Alive…She was alive.
He could breathe again.
Voices rose and fell but there was no common consensus, only more argument and debate among the King’s ministers, advisors, the priests and the priestesses. No unanimity, except that everything they should do they couldn’t, or shouldn’t, do.
Narmer listened, watching them, his chin propped on his hand.
“Destroy it,” one of his ministers advised. “Destroy the Horn and it’ll be done.”
Kahotep shook his head. “We can’t. It may be our only means of controlling the Djinn if they mass again.”
“Control them?” another minister said, his tone incredulous. “They’re raiding across Egypt. How are we controlling them?”
“Use the Horn to call them,” another said, “and then kill them.”
Glancing at the King as he paced, Khai shook his head, “We can’t. More than half the army was lost in this last battle with the Djinn. Even with conscription and hired mercenaries, there aren’t enough trained men to kill them all. We’d be slaughtered.”
“Even with the Horn to call them,” Awan pointed out, “I doubt very much it can hold them while we kill them indiscriminately. Look what happened after Irisi blew it…they were momentarily frozen, and then they disappeared back to their own realm. Only to return, as we’ve since seen.”
Nafre added quietly. “It would be murder as well, to kill them out of hand. They are a race unto their own. As we all know, the Djinn have free will as do we, save for the call of the Horn. How would we know which ones rightly deserve punishment and which do not? They were compelled by the Horn. There are good Djinn as well as bad. Which does the Horn call?”
“And if we don’t kill them all,” Djeserit said, “we’ll have created an even more implacable enemy by slaughtering those who do answer. One filled with righteous anger at being so slaughtered. Now they only wish to feed… What would they’d be like if they were used so?”
Djeserit understood that better than most of those here, sharing the same hunger. Save that when she fed, the souls would still pass through the underworld to the afterlife, where the Djinn consumed them.
“That’s an enemy you don’t want to create,” she warned. “Give them reason to hate us and they will, even as men do. That will make their current raids look as nothing.”
With a sigh, Khai nodded. “Even if we had the men, the army cannot be everywhere, as much as we wish we could. We either kill them all, or risk creating an enemy even more merciless. Striking everywhere, anywhere, randomly, as they do now, but not yet in numbers. They remember, and they’re clearly learning. What will we do then?”
“What of Kamenwati, too?” another voice asked. “He should be punished for what he’s done.”
They knew now Kamenwati had been behind the assassination attempt as well as creating the Horn. His servants had been more than glad to speak. A search of his manor had found his writings, his defilements of the Book of the Dead and the Book of Life, and his own grimoire.
The penalty for such crimes was swift and sure – death.
Something within Narmer went still.
Part of him still remembered the cousin he’d grown up with, never knowing of the envy Kamenwati had harbored in his breast. Had it been his own blindness, or had Kamenwati concealed his hatred and envy that well? He didn’t know, but a part of him missed the man he’d thought he’d known, even as he remembered seeing that one’s true face.
At the moment he knew Kamenwati awaited the outcome of this meeting, sitting shackled in a cell below them, blindfolded and warded with spells.
Irisi took a breath and then let it out, glancing at Khai. “He should be but we dare not. We don’t know how closely tied he is to the Horn.”
Questioning eyes turned to her.
She looked back at all those assembled there.
“We know he allowed himself to be possessed by Djinn,” she said, in response. “How much that aided his control of them we don’t know, but it must have. If we execute him as we must by law, we diminish what little control we might have over the Djinn if we were to use the Horn. We might use the Horn to summon the Djinn but then have no control over them once they appear.”
“Nor,” Awan added carefully, his heart aching, “can we leave the Horn where any can reach it, where an enterprising thief might gain possession of it, or another like Kamenwati who seeks power. It’s far too dangerous. We can’t just store it or set it aside on a shelf.”
He rose to his feet, slowly, feeling every inch of his age.
Everyone in the room sat up at that.
Khai met each and every eye there. “Awan is correct. We can’t leave the Horn unprotected or where there will be the temptation to use it by those who don’t understand the danger. Or even those who think they do.”
Even the idea of the Horn worried him. The temptation for some would be great. Even those with the best of intentions.
He looked to his King.
Narmer met his eyes.
Both understood the danger, Khai knew, they’d discussed it.
A time would inevitably come when they might face an enemy they couldn’t easily defeat. The temptation would be there to use the Horn…but to what result?
Perhaps they might summon the Djinn, let them ravage and destroy…
How then would they put the Djinn back in the bottle?
“Can anyone here tell me they can be sure that the one that uses it can control the Djinn once they appear?” Khai asked.
Kahotep shook his head, as did Djeserit, Awan, even Nafre.
“All we can be sure of is that the Horn summons them,” Irisi said. “I’m not even sure that when I blew it that was what sent them away. It called something…”
“So,” one of the ministers said, his exasperation evident, “what then do we do? Just let them run loose? Let them continue their raids?”
Khai shook his head and looked to his King. “No.”
He looked to Irisi. She nodded her encouragement. She and he had talked of this at length while curled in bed together.
“My lord King,” he said, quietly, “I very much fear these raids are just preparation. The dark Djinn are learning. Once they were content only to lure the unwary, to prey on travelers, but that time is past. They’ve discovered what it is to work together to gain what they want… We can’t un-teach them the lesson Kamenwati taught them. They learned it too well.”
The tales from Aswan and the lands around it had been terrible.
Now new tales were being told.
Narmer inclined his head in agreement. He’d been concerned about that as well, as he’d told Khai in their private conversations.
“Kamenwati unleashed a force upon us that cannot be reckoned with easily,” Khai said.
“And yet we must,” Awan said quietly. “Or it will only fester and grow as do the wounds the ghul inflict on their victims.”
Who then turned into ghul, to ravage their families and friends.
Narmer looked at Awan, his oldest advisor, save for Kahotep.
“What do you suggest?” Narmer asked.
Taking a breath, Awan said, “We must seal the Horn away where none can reach it and with it the Djinn who would answer to it or else watch their power grow until we can no longer contain it.”
In this Khai was with Awan, as was Irisi, he knew. They’d spoken of it long into the night. The scattered Djinn were regrouping into small bands now. It was only a matter of time before they grew larger.
Khai looked to the King.
“That’s been my fear as well,” Khai said, in support of Awan. “As the Djinn learn, so they also learn how to fight us. In time, we won’t be able to defeat them, not as they are. With their greater strength, their ability to shift form, in time they’ll learn to overcome us. They very nearly did, but then they had Kamenwati to direct them. Now they’re learning to lead themselves.”
None of them had forgotten. The wounded from the battle were still being tended.
Awan nodded. “The Horn must be rendered as safe as can be against those who would seek to use or misuse its power, for now and for the future…”
His voice trailed off.
Narmer frowned, gesturing at Awan to continue.
Carefully, Awan built his argument, as much as he hated it, but the conclusion was and had been inevitable.
“Then there is Kamenwati himself. So long as he lives, he’s tied to the Horn. If he dies, though, whatever control we may have through him to the Horn dies with him. So, too, however, he should be punished for what he’s done…”
His heart burned at the memory.
They’d found the priest Saini. The man had told them of Kamenwati’s boast that he’d summoned the Djinn that killed Banafrit. Awan’s beloved wife.
“His attempts on the life of the King, the Queen-consort, and the King’s son,” Awan continued.
Heads nodded.
“Even the Grand Vizier cannot escape the laws of Egypt,” someone intoned.
Narmer nodded as well.
Whatever they’d been to each other once Narmer dared not leave Kamenwati live after what he’d done, as much as it pained him.
His mouth tightened but he waved at Awan to continue.
Awan folded his hands and looked around at the assembled gathering.
“Yet, if we kill him as prescribed by law,” Awan said, “we very well may lose control of the Horn. He made it and he’s clearly tied to it.”
What had been found at Kamenwati’s estate had horrified all who’d seen it. As with many who possessed power and money, his sense of entitlement had been obvious throughout, but his callous disregard for the lives in his care had been appalling.
But what had been done below floors…
They were even now trying to reconstruct what he’d done, and then burning his notes so no other could reconstruct them. Knowledge was precious, but not this knowledge.
Heads nodded.
“So the Horn must be protected as well,” Awan said, his heart aching, knowing what had to be, what must be, done, “so that it can’t be misused. We know even the tombs of the dead aren’t safe from bandits and thieves. So we must set the power of the Gods to protect them.”
There were murmurs of assent from around the room.
“A guardian must be set against even that,” he said. “To be sure the Djinn will never be set free to prey on mankind again.”
Reluctantly, Kahotep nodded and added. “And no simple Guardian either. Swords alone will not suffice…”
One of the advisors said, “Men can and have been bribed. This guardian must be unassailable.”
“More than that. It must be someone who knows the will of the Gods,” Awan said. “A priest or a priestess with magic enough who is willing to bow to that will.”
“Nor can Kamenwati be set free,” Awan continued, fighting his own grief and anger. Whatever his or her own pain, a life or lives were at stake here. “Kamenwati must be punished. But if we execute him as he deserves, his influence over the Horn is gone.”
“By law,” another said firmly, “he must die.”
Awan nodded acquiescence. “And so he should, yet also he must also be punished… Even so he must not die in this life or the next until we have the Djinn under control. And so he must die and yet not die.”
His tone was significant, as if he knew something the others in the room did not.
As he should, as priest for Osiris, the Lord of the Underworld.
Every eye was on Awan.
What he planned was just in one way to turn Kamenwati’s own spell against him, and yet… Awan’s heart was heavy.
“Kamenwati should not stand before Ma’at to have his heart weighed, his soul judged so he passes through the underworld to the afterlife… Not after what he has done.”
He kept his eyes on his hands on the table before him. “There is a way, one he himself showed us. It is in the Book of the Dead and the Book of Life. If he doesn’t have a heart to be weighed he cannot be judged. Without it his spirit won’t be allowed to continue the journey into the afterlife, and so he’d be condemned to wander throughout time… Dead and yet not dead. So long as his spirit continues, the Horn will continue to bind the Djinn, and both purposes would be served. Would that not be appropriate punishment?”