The third Justified turned to flee, but then stopped and cried, “I am loyal, Noble Eye! The Noble Dihaut will vindicate me!”
Het broke her neck and then stood a moment contemplating the feast before her, these three bodies, warm and bloody and deliciously fresh. She hadn’t gotten to do this often enough, in recent centuries. She lifted her head and roared her satisfaction.
A breeze filled and lifted the barque’s blue and yellow and white linen hangings. The servants had fled; there was no one alive on the deck but Het and Great Among Millions now. “Rejoice!” it piped. “The Protector of Hehut brings order to Nu!”
Het grinned, and then dove over the side, into the river, on her way to find more of the Justified.
The day wore on, and more of the Justified met bloody, violent ends at Het’s hands—and teeth. At first they submitted; after all, they were Justified, and their return was assured, so long as they were obedient subjects of the One Sovereign. But as evening closed in, the Justified began to try to defend themselves.
And more of the houses were empty, their owners and servants fled. But in this latest, on the outskirts of Hehut, all airy windowed corridors and courtyards, Het found two Justified huddled in the corner of a white-and-gold-painted room, a single-lived servant standing trembling between them and Het.
“Move,” growled Het to the servant.
“Justification!” cried one of the Justified. Slurring a bit—was she drunk?
“We swear!” slurred the other. Drunk as well, then.
Neither of them had the authority to make such a promise. Even if they had, the numbers of Justified dead ensured that no newly Justified would see resurrection for centuries, if ever. Despite all of this, the clearly terrified servant stayed.
Het roared her anger. Picked up the single-lived—they were strong, and large as single-lived went, but no match for Het. She set them aside, roughly, and sank her claws into one of the Justified, her teeth into the other. Screams filled her ears, and blood filled her mouth as she tore away a chunk of flesh.
All day her victims had provided her with more than her fill of blood, and so she had drunk sparingly so far. But now, enraged even further by the cowardice of these Justified—of their craven, empty promise to their servant—she drank deep, and still filled with rage, she tore the Justified into bloody fragments that spattered the floor and the wall.
She stopped a moment to appreciate her handiwork. With one furred hand she wiped blood and scraps of muscle off her tingling lips.
Her tingling lips.
The two Justified had barely moved, crouched in their corner. They had slurred their speech, as though they were drunk.
Or as though they were poisoned.
She knew what sort of poison made her lips tingle like this, and her fingertips, now she noticed. Though it would take far more neurotoxin to make her feel this much than even a few dozen skinny, gape-mawed fish would provide. How much had she drunk?
Het looked around the blood-spattered room. The single-lived servant was gone. Great Among Millions stood silent and motionless, its tall, thin body crusted with dried blood. Nothing to what covered Het.
She went out into the garden, with its pools and fig trees and the red desert stretching beyond. And found two of Merur’s lily standards—She Brings Life and Different Ages. Along with Months and Years. And Dihaut.
“Well, sib,” they said, with their regretful smile. “They always send me after you. Everyone else is too afraid of you. I told the One Sovereign it was better not to send forces you’d only chew up. Poison is much easier, and much safer for us.”
Het swayed, suddenly exhausted. Dihaut. She’d never expected them to actively take her side, when it came to defying Merur, but she hadn’t expected them to poison her.
What had she expected? That Merur would approve her actions? No, she’d known someone would come after her, one way or another. And then?
“You can try to alter your metabolism,” Dihaut continued, “but I doubt you can manage it quickly enough. The dose was quite high. We needed to be absolutely sure. Honestly, I’m surprised you’re still on your feet.”
“You,” said Het, not certain what she had to say beyond that.
She Gives Life and Different Ages skittered up and stopped a meter or so apart, facing Het. Between them an image of Merur flickered into visibility. Not snakelike, as Het knew her current body to be, but as she appeared in images all over Nu: tall, golden, face and limbs smooth and symmetrical, as though cut from basalt and gilded.
“Het!” cried Merur. “My own Eye! What can possibly have made you so angry that you would take leave of your senses and betray the life and peace of Nu in this way?”
“I was carrying out your orders, Sovereign of Nu!” Het snarled. “You wanted me to remove all possibility of rebellion in Hehut.”
“And all of Nu!” piped Great Among Millions, behind Het. Still covered in dried blood.
“I had not thought such sickness and treason possible from anyone Justified as long as you have been,” said Merur. “Dihaut.”
“Sovereign,” said Dihaut, and their smile grew slightly wider. Het growled. Merur said, “You have said to me before today that I have been too generous. That I have allowed too many of the long-Justified to escape judgment. I did not believe you, but now, look! My Eyes have not been subject to judgment in centuries, and that, I think, has been a mistake. I would like it known that not even the highest of the Justified will be excused if they defy me. Het, before you die, hear Dihaut’s judgment.”
She was exhausted, and her lips had gone numb. But that was all.
Was she really poisoned? Well, she was, but only a little. Or so it seemed, so far. Maybe she could overpower Dihaut, rip out their throat, and flee. The standards wouldn’t stop her.
And then what? Where would she go, that Merur would not eventually follow?
“Sovereign of Nu,” said Dihaut, bowing toward Merur’s simulacrum. “I will do as you command.” They turned to Het. “Het, sib, your behavior this past day is extreme even for you. It calls for judgment, as our Sovereign has said. It is that judgment that keeps order in Hehut, on all of Nu. And perhaps if everyone, every life, endured the same strict judgment as the single-lived pass through, these things would never have happened.”
Silence. Not a noise from Great Among Millions, behind Het. Over Dihaut’s shoulder, Months and Years was utterly still.
“The One Sovereign has given me the duty of making those judgments. And I must make them, no matter my personal feelings about each person I judge, for the good of Nu.”
“That is so,” agreed Merur’s simulacrum.
“Then from now on, everyone—single-lived or Justified, whoever they may be—every Anima that passes through Tjenu must meet the same judgment. No preference will be given to those who have been resurrected before, not in judgment, and not in the order of resurrection. From now on everyone must meet judgment equally. Including the Sovereign of Nu.”
The simulacrum of Merur frowned. “I did not hear you correctly just now, Dihaut.”
They turned to Merur. “You’ve just said that it was a mistake not to subject your Eyes to judgment, and called on me to judge Het. But I can’t judge her without seeing that what she has done to the Justified this past day is only what you have always asked her to do to the single-lived. She has done precisely what you demanded of her. It wasn’t the fact that Het was unthreatened by judgment that led her to do these things—it was you, yourself.”
“You!” spat Merur’s simulacrum. “You dare to judge me!”
“You gave me that job,” said Dihaut, Months and Years still motionless behind them. “And I will do it. You won’t be resurrected on Nu without passing my judgment. I have made certain of this, within the past hour.”