm not sure about love. Raam has his belief in honor." She made a wry moue with her mouth. "I'm pretty good at knowing things. Not so good at believing in them."
"There comes a time in all lives when you have to believe in something. What do you believe in?"
She tilted her head. "My magic. My familiar--familiars. My pack. I'm reserving judgment on you for the moment." She said that last with a smile, trying to defuse the seriousness that had settled on their conversation.
He refused to let it drop. "I think you are just in denial. What good are the gods? They never did anything for me. Is that you?"
She winced as she heard her own words come out of his mouth. Quietly, she replied, "I spent a long time hating the gods. It was easier to hate them than it was to hate my father or the fate that kept me in Gebelein when all I wanted to do was go away to mage school. What I believe in now?" She shrugged angrily. "I believe that I spent a lot of my life shouting into the wind. I'm not an easy person, and I've never been at peace."
"Your father stopped you from going away. Not me."
Sitefnut looked away. "I realize that, now. But when I was twelve, it was easier to have an abstract target for my anger, instead of someone I saw every day." She desperately wanted to be off this topic. It wasn't one she liked to think about, and it was forty years done by now.
"Your father was scared. When my people came to talk to him about the potential in his daughter, he told us to never return. We respect those wishes, but he never told you that we had come."
Her eyes widened. Imhotep's people...had come to her father? They had wanted her? "No...no, he never said a thing..."
"He was afraid to lose his favorite daughter to those mages. He didn't want you to go and selfishly he kept you around." His dark eyes were on her as he watched her wrestle with this knowledge.
Tears threatening in her voice, she said, "I loved him. But he should have let me go." She swallowed, willing herself not to cry.
"He should have, but he didn't." He caught her gaze and held it with his own. "Sitefnut, why are you fighting your tears?"
Too many reasons, too many explanations, battered themselves at her heart. But in the end, knowing that none but the god and the hyenas that were a part of her could see, she said, her voice shaking, "I don't know..." and dissolved into tears.
She was crying for everything--for her sons and her grandchildren, for the nightmares in her daughter's eyes, for the pain that Mayet had seen in the time they had been away. She cried for her little village, once such a safe place, now ruined by the hands of the undead. She wept for her companions, each of them carrying their own pain.
And she wept for a girl who wanted nothing more than to be a mage, and a father who could not stand to see her go. She wept for passion wasted on anger and misunderstandings. She felt a warmth by her leg--one of the hyenas, leaning against her, silently comforting.
At last, she ran out of tears, her shoulders stilling as the storm seemed to pass. She sniffled and said, "He was afraid, I was afraid, both of us too damned stubborn. I've never made life any easier on myself." She used the hem of her dress to dry her eyes. "That stubbornness seems to be a family trait."
Imhotep replied, quietly, "Just look at Mayet to know that."
Sitefnut looked at him, a quirked smile on her face. "Yes, though in her case it seems to have been tempered, a little at least. It's one of the ways we're very much like the hyena souls we evidently carry."
He raised an eyebrow. "But even hyenas know how to laugh."
"Granted. Usi at least has a finely tuned sense of the absurd."
"Yes, he does." His smile warmed her. "Laugh more, like them. I think you will understand more."
She chuckled. "Really, what do I have to lose by it at this point?"
"Nothing but the pain." He was still smiling, and she found herself liking this being--god, avatar, ghost, delusion, whatever. Reluctantly, she had to admit he didn't seem like a bad sort at all.
A ray of absurdity finally struck her. "After all, I'm the one talking to someone who nobody but my familiars can see."
"Yes, and even Usi will deny it."
Across the room, by the door, Usi replied, God? What god? I see nothing.
Sitefnut snorted. "As if you ever deigned to speak to people not me. I'm certain you could, if you wanted."
Bah. The others are boring. Even that girl of yours.
She wrinkled her nose. "Even Pepy? He's got a lot of stories to tell, you know."
They're not hyena stories. Usi turned his back on her, stretching his head out along the ground.
Worried, she rose and went to kneel next to him. "Are you all right?"
I'm fine. Fine as I can be when my Chosen has freed herself from the limitations of her position. And now I have to share her with another Rememberer. And a former Rememberer. He raised his head and gave the image of Imhotep, still sitting on the bench, a dirty look. This was not the way things were supposed to work out.
Sitefnut frowned. "The limitations? You can't control my mind any more, but you weren't doing that much anyway."
It also means I can't stop you from doing things.
Isu nudged her with her nose. What he means is that you can now take on hyena form whenever you wish.
"Do you have another form, Isu?"
She laughed. Change and see!
She sat back on her heels, thinking about the one time she had been in hyena form, how it had felt to have that body wrapped around her soul. She gave a sort of mental push, and abruptly changed.
Sitting on the ground before her were Usi and Isu, the former frowning, the latter grinning delightedly. Sitefnut blinked and cocked her head, looking at them. Usi was how she expected him to look, but Isu...
Isu was slightly built, though standing she'd probably be taller than Sitefnut. Curling blonde hair framed a pale, angular face and bright blue eyes. Her eyes were a bit tilted, and her ears were pointed.
You're an elf? she asked.
"I got to choose my form, and I didn't feel like being human." Isu stood and stretched. She was wearing a dress that came up to just beneath her breasts, and her movements revealed that she did indeed have muscles on her thin frame. If she'd been human, Sitefnut would have thought she was about seventeen or eighteen. She gave Usi a saucy look, and he muttered under his breath.
Suddenly, Sitefnut was human again, and the two others were hyenas once more. Isu snorted. Party pooper. I could change us back, you know.
"Stop teasing him, it's been a long morning. Usi, could you come here? I want to make sure that Ay didn't leave any nasty surprises for us."
Usi submitted to examination, grumbling. She found a new scar on his chest, and frowned. Imhotep leaned over and said, "They're linked by those heart gems. Kill one, you kill the other."
Usi opened one eye and glared at Imhotep, and then closed his eye again. Sitefnut sighed. "It's a nasty vulnerability, but we can cope. I already guard their lives with my own, this doesn't change that." A thought struck her. "Isu, are you a mage, as well? Or did the ability all go back to Usi?"
She wrinkled her nose up in a hyena expression of wry amusement. I am, in a manner of speaking. I understand it, and I have the knowledge and the talent. But what I believe I really am is a priestess.
At that, Usi opened his eyes, looking at Isu. Something very much like shock radiated through their bond. A priestess? Of who?
In response, Isu pointed her muzzle at the image of Imhotep.
"Ye gods and little fishes." Sitefnut glanced from Isu to Imhotep and back again. Isu looked smug. Imhotep chose that moment to blink out of existence, the echo of his laughter in her mind. At that moment, both Usi and Isu raised their heads.
Someone comes, Chosen, muttered Usi.
She tucked a stray lock of hair back under her veil. "Suppose we'd better go meet them, eh?"
