The Gifts of Mortality

Chapter 6, part one

After visiting six museums, Samil and Agent Rachel Hall have found and settled into an effective routine. Samil thinks Agent Hall seems to have grown more comfortable with his mode of travel—or she's better at hiding her discomfort. She is no longer screaming, at least.

He still chooses large, realistic paintings to travel through for her sake. When they arrive, he steps out of the paintings a moment ahead of his human companion, dropping a foot or two to the floor or however high the painting is mounted. Then he turns around to guide Agent Hall safely down by catching her if the drop is significant or offering an arm for balance.

Sometimes, there is a crowd of astonished patrons waiting for them on the other side of the frame. Sometimes, it's a few cautious museum employees. For the one museum they entered in the dead of night, there was no one to greet them at first. An out-of-breath security guard caught up with them later.

The museums they visit are scattered all over the world. They hop from country to country and sometimes from continent to continent within a matter of minutes.

Agent Hall can only speak one human language, English, but Samil can speak any mortal tongue, although he's a little rusty in a few. It's been a while since he collected prayers and invocations from some of the smaller or more remote cultures.

So, he's the one who greets whatever people they run into in non-English-speaking countries, but he always defers to Agent Hall for the actual substance of their conversations with them. He stands in the place of a translator, still not quite used to speaking with humans. Agent Hall tells him he's too prone to stick his foot in his mouth to take the lead. He assumes that's an analogy of some sort that he hasn't heard before.

Agent Hall, speaking through Samil, then asks to be taken to the museum's collection of immortal-touched and related items. She flashes her badge, although Samil's displays of magic are often enough to invoke obedience in the museum's employees.

Now, the pair are at their seventh stop. They started off going to the larger and more famous museums of the world but quickly narrowed their search to places dedicated to archeological finds, which are far more likely to house magic-imbued items. Egypt has proven to be a veritable treasure trove of such items, hence their long visits to Cairo and Alexandria.

As they're guided into the main collection by a large group of curators at the Luxor Museum, Samil feels a quiet thrill at once again demonstrating his abilities. Unlike his fellow immortals, the humans marvel at his magic.

They step into the main exhibit and Samil reaches out to the artifacts through his gifts. His magic beckons to the magic of the artifacts, which answers his call.

As he does, he isn't looking at the stone statues, vases, pots, and other items displayed along the walls and in cases throughout the exhibit hall. He's watching the faces of the curators.

Their faces are lit with the rosy orange glow of Samil's magic igniting from within the immortal-imbued objects. He smiles at the wonder in their eyes—these men and women who have devoted their working lives to the artwork of their ancestors and are now seeing these pieces for the first time as they were intended to be seen.

The statues glow from an inner anchor point for the magic. The stone appears bathed in a vivid red-orange light that comes from within, the anchor point appearing as a bright white pinprick in the chest of the humanoid statues or the center of the other items.

The group of curators is largely struck dumb with awe at the sight. For the most part, they can't say any intelligible words besides a few interjections of astonished phrases. Instead, the hall echoes with gasps and sharp intakes of breath.