Chapter 28: May You Become Crosseye'd and May Your Breath Stink

            His head hurt and his throat was sore and he… he’d been drugged!  Drugged and apparently bashed on the head by someone who didn't rely on the drugs to keep him under. How crude. But effective. He struggled to sit up, to move on his own, but his limbs weren’t working at all under his command.  He tried to speak, to make a sound. Nothing.

            How dare they treat the avatar of Re like this?! How dare they?  Re… who had been called ‘Nedjes’ by his mother before he’d been taken up by the God… was an inviolate avatar!  How dare these… these… beasts lay violent hands on him?     Re cried out in his mind for his power, to manifest in all his glory. He was all of five years old and knew how, after all.  But nothing happened. He couldn’t even open his eyes.

            “The priest said we must hurry.” It was a voice he didn’t recognize a nondescript voice that could have belonged to any man of the lower kingdom. The voice that answered his was equally bland.

            “He’ll be merely human for another few days. We have time to dispose of him far, far away from the source of his power.”

            “And we won’t be responsible for harming an avatar of the Sun.”

            “Not unless you do something stupid and accidentally cut his throat.”

            “I only knicked him when I stripped off his Gold of Honour.”

            Pray that I never see your face you damned sheep tick, Re thought savagely.  That was when he realized that he was on a surface rockin steadily back and forth, a steady metronome swing. But it stank too badly, just under his wrapped nose, for it to be a boat.  Camel, he thought.  These sons of… sons of… he thought for a moment.  What was the worst curse he could imagine? Without his powers of course he couldn’t make it true, but the wish had to be real.  Ah. May these two be afflicted by Set’s body lice. May hair grow thick all over their bodies like monkeys, especially out of their nostrils and ears!

            This is Nierth-Amun's plan. He got all of Us. I bet he did. He could feel cold across his back, so it must be night. His mother's hand soothing on his back, but still the perfect time to sneak the avatar of Re out of AEgypt.  But he had a sinking suspicion that they were looking to lay him out on the sand, outside of the borders of the country, to be drawn back up to the Sun, by the Sun.  In the deep desert that wouldn’t take very long.  After all, he was little, even for a five year old.

            Re set in the darkness of his own mind, still thinking up as many creative curses as he could. …anal warts… and foot rot… may your breath stink and your teeth fall out…