Egyptian Timewave

Chapter 40

Imenand is on his way to speak with the high priest when he passes by one of the temple rooms and notices motion inside. There has often been someone in there, one of the priests often chooses that room for conducting his research. But to have visitors for his research is odd. He walks past the door, it would be stranger for him to stop, but when he reaches the end of the hall he turns around.

Imenand moves much more slowly on the way back, careful to keep his footsteps as silent as they can possibly be. No one hears him coming down the hallway. He turns into the room across the hall for a moment, so he can get a look at the priest's visitors. He takes a few moments inside the room to tidy it up, both to give a semblance of actually doing something so none of those across the hall become suspicious and because the room is actually quite messy.

The room doesn't contain anything very important to the temple, so it would be safe for him to mess around in here. He stacks things to the side of the desk and then turns around to peer into the other room. There are three occupants, as he had expected from his initial glance inside. The priest, and two identical girls. Princess Anippe and her handmaiden.

Imenand grimaces. That handmaiden is turning up everywhere. He walks out of the room and stops just to the side of the occupied one, stationing himself against the wall. With the princess inside, any passerby will believe that he is a member of her guard. Speaking of the princess' guard, he should probably mention to Prince Amenhotep that his favourite family member is wandering around without a guard.

The prince may wish to do something about that. But that's not important right now, the only danger the princess is currently in is from her handmaiden and having a guard wouldn't protect her from her own handmaiden. Shaking his head to dismiss that train of thought, he listens in on the conversation being spoken in hushed voices. Are they just trying to be quiet, or are they discussing something dangerous or treasonous?

He tunes in in the middle of the priest's sentence."-return home. We don't know how long it will take to complete your task, but if you listen to the signs I'm sure He will guide you to what you must do."

The handmaiden speaks in an almost inaudible voice. "I wish I knew what the task was, though."

"Ask, and He will answer you. I promise, Abayomi, you will not be doing this alone. You will have us mortals helping you here, and He will help you from afar. You will only need to listen to the signs He sends you to know your path to completing this task."

Imenand has to choke down his sharp inhale to a rattle of breath from his throat. If he needed any more evidence of wrongdoing to add after all the signs of the girl's strangeness, this is it. She's pulled the priest and the princess into her plotting too, how dare she. How is she influencing them? It may sound like she hasn't truly started her work yet, not if she's still confused about what her task is.

But the priests are already reporting the demon snake's influence on Aten, so she must be working already. He dreads to think of what her next goal will be, especially if she is planning to speak to the snake Itself about the task. Imenand must inform the prince, surely this will be the final piece of evidence needed to arrest the handmaiden and start removing her influences within the court.

He can hear what sounds like the trio wrapping up their conversation, so he moves to vacate the corridor. Just as he's slipping around the corner, he can hear the handmaiden stumble against the doorframe. Imenand thanks the gods for his stroke of luck. If the girl hadn't stumbled and provided a distraction, he is sure that either her or the princess would have spotted him.

If they had spotted him, he doesn't know if he would have been able to slip their attention without alerting to the handmaiden that he has caught her in her wrongdoing. But he manages to sneak out of the corridor without notice from either of them, and so he heaves a breath of relief. Imenand is just turning to head back towards the rest of the palace and report to his prince when someone calls out from the other direction.

"Guard!" He turns to see High Priest Meryre. "Did you forget our meeting, Imenand?"

Grumbling internally at this block in his path, he bows. "Of course not, High Priest. I was just having difficulty finding you."

Imenand vows to get away as soon as he can. The longer it takes for him to give his report, the more havoc the handmaiden can cause. The sooner he is given permission to arrest her, the better. But for now, he strides over to the high priest and walks with him further into the temple for their meeting.

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Imenand I think you have the wrong idea. What do you think will happen once he tells somebody? What's going to happen next? Tell me your thoughts!

Also I have writer's block (at least with this story) so that's fun. Until the block passes I'll probably be working on Ball of Stars since that creativity path is wide open. If it goes on for long enough I might need to stop posting here for a while (though I have a good buffer) so just have that as a heads up if chapter posts lull for a while. Until then, feel free to head to my tumblr and send me some asks, it's linked up in my about me and I'll repeat my username here (DragonGoddessofFate).

Happy reading and I'll see you next chapter!

~ Goddess of Fate, signing out