by Jim Johnson
Ruia cleared her throat. "It's…Ruia."
"Ruia. A lovely name for a lovely young lady. You’re welcome as my guest for as long as you wish to stay. I'll see you soon." She slipped out of the doorway and shut the door behind her.
Ruia stared at the closed doorway for several heartbeats, then let her gaze wander around the room again. On a low wooden bench underneath the double window was a neatly-folded pile of linen. On top of that was the pistol and holster she had worn into battle the night before. She thought about getting out of bed and padding over to retrieve it, but the cool breeze coming in through the open windows made her shiver and she thought better of it.
Ruia glanced down at the linen sheet, surprised at how soft it was against her bare skin. She wiggled her toes under the fabric. “Softer than a goose feather.”
She reached over and set the cup on the table next to its matching pitcher, and laid her head back down onto the squishy pillow. Her head sunk in about halfway, and she idly wondered what it could possibly be filled with to make it so soft. The pillow she had at home was usually filled with rushes, or rocks, when her sisters were up to no good.
She pushed thoughts of her sisters and home aside as she stretched out on the soft mattress. Unbidden, the nightmare that had awoken her slipped into focus, and then Tjety’s deathly face appeared in her mind’s eye. The stresses of the last several days hit her all at once and she rolled over, pulled the pillow to her chest, and sobbed herself dry.
CHAPTER 2
TJETY CRACKED OPEN HIS EYES, HEAVY with fatigue and pain, and squinted at parched earth and sun-blasted dunes that glimmered in the haze. A bleak smudge of clouds gathered on the horizon and crept toward him. His entire body was on fire, radiating more heat than even the glowing orb of the sun god, Re, beating down on him from on high.
He shivered in spite of the heat, blinked, and then found himself standing several feet away from his own body, which was sprawled out naked in the sparkling sand. His body was covered in cuts and scrapes and his right arm hung awkwardly, splintered by a cruel gunshot wound. A thin ribbon of silver connected his ba—his spirit—to his body.
He glanced down. He was in his ba-bird form—a hawk’s body with his head rather than that of a hawk. His right wing was shattered, hanging limp against his body. Many of his feathers were damaged or missing, and he had numerous other small wounds, echoing the damage evident on his human form.
Tjety tried to flap his broken appendage, but all that did was shove a spear of pain into his mind that trailed down the gossamer-like strand of silver and crashed into his mortal body.
He stared at the drab wasteland all around him as cruel realization struck home. “Is this it? Have I fuckin’ died and fallen in to the Duat?”
He frowned and focused on the silver thread connecting his ba-form to his body. If he had died, that thing should have been severed.
He puzzled it over, but a series of inhuman growls from somewhere deep in the wasteland around him broke his ragged concentration. He staggered around in his broken bird form, his shattered wing flapping helplessly. Horrifying shapes pulled from his darkest nightmares—jackal-like creatures and massive undulating snakes—formed in the distance, uttered unearthly sounds, and started moving toward him.
Out of reflex and long practice, he went for his pistol, but his broken wing crashed against his body. He cried out in pain.
He made to draw his khopesh, but of course he wore nothing in this form. He then tried to gather strength from his hekau, to prepare a defensive spell, but the image of a dried-out watering hole flashed in his mind. He had nothing left—his wellspring of arcane energies was drained.
He backed away from the encroaching shapes, feeling his silver thread spool out, keeping his ba connected to his fragile mortal shell. The shadowy forms started to pick up speed, as if they smelled his blood and fear. He turned and ran as fast as his little bird legs could propel him, trying desperately to achieve some speed but fearing that he would be too slow, far too slow.
CHAPTER 3
WITH A LIGHTED TORCH IN ONE hand and a length of rope in the other, Zezago carefully worked his way up the rubble-clogged stairway that ascended at a gentle slope from the ruined sun temple’s stone-wrought causeway dock to the main level of the ancient temple. The causeway had once been a water-filled canal angling off the Iteru that had enabled priests and visiting dignitaries to travel by boat up the causeway to the dock.
The causeway was now bone-dry, the dock and stairway unused. Fort Sekhmet, which had been built along part of the old temple’s sprawling outer perimeter walls, was situated on the other side of the causeway. At some point recently, the commander had seen fit to post a guard at the entrance to the stairway, presumably to discourage curious people from entering. Surely no one in the town had any clue of the secrets contained within the temple’s depths.
Zezago glanced at the soldier. “Convenient that I encountered you.” He had happened upon the guard early in the morning, an hour or so before sunrise, and had slipped up to him and taken control with a simple spell. The man’s senses and basic functions were in his mental grasp, and he flexed his hekau to keep the man moving. “I have work for you. Can’t have you running off, now, can we?”
Zezago tugged the rope as he climbed, encouraging the enthralled soldier to follow along. The young soldier, in his forced stupor, stumbled on a couple of the steps and nearly fell, but caught himself by throwing a hand out toward the wall and righting himself.
“Come now, man. Keep your feet underneath you.” Zezago tugged the rope again, nudging the soldier to climb the long staircase with him. The ancient limestone walls on either side of the long staircase were covered in paneled scenes pulled from Kekhmet’s long religious history. In the flickering torchlight, it was hard to make out the colors the painters and scribes had used to illustrate the scenes. His practiced eye could translate some of the texts, but many of the scenes were badly faded and in some places damaged beyond hope of recognition.
After the long, hot climb, Zezago finally reached the top step and took a moment to catch his breath, stifling a cough that rattled in his chest. He considered himself to be in fine shape other than for the disease that was slowly ravaging his lungs, but these steep steps had not been designed with regular use in mind. If he recalled Kekhmet’s history correctly, the priests assigned to this temple would have ascended these steps only once, when they arrived to serve here. They would not descend them until they were dead and embalmed.
He lifted his torch, the guttering flame sending a thin trail of black smoke up toward the massive ceiling some thirty feet overhead. The long staircase ended at the edge of a wide square foyer, filled with dozens of thick stone columns that supported the ceiling. The rows of columns stretched out in all directions, turning the chamber into a man-made forest of stone.
Every surface his torchlight reached was covered in murals and religious writings in the old language. From riding up to the temple, he knew that the sun temple’s massive spire, a crooked finger of stone reaching up into the sky, was many levels far above his head, but he had no need or desire to make that climb. He had far more critical things to tend to.
He tugged on the rope and led the silent and compliant soldier through the forest of columns, working toward the left side of the foyer and toward what had once been the priests’ working chambers. He had set up a small camp there a few months ago, and as near as he could tell, the place had been left undisturbed in that time.
Zezago glanced at the soldier, who stared off ahead of him, eyes lazily blinking against the torchlight, a decided lack of sanity in his expression. “I’ve been away a rather long time, and cannot stay long, but we’ll make the best of this trip, eh?”
The soldier merely blinked and stared, showing no sign of having heard or understood. A thin line of drool worked its way down the side of his mouth.
Zezago shook his head. Thralls weren’t much for meaningful conversation. He pulled the rope along b
ehind him, moving toward the suite of chambers he had converted for personal use. The closest chamber was the largest of the three. He entered and dropped the rope. He gestured toward one of the wooden stools set against one of the long walls.
“Go sit down.” He chuckled. “I so rarely have guests. Stay a while, won’t you?”
Again, the soldier made no answer and no sound. He simply shuffled over to one of the two stools, turned around to face him, and sat down.
Zezago moved over to the wall and shoved the torch into a metal bracket set at chest level. He then deposited the two satchels he had been carrying crosswise on his chest onto the long, low wooden table on the opposite side of the room.
Relieved of those burdens, he stripped off his headcloth and his outer robes and laid them carefully on the table next to his bags. On top of those went his sword in its leather scabbard and his sword belt. Thus unencumbered, he leaned over and stretched his tired back, and then worked out the kinks in his arms and legs with some quick restorative stretches coupled with the judicious use of a little hekau-fueled soothing through his muscles.
Feeling somewhat rejuvenated, Zezago gathered his supplies and walked into the second of the two chambers, which had a waist-high pile of rubble on the floor, evidence of a partially-collapsed ceiling. He built a small fireplace among the stone pieces and then got a fire going to boil some water. He’d throw a stew together to simmer while he worked on the soldier.
A shuffling noise somewhere behind him in the ruins, echoing off the columns and the stone walls, distracted him from his stew-making. He shifted his cooking knife in his grasp, and reached out with his hekau, preparing to launch himself at whoever came through that door.
The shuffling grew louder, scraping across the floor just beyond the entrance to his room. Just as he was about to lash out and strike the invader, his hekau flickered and he realized that the form outside his room was his temple construct. He relaxed and dropped his knife hand to his side. “I’d rather forgotten I left you behind.”
The massive construct shambled into the doorway and stared toward him with its glowing green eyes. Zezago examined the construct for any damage. In its former life it had been a giant of a man, easily seven feet tall, with a thick chest, massive arms and thighs, and dark brown skin. Now it was certainly more desiccated, but the bright green eyes in its face and the granite scarab glowing dully in its chest marked its new, more meaningful life.
“I take it nothing untoward has happened to the temple while I’ve been gone?”
The construct shuffled farther into the room and stood near the table where Zezago had been cutting root vegetables. It inclined its head but made no sound.
Zezago smiled as he resumed chopping the pile of vegetables. “I’ll take that for a yes.”
He wasn’t surprised—no one in the fort or town had ever taken any interest in the sun temple ruins as near as he could determine, aside from some ancient vandals tearing up the place and the occasional pair of lovers looking for a quiet hideaway. And even they didn’t get much farther beyond the causeway dock’s small entry hall. The steep staircase, the lack of lighting in the temple, and the moaning winds rippling through the empty corridors were sufficient to discourage curious visitors from poking deeper into the structure. And there had been no formal religious presence at this temple in centuries, even well before the Hesso invasion shattered the Kekhmetic empire decades ago.
Zezago made his stew while the mute construct stood sentinel and the enthralled soldier did little more than breathe and drool. After he’d finished preparing his stew, he left it to simmer. He then rummaged through the stack of supplies he had left behind months ago until he found a thin silver necklace. It had a hammered silver medallion hanging from it, engraved with an entwined snake on one face and tightly-spaced lettering on the other. He had made the charm a year or more ago, but he could still feel the latent hekau charge he had set into it.
Zezago brought the items back to the chamber. He grabbed the other stool and dragged it over to the soldier and sat down, facing the young man. He glanced at the construct. “If you’d be so kind as to hold him down.”
The construct shuffled over to stand behind the soldier and dropped its thick, rotten hands onto the soldier’s shoulders, making the man’s body shudder. Zezago put the medallion, necklace, and a clean knife on the stone floor between him and the soldier, and then reached out and unbuckled the soldier’s leather chest armor.
The soldier stared mindlessly ahead, though Zezago knew that somewhere behind those eyes was a consciousness, a ba, flapping hard against the prison of its own mind.
“I know what you’re thinking in there. You’re begging someone, anyone, to let you out so that you can fly free from the shell your body has become.”
He stifled a cough. “No such release will come to you, I’m afraid.” He tousled the man’s hair. “Besides, you should be honored. I have far greater need for you than your commander or your pharaoh.”
He pulled the man’s leather chest armor off and dropped it to one side. He unfastened the three bone buttons on the man’s shirt and then pulled the shirt open, exposing his upper chest and neck. Thick curls of dark hair poked out of the shirt’s opening.
Zezago reached down and picked up his knife, tested the edge on his thumb, and then leaned forward and started to shave the man’s chest hair off in the area over his heart. He’d found through experience that his medallions tended to work more effectively when pressed against bare skin.
The job took just a few moments, and he admired his handiwork, even with the redness of the man’s skin. He put the knife back on the floor and then picked up the necklace and medallion. He threaded the silver chain through the simple eyelet set into the medallion and then reached over and pulled the chain around the man’s neck, looped it around to the front, and clasped it shut. He settled it on the man’s chest, pleased that the length of chain left the medallion hanging just below the man’s heart. It’d be covered nicely by his shirt and armor.
He scooted his stool closer to the man and adjusted his body so that his legs straddled either side of the soldier’s. He rested one hand flat against the medallion, pressing it against the man’s now-bare chest, and placed his other palm against the man’s forehead. He closed his eyes, then whispered, “Now, hold him fast. Don’t let him stand. He’s going to find this…unpleasant.”
Zezago focused his will and his hekau, and then in a long, sustained burst, sent a current of arcane energy laced with his will down his hands, through the medallion, and into the man’s heart, triggering the spell he had set, searing those orders into the man’s heart and very essence of being.
The man jumped in his seat and it was only the beefy construct’s grip that kept him in place. Even with the controls placed on his body, the soldier opened his mouth and let out a scream loud enough to make Zezago wince.
Zezago pressed his hands down harder on the medallion and on the man’s forehead, and then opened his eyes to stare deep into the man’s wide brown eyes. He sent another massive current of force into the man’s soul. The searing scream stopped mid-breath. Zezago did not relent, did not ease up on forcing his will upon the man’s heart and ba. Finally, with one last burst of commands, he set the spell, implanted his instructions, and made the soldier his own.
Zezago pulled his hand off the man’s forehead, leaving behind an angry red hand-print, and then pulled his other hand off the medallion. He had to massage his hand to get some feeling back into it.
The metal medallion was stuck fast to the man’s chest. After Zezago felt the pins and needles of returning circulation flow back into his fingers, he reached out with a fingernail and pried the medallion off the man’s chest. It let go with the sound of old papyrus tearing apart and then swung freely on the silver chain.
Seared into the man’s chest was a near-perfect imprint of the obverse side of the medallion. Zezago leaned in close. He could decipher most of the lettering branded into the man’s
flesh. It’d heal in time, but the commands had been seared into the man’s heart and very soul. He would never forget them, until the end of his days and beyond.
Zezago sat back on his stool and rested his hands on his knees and delved into a brief hekau breathing exercise to help him restore his strength. His breathing was interrupted by a violent fit of coughing that took him several moments to bring under control. He spat a mouthful of blood-laced spit off to the side, and then breathed more easily. He closed his eyes as he took another couple of cleansing breaths and then opened his eyes and smiled at his new thrall.
“That was well done. You bore that admirably.”
The soldier simply stared forward, his mouth twisted in a silent scream. Twin runnels of fresh tears flowed down his face, mixing with the drool from his mouth.
Zezago frowned. “Come now, man. That’s unbecoming. Close your mouth and clean yourself up.”
On command, the man’s mouth snapped shut. He reached up with one shaky hand and wiped the tears and drool away. Once finished, he deposited his hands back into his lap and stared forward, waiting for his next command.
Zezago picked up the knife once more and then stood up in front of the soldier, and reached out and pulled the man’s head close, idly twirling the blade in his other hand from finger to finger.
“And now, my son, it is time for your final offering to me. This is the last token I will take from you before I send you back out into the world to do my bidding.” He leaned down and looked into the man’s eyes, knowing that the poor ba trapped in the man’s skull could both see and hear him.
“I guarantee this will hurt far less than what I have already done to you.”
He glanced at the construct, who had held the man still all this time. “Now, once more. Hold him steady.”
Zezago combed the man’s nappy hair away from his left ear and bunched it up in his free hand. He leaned down to whisper into the man’s ear. “You are now mine. And now, as I take this offering from you, I bind you to my service forever.”