XXXII

WE DESCEND AS THE DOOR folds closed behind us, the woman and child leading. I find myself stooping, despite not technically needing to. Tighter than most of the tunnels we’ve been using, I can’t move more than a step or two to the left or right without hitting my head against the sloping roof.

“Where are we going?” I ask the question to the stranger’s back as we reach the bottom, taking careful note of our direction.

“To meet Netiqret.” The response is calm but brooks no follow-up.

We walk for minutes, taking several turns and moving into a section I haven’t been through yet. My mental map remains accurate, though, and my time at the Catenan Academy did nothing if not improve my memory for mazes. We will be able to get back out, with or without our current guide.

“These tunnels are a lot lower than the others.” Ahmose scowls and jerks away as his shaven head grazes the roof.

It’s small, but ahead, the woman twitches. Vek. A barely noticeable hesitation, but it’s clearly in response to Ahmose’s mutter. She knows we’ve had previous access to the tunnel network now.

“They were not made for the likes of us,” she says eventually.

Before I can ask what she means, we turn a corner and she brings us to a halt. The girl moves to the side of the tunnel, running her hands over the smooth black surface. To my surprise, a series of previously invisible glyphs abruptly glow there.

“What do you think?” I’ve dropped back slightly, murmur the words to Ahmose as our guide moves the child aside with a light touch to the shoulder, crouches, and starts pressing the symbols.

Ahmose’s gaze flashes nervously to the young girl. “I think she’s a Westerner.”

“Why?”

“Sometimes you can just tell.”

The woman finishes inputting her sequence and the dark stone slides away with a low grinding, revealing not more illuminated triangular tunnel but instead a grey stone passageway, clean-cut but unpolished, barely four foot high and not quite as wide.

“Through here.” The woman lets the girl go first, then follows her on hands and knees. “Quickly,” she snaps back brusquely as Ahmose and I look at each other. “The entrance will close in a few seconds.”

We follow, me bringing up the rear and barely getting inside before the obsidian grinds shut again. It’s not as utterly dark as it first appeared in here, I’m relieved to find; there’s some distant source of light up ahead, allowing Ahmose’s crawling in front of me to resolve in faint silhouette.

I take some steadying breaths as we clamber our way forward, the stone rough beneath my palms. Caeror’s maps never showed anything like this. On the one hand, that’s a concern; I’m going to have to take even more careful note of every turn we take from here on out.

On the other, it means Netiqret knows more about the city than I do. Which is exactly what I need.

After a minute there’s a rushing sound, faint at first but growing steadily louder. An enclosed, thundering echo. I’m just about to call questioningly over it when the increasing light around us gives way to a massive cavern, lit entirely in the same green as Neter-khertet. Far to our right is the source of the overwhelming noise: a constant torrent of water, crashing from the enveloping darkness above into a fast-flowing river perhaps a hundred feet wide that slides past us before, farther to our left, another deluge from the void above violently feeds it. I peer in both directions. There are at least three other waterfalls that I can see.

“Each of you hold one of these. Do not lose it. I do not have more.” The woman is pressing something into my hand. There’s a flush of energy, and when I look down I discover a scarab amulet sitting in my palm, near enough identical to the two still bound around my arm and hidden by my clothing. I close my fist around it tightly, covering my surprise and hoping she doesn’t notice Ahmose’s pointed look at me as he sees what he’s been given. “Stay as far away from the water as you can. Move quickly.” Our guide barks it over the roar, then sets off before either Ahmose or I can react further.

The grey, scarred stone underfoot becomes treacherously slippery as we edge closer to the nearest of the pillars of water, the constant fine mist from its exploding against the river highlighted in green, and suddenly thick and damp against my exposed skin as we hug the wall and begin moving through it.

With increasing intensity, it’s accompanied by a stinging sensation. I wipe my face anxiously, but the moisture is replaced within seconds. My lungs burn as I inhale it, and I cough.

“Ka-sheut,” curses Ahmose in a rasp behind me, having much the same reaction. “What is this?”

“Just keep moving,” the woman calls from ahead of us, a slight rasp to her voice. “It is only temporary.”

With little choice we press on, soon making it past the edge of the haze. We navigate two more clouds, coughing and rasping, the cavern’s length stretching on, before finally the river begins to shrink, smaller culverts angling off the main flow and leeching its water into dark holes in the wall. Thin, ungainly bridges allow us to cross these side-streams, though we do so with plenty of caution. Even the woman guiding us seems not to trust the ancient-looking, cracked grey stone beneath our feet.

As we cross another and round a bend in the cavern, Ahmose suddenly slows ahead of me.

“Ka take us,” he murmurs. “Who could make such a thing?”

I follow his gaze. Slow as well. “The better question is, who could destroy it?” I mutter.

Up ahead, the cavern finally ends, but not in a wall like the ones around us. Instead the way is clogged by rubble and wreckage, great boulders surrounding the rusting remains of some kind of massive construction. Steel thicker than a man’s body juts twisted and crumpled from the stone, snaking upward into the concealing gloom. Only its base remains clear, several more holes sucking the remaining water greedily into their darkness.

Our guide hasn’t paused, is apparently unfazed by the sight as she angles us toward the debris that, I realise, will allow us to clamber across to the other side of the flow. I push Ahmose gently back into motion. Heart quickening.

It’s been hard to tell for certain but if my mental map is right, we’ve been following the path of the Infernis above.

This might be a way to the east.

I examine the ruins of the massive device as we draw closer. Hints of huge cogs in amongst it all, though everything is so damaged and corroded it’s hard to tell. It reminds me a little of the sketches I’ve seen of some of the great machines the Hierarchy built with Will, the ones used in mining and other areas I’ve had no cause to see in person. We studied them at the Academy. Emissa once noted one of them appeared to be a giant middle finger, constantly raising from and retracting into a clenched hand. Praeceptor Nequias was furious for the rest of the class when none of us—not even Iro—could restrain our smirks whenever he referred us to the diagram.

The sight, the memory, brings a twinge. Is the version of me in Res relaxing somewhere with Emissa, right now? Laughing with Callidus and Eidhin? Or did he somehow manage to win the Iudicium and find a peaceful escape to the embassy in Jatiere? Caeror’s words ring true again and again as I navigate this place, this world. Once, I would have given anything to be free of the Hierarchy.

But things can always be worse.

I take a deep, acidic breath and square my shoulders, following the woman and child as they begin the somewhat precarious journey across the rubble. I may not like where I have ended up, but without me, there will be no better life—here or in Res—if I don’t succeed.

“What is this place?” My curiosity finally overcoming the woman’s very obvious lack of desire to talk to us. “Are we beneath the Infernis?”

“Yes.”

I examine the rushing torrents we’re making our way over, and then the streams of water plummeting from the darkness in the distance. “So this is some sort of overflow.” I’ve seen the water level of the Infernis rise and fall constantly in the valley outside the city, but above us, in Duat, it never seems to change. I picture the massive waterfall on the northern exterior of the black pyramid, where the river spouts from Duat and almost immediately drops a hundred feet. “It funnels the excess down here, then connects again outside the city?” The relative elevations would make sense.

She gives me a shrewd look. “I am told some of this water feeds the wells. Other than that, I wouldn’t know.”

I reexamine the channels disappearing beneath our feet. There are only a few wells in Neter-khertet, though I know from Ahmose that they are far more common in the east. Clean water, available to all for washing or drinking. But the Westerners don’t need it for the latter. “How is it made safe?”

Our guide either doesn’t hear or, more likely, ignores me. And probably doesn’t know the answer either way. I let it drop.

Soon enough we’re across the main flow, then choking our way back through two more green-tinged clouds before the woman finally opens a relatively small gate made of obsidian bars, gesturing us through. Inside is dim, lit only by the shimmering green from the rushing water outside. I peer into the gloom, straining to see anything beyond Ahmose’s silhouette and austere grey walls.

Behind us, there’s a booming sound.

I spin. Curse. Dive. Too late. The stately stranger and child stand on the other side of the barred gate, and I know even before I slam into it and try yanking it open that it’s locked.

“So. Now we can talk,” says the woman, holding up the key she just used to lock us in before tucking it into a pocket. “And make your answers honest. You were most astute in your observation before; these ways serve as an overflow for the Infernis, when the great storms to the south swell it beyond what should flow through Duat above. That happens every few days, and when it does, the space you are in is flooded.” She shrugs, leaving us to extrapolate the remainder.

Vek. I’d considered trying to surreptitiously imbue the girl at her side, based on what Ahmose said earlier, but it felt wrong because of her age. I’m regretting my delicateness now. “We’ve been nothing but truthful.” I keep my tone calm and steady. As much for Ahmose’s sake as my own; I can see my companion’s inevitable panic coming from the corner of my eye. I study the woman’s evident sense of control. Suddenly frown. “You’re Netiqret, aren’t you.”

Only a flicker of irritation to indicate I’ve guessed correctly. She squints through the bars as if we’re a puzzle to be solved. “And your companion is Ahmose al Maq. Iunctus and fugitive from Ka. While you… you do not appear to exist. What is your name?”

“Siamun.” The name Ahmose and I decided upon, when it became clear I wasn’t going to be able to complete my task with the alacrity I’d hoped. Face wrappings can’t hide a name that sounds notably unusual.

“Well, Siamun. I must admit, when I heard someone was asking to see me, I assumed you were a new type of iunctus. Some new trick of Ka’s. I do not usually have clients on this side of the bridge.”

“Clients?”

Netiqret cocks her head to the side. “I assume you are seeking the services of a mesektet?”

I don’t know the word, but when I glance across at Ahmose, I can see immediately that he does. There’s a tightening of his jaw.

Whatever Netiqret is, he doesn’t like it.

“Ah.” Netiqret sees it too. “Ah. Well. That is interesting. If you are not after my services, then why have you been asking for me? And how did you get my name?” Her shadowed brown eyes bore into mine. Unflinching. A hard woman, beneath her refined façade. She’s genuinely not letting us out unless she’s satisfied.

I step up to the bars, spreading my hands in a careful display of nonaggression. “We just need to get across to the other side of the river. I wasn’t lying about where I got your name. I got it from a man named Djedef. He said you helped him escape the city, and I thought if you knew how to get someone outside, perhaps you had a way of getting around which the Overseers didn’t know about.” I gesture to the space outside. “Which seems like it was a good guess.”

A long pause. Netiqret expressionless as she considers, tapping long, elegant fingers together. “You’re saying you are from the desert.”

“Yes.”

Netiqret doesn’t react. “Ka has been taking a keen interest in your friend. Is that why?”

“No. When I arrived, I helped him escape. From… being made into something like an Overseer.”

“But worse,” adds Ahmose from behind me.

Again, a long silence as Netiqret assesses. I press against the bars. “Look. We came in good faith—”

“You came shouting my name to anyone who would listen. Which is the opposite of courteous, in my profession. And I do not know what has possessed you to make this claim of yours, but you are not from outside. No one is from outside, and I have never helped anyone leave Duat. I am not so cruel as that.” Her voice is hard.

Vek. “I’m telling the truth. I don’t know why Djedef said you helped him, but he did.” Djedef wasn’t able to lie when he was being questioned by Caeror. Could it be another Netiqret who assisted him? It seems unlikely. “He did think you were a man, though.”

“Men always do.”

I make a face. “Could you have assisted him without actually meeting him, though? He was wearing one of these.” I hold up the scarab medallion she gave us earlier.

She doesn’t fall into the trap of coming close enough for me to reach through the bars at her. Still, there’s something in her expression. The barest hint of hesitation. “I do not part with khepri so easily.”

“You seem happy to part with at least two.” I lower my gaze to the scarab image in my hand. I’m in shadow, head slightly bowed. Hopefully she cannot see my eyes, and if she can, does not know what their darkening means.

I imbue the amulet.

I’ve done something similar before. A thought experiment with Caeror to prove how different Adoption makes the rules, here. The Academy taught us that imbued objects are inviolable, immune from another’s Will until the original imbuing Will is removed. But in Obiteum, that is simply untrue.

It’s unfortunate that Obiteum’s rules also mean I can’t make a weapon out of it, the way I could back home on Res. But I don’t think I need to right now, anyway.

“They will be easy to collect again soon enough.” It’s happened in a second and as far as I can see, without causing suspicion. Netiqret’s gaze flits between Ahmose and me, then she shakes her head impatiently, the beads of her broad collar swaying with the motion. “It will take many hours for this room to fill, Siamun. Your death will be slow. Perhaps when I return tomorrow, if fate has been kind, you will have another opportunity to convince me of who you are.” She turns as if to walk away.

“Wait.” She pauses, and I lean forward. Flip the amulet to her. She catches it neatly, a genuinely surprised look on her face. “A gift.”

She examines it suspiciously. “You will die sooner, without this.”

I shrug. “I’ve told you the truth, so soon is better than slow.”

Her brow furrows. Then she snorts and, with a guiding hand on the young girl’s shoulder, strides from sight.

“Tell me you have a plan.” Ahmose’s voice is small behind me.

“Shh.” I close my eyes and focus. My sense of the amulet is vague, but strong enough to be sure it’s genuinely retreating. “Alright. She’s gone.”

“And we are going to dissolve.”

“We are not going to dissolve, Ahmose,” I tell him patiently. “I’m still controlling the Overseer. She’s on her way down here.”

“Oh.” An exhalation of pure relief. “And we’re already in the east now, so all we need to do is find a way up, and—”

“No.” Even if we can find the way out—and I’m not convinced we can—I’d have to start again, up there. Hide constantly. Use my ability to slowly figure out some plan to get me into Ka’s temple. But I’ve already wasted so much time. “Netiqret called herself something, before. A mesektet.” I make it a question.

Ahmose’s face scrunches into a mask of distaste. “She’s an assassin.”

“She’s paid to kill people?”

“She’s paid to kill people neatly.” Ahmose sees my confusion and sighs. “You understand the role of Westerners who are allowed back into the east, yes?”

“They’re servants, for those who can afford them.” That’s been my understanding, at least. “Sometimes for very successful artisans or merchants, but mostly for priests and government officials.”

“And the Ka-shabti.”

It’s my turn to make a face. Ahmose has told me about the Ka-shabti at length, given he once crafted amulets and other jewellery almost exclusively for them. People who volunteer to live in a walled-off district of the city. Surrounded by luxury and excess, free to pursue their own interests but never required to work. Every need, every whim catered for by Westerners.

Until they are chosen to be sacrificed, that is.

“And the Ka-shabti,” I agree, trying not to show too much distaste.

The iunctus flicks absently at his thumb. “Sometimes, a member of the living will… catch someone else’s eye, I suppose. A particularly strong man, or a beautiful woman, or a skilled performer. Someone a member of the particularly wealthy desires to own. But they are alive. They are allowed rights, are protected by law. What are they to do?”

My stomach twists as I understand what he’s saying. “So Netiqret assassinates people who other people want?”

Ahmose nods, a little grimly. “Once they are dead, enough coin in the right priest’s pocket ensures their assignment to the east, to the right family.” His disapproval is thick, I’m glad to hear. Ahmose and I differ on many things, but this… this would have been too much to ignore.

I try to take it in. Murdering someone for money, because someone else wants to enslave their corpse. “Rotting gods. That’s what you meant by ‘neatly.’ They want the bodies to look good?”

“A mesektet uses poison, usually, I’ve heard. They’re meant to have toxins which mimic a natural, peaceful death.”

“And they would have to make sure they were never seen.” I nod slowly. It’s repulsive, but Netiqret must know everything there is to know about the layout of the city, to do this job. Know every secret way, even beyond the tunnels I’m aware of. “Else their victims would be able to identify them.”

Ahmose watches me. “You still wish to deal with her?”

I close my eyes. I’ve conveyed to the Overseer how to reach us; she’s already loping her way to the underground canal. “ ‘Wish to’ is a strong way of putting it, but I don’t think we have a choice.” I switch to focusing on my faint sense of the amulet. Netiqret and her young companion haven’t gone far, aren’t moving fast, but they’ve already left the main tunnel. Hopefully, I can find the passage they’re using and catch them before they vanish.

We wait for another minute, neither of us saying anything. Then Ahmose stirs. “You’ve really never made me do anything?”

There’s a gravity to his abrupt question that cuts through my thoughts. I look at him. “You don’t remember?”

“Siamun.” He watches the river through the bars. It’s been bothering him for a while, I think.

I chuckle. “No, Ahmose. Gods. No.”

“Why not? You used your power on Ibi.”

“He works the upper level, and I still need to eat. Besides, you were there—I tried talking to him first. I only did what I did when he couldn’t be reasoned with.”

“And if I can’t be reasoned with, one day?”

“One day?” When he frowns, I quickly raise my hand in apology. Too accustomed to making my own amusement at the expense of his lack of humour. “No. Never. Rule a man, and he will do whatever you can imagine. Befriend him, and he will do more.”

Gods, I miss my father.

Ahmose finally looks at me. Nods slowly.

I hold his gaze, then sigh. He needs more, and I need him to trust me. “Truth? It crossed my mind, that first day. I wasn’t sure you were ever going to be able to handle knowing about the Gleaners.” Those, I soon discovered, are considered little more than a myth in Duat. “But there are lines I don’t wish to cross. Perhaps I could have justified it to myself. Perhaps. But that’s the point. I would have had to justify it to myself.”

Before he can respond there’s a shadow at the gate, and the black-clothed Overseer is standing on the other side. Not looking at us—she’s being obviously controlled, and if anyone has noticed, the last thing we need is her seeing our faces. But ready to obey.

I instruct her, and with a quick wrench she removes the gate from its hinges. Like the Gleaners, the Overseers seem able to self-imbue for strength, just as if they were in Res. Connected directly to Ka, I have to assume. I’ve tried myself, several times over the past months, without the same success.

“Let’s go,” says Ahmose, starting for the open way.

“Not yet.” I focus. Brace myself for the perception-distorting sickness of seeing through the Overseer’s eyes, then set off again immediately. She dashes along the side of the canal, following my sense of the amulet, her imbuing enabling her to ignore the noxious mists just as Ahmose and I did. I can vaguely hear Ahmose muttering something unfavourable in my ear, but whatever he’s saying, I ignore it. Keep my attention on catching Netiqret.

It doesn’t take long. The passageway leading in the direction of the amulet is an obvious one; I push the Overseer through it, quickly finding an entrance back into familiar, well-lit triangular tunnels. I’m not sure exactly where I am but it doesn’t matter; I follow my sense of Netiqret’s khepri medallion for another minute until finally, I turn a corner to spot two figures ahead.

I slow, and command the Overseer to call out. “Netiqret!”

The tall, elegant woman spins. Hand going to her belt as she glances immediately at the girl, who shakes her head silently and murmurs something I can’t hear, expressionless. Netiqret slowly turns back. Watches my approach. “With whom am I talking?” Remarkably poised, given the circumstances.

“Your good friend Siamun. The one you very rudely left locked up a few minutes ago.” I take a playful, chiding tone. Convey control, despite being surprised. She knew this wasn’t an Overseer. “You never gave me a chance to negotiate.”

An odd mixture of relaxing, additional tension, and excitement from Netiqret. She adjusts one of the rings on her fingers as she studies me. “This is very dangerous, Siamun,” she says eventually. “If Ka should realise one of his Overseers has wandered away, he will see my face.” Still perfectly calm.

“You didn’t leave me with much choice.”

“True.” Her hawklike brown eyes study me hungrily. “You are controlling this iunctus directly?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

I know, in that moment, that I have her. Given what she does, given her need for secrecy and the immense benefit this ability of mine would give her… she sees the power of it immediately.

“I would prefer to talk about that face-to-face, if you don’t mind. We can come to you,” I add cheerfully.

She coughs a half-rueful, half-impressed chuckle this time. Glances again at the small child by her side, whose braids swing as she shakes her head at some unvoiced question. “You’re right. Perhaps I acted in haste. A face-to-face meeting is in order. But first, we must make the circumstances a little safer.” She smiles at me. Steps forward. “I shall wait for you here, Siamun.”

Before I can instruct the iunctus to react, her blade is flashing upward.