Cursed Times - What Now?

Chapter 20 - Summoning

'No action at all. Father had the ground scanned - absolutely nix and nada. Just sand.'

'And you? Did you not notice anything?' The cat stretched and yawned. Trueth lifted him to her shoulder as if he was a fur collar.

'I can't even get close. Even if I stay well away from that blasted wall, it scares me to death.' The memory of the hungry drain of his ka made his mouth go dry; he joined Trueth at the table and drank a glass of karkadi. 'The strange thing is—I'm convinced these broken dreams share the same source as whatever wants me dead. So it's a case of hands off, or else, but at the same time I'm wanted. Did you mention your dreams to Iseret?'

'No.' Trueth handed over the cat; ambled across the grass in her bare feet and played with the dribble coming from the fountain. 'I'm not suicidal.'

Metjen sucked his teeth, then pushed his chair back from the table. 'Look, we will need to tell Iseret. She alone knows what's going on, and I refuse to be kept in the dark any longer.'

Trueth splashed water down the front of her T-shirt. 'Are you nuts?'

She still had the figure of a stick insect but the boobs were not bad. 'Nice, can I see more?'

'This isn't funny at all.' Trueth pulled the T-shirt straight.

'Oh come on, I'm joking. As to our esteemed leader—her bark really is worse than her bite. I'm sure she'll want to know about our problems. Maybe she'll zap us but she must acknowledge we told her in the first place. I'll invite her here, she's never been to visit and I'm sure she'll come.'

'You are completely out of your tiny tree, you know. There is something not right about her!' Trueth's face had taken on a pink glow, freckles splattered like debris across the bridge of her nose.

'Do you have any better suggestions?'

It appeared Trueth did not, so he mind-called Iseret.

As the afternoon turned into evening, Metjen banished any second thoughts rising from the depths of his mind. Instead, he laughed at Trueth's concerns when she came back from the hairdresser's looking halfway civilised but rather chalky in the face.

When the sun dropped into the trees, mother emerged from the living room with a frown. 'Metjen, Trueth—you have a visitor.'

Behind her trailed Iseret, dressed in the black Abaya and headscarf of a Muslim woman which made her almost as invisible as if she had used a magical veil—but without the effort.

Even if he had invited her, Iseret's presence in his home still felt like an intrusion.

His mother rose to the occasion with the usual aplomb. 'Welcome, Your Wisdom, I will get tea for you.'

The cats, however, hissed their opinion. Tails turned into bottle brushes they flattened their ears and bared their fangs until they crouched away with bellies close to the floor. Iseret tore off her scarf and glared at it briefly before she threw it over the chair Trueth was holding for her.

'Thank you sister. Why did you not talk about your dreams?' She ascended to her favourite position in mid-air directing a night-black glare straight at her unfortunate underling. Trueth, who still had the chair in a death grip, had relapsed into her former tongue-tied state, so Metjen intervened.

'Your Wisdom, she has confided in me as she didn't want to bother you with something that might well have only been a silly dream.' This was not the exact truth, but it would have to do.

'She should not have experienced what you call something, but I can only free the young sister if she agrees to become a Pure One. Are you ready?' Iseret laser-beamed more displeasure in the general direction of Trueth, causing her waxy cheeks to flush with colour. 'I knew about the dreams. Sister Trueth was obviously plagued by lack of sleep and wanted to know why. I wondered whether you would tell me.'