Sitefnut sat on an outcropping of stone just outside of Gebelein, her eyes closed, the wind on her face. It was the day after Ay had died, the day after she had buried one sister, two sons, seven grandsons, many nieces and nephews, and almost everyone she knew in the world except the odd group she traveled with, her two daughters, and their children. She'd spent the morning going through the scroll archive and had felt the need for a break, so she'd come up here, to a place that had been one of her favorites when she was young.
She was turning over something in her mind, a comment Usi had made earlier in the day. He'd begun to come out of his pout, apparently prodded by Isu. She felt the pressure of a presence next to her and knew that Imhotep had appeared beside her. She said, "We are not just a pack, are we? We are Pack. Three bodies, one being."
"That you are. You are Pack in microcosm." His voice was expressionless, and she opened her eyes to glance over at him. He sat next to her, feet dangling off the edge of the outcropping. The wind was ruffling his hair and clothing, and she almost laughed at the god's attention to detail. It seemed a little silly, wasting such verisimilitude on someone who knew very well you were simply an illusion. Imhotep was staring into the distance, a small smile on his face. "Rememberer and Chosen is as much a symbolic pairing as anything else. Hyenas love symbols, you know. It's why we make good mages. Now that there are three of you, it's even more symbolic."
Sitefnut turned this over in her mind. "And you can control us, if you choose. You can control me, and through me you can control Usi and Isu. Why don't you?"
He shrugged. "I told you before, that's not what I'm here for. I'm here for you to talk to, to help you as I can."
Her reply was slow and considered. "Power carries its own lure. I somehow don't trust that you won't use it." She sighed. "Could you go away for a little while? At least the illusion of privacy might be nice for a little bit."
"As you wish." He faded out of sight and the feeling of his presence in her mind abated, though she knew as certainly as she still breathed that he was there. Usi and Isu were deeply asleep behind her, Isu snoring slightly. They took advantage of the odd company they were in to have a well-guarded nap most afternoons, leaving more of the night for hunting and exploration.
Sitefnut cleared her mind, taking stock of herself. There was that anger and reluctance, lying in wait for her. It was fear, she realized, curled at the root of that. She was afraid...of what?
The fear was wordless, defying easy explanation. She realized she was holding her whole body ready to run or defend herself, despite the lack of any reason to believe she was in danger. She let out a breath, consciously relaxing as she did when she was preparing to study spells. She still didn't know exactly what she was afraid of, but she put the fear away for the moment, wanting to take advantage of this small space to think.
She considered the god and what he had told her. She had been telling the truth when she'd said she didn't trust him not to control her, but there was something, some small certainty that had been growing over the past few days, that said that even if he did it would not be to her detriment. She hated the idea of someone being able to control her, but was it really worse than Usi having been able to take over her body before? She'd gotten over that quickly enough, even finding his method of demonstrating it amusing.
And there was something else, too. She had admired Imhotep long before he had come to reside in her head, enjoying the ways in which he'd been rather too clever by half. She liked him, she had to admit. He seemed...almost like a friend. Someone safe. She'd already talked to him about things no other person had ever heard from her. She had never admitted to anyone that she'd spent much of her early days hating the gods for the fate that had left her married and pregnant during the years when she should have been studying magic and growing in power.
But it was useless trying to lie to him, and because she couldn't lie to him, she couldn't lie to herself any longer either. She shifted and sighed. She really hated to admit it, but he had a point about the bitterness. So much of herself was wrapped up in her self-control. It had been the only thing that had gotten her through years of marriage, years of children who knew exactly how to irritate her. She'd had bouts of what seemed almost like madness after each of her children had been born, and the thought of those strange days still made her heart quicken with fear. She loved her children, but she had not been particularly suited to motherhood.
But now...she no longer had small, helpless beings in her care. Perhaps she could risk relaxing a bit. The wind blew under her veil and made her ears cold as she wordlessly contemplated that idea, simply letting it sit in her mind for a bit.
But what does he want from me? she wondered. What on earth could a god want with the likes of her? He'd as much as suggested that if she had faith, she might want to place it in him. His people had come to her father, told him there was a place for her if she wanted it. He had wanted her from the time she was very young, it seemed.
It wasn't as if she had the gift of prayer. Temples left her cold, and she'd always thought that if she were to find a god, it wouldn't be in a stone edifice.
She chuckled to herself. No, she hadn't found a god in a temple. One had come to her.
I believe he is who he says he is, she realized abruptly. She'd had some doubts before, but somehow in the last day she'd come to believe that if this was not the entirety of Imhotep, it was at least a part, a fragment, residing in her head.
She shifted and thought, I think it is not Sitefnut he is interested in, but Chosen. That makes more sense. What I am makes me important to him. That was at least more reasonable than a god having an interest in her, a woman whose beauty had largely faded, her heart closed and unquiet, fiercely guarded against hurt. Even if somewhere inside herself she still felt twelve, still felt like the long-legged child with tangled black hair and bright black eyes that she had been on the day she was married, she knew better. Any mirror would show the truth, and usually she was happy about that truth. Beauty had never done her much good. Best that it be left to the likes of Mayet, Xeres, and Amun. After all, beauty did not inspire respect, and it was respect she had always wanted.
She didn't like the direction her thoughts were taking and willfully turned her mind back to the question at hand, the question that Imhotep had posed. Faith, he'd said. Everyone needs something to have faith in, even the gods. She wondered what he had faith in, this god who used to be a mage.
Did she have faith? She turned her gaze within herself, poking gingerly at her feelings. What was faith, anyway? When she had been small, she had been told that if the gods loved her, they would protect her from harm. Mayet carried that confidence with her, as did Pepy and Terik.
She did not feel that confidence. What she felt seemed much smaller than what the priests seemed to feel for their respective gods. It was an anticipation, as of something pleasant. A hope for something good. A waiting.
A waiting, she realized, that had always been there. She had waited so patiently, waited for her children to be born and then to grow up, waited until the seeds she'd sown had borne fruit and created a source of income that would permit her family to live comfortably. She had been waiting until she could leave and chase her dreams of being a mage, fill the need her soul seemed to have for magic.
Then she had left, and she'd thought her waiting had been over. She had quickly gained power over the last two months, practice in deadly situations stretching her abilities. And now, she was taking her first steps on the road to becoming a magical item creator.
She realized, thinking about it, that she had still been waiting for something, though she hadn't known quite what. She hadn't wanted to come back to Gebelein not only because she was afraid of Ay, not only because the village held such bittersweet memories for her. She had been somehow aware that if she entered the village again, something would happen to her to change her forever.
The waiting was still there. But it was deeper and swifter than it had been, as if it were a river and she was getting close to the source.
Faith must be a lot like being in love, she mused, at least according to the stories. One of her friends in the village, a woman about her age named Sisonefret, had been very much in love with her husband. Curious about what it was like, Sitefnut had asked her about it.
The other woman had pursed her lips in thought, and said, "I never get tired of his company, or his face. We understand each other without having to speak. We submit our wills to each other's care, but we don't lose ourselves." Sisonefret had shrugged then, her latest baby girl yawning and stretching on her lap. "I can't really compare it to anything else. I wish I could explain it to you, dearest, but I just don't have the words for it."
Perhaps faith could start in mutual liking and respect? She had to admit that Imhotep seemed to care about her in some way, for whatever reason, and in turn she liked his lightning mind and easy laughter. How he had spoken to her, the first long conversation they'd had--he'd addressed her as a friend, not as a god, or at least how she'd imagined gods being. Instead of making her do things, he seemed to want to lead her somewhere, show her some path she couldn't quite imagine. She had to admit that she was curious...and if she had a weakness, it was curiosity.
But to follow that path, she was going to have to give up some of her ideas of herself, he'd told her. She was going to have to tear down the barrier she'd thrown up between herself and her desires, and confront whatever had lain in wait for her all of these years. She was going to have to consider unbending a bit.
Sitefnut laughed at herself. Was she really considering this? The world had turned itself upside-down, surely! But, at this point...what did she have to lose by at least investigating it?
My sanity, she thought, if madness lies beyond that wall. In her mind sounded the echo of a hyena laugh; perhaps sanity was relative. A mad human might be a perfectly sane hyena, if it came to that.
What else? Her life, if she acted without thinking, or if she let her control slip during a spell. Death somehow didn't seem as frightening a prospect as it had, though. In her case, it was simply a change in circumstances, one that she was going to come to whether or not she willed it.
She had her Pack, and her pack of tailless. She could not lose the former except through death and she had little fear of losing the latter. There was this fight, this strange hunt that had swept them all up in itself, but that too could be as much joy as sorrow, she suspected.
There was little enough she had yet to lose, and very little that could be taken away from her. "I will," she murmured. "Maybe I don't have faith now. But maybe I will."
She laughed again at her seriousness, and stretched.
In the back of her mind, the presence of the god seemed to smile with pleasure.
