Natalie Yacobson - And His Name Is Dennitza. Daughter of Dawn

«Who is she?» Taor did not dare to ask anyone about it. For some reason, it became scary to just ask a question about what worried him. «Pharaoh’s daughter? The daughter of some priest who taught her to conduct the mysteries? A child of one of the gods themselves?»

Ujai just shook his head. He did not know, only speculated.

«Pharaoh called her daughter. At first. But she appeared suddenly, already being an adult and… winged. No matter how hard it is to believe it, the wings are alive, they grow from her back».

«Did you check?»

«Yes».

«How?»

«By chance. I touched her as she walked by».

«Has your hand started to dry out since then?» Taor guessed.

«No,» Ujai shook his head sadly. «Here the point is different. The first time I just got a little burned. It was necessary to be more prudent, but what can be done here when she walks nearby, right through the palace… Now no one calls her just a princess anymore. She seemed to have become a ruler herself. As if God came down from heaven to rule alongside the Pharaoh».

«What about Queen Nefertiti? News reached me that not so long ago Akhenaten made her his co-ruler».

«Where do you see her here?» Ujai expressively looked around the empty space.

In some ways, he was right. Taor himself noticed numerous changes in the order of life in the palace. All representatives of the royal family, who had at least some kind of power, disappeared, as if they were deliberately kept under lock and key. The Pharaoh himself, sitting on the throne, seemed just a puppet.

Otherwise Taor would not have thought of interfering in the natural course of someone’s power struggle, much less making inquiries. It’s none of his business. Asking about something like that, he brazenly climbs into other people’s secrets. But Alais… Her face… She seemed not at all a stranger to him. He wanted to know something about her, and what he did not understand himself.

Ujai’s diseased limb should have been a warning to him. Something similar can happen to him if he pokes his nose where he should not.

Taor moved a little away from Ujai and watched his dry hand vibrate slightly under the bandages. What if you take a blade and cut them off his hand? What will he see then?

Taor could hardly resist the temptation to check. After all, he is a warrior. He saw a terrible death, and an unusual infection, and even the living dead in the last war. What he sees under Ujai’s bandages shouldn’t scare him too much after that.

This was the very place in the garden by the pond where Alais performed the ritual with the slaughtered birds. Ujai just reminded him of a bird so withered that it only remained to be buried in the ground. He stopped looking like a living person. Anubis seemed to have forgotten to come for him in time, and the dry shell remained moving to live. But how long is it? The movements of the living corpse became more and more sluggish.

He wanted to say something else to Taor, but his language clearly did not obey. Then Ujai raised his good hand to his mouth and bit his own finger. The blood went slowly, there was little of it, as if it had almost dried up inside the body, but it was enough for him to draw a hieroglyph on the wall. Only one. And, probably, he drew it incorrectly, because there was not enough strength for the clarity of the lines. Taor did not know such a sign. You can’t read it. And Ujai won’t write more. His hand dropped limply.

«Let’s go! I will take you to your chambers». Judging by his condition, much cannot be done for him. It is unlikely that he will last long. But you can do at least something to make him a little easier. Experienced doctors are familiar with drugs that help at least forget, if not relieve pain.

«Leave him alone!» The imperious voice made Taor flinch. He was like steel. You won’t even hear such notes from commanders in war. The very tone made him obey.

Taor gave up his vain attempts to lift the seriously ill man to his feet and turned around. Before him stood the high priest of Aton himself. No security. No accompanying persons. Well, isn’t it amazing.

«He likes to bask in the sun,» Merira nodded at the unfortunate man, as if he were some inanimate object. «After all, the sun is all that we live by now».

«But he’s trying to stay in the shadows,» Taor looked back in bewilderment at Ujai, who was hiding in the shadows, entwined with plants, of a column. The hieroglyph inscribed in blood stood out strangely on it.

«Do you know what this man wanted?

«To touch the burning solar disk and not burn out?» Shrugging his shoulders, suggested the young man.

Merira looked at him like he was a complete idiot.

«Destroy you completely. Do you even recognize him?»

«It’s hard to recognize him, but it’s still him».

«And if he feels good again, he will continue his fight for the first place, and, most likely, he will destroy you, as he intended at the beginning. Do you allow this?»

«Quite. I already had the experience of communicating with him when he was healthy», Taor wanted to turn around again to look at the bloody hieroglyph again, but Merira watched him so closely that it was uncomfortable.

«What kind of person would want to help his worst enemy?»

«The one who sees that he needs a doctor».

«He doesn’t need him.» The high priest avoided looking back. «It’s too late to do anything».

Taor himself was aware of this, but he could not pass by the person whom no one else helps. He could not understand how, in a palace full of servants and slaves, no one was still concerned about the state of the honored guest, who suddenly became ill.

The priest’s hand tugged urgently away.

«Let’s go to!»

«But where!»

«If you want to achieve a high position here at court, you shouldn’t ask too many questions,» Merira said condescendingly.

«But I don’t want to,» Taor admitted honestly.

Merira stopped and looked at him carefully, as if checking to see if there was even a drop of lie in this.

«That’s what I wanted to hear,» he admitted unexpectedly.

«Simplicity!» the high priest led him to a strange place, more like the sanctuary of the old gods, located in the recess of the basement of the palace, far from everyone. «Simplicity is exactly what I’m looking for in a person. I need someone like you. Anyone who is not looking for any benefits specifically for himself. Man is higher than all people».

It seems that somewhere between the pillars, painted with hieroglyphs, huge wings, the size of a man, flapped. Taor gazed there. Nowhere else is there a rustle or movement. He gazed up at the low ceilings, still painted with images of Amun, Mut, and Khonsu.

«This room has not yet been redone properly», Merira led him a little forward. «Tell me, have you ever wondered why a previously little-known god suddenly became the only god of Egypt?»

Taor just shrugged.

«I don’t know much about anything. It is better to ask me about swords, about fighting techniques, about strategy, about war, about how to defend yourself and protect others, about how to lose as few people as possible in battle and at the same time win. This is an area in which I can answer any question, but everything else is beyond my comprehension».

«For example, why people here, in the palace, are ready, without any threat of war, to gnaw each other’s throats in order to make their way a little higher to the sun, that is, to the royal throne…»

«All people have their own desires».

«And they all contradict each other, so you can’t make everyone happy. Someone will still become angry with another, who, in their opinion, received more, and intrigue».

«Perhaps the new god will do something to change this».