Strange, very strange, the ibis thought. Alarmed, the bird took flight and alit upon the branch of a nearby sycamore tree to observe from a safe distance. About five minutes later, the man emerged near where the ibis had been fishing, rising slowly out of the water, seemingly unfazed by his journey across the river bottom. He stopped to wipe the algae from his body on the riverbank before continuing west.
What kind of man is this?the ibis wondered. Curious and weary of his own aimless wanderings, the bird followed him.
The man walked for so long that the ibis considered returning to the safety of the river. In the end, he kept on.I’ve come all this way, yes-yes, I’ll see whatever there is to see.
Desert gave way to a large, craggy valley. The valley walls were honeycombed with holes, and old bones and broken things were scattered everywhere. It smelled of death and violation.
The man walked directly to a wall where there stood an enormous stone. With a mighty heave, he threw the door wide, exposing a gaping tunnel behind it. Then the man disappearedinto the dark.
The ibis was curious, but notthatcurious. He did not follow. He waited.
When a figure finally emerged from the tunnel, it took a moment for the ibis to recognize it as the same man. His rags were gone, replaced with glittering bronze plumage inlaid with red and blue stones, his bare feet now booted in black. As the man cleared the tunnel, the wind caught his crimson cape and tossed it into the air behind him like a long, extravagant tail.
The man looked up at the sky and seemed to study the position of the sun before lifting a bronze helm and placing it on his head. It was a strange object, with two tall ears and a protruding snout that cast the man’s eyes in shadow.
The ibis was even more confused than before. What kind of a man felt no pain? Walked through the river without surfacing to breathe? Opened cliffsides and transformed like a butterfly within them?Is this even a man?he wondered.Or another being entirely?
The armored man turned back to the tunnel and beckoned. “Come,” he said. His voice was deep, resonant, strange. “Come into the light.”
From within the darkness, a creature emerged. A creature so forbidding that the ibis nearly left his perch on the valley wall and fled,quick-quick, away from the ghastly sight.
But he didn’t. He stayed. He wanted to see what would happened next.
“You have rested peacefully at my side all these years, imi-ib,” the man said, stroking the creature’s back. It made a dry, nickering sound that sent a shiver through the ibis. “And I have wakened you for a great and holy purpose. You were once the wind that carried me swiftly across the Two Lands. So you will be again.”
The creature responded with a harrowing cry, and a crawlingblackness erupted from it, spreading from its feet across the ground like a plague.
That was enough for the ibis. He took flight, wheeling around to head east, back to the river. He was frightened and hungry and alone in a world that no longer made any sense.
I should not have come here.If he had been with his flock, they would have known better. The group always chose the best way, the safest way.
But they are all dead.
The thought was sobering.
For the first time, the ibis considered that the choice of the many was not always the best one.
I have seen the man and the creature, and still I remain. Perhaps I will see other wondrous things, and perhaps I will survive them too.
Heartened by this new idea, the ibis dove into the marshes among a gaggle of geese and began his search for a meal.
The fish tasted particularly good that day. He ate his fill, imagining where the wind might take him next.I am free, and I am alive, he thought, splashing through the crystal waters.
I am alive.
I am alive.
9Sita
“Sitaaaaa!”
The voice woke her from the seventh sleep. “Coming, Mother,” she mumbled, rolling over and pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders. She didn’t want to get up. Not yet. She’d wait until Nebet came in with her morning meal, then she’d get dressed and take the food to the pleasure garden to eat. She’d have plenty of time before she had to meet her tutor for her lessons—
Sita blinked at the dirt floor and became aware of the thin rush mat beneath her, the light pouring through the window of the dusty mud-brick house, and the sounds of men and bleating sheep outside.
Oh.
She groaned as it all came rushing back.
