and was fully aware of her own strength. She will crush the whole world, just step on him with her heel, and he will crack under the weight of her oppression.
«Maybe he’s worth it,» her eyes declared slyly. «With the pettiness of people and their intrigues, with their hypocrisy. Show me at least one infinitely kind person, and I will spare the world for his sake, as Michael (this is the name of that winged guard that you saw in the sands) is ready to do for the sake of only one believer as a whole a swarm of wicked people. He has repeatedly stated that only one person devoted to God is worth sparing an entire country of atheists for the sake of his sincere faith. He believes that the faith of one pays for the excesses of many. Let’s say I’m ready to do the same, but I need one absolutely pure soul. A person who never wishes harm to anyone and under any circumstances. If I see such a person and do not be disappointed in him, as God was disappointed in me, then I may save the human world from destruction, which the Almighty now wants. After all, he created the devil as punishment for arrogant people. He created me.» The tip of the snake tongue licked his cheek. «I am a punishing force because people have become too cruel. Rivers of blood must be shed to cleanse the world that God so carelessly created. He already regrets it, although he does not want to openly admit it. Hypocrisy is his strong point, but not mine. I speak openly, even though the truth hurts. I will not regret people, only beautiful things made by their hands, but there are already plenty of them in the world. Show me someone I can regret to stop me. Time is limited. Thirteen sunrises because thirteen is my favorite number».
Her wings flapped again, gracefully and somehow dangerously, as if they could twine around him and strangle him in a deadly embrace. Merira reluctantly retreated.
«It’s a fair deal,» he nodded. If only she fulfills her conditions…
«Just one person,» Alais repeated. «You only need to find one, but someone who will not disappoint me. He alone must be so pure as to become worthy to atone for the sins of all mankind».
The priest was afraid of her. Alais knew that. Backing away, he stumbled and fell. How awkward! Where can he find something.
But the deal was good. Just one soul! Alais had never met one like this before, although it seemed like an eternity remained behind her. Only one person, unlike all people, could change her idea of eternity.
And this man almost became a young man who uttered a strange request the other day in the throne room, but he somehow disappointed her.
Bloody hieroglyph
«If the Nile was filled with blood, and not water, then she would have lived there».
It was Ujai’s voice. Taor did not immediately notice him, and he, it seems, did not notice anything at all, except for his sore hand, which he swaddled with bandages and rocked gently, like a child. He himself seemed to be hiding from everyone and still talked with someone in the void. It seemed that he was absolutely sure that he saw some interlocutor in front of him, although the palace corridor was empty. He must have lost his mind from the injury.
It would be most reasonable to pass by, but Taor decided to show his concern and squatted down in front of the victim.
«Can I help you with something?»
Ujai looked at him like an enemy and even bared his teeth like a beast. Taor was not offended. It was already a sad sight before him. The man is alive, and his hand is already mummified, although not torn from the body. Something was stirring under the bandages. How strange! A withered hand cannot move like a living creature. Or something other than dry flesh is buried under the bandages. Taor remembered the birds that had been slaughtered. Suddenly, crazy with grief, Ujai has bandaged a live bird there, and it is now swarming in its death throes? Or is something bursting out of his body? An absurd idea, but so persistent.
The young man did not know what to say, how to entertain or console the person who seemed to need nothing, but Ujai suddenly spoke himself.
«Did you encounter something similar there, on the battlefield, where you were sent?»
What a meaningful phrase for a madman. Taor was alert. So the man in front of him still has not lost his mind?
«What unusual could I encounter there?» There really was a lot of indescribable happening, but let Ujai touch on this topic himself.
«With creatures that maim or burn people with just one touch, and at the same time look incomparable, although they are still creatures,» his tongue twisted, but his thought was sober. Taor remembered the dead who were resurrected and those who seemed impossible to kill.
«I’ve seen a lot,» he said carefully.
«You’ll see more here», Ujai drawled derisively. «Because here, in the palace, she settled».
«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,