Get out your popcorn, tourists beware, here comes a paranormal adventure with a historical twist, set in Egypt--and Britain.
From Chapter 29 'Darkness': 'Did I just try to dive into that goo to get at a dead guy?' Trueth asked.
Define dead,' Me...
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Trueth shoved the straps of her sheath dress back up on her shoulders for the tenth time in the last hour. The ancient Egyptians really should have spent more care on their wardrobe. The infernal straps were forever slipping, and the dress bulged in the wrong places.
She started—but nobody had sensed her digression.
Trueth had found out the hard way that living among people of her kind came with certain disadvantages. Fortunately, most Servants were too polite to invade her head. Or they were not capable of doing it. She filed that under consolation.
She swore her oath as they wanted her to, repeating words that first sounded like empty noise, but uncoiled their true meaning as she got deeper into her three-month initiation period. Trueth wished this would not happen. It was getting harder to look into what passed for a mirror in this place and to see somebody familiar.
Not that they did anything to her hair or her eyes, she thanked the resident deities for that. Apparently she would only be obliged to have herself shorn if she became an actual priest—or Pure One as the Servants called it. And the blindness was part of another ceremony entirely, even though she deemed Blessing to be a misnomer. It was not something she would ever consider.
Iseret's idea of penance for Trueth's vanishing act reminded her of primary school, She had been told to copy and memorise relevant passages from the pyramid texts several times. This would make sure she knew them by heart when her time came to take that last bark, felucca or whatever conveyance they used here to travel to the underworld.
She would have preferred to duplicate ancient fairy tale. Or even a poem. Why that text? Instead of strengthening their tenuous hold on existence, the servants were obsessed with the afterlife. Being a diligent disciple, Trueth did as ordered. Only after finishing her task did she realise that the fruit of her labours comprised seven adorable papyri covered in neat processions of cursive script—as if an army of squiggly ants was invading the white space. Somebody had been in her mind after all and adjusted her writing skills. She could only hope it was not a permanent arrangement.
The finished documents got presented to their frightful leader who was highly pleased with her efforts. Iseret patted Trueth on the back and gave her a special task that even came with a title. It sounded good if one spoke ancient Egyptian but not so much in a more modern language. She balked at the thought of having to tell people she was "Sister Broom".
The rituals themselves were not her favourite pastime either, these offerings, as well as the singing and dancing, made her dizzy. Maybe this effect was caused by the incense, or maybe it was the clattering and pinging of sistra and cymbals. It could also be an effect of crowding so many people into the underground spaces.
Two of the sisters reminisced about the past; back then the statues of Ra and Hathor would have been taken above for a real procession. Nowadays they dared to do so no longer. The fear of discovery had become too strong.
