Heshtat grimaced, channelling essence into his magical khopesh like his life depended on it. If one considered the titanic centipede creature barrelling towards him, it very much did.

  His back was to the cavern, an empty world of darkness waiting only a few yards behind him. The rapid impacts of the creature’s many legs echoed in the cavernous space as it closed in on him, and he knew that it was too large to simply dodge to one side. He’d faced worse odds and survived, but not many of them.

  His curved blade hung at his side, shining brighter and brighter as he fed the power of his soul into the hungry weapon until it blazed like a sickle-moon on a harvest night. His keen eyes picked out the scuttling shapes of uncounted scarabs as they burrowed their way into the carapace of the massive creature, sneaking in through the gaps in the overlapping plating. That explained the obvious agony with which the creature moved, but Heshtat still held its attention somehow.

  Either the pain couldn’t override its primal hunger for his presence, or it had decided to take him down with it. Either way, it came for him with snapping mandibles and monstrous strength.

  Just as the dust began to bounce on the smooth stone floor at its approach, Heshtat leapt. Not out to one side—as he had noted, the creature was just too large to dodge in such a simple manner—but up. It rushed through the space he had just occupied, and its great tusks and horns and pincers scythed through the air towards him. A graceful barrel-roll saw him through unarmed, and then he was landing on the creature’s swollen shaggy head. Its auroch features were more prominent up close, and he saw the raw wounds as hundreds of scarabs bit and burrowed into the soft flesh of its snout. Each wound would be sufficient to bring him or Maatkare to their knees, but the constitution of this monster was staggering—it would take more than bug bites to bring it low.

  Nothing Heshtat had could do much harm, despite his recent strides in the cultivation of his soul. He doubted his khopesh could reach most of the creature’s internal organs even if he could penetrate the thick carapace with his magical blade. Instead, he opted to let the temple do his work for him.

  He took three quick steps over the top of the creature’s face, and even as it twisted his way, he leapt off once more, out into open air. The void flashed past beneath him for a moment, drawing his gaze to its hungry depths. And then he was thudding into the stone bridge, hands scrabbling for purchase as he heaved himself up.

  He turned in time to watch the creature pivot, its front-end wheeling to face the plateau. It was a shockingly agile move for a creature that large, but momentum was a seductive mistress, and her pull was irresistible. Even as it turned, its back-end continued on, barrelling out into the void on a hundred clacking legs. Heshtat was already running back to the plateau from his position on the bridge, and he watched in satisfaction as it slipped over the edge.

  He returned to Maatkare out of breath and bleeding from a small cut on the bridge of his nose where a chip of stone had ricocheted his way. No other injuries though, which Heshtat considered good work for the felling of a creature straight from the realm of nightmares that many adepts would fall to. Technically, he might not have killed it himself, but even as a Tomb Guard he’d never been above a bit of trickery. The last decade had only further degraded his already debatable sense of honour.

  Honour was simply the honest pursuit of one’s duty, in Heshtat’s mind. Instantly, he thought of Senusret and all the men he employed for his black work, and then retreated from his previously firm stance. Perhaps there was some room for nuance after all. Still, duty was absolute. Iron-shackled. If that was not true, then Heshtat had no reason left to live.

  “Such a shame,” came a smug, airy voice from nearby. Heshtat turned to see his friend standing to his feet, looking entirely too satisfied with himself for comfort. “For one so handsome to wear such a sad, sad frown. My friend, don’t you know? Your face will become shrivelled as a midday prune.”

  “You succeeded?” Heshtat asked.

  Maatkare made to reply, but they were cut off by an enraged screech and a clattering as a paving slab was ripped from the edge of the plateau to tumble into the cavern below. Then a face appeared—nose the size of a person, blood and worse hanging from the ravaged skin as plumes of hot air snorted forth. Framed by twin broken horns, the centipede’s head rose slowly to peek over the edge, even as the great bulk of its body was dragging itself up from the cliff edge on scrabbling legs.

  “Fu—” Heshtat started, at the same time that Maatkare whistled like a kettle.

  The sharp sound cut through the air, stilling the clamour from the centipede monster. Its massive head turned towards Maatkare, horns scratching a shallow groove in the stone slabs beneath it as it did so. He whistled again, and Heshtat finally felt the undercurrent of essence reinforcing the noise. That would explain its unnatural piercing quality.

  Maatkare had clearly succeeded in his attempt to commune with Sepa. She was a goddess of fertility, protection of the dead, and the inundation of the Nikea. They were perhaps difficult domains to understand given her normal depictions as a mummified woman with centipedal features—pincers, horns, a stinging tail—but her primary domain was more understandable. She was the goddess invoked for protection against venomous creatures.

  Heshtat had a moment to wonder at the genius of his friend—to awaken two aspects with deities whose domains both overlapped as protectors of the dead—before Maatkare made his move.

  He stepped forwards, letting out a final whistle as sharp and cracking as the whip that Wise Osirion tamed the Black Lands with long ago. The carapace of the Desolate creature burst apart, its armour shedding in response to the spiritual assault of Sepa’s magic, channelled expertly by Maatkare. He followed the attack up with his weapon, twirling his tulwar around to bring the blade down in a vertical cut that sent blue flame racing in an arc towards the creature’s open guts.

  The attack landed with a plume of fire, and the creature shrieked in pain, legs detaching from the cliff it had been climbing up. Heshtat and Maatkare rushed over to the edge of the plateau and watched as the burning creature fell into the darkness, its anguished wail eventually swallowed by shadows. Neither of them heard an impact, and they shared uneasy looks.

  Then Maatkare shrugged. “Well, my friend,” he said, slapping Heshtat on the arm. “I believe it is your turn.”

  ***

  Heshtat once more found himself in the desert beneath a burning sun.

  It had taken more focus this time, and more frustration, but he had far more experience forming channels and awakening aspects than his current cultivation would suggest, and there were few with greater perseverance than Heshtat.

  Lilac light bled from the black disk that hung in the sky of the Other, reinforcing the perpetual twilight of the dreamscape. Beneath it, Heshtat walked aimlessly. As with Bestat previously, he had summoned himself to his chosen gods’ location, rather than the reverse, and so he stepped lightly over the shivering dunes, letting his soul shine forth.

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  He was looking for a particular kind of god this time, one that he had never communed with before. A flighty god, a shy god—if there could be said to be such a thing—and Heshtat knew that if he wanted their blessing, he would have to abide by their timetable.

  Nemty was the ferryman of the gods, and it was he that carried those whose souls Wise Osirion had judged worthy to their rest in the Afterworld. It was said by some that he alone could cross freely between the After and the Other, though Heshtat now knew that for a lie. Anubian had met him in the flesh, and while he was no scholar, Heshtat was confident he hadn’t let the Other behind and somehow been transported to the Afterworld without realising.

  So there were more cracks and holes in the realms than the priests taught at least. That was partly why Heshtat had decided to seek Nemty out. He needed ways to slip in and out of the Other at will, and potentially to pull his companions with him. There was only one god that could guarantee that power, and so here Heshtat stood. Walking over golden sand dunes and keeping his gaze set firmly on the horizon.

  Soon enough, or perhaps an eternity later—it did not matter in this strange realm beyond time and space—Heshtat saw a flicker on the horizon. A small dot, soon resolving itself into wings spread wide. A falcon, maybe? It was too distant to tell, even with his enhanced senses, but Heshtat didn’t stop his movement. He Who Travels would doubtless only bestow power onto those that did the same. To be stationary went against the very foundation of Nemty’s domain as a deity.

  The falcon shadowed him for a time, letting Heshtat pick his path across the Endless Desert, content to watch his movements from afar. Heshtat didn’t mind. He let go of his impatience, of his desire to focus on the mission. Time had no meaning here, and Maatkare guarded his body in the Waking. He would be gone for moments only while under the influence of a fragment of a god.

  And honestly? Heshtat had loved to travel once. He had grown up in a small town in the Badlands of Sasskania, travelled to the centre of that great empire, crossed the border to Amansi and travelled widely within as captain of his pharaoh’s Tomb Guard. It was his recent state of immobility that was strange. Ten years in the same city. It had felt like an eternity to him. A cage that trapped him.

  And even still he had travelled. He’d raided tombs, fought bandits funded by rival crime-lords, smuggled valuables across borders and hunted certain black hearted bastards down when they fled the noose that Senusret fashioned for them. Only the ones he thought deserved it, obviously, though that line had started to become harder to draw as the years rolled on. In any case, his decade trapped in Idib province had still seen a lot of movement. Now that freedom, true freedom, loomed on the horizon, Heshtat let himself dream bigger and his mind fill with all he hoped to see.

  The Sky Isles of Helexios, where the fiercest raiders and most enlightened scholars the world over cavorted and fought amongst themselves, their city states the wonder—and doom—of all who dwelt at the edge of the Bleeding Sea.

  He thought once more of his original homeland. Of the Sasskanid Empire, and the megacities that the God-Queen had built, their even streets crowded with hundreds of thousands of souls, their markets exploding with the scents and sights of even stranger lands; the jungles of the eastern deltas, the ice fields of the far north. All bowing in service to his former monarch.

  And Amansi itself! While he might be well-travelled compared to most in Idib, there was still so much left for him to see. The birthplace of the Nikea, where the Numidians—before their curse—had once held sway and the land seemed as one giant oasis. The burning city at the edge of the Bleeding Sea, where the red sun brought the golden rooftops to life come dawn and dusk. Even the Hanging Gardens of Xiexic. He’d wanted to visit the Honeycomb City ever since he had first heard of it, and while its Pharaoh may be long gone and much of the city lost to the magical plant life that had once made it so famous, it was still a sight he wished to see.

  Not alone though. Not when he thought of the giggling girl he had once loved, and her bright smile as he mentioned the idea. No, he did not wish to travel alone. His mind then turned to the final corner of the world—to the Aquiline Empire squatting on the far shores of the Bleeding Sea, and its pompous citizens and warmongering Generals. There was a place he wished never to visit.

  He shook the thoughts off and saw that he was now covered in shadow. Great wings shrouded the sky from horizon to horizon. He looked up but saw nothing save the wing’s shadow—no creature above responsible, and nothing to either side but empty sky. Had he failed? Had his final thoughts proved him unworthy of Nemty’s blessing?

  When he looked back behind himself, he saw nothing but his own footprints in the fine sand stretching on interminably into the distance. Looking forwards once more, there was another set beside his own.

  And that was that.

  ***

  When he awoke from the dreamscape, Heshtat once more knew success.

  His body felt somehow even more responsive. The change was nowhere near as stark as his first awakening, but it was noticeable all the same. He inspected his soul—seven sleeping aspects and two filled with divine light.

  Another boost in power. Another step closer to his former glory. Another step closer to seeing his mission fulfilled, and his oath along with it.

  He turned to see Maatkare’s eager face looming above him as he slipped to his feet. He waved him off, but the irascible bastard crowded back in soon enough, like a baby bird looking for food from its mother.

  “Back off,” Heshtat said with a laugh, trying to get room from his friend. “I succeeded, yes, but I cannot demonstrate with you hovering like a hungry babe.”

  Maatkare gave him a reproachful look and stepped back, but his sulking quickly cracked into a smile as he struggled to maintain his act. “Show me, show me!” he said like an excited child.

  “You have spent too much time around those children at your creche. You shall become one yourself if you are not careful.”

  “Would that be so bad?” his friend asked philosophically.

  Heshtat looked around at the ancient temple they found themselves in, with the yawning abyss beyond the torchlight, and the splashes of blood sprayed across the floor and walls by the titanic chimera. He raised an eyebrow. “At this time? Yes.”

  He ignored the further jibes thrown his way and focused. Unlike his last aspect, this was one he was unfamiliar with. Heshtat had never awakened the Sekham before, and he spent a moment puzzling out its intricacies before attempting to use it.

  The aspect of Power, as it was known, was one of the simplest in form to use, though in function it gained complexity, often beyond the workings of other aspects. In its most basic premise, Sekham granted control over power to the cultivator. Rather than directly enhancing a part of their soul—the Physical Body in the case of Khet, or the Heart in the case of Jb—the aspect of Power let the cultivator take power directly, and choose what they enhanced themselves in the moment.

  When first explained to them, many would-be warriors salivated at it, thinking this aspect the most versatile and straightforward. Surely, if they could empower their blades in one moment and their bodies the next, if they could empower their shield and then their shield-brothers, their bows and then their mounts, they could master all aspects of war? But not so. For the Sekham was a strange and difficult aspect to awaken, and an even harder one to master.

  The channel one gained had much more control when awakening the Sekhem than it did with other aspects, and so the power was indelibly flavoured, bound to the purpose of the patron deity that had bestowed it. In Heshtat’s case, that power belonged to Nemty, the Ferryman. He Who Travels. When he channelled the essence within his soul, pulled it from the aspect of Sekham and into his blade, what would he find?

  Would his slashes travel far beyond the reach of his physical weapon to impact foes at a distance? Would the blade bond to him, allowing him to throw and recall it over vast distances? Would each strike usher his enemies into the Afterworld immediately, like some all-powerful, irresistible assassin?

  Heshtat did not know. Sekham was a complicated aspect, and he would take care with its investigation. He knew well how to channel essence—indeed, there were few at his relative power better at it, given his history—so he did not let fear hold him back for too long. He squared his shoulders, drew his blade, and gestured for his friend to step back. Maatkare, to his credit, did so immediately and without complaint. Despite all his airs, he was still an experienced professional, and he was used to taking orders from Heshtat.

  The thought of his friend’s loyalty warmed him as he prepared to use his newfound power, and Heshtat stilled his heart. He focused, drawing a deep even breath, and then he stepped forwards with essence bursting from his soul.

  A single cut, and Heshtat split the world in twain.

  you, humble traveller, grace the empty stars with your thoughts.

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  *Note - Sekhmet (the very real - mythologically speaking - daughter of the sun god Ra) is not to be confused with the following very fake things from my story:

  - Sekham - the aspect of Power that cultivators in Amansi may awaken with a divine channel.

  - Sutekh - the Wrathful god of the Red Lands, brother of Wise Osirion and redeemed war god of the Ennead.

  - a third thing.

  Note also: while Sehkmet is sometimes known as the Eye of Ra, she does not feature in this story as the mythical eye. Shout out to the commentator who asked about it - Hella good guess, but not quite right. (Close though! ????)