Indigo Tantarian: Thanks again!
Monoshiri: The "Pharaoh" thing was kind of a joke to myself from the twenty-third or so chapter of Three in One Combo, whose author, Indigo Tantarian, gave me permission to use Ankh and Scale in this story. According to her, Scale bears a considerable resemblance to Shadi, only he's more... yami-ish.
Alex Warlorn: Actually, I'm not sure why I put Koumori Dragon in the story. I mentioned her a few times in Crisis of Faith (in which she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder) and I guess I felt like writing her as something other than a traumatized elective-mute.
And regarding Rex getting the Millennium Scales- I guess I shouldn't have gone to the trouble of thinking up supposed-to-be-funny disclaimers. I made one up for chapter seven or thereabouts saying something to the effect of "The day I own Yu-Gi-Oh is the day Rex gets the Scales and sends Weevil to the Shadow Realm." The idea got stuck :) And didn't Pegasus have issues? Sure, it could be argued that he shouldn't have received the Eye, but he got it anyway, did he not?
DISCLAIMER: Look out the window. If you see flying pigs, then I own Yu-Gi-Oh.
Eleven: Puzzles and Chocolate
November 5-6, 2003
"Yeah, Seto?"
He had selected the location for the discussion carefully; it wound up as his own bedroom. He sat on the bed and Mokuba joined him somewhat reluctantly. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," said Mokuba, but his eyes told the truth. "… you."
"Me?"
"Yes, you, Seto." Mokuba began to fidget. "You see, Seto, I got an message, and it had you talking to Haku and…"
Seto nearly ran out and cut off Jane's power source right then and there.
"… and you were really mean to him. Seto, you didn't use to be like that."
"Who sent the message?"
Mokuba looked down. "Can't tell you. But it wasn't Haku. Definitely it wasn't Haku."
"Oh really."
"Really."
Before Seto could continue to try and worm the identity of the sender of the message out of Mokuba, the floor began to swirl. As they gaped and Seto tried to figure out whether to call the police, the fire department, an ambulance, or possibly a psychiatrist, a turban emerged from the center of the swirl, followed by the head on which that turban was wrapped.
Definitely a psychiatrist, he decided.
***
"Dar?"
Dar looked up from the tiger's eye, which he had
resumed playing with. "Yeah?"
"… you're not going?"
Pause. "No," said Dar. "I'm taking a leaf out of
Job's book. I'm not going back there. He can come and drag me back if he
wants to. The size of that if is quite possibly tremendous."
"If he wants," said Rex, "and if he can get past
me first. I am going to do what I should have done way earlier."
The Scales glowed. "It had better," said Scale,
"include me. And you'd better say thank you for it. And give me chocolate,
too. Or I'll send you to Anubis!"
Rex rolled his eyes and went for his bag. "Fine."
Scale's eyes widened. He grabbed the giant candy
bar Rex produced and with one gulp there no longer was a giant candy bar.
Dar blinked. "I thought you said you were too old
to do that."
"I am," said Rex. "But I liberated some of the leftovers."
"You mean there are more?" Scale yelled, blue eyes
darting back and forth (they were around the same shade as Dar's other
half, Rex noted). "Where are they? Where are they? Tell me!"
They were interrupted by Rex going to the door and
reassuring his parents that yes, it was just something on the radio, a
special feature or something; then he was saying oh yeah, fine with me.
Then, when they had left satisfied, Scale's yelling resumed. Dar started
toward the Scales again, and he stopped as quickly as if he really were
just a voice on the radio and the plug had been pulled.
"What was fine with you?" Dar asked.
Rex shrugged. "Thanksgiving break. Lake Tahoe. They
were just telling me in extreme advance, actually remembered the short-notice
rule."
Dar nodded, comprehending. The Raptor family had
gone to the same location last year; Dar hadn't been there, but Rex had
shown him the pictures (though Dar still failed to comprehend the concept
of Thanksgiving, and finally Rex had explained it as an excuse to call
off school and eat like hungry dinosaurs). "The half here or the half in
Nevada?"
"Both."
Scale began to bounce on the bed. "What's Lake Tahoe?"
he asked in a trying-to-be-bored tone. "Does it have chocolate?"
"Nah," said Rex, "it has several tons of snow. And
another couple tons of wind."
"Snow?"
"Really cold stuff," Dar supplied.
Scale groaned and sprawled on the bed. "I knew that,
weakling." Then, as Dar's eyes began to go purple again, "Back off, freak!"
He growled. "I am going to kill that idiot for putting me in a family of
lunatics. Who would want to go tramping around in that stuff?"
Dar crossed his arms, and his eyes slowly returned
to their proper color. "Not you, evidently. But he seems to like you. Birds
of a feather, I guess."
"It had better not be in that way. So. Give me the
goods. What unlucky mortal is going to Anubis very, very soon?"
***
Chihiro slid a piece into place and smiled as she
looked over the result. It had been less than a week and the puzzle was
already halfway completed. Then again, she had far more time to work on
it than Mokuba could have had.
She had honed her appetite for the things on a few
simpler ones that Jane provided. She missed seeing the big picture's emergence
as she drew closer to the completion of her task, but this was a true challenge.
There was no hint as to where the pieces should go in relation to one another,
no image scattered between several pieces so those had to go together.
Yes, quite a challenge.
Another piece went in. She went over the connections
between pieces, giving a few of them a gentle push into their places, making
them settle near-seamlessly into a white expanse.
The door opened; it was not in her line of view.
Ryuunosuke, most likely, coming to ask if there was anything he could do
for her. She lowered her face even closer to the puzzle to make it clear
that no, there wasn't anything he could do for her. He had done this several
times before; always those times he had left in a short time and shut the
door behind him.
Chihiro waited, trying several different methods
of joining another pair of pieces and then when none of them worked trying
it again, but she didn't hear the door close.
"Excuse me, Lady Chihiro." No, that wasn't Ryuunosuke.
She turned and immediately added to her mental file
of identification the silver hair and blue eyes and dark lines. "I must
ask Ryuunosuke," said Chihiro, "if he had any relatives who might have
possibly gone as well. You seem more like him every time I see you."
"I apologize."
"I didn't mean it that way. I apologize."
Cassiel had near the same expression that Ryuunosuke
got whenever she said something like that. According to the cards they
were both spellcasters of the Dark Attribute. Only she got a different
feeling whenever she looked at Cassiel.
Maybe, she reflected, it was because she respected
power. Cassiel's numbers, while still inadequate against her in a simple
battle, were over twice Ryuunosuke's numbers. Simply put, maybe she was
being completely shallow, liking Cassiel for his numbers and for nothing
else.
She saw something in his hand- he saw the movement
of her eye, and he held the thing out in plain view. It was a card, and
Chihiro could read the words at the top.
But it wouldn't matter if his numbers were higher
than those of Obelisk the Tormentor; tamper with the card, and to Masters
he was absolutely worthless. And she had the strangest feeling that that
was the difference. Besides the low numbers (and those were the fault of
Maximilian Pegasus; Ryuunosuke could hold his own far better than the twelve-hundred
attack power implied) there was absolutely nothing wrong with Ryuunosuke's
card.
Then again, there was nothing wrong with her card
either.
Besides, of course, the fact that I am now Master's
second best even in the deck. In the entire world, it's more like eighth.
With Kuriboh being the seventh.
After a certain point, she guessed, it no longer
mattered. The ones down there probably (after all, she wasn't one of them)
didn't have to worry about maintaining their positions, since they were
too low on the Masters' good-card hierarchy to care about going up or down
by a little bit. But up here, where all could see, a slip of one or two
slots might as well have been a hundred.
***
Shadi, there are more of them in here!
Shadi took a moment to get his bearings in the room,
quickly identifying the two people originally in the room. Which ones,
Ankh?
Lord of Dragons, and… by Ra, he wished for all
three Blue Eyes White Dragons!
Shadi managed to refrain from a frustrated groan.
Now he had to be even more diplomatic, lest the dragons take offense.
"I apologize for the intrusion," he began.
Kaiba folded his arms. "Apology accepted. Now get
out."
Shadi sighed, just a little bit. Apparently he would
have his work cut out for him. "I must discuss something with you- both
of you."
Shadi! There's someone else.
Another one?
A Dark Magician- not the Pharaoh's Servant, a
different one. That's strange… I didn't believe he had a Dark Magician
in his deck.
Perhaps it was one of those cousins the Pharaoh
spoke of, coming for a visit.
"Okay," said Mokuba Kaiba. "What do you want to
discuss?"
"I encountered a person," said Shadi, "whose desire
for justice was so great that it combined with the desire for justice of
his strongest Duel Monster to create a call for the Millennium Scales."
Kaiba's arms grew even more tightly folded. "And
what does this have to do with us?"
"The Scales can be deadly if wielded correctly."
Shadi's hand went to his belt to pull it out and hold it before them, but
then he remembered he was no longer in possession of the Scales. "And I
would prefer that the balance be brought back to normal with a minimum
of deaths."
"So," said the younger Kaiba, "you gave him something
that can kill people and now you're coming to us to try and straighten
it out before he actually kills someone? That makes no sense."
Shadi sighed again. "The Millennium Ankh tells me
that the Scales' new chosen believes you allowed a cheater to go unpunished."
Mokuba's eyes widened. "Judging by your reaction, I believe you understand
what I refer to."
Mokuba groaned. "I tried to explain, but they wouldn't
listen!"
The word caught his brother's attention. "They?
Who is 'they'?"
"It's like this. Someone called Dar De-La-Angry
or something got an appointment with me to get Rex Raptor back in the tournament,
'cause he thought the guy who beat Rex was cheating. But then, see, I found
out he was actually Serpent Night Dragon."
Shadi recalled what he knew of Serpent Night Dragon
and nodded. "I see. Go on."
"But, you see, the guy who cheated was already out
of the tournament."
An eyebrow arched over a blue eye. "Mokuba, would
the person who eliminated the cheater be named Yugi Motou by any chance?"
Mokuba shook his head. "Joey Wheeler. But you see,
he was still going around with Rex's rarest card which he shouldn't have
had."
"And apparently," said Shadi, "you made it clear
that he would continue to go around with that card for one reason or another.
For if you exercised your power to return the card, they would not want
justice so badly."
One hand gestured towards the bed on which the owner
of the bed was seated. "Go on. This could take a while."
***
"I thought," said Cassiel, "maybe you could understand.
I thought maybe there was a place for me here, if there was no room elsewhere.
I apologize."
"What," said Chihiro, "exactly what, do you have
to apologize for? There is plenty of room here."
He didn't have a reply to that. Instead, he changed
the subject. "Were you working on that?" Namely, the puzzle.
"Yes," she said, "I was. Would you like to join
me?"
Eyes set in motion by his remaining qualms moved
their full range to both the right and left, avoiding her gaze. Then they
settled fully on her. Cassiel smiled and she knew what he would say even
before he opened his mouth.
And then she heard the door close.
***
Chihiro had asked him to work on the puzzle with
her. And Ryuunosuke knew what that meant.
Bad day bad day bad day.
She had been five or so years younger Before, but
even then she stuck to her word. When I do a puzzle with someone, she
said, and that someone is a boy, you had better believe I love him, at
least for then.
He had always known it was a foolish hope, had always
known in the back of his mind that there was absolutely no chance that
she would ever ask The Question. Before he could always fool himself, believe
despite what was in front of his mind's eyes that someday Chihiro would
ask him to do one with her.
But Ryuunosuke did not get along with puzzles. He
generally preferred everything laid out nicely, no obstacles, no challenge.
For her, of course, no challenge meant no purpose whatsoever. Once, a long
time ago, Ryuunosuke had tried to force himself to like them, had told
himself he was duty-bound to like them. He had wound up with even greater
ill will toward them than he had had previously.
Now it couldn't be denied. Now it was shoved right
before his eyes, not just his mind's eyes where it could be explained away,
but in his physical eyes.
He stopped and leaned against the wall outside the
door to Jane's room, looking at its smooth blankness, nothing to distract
him. The message he sent to Mokuba- could that have been it? Chihiro was
nothing if not loyal; had she interpreted it as an insult to Seto Kaiba's
authority? He'd thought he was making things better, really and truly.
But were things really and truly better? He'd seen
how Mokuba had been pointedly ignoring his own brother during dinner- had
that been a result of the message as well?
"I pledge in the name of Tiamat," he muttered, tears
making their presence known, "I will never think I am making things better
again. I will never try to make things better again."
He felt pressure on his shoulders- the pressure
that was probably exerted by a hand. "You pledge in the name of Tiamat?"
said Haku. "According to everything we learned together, she died in the
name of making things better, setting things straight. To pledge to never
try to make things better, to pledge it in her name, is practically blasphemy."
Ryuunosuke nodded as he recalled the lessons. "I
never can get things right."
"Don't be ridiculous. Everyone has to get something
right."
"Except for me."
Haku's voice developed a sharp edge. "Listen, Ryuu-chan."
Ryuunosuke jerked around, half-expecting to see Haku Snow at six years
old again- that was when he had stopped using the nickname. "That is the
most stupid excuse I have ever heard."
"I- I didn't think of it as an excuse."
"Of course not," said Haku. "It's the kind of thing
you think would be a virtue. And I admit everyone else, not to mention
those stupid numbers, didn't exactly discourage this misconception." The
pressure grew, turned into a pull. "But let's get this straight. It wasn't
your fault about those numbers. I know they're half what they should be.
It wasn't your fault about Pegasus or Mokuba or that freak. It wasn't your
fault about Obelisk. It wasn't your fault that you have no spine." Ryuunosuke
couldn't exactly deny the last statement.
"None of that," and Haku took a deep breath, "was
your fault, Ryuu-chan. Kimi wa wakarismas ka?" Do you understand?
Ryuunosuke nodded and replied in Japanese as well.
The words had been near-forgotten through years in Egypt, but when he wanted
them, they came. "But, the message…"
Haku smiled. "Oh, I forgot. Thank you." Ryuunosuke
started to open his mouth and protest, say that he didn't deserve that
honor, but one look at Haku's expression and he concluded that wasn't the
best thing to say. "Even if things aren't really and truly better- and
I think they are- they're the way they should be."
Another nod. Chihiro's brother, at least, thought
he had done something right. That was something.
***
"I see," said Shadi. "A severe misunderstanding,
indeed. But tell me, why did you wish for the Blue Eyes White Dragons?"
Mokuba crossed his arms, looking very much like
his brother. "I just did. I didn't think they'd actually turn up. What
d'you want me to do? Send them all back?"
Shadi took it slowly, trying to avoid unleashing
strong feelings. "That is a definite possibility. I understand it must
be hard to think of them living in the Shadow Realm for the rest of eternity-"
"Hard to think about it?" Mokuba cut him off. "Sapphire's
just about as old as me, and you're saying I ought to send him back and
let him rot back wherever he came from! Why?"
Shadi sighed. "Pegasus may have underestimated the
true strength of a considerable number of monsters, but the Blue Eyes White
Dragons were and are in the upper ranks. In ancient times, the Shadow Games
threatened to destroy Egypt and then the rest of the world."
Blue eyes glared. "I've heard this story before.
And what do you mean by 'underestimate'?"
"That's a fair question," said Shadi, countering
Seto Kaiba's glare with a well-practiced deadpan expression. "You see,
many of the monsters were considerably stronger than the numbers on the
cards imply. Celtic Guardian and Lord of Dragons, for example. And even
a Kuriboh is capable of killing an ordinary human, even though it might
sustain severe injuries. I do not believe I need to describe to you what
one of the dragons is capable of."
One eyebrow arched. "Tell me anyway."
He sighed. "The apocryphal tales of the Shadow Games
tell of a Blue Eyes White Dragon rescuing the High Priest and the Pharaoh
from an assassination attempt. It is said that it leveled several residences
in the process."
The Kaiba brothers looked like they expected their
own residence to be leveled shortly after Shadi finished the sentence.
Then Mokuba said, "But Sapphire's my friend! He'd never do something like
that!"
"Perhaps not deliberately, but even the best of
intentions may translate into-"
Mokuba shook his head. "Are you listening to yourself?
You might mean good things, but you are not sending back Sapphire, or the
others either. Not unless they want to."
Shadi, that sounds reasonable enough. They haven't
done any harm, after all. Shouldn't we go see what Scale is up to now?
After all, Blue Eyes White Dragons obviously don't have red eyes.
Good point, Ankh. "I apologize for my indiscretion.
I will be departing now."
***
"Anywhere between three and four, or a little after
seven," said Dar. "Any one of those you can wangle, go for it. I'd recommend
after seven."
Rex nodded. "After seven, then. Friday okay with
you? Easier to explain it off that way."
"Yeah, Friday's fine with me."
Scale sulked. "That long?! Make it sooner, or I
might just send off someone else. Like you!"
"Scale," said Dar in an extremely patient tone,
"we are already incredibly stretching the already-suspended disbelief of
Rex's parents. I would rather not make it snap before the end of this.
Or even after. And his sudden disappearance would do a lot more than just
snap it."
"What," said Scale, "they bother to notice the absence
of a little dog like you?"
"Don't push it," Rex growled.
Eyes shifted to blue. "Well, if there was only one
little dog and it had been around for fifteen years, wouldn't you notice
if it were gone?"
"They wouldn't have noticed," Scale muttered, "if
I'd managed to break every single thing inside of me that could be broken.
Even if I robbed tombs they wouldn't have noticed. Why should they've noticed?"
Dar (his eyes had returned to red) and Rex opened
their mouths and the exact same monosyllable word emerged from each. "What?"
"Nothing!" He glared. "You didn't hear anything,
got that?"
***
"Hey!" Esper yelled. "It's time!"
All the Roba brothers congregated in the living
room. Glasses were passed around, and Esper produced a plastic gallon container
of milk. The game had grown out of necessity after the refrigerator had
gone and they had to finish it in two hours or less or risk food poisoning.
Necessity still had something to do with it, but now fun played a bigger
part.
"Okay, get Kyo's first." That was done. It was only
fair- the baby couldn't participate, after all.
"Ready… begin!"
Charlie managed to get hold of the container first.
He dumped so much into his glass that it actually went a little bit over.
Tommy grabbed it next- Danny could have done so, but he was the only member
of the family not interested in the game. He poured so much some of it
spilled on the carpet. Then Danny had it, taking his time and ignoring
the glares from Charlie and Tom, who had mostly finished their first gulps.
Finally, it passed to Esper. They continued this until the container was
empty.
"Four glasses," said Charlie. "I win!"
"Three and a half," said Tom, "but mine were fuller
than yours."
"It doesn't count if you spill it!"
Meanwhile, Kyo had finished his share (with some
help from Rigel- and not in the here-I'll-drink-it-for-you department)
and had made it quite clear that he didn't think it was enough. Esper handed
over his half-finished glass; Kyo seemed to be satisfied with this.
"Hey," said Tom, "d'you know where Dar went off
to?"
***
"I have a claim on the bed." Sandy folded his arms.
"'Sides, I'm younger than you."
"You had it for two nights straight already. And
you'll always be younger than me," Geoffrey protested, "unless he wishes
for Time Wizard and I don't think he'll be doing that anytime soon."
"Come on, please?" Whereupon Sandy clasped his hands,
tilted his head to one side, and unleashed his ultimate weapon- the Big
Blue Sparkly Cute Eyes That Would Rival Those Of A Toon In Size And Clobber
Those Of A Toon In Sheer Sparkly Cute-ness.
Geoffrey resisted them for a time, but submission
was next to inevitable. "Fine," he muttered. "Just tonight. I didn't think
a minute on the same field with them would teach you that much."
"You should talk," said Sandy. "You're the one who
got ferried 'round by them in that new game."
"You think I had anything to do with that?" Geoffrey
snapped. "They got whatever card they wanted when they wanted it in the
new game! I was not involved!"
The sparkly cute-ness had faded. "Like you weren't
involved in those things with Lava Battleguard, and Brendan, and the Time
Wizard…"
Geoffrey calculated the probability of successfully
carrying out the thing he was about to attempt. Pretty good, he decided.
"Things were different there. And on second thought, I rescind my previous
words on the grounds of new circumstances. I claim the bed."
Sandy was quick, but even so he banged into a closed
door.
The room was definitely not at its best. Joey's
father, its previous occupant (since his eviction via Jade he had taken
to sleeping on the lawn; fortunately for him the nights were unseasonably
warm), had left alcohol bottles all over the floor, not to mention spilled
some on the bed. It had taken quite a while for them to clean out the bottles
and wash all the bedding, and it still smelled strange. They couldn't take
out the carpet and wash it, after all.
Geoffrey looked back at the vibrating door. "Sandy,"
he yelled, "I hope you remember where all that dragon treasure is, because
you're going to need it when you break it down. Do you expect him to pay
for a mess you made?"
Sandy apparently decided he didn't like that idea.
The vibrations stopped. "Thank you."
He lay on the bed and continued the train of thought
that had been delayed by the events immediately following its inspiration.
Dar had been amazed, not to mention jealous, when Geoffrey had recounted
the events in the new game.
So they really touched you? And they carried
you, too? No fair!
You are a dragon. You don't need carrying.
Still, it's no fair.
He recalled the botched summoning shortly after
Dar's card changed hands. And, of course, the circumstances of Dar's changing
hands. "What, exactly," he muttered, "is yes fair?"
***
"I didn't think," said Cassiel, "that it would be
finished in such a short amount of time."
Chihiro brushed back a strand of hair. Just a few
more shades toward silver, and it would have been exactly the same color
as Cassiel's. But he liked it just the way it was. "Neither did I. Simple
mathematics. If it takes such-and-such amount of time for one person to
carry out a task, it takes half the time for two people to do it. It is,
indeed, simple mathematics, excluding several vital factors as it does."
"Vital factors?"
"Such as whether or not the abilities of the two
people are equal."
Cassiel was afraid to ask, but he did it anyway,
thinking of Aaron as he did. "Were they?"
"Not only that," she said, "but whether their abilities
coincide with the task at hand. Whether they can work well together, that
is." She held up a hand before he even began to speak. "And, yes, I believe
that in this case, that factor definitely made a difference."
Despite the fact that Cassiel had to define their
relationship as at least knowing one another, he was surprised that she'd
actually say something like that. It seemed far too blatant a hint for
someone like her to make. This must have shown on his face, because the
next thing she said was, "You didn't think I'd say that."
There was no point in lying, even a polite lie.
"No," he said, "I didn't think… you were a person to say that. Because…
well, you are-"
She kissed him.
Not on the mouth- that would have been too much.
But a kiss was a kiss, and this one surprised Cassiel so much that he almost
pulled away. Almost.
But almost wasn't the same as is.
She took several steps backward and looked him up
and down. "Well," she said, "did you think I was a person to do that?"
"… no."
"Good, because I'm not planning on doing it in the
extremely near future."
He almost kissed her back. Instead he said, "What
about just the near future?"
"That sounds good to me."
***
After his traveling through time zones (not to mention
the week before these events had been quite hectic) Shadi was in serious
need of sleep. Therefore, he delayed checking up on Scale to Thursday (and
he did not dismiss the possibility of Friday) and paid a visit to Isis
Ishtar's residence. She was a good deal more surprised than Shadi had expected
when he gave her the reason why he no longer had the Scales with him.
"The Millennium Scales changing owners was not in
the visions," she said. "Now everything will change."
She lent Malik's old bedroom to him. It had been
clean and gutted of any disturbing possessions of his (Shadi resisted the
urge to ask if she'd seen the necessity of doing this in the visions),
and any fatalistic thoughts of its previous occupant were overcome by his
sheer exhaustion.
He began to conduct research in the morning, first
checking the newspapers for any updates on the Abnormal Incidents he had
learned of. Just some more stupid speculations which made use of words
that Shadi was pretty sure were just stuck in to sound impressive. There
was nothing new under the sun in that department.
He backtracked to Saturday and Sunday, and there
he found another pair of Abnormal Incidents, though those probably didn't
involve Serpent Night Dragon. It was time, he decided, for some firsthand
information.
So he went to the hospital (the security was now
even higher), using the same trick of life-force suppression to get past
the staff and into the right room.
Pegasus was the first person in the hospital to
see him. "I do believe," he said, "that there are Duel Monsters running
around in Domino, and violent ones. Is that why you came to see me?"
Shadi allowed himself a smile. "Pegasus," he said,
"the way you talk, I can't help but doubt that you really did lose the
Eye."
***
Dar, unlike Rex, did not have academic records. So
instead he paid a visit to the library (taking the Scales along- it would
be truly rotten if some moron happened to break into the house and run
off with them), where he read up on dinosaurs (it was at this point that
he discovered that the Duel Monster Trakodon wasn't a Trakodon at all)
and found some very interesting books dealing with justice and ethics.
He checked out a stack of those on Rex's library card.
Justice, he discovered, was supposed to have an
awful lot to do with objectivity. But these days, as Before, it wasn't
really that objective. Judges and juries made decisions that were generally
based on what they thought was right (and some of the examples of
what they thought was right made Dar want to scream at the idiocy of the
human race right in the middle of the library).
The Scales, for example. They were supposed to weigh
the heart of a person depending on the purity of their soul compared to
a feather; they were supposed to be completely objective. Indeed, Dar had
found fault with the original proselytizer who had told them (though Michael
Gaia, the probable intended target, had definitely not been listening)
that the purity of a soul was judged depending on how many statements attesting
to their virtue they could truthfully make. Dar had wondered what they
would do to a criminal who refused to make those statements and said straight
out that he had committed crimes.
"Probably," Scale groused, materializing beside
him, "then he would go marching merrily along to eternal bliss and nobody
could lay a finger on him. That happened right when I was going to send
that tomb robber to Anubis. The little worm he'd taken over-"
Dar felt a somewhat-amiable changing-hands of the
body that he had settled into the habit of referring to as his. They had
reached an accommodation of sorts- Dar got primary custody, and the knight
(like Scale, he refused to reveal his name from before) got to smash insects
and talk to Scale. "Go on, what did the little idiot do?"
Scale was evidently encouraged by his audience.
"He said oh please oh please don't take him because all he wants to do
is fight the Pharaoh… it took his answer instead of the tomb robber's.
And guess what?"
Dar wondered what would happen if the Scales took
the answer of one of the younger Robas.
"Hey," said Scale, "where's the rest of that chocolate?"