"Wake up! You must wake up!"
Urgent words plucked unwelcomely at Set's awareness. His head hurt; the closer he came to waking, the brighter the pain burned. He wanted to sink back down into the quiet darkness of insensibility.
"Please wake up, Set!" A cool hand shook his arm, and Set felt a vague twinge of outrage. Who was this stranger to command him, to touch his person? Him, a high priest of the royal palace, a personal guardian of the Pharaoh!
The Pharaoh...the thief! Memory rushed back to Set: discovering that fool Mahaad's plan to trap the Thief King, and unable to sway his fellow priest from his intended course, Set had fought Bakura alongside Mahaad. They had seriously injured the thief but had failed to destroy his Diabound, and during the struggle, Set and Bakura had tumbled into the pit beneath the former Pharaoh's tomb. Set remembered Mahaad reaching after him as Set fell, casting a spell that Set had never heard before, a spell of transport and safety. And then?
"Open your eyes!"
Set did so. Blackness and pain greeted him. His body jerked and he clapped his hands over his eyes, swearing like the fishermen in his childhood village condemning a crocodile for stealing their catch.
The girl who had woken him removed her presumptuous hand from his arm. "Oh, be still, you will hurt yourself further," she cautioned.
Set told the speaker in no uncertain terms where she could stick her advice. Heedless of his anger, the girl remained at his side, a cool, pale presence in a hot, dark world.
"Where am I?" demanded Set when he regained the ability to speak a language other than that of pain and rage. Mud and grass itched his back, while locusts and other insects filled the air with an endless, tuneless song. He thought he could hear water not far off. "Along the Black River?"
"Not far from the capitol," confirmed the voice.
Slowly Set took his hands from his face and opened his eyes once more. "I-I cannot see!"
"Your head is bleeding. The injury likely blinded you."
Set swore again, more at his general situation than at the speaker this time.
"It may not be permanent," the stranger suggested meekly once he'd run out of ways to curse.
"Help me. Bind the wound," Set commanded her. "I must not die."
"You won't die so long as I live, but I have no linen for bandages. I need to find some."
"There should be a dagger at my belt. Cut my cape; use that. Who are you?"
"Kisara," said the stranger.
Set had meant to ask what trade the woman practiced, what role she held in society; her name meant nothing to him. Kisara took Set's dagger from his waist and, after removing the cape from his shoulders, she began to slice the cloth into long, thin strips.
A thought occurred to the priest. "I had a treasure with me. A golden rod."
The girl wordlessly pressed a familiar metal staff into his hand. Dumbfounded, Set reached out with his meager remaining magic to confirm that, yes, he held the Millennium Rod in his grasp. Its presence constituted a small collection of miracles: that the Thief had not wrested the Rod from him, that the river waters had not swallowed it as they bore Set downstream, and that this strange woman-Kisara-had not stolen it while he slept. As Set marveled at the vagarities of his fate, trying to decide if the gods were punishing him or not, the girl worked on his bandages in near silence, only speaking up after a minute had passed.
"Do not fall asleep," she reminded him.
"I wasn't," snapped the priest, who nearly had.
"Speak with me. Tell me how I can help you next. You must be an educated person, to be dressed so well; you likely know more about healing than me."
Though a part of Set wished the girl would just shut up and let him pass out already, he couldn't muster up much annoyance at her talk: Kisara spoke quietly but clearly, without over-affecting humble speech patterns as commoners tended to do in Set's presence. Her voice was currently the only sound that didn't make Set feel as though someone was driving the pointed end of the Millennium Rod through his skull.
"First of all, rank carries no guarantee of intelligence. If you knew half the Pharaoh's court, you'd understand that," he snorted. "Second of all, my specialty lies in martial sorcery, which is rather the opposite of healing."
"You are a...witch?" asked Kisara.
Despite his sorry state, Set retained enough pride to feel offended. "I am a high priest of Kemet! I practice magic sanctioned by the Pharaoh, the worldly keeper of Ma'at. It is not witchcraft."
"Of course not," Kisara murmured quickly. "Please forgive me."
Her obvious embarrassment inspired a crumb of magnanimity from Set: "I suppose," he allowed, "an untrained person with little knowledge of the priesthood would have trouble telling the difference."
He heard a final tearing noise, then Kisara said, "I'm done making the bandages. I wish I had time to wash them first; the part of the river I found you in is not clean. But we must stop your bleeding."
Set had wondered about the foul odor hanging in the air. He gritted his teeth, vowing to drag Thief King Bakura through every sewer and garbage-heap in the palace-ideally before or during the leisurely process of killing him, but Set would settle for after if necessary.
"Do what you must," he muttered.
With his cooperation, Kisara maneuvered Set so he sat against a squarish boulder, then began to bind his wound. Set remained stoic in response to the brush of her hands over his head, but when a silken strand tickled his cheek unexpectedly, he jumped.
"What was that?" he demanded.
"My hair. I'm sorry."
Set covered his embarrassment with annoyance: "Use one of the bandages to tie it back. Why do you keep your hair so long? Don't you get lice?"
"I've cut it many times, but it grows back quickly. Lice don't plague me."
"Truly?" Set felt intrigued despite himself. Only years of training had strengthened his ba to the point at which it deterred such parasites. This girl may possess a naturally powerful soul. I wonder if a ka spirit dwells within her, he thought. Even if Set had possessed full command of his magic and vision, he would not have been able to discern the contents of the girl's soul on his own, as the Millennium Rod's powers ran more towards domination than revelation. Perhaps once he'd recovered enough to return to the palace, Set would bring the girl along for Shadaa or Akhnadin to examine.
"Are you hurt anywhere else?" Kisara inquired as she finished her bandaging.
Set's body hurt everywhere else, but... "Nowhere as much as my head."
Nervousness coloring her voice for the first time since she'd woken him, Kisara observed, "You will need clean water to drink soon. We'll find none here."
"Are we far from your home?" asked Set.
"I have none."
She was a vagrant, then. That raised more questions than it answered, but Set focused on the practicalities of their situation. "What is our distance from the closest well or settlement?" he asked.
"There is a small village half an iter away," the girl admitted, "but the last time I begged folks for drinking water there, they chased me off with sticks."
No act of human cruelty tended to surprise Set, whose duties included extracting literal manifestations of wickedness from criminals' souls, but the harsh treatment Kisara described struck him as unusual. To simply deny someone water was one thing; to spend time and effort shooing that person away was another.
"Why did they chase you? Did you try to steal from them?" he asked.
"No. It's only that I am very ugly. People think I'm cursed."
"You have a deformity?"
"I suppose I do, though it doesn't cause my body any difficulty...not like a hunched back or clubbed feet," she said.
"Well, at least one of us is relatively hale. I still can't see," muttered Set, unable to fully conceal his anxiety over the fact. If his loss of vision proved permanent, better that he should have died in battle, for what use was a blind guardian to the Pharaoh?
Abruptly frustrated with sitting slumped on the ground like a cripple, Set braced his palms against the stone behind him, making to push himself up onto his feet. His battered body registered multiple protests, and vertigo overtook him as he rose.
"Oh, no, don't...!"
Kisara spoke from his right side. Set swayed to his left in order to vomit up bile and river water. The agony in his head redoubled and he fell over onto his hands and knees, still holding the Rod. His skin went cold and clammy despite the midday sun.
"You musn't strain yourself. You'll pass out again," fretted Kisara.
"Yes, all right. Fine," rasped Set between painful coughs. His arms could barely hold him up; Kisara, seeing this, helped move Set back into his previous sitting position.
"I didn't mean to complain before. I'll get clean water somehow. But I must find you shelter from the sun first."
She sounded half-frantic with worry. It didn't make any sense to Set: what personal stake could Kisara possibly have in his well-being? If she feared retribution for allowing him to die under her care, she should have passed Set by without attempting to help him in the first place. Perhaps she was simply stupid.
"I'll fetch some leaves from a palm tree I saw not far away. If we lay them on the rock shelf above your head, they should shade you. May I use your knife again?" she asked.
Set waved a hand impatiently: fine. Kisara took the dagger and departed hurriedly upstream, leaving Set to recover from his latest bout of sickness in resentful silence. The indignity of it all, he seethed. To have been defeated by a crazy tomb robber, to be rendered a blind invalid dependent upon the mercies of a deformed simpleton!
There was something about that simpleton, though. Set realized that Kisara's voice sounded vaguely familiar to him. How did he know it? Did he truly know it? His head injury might be deceiving him.
"Fool," he muttered, not knowing if he meant himself or her.
Typically, the priest regarded solitude as a blessing which rarely visited him; his only regret about his rise to power was the lack of privacy that accompanied his position. Now, more alone than he'd ever been, Set found himself bored and anxious. His usual method to pass the time-constructing and calculating arithmetic problems in his head-failed to hold his attention as it usually did. The minutes crawled by; insects droned and sweat gathered on Set's brow only to evaporate just as quickly in the sun. How long did it take to gather palm leaves, anyway? he wondered.
"Girl," Set called lowly, grimacing at how his injured state had robbed his voice of its usual imperious authority; he sounded more crabby than commanding. "Are you near?"
No response came. After counting to fifty, he called out again, "Girl!"
Nothing.
Another minute passed, and Set leaned back against the boulder, wearied. His head throbbed dully.
"...Kisara," he whispered to the air.
"Yes?" the girl answered.
Set jumped, barely refraining from accidentally bashing his skull against the rock.
"Don't you make any noise when you walk?" he demanded. Relief and annoyance warred inside him.
"But you must have heard me approach," said Kisara, puzzled, "since you greeted me by name."
Set opened his mouth, then shut it again. "I only meant-moving that quietly, you risk frightening others."
"I do that anyhow," said Kisara. "Thank you, by the way. Your dagger was very helpful. I got the palm leaves. And..." She hurried to lay the dagger and a heavy bunch of oblong fruit in Set's lap. "Dates! The tree must have fruited late this season. I can't believe the river-birds didn't get them all. They'll help with your thirst, so please eat them."
Her high spirits rendered Set mute for reasons he couldn't qualify. Then her footfalls receded slightly, and the priest found his voice: "Where are you going?"
"I'm placing the leaves above you, like I said." Her voice came from the other side of the boulder.
"Are you...climbing the rock?" asked Set.
Kisara made an affirmative noise. Set realized that she must be holding the palm fronds between her teeth in order to keep her hands free as she climbed.
"Be careful," he cautioned, listening to her scramble up the boulder.
The girl made no reply, but soon, Set heard tell-tale rustling noises as Kisara arranged the leaves above his head. A couple times, she descended, gathered some river-stones, and used them to weigh down the fronds atop the boulder. "This way the leaves won't shift accidentally," she explained.
"And what would shift them? The non-existent breeze?" grumbled Set, but without much vitriol. The fruit and the meager shade offered by the fanned-out palm leaves had already improved his spirits a good deal.
Perhaps she's not a simpleton, he reflected while Kisara completed her task. The thought surprised him; he couldn't remember the last time he'd revised his initial opinion about someone. He revised it yet again, however, when Kisara let slip that she hadn't eaten yet.
"You didn't take your share of the dates before you gave them to me?" Set realized.
"You needed the food more," said Kisara.
"You're a homeless vagabond!"
"Yes, but I'm healthy enough, and I'm used to being hungry. You're injured, and you aren't."
Her calm explanation made Set irrationally angry. "Stupid," he spat. "If you falter, we'll both suffer for it. Eat the rest of these right now." He held up the mostly-consumed bunch of dates, which Kisara accepted meekly.
Set stewed as she ate. Is she really that foolish? he wondered of Kisara. No, she wouldn't have survived on her own if she was. She was probably just laughing at the over-indulgent priest eating like a pig!
"Dates are my favorite," commented the girl at length. "Do you have a favorite food?"
Sullen and resentful, Set blurted the first thing he could think of to cow her: "The hearts of my enemies."
For a moment only silence greeted his reply. Then Kisara laughed.
The priest's ears burned. He only ever tended to make women laugh when he said something impolitic at palace banquets and a noblewoman tittered to break the resulting tension. Uneven, unpracticed, and entirely without artifice, Kisara's laughter sounded nothing like that. She even snorted a little. Set entertained a brief fantasy of bringing her along to one of those awful banquets, if only to observe the court's collective reaction to her.
"You have a strange sense of humor," Kisara observed.
The initial pleasure Set took in her response made him suspicious, and suspicion made him defensive. "You're the one who laughed," he said more accusatorily than he'd intended.
This, too, Kisara took in stride: "I am strange," she agreed. Then she stood up across from Set. "I will go now," she announced, "to bring back drinking water."
A subtle vein of solemnity ran through her words; Set wondered if he would have been able to tell the difference in her voice if he could do anything but listen.
"You're afraid," he realized.
He expected her to deny it, but Kisara said, "Yes. I don't think the townsfolk will give me anything I ask for. I think they'll chase me away again, or beat me."
After a moment's reflection, Set removed one of the gold bands from his upper arm and held it out to Kisara.
"Don't ask, then," he told her. "Trade."
A long pause. Then: "I-I can't accept..."
"Why not?" demanded Set. "We need water. They won't give it to you freely, so we must give them something in return. This is as good of a bargaining chip as any."
"It isn't dear to you?"
Set snorted. "Trust me, there's plenty more where it came from. Haven't you heard that the very walls of the royal palace are plated with gold?"
"...You live at the palace?"
The wonder in Kisara's tone gratified Set more than he'd expected. He smirked. "I have my own suite there."
Slowly, the girl accepted his offering.
"I will come back as soon as I can, with all the water I can carry," she promised.
"In exchange for that," Set gestured at the arm band, or where he guessed it was, "the peasants should carry the damn water for you."
Kisara left. To busy himself in her absence, Set made himself a less obvious target for potential thieves. First he shed his belt and ornate tunic. Wrapping the remainder of his jewelry in the garment, he tucked the bundle underneath some stones that abutted one side of the boulder. In his blindness, he could only hope he'd hidden the bright blue cloth sufficiently. Unwilling to put his Millennium Rod so far out of reach, Set concealed it beneath his crossed legs, the fabric of his long kilt acting as a barrier. Clad only in the dirty shendayt, his finery shed, Set would with any luck appear too humble for any opportunistic passersby to bother with. He kept his unsheathed dagger in hand as an additional deterrent.
His appearance altered, Set reluctantly turned his attention to meditating. The wielders of the Millennium Items achieved their magical expertise through study, mock battles undertaken for training purposes, and meditation; generally Set felt he gained the most benefit from the second activity and the least benefit from the third. He failed to appreciate the irony of meditation being the only passtime available to him now. Grumbling to himself, he closed his useless eyes and attempted to empty his mind in order to better access the flow of his spirit-magic.
It was harder than it should have been. Set's thoughts kept returning to the Thief King. Irrationally, Set felt that Bakura had somehow survived the fight in Pharaoh Akhenamkhanon's tomb. Damn Mahaad and his ridiculous plans! It was his fault he was in this mess, Set thought, gritting his teeth in irritation. Mahaad got a pass from most people at court because he acted soft-spoken and even-tempered, but the priest of the Millennium Ring could be the most hot-headed and impulsive of them all. Also, he was an idiot. Set had always suspected it, but after this fiasco, Set knew it to be true.
He saved your life, whispered a small part of Set.
After endangering it in the first place, he argued fiercely. And his transport spell dropped me right into the Black River! I only didn't drown through sheer dumb luck.
Mahaad never demanded that you share his battle. He was fully prepared to die killing the Thief. Isn't that admirable, at least?
It only would have been admirable if he had succeeded, and he didn't. If I hadn't fought alongside him, Bakura would have overwhelmed him and stolen the Millennium Ring, and who knows what would have come of that...
Set blew out a frustrated breath. Thinking about it put him on edge-the opposite of where he ought to be, emotionally. He directed his thoughts back towards the task at hand. He had heard rumors that powerful magic-users could heal personal injuries faster with the right meditative techniques, but, preoccupied with combat magic, Set had never bothered to learn what those techniques might be. Mahaad probably knew the way of it; he enjoyed meditating, Set recalled. He wished now that he'd paid more attention when Mahaad and Isis prattled on about it.
When I get back to the palace, I'll force Mahaad to teach me, Set vowed, and in return, I may not yell at him for his incompetence as much as I normally would.
Eventually Set managed to center himself; where natural affinity would have failed him, years of discipline and a lack of anything better to do pushed his mind into something like quietude. The not-so-distant sound of the Black River helped as well. While Set usually thought of his ba as a fire lighting him from within, he now pictured it as a river, for just as the Black River connected and nourished the kingdom of Khemet, Set's ba connected and nourished his body, mind, and spirit. Set allowed each part of his being to fill his awareness in turn: his body was injured and thirsty, his mind, anxious and weary, but his soul felt relatively strong in spite of everything, reassuring Set that his magic would answer should he need to call upon it.
The radiant heat on Set's skin shifted as the hours passed and the sun sank towards the horizon. His long meditation produced no miracles: his injury did not magically heal, nor did his sight return to him. However, the pain in his head had eased somewhat by the time Set registered the chill of evening, and he felt a bit less feverish. When he opened his eyes, he thought he could discern more shades of darkness than before, but that might have been wishful thinking, as when maimed soldiers sometimes swore they could feel sensation in their missing limbs. Set exhaled, grimly resolute where he'd previously been despairing; permanent blindness was preferable to giving Bakura the satisfaction of killing him. He would return to the palace as soon as he had the strength to travel-he would crawl back, if necessary...
Soft but rapid footfalls approached him. Set's hand tightened reflexively around his dagger, and he raised it, tilting his head and stilling his breath to better detect the walker's location. As if sensing his awareness in turn, the approaching person paused. Then to the priest's relief, a familiar voice whisper-called, "Lord Set," from not far off.
"Kisara," Set greeted her, placing his knife aside.
More footfalls, and he could sense when she came into his space, breathing hard; she must have hurried to reach him before sundown proper.
"I got it," she told Set. "You were right. They even gave me a jug and a cup...the jug was a bit cracked but I patched it with mud. I've never had a cup!" Jubilant despite her exhaustion, Kisara placed something heavy on the ground next to Set, presumably the water jug she'd mentioned.
Set smirked. "Of course I was right." He listened to Kisara remove the jug's lid and carefully tip some water into the smaller vessel. However, when the girl took Set's wrist in order to guide his fingers to the lopsided cup in her other hand, Set's smugness fizzled, doused by the sensation of her unusually cool skin against his. It consumed his senses and stirred a memory he couldn't quite grasp. The priest cleared his throat in order to shake off his strange stupor. "You drink first. You had to carry it all this way," he said.
Kisara must have been truly thirsty, because she obeyed without protest. Then she poured another cupful for Set. As he drank, the priest decided that the water was the coolest, sweetest, most perfect thing to ever pass his lips. He couldn't resist a long, satisfied sigh after finishing it.
"It tastes like moonlight," he murmured without thinking.
"What?" said the girl.
Set could have kicked himself. Five hours of meditation had apparently enfeebled his mind. "Nothing! I didn't say anything."
"But..."
An onset of rustling noises interrupted her. As before, Set tensed and took up his dagger. Footfalls closed in around him and Kisara, grass and brush snapping under the weight of many sandaled feet. Kisara drew a sharp breath.
"You were followed," Set surmised grimly.
A nasal voice to Set's right complained: "Hey, I thought this guy was supposed to be rich. He don't look like much to me."
"Shut up, Khui," snapped a man immediately in front of Set. He addressed Set next: "You, rich man! Drop that dagger and tell us where you've hidden the rest of your gold, and we won't hurt you any worse than you already have been."
Set's hackles rose at the robber's superior tone and at the way his accomplices snickered at Set's battered appearance. His good sense won out, however. "I have a counter-offer," he said, baring his teeth in what he knew just barely qualified as a smile. "I keep my dagger but give you all the gold I have. In exchange, you and your men escort us safely to the royal palace, where you'll receive an even greater reward for having helped me."
Whatever response the robbers had expected, it plainly hadn't been that. Set could all but see the men exchanging confused glances in the beat of silence that followed.
"Is he serious?" muttered a new voice.
"He's crazy," said Khui. "There's no way he's actually from the palace! What's he doing all the way out here, if so?"
"That bracelet was the purest gold I've ever laid eyes on," said another man doubtfully. "Maybe he isn't lying."
"Even if he isn't, he'll just turn all of us in to the guards once we get there!"
As the men argued amongst themselves, Kisara whispered,
"I'm sorry, Lord Set. I didn't realize they had followed me."
She sounded so miserable that Set shook his head to reassure her. "Never mind that. Do any of them have bows and arrows?"
"No. The leader has a long knife. The rest have clubs."
Presently, the leader, the man who had told Set to drop his dagger,barked,
"Hey, you two, be quiet! Especially you, witch. In fact, get away from here! This has nothing to do with you."
At his side, Set felt Kisara stiffen. She swallowed, then declared with no trace of anxiety, "I won't leave."
The leader of the robbers hawked and spat. Kisara didn't flinch, but Set heard the glob of saliva strike her. He saw red.
"Leave her be!" he commanded in a tone that had made hardened murderers falter in the past. The man he'd addressed merely guffawed.
"Trust me, rich man, you're better off without that one. Your dick would most likely rot off after you stuck it in her. Maybe that explains your current state!"
Another round of mirth from the robbers.
"That's enough," Set pronounced through gritted teeth. "I'll give you one last chance. I'm not delusional, nor am I lying: I am High Priest Set, a personal guardian to Pharaoh Atem, the Living Horus, divine ruler of Upper and Lower Kemet. I sit at His right hand and in His name I wield the Millennium Rod against all who would do Kemet harm." So saying, Set removed the Rod from its hiding place and held it up for the men to see; perhaps they would recognize the Item, though Set doubted it. He continued, "I honor those who do me service, and I destroy those who stand in my way. Will you help or hinder me?"
Another moment of uneasy silence greeted his words. Then the leader of the robbers laughed.
"Bullshit! You're no fucking high priest. You talk fancy enough, but your accent's all dirt-eating peasant. You're no better than us!" he said.
Years of enduring jibes at court had largely inured Set to pointed remarks about his humble birth, but only insofar as those remarks came from jealous nobles who had been trained to look down on commoners since childhood. For an uneducated thug to hit on one of Set's primary insecurities blindsided the priest. His face burned with outrage and blood began to throb in his ears.
"Intef, maybe he's for real..." ventured one of the other men.
"Don't be stupid. He probably stole that gold from a tomb and got injured doing it. His loss; our gain. I'll have that scepter now, thanks," said Intef, and strode forward to claim the Rod.
Kisara placed herself between Set and the robber before Set could react.
"No," she told Intef. "You won't touch him."
At first, the dull soundof the man backhanding Kisara filled Set with a strange sense of relief, if only because it meant that Intef hadn't turned his knife on her. Then the ugliness of the act sunk in; Set's rage crystalized. He poured his spirit energy into the Millennium Rod, and the Item's innate power met it, amplifying and channelling the resulting magic into a bolt of pure psychic agony that struck Intef like a hammer-blow. Intef screamed, a horrible animal shriek that put Set in mind of a dying hare, and continued screaming as he fell backwards onto the ground.
Pandemonium erupted around Set and Kisara. Most of the would-be thieves fled, their shouts of witches! witches! growing fainter as they retreated. However, two of the men rushed at Set, who picked up on their approach and conjured an illusion in their minds with the Rod. Seeing Ammit the Eater of Hearts barrelling hungrily towards them out of the dark, they screamed and fell over themselves in their haste to get away from Set and Kisara's section of the riverbank.
Set had never before used the Rod in this manner. Even without Priest Akhnadin's frequent warnings against doing so, something in Set rebelled at the very idea of magically manipulating another person's mind. Still, he felt no regret as he returned his attention to Intef. He could not see him, but he heard Intef twitch and sob, and through the Rod, Set sensed his fear. Slowly, unsteadily, the priest rose to his feet and walked forward until he stood above Intef.
"I am better than you," he said, tone clipped and cold. "Men like you rob and enslave and burn villages. Men like me stop you. Though, granted, I don't get many opportunities to stop criminals before they do their damage. I mostly just punish them after the fact. The other priests can be a bit squeamish about punishment, as can the Pharaoh, if you want to know the truth. But I never am, because I know what your kind are capable of. I lived through it." Casually, Set removed the Rod's outer sheath, revealing the sharpened blade at the bottom of the handle. "I should stop you now. I should stop you permanently, before you become something that someone else has to live through."
Still caught in the throes of pain and terror, Intef could only squeak vaguely in response. Set hated him in that moment more than he'd ever hated anyone, save for the men who'd burned his hometown.
"I should stop you," he repeated, half to himself.
"Set," rasped Kisara.
The priest startled. At some point, Kisara had risen from the ground and come to stand beside him. She touched his right arm. As she did, Set realized he was gripping the Millennium Rod so tightly that his hand and wrist muscles shook with it.
"We need to leave this place," she said. "The men who ran away may bring others back."
Set stood dumbly for a moment, teetering on the edge of an abyss he hadn't realized he'd approached. His attention shifted from her cool fingers to Intef's pathetic sniveling and back again. Then, with a sharp exhale, he nodded.
Kisara guided him back over to the boulder. They gathered the bundle of Set's valuables, the cup and water jug, and the knife Intef had dropped. Kisara took the jug and Set tucked the rest under one arm. The night had fallen quiet in the wake of the robbers' chaotic retreat: the only sounds came from singing locusts, croaking frogs, and Intef, who continued to whimper softly on the ground. Set used the Millennium Rod to make him sleep so he wouldn't know which way they'd gone.
"Would you like to spit on him?" Set asked Kisara, shoving the Millennium Rod into the waistband of his kilt.
Kisara considered for a moment. "No," she decided. "It would be a waste of water."
This time, Set reached for her. She grasped his hand and, without any further comment, she led them away into the dark.