Commission: Sand of Destiny 1

Sunlight crested over the white dunes of the outer land, catching upon countless millions of smooth grains. Each mote of glittering, reflected light came together, a vision of the purity of the Highest rippling across the distant horizon.

Hori XVII Iremistis observed the beauty of the sunrise at the speed of stone, mortal seconds crawling by in what seemed like minutes to his own mind. Truly, he could not wait for the day when his perceptions grew so sharp that he could observe the rays of light themselves in motion, rather than merely perceiving their interactions with baser materials.

The contemplations of light and air were the most fascinating subjects he had found for study since he had been accepted as a full member of the Temple. The slow motion ripple of flowing clouds and winking light, the sparkle of the sands… these things he could watch forever.

But he was not yet a High Judge, an Elder Archivist, who could sleep the stone sleep for years on end. By the time the sunlight had crawled halfway to the glittering ribbon of blue that cut through the black earth of the near land, he could feel a slight pinch and burning behind his eyes. The limit of a young mind to withstand such meditations.

He rose from his plinth and stretched his limbs, arms widespread, greeting the sun with burnished bronze gleam. Upon the balcony of his room the world returned to mortal speeds and the sun climbed the side of the temple complex and Hori alike. Only when he was awash in it did he turn back toward the temple and stride inside, catching his linen skirt from the stand he had tossed it over, and availing himself of its cover.

He passed the marble slab of his bed, the papyrus strewn desk, holding his notes on many projects, and snapped his fingers once.

A shadow loped from his doorway. The dreg flesh he had been assigned looked like a man of his age, through withered and pale, as dregs always were. Its features were vaguely canine, stretched like a beasts skull under human skin, but its movements were still smooth and without any sign of malfunction as it came before him and bowed, long and clawed fingers clasped before its sunken chest.

“Messages,” Hori commanded absently, striding past to stand before his silver mirror. He was a short man, barely over two meters tall. It had bothered him once, to be so slight, but he had grown out of such things. He was himself, for all that many frames came easily to him now.

“Administrator of the Fourth House, Amenirdis VI orders your attendance of her office by the end of the eleventh hour.”

He paused in the midst of combing his fingers along the oiled black braid which hung from the back of his head. The Dreg-flesh’s mechanical repetition of the message inscribed into its limited mind conveying the firm tone of a senior scribe. One who was Sixth of their name, and the Administrator of his section at that, calling upon him? A youthful Seventeenth? That could be only opportunity or trouble. Most likely both.

He did not think any of his recent projects would draw such  attention though… Perplexing.

“The great Communications Architect Amunet IX conveys his congratulations upon your recent feats of mastery in the arts of the Fourth House and expects to hear from you soon.” The dreg droned on, unmindful of his thoughts, merely proceeding through his messages.

Well gratifying that father was thinking of him, even if he had diverged from the Fifth House where his Father oversaw the warriors of the House of all Secrets. The dreg-flesh went on, other messages playing from its lips, but none of a great import, request for information sharing or research references from his siblings and cousins and friends in the temple hierarchy, confirmations of material orders received from outposts, a delivery to pick up.

The first was the most urgent. He took one moment longer to adjust the white gold bangles on his wrists, and the beaded usekh around his neck, arranged to mark his rank as a researcher in the House of All Secrets.

The dreg flesh fell silent at last, and Hori nodded in satisfaction at his reflection. He dug his thumbnail into the meat of his forearm, crimson blood welling from broken flesh, and ripped a thin strip of meat free, tossing it absently to the dreg-flesh, who lunged and snatched it from the air, glassy crimson eyes showing the faintest spark of awareness for the first time since he had seen it today as it devoured the meal with sharp and gnashing teeth.

The gauge in his arm was gone before he’d finished closing the door of his chamber behind him.

***

A stroll through the temple was normally a relaxing thing. Hori was not as reclusive and shut in as some of his temple kin were, his focus on the open expanse of the sky and the radiating motion of light as a subject left him more inclined to the outside. Indeed, here in the House of All Secrets, the central temple of Great Dihauti, where the God himself slept the stone sleep beneath their feet, he was always in good company.

The high colonnaded halls of bright white and warmly colored stone, carved with the histories of Khem. They gave way to the vast libraries, each wing a match for the stores of knowledge held by whole cities, the open forums and testing chambers where the newest techniques and experiments were done, where the wise honed their knowledge upon their fellows' own sharp minds.

But it grew quiet, as one descended the lower floors. Those who walked the narrower halls alongside walked with heads low in reverence, and so did Hori. For here, the presence of the Elder Ones could be felt here, their deep thoughts as thick as smoke in the unlit halls of sparkling black stone. How he wished he could be privy to their decades long debates! The wisdom of centuries and millennia in its uncompressed form. Alas, he was only here to speak to the Administrator, intermediary between the deeper temple and the new awakened.

Her mausoleum was the sole chamber flanked by lit torches, burning silver with Dihauti’s light, its great slab doors dragged aside and open.

Hori entered with tingling anxiety running down his spine. Administrator Amenirdis loomed above him in the dim silver light. In her rest, her stone form was embedded in the rear wall of the chamber, standing upright, bead woven hair frozen as if caught in the wind around her head, hands clasped together before her unmoving chest, the crescent moon of her headdress gleaming like purest silver under the black disc it held. Around her, carved into the stone were countless slowly shifting characters, calculations so complex that to merely view them made his eyes water, knowing that he could not even perceive their full dimensions as he was.

Humbling.

Hori lowered himself to his knees, hands flat on the floor before the narrow black altar which rose from the floor in front of her, its silver offering bowl full to the brim with shining crimson blood. “Administrator, Hori XVII Iremistis does present himself to hear your will.”

It was a full one hundred heartbeats before he heard the slow groan of shifting stone, the sharp crack of its crumbling, and felt the Administrators gaze upon him.

He raised his head, and met the eyes that peered from the stone, each a pit which opened into the expanse of the night sky. He swiftly pulled his eyes away lest he be drawn too deep.

SEVENTEENTH HORI. RESEARCH ASSISTANT UNDER THE ARCHITECT OF FORCES. YOUR NAME IS KNOWN.

The sound of her voice pressured him, coming from every direction, inside his own mind and out. His breath caught in his throat. To be acknowledged like this was a great honor.

YOU HAVE BEEN CALCULATED AS THE MOST SUCCESSFUL CHOICE FOR AN EXPEDITION OF GREAT IMPORT. TO BE THE EYES OF THE TEMPLE.

A research expedition? He’d not heard of anything being gathered, his mind spun with the possibilities.  “Of course, Administrator. I am honored to be chosen, though I do not quite understand… Which of my deeds and projects drew your attention?”

SOCIAL FUNCTIONALITY. EXPERIENCE WITH OTHER TEMPLES. PREVIOUS RELATION TO THE SLAYER PRIESTESS OF GREAT SAHKMIS, ARRIVING ON THE MORROW.

Hori blinked, he was not entering the sleep, and yet for a long moment the world seemed very slow indeed. Yes, he had traveled a great deal, far more than any but a disciple of Pteru, under his Father’s wing, but one of Sahkmis’ daughters, he’d only ever…

No.

Oh no.

“This is not a voluntary assignment, is it, great administrator,” he asked sadly.

IT IS NOT.

He liked to believe he could hear some sympathy in that crushing pressure that rendered itself as a voice. This was going to be a long journey, wherever he was being sent.