“Your walsel, Noble Eye,” replied Months and Years, waving a tiny hand. “What’s left of it. It’s starting to smell.”
“Just dispose of it,” said Het. “I’ve eaten as much of it as I’m going to.”
Great Among Millions gave a tiny almost-hop from one foot to the other, and stilled again. “Noble Het, you have been away from Tjenu, from Hehut itself, without me, for fifty-three years, two months, and three days.” It almost managed to sound as though it was merely stating a fact, and not making a complaint. But not quite.
“It’s good to see you again, too,” Het said. Her standard unclenched its little fists and gestured toward the golden mass of Tjenu. “Yes,” Het acknowledged. “Let’s go.”
* * *
The vast audience chamber of the One Sovereign of Nu was black-ceilinged, inlaid with silver and copper stars that shone in the light of the lamps below. Courtiers, officials, and supplicants, alone or in small scattered groups, murmured as Het passed. Of course. There was no mistaking her identity, furred and unkempt as she was—Great Among Millions followed her.
She crossed the brown, gold-flecked floor to where it changed, brown shading to blue and green in Merur’s near presence, where one never set foot without direct invitation—unless, of course, one was an Eye, in which case one’s place in the bright-lit vicinity of Merur was merely assumed, a privilege of status.
Stepping into the green, Great Among Millions tottering behind her, Het cast a surreptitious glance—habitual, even after so long away!—at those so privileged. And stopped, and growled. Among the officials standing near Merur, three bore her Eye. There were four Eyes; Het herself was one. Dihaut, who Het had left with their flier, was another. There should only have been two Eyes here.
“Don’t be jealous, Noble Het,” whispered Great Among Millions, its thready voice sounding in her ear alone. “You were gone so very long.” Almost accusing, that sounded.
“She replaced me,” Het snarled. She didn’t recognize whoever it was who, she saw now, held an unfamiliar standard, but the Justified changed bodies so frequently. If there was a new Eye, why should Merur call on Het? Why not leave her be?
“And you left me behind,” continued Great Among Millions. “Alone. They asked and asked me where you were and I did not know, though I wished to.” It made a tiny, barely perceptible stomp. “They put me in a storeroom. In a box.”
“Het, my Eye, approach!” Merur, calling from where she sat under her blue-canopied pavilion, alone but for those three Eyes, and the standards, and smaller lotus- and lily-shaped servants that always attended her.
And now, her attention turned from Merur’s other Eyes, Het looked fully at the One Sovereign herself. Armless, legless, her snaking body cased in scales of gold and lapis, Merur circled the base of her polished granite chair of state, her upper body leaning onto the seat, her head standard human, her hair in dozens of silver-plaited braids falling around her glittering gold face. Her dark eyes were slit-pupiled.
Het had seen Merur take such a shape before—as well as taking new bodies at need or at whim, the Justified could to some degree alter a currently held body at will. But there were limits to such transformations, and it had been long, long centuries since Merur had taken this sort of body.
She should have concealed her surprise and prostrated herself, but instead she stood and stared as Great Among Millions announced, in a high, carrying voice, “The fair, the fierce, the Burning Eye of the One Sovereign of Nu, the Noble Het!”
“My own Eye!” said Merur. “I have need of you!”
Het could not restrain her anger, even in the face of the One Sovereign of Nu. “I count four Eyes in this court, Sovereign—those three over there, and the Noble Dihaut. There have always been four. Why should you need me to be a fifth?” Behind her, Great Among Millions made a tiny noise.
“I shed one body,” admonished Merur, her voice faintly querulous, “only to reawaken and find you gone. For decades you did not return. Why? No one accused you of any dereliction of duty, let alone disloyalty. You had suffered no disadvantage; your place as my favored Eye was secure. And now, returning, you question my having appointed someone to fill the office you left empty! You would do better to save your anger for the enemies of Nu!”
“I can’t account for my heart,” said Het crossly. “It is as it is.”
This seemed to mollify Merur. “Well, you always have had a temper. And it is this very honesty that I have so missed. Indeed, it is what I require of you!” Here Merur lowered her voice and looked fretfully from one side to the other, and the standards and flower-form servitors scuttled back a few feet. “Het, my Eye. This body is . . . imperfect. It will not obey me as it should, and it is dying, far sooner than it ought. I need to move to a new one.”
“Already?” Het’s skin prickled with unease.
“This is not the first time a body has grown imperfectly,” Merur said, her voice low. “But I should have seen the signs long before I entered it. Someone must have concealed them from me! It is impossible that this has happened through mere incompetence.
“I have dealt with the technicians. I have rooted out any disloyalty in Tjenu. But I cannot say the same of all Hehut, let alone all of Nu. And this body of mine will last only a few months longer, but no suitable replacement, one untampered with by traitors, will be ready for a year or more. And I cannot afford to leave Nu rulerless for so long! My Eyes I trust—you and Dihaut, certainly, after all this time. The Justified are for the most part reliable, and the single-lived know that Dihaut will judge them. But I have never been gone for more than a few days at a time. If this throne is empty longer, it may encourage the very few wayward to stir up the single-lived, and if, in my absence, enough among the Justified can be led astray—no. I cannot be gone so long unless I am certain of order.”
Dismayed, Het snarled. “Sovereign, what do you expect me to do about any of this?”
“What you’ve always done! Protect Nu. All trace of unrest, of disorder, must be prevented. You’ve rid Nu of rebellion before. I need you to do it again.”
That shining silver river, the fishers, the lilies and birds had all seemed so peaceful. So much as they should be, when Het and Dihaut had flown in. “Unrest? What’s the cause this time?”
“The cause!” Merur exclaimed, exasperated. “There is no cause. There never has been! The worthy I give eternal life and health; they need only reach out their hands for whatever they desire! The unworthy are here and gone, and they have all they need and occupation enough, or if not, well, they seal their own fate. There has never been any cause, and yet it keeps happening—plots, rumors, mutterings of discontent. My newest Eye”—Merur did not notice, or affected not to notice, Het’s reaction to that—“is fierce and efficient. I do not doubt her loyalty. But I am afraid she doesn’t have your imagination. Your vision. Your anger. Two years ago I sent her out to deal with this, and she returned saying there was no trouble of any consequence! She doesn’t understand! Where does this keep coming from? Who is planting such ideas in the minds of my people? Root it out, Het. Root it out from among my people, trace it back to its origin, and destroy it so that Nu can rest secure while my next body grows. So that we can at last have the peace and security I have always striven for.”