She went out into the garden, with its pools and fig trees and the red desert stretching beyond. And found two of Merur’s lily standards—She Brings Life and Different Ages. Along with Months and Years. And Dihaut.
“Well, sib,” they said, with their regretful smile. “They always send me after you. Everyone else is too afraid of you. I told the One Sovereign it was better not to send forces you’d only chew up. Poison is much easier, and much safer for us.”
Het swayed, suddenly exhausted. Dihaut. She’d never expected them to actively take her side, when it came to defying Merur, but she hadn’t expected them to poison her.
What had she expected? That Merur would approve her actions? No, she’d known someone would come after her, one way or another. And then?
“You can try to alter your metabolism,” Dihaut continued, “but I doubt you can manage it quickly enough. The dose was quite high. We needed to be absolutely sure. Honestly, I’m surprised you’re still on your feet.”
“You,” said Het, not certain what she had to say beyond that.
She Gives Life and Different Ages skittered up and stopped a meter or so apart, facing Het. Between them an image of Merur flickered into visibility. Not snakelike, as Het knew her current body to be, but as she appeared in images all over Nu: tall, golden, face and limbs smooth and symmetrical, as though cut from basalt and gilded.
“Het!” cried Merur. “My own Eye! What can possibly have made you so angry that you would take leave of your senses and betray the life and peace of Nu in this way?”
“I was carrying out your orders, Sovereign of Nu!” Het snarled. “You wanted me to remove all possibility of rebellion in Hehut.”
“And all of Nu!” piped Great Among Millions, behind Het. Still covered in dried blood.
“I had not thought such sickness and treason possible from anyone Justified as long as you have been,” said Merur. “Dihaut.”
“Sovereign,” said Dihaut, and their smile grew slightly wider. Het growled.
Merur said, “You have said to me before today that I have been too generous. That I have allowed too many of the long-Justified to escape judgment. I did not believe you, but now, look! My Eyes have not been subject to judgment in centuries, and that, I think, has been a mistake. I would like it known that not even the highest of the Justified will be excused if they defy me. Het, before you die, hear Dihaut’s judgment.”
She was exhausted, and her lips had gone numb. But that was all.
Was she really poisoned? Well, she was, but only a little. Or so it seemed, so far. Maybe she could overpower Dihaut, rip out their throat, and flee. The standards wouldn’t stop her.
And then what? Where would she go, that Merur would not eventually follow?
“Sovereign of Nu,” said Dihaut, bowing toward Merur’s simulacrum. “I will do as you command.” They turned to Het. “Het, sib, your behavior this past day is extreme even for you. It calls for judgment, as our Sovereign has said. It is that judgment that keeps order in Hehut, on all of Nu. And perhaps if everyone, every life, endured the same strict judgment as the single-lived pass through, these things would never have happened.”
Silence. Not a noise from Great Among Millions, behind Het. Over Dihaut’s shoulder, Months and Years was utterly still.
“The One Sovereign has given me the duty of making those judgments. And I must make them, no matter my personal feelings about each person I judge, for the good of Nu.”
“That is so,” agreed Merur’s simulacrum.
“Then from now on, everyone—single-lived or Justified, whoever they may be—every Anima that passes through Tjenu must meet the same judgment. No preference will be given to those who have been resurrected before, not in judgment, and not in the order of resurrection. From now on everyone must meet judgment equally. Including the Sovereign of Nu.”
The simulacrum of Merur frowned. “I did not hear you correctly just now, Dihaut.”
They turned to Merur. “You’ve just said that it was a mistake not to subject your Eyes to judgment, and called on me to judge Het. But I can’t judge her without seeing that what she has done to the Justified this past day is only what you have always asked her to do to the single-lived. She has done precisely what you demanded of her. It wasn’t the fact that Het was unthreatened by judgment that led her to do these things—it was you, yourself.”
“You!” spat Merur’s simulacrum. “You dare to judge me!”
“You gave me that job,” said Dihaut, Months and Years still motionless behind them. “And I will do it. You won’t be resurrected on Nu without passing my judgment. I have made certain of this, within the past hour.”
“Then it was you behind this conspiracy all along!” cried Merur. “But you can’t prevent me returning. I will awake on Aeons.”
“Aeons is far, far overhead,” observed Het, no less astonished at what she’d just heard than by the fact that she was still alive.
“And there was no conspiracy,” said Dihaut. “Or there wasn’t until you imagined one into being. Your own Eyes told you as much. But this isn’t the first time you’ve demanded the slaughter of the innocent so that you can feel more secure. Het only gave me an opportunity, and an example. I will do as you command me. I will judge. Withdraw to Aeons if you like. The people who oversee your resurrection on Nu, who have the skills and the access, won’t be resurrected themselves until you pass my judgment.” They gave again that half-regretful smile. “You’ve already removed some of those who would have helped you, when you purged Tjenu of what you assumed was disloyalty to you, Sovereign.” The image of Merur flickered out of sight, and She Brings Life and Different Ages scuttled away.
“I’m not poisoned,” said Het.
“I should hope not!” exclaimed Dihaut. “No, you left your supper, or your breakfast, or whatever it was, on my flier. I couldn’t help being curious about it.” They shrugged. “There wasn’t much of that neurotoxin in the animal you left behind, but there was enough to suggest that something in that food chain was very toxic. And knowing you, you’d have changed your metabolism rather than just avoid eating whatever it was. Merur, of course, didn’t know that. So when she said she wanted you stopped, I made the suggestion. . . .” They waved one silver hand.
“So all that business with the single-lived servant, promising her Justification if she would defend those two . . .”
“This late in the day the Justified were already beginning to resist you—or try, anyway,” Dihaut confirmed, with equanimity. “If these had stood meekly as you slaughtered them, you might have suspected something. And you might not have drunk enough blood to feel the poison. I had to make you even more angry at the people you killed than you already were.”
Het growled. “So you tricked me.”
“You’re not the only one of Merur’s Eyes, sib, to find that if you truly served in the way you were meant to, you could no longer serve Merur’s aims. It’s been a long, long time since I realized that for all Merur says I’m to judge the dead with perfect, impartial wisdom, I can never do that so long as she rules here. She has always assumed that her personal good is the good of Nu. But those are not the same thing. Which I think you have recently realized.”