Cursed Times - Only Yesterday! Sequel to Wattys 2015 winner!

Chapter 49: Trueth- Hang on Stupid!

The woman, Una, pointed at Trueth this time and made movements with her mouth.

'You want me to speak because you can't?'

Una nodded.

'Okay, right. Eh, where am I? I mean, I'm not dead or something?'

Una shook her head. Images formed in Trueth's brain again; she saw herself jumping off the mountain, rushing through the clouds, then there was a bluish flash and she was gone.

'Ah, so I did go through the portal, right.' Una did not move any muscles, facial or otherwise, but conveyed a distinct feeling of correctness.

'Why am I not in Kemet?'

Una turned to the side and with her index finger drew a large question mark into the clouds, like a child playing with its pudding.

'Eh, what?'

Her strange companion waggled her staff and Trueth heard a playback of her voice. 'What if I don't find out who I am?', which was followed by a repetition of quite a few of the questions that had been plaguing her recently.

'Oh right, you can tell me who I am and what I am supposed to be doing.'

Una kept regarding her with a face devoid of expression as if she had overdosed on Botox. Only the eyes glimmered in their alien sheen. If she were a ghost, she could not be more different from Iseret's apparition who had been flickering, cursing and moving all over the place. As well as causing a bit of a stink. This spectre, or whatever she was, smelled delicious and fresh.

Another projection took form in Trueth's mind.

She saw woods shrouded in fog, gnarled trees draped in dripping moss and through the ancient forest came a trek of people clad like Una, men with long beards, women with long hair, carrying their possessions on their back, their children in slings. They dragged along domesticated aurochs bearing heavy burdens. Another image--the group breaking camp, fetching water, collecting plants in the woods.

The woods went dark; chalices were boiling on campfires; the women were chanting, standing barefoot on the earth in a loose circle whirling berries and roots into the brew. Strange coloured fumes arose, the men slashed at their skin and blood dripped into the fluids until Trueth saw the woods, bushes, stones moving, melting morphing - and a stone circle formed where wilderness had reigned before. What felt like seconds must have taken a long time, though, the colours of the leaves were changing, they were shrivelling, falling, budding again before the circle was complete.

The images shifted.

In rapid succession, Trueth saw Imhotep in his study, bent over his plans. Priests were rushing in and out of his room with scrolls in their hands. Then Trueth saw the pyramids rise into the skies in fast forward, she watched the building of the portal, saw thousands of people toiling away to build the elaborate artifices that were meant to bring safety.

The images shifted again towards the Northern woods.

Una's tribe calmly went into the embrace of the standing stones: Backlit by violet lightning circling, their shadows wavered in the stony embrace of the henge, flickered, flashed, and then they vanished. Somehow Trueth knew all this happened well before the dark priests blasted Djoser's pyramid, dooming Imhotep's rescue mission to failure.

The images faded and Una observed Trueth with an expression on her immobile face that could with a bit of goodwill be described as quizzical.

'What on Earth are you trying to tell me?' Trueth asked and felt like scratching her head.