Sitefnut winced as she rubbed her shoulder. A pair of angry red weals on the skin marked where a pair of poisoned arrows had hit her in the battle earlier that day, fading pink lines radiating out from the wounds. The sun was going down, and she had begged leave of her companions on the pretext that she needed to study and prepare her spells for the next day.
She did need to study, but she was also irritable and snappish, the lingering aches of the wounds she'd taken that day bothering her. And the greyling, usually a silent companion, was keeping up a low muttering, seeming to be attempting to keep itself from panicking at being separated from the goldling, which was as far as she knew still in Amunet's eye.
She'd snapped at Sekath when he'd offered to wrap her shoulder for her, and then stalked away feeling simultaneously angry and silly. Imhotep faded in beside her. "Worried about your companions?"
She bit back an angry retort. I wish I could take this out on someone! Instead, she shrugged and then yelped as the motion reminded her of the newly healed wounds in her shoulder. "Ow! I suppose I am. Amunet will be all right, but I'm worried about Pepy."
Imhotep gave her a half-smile. "They're going to try to teach him a new meaning of the word pain. But that's not half as bad as what Menes will do, I believe."
"You're so helpful." She scowled at the god. "Poor Xeres is half out of her head with fear, the rest of us can't let it cloud our thinking."
"And yet you snapped at Sekath and nearly called Raam a name he wouldn't have appreciated, neither of whom had done anything to merit anger. Is that the action of a rational woman?"
Sitefnut glared at him, then opened her door with more force than was strictly necessary, slamming it closed after the hyenas came through after her. "I hate it when you're right about stuff like that." She yanked her veil off of her head, sending the cloth sailing over to a nearby table. She pulled open the door to the private garden, letting the hyenas out, and then leaned against the doorframe. "I hated having to leave them behind."
"Sitefnut." She felt warmth on her back, and knew he had materialized behind her. He put his arms around her shoulder and pulled her against him, and she closed her eyes, letting out a gusty sigh. "It's all right. You don't need to tie yourself in knots over this. There isn't anything you can do tonight but choose your spells for tomorrow wisely."
"I don't know how we're going to do this. Seven of us and the few people the Pharaoh Guard can spare, and whatever other help we can muster, against two hundred Anubites and whatever surprises that Thuthmosis can summon up. We're outmanned."
His breath was warm on her hair, and she spent a brief moment being grateful for this, whatever it was. The comfort of another's physical presence was something she'd done without for a very long time, and right now she didn't know how she'd have managed without it. They spent a few minutes speaking of possibilities, especially the idea that the Unas might agree to fight in return for their freedom and the chaos that would follow that action. Sitefnut was glad that wouldn't be her decision but Raam's.
The conversation wandered, and Sitefnut said, "Speaking of, I wonder if Pepy will ever take over for that poor fellow he left in charge of the Sekhmet temple."
Imhotep chuckled. "He needs to, but he's reluctant."
"I'd be too, but it's not like he'd be any bigger of a target than he already is. Immortality's more a curse than anything else, I'd say."
"It is, but his days are coming to a close, one way or another."
She shook her head. "Maybe he'll finally get that death in battle he's been wanting for so many years. If he's lucky. If he's unlucky...I don't know what Menes wants with him, but all of my theories are pretty horrible."
She could feel Imhotep's shrug. "And maybe he will become mortal and die as he was supposed to."
"Odd, that dying of old age could be counted as luck." She smiled, looking up at the clear sky turning red and purple in the west. "It's all right. Old age hasn't been particularly unkind to me, so far. It'd be strange to see Pepy with wrinkles, though."
"It would be very strange," the god agreed.
Sitefnut shrugged. "Not that I will, though. either way, I'm likely to be gone before he starts looking old."
Strangely, she could feel Imhotep tense, his arms around her tightening just a touch. "Depends on what happens to you and Usi and Isu."
"At this point, I'm admitting defeat and not trying to anticipate what's going to happen. Too many possibilities." She wriggled and he let her go, and she walked into the garden. It looked like a battle had been fought here, but it was only the astonishing damage that the hyenas had done to the garden in the last week. Jaws capable of tearing a man's arm off at the shoulder were quite effective against anything made out of wood, and they had dug shallow scrapes to lie in, disturbing the stones laid in the earth. Many of the plants had been uprooted or flattened, victims of their curiosity. There was a stone bench here, and she sat down, absently rubbing her shoulder again.
"You should have let Sekath bind that for you," said Imhotep as he sat next to her. "Maresh poison's nasty."
"Probably. What's the deal with the maresh, anyway? They seemed to have something against me in particular."
Imhotep shook his head. "Long ago, Menes corrupted the hyenas, hoping to find the power of the god inside them. He did find a bit of the power in certain ones and turned them into the maresh. But even he couldn't control them well. They sought out the Rememberer and Chosen to destroy them, and it has been so ever since." He had a distant look on his face, as if he were remembering something from long ago. "In my tenure as Chosen, they were gone, mostly. I encountered but one. Though my Rememberer was the instrument in their destruction."
"Why destroy us? That seems to be a bit backwards. What would that get them?" She furrowed her brow.
"They believe it will lift the curse of being maresh."
She looked at him, her head tilted. "Would it?"
He didn't answer for a moment. Then he said, "Truth or innocence, Sitefnut?"
She thought about it for a moment. "Truth, I think."
"It would." He nodded, barely.
"Well, they have a legitimate reason to try to kill me, then. what would it do, if I and Usi and Isu died?" She could almost feel this information settling into her head and making itself at home. Somewhere, out there, there are people whom my death would directly benefit. So very strange.
Imhotep was looking up at the sky at the first stars appearing overhead. "Truth be told, I don't know. The odds are even that the god will die and what you fought for is over, or the cycle might start again with another Rememberer and Chosen born."
"I can't imagine it. Hating what you are so much that you'd destroy people who have no quarrel with you and might actually be allies, just so you could no longer be what you are." She'd pulled out of one of her pockets a small, smooth stone, and fidgeted with it. She glanced sidelong at Imhotep and saw that his mouth was set in a grave line.
"I can't blame them really, they didn't ask to be this. The pain they suffer daily makes it worth dying just for it to stop."
She turned to face him, pulling one knee up to her chest. "Wonder what about them hurts so much? If I have a chance, I'll have to study one of the bodies. If there's something I can do to help them...they might be good if unpredictable allies. Though I imagine that other Chosens have gone down this path and found there was nothing they could do."
He made a wry gesture with one hand. "The poison on their arrows is a poison they produce in their bodies. They spit on the arrowheads and shoot them into you. That pain that you felt courses through their bodies all day and night, with the exception that they can't die from it." His hand clenched. "The Chosen before me slaughtered them without remorse. He never looked for a cure, just an end."
"Wow. If I didn't already have a reason to kill Menes..." She clenched her teeth. So many things had been perpetuated on the hyenas. And for what?
"Menes got lost in the hate."
"Lost? I'd say. That hate's carried him this far, at least."
"Oddly, one line shows him alive and well at the end." He returned his gaze to the sky. "It's a small chance, but still a chance."
Her voice was more weary than she truly felt. "Redemption for the person who started all of this? That's got to be a vanishingly small chance, I'd think."
"It's only there because something in there is still good and fighting. If he had no good left, it wouldn't show up."
She replied, "Somehow, even if there is, I'm not certain if we'd be able to convince Pepy of that." Shifting, she extended her foot to touch his leg. He was still there, still material, and that small fact cheered her a bit. "I have an idea for fixing the maresh. I don't know if I'm good enough yet, though. But I'd need to take apart one of those maresh corpses to see how they're put together."
"You have three, I'm sure nobody else wants them. If you can find out how Menes created them, you might be able to find out how to put them right. The temple Piyesekhemarakhet is being held in was his long ago. It may still have some records worth having."
She nodded, then gave him a rueful smile. "With any luck, we won't level the building in the process of rescuing them. And if we're really lucky, they speak something Terik can understand, so we can find out if there are more of them somewhere. Somehow, I don't think we've seen the only five left in the world. Your Rememberer evidently didn't get all of them."
"They breed like hyenas, quickly and well." Almost absently, he laid his hand on Sitefnut's foot. "He didn't get them all. I can tell now. Being a god has its benefits."
"And now they're my--well, our--problem again." She shrugged. "It does have its benefits, doesn't it--being a god, I mean. And more than a few downsides, it seems."
There was a laugh in his voice. "More than enough downsides, that's for sure."
Curious, she asked, "Knowing about it now, would you do it again? Become a god, I mean?"
He chuckled and replied, "No, lots of power, great big headache."
She poked him with her toe. "Got your curiosity about it satisfied, and now you're stuck with it."
"Afraid so. It's not all that enjoyable. Can't really say much, too many variables and then you get pissed off followers. 'Can't tell you where that tomb of gold is. Sorry.' Things like that." The laugh was still in his voice, but also a curious weariness, as if there were things he was carrying that he would put down if he could.
"Not that I wanted to become a god, but now I doubly don't want to. Get the last remnants of the hyena god out and do whatever I need to do with him, and survive this semi-war we're fighting, is pretty much what I want to do." She rubbed her shoulder again, moving it in a small circle. It seemed to be getting a bit better.
He looked over at her and smiled. "And retire as the artifact archivist to Rameses."
As it always did, the thought made her smile in pleasure. "Figure out what happens with the hyenas and whether I have two lives to go after this one, and then be here in the palace for the rest of my life."
Imhotep's tone suggested that he was being careful of his words. "That is one possibility."
"But not the only one." She poked him again, chuckling. "Sounds like if I do what I need to do, that's not going to happen. Like I said, I've given up trying to anticipate."
She couldn't tell if he was laughing at her or at himself. "And I need to give up speculation."
His laugh always warmed something within her, as if within the god's laughter there could be nothing wrong with the world at all. The conversation turned then, to Thuthmosis and then to the Unas, speculating about what they would do with their freedom. The conversation then turned to an idea for beer brewed with ground up psi nuts and the herbs that kept the Unas under control. Sitefnut wondered if the two substances would counteract each other. "I'll have to try it. After all, I have so much time on my hands these days."
"Planning Pepy's escape, brewing beer. Hard to choose, eh?"
She waved her hand. "Making wands, doing research, dissecting maresh corpses, and attempting to rescue Pepy and Amunet. Wonder if he's bothered to chat with the goldling yet? But, yes, so much free time these days."
"A much busier life than fixing colds and bruises back home."
She snorted indelicately. "And brewing love potions that people only thought worked."
Imhotep looked over at her. His hand was resting on her knee, and they were sitting quite close together. "Yes, but never brewing one for yourself. Interesting, that."
"They were just bitter herbs in honeyed water. They had no power that people didn't give them. Me, I never had much use for love." She shrugged and regretted it as the wounds in her shoulder pulled. "But you knew that."
His eyes had caught hers, and she felt herself strangely short of breath. "Changed your mind yet?"
For some reason, she was shivering. "I...hadn't thought about it, actually. Perhaps I've opened my mind a little to the idea. Maybe."
"A great deal depends on--" He stopped in mid-sentence, and shook his head. "Never mind."
She raised an eyebrow. "Was there something you were about to say?
"No, not a thing." He'd straightened, his expression unreadable.
Unaccountably, Sitefnut's head was beginning to hurt. She rubbed her temples as she felt a stabbing pain begin behind her eyes. Quietly, she said, "I don't know. I keep expecting to look down and find that I've accidentally walked out over a crevasse, or something."
"Sometime if that happens, you may just have to dive."
"If I can." She turned away from him, rising up from the bench. "Could you--"
But between one word and the next, he was gone as if he had never been present. As she stared at the place where he had been a moment before, her heart ached more fiercely than her head did. But, why? she wondered. This is all so strange.
The mutter from the greyling was getting louder. "Would you please stop that? I know the goldling's gone, we'll see if we can't get him back for you tomorrow."
not me making you head feel like thorns. The metallic voice was smaller than it usually was. you doing that all on you own.
"I am not. It's a headache, is all. Aftereffects from the poison."
poison yesterday, too? and two days before that? why only start after Imhotep speak of things you not want to think about?
She grumbled, "It was a coincidence, is all."
me think not. me live in here. taste your thoughts. you think about love. you think, maybe not so bad to love.
"That is none of your business!" she snarled. "You might live in my head, but that doesn't make what I'm thinking fair game."
that where you wrong, corrected the greyling. does too. besides, already too late. The small voice was smug. was too late a week ago. maybe was too late day you met him.
Sitefnut made an inarticulate sound of rage. Her urge to pick something up and throw it (or, better yet, lightning bolt the life out of someone who genuinely deserved it) was quelled by the entrance of Usi and Isu, who as usual seemed to take up much more space than they actually did, growling and laughing to each other.
I don't think the greyling is listening to you, noted Isu, who'd hopped up onto the bench that Sitefnut and Imhotep had been occupying a few minutes before. Creepy though it is, it might have a point.
She groaned. "Not you, too!" She sighed and went to sit next to Isu as Usi restlessly paced the outer perimeter of the garden. She reached up to scratch Isu behind the ears, and the hyena sighed with pleasure and leaned into her hand. "Can't you people leave me alone about it?"
Behind her, Usi stopped in his pacing and snorted. You forget we feel what you feel. Your denial hurts us, too. Especially that headache you keep giving yourself.
Sitefnut took a deep breath and leaned her forehead on Isu's flank. Cold was creeping down her shoulders and back, the familiar cold of terror. She muttered, "And if I do? What does it change?"
Usi had come around in front of her, and caught her eyes with his. Nothing. And everything.
She did not weep, huddled in the ruined garden with her hyenas. But she wanted to. Because there was something she did not want to face, something that this admission would reveal. She was afraid.
That was the last piece of the puzzle. She was afraid. Why was she afraid? What was there to fear about this?
Isu's voice came to her, quietly. He has never been anything but kind to you. He understands you, understands what drives you. And you have to admit, he's good in bed.
Sitefnut laughed, and she thumped the hyena's side with her cupped hand. "Thank you for that input, miss voyeur." Isu affectionately leaned against her. "He's got his foibles--the constant picking at the future, for instance--but that's all right. I even sort of like that."
See? I like him. You should keep him. Love him well.
She snorted. "You're a priestess of his, you're biased." She drew in a breath once more. "All right. I do like him. I think I might like him quite a lot."
The greyling's voice was insistent. that not whole truth, it said.
"I'm being ganged up on here," she muttered. Usi came over and leaned against her leg, and his silent strength added to her own. She drew courage from that contact, and said, "All right. I love him, all right?" She repeated, more quietly, wonderingly, "I love him."
The cold was still in her shoulders, and now it was spreading through her chest. What was wrong? What was she missing? It was as if admitting that she loved a god had some terrible repercussions that she was not thinking of--
Oh.
Oh, no.
She whispered, "He is a god--"
And because he was god, he could do almost anything he chose. Answer prayers. Grant spells. Make artifacts powerful beyond imagining.
Make one old woman fall in love with someone who existed only in her head.
The crevasse opened up beneath her feet, and she fell.
She was not conscious of the sky above her turning dark, the stars shining brilliantly. She wasn't aware of the cold as the warmth of the day fled, nor was she conscious of the hyenas sandwiching her between them as she sat on the stone bench, paralyzed.
She was finally roused back to herself by Usi nudging her injured shoulder hard enough to make her yelp. Are you done feeling sorry for yourself yet?
She shifted, finding that the cold had stiffened her muscles, and groaned. Her headache seemed to have fled, but now the rest of her hurt. "Above and Below, Usi, this is not good. If I love only because he thought I should..."
What do you fear, Chosen? asked Isu, her light voice much more serious than usual. Does it matter so much if the god manufactured what you're feeling?
"It does. If I'm to love, I want it to be on my own terms. In this one thing, I wanted to have a choice." Tears stung her eyes and she rubbed at them. "If he made me feel this to prove his point, then it's false, it's wrong."
Isu didn't reply, only leaned against her. It was Usi who broke the silence. Then, Chosen, you have a choice.
"And what choice might that be?"
Love, even love created by another, doesn't reside in the unwilling heart. Wall the god off again, if you want. Keep him at a distance. You know him, he'll stay as close or as far away as you want. He tilted his head, eyeing her. But consider it well, Chosen. For if this is real, then you might hurt him badly by doing so, and I think he will not give you a second chance to hurt him like that. You are often not careful with the feelings of others.
Speechless, for a long moment she could only stare at the hyena. "How do I decide, then? How do I know? I can't trust my own feelings on the matter. And if he has altered me, the greyling won't be able to tell me about it, since it's god magic."
Usi's gaze pinned her to the spot. It had been a long time since he'd used the full force of his personality on her, but in this moment she was reminded that he was a mage a century old, and knew more than she could imagine. Faith. It is the only thing we have to go on, sometimes.
"But--"
Let me finish. That was accompanied by a soft growl. You took me on faith, Sitefnut. That was the first step. Each of your steps on this journey has been informed by faith, in one way or another. You have had faith in the correctness of what you're doing, you've had faith in your companions, you've loved them even though you didn't know that was what you were doing. Would it be so hard to have faith in Imhotep?
Her voice was harsher than she meant it to be. "And believe what, exactly? That he's not somewhere laughing at what a fool he's made of one insignificant old lady?"
No, replied Isu. Tell me, do you really believe he would harm you? Has he ever done anything to make you think that he would change you to suit his whims?
Tears rose again, and again she forced them down. "No. Not really. But that could be him lulling me into letting him change me."
If he is a god, he does not need your permission to change you. Isu nudged her, worry inscribed in every motion she made. Carefully, she caught Sitefnut's wrist in her jaws. You know, either Usi or I could kill you, whenever we wished. Why don't we?
Sitefnut tried to pull her arm back, but Isu simply tightened those heavy jaws slightly. "You need me," she said, her jaw clenched.
More than that, replied the hyena. Some Rememberers are unlucky. Their Chosen are wicked, or somehow limited in their capabilities. We are lucky. We have one who we both like, who we both love.
"And what does this have to do with Imhotep?"
Isu released her wrist. Faith, Chosen. Faith that you might be lucky as well, that you may simply have been fortunate enough to have been joined in your mind by the one god you have always admired. Faith that the part of him that resides with you is more man than god. It is your decision. But the bone of the decision is this--do you have faith in him?
Sitefnut thought back to the first conversation she'd had with Imhotep. He'd asked her what she believed in, what she had faith in.
Could she do this? She had told him, I am good at knowing things. Not so good at believing them. It was still true.
What did she believe in? She draped her arm over Isu's shoulders, and Usi crowded closer, leaning on her. "I don't know how," she muttered.
You can learn, if you want. To bed, Chosen. Usi's voice was gruff, but not without sympathy. Tomorrow will be a very long day for all of us.
Sitefnut slept without dreams, but she did wake up sometime in the middle of the night in an empty bed, shivering with cold. It was only then that she wept, caught off guard by a sudden wave of loneliness made acute by contrast of the week before, a week of peace where she'd had all of the company a woman might desire. For once, all of the voices in her head were silent, the hyenas asleep, the greyling for the moment quiet, and Imhotep seemingly very far away indeed.
When her bout of tears was over with and she'd dried her eyes, she called out quietly, "Imhotep? Are you there?"
Always. The sense of his presence drew closer, and his illusionary form wavered into view. He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at her. "I thought you might want some privacy, to think about things."
Slowly, she nodded. "Tell me this. Did you tamper with me? Did you make me love you, to prove your point?"
He looked at her for a long moment, and she held her breath. Then he shook his head. "I swear to you, I did not tamper with you. I cannot say this was an entire surprise--I can see the lines, after all--but this was only one possibility out of many. And there are other possibilities still that you have not seen. But I did not change you to bring this about. You did this all on your own."
She let out the breath she had been holding, slowly. "And now I have to decide if you're telling the truth."
"What does the heart under that suspicious mind of yours tell you?"
She frowned and closed her eyes, looking inward. Nervously, she asked herself the question. Does he speak the truth?
The answer was a flood of emotion coming from within her. She took two breaths, then three, then four, sorting through the feelings. Beneath the nervousness and the unreasoning fear, there was something else. She trusted him. He could have hurt her many times over, but he had never shown her anything but compassion. And as far as she knew, the god had never lied to her.
Without opening her eyes, she asked, "Is that what faith is? Trust?"
"It is where it starts." His voice was quiet and grave.
Her mouth was dry, and she swallowed and opened her eyes. Sometime in the last minute or so Imhotep's form had lost that slight transparency around the edges that indicated that he was an illusion. "Then I trust you, Imhotep. I won't forget my suspicions--I can't. But I can trust you, and try to have faith." She paused, her heart thumping. "And I can love you, and see where that takes me."
His smile was slow and brilliant, and without words he reached for her, embracing her tightly. She clung to him, holding on to his solid warmth fiercely.
For a long time they sat like that, wordless.
