Baruti raised his eyebrows. "Come, let us sit down over here. Perhaps it would help if you talked. And talking would certainly make me feel less dizzy."
Perhaps he was right. Perhaps if I were to sit calmly, my pulse would stop racing.
He led me to a far corner of the chamber where thick pillows and a pile of blankets had been shoved against the wall. He creaked down onto the floor, and I joined him. The thick, cool stone of the wall felt comforting at my back. Surely many such battles and skirmishes had been planned here—and won, since the wedjadeen were still around.
"What troubles you, child?" Baruti's face was kind and concerned and I was suddenly violently homesick for Awi Bubu and Lord Wigmere.
"It's the Serpents of Chaos, sir," I whispered. "They always seem to get the upper hand."
"Ah. Chaos," Baruti repeated, leaning back against the wall. There was a long moment of silence, and then he spoke again. "Chaos is not always evil, child. Sometimes it is simply chaos. And remember, chaos has many sides. Much good has come from chaos. The world itself, the gods—both were formed from chaos. It is only when men turn it to their own ends, or create it on purpose, that chaos flirts with being evil. But even then, it can be turned to good, for that is the very nature of chaos. Neither good nor bad in and of itself, merely ... chaotic."
Isis came wandering back from her explorations and crawled into my lap.
Baruti reached out to pet her, and she let him. "Even your cat has many sides. To you she is a beloved pet; to those she hunts, a terrifying predator. To the gods she is a vessel into which they can pour their will to have influence over the physical world."
"She's what?" I asked.
Baruti looked surprised. "You did not know she was a bau?"
I stared at Isis, purring contentedly under the old priest's gnarled hand. "I guess not, since I don't even know what a bau is."
"It is a divine messenger sent by the gods to lend aid. Or, very occasionally, harm."
"You mean my cat has been sent by the gods?"
"I believe so, yes. She is no ordinary cat."
I thought back to when Isis had first walked into my life. For that's exactly what had happened. One day, she was just ... there. I'd been only seven years old and had just begun visiting the museum with my parents and experiencing the shivers and chills that I could not yet explain. We had thought one of the workmen had left a door or window open, and she wandered in out of the cold. Instead, she'd been sent by the gods. I could hardly wrap my mind around it. If I hadn't spent the past week witnessing all manner of mystical and inexplicable events, I might never have believed it.
Major Grindle and four Weret Hekau came out of the smaller chamber. "The tablet is ready," they announced.
"Very well." Khalfani rolled up his map and shoved it somewhere inside his robe. "It is time, then."
"It is time," the men repeated.
"My presence is required for this, I'm afraid," Baruti said.
"It is?"
"You did not think I came along merely to comfort you? I have duties I must perform. To help these men prepare for battle and pray to the gods." He patted my arm, then hoisted himself to his feet. As he crossed the long room, he seemed to grow taller, stronger, less frail. I rubbed my eyes, wondering if it was a trick of the light or some architectural illusion.
Isis leaped off my lap and followed the men as they all filed into a separate chamber. Having nothing else to do, and not wanting to be alone in the cavernous, shadowed room, I went, too. (Oh, all right. I was abuzz with curiosity. I admit it.)
The chamber turned out to be a chapel of sorts. A tingle of alarm went down my spine as I recognized the three statues seated at the front of the room: Sekhmet, Mantu, and Seth himself. Surely three of the most aggressive and violent Egyptian gods.
Major Grindle, Jadwiga, and Rumpf joined me against the back wall. "This should be most enlightening," the major said quietly, taking up position beside me.
"Ja," Jadwiga said. "If the gods don't smite us for witnessing something that is no business of ours."
"You can always wait outside," Major Grindle pointed out.
Jadwiga merely turned his melancholy gaze upon the major, as if disappointed in him for having pointed out the obvious.
At a word from Baruti, the wedjadeen (about thirty of them, all told) slipped off their thick black outer robes, exposing the less voluminous tunics they wore beneath. They pulled their arms out of their sleeves and uncovered their torsos, letting the top half of their clothing hang from where it was cinched to their waists with their belts.
"I'm not sure you should be here for this," Major Grindle murmured.
I gave him a look, one that essentially said, Just try to make me leave. He harrumphed and turned his attention back to the wedjadeen.
All of them bore the distinctive Weret Hekau serpent tattoo running up the inside of their wrists. All of them were extremely powerful magicians, then. The Serpents of Chaos shouldn't stand a chance.
Fenuku and four other priests joined Baruti up front. Fenuku lit a small pile of incense in a bronze chafing dish and a thick, sweet, spicy smell filled the room. Next the four priests went to a small shrine and collected four palettes and sistrums, which they placed on top of the shrine. They each took a palette and began moving among the wedjadeen, stopping in front of each warrior of Horus. It took me a moment to realize that they were painting symbols on the warriors' bodies. Symbols of power and strength, it looked like.
They painted the vulture, Nekhbet, protectoress of Upper Egypt, across the warriors' backs. A feather of Maat went up their necks, indicating that their fight was to restore justice and balance in the world.
On their left arms went a flail and crook, to grant them majesty and dominion over their enemies. Over their hearts, a fiery Eye of Ra, encircled by a loop of rope with no beginning and no end.
"Isn't that dangerous?" I whispered to Major Grindle. "Invoking Sekhmet like that?"
The major shook his head. "That's why the eye is encased by the shen symbol—to contain her power. They want the fierceness of Sekhmet but contained, so that she does not harm the innocent," he whispered back.
Lastly, a winged solar disk was painted on each of the warriors' foreheads, the exact form and shape that Horus took in his battles against Seth.
No one would mistake them for Bedouin now.
When each of the men had been covered in tattoos, the four lector priests set down their palettes, took up the sistrums, and began rattling them. The sound of the ancient rattles had been designed to call the attention of the gods. It worked.
The atmosphere in the room grew heavy. The air was so full of heka that every hair on Isis's body stood on end. She looked far bigger and more ferocious than I had ever seen her. Shimmering forms filled the room, insubstantial ephemeral visions that I wondered if anyone else could see. The pressure of the heka built and built, pressing down on us, and I had to struggle to breathe, as if something huge were sitting on my chest. Baruti chanted some words in ancient Egyptian. The wedjadeen repeated them, and the pressure grew so heavy that it felt as though my body would implode.
Never taking his eyes from the men, Major Grindle leaned over and whispered in my ear, "They are inviting the gods into their bodies, asking them to lend their wisdom and strength so that they may overthrow Chaos."
"Can you feel that?" I whispered back. "All that pressure building?"
Major Grindle pulled his eyes from the wedjadeen and looked at me. "No, can you?"
"Yes. It's very nearly unbearable."
Major Grindle looked distinctly jealous.