“I cannot claim that does not sound preferable,” I said with a smile.
I let Aset lead me out onto the avenue, relying on her guidance to keep me from running into or tripping over anything as I studied everything. I’d expected narrow, crowded packed-dirt streets that wound their way through a warren-like town, but what I found was a several-meters-wide avenue paved in worn limestone blocks and lined with tall mud-brick walls like those surrounding the Hat-hur temple complex.
There were few people standing or strolling along the avenue, and those who were appeared to be either youthful errand boys awaiting a task or priests and priestesses going about their priestly duties. Regardless, all were dressed in unadorned white linen—shifts for the women, baggy, belted tunics for the boys, and for the men, wrapped kilts that almost reached their knees.
Every single person who spotted us, whether man, woman, or child, averted their eyes and bowed their heads as we passed. Part of me hoped that meant they didn’t notice my eyes.
“Why are they doing that?” I asked Aset.
“To show their respect,” she told me quietly. “Whatever else you may be, you are also Netjer-At, and they recognize this and honor this.” Her eyebrows drew down slightly. “Do not the people in your time behave the same?”
“No, not exactly. In my time, well . . . we try to blend in. The people are not so accepting of differences as they are here, and they outnumber us by so much that if they realized who we were and what we could do, we would be in danger . . . as would they.”
“Surely you would not hurt them simply because they discovered the Netjer-At live among them?”
“No, but some of them would try to use us—our gifts—and most likely end up hurting themselves or others of their kind.” At her increasingly confused stare, I said, “It is difficult to explain; I come from a very different time.”
As we walked, I caught tantalizing glimpses of the upper halves of several different pyramids through the gaps between mud-brick walls. Sunlight gleamed off their polished limestone overlays and positively sparkled off the golden benbenets—the capstones topping the pyramids. I’d seen the pyramids of Giza in my own time, and though they were definitely impressive enough to have rightfully earned their place as one of the world’s greatest wonders, these smaller pyramids, located in Saqqara, Memphis’s city of the dead, looked so much more magnificent than their larger, shabbier, ancient brethren. These pyramids were in their prime, not yet stripped of their shiny, valuable exterior.
“They are awe-inspiring, are they not?” Aset commented as we walked.
I nodded without looking away. “They are . . . impressive.”
“Well, you will get to see the newest up close; it was long enough in the making. Dear Pepi”—Aset said the late Pharaoh’s given name like she’d known him well, which I figured was entirely possible—“has been building his complex for nearly nine decades!”
Pepi II, the ruler modern history books marked as the last king of Egypt’s Old Kingdom, was proposed to have lived into his mid-nineties, a truly epic lifespan for his time. As far as we knew, he’d inherited the throne when he was six from Merenre, who was either his father, his step-father, or his brother—in my time, much from the Old Kingdom was a bit of an unknown. We were, at least, fairly certain that his mother was Ankhesenpepi, the wife of the previous two rulers. Probably.
The sudden decline of the Old Kingdom, one of the first-ever civilized golden ages, was an even greater historical mystery. Even Marcus was a bit foggy about the cause of it, and he’d witnessed the decline of many civilizations. He’d told me that several years of dwindling floods from the Nile, combined with the excessively long rule of Pepi II and his lack of any direct heirs, had led to a sort of civil war and perhaps the fall of the Old Kingdom. But the one thing he’d been able to tell me with absolute certainty was that Nuin had died shortly after Pepi II.
Which was pretty damn terrifying, from my perspective.
Somehow, a statuette had been fashioned from the At and imbued with the power to draw me into the distant past—a feat I could only attribute to Nuin. He had to have been the one who made the statuette, the one responsible for me being here, and if he died soon . . . before he could send me back to my own time . . .
I wouldn’t be able to return at all, not to my own time and not to Marcus. And without a steady dose of Marcus’s bonding pheromones, I would soon start going through painful withdrawals, and the same would happen to him. And after that, we would die. Physiological codependency was the single greatest downside of being half of a bonded Nejeret pair.
“You look troubled,” Aset told me as she guided me around a corner. The street widened, and ahead a short ways, a waterway broader than I’d expected for a canal came into view.
I glanced at Aset; concern lined her face. How much could I really share with her? How much did she know about who I really was, whatever she claimed? There was no way to know. “I—I am travel weary, I suppose. Tell me, was Pepi a good ruler?”
A wistful smile broke through Aset’s concern. “He was a sweet child, and a kind man. He adored Ankhesenpepi, and remained loyal to her until—”
Confused, I stopped walking. “Ankhesenpepi was his mother, correct?”
Aset shook her head, a crease forming between her eyebrows. “No. She is mother to none.”
I frowned. “But . . .” According to our meager historical and archaeological evidence, she was . . .
“Ankhesenpepi is Netjer-At. She has been queen and consort to many Pharaohs, including the previous three, and as Nuin’s oldest living daughter, she is the highest-ranking female Netjer-At.”
I drew back, shocked. “Oh my . . .” I covered my mouth with my hand. “That explains why Pepi didn’t have any heirs.” If he’d been so devoted to Ankhesenpepi that he remained loyal to her, refusing to take any wives who could bear him children, then an heir had been an impossibility.
Aset nodded and nudged me to continue toward the canal. “Nuin has long indulged her, but I think he is finally fed up with her endless desire for power.” She lifted her shoulders and dropped them elegantly. “He has come to the conclusion that we should let them”—she pointed to one of the two-story, mud-brick buildings on our right, where a human woman was shaking a rug out from a second floor window—“rule themselves, and stay out of their business, more or less.”
I pulled her closer and let out a small laugh. “You see . . . that is the way it is done in my time. We coexist with them and interfere when needed, but we do not rule them. We let them make their own destinies . . . just so long as those destinies are not too harmful.”
The priestesses surrounded us, babbling non-stop, and Denai tentatively took my free hand and led me closer to the edge of the canal. “Come,” the priestess said, “this is our vessel. Watch your step, please, Hat-hur.”
I released Aset’s arm and let Denai guide me over the limestone precipice of the canal edge and down some grooved steps to a long riverboat constructed of bundled reeds and rope. God, it’s like walking through a documentary . . . Except everything was more—more detailed, more gritty, more vibrant, more real—than any documentary ever filmed.
As the priestesses, Aset, and I settled onto lightly padded benches under a thick, reed-topped linen canopy, reality finally, truly caught up with me.
Marcus tried to kill me . . .
. . . and now I’m in Old Kingdom Egypt.
Marcus tried to kill me.
Dr. Isa is Aset, Marcus’s believed-to-be-dead sister.
Marcus tried to kill me.
I can’t go back until the spirit—Apep—is no longer a threat.
Somehow, I managed to hold in a whimper as I thought, I have no idea how to take care of myself here . . . and if I stay too long . . . if I’m away from Marcus for too long . . .
“He must be very excited to see you, Golden One,” Denai said. She was sitting to my right, hands folded demurely on her lap. It took me a few seconds to realize that she
was talking to me, using one of the titles commonly attributed to the goddess they all believed me to be. With all of the gold emblazoning my jewelry and my bead-net dress, I couldn’t blame her. And, unfortunately, the beads were nearly as uncomfortable between my backside and the barely padded bench as they’d been when I’d been lying on the inner sanctuary’s limestone floor.
I closed my eyes, focusing on my scattered thoughts rather than my discomfort. “What do you mean?” I asked Denai.
“Great Nuin—he visited the temple with Aset several times before the Son of Re, Pepi Neferkare, passed on to the land of the dead. His presence made the other priestesses very anxious,” she said, as though she herself had been completely calm and collected in front of Nuin. Hell, I considered him my first boyfriend, and even I wasn’t completely calm and collected when I was around him.
When I opened my eyes and looked at her, she blushed but, for once, managed to maintain eye contact. “And I am excited to see him,” I told her.
Aset touched her fingertips to my forearm and pointed to the left. Boats, some smaller and some larger than ours, were approaching, threatening to crowd the waterway. There was no way we could continue moving upstream.
I frowned. A traffic jam delaying me reaching Nuin was the last thing I needed.
To my surprise, the priestesses stood, Denai in the lead. She worked her way gracefully between oarsmen, and when she reached the bow, she produced a glinting, palm-sized golden object from her satchel. The four other priestesses took up positions along the front half of the boat and procured similar items. As they raised them high, angling them slightly to the right—toward the sun—I realized what they were: golden signal mirrors.
The watercrafts ahead began angling toward the left side of the canal, like they were making room for our vessel.
I caught Aset’s eye. “I don’t understand . . .”
The corner of her mouth turned up. “Consider it a perk of being one of us. The mirrors signal that the divine, usually a royal, is en route. Lucky for us, we are both . . . at least, to these people.”
I watched, absolutely awed, as dozens, possibly hundreds, of other boats made room for us, and we were able to continue on our way.
By the time the canal widened to a small lake and our boat sidled up to the right-side lakeshore, I was so lost in observing this ancient, foreign world around me that Aset had to physically shake me to get my attention. Some muffled part of my mind was screaming about how insane everything about my current situation was, crying out that I needed to return to Marcus as soon as possible, to assure him that he hadn’t truly injured me, but I could barely hear it. I felt detached from reality, though that could probably have been blamed on the unreality of the past few hours.
Boats were still crowding the canal, either waiting their turn to pick up their passengers at the landing ramps or dutifully steering their way downstream. On land, people milled in the long gateways leading to the two landing ramps, some watching our boat and elbowing those nearest them to look or move out of the way, or maybe to do both.
It was so strange to witness how aware the ancient Egyptians had been of the Nejerets living among them. I’d been told about it, had understood that my kind were the basis for many ancient religious beliefs and mythological figures, chief among them the man I was bonded to.
An unsettling thought surfaced, something I should have considered much earlier. What if I see Heru? How was I supposed to react? I wasn’t sure it would be possible to pretend that I didn’t know him, that I didn’t love him with every fiber of my being . . . that we didn’t share a physiological bond that both of us relied on to stay alive. But the Heru of this time wouldn’t share that bond with me. He wouldn’t even know me . . . unless, like Aset, he did know me . . .
I wasn’t sure if that would make things easier, or harder. Because soon, I would have to leave, to return to my time, to my Heru. It would be best if I never saw him in this ancient time at all.
But it was no use worrying about what might be. I took a deep, steadying breath, shook my head, and followed Denai and two of the priestesses off the boat and up the landing ramp. The smooth limestone blocks were coated in a thick layer of dirt and sand that created a slick paste when mixed with water from the canal. Denai and the priestesses, who were all barefoot, didn’t seem to have any trouble ascending the ramp, but the goop was hell underneath the leather soles of my sandals, and Aset was having similar issues.
She caught my eye and raised her eyebrows, flicking her gaze down to our feet. “Shoes always make this part more difficult.”
“Then why not go barefoot?” I made a quick assessment of the people who’d stepped to the side to let us pass, and none wore any form of shoes.
“Ah . . . you will be glad of your sandals soon.” She pointed to some of the people with her chin. “They have all built up thick calluses that protect their feet from the sunbaked stone, but being what we are, we are incapable of building up such a natural defense. So . . . we wear shoes to avoid the pain.” She shrugged. Reclaiming my elbow, she hastened my movement forward. “Come. Once we get into the valley temple, the crowd will thin.”
I glanced around at all the people we were passing. Though some of the men wore pristine white linen kilts identical to those we’d seen in the temple district, marking them as priests or wealthier mourners, most of the clothing appeared slightly worn and more off-white.
“I have to admit,” I murmured, “I did not expect to see so many people leaving the temple complex.” We passed through a tunnel-like passageway and entered a barren, almost empty courtyard.
Aset glanced over her shoulder at the landing ramp. “I believe this is the tail end of the procession-watchers . . . at least, of those returning to Men-nefer”—she used the ancient name for Memphis—“by boat.” She gave my arm a gentle tug. “Let us hurry. The Great Father will be so happy to see you.”
I was just fine with that. I needed to talk to Nuin, to ask him how to shield Marcus so Apep’s spirit couldn’t take possession of him again and how to get back to my own time. Marcus had claimed we could go a few days apart without any ill effects, but based on the withdrawal pain he’d been in when Set had trapped my ba—essentially, my Nejerette soul—in the At, I didn’t want to test his theory.
Despite my obsession with all things Egyptian, I zoned out as we passed through the valley temple and walked up the several-hundred-meter causeway to the rest of the pyramid complex. I had too many other, more pressing concerns on my mind. At least the way was partially covered, providing some relief from the unrelenting desert sun. But when we reached the end of the causeway, I couldn’t help but shake out of my pensive state and pay attention to my incredible surroundings.
The priestesses headed straight into a cavernous limestone corridor covered in elaborately carved hieroglyphs, passed through with quick nods at the two men filling in a far section of engravings with an inky black paint, and strode into an open-roofed courtyard surrounded by an engraved colonnade. Instead of burrowing further into the mortuary temple, they took a hard right at the end of the courtyard and passed through a doorway leading outside.
Aset and I followed. As we neared the opening, distant moaning and wailing disrupted the peaceful silence of the temple. I shot Aset a confused glance. “I thought you said the funeral procession was over.”
She snorted delicately. “It is over. The mourners are simply continuing their display of intense sorrow as they leave.”
The corner of my mouth quirked as I wondered if there was a prize of some sort for the Most Enthusiastic Mourner.”
After the dimness inside the temples and causeway, the sunlight was glaringly bright, especially as it reflected off the pale, glossy limestone surface of Pepi’s pyramid. I raised my hand to shield my eyes, wishing I had some damn sunglasses.
The priestesses stopped near the corner of the pyramid, falling into a line with Denai in the center. As one, they tilted their faces up to the sun, lifted their arms str
aight above their heads, palms upward, and began singing. Their voices harmonized perfectly, creating a melody that was filled with both immense sorrow and great joy.
I halted mid-step, drawing Aset to a stop beside me, and watched the priestesses, awed. “What are they doing?” I’d never heard of such a display, either at a funeral or otherwise, but that was what happened when so little survived the millennia. I really need to spend more time studying the past in the At . . .
“They are greeting Re, thanking him for another day and mourning his inevitable death, and”—she paused, watching as the five women slowly curved their uplifted arms as though they were holding a large round object above their heads—“welcoming their goddess, Hat-hur, who finally walks among them.”
Their slight shift in position suddenly made sense. They were holding something large and round, or at least miming doing so; they were using their arms as the cow horns so frequently depicted on Hat-hur’s head, holding the sun disk, the symbol of Re. As their hauntingly beautiful song drew to a close, they lowered their arms to their sides and folded their bodies as gracefully as any ballet dancer until they were prostrate on their knees, their arms extended on the ground in front of them, still palm-up.
“And now?” I asked.
“Now they are bowing in supplication to the Great Father, the creator of all that is, was, or ever shall be.”
“Nuin,” I whispered, realizing that meant he was nearby, possibly watching as the final mourners departed. Without thinking, I slipped my arm free from Aset’s and broke into a run. I skirted around the priestesses, around the corner of the pyramid, and skidded to a halt.
There was still a small crowd of people standing in the pyramid’s courtyard, clumped in groups ranging from three to over a dozen. I scanned them quickly; it didn’t take me long to find him.
Tall, golden-skinned, and regal beyond comparison, Nuin still emanated the last few remnants of his power. He was stunning. He was a man who would stand out in any crowd, in any time period. He’d been staring at the priestesses, but his attention had shifted to me as I’d hurtled around the corner of the pyramid.
Time Anomaly: A Time Travel Romance (Echo Trilogy, #2) Page 5