“That’s what your brother thinks, but it’s not what I truly aim to do. I want to learn so I can use heka against him. That’s why I left the temple. I didn’t want to, but you’re right, Meryamun trusts me. Sitting by his side, I have a chance at stopping him.”
The cynicism dropped from Kenna’s birdlike, angular face and was replaced with dismay. “You did this to undermine him? To sabotage the king? I took your pomegranate as a sign of peace…not a clue to some kind of fledgling conspiracy!”
“I am only following the path the gods laid out for me in my visions. It is what I am meant to do.”
The piety in her voice unsettled the young prince. She could see the war going on behind his eyes—he was a man of faith, but he’d also been at the receiving end of his brother’s wrath.
“He’ll kill you if he finds out the truth.”
“I know.”
Kenna rubbed his face, smearing ink onto one cheek, then leaned against the table, looking pained. “You shame me, little sister. You’ve more courage in one finger than I have in total.”
Neff dropped her head. “That’s not true.”
“It is.”
“So…does that mean you’ll help me?” she asked hopefully.
Kenna took up a cloth and began meticulously cleaning the ink from each finger, oblivious to the streak of black across his face. Neff watched him, suppressing a smile. When he finally answered, she saw a glint of excitement in his eyes.
“When do we start?”
The next day, Neff and Kenna sat on the floor of the Horus Room, cross-legged like children, with a dozen papyri scattered around them. The subterranean chamber had been emptied and abandoned since Amunmose’s court was poisoned there, so Neff thought it the ideal place to conduct their lessons. It was an eerie room, the air heavy with phantoms, but Neff needed to be certain that they wouldn’t be caught. Besides, if any spirits still lingered there, Neff imagined they’d be pleased to see someone working to defeat the man who’d ordered their deaths.
They’d been practicing for more than an hour when Kenna said, “It’s all well and good to learn the correct inflections andmovements—but what do you know about heka itself? About its origins?”
Neff set down the papyrus she’d been studying. “Is that important?”
“Of course it’s important!” Kenna exclaimed. “One cannot build a sturdy house without a strong foundation.” He clasped his long, thin hands and straightened. “Where do you think magic comes from, Nefermaat?”
“The gods?”
“Not exactly. Heka is older than the gods—in fact, it was magic that brought them into being. Like us, the gods are subject to heka, which permeates every creature, every rock, everything in our world. When a priest invokes the gods in his spell, he is simply calling out the heka within them to work upon the heka within the magic’s recipient. Heka is not outside nature; itisnature.”
Thoughtful, Neff leaned her chin on her fist. “I’ve read spells that call to heka in the invocation. ‘Hear me, O Heka…’ But isn’t ‘heka’ just another word for ‘magic’?”
“Heka is magic, but he is a god too. Have you ever seen a picture of his divine form?”
Neff shook her head.
“Let me see what I can find…” Kenna rifled through the pile of scrolls he’d borrowed from the House of Life to further her education. “Ah! Here we are.” The prince pulled a papyrus free and unrolled it.
Along with some text, the scroll featured an illustration of a figure wearing a complex triple-feathered crown and the sidelock of youth. He was naked and had one finger raised to his lips in a gesture of innocence. Neff gasped. “He’s a child!”
Kenna’s eyes crinkled with the hint of a smile. “He is. It’s histitle, in fact. Heka the Child. Where else could magic live but within a pure, wondering heart? Another reason why Montuhotep was a fool to treat you the way he did. A high priest should know not to underestimate the divine power of the young.”
The idea of a child god filled Neff with a glittering excitement. “Tell me more,” she pleaded. “Tell me everything.”
Kenna explained the inherent duality of magic, its darkness and its light. He taught her about “encircling,” and how it can be used to either protect or control, and about saliva as both a creative tool and a curse. He also gave her some practical instruction about protection spells.
“If a threat is on the horizon, armor yourself against it by preparing a spell and wearing it on your person,” Kenna told her. “The trick is that the spell must beveryspecific to the exact nature of the threat in order to safeguard you from it.”
Neff nodded and scribbled notes on some papyrus scraps she’d brought. They were about to move on to another topic when the Medjed scroll caught Kenna’s eye.
“What’s this? I don’t think I’ve seen it before.”
“The Heka priests may have put it in my delivery by accident. It’s really old—part of a longer work, I think. It has to do with an obscure god named Medjed. It doesn’t work, though.”
