“It’s fine.” I straighten, the pain behind my eyes easing. It’s not fine. Perhaps there was a useful response somewhere in all of that, but I need plain answers. Something I can use. I touch the boy’s shoulder a third time. Grit my teeth as I connect once again. “How do I get past the Gleaners in the tunnel to the Pyramid of Ka?”
“What?” I can hear Netiqret’s confusion and mounting anger in the single word, but I’m focused on the iunctus.
He opens his eyes. They are blue and lifeless and focused on me. “Avoiding detection is impossible.”
“Can I kill them?”
“Impractical.”
“Siamun.” Netiqret, interrupting again. Purely angry this time, but we both know she’s in no position to do anything about this. The more she delays me, the longer she has to wait for what she wants.
I ignore her. “Then can I clear them out, somehow? What would cause them to leave?”
“They are secondarily tasked for emergency defence. They are activated to eliminate existential threats.”
I swallow. “What would such a threat entail?”
“Significant structural damage to the city. Disruption of primary processes or defence. The last instance of complete activation was six hundred and forty-two years ago.”
Six hundred and forty-two years.Vek. “What was it caused by?”
“Destruction of the original filtration system. Gleaners were deployed for protection, and then the prevention of riots during the subsequent panic and drought.”
“So they prioritise the welfare of the city over protecting Ka?”
“Yes.”
“Will Ka intervene if he thinks he is being threatened?”
“Ka sleeps. He would be unaware.”
Interesting. “Can you create a disaster big enough to draw them out?”
“I cannot.”
“That’senough, Siamun.” I feel steel rest across my throat, vaguely surprised that Netiqret let me fire out as many questions as I just managed. “You tell him to add us to the records as chief priests. And Kiya as a living child.Now.”
She’s got no bargaining power here, but the edge to her voice is more worrying than the one against my skin. There’s something desperate about it, raw and furious and manic.
“Alright.” I make certain to keep still. She won’t kill me yet. Not until she has what she wants. “Forget anything you currently know about myself, or these other two here. Then, for as long as you’ve seen me alive within the past month, have myself and her be identified as chief priests, and her as a living child, to any iunctii checking on us.” I point as I say the words; the boy’s dull blue eyesroll to follow my gestures and take in the faces, though his head never twitches. “And forget anything you currently know about Ahmose al Maq. Register him as a Westerner with full access to the east.”
“Take out the provision, Siamun.” A catch to Netiqret’s voice. The blade pushes at my throat. I feel a slow trickle down my neck.
“No.”
A hiss of air releasing between her teeth that admits she has no play here, and the pressure relents. “Then tell him to remove the changes made by Kiya’s time in the Nomarch.” Kiya is suddenly being ushered forward to stand next to me. “Tell him to restore her mind.”
“What? Is that even …” I glance around in confusion, my link to the blue-eyed iunctus fragile as its torrent of images continues to assault me. Through it, though, I see Netiqret’s eyes. See the ready blade in her hand.Vek. This is why she’s here. “Alright. I’ll try.”
I focus back. Thinking furiously. Kiya was once in here, evidently. There’s an ache to Netiqret’s voice, a desperation leaking through. How long has she been trying to get in here and do this? Kiya has to be a relative. Her daughter? If that’s the case, though, then she was killed … at least a decade ago. Likely longer.
Rottinggods.
“Restore Kiya to the way she was before she was part of the Nomarch. Restore her mind.”
“That cannot be done.”
Silence, and then, “Try again.” Netiqret’s voice is almost a whisper.
