Chapter 32: Assassination and Revelations
Remi and the two children had already been inside the Wall of Ether for a while by the time Shehrazad finished binding them with the cedar-resin-soaked string. Yet, this foray felt completely different from all the others.
They were traveling now as if teleported through various places and moments of the past they had already visited, as though the mirror were giving them a chance to look at the same events from multiple angles. The images were pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that carried a message of massive importance.
They relived Remi’s very first journey into the past, back to the childhood home of the fourteen-year-old twins, Meritmut and Meritbastet. They saw the sisters' embrace and the Collars of the Two Skies around their necks, without them being turned into cats.
Then, all their other visits flashed before the eyes of the three onlookers. It seemed that every single time, the collars took center stage, or Meritbastet’s shifts from one form to another appeared effortlessly simple—just like stepping from one room into another.
"I think it’s vital we crack the message being sent to us," Remi whispered, squeezing the two children’s hands. "We are clearly meant to find out why the collars' magic changed."
"You’re right," Samir replied. "Look, Grandmother Tiye’s chambers!"
In the dim glow of a few oil lamps stood Queen Tiye. Her features were strikingly similar to Shehrazad’s; only her heavy kohl eyeliner and her hair color set them apart...
The Queen was staring, transfixed, at the images swirling inside her own Mirror of Time—the one within the massive bronze basin. The visions actually showed the distant future.
"I think this is where Grandmother got the idea to save us by sending us into the future," Demir whispered. He knew they were invisible and inaudible to everyone in that moment, except for the cats.
After watching the images in the mirror, the Queen moved toward the cedarwood table. She spread out a large piece of fine linen and began to draw with a reed pen dipped in red ink—creating the famous map that Shehrazad had later copied from memory.
"Now we’re seeing the moment we caught in the reflection of the mirror in our courtyard. This happens before the High Priest arrives, remember?" Samir asked. But then, remembering that Demir hadn't stepped out of the Wall of Ether in a long time, he corrected himself: "Do you remember, Remi?"
"Yes... look at him!" the writer whispered.
The heavy drape at the entrance of the chambers had been brushed aside without a sound. Ay, clad in his white robes, his neck tilting slightly under the weight of the massive amulet he wore, hurried inside. He looked like a man on a mission to uncover secrets.
"Demir, is this the moment of the assassination? Is this what you saw while we were gone?"
"No, Remi. No, this isn't it."
As the boy spoke, the vision before them blurred slightly before snapping back into focus.
They were in the same room, but at a different time. Queen Tiye was sitting in a comfortable armchair, letting her shoulders and neck be massaged by the High Priest Ay, her brother. The twin princes were only two years old back then. Their perfect, robust health—a flat-out miracle in a dynasty plagued by inbreeding—had already become a death sentence in the eyes of the priests.
"The twins are strong and healthy," Tiye said, her eyes half-closed with exhaustion. "The dynasty would thrive under their rule, with the right guidance..."
"My dear sister," the deceitful priest said, smiling from behind the chair. "I can feel how much tension you've built up. Let me help you! The children's fever has passed, their royal bodies spared by Aten... Look, I feel a knot right here!"
"N-now..." Demir whispered, his throat tight with despair and helplessness. "I can't believe I'm watching this again, without being able to do a thing! I don't want to!"
Ay drew a long, razor-thin needle seemingly out of thin air. Without a second thought, he drove it deep behind the Queen’s right ear, just below the lobe, straight into the brainstem.
Streams of tears were now pouring from the eyes of both the children and the writer. The Queen’s body didn't collapse from the chair; her head simply went limp in the priest's hands. With a grim rictus of a smile on his hairless face, he rested it against the back of the chair, like a twisted puppet master of history.
***
The three of them then came to a halt in the small inner courtyard of the palace, the one with the fountain covered in yellow lotuses. Tears were still streaming down their eyes and cheeks when they encountered Mehyt and Meritbastet sitting in the shade of an ornamental shrub, whispering to each other.
"Have you come back, shadows?" Mehyt greeted them. "You're lucky you are invisible to the High Priest and his henchmen."
"Queen Tiye has been killed by the High Priest... What do you know about what's going on, Mehyt?" Remi asked.
"We know we are in danger," Meritbastet answered instead of the black tomcat. "I have always been in danger because of my faith in Bastet, but now, Ay holds the reins. He kills and punishes as he pleases, and the Pharaoh just lets himself be manipulated. He is trying to convince the Pharaoh that the twins aren't his, that my sister cheated on him."
Meritbastet let out a heavy, long sigh and continued:
"Heaven knows that Peryaton and Qaaton are the rightful, bloodline children of the Pharaoh. My sister was just a child when she was brought to court, and she has known no other man. The children are healthy... Do you have any idea what that means to the High Priest?"
Samir let go of Remi’s hand and stepped closer to the white cat that had just spoken.
"Look at us closely, White One!"
At the sound of that name, Remi winced. She knew that in the future, this title had been given to her, but Meritbastet was probably her as well. In another life.
"Look at us! We are Meritmut’s children."
"But you are big, much bigger. The twins haven't even turned two yet."
"Someone saved us... The Mirror of Time carried us far away into the future."
Meritbastet eyed the three of them with closer attention.
"You are beautiful! It brings peace to my heart to know you survived. My sister is locked in her chambers right now, together with her children."
"Tell me, Meritbastet," Remi chimed in, "how do you shift from one state to another so easily? In my time, the collar keeps me trapped in the body of a cat. What you see now is my female spirit, but when I snap back to my senses, I'm still inside a cat's body."
Meritbastet locked her gaze onto the collar around Remi’s neck—which was, in fact, the exact same collar she was wearing at that very moment.
"I don't know. The collar senses my desires, I suppose. I just think it, and it makes the change. Is it not the same for you? The sun, the sky, the whole universe charges it with energy, and I just borrow from that power."
"Yes, I think that’s the answer," Remi sighed. "In the past, under the pure sky of Ancient Egypt, the collars' magic flowed freely. The transformation could be summoned at any moment, by a mere wish. In my time, in the twenty-first century, everything has changed. The planet is flooded by an unseen interference: billions of digital signals, radio waves, satellite networks, and electric wires pulsing day and night, subtly polluting the earth's energy channels. This modern technological noise has drowned out the ancient vibration of the Ether. It acts like an insulating shield that has frozen the Wall and numbed the collars' magic."
"Yes," Samir chimed in. "That's probably why the only way the global network can pierce through this modern interference is by exploiting the year's four great 'cosmic resets': the solstices and the equinoxes. Only during these crucial astronomical moments, when the Earth's axis aligns perfectly with the Sun, does the gravitational and energetic force of nature instantly wipe away all human interference. The Wall of Ether becomes as thin as a spiderweb again, opening the four sacred windows where time can be bent, and transformation becomes possible for a short while."
"Are you saying, little brother, that if we could physically travel through time again, to an era untouched by technology, this magic would fix itself?"
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