HalfWorlder #Wattys2017

Chapter 17-We come eye to eye with Ramses

"You must do your part now, Gil Scott," Seshat said and changed.

Amisi, Ryan, Alexandra and I stepped back quickly and averted our eyes as light so bright it blinded arched to the sky from where Seshat had been standing. Seshat guided herself skyward in the form of a small sun until her light path fell on the temple. Alexandra watched the light enter the temple. The rest of us held our gaze aloft.

Look!" she cried out.

Behind us four great statues of Ramses gazed down at us from their thrones. Seshat had transformed into the sun, veiled our eyes to the present, and opened them to the past, restoring the temple to its original beauty.

"Watch their eyes," Alexandra called out. Sure enough, as Seshat moved into position, the beams of her sun cast light into the great Ramses' eyes. For a brief moment, as the light passed over them, they glowed. I followed the photovoltaic stream from each that bounced off past my shoulder to four gleaming black and gold stelae that had appeared behind us. The light bounded off these pillars, inscribed with a thousand gold hieroglyphics, and back toward the temple. But then the streams evaporated. Seshat had moved too far away. As she changed her position to allow her light path to fall into the temple proper, the strange phenomena ended. The light she cast would soon illuminate three of the statues sitting at its innermost chamber. I needed to get moving. Didn't I?

"What was that?" Alexandra asked.

"I don't know."

"It seemed important!" She gave me her know-it-all look. It was perplexing how she could be so familiar and so distant at the same time.

"What I am supposed to do about it?"

"I don't know, Gil but she said you had to do your part."

Seshat wasn't enough, I realized then. She brought the light into the temple on her own, but she needed help with the statues of Ramses. They played a role here too.

"We need more light," Ryan called out to the sky thinking the same thing. Seshat tried to glow brighter, but it was too much for her. She could only do so much to reveal the past and become the sun. It had to be costing her so much energy even to do this.

"Do it, Gil!" Alexandra shouted at me, finding the words.

I stood there dumbly, then ran backwards, turning in a half circle, thinking. I thought back to my friend Ra in the dream. I was like Ra. The Oracle had implied that, hadn't she? I might as well give it a try.

I mimicked him. "Gil commands the sun!" I called out. I felt an invigorating pull, like strings were anchored in my belly and yanking at the real sun, the one 93 million miles away.

Then something really strange happened; I felt time pull forward 8-1/2 minutes and then back to the present. The light from the sun, light that would normally take that long to travel to the Earth, arrived instantaneously. But I knew the truth. I had somehow manipulated time, space and light. My head was about to explode, but instead an explosion of light illuminated the eyes of the four great Ramses.

Their eyes glowed white hot as my own eyes did now. I knew it because my friends had collapsed to the ground covering their own in pain, but I saw through it like the haze in my dream. I ran over to Alexandra first and covered her eyes as Ra had done to Isis. She stood seeing through white eyes too. I did the same for Amisi and Ryan.

"Whoa." Alexandra's eyes adjusted to the light and took everything in.

"I know, but do you feel that?" Amisi asked in awe. A sort of energy buzzed in the air. Then Ramses' eyes shot out streams of photovoltaic energy toward the four stelae pillars behind us again. The pillars returned the beams, but this time met their target: the Aten above Ra's head. This time, the beams were much stronger.