An empty throne stood on a dais, a gilded wooded chair with a flail and crook carved onto the back. A man the siblings did not recognize stood behind the dais, but Iskandar sat on the second step, where he had said was his place.
Upon seeing him, the duo ran to him, giving him a hug and trying to get a banter going about his leaving them. They kept up a façade of teasing, but they were mainly trying to figure out what had happened to the girl.
This attempt went down the drain, however, as the strange man behind the dais made a fuss at their behavior, even though Iskandar was smiling at their chatter.
"What is the meaning of this?!" he ranted in a heavy French accent as he stormed to the front of the dais. "Such disrespect! You should be ashamed of yourselves!"
"Desjardins," Iskandar said calmly as Machaela and Jesse hid behind him from the crazy stranger. "Machaela and Jesse have lived with me for two years now. They have no reason to be formal."
"You are the Chief Lector!" Desjardins started again.
"A fact of which they are well aware," Iskandar cut in, then switched to Greek, "Though I am beginning to wonder if you remember it." Desjardins stilled. "Leave it be," Iskandar continued in Greek. "They are children, and they know me. They have not been formal in the two years, and I do not expect it from them now. I will teach them that when it is needed. You may go."
Desjardins left stiffly, and Iskandar turned back to the siblings as Sofia chuckled behind her hand.
"Who was that?" Machaela asked after ensuring she spoke in English, warily watching Desjardins' retreating figure.
Iskandar sighed. "Michel Desjardins, second most powerful magician. He is also quite a stickler for rules, and very prideful. Stay respectful, but avoid him whenever possible. I do not want him to have a chance to harm you. But anyway," he changed the subject, "I believe I owe the two of you a game of Senet."
Machaela and Jesse both made as if to speak, but Sofia spoke up first. "Before you do that, you need to hear about their challenge, and I believe they had something they wanted to ask you, if their chatter a moment ago was any indication."
Iskandar looked through them with all the knowledge of a parent catching the child in the cookie jar, making the siblings gulp before quickly shaking their heads.
"I see," Iskandar said. "We can speak back here."
He led them behind the dais to a camouflaged door, which led to what appeared to be a strategists' room, though rarely used. Machaela and Jesse explored the small room while Sofia relayed what had happened at the chasm. When she finished, Iskandar turned to Machaela.
"You cannot translate the words, but you can use them for spells?" She nodded, and he seated himself to think on it. "The only explanation is that you were simply born with the ability," he eventually said. "We have a woman who is a natural diviner and a man who is a natural sau. Why not a natural with Divine Words? Sofia is correct, though. This is not a natural affinity you want to advertise. However, those good at Divine Words usually have a secondary skill at which they are inherently decent, and this skill is usually something related to what they already enjoy doing."
"I like to build stuff," she replied.
"That, you do. You managed to rewire a toaster earlier this year."
Jesse snickered. The toaster singing "Old McDonald" had won them a prank war.
Iskandar smiled gently and said, "Have you ever experimented with shabtis?"
Machaela looked at him askance before replying slyly, "You haven't taught us about shabtis yet."
He gave her a look. "That's not what I asked."
Machaela looked at him innocently, but he didn't let up. He had used shabtis in front of them many times, including for pranks. She finally slumped in defeat and held out her hand to Jesse, who shook his head. He pulled a misshapen wax figure from one of his many pockets and handed it over. "This is as far as I've gotten," she said as she handed it to Iskandar. "You don't want to activate it. In fact, please don't activate it without letting us put in earplugs."
Jesse shivered. "I didn't want to know those words, and I definitely don't want to know what they mean."
"Oh, really?" Iskandar replied, possibly not understanding their reference. "Unfortunately, I must activate it in order to correctly gauge how far you have gotten. This room is soundproof, however. How about you step outside a moment?"
"Gladly," Machaela said. Jesse was already out the door.
When they came back inside a minute later, both adults' faces were a bit red. Iskandar cleared his throat, uncomfortable. "No, you definitely do not need to know what those words mean. This is relatively simple to fix, though. Check your magic. You have done a couple spells recently, and one of those was rather large."
"I can do a few more before I'm in the danger zone," she replied.
"Okay, then. You want to correct the shabti."
Machaela took out her staff to use the magic stored there instead of her own reserves and concentrated. "Phakri." The wax figure glowed, then changed shape, turning from a misshapen humanoid to a Doughboy look-alike without legs.
"Congratulations," Iskandar told her, a smile on his face. "You now have a shabti. You can program him later. And Jesse," said boy wiped the slightly jealous look off his face, "you will not prank your sister in any way that results in a change of ownership of her shabti. Understand?" Jesse nodded. "You will learn to make one when she finishes hers."
Machaela hurriedly shoved it into the Duat (Iskandar had taught them how to store items in the Duat long before) as he continued.
"Now, I know there was something else…" He trailed off, trying to remember. Machaela and Jesse, knowing where this was going, shook their heads. "Ah! You had a question for me. Might it have anything to do with a young girl found alone in a village?"
They had been shaking their heads through most of his speaking, but as he got to the end of the question, they slowly stopped. They didn't want to lie, but they certainly didn't want to admit they had been eavesdropping. They kept quiet, which was actually an answer by itself.
Iskandar smothered a grin. "I thought so. How about this? If you tell me how you watched, I will take honesty into your punishment—" He broke off and stared at them a moment, then crossed his arms. "You were planning a prank in retaliation for my leaving so quickly, were you not?" They slowly nodded. "I guess I should have said something before leaving. I will grant you that. No prank and tell me which spell you used, and we will call it even and you may meet the girl later. Deal?"
They exchanged an amazed glance, not expecting his leniency, then nodded furiously. "Deal!"
"Start talking, then."
Machaela shrugged. "It was just a summoning spell," she answered.
"We reworded it to include the city name, plus speak, open, and hide," Jesse added. "It was easy."
"It appeared like a shimmer in the air, then showed you like scrying without the bowl and oil."
"How much did you see?" They looked at each other nervously. "You know the consequences for lying," he warned.
"It picked up as you climaxed the hill at the village, before the Cerberus snake saw you," Jesse finally answered.
Iskandar, about to reply to that, suddenly realized what he had said. "The Cerberus snake?" he repeated, eyeing them in a manner that made them wonder what was wrong.
"Yeah," Machaela answered. "Like the three-headed dog in the Greek myths. The creepy snake had three heads."
"How long have you been reading the Greek stories?" Sofia asked, sharing a look with Iskandar over the siblings' heads.
The duo shared a look. That question was full of landmines. The two were, of course, still hiding their language fluency. "About a year," Machaela answered, trying to be honest but not forthcoming. "We started reading the myths after hearing someone speak the language, and it went from there. The myths are interesting." Machaela hoped her phrasing let the adults assume they had heard it in Greece, which they had visited about eight months before.
Iskandar studied them a moment before replying, determining their perspective. He finally accepted that they were simply interested in the myths as stories, not as truth. "Very well. You may be interested in a collection of myths from various cultures in our main library. Sofia or I will find it for you later. For now, though, let us finish that game. Now that we are back in Egypt, my schedule will pick up and we may not have as much free time as we have in the past."
A few hours later, as Jesse was coming from behind to win the game and the book, Sofia delivered a message from an aide at the door.
"She's awake."
Iskandar looked up, raising an eyebrow in question.
"And itching to get out of bed," Sofia added.
He nodded, but finished the game before standing. Knowing good and well that the siblings would follow him no matter what, he waved them along as he walked to the infirmary.
Machaela and Jesse, even while trying to take in their surroundings, made sure not to lag behind. The infirmary was two buildings down from the Hall of Ages, and quite a bit bigger than they were expecting. Twenty or thirty beds lined the walls, which were covered with modern hospital equipment.
Two beds were occupied, but only the closest curtain was open. Machaela and Jesse peeked in to see the young girl from the village sitting on the bed. She had a small frown on her face, but she quickly erased it when Iskandar walked over.
He addressed her in Arabic, calling her Zia and asking how she felt, which reached the limit of Machaela's knowledge of Arabic. She and Jesse had stayed at the doorway, close enough to hear but far enough to give a semblance of privacy.
The girl, however, looked mystified, and answered him in quiet English. "Who is Zia? What language is that?"
Iskandar looked slightly concerned and sat on the end of her bed. "You told me your name was Zia when I found you," he answered her in English. "'Zia Rashid, daughter of Amal and Rana Rashid.' And you spoke in Arabic then. Do you remember any of that?"
The confused look on her face morphed to sadness. She shook her head.
"Do you remember anything at all?" Iskandar asked her gently. She shook her head again.
He started talking about the attack, keeping his word choice vague and simple and telling her about how a farmer in her village had accidentally released a monster, which destroyed the village. When they got there, she was the only one left. "I found you in the fire pit under a pile of reeds. You told me your name is Zia and you are eight years old. Your mom had hidden you in the reeds before she went to help your dad fight the monster." Throughout his account, she had listened attentively, but without a spark of remembrance. Even hearing about it had not jogged her memory.
When he finished the story, he gave her a moment to respond. When she didn't, he said, "I would send you back to your village, but the monster destroyed it completely. You can stay here, if you like."
Machaela and Jesse had to use extra effort to stay quiet at this. They both thought it would be awesome to have a friend. Zia had a question first, though. "Where is here?"
So Iskandar explained about the House of Life, magicians, and magic. Zia took it all rather well, but he didn't know whether that was because of her memory loss.
"So if I stay here, I'll become a magician? And I could kill the monsters?" she asked when he finished explaining.
"Yes, I am sure you would make a fine magician," Iskandar replied. To bolster her spirits, he added, "You may even learn to control one of the elements, like fire. You do not have to stay here, though. There are other places I could take you, if you prefer."
Zia had made up her mind. At her quiet, "I want to stay here," Machaela and Jesse were hard pressed to stay quiet.
Iskandar smiled. He knew what the small noises coming from the corner meant. "There are two kids here who would like to meet you. How would you like to explore your surroundings while I set up a place for you to sleep?" She nodded hesitantly, and Machaela and Jesse hurried over from the doorway. Iskandar, however, stopped Machaela on his way out. "Stay out of the Hall of Ages," he told her, "and do not touch anything. Meet Sofia at the bridge in four hours." After she agreed, he left and the three introduced themselves to each other. Though Zia was noticeably shy, she hesitantly agreed to explore the First Nome with Machaela and Jesse.
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