''The Judgement of Maat'' Chapter 1
This is my first fanfic. Please tell me what you think and/or review,
well-placed criticism is always welcome :)
Out of breath, the man ran close to the buildings, casting panicked glances over his shoulder from time to time and keeping the package he carried hugged close to his chest. Each time he looked back he saw no one, the streets being empty at this late hour of the night, but he could have sworn he sometimes saw the flash of a shadow or heard very faint footsteps. He had felt threatened for a while and his plump body was heavy, not used to running but rather comfortable seated behind a desk with ancient books and artefacts. He carried on, his fez tilting on the top of his head and his dark robes dancing around his ankles. His large fingers clad with rings clinged to the package as he kept running through the empty streets of Jerusalem. As he rounded the corner of an empty warehouse he understood why he could not see his pursuer. The roofs.
A shiver ran down his spine. Sweating, he stopped in his tracks and dared himself to look up. The last thing he saw was a figure dressed in white descending upon him. Neither did he feel the weight of the other man landing on him nor did he feel the razor-sharp blade dive into his neck. He was dead before he reached the ground, before he could even scream, before the blood even started to soil the fabric of his clothes. The plump man's hand fell open when it hit the dirt road, letting go of the package with the faint sound of metal.
The assassin stood over the man, one leg on each side of the corpse. The reddened blade at his wrist retracted itself and his silver eyes studied the victim's face. The latter was in his sixties but his hair had remained just as raven dark as his eyes staring dead and empty at the sky. His skin was far darker than the usual in Jerusalem, and the assassin had only seen this kind of clothes a few times before. He guessed the victim was from the north of Africa, probably Egypt.
He closed the victim's eyes and mouth, stepped away from the dead body and concentrated about what the Egyptian had been carrying. It had fallen out of the thick red fabric protecting it and gleamed in the light of the few lanterns left burning in the street. The assassin picked it up. A weighing scale, each plate about the size of the palm of his hand. The craftmanship was egyptian and the metal seemed to be pure, flawless silver. The fine face of a woman was carved into the metal and under it were some hieroglyphs the assassin could not read. Another glimpse of precious metal caught the white-clad man's attention. Narrowing his eyes under his hood the assassin walked to its source, still holding the scale in his left hand which lacked two thirds of the ring finger.
Having picked up the second object, he studied it. It was a feather, shining in the lights like the most precious gold and as soft as the purest silk. The scale and the feather seemed to fit together somehow, and the assassin began to wonder if they were not the real reason why he had been ordered to kill this man, as they obviously were ancient items of great value.
He had no idea why he did it, but it seemed logical to him at the time: he placed the feather on the right plate of the scale. Suddenly, the eyes of the carved face opened, white and empty and the lips parted, speaking a language the assassin did not know. Even though they were not understood the words were harsh, angry, and the assassin was not in the streets of Jerusalem anymore. He was at a place he had never seen before, which looked like an egyptian temple and was lit by enormous roaring fires lined at the walls.
He tried to move but realized that his hands and feet were chained tight to the pale coarse wall behind him. What worried him the most however, were not the chains. It was the fact that another him was standing a few feet away. His other self seemed a little transparent though, like a spirit, and he could do nothing but stare at him wide-eyed. A woman was seated in a high throne of stone to his right, tall and slender. She wore a simple white dress, and a large golden egyptian necklace as well as several thick bracelets rested on her dark skin. Her black hair was cut squarely at her shoulders, a golden headpiece shining on her forehead and holding the feather. Her face was the same as the one on the weighing scale: proud, with high cheekbones. Her eyes were intimidating, white with no irises, which made it difficult to know exactly where she was looking.
The assassin watched in silence as she stood up from her seat, head held high. A few gestures of her hand and the floorstones in the middle of the temple began to rearrange themselves into a hole, from which the weighing scale immerged. It was a lot bigger than when the assassin had handled it, but it was undoubtedly the same. Another gesture of the woman's hand invited the assassin's other self to step forward and into one of the plates, and the feather flew gracefully towards him to land into the other plate. The plates balanced at the same heigh for a moment, then, the one with the assassin's twin began to sink to the floor. The woman's eyes narrowed to thin slits.
When the plate could go no further the feather flew back to its mistress. The assassin's heart skipped a beat as the scale transformed itself into a demon, the metal arms holding the plates changing into paws of flesh and bones. A clawed fist held a firm grip around the waist of the other him, who just stood there, immobile and straight-faced. The creature was an enormous shape with the paws of a lion and the head of a crocodile. Its body was partly covered in short yellow hair and green scales, and its face was little more than vicious yellow eyes and a long, enormous mouth of sharp fangs. From the drooling beast came a hollow laughter and the floor opened again, this time into a bottomless, fiery abyss. Still laughing and holding the man, the demon half hopped, half ran to the hole and disappeared in it, flames licking the walls of the pit.
As his avatar vanished along with Ammit the assassin felt as if he suddenly was ripped in two, as if his skin was torn from his flesh in one single brutal tear. His heart beat faster than it ever had and his body was covered in sweat, sticking his clothes to his body. He was hurting everywhere from the inside, like his very bones had caught fire. He threw his head back in pain, and the chains rattled loudly as his muscles shoke when he held back a scream.
''No!'' he yelled when he managed to catch his breath, although he was not sure of what happened to him.
''Silence!'' the woman spat, coming up to him, her iris-less eyes nailed to his face.
He now understood what she said, even though she spoke a language completely unknown to him.
''Who are you?'' he asked, still out of breath, throat burning.
''I am Maat,'' the woman answered with her deep, slow voice. ''I am the goddess of justice and judgement, and it is I who lead souls to their salvation or damnation.''
She paused, her mouth drawn in a strict line.
''You took the life of an innocent man, Son of no one,'' she accused, ''then you touched the Scale that brought you before me to be judged for this crime. What was taken by the Devourer was your soul, for your flaws weighted heavier than the good in you. However, the burden of taking the man's life also rests on other shoulders than yours. The ones who hired you will be held responsible, and I will offer you the chance to righten the wrong. What cost you your soul, Son of no one, is your lack of humanity. You have lost it, your fear, your love and your remorse.''
She paused again.
''Anger and defiance have been your only allies for years, but you are not dead yet. Become human again, Son of no one, and your soul shall be restituted to you.''
In a blinding flash of light the assassin was back in the streets of Jerusalem. Everything was as he had left it, as if he never had been gone at all. The corpse of the Egyptian was still lying at the corner of the warehouse, blood oozing from the deep wound in his neck to pool on the ground.
The loss of his soul affected the assassin throughout his whole life but he did not change. Never did he love anyone. Neither did he feel fear when his life was on the line nor did he feel remorse for the ones he took.
His time in this world was up. More than sixty years had passed since he had lost his soul to the monster and the abyss, and he had failed the task that had been given to him. Again taking the Weighing Scale and the Feather in his hands, he took a long, deep breath. They had not lost their beauty, glowing in the candlelight like they just had been polished. He placed the Feather on the plate and felt himself drawn into the temple again. Maat sat in her throne, majestuous and magnificent as before.
''You failed'' she said simply.
''Yes.''
The assassin felt something fill him, something he had lost little by little. He was not dreaming, but he knew from the beginning that this still not was his soul being returned to his body. It was youth. His back straightened itself up, his eyesight became what it once was. He watched in awe as the wrinkles on his skin disappeared, the years and the old man's weariness being carried off his shoulders. The Master Assassin's robes became the ones he once wore, simple and white, and he stood before the goddess, the exact same man he had been many decades ago.
A hint of a smile played with Maat's lips.
''So let us try again.''