Chapter Text
The body of a dead falcon had been laid in front of the gates to the temple in the morning hours. The bird had been killed by an arrow straight through its chest that had pierced its spine as well, but for emphasis, someone had also twisted its head and broke its neck. No one had seen who exactly had put the corpse in front of the gates, the guards had not noticed anything unusual until when the morning sun rose, one of the imps that circled the perimeter had noticed the dead creature.
There was no message attached to it but the implication of laying the mutilated body of the animal which represented Ra and Horus in front of the door of the men and women who dedicated their lives to serving Ra (officially and on paper; were one to ascend on the ranks of the priesthood, they would soon discover that the vast majority of priests only served one thing: themselves) – the message seemed very clear from the get-go.
Such was what Meritites, the High Priestess of Ra, was told as she was breaking her fast on an already warm summer morning.
Dressed in the typical garb befitting her position – a white linen tunic adorned with golden threads, necklaces of silver for protection and a leopard skin wrapped over her shoulder and tied to her waist – she was seated at the head of the table. She was rather young for holding such an important office, and neither tall nor short for an Egyptian woman. Her dark skin was taken care of multiple times a day with oils and lotions but the signs of premature ageing were still visible; fine lines on her forehead and bags underneath her eyes. If her hairdressers would not be dedicated to shaving her head and waxing it anew everyday, one might have even been able to spot a bit of gray once the hair grew out.
She ate in the company of the seven most powerful magicians in service to the priesthood. They were currently busy enjoying the wide spectrum of their meal; amphoras with wine, white or red, or beer, light bread of airy texture to dip into salted olive oil or honey, sweetbread with raisins baked within, fruits like dates, figs, palm nuts, pomegranates or grapes, various types of juices, mashed chickpeas seasoned with salt and mint leaves, and all type of sweetmeats.
The seven served their plates richly and called servants – all of them young acolytes with the duty to serve food to their elders – to pass them food or drink, to which they humbly obliged. At the head of the table, the figure at the very end had halted while the one to her right looked on in alarm but did not stop chewing on his food.
The High Priestess considered the demon’s words for a moment and put down the piece of bread dipped in honey she had been holding until now.
“Is this really a matter of such importance that I must be summoned to take care of this?”
“My master seems to think so, o High Priestess.” The demon, in the form of a child that seemed perhaps a little too adorable, innocently bowed its head.
“Who exactly is your master?”
The demon sniggered. “Khnumhotep, o Mistress of Karnak.”
The High Priestess nodded, tapped with her finger on the table and then stood up. Most types of news, regardless whether they were good or bad, had a tendency to spoil her appetite. As if on command, all the Seven perked up to look at her.
“Don’t any of you dare to bother.” The High Priestess’s voice was a snarl and immediately her highest human servants obeyed her word and shrunk in on themselves.
“Djoser, keep everything in order until I’m back,” she said to the lector-priest specifically and didn’t wait for a response before she left the dining hall to follow the demon into the inner sanctums of the temple.
The dark halls of Karnak were cold, they weren’t afforded the luxury of light that could only be graciously given to the high-ranking individuals of the priesthood, so instead the children brought to Thebes from all over the country who were chosen to become acolytes and in some cases grew up to become more reached adulthood in sombre darkness, surrounded by the other, non-human, inhabitants of the catacombs. A long time ago, she had been one of them too – if they were made of sterner stuff like she, they’d find a way to claw themselves out of these pits with the hopes of one day seeing the light of the sun again.
She didn’t feel the cold anymore but instead welcomed it and the memories of times long gone as she followed the demon down the large stairways into the ground. The descent wasn’t very deep, one level only and the demon soon led her down a corridor lit by bright blue imp lights that somehow increased the coldness. The other priests who crossed paths with her stopped and respectfully declined their heads until she had passed by them. She recognized acolytes by the hair that was still growing on their heads, kept short but not being shaved yet, as they didn’t have to fulfil duties in which they needed to perform rituals for the gods but instead focused on the magical part of their studies, but also by the looks of either open or downplayed curiosity they gave her.
The High Priestess had been described by others as a woman that could intimate others very well, not with her features but by her demeanour, which usually was one of cold sternness. It had earned her the moniker of ‘the Unsmiling’, but Meritites worried about bigger things than people believing she should be a little kinder or gentler.
Most of the acolytes knew she existed, of course, but had never seen her as she nowadays didn’t venture as often into the more populated corridors of the catacombs as she used to. There were sections specifically designed for the higher priests, chambers in which the treasured artefacts of the priesthood were kept along with religious texts, stelae inscribed with the history of the priests of Ra from their founding era back in the days of the Second Dynasty until the current age, and cuneiform tablets holding the names of all demons that had been and were in service to the magician-priests in the past and the present. There were separate chambers of worship to gods to which a higher priest might feel more affiliated to along with Ra and, of course, summoning chambers of any sort, where the higher priests would bind demons to them on their own or come together as a group when they needed more powerful entities which demanded more than one magician.
The demon opened a door with a wave of its hand and bowed as she passed through. With another wave, it closed the door behind them and crossed its arms behind its back.
“Khnumhotep, I do hope that your reason for summoning the highest servant of Ra as she is breaking her fast is very good.” She knew the man was overseer of a larger section of demonic temple guards, ultimately a rather small fish.
Khnumhotep, a small stout man with a large upturned nose and bulging eyes, bowed so deeply in front of her that Meritites was surprised his back didn't crack.
“O High Priestess, may life, prosperity and health bless you. I would not call you personally if I wouldn’t consider it a worrying affair.”
Meritites raised a painted eyebrow and tilted her head upwards. “A worrying affair? This was not what your slave implied when bringing me your message.”
“Of course, I shall punish the creature appropriately if you allow me so.” Khnumhotep cowered even lower if such a thing was possible.
“Very well. May I see this ‘worrying affair’?”
The priest stood up with surprising agility. “Right away, High Priestess.” He led her across the room. It was a simple office; there were some summoning circles, one meant for the magician and others for the demons he conjured. He motioned to a chest that had been placed on his desk and quickly took off the lid. The faint stench of decay filled the room through the general smell of incense and Khnumhotep made a face.
“Apologies, but if we had already started the process of mummification, we might have overseen any important details.”
Meritites waved his concern away; she was not one to lose her composure over the smell of rot. She reached into the chest and laid the carcass onto the table. The head had been twisted in order to break the neck indeed, and even though the arrow had been removed, the exit wound in its back was clearly visible.
“Where is the arrow?”
“In the chest, o high priestess.”
“Bring me a bowl of cold water, and a cloth while you’re at it.”
“At once, o High Priestess.” Khnumhotep barked an order at his demon who begrudgingly bowed and left the room to get the items as Meritites took a closer look at the dead falcon. She was by no means a squeamish woman who was taken aback by some blood; she had after all spent a fair share of her life mummifying and dissecting for funeral rites and scientific works in order to understand the physique of both beast and man -- it was a part of the fundamental teachings for the acolytes after all. She turned the falcon around to take a closer look at its chest and the entry wound and ran her fingers through the plumage.
“This animal wasn’t shot down by the arrow in the first place. Someone cut it open, most likely to take out the entrails and sewed it up again.” She looked up to look him in the eyes and continued sharply. “And apparently I was the only one who had bothered to think of this and take a closer look.”
Khnumhotep paled. “High priestess, my apologies… we–”
Meritites raised a hand and the priest closed his mouth. “You should count yourself lucky you already find yourself on a quite low tier, otherwise I would consider placing you even lower – but I hardly consider that worth my energy or time,” she stated and enjoyed how red patches appeared on the priest’s face. “There are more than enough heretics out there in the streets that have very little love for our kind – be it by virtue of us being priests or magicians. Why should we pay attention to any of them who believe they can intimidate us when we can crush them with ease, prove them to be inferior to us in an instant?”
Khnumhotep wrung his hands and coughed.
“Well, for one, the demons were repulsed by the sight of it, they wouldn’t come close, which is why I personally had to come and take it away. Something about its aura, according to the imp who spotted it, made their essence crawl.”
Meritites clicked her tongue and caught a thin-bladed dissection knife that had appeared floating in the air. She trusted herself more than this disaster of a man in doing a good job at this.
“Any silver or iron?”
“The tip of the arrow is silver, I believe.”
“It might have been the arrow.”
“They were repulsed even when I removed the arrow.”
Meritites sighed. Then she began cutting the threads with which someone had sewn the falcon’s chest close. She was beginning to not like this at all, but she only allowed herself a small amount of skepticism as she undid the threads and carefully pulled the chest open.
“Someone took out the heart,” she murmured more to herself than to anyone in particular. Instead of the heart someone had deposited a small round orb of gleaming silver in its place. Meritites raised an eyebrow and removed the flesh and feathers that were in her way to get a better look at it – then jumped when the orb uncurled, and extended six legs, a head with the shapes of a human child and a thick stinger at its bottom burst through the falcon like a chick out of an egg.
With a blood-curdling scream it threw itself at Meritites’s face. Khnumhotep screamed likewise and bolted for the exit, leaving the High Priestess to fend for herself. She reacted in an instant: a quick word in Old Egyptian and a shimmering teal shield covered her entire body like a second layer of skin. She jumped backwards to get some space between herself and her attacker which jolted at her, stinger raised. Poison sprayed out of it and hit both shield and the wall behind her with a hiss where it promptly ate through the sandstone.
Meritites spoke a syllable and swatted the creature aside with more strength than a human should have. It skittered across the floor, the ugly face twisted in blind fury and zigzagged towards her after a split second of brief recovery. Meritites said a name and out of thin air a presence appeared above her.
Her demon opened its mouth and dark blue fire shot out, hit its target and burnt it to a crisp. Meritites watched as it squirmed in the flames and succumbed to the heat. The demon, a sleek falcon, closed its mouth and landed on the table.
“I see it’s quite the day already,” it said.
They watched as the creature twitched, a charred half-molten silver mess that slowly and with trembling steps made its way to the magician, eyes burning like fiery cinders and barring long fangs dripped with venom.
Meritites scoffed with dismay, reached into the chest, took the arrow and with a flick of the wrist threw it at the creature, piercing through the body and pinning it to the sandstone floor. It let out another screech which tore through her eardrums but then didn’t move anymore. It didn’t dissolve into essence but instead became stiff and stopped moving altogether like a dead beetle might.
For a few moments no one said anything, then Meritites cleared her throat.
“Days that begin like this rarely have anything good in store.”