The master was wrong. The goddesswouldblame her for leaving, and she wasn’t the only one. So why would Master Montuhotep make her such an offer?
He doesn’t want me here.He’s trying to drive me away. First with the endless errands, and now with this ominous warning.Stepping outside of her emotions, it all seemed so clear. So obvious.I might be young, but my father didn’t raise a fool. The goddess brought me here for a reason, and I promised to see it through. It will take a lotmore to get me to break that promise.
Neff cleared her throat. “I want to stay.”
The corner of the master’s lip twitched, almost imperceptibly. “Very well. Then we will begin.”
“Begin what?” Neff asked.
“You wish to drink from the waters,” the master said, lifting the wine jar and pouring something dark and thick into the golden cup. “This elixir opens your mind to the divine. Visions are capricious things—they don’t always come when they’re called, especially to a novice. The elixir brings them to the fore. Once you drink it, I will ask you some questions about dreams I have interpreted in the past. I already know the proper meaning of these dreams, and what came to pass after the dreamers woke. If the gods wish to speak to you, the correct answers will come. If not…” He handed her the cup. “May Amun have mercy upon you.”
Neff accepted the cup with trembling hands. She brought it to her mouth and hesitated, glancing over the rim at Montuhotep.
He wants you to fail.
The thought stoked a fire in her belly. All at once, she drained the wine to the dregs.
The elixir stung the back of her throat. It was cloying, the sweetness disguising a bitter, herbaceous flavor and a coppery tang that reminded her of blood. She gritted her teeth and swallowed it down, grateful she was able to do so without gagging. She placed the cup on the table and folded her hands on her lap, then returned Montuhotep’s stare. His expression tightened, and that pleased her.
“Look to the lamp,” the master intoned. “Soften your gaze and concentrate on the flame. Look to the darkness at the center of the light. Let it surround you; let it become your world. It is there you will be found—or lost.”
Neff focused on the lamp. With the windows covered, nobreeze blew through the chamber, so the flame did not flicker. It was so still, it seemed almost solid, like an object she could hold in her hand.
Time passed as she stared at the flame. Slowly, she began to feel a strange weightless sensation, which intensified with each passing second. Then a breathless wave of pleasure, the likes of which she’d never felt before, crashed over her. It sharpened her focus, making the flame brighter, richer—a sublime array of gold and violet light. She wanted to touch it, to taste it, to crawl inside and become one with it.
The room around her darkened, then fell away altogether. She could no longer see Montuhotep sitting across from her or the table between them. Even her body, the weight of her flesh and the places where it touched the floor, disappeared. There was nothing but the flame.
From across an ocean of nothingness, a voice reached her. Dimly, she recognized it as the master’s.
“The dreamer is climbing up the mast of a great ship. What do you tell him?” Montuhotep asked.
The flame guttered. In her mind’s eye, Neff saw shapes appear within it—a man rising up, lifted by animal-headed figures that danced in the flickering light.
“He will rise above his people, held aloft by the hands of the gods,” she said. Her voice belonged to a stranger, as if something huge and foreign were speaking through her lips.
“He sees himself in a mirror.”
Again, the images came, shifting within the flame.
“This man will have great sorrow—he will lose his wife.”
“His face is not his own,” the master said. “But the face of a leopard.”
“He will become a leader among his people.” The answers were coming more quickly now, flowing out of the flame and intoher mind like water.
“He is in a deep well.”
“He will be imprisoned for his crimes.”
“He sees a shining moon.”
“The man will be forgiven.”
The wave of euphoria was cresting, burning through her senses, filling her mind with color and light so vivid that it was almost unbearable. She tried to look away, tried to break her connection with whatever it was that spoke through her, but another image appeared at the center of the flame.
“The lamb,” she whispered.
There was silence for a moment, then Montuhotep spoke again. “The lamb from your vision? The high priestess mentioned this. Tell me what you see.”
