End of previous chapter:
'Trueth! I implore you, help her.'
Metjen sighed and helped his friend clamber down from the sofa. 'It's allright mate. I'll make sure she's safe. We are not aligned with the portals, remember? We still have a bit of time. I couldn't save a kitten right now.'
'Mrrrp?' said Mish-Mish.
***
Trueth felt strangely calm, observing her rapid descent with a horrified detachment. Her arms stretched wide, her clothes flapping like the wings of a giant bird--only less effectively--she was plummeting through the icy skies above Mistworld. With a crack, the straps of the rucksack broke and it got torn from her back like a parachute. Needless to say, the pack did not contain any aerial safety devices of any form.
The ground below her was still shrouded in mist but surely, just before impact, she would spot the rocks that would batter her body into a bloody pulp. If she was lucky, she might land smack centre on Seisi's remains. Maybe they would be joined forever in a giant 'x marks the spot' type of smear. More likely, though, that she had got things wrong somehow and they were worlds apart.
She heard a sigh that was not hers and from one second to the next her environment changed. Instead of hurtling towards a violent death Trueth was floating above fat, fluffy clouds tinged with the peach hues of late afternoon. The skies above had taken on the glassy translucent turquoise usually experienced in seascapes. The air was balmy and instead of kneading her cheeks like so much dough, the wind was playing with her hair as it carried her along. There was no mountain in sight. Nor was there any sign of the Nile valley. Instead, she seemed to have become part of a celestial scenario that was almost baroque in its opulence. And it smelled of vanilla and tangerines.
This is beyond ridiculous, Trueth thought.
Had she already hit the ground and her bombastic environment resulted from the last signal sent by a mashed up brain? If it was that, her final brainwave was taking its own sweet time. She was not usually that slow.
Suddenly, one of the clouds next to her bubbled like boiling milk, bulged into a cauliflower shape, which in turn morphed into the ephemeral form of a woman in a long gown, carrying a staff. Slowly, colours flowed into the apparition from top to bottom and Trueth found herself hovering at face height with a vision she had last seen entering a burial mound in Mistworld below.
Trueth moved her arms experimentally and found that by kicking her feet she could change her flotation modus from horizontal to vertical. It felt more normal that way.
Her visitor from the past regarded her calmly, the snow white hair and the rough brownish gown untouched by the gentle breeze. The woman looked exactly the way she had appeared in that projection, with one exception: Her unseeing pale blue eyes had been replaced by a myriad of silvery faceted sparkles, reminding Trueth of a large insect.
The situation was bizarre, but given that she appeared to be still among the living Trueth decided to make the most of it. She sketched a wave with her hand. 'Uh, hullo? I'm not sure who you are, but I'm Trueth.'
The woman nodded. What she did next was as unexpected as it was unusual. Instead of the mind-talking Trueth had taken for granted, impressions formed in her head as if painted onto the inside of her brain. The conversation was going to be hard. Two spoken syllables followed, pushed from an unwilling larynx as if emitted by a waterlogged whistle.
'U-na.' The apparition pointed at herself.
Trueth tried a bow in mid-air and nearly lost her balance. 'Uh, pleased to meet you.' She waited.
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.
The images returned, still without sound.
Again and again she saw Imhotep, the old Pharaoh and the circle directing their cast of thousands to erect the elaborate buildings that still impressed the world today. And she watched the endless rendition of a handful of People of the Mist picking greenery, standing on the Earth, stroking plants and trees into lushness and just gliding across into another world like a frog hopping into a pond.
'Your lot seemed to rely on Mother Nature a lot more than that bunch of magical priests I happen to be acquainted with,' Trueth observed. 'Is that why you were more successful than the Kemet people?'
Una's eyes flashed and she conveyed a feeling of approval.
'That's all very well, but how is that going to help us against the demons? And you still got stuck in the Mistworld, so the portal did not do you much good.'
Una said nothing.
Trueth explored another approach. 'Why did you help them at all? You did not have to.'
An image with the scales of the Maat appeared in Trueth's mind. Did Una feel she had to help justice?
The woman shook her head and another image materialised in Trueth's mind. Thunderbolts of golden energy powering down in the temples. The People of the Mist living, melting into the greenery. The scales again. Sudden insight hit her with a flash.
'Ah, we need both types of magic, right? That highbrow cosmic stuff and the lore of the land. That's why you also needed two portals to get this sorted. Okay, I see.'
Una nodded.
Her elation fading, Trueth felt frustration rising inside. Far too many questions were as yet unanswered; this clunky dialogue was not helping.
'Why can't you talk to me properly? Have you been dead too long?'
Una shook her head again and Trueth felt herself sinking. She checked, her feet had already disappeared in the fuzzy clouds.
'Eh, careful, I'm dropping!'
Una nodded and raised her arm with the staff in a gesture that smacked of final greeting.
'But I'm not finished yet,' Trueth yelled. ' I would like to learn more about you. Are you my great-grandmother? Like Imhotep is for Metjen?'
Instead of an answer, the hazy clouds swallowed Trueth. Before they could blank out her vision completely, the overwhelming scent of green freshness hit her nose again and for a moment, for a fraction of a second only, Una was gone and in her place was - not quite a giant scorpion but a scary many-legged creature, still displaying Una's eerie eyes. Next, there was nothing.
'You are not my ancestor, you are...urgh.'
With a sickening lurch in her stomach, Trueth was hurtling through the skies once more.
Trueth tried to scream her frustration into the wind but she did not manage to open her mouth to the howling gale. Below her, the mists broke just as she had anticipated and she saw dark, craggy boulders baring their fangs. The ground rushed towards her with sickening speed.
You are bloody hard to find, Metjen's voice popped into her brain. Where on Earth - Oh Lord Ra!
The freezing, shrieking air ripped apart in a seam of blue, followed by blackness and Trueth rushed into a portal. At least, she thought she did, she had squeezed her eyes shut. With a crackling sound, she ripped through something that felt like giant tinfoil, braked so hard her neck snapped back almost to her shoulders - whereafter she landed almost gently on a soft surface.
Silence ensued.
Something purred.
Purred? Trueth opened one eye. Blondie looked back at her with an anxious expression on his furry face, then proceeded to rub his head on her freezing cheek. She reached out and pressed her four-footed friend to her chest.
From somewhere next to her she heard two concerned male voices asking her almost simultaneously whether she was allright. It was the second one that had her turn around slowly on her belly, one hand still clutching the cat's plushy body. Seisi was kneeling next to the sofa, a mixture of shock and joy on his face. He threw his arms around her and the cat, crushing both of them in his embrace. Rocking her, as if she were a baby, Seisi babbled something incoherent but immensely soothing.
Trueth suddenly felt more weightless than she had been at any time up in the air.
Her arm round Seisi's supporting shoulders, she looked to her left. Metjen was leaning over a battered steel and chrome sofa, wearing a frown of concern on his face. Framed by the opening to the corridor - why had the door been bashed in? - stood Rani-Ra, Ranofer and Khy all wearing confused expressions. They were talking, asking questions presumably, but she could hardly hear their voices through all that ringing and rushing in her ears. Next, she saw the professor turning up behind the others and Nefertiti was pushing her way in from the rear.
Welcome back, sister, Iseret's voice rasped in her ear.
'Oh Gods, I'm home.'
The concerned expressions turned into smiles.
'Metjen?'
'Yes?' he said anxiously. Or she thought he did, her hearing was still not functioning properly.
'You're really good at just-in-time deliveries. Please don't try to cut your margins any further.'
The ringing in her ears increased and the world went black.
If you liked this story, please leave me a vote or a comment. Or both XD. Wattpad writers write for feedback. We thrive on it! Thank you so much. If you REALLY liked it - maybe you can tell your friends about it?
I would be interested to know who you think our heroine has met up there? And why. ;)
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This chapter is dedicated to cwally Thank you for binge reading and voting on my novels!
The image is from DeviantArt, copyright dragonkiss