“So that you can kill Ka?”
I pause, and immediately know that it’s all the confirmation she needed. Not a wild guess, I suppose, given what she overheard of my questions to the Nomarch. We watch each other carefully. Netiqret never believed Ka was a god. She’s been working against the system he maintains for twenty years, trying to save her daughter.
“So that I can kill Ka,” I confirm.
Netiqret considers. Her gaze drifts to Kiya, and a sadness I’ve not seen in her before flashes in her eyes. “Ten minutes, Siamun.” She touches the iunctus’s shoulder lightly, and the two of them start walking.
I conceal my relief, and start down toward the green-lit water.
IT TAKES ME ALMOST THE FULL TEN MINUTES TO FINDthe crook and flail. The crook was easily spotted, lying above one of the lines of green light. The flail had washed much farther down, dangerously close to the pipes, and I was about to give up, eyes searing, before I spotted the slightly darker shape against the shadows. Neither, thankfully, seem to have been damaged by the acidic water.
I’ve barely finished scraping the worst of the toxin from my skin again when Netiqret and Kiya emerge from the dim. The older woman winces as she sees me. “You’re dry?”
“Enough.”
She tosses fresh clothes at me and I shrug them on—smaller than I’d like, but they’ll do under the circumstances—and then hook the weapons on my belt. Netiqret watches with a frown. “You went back in forthose?”
“They’re stronger than they look.”
She gives a disbelieving snort. “What else do you need?”
“A priest to get me back into the Sanctum.” I could blast my way in, but that will draw the Gleaners before I reach the pyramid. I’ll have to face them eventually, but once I’m surrounded by themutalis, my chances will at least be improved. Still low, but improved.
Netiqret examines me. Latent anger, still, in those hard brown eyes. But something else as well.
“Tell me how you got my name.”
I nod slowly. I’ve been thinking about this, too. About how we ended up together. There was never a chance of me succeeding in here, without having met her. “I told you the truth—a iunctus called Djedef said you helped him escape from the city. It’s all I know. Truly.”
“So he was sent to you.”
“He was sent by Ka. At least, that’s what we thought.”
Netiqret says nothing for a long moment, then nods. “Alright. When do we head for the Sanctum?”
“Now.” I stand, and start wrapping my face.
Netiqret grimaces, but accepts it without comment. The three of us begin making for the passage up to the east.
“Do you have a theory about Djedef, then?” My voice echoes as we cross the last of the culverts.
Netiqret glances at Kiya, then away.
“I worked in the Nomarch, before I had Kiya. Every child in Duat is eventually tested in the temple and I knew why, knew what might be asked of me from the day she was born. I didn’t think it would matter. It was meant to be a great honour, and so when the priests came, I convinced myself it was alright. I convinced Kiya it was alright. I let them take her. Even knowing what would happen. Even knowing what she would go through.” Staring straight ahead, jaw set, eyes fixed. Old hatred in her voice, directed inward. “I told her it was alright, and I let them take her.”
Kiya walks beside her. Listless. Listening but not reacting.
“I got a message about a year after, through a iunctus who had been controlled just like you can control them. He knew all about Kiya. He said that she was being prepared for one of the surrogate systems, but if I was willing to kill a priest, and make it look like a natural death, I could get her back before she was fully integrated. They would give me a house, and a way to move through the city without being seen, so that she would be safe.”
“And you did it?”
Her glance drips disdain, though I’m not sure whether it’s for the question or herself. “What mother wouldn’t?”
We start into the dark tunnel leading away from the canal. There’s silence for a time, and then she continues. “When the iunctus brought Kiya, he said she could never be the same, because the Nomarch itself would have to restore her. She’d been commanded to obey me but she was still linked to the Nomarch,and if she ever tried to manipulate it, tried to do more than gather information from the connection, it would … reclaim her.”
My brow furrows as we walk the narrow passageway. “So you became amesektet?”
“I tried to find another way to save her.” Not particularly defensive or apologetic, just stating the fact of it. “I learned everything I could about the Nomarch from Kiya, but in the end I realised that I needed whoever had gotten her out: If they could control iunctii then with the right access, maybe they could control the Nomarch itself. I had no way of contacting them, though, so I needed information. Favours. Access to the sort of people who might have heard things.”
