“No?” Nuin rubbed the side of his jaw. “Is that a fact? Is that something that we know with a certainty? Just as we know you don’t have access to any of Heru’s bonding pheromone and that your body will not be found in here when Heru gains access in the twenty-first century—do we know that you don’t have a sheut?”
“Well …” I frowned. “No, I guess I don’t know it, but … I think I’d be able to tell if I randomly sprouted a sheut.”
“Would you, now?”
My frown deepened. “Is that even a thing that can happen? Could someone grow a sheut?”
“Is that not what Aset did when she brought Nekure into the world? Did she not grow a sheut along with a child?”
“I—” I stared at him, mouth gaping open as my sluggish thoughts caught up and I thought, once again, of my own children. A spike of longing speared through my chest. I was desperate to hold them in my arms again. I raised one hand to my forehead and rubbed my temples, focusing on the most pressing issue. “Are you saying that the sheuts my children would’ve had are somehow still in me?”
“They were displaced by my and Apep’s sheuts, and they didn’t simply vanish.” He leaned in like he was about to share a secret. “A sheut, once created, can never be destroyed.” He straightened. “So, where else could they have gone?”
“I—” I shook my head, absolutely dumbfounded. “I don’t know.” But even as I struggled with disbelief, with hope in the face of near defeat, I felt my body weakening further. I leaned against Nuin’s coffin.
“Yes,” the other Nuin said, “your increasing weakness is a problem. You will need more energy if you’re to have any chance of accessing and controlling your sheuts.” His eyes slid to the corner of the chamber where I’d rested after giving birth. It looked rather gruesome now.
I followed his line of sight. He was staring at the placenta.
The blood drained from my face. “You’re not saying …”
“It is the only thing left within these walls with any nutritional value.”
“But—”
“You want to get out of here, do you not?”
“Yes, but …” I stared at the globby sack of flesh and blood that looked way too much like a gory jellyfish, bile rising up my throat.
“And you wish to see your children again? And Heru?”
“Of course, but—” I gagged involuntarily.
“So what is the problem? This is the only way.”
I swallowed. Barely. “But … I don’t have any way to cook it.” Dying was the last thing I wanted in the entire world. Next to last was eating that thing raw.
Nuin transformed, his robe morphing into a black wool coat and dark gray trousers, and his eyes bleeding from multihued and swirling to a glowing, black-rimmed gold.
I sucked in a breath. “Marcus?”
“Want and need, Little Ivanov.” The corner of his mouth twitched, his eyes burning with intensity. “Want and need …”
My knees gave out, and I fell to the floor, my head hitting the smooth At with a thwack. Stars burst to life, drowning out the soft glow emanating from the walls, and quickly faded to darkness.
38
Perception & Reality
I woke to the scent of frying meat. It smelled sort of like beef, but more metallic and mineraly than your standard ribeye. It reminded me of the scent of beef liver, which Grandma Suse cooked once a year on her not-so-late husband’s birthday. Apparently it was one of Alexander’s favorite dishes. I’d only eaten it a couple times as a little girl, but I remembered not hating it. I also remembered not loving it.
“I see you’re up, lazybones.”
My eyes popped open, and I sat up—gingerly, as necessitated by the pang of pain throbbing on the side of my head, an unwelcome accompaniment to my dehydration headache and the hunger pains gnawing away in my stomach. “Grandma?”
I stared around the tomb, unsurprised to discover that Nuin’s body was my only companion. Her voice had been a dream. She couldn’t be here. “She hasn’t even been born yet,” I reminded myself.
“Oh, come now, Lex …” Grandma Suse came bustling through the doorway opposite the stairs wearing her favorite apron—the white and pink one that looked like a ladies’ tennis outfit—and carrying a plate piled high with piping-hot, perfectly seared beef liver. “Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.”
I couldn’t help but smile. I scooted around on my butt and rested my back against the dais. “What are you doing here?”
She bustled over, the crystal beads on the chain of her eyeglasses sparkling as they shifted and reflected the wall’s gentle glow. “I’d think that was obvious. You look hungry enough to eat a whole elephant, sweetheart.” She smiled and offered me the plate. “This won’t be nearly so bad, I promise.”
I accepted the plate with a thanks and a smile, settling it on my lap before looking back up at my grandma. “I miss you,” I said, chin trembling. “I miss all of you.”
“Oh, honey …” Grandma Suse lowered herself to the floor with creaks and groans and sat beside me. “I’m always with you. Wherever you are, just close your eyes and listen with your heart, and you’ll hear my voice, cheering you on.”
I swiped a stray tear from under my eye, then swept a preventative wipe under the other and sniffed.
“Go on, Lex, sweetie, eat up before it gets cold.”
With a weak smile of thanks, I picked up the fork and knife from the plate and cut into a chunk of meat. “Will you tell me a story, Grandma? Like you used to?”
“Oh, gee … I suppose I can handle that.” She pursed her lips. “Now let’s see …”
I chewed for a moment longer, then swallowed my first bite. It was softer than I’d expected and way more metallic tasting than the liver she’d cooked had ever been. “How about the story of how you and Grandpa met?”
“Alexander?” Grandma laughed out loud, patting her knee. “Oh, sweetie, you’re not old enough for that story.” I was about to protest, reminding her that I’d just given birth, but she settled her hands in her lap and spoke first. “Have I ever told you about the day Alice was born?”
“Mom?” I frowned. “If you did, it was a long time ago, because I don’t remember it at all.” I took another bite.
“Well then, let me refresh your memory.” She smiled, a light of warm remembrance filling her rheumy brown eyes. “I was just filling the tub for a good long soak when my water broke …”
***
“Feeling better, sweetheart?” Grandma Suse asked when I set the empty plate on the floor beside me.
I nodded, leaning my head back and sighing. “Much better.”
She leaned forward and patted my knee. “Good.” With a hand on the corner of the dais, she pulled herself up to her feet. “You rest now, Lex. Gather your strength. You have a lot to do today.” Fondly, I watched her sort of hobble up the stairs, then walk straight through the At barrier blocking the doorway out to the Oasis like it wasn’t any more substantial than air.
My smile wilted as reality sank in. I was delirious. She hadn’t really been here. And that hadn’t been beef liver …
I forced myself to look down at my hands, regretting it the instant I did.
Blood coated my fingers and palms and dripped down my wrists. I gagged, but managed to hold the placenta in with a hand over my mouth and eyes squeezed shut. Full-blown hallucination or not, one element had been real—I felt better. Stronger.
It didn’t matter how I’d regained that strength, only that I had. Only that I now had a chance.
While I sat and digested—and did my best not to think about what I was digesting—I considered my possibilities, sheut-wise, assuming not-Nuin had been right. There were only three sheut powers I could come up with that would allow me to get out of the tomb—the ability to manipulate physical At, the ability to make spatial jumps, and the ability to travel through time. I figured I had to have one of those powers, by default. Lucky for me, I had practice with all three.
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I touched the wall and thought lights off with all my might.
Darkness, complete and utter, surrounded me.
“Shit!” I hissed, thinking on with a franticness that was matched only by a sudden rush of excitement. When the glow returned to the walls, extra-bright, I raced up the stairs, slamming my hands against the blockade and willing it away.
Nothing happened.
“Come on,” I breathed, thinking harder. Willing the At barrier away harder. I gritted my teeth. “Come on …”
Still, nothing happened. It didn’t matter how many times I tried or how hard I focused. The only change I managed was painting the opalescent At with smeared, bloody handprints. The barrier wouldn’t budge.
Turning around and leaning my back against the un-openable door, I looked around the chamber below, like something down there might make any of this make sense. I ran my fingers through my sweat-crusted hair, cringing when the sticky blood tangled it further.
“Gross …” I brushed my hands off on the sides of my shift; it was already ruined anyway. “Okay, what am I missing?”
I stared down at Nuin’s coffin, hoping he would reappear and give me more guidance. Except I was fairly certain he’d just been a figment of my imagination—him and Marcus and Grandma Suse—conjurations of my subconscious mind, projected outwards to give the appearance of someone being there to help me. I’d read about things like that happening to people when they were in dire situations—lost in a cave or stranded at sea. Who’s to say being marooned in time is any different?
“Alright, Lex,” I said. “Think like Nuin, come on …” One hand on my hip, I tapped the opposite index finger against my lips while I thought aloud. “I was assuming that being able to make At glow was tied to the ability to physically manipulate it, but that’s clearly wrong, so …”
I nodded to myself, turning the glow of the walls on and off once more to confirm that I could do it. “That’s clearly the power afforded me from one of the sheuts … but I had twins, so there should be two sheuts.” I narrowed my eyes. “It could be totally different, a completely unrelated power, and it has to be something that can get me out of here.”
Turning around, I stared at the At barrier barring my way and thought not through, but something more like other side.
Unyielding blackness surrounded me once more. For a moment, I thought I’d accidently turned the wall’s glow off again. But then I remembered what lie beyond the tomb’s door—the Oasis. Cut off from the outside world completely by an At dome covered with a layer of rock and sand, it was just a bigger, darker tomb. I’d shifted through space, landing on the other side of the door.
I jumped back into Nuin’s tomb, a plan already forming in my mind. I took the steps two at a time and quickly repacked my bag with what little I had left. After adjusting the leather straps, I buckled the sword harness back over my chest and drew my sword, willing it to glow as the walls’ light died out. And once again, I ascended the stairs.
The spatial shifts seemed to tire me the most, so I decided to take it slow, traveling by foot as much as possible, using my sword as a torch lighting my way. Besides, I was out of practice, and spatial shifts were sort of a precision skill—at least, when emotion wasn’t the driving force behind them. I had no idea how much distance I could cover or if longer leaps would tire me more than short hops. I was used to the sheut of a full-fledged Netjer, which I was guessing packed a lot more punch than my minor sheut. Better safe than sorry.
The last thing I wanted to do was kill myself by accident, not when it was looking like I had a real shot at surviving this … of seeing the twins again. Especially because I had a pretty good reason to believe that the ability to move through space and time were linked. Because that was what Mei could do.
At the top of the stairs, I turned, gave Nuin a small salute, and shifted out of the tomb, taking the first, tiny step in the unfathomably long journey home.
39
Sun & Moon
There had been a moderately high creep-out factor in Nuin’s tomb, what with his body being down there and the whole “buried alive” issue. And yet, it was a flickering match to the roaring inferno of creepiness that was the abandoned Netjer-At Oasis. Visible only by my sword’s otherworldly glow, the Oasis was alive with shadows that moved just beyond the edge of my vision. Every heartbeat brought another trick of the eye. I held every other breath, thinking I’d heard something ahead or behind me.
I was tempted to hightail it up to the tunnel and shift through the final At barrier separating me from the outside world. And I would have, if not for what awaited me outside the Oasis. Sand. And heat. And nothing else for hundreds of miles.
Even with my newly discovered sheuts and the abilities they afforded me, I wasn’t willing to venture out into the Sahara without stocking up on what little provisions this haunting underground city could provide—namely water. One glance at the nearest tree told me it had died long ago and that the plentiful gardens and orchards scattered about would be little more than skeletons of what had once been. But the stream that snaked through the Oasis flowed with pure, crisp water fed by a plentiful and reliable underground spring. It was the reason Nuin had chosen this place as the tucked-away Nejeret homeland in the first place.
As quietly as possible, I picked my way across the decrepit garden stretching between the entrance to Nuin’s tomb and his breathtaking palace, passing by the massive arched doorways on my way to the stream just beyond. The sounds echoing throughout the dome were an eerie reminder of just how hollow this place truly was.
I glanced up and shivered. Nuin’s crystalline palace disappeared barely ten feet up; the delicate towers, archways, and spires that extended higher, reaching for the top of the dome, were entirely consumed by the unrelenting darkness. Even my heightened Nejerette vision was no match for the complete and utter lack of light.
One glance up was enough. I focused on the ground from there on out.
I reached the stream a few minutes later, taking a paved path down to the water’s edge. I dropped my bag on the ground, unbuckled my sword harness, set the sword down beside the bag, and crouched to fill up my waterskin. I gulped down almost the entire thing, then refilled the waterskin once more and stoppered it with the attached cork.
Peeling my soiled, blood-crusted shift over my head, I dropped it on the ground and knelt by the stream. I splashed tepid water onto my face and scrubbed my hands, but it didn’t seem to be doing much good. I didn’t have soap for a proper washing-up, but I did have the next-best thing—a whole lot of water, the whole Oasis’s worth.
The lip of the stream was only a few inches higher than the water’s surface. I dangled my feet in the stream first, then slid the rest of the way in, lying back to dunk my head. The water flowed gently around me, proof that there was still life in this place. It gave me hope that there was still a chance to resurrect the Oasis, my people’s home.
I floated there, on my back, kicking my feet every few seconds to remain in relatively the same place. With my eyes closed, it wasn’t so creepy, floating there in the long-dormant Oasis. It was peaceful. Therapeutic, even.
When I was as clean as I would get, I climbed out of the water and dried off with my heavy woolen cloak. I slipped into the clean linen shift a moment later, then suited back up and drained and refilled the waterskin one last time before leaving the stream. Sword lighting the way, I crossed the nearest bridge to the far side of the stream and hiked up the long, winding At-paved pathway to the tunnel.
The shift through the barrier blocking the tunnel’s exit was easy enough. I landed on the other side, bracing for a blast of dry heat. The crook of my arm shielded my eyes from the onslaught of bright Sahara sunlight.
Except … a cool breeze ruffled my linen skirt, and faint pinpricks tickled my ankles as individual grains of sand brushed by.
Frowning, I lowered my arm and peeked through one barely cracked eyelid, then opened my eyes. The stars were so bright to my light-star
ved vision that I had to squint. For a moment, it seemed as though the night sky was a solid sheet of silver, not unlike the unearthly glow given off by my sword. Having no need for more light, I sheathed the blade.
My eyes began to adjust, and the heavenly bodies separated into clusters, then into a billion pinpricks of light. There was no moon in sight, only the stars stretching from horizon to horizon, a sea far vaster than the one I was about to set out across.
I scanned the ocean of dunes extending to the horizon in every direction. Figuring it would be best to start slow, I focused on a dune that was due east, about halfway between the Oasis and the horizon a couple miles away. One mile seemed like a good distance to start with. A safe distance.
Staring at the dune, I gathered my will and thought, “There!” with all my might.
In the blink of an eye and the poof of swirly rainbow smoke, I shifted through space.
When I landed, I spun around, searching in the distance for the mound of sand and limestone covering the domed city. It took me a moment to find it, but the hill of rubble was there, maybe a mile away. I grinned. I could do this. I could really do this.
Spurred by my success, I aimed for a dune on the very brim of the horizon. Two miles. If I could jump that far without wearing myself out, I could settle in for a series of two-mile jumps. It was a little over two hundred miles to Men-Nefer, so far as I’d calculated on my original trip by foot from the ancient city of Memphis to the Netjer-At Oasis. About a hundred jumps. It would be like counting to one hundred while jumping rope. Easy peasy.
The first two-mile jump was almost as effortless as the one-miler. Almost. I was a little out of breath, but no more so than I would have been after running up a couple flights of stairs.
The second two-mile jump left me breathing hard. After the third, I was so out of breath I had to bend over and put my hands on my knees. Little spots of darkness and light danced across my vision, and I felt a little lightheaded.
I sat down on the peak of dune four with a huff and uncorked my waterskin. Seven miles.
Ricochet Through Time (Echo Trilogy Book 3) Page 27