Kinslayer

The Lion Queen

I was standing in a beautifully decorated temple. It stood high on a mountaintop, as proven by how the wind blew straight through the pillared walls and out the other side in cold gusts that felt like blades on my skin. I was barefoot, had no weapons, and wearing nothing but a white, sleeveless tunic and my ruby choker (the only aspect of my outfit that persisted between what I was wearing here and what I wore in the real world), and my hair was loose. I brushed the hissing strands out of my face.

For a moment, I stood there, dumbly taking in the alabaster walls of the temple and the beautifully decorated stone tile floor. Murals were painted on the walls, of people going about daily tasks. Children played. Farmers tended to their crops and merchants sold their wares in the streets. Young girls danced and sang as they wove linen and fetched water from wells or oases. For some reason, they seemed to radiate life.

I was compelled to walk over and brush my finger over them, and as I touched them, they would move, the painted figures running or walking across the stone as if they were alive. A man coming home from tending his fields greeted his wife. Two men pulled in a net writhing with fish. A woman held a newborn baby in her arms.

What are these? What do they mean?

I turned back to the front of the room, and instantly all thoughts of the moving paintings flew out of my mind.

Sitting calmly on the dais at the head of the room, in front of the altar, was a sleek, beautiful lioness. Her fur was tawny like the desert sand, that darkened to an almost russet color on her back and head. Her paws and belly were almost white in comparison, the color only broken up by the onyx claws that poked just a bit out of their sheaths when she stretched, like a great big cat, and then settled back down again. She was clad in a midnight-black helmet forged for her leonine head, that seemed to absorb all light that hit it like an endless void. A golden collar of bright green emerald and deep onyx slabs encircled her neck. Strangest of all were her eyes, which were a strange shade of deep, royal purple, like the amethyst Mother had given me.

I instinctively reached for my knife, only to remember it wasn't there. I tensed, preparing to fight the animal bare-handed, only for a light, airy laugh to stop me.

My ears didn't hear it. It came directly from my own mind, but it wasn't my thoughts I was sensing. Someone was speaking to me, mind to mind, a technique very few mages could perform even with each other.

In an instant I somehow knew it was the lion's voice I heard laughing musically in my head.

"This is a place of peace, little one," she said gently. "Weapons nor violence are not welcome here. Rest assured, I will not harm you."

"Who are you?" I asked the lioness, still wary. An idea of who it was grew in my mind, and before I could even think, I had fallen to my knees and blurted out, "Lady Sekhmet!?"

The lioness's gentle laugh again filled the corners of my mind. "No, little one, I am not Sekhmet. She is my patroness, my guardian, and she is listening - as are all the other gods - but I am a mere spirit."

"Where are we?" I asked. "Why have you brought me here?"

"This is a place of beginnings and endings. When a person departs for their eternity in the Field of Reeds - should they be judged worthy - their lives are recorded on these walls. Spirits stay here, treasuring the memories for as long as they can, before they depart for paradise. This temple is the doorway between their life as a mortal and their afterlife."

"So why is it empty?"

The lioness gave me an askance look, and I immediately realized I might have angered her. Whoever she was, I knew I didn't want to anger her alone and unarmed.