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  In a cat's eye, all things belong to cats.

  ~ English Proverb

  A Pinch of Chaos

  Christine Lucas

  Starving yourself isn’t going to save him, Khemes wished he could tell Ankhu. He wanted to grab him and shake his grief away, but no one—not even his trusted servant of many years—dared such insolence toward the High Priest of Anubis. Instead, Khemes offered him once more a simple supper of dried fish, bread and beer.

  “Please, neb-per. Please, my lord. You need to eat.” When had his face grown so pale, his shoulders so slumped?

  “I am not hungry, Khemes.” The voice that could—and had—commanded the dead had grown low and weary. “Give it to Ne—” his voice faltered—“to some unfortunate beggar.” Give it to Nedjem, he’d almost said. But the poor cat, slayer of frogs and sparrows, would never eat anything again. Not even a twitch of his whiskers, not even an inquisitive sniff at the scent of fish. He lay on Ankhu’s bed, his breathing labored, littered by the occasional attempt to purr when Ankhu stroked his fur. After a long, pampered life—longer than those of his predecessors—the time to embark on Ra’s Solar Barge and travel to the Afterlife had come.

  “As you wish, neb-per.” You will see him again, he wanted to shout, but his tongue was harnessed by an old promise.

  Khemes bowed and took the meal back to the kitchen, where two of Nedjem’s soon-to-be-widows took care of it. There were fresh loaves of bread, baskets of figs and dates, but even the jugs of Mareotic wine had lost their appeal. Dragging his bad leg—damn that old, stubborn wound—Khemes made his way back to his master’s chambers. He treaded slowly, carefully, to avoid tripping over Nedjem who loved napping where it was most inconvenient. He wiped his eyes before entering the room; it would take a while for his body to accept the absence his mind already knew.

  The breeze carried the choir of the frogs and crickets all the way from the Nile, along with a whiff of honeysuckle. Outside, Nedjem’s usual hunting grounds were bursting with life. Inside, neither man nor cat seemed to notice him, as he entered the room. He poured water into a mug from the alabaster urn by the window and offered it to Ankhu, who just shook his head. Khemes sighed and sat on a cushion under the window, rubbing his aching leg. It would be a long night.

  Troublesome dreams denied him any kind of rest that night; Apep, the Serpent of Chaos, gloated over his fallen enemy with the soft paws and sharp claws, defeated not in combat, but from age and disease. Khemes started from his sleep with a gasp at first light. Damned be his tired mind and old bones, he’d dozed off and left his master alone in his hour of grief. Ankhu sat hunched at the foot of his bed, clutching Nedjem’s body on his chest.

  Khemes cupped Ankhu’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, neb-per. You did everything you could. Let him go now.” Empty words, he knew it. But he had to say something. He had to do something. And he would. In time.

  “No. I cannot. Not yet.”

  Three times Khemes tried to gently remove the cat’s body from Ankhu’s arms, and three times he failed. This was not good. He’d never seen his master so distraught before. Perhaps he should call someone? Perhaps—

  “Fresh water.”

  “As you wish, neb-per.”

  He sprang to his feet at Ankhu’s request, and the sudden movement rekindled the burning ache in his thigh. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t read or write his own name—despite Ankhu’s valiant efforts over the years. But this much he knew: healing always began with water. Cool water from the sacred Nile, to wash away whatever ailed body and soul. He rushed to the kitchen for a fresh jug and when he returned, he found Ankhu donning his priestly garb: the long, white robes, the collar of multicolored beads and the leopard skin over his shoulders. Once the High Priest had quenched his thirst and washed his hands, Khemes helped him apply the kohl around his bloodshot eyes. With the dead cat a tiny parcel wrapped in white linen in his arms, Ankhu left for the per-nefer, the Pure House, for the embalming. Khemes followed him, holding a parasol over his master’s head to protect his sensitive skin from the scorching sun.

  When Ankhu placed Nedjem onto the stone slab to prepare him for eternity, Khemes leaned by the wall, drenched in sweat and lightheaded. It was too much: the smell of embalming fluids, the incense that failed to cover the stench of putrefaction, the feeling that Duat’s guardian demons stared at him from every shadow, from every corner and crevice—he wanted out, out, under the sun, away from all this death. But he gulped down the bile and rubbed his gut to calm his heaving stomach. The High Priest needed no distractions while he performed the ritual. He needed someone to watch over him quietly. Loss of sleep and fasting had taken their toll.

  How could Ankhu’s hands be steady, holding the scalpel? How could the linen bandages unfold so effortlessly? How could his eyes be dry? This was his trusted companion—from kittenhood until his death last night— he was cutting open. The terror of sparrows and fishmongers, the cat whose paws had trod the paths of the dead beside his master, and the beloved of novice priestesses. His master’s guard against intruders, Nedjem had often alerted him of the presence of ghosts and foul entities, even burglars—Cretan thugs who had no idea whose house they’d broken into. The idiots were probably still running.

  He, too, would miss the rascal. Nedjem took great joy in pestering Khemes, who’d lost track of the times he had cleaned up broken pottery and shredded linen, replaced figurines and cutlery and dried fish stolen from the pantry. Then, he’d trot purring at him and rub his head against Khemes’ bad leg, and all would be forgotten. And now, he had to take care of his grieving master who’d fasted and stayed awake and recited prayers that brought no comfort. Ankhu’s final service to Nedjem would come to an end, once he’d placed the small mummy into his family’s tomb by his mother’s sarcophagus. Then, Khemes’ own task would begin.

  A boring task. At dusk each day he waited by the city gates for the mute priestess to come into town and show him the way. A lonely task—he sat with a jug of beer at the feet of a great granite Sphinx, where he had first met her many years ago. A silent task, for only two others knew of it: a mute priestess and a dead cat. He needed magical skills to start a conversation with either of them. Bast knew he was as mute and deaf when it came to magic.

  Three months and countless jugs of ale later, Ta-miut, the priestess, hadn’t come. Ale lost its appeal, his household duties suffered, the other servants complained. His master barely noticed, sometimes in deep prayer, sometimes reciting incantations that summoned the dead. He lost weight. His long silences and wandering thoughts while in Court and Temple drew attention. Rumors spread of all sorts of maladies ailing the High Priest: insanity, senility, even magical ailments from consorting with the dead, the undead and whatever lay between. One night, Khemes found him sitting with his back rigid on his bed, stroking Nedjem’s cushion beside him. He hadn’t let anyone wash it or throw it away.

  “Why hasn’t he come to me?”

  Khemes almost dropped the tray of food he’d brought. He’d seen his master tired, sad, even desperate, but never defeated.

  “The spirits of long-dead pharaohs and sorcerers have come at my command, but not him. Why? Did I fail him?” Has he forgotten me? Ankhu didn’t speak those last words, but Khemes heard them lingering in the cat-less room around them.

  Because he’s not dead, you idiot, Khemes wanted to shout, but held his tongue just in time. It was not his truth to tell.

  “When did Nedjem—or any cat—come when commanded, neb-per? Do not despair. He’ll come in his
own time, as in life.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.” Ankhu fixed his gaze on his lap. “Perhaps…”

  Enough was enough. Khemes dropped everything at the kitchen, grabbed his walking stick and a water skin and made his way to the city gates. Grief he could deal with. It was normal. Feeling like a failure was not—not for his master. The failure was his and his alone, for waiting so long to take matters into his own hands. He’d track down Ta-miut and get this over with. What if his absence was noted? When he’d return, he’d bring Nedjem with him and all would be back to normal. Ma’at—Harmony and Balance—would be restored once more in his master’s home.

  Even if that required of him to force the hands of the gods.

  Ta-miut resided in a remote shrine of Bast half a day’s walk south of Thebes. Nothing more than an old, broken-down statue, a worn tent and countless cats in a clearing by the Nile. No one knew where she’d come from; she’d walked into Thebes one day from the desert, her tongue cut off and her bare feet bleeding. Her talents for healing earned her a place in the Temple, but she preferred her solitude amidst fur and paw. She’d aided noblemen with their wounds, servants with newborns, even an old, crippled servant weeping for his master’s dead cat almost two decades ago.

  Khemes knelt amidst the reeds to throw water on his burning head. It had hit him hard—he never expected to care for anyone else so much, least of all a cat. The memory of that grief would follow him to his deathbed and beyond. So would the memory of Ta-miut’s clear blue eyes—eyes of a princess from a faraway land—on her wrinkled face that day at sundown. As Ra’s Solar Barge began its nightly journey, she held her index finger to her lips. A secret. Between the two of them. She took out a pouch of ground herbs from the folds of her dress and blew them to the breeze, then pointed at that direction. Go.

  His thick—and tipsy—head hadn’t understood at first. A shove at that direction by her bony hands helped a little. Her kick got him going in search for Bast’s blessing. Or Bast’s prank—that much was still unclear.

  Where was she now?

  With his gut in a knot, Khemes started walking alongside the Nile again, picking figs from the nearby trees as he went. Their sweetness brought a welcome relief from the bad taste in his mouth: sand and heat and worry. Ta-miut was old. Old people got sick. Old people died. Nedjem would be lost, if something had… A horsefly landed on his cheek and he slapped it away, a little bit too hard. Such thoughts attracted bad luck. Good thoughts only. Ta-miut was well, only distracted with the birth of many litters. Or by aiding some spoiled princeling with his wounds from hunting or sparring. She’d be under her tent by the shrine, just over that cluster of palm trees, with her arms full of kittens. And she’d be well and happy.

  Only she wasn’t.

  She couldn’t be, when two of her cats ran past him under the acacia trees, growling, ears twitched back and eyes wild. The sound of metal on stone followed. Men yelling. Cats hissing. More cats fleeing. Khemes fell flat on his belly. Robbers? Deserters? Whatever those men were, he was no match to them. He couldn’t be. He should go back and alert the guard. Yes. That’s what he should do. If he could crawl around with as little noise as possible, they wouldn’t notice him. He’d be safe—

  An arm’s length away, a sand-colored cat cowered by the trunk of a palm tree under a thick fern. A young cat, barely a year old, the poor thing sat trembling. It looked at him with eyes huge and unblinking, judging him. Not just this cat—all cats, Nedjem amongst them, were judging him through those eyes. Perhaps even Bast herself. Should he leave now, one day his cowardly heart would be weighed and found heavy. His face fell in the dirt. Damn. He should have learned by now that forcing the gods’ hands came at a cost.

  He discarded the water skin and clutched his walking stick tighter—good, sturdy wood. It might crack a few bones. He started to crawl forward, toward the clearing, over fallen palm tree leaves, shrubs and rotting fruit. More cats were hidden all around him and watched his crawl in silence. Someone yelled in a tongue unknown but vaguely familiar. Khemes hunched behind a thick palm tree and dared a peek around the trunk. Ta-miut curled up by the remnants of her tent, sniveling. Two bandits. Hairy, dirty bastards. Foreigners, most likely. One paced around cursing, one sat on the ground, leaning against the feet of Bast’s statue with a badly wounded leg. Very badly. It oozed stink and black blood. He’d seen such wounds before on corpses spewed by the river. Neither by sword nor axe, neither by man or lion, but from a crocodile’s jaws.

  Khemes’ stomach roiled. Breathe! Breathe! He turned around and sat straight against the trunk, gulping down hard to avoid hurling. It’s not your leg, old fool. He rubbed the deep scars up and down, hard enough to hurt—to remind his shivering body that he had survived his encounter with one of Sobek’s children. Thanks to Ankhu. The High Priest had kept his soul from leaving his body while the healers worked to mend him, cutting off the rot and sewing what was left. That thug over there would not be so lucky. Even Ta-miut’s skills couldn’t help him now.

  “Fix leg! Now!”

  The thug spat the command with a heavy accent. That accent…hadn’t he heard it before in the tavern? Cretans. Could they…could they be the fools who’d broken into his master’s home several weeks ago? If so, then something much worse than a crocodile had mauled that one. Even if she had the skills to mend it, Ta-miut would never dare to undo the High Priest’s handiwork. He was already dead. Khemes flexed his fingers around his walking stick and tightened his grip. If the gods favored him, he could deal with the other one. A good hit would knock him out long enough to let them flee to safety and alert the guards.

  Khemes propped up on his stick and rose behind the palm tree. In the clearing, the injured thug lay motionless at the feet of the statue, flies buzzing all over him. The other one towered over Ta-miut, brandishing a dagger over her, cursing in his native tongue. With one eye swollen shut, Ta-miut cowered by a broken-down pillar—a remnant of the shrine’s past glory—one arm covering her head, clutching her Bast amulet on her chest with the other.

  The thug had his back turned on him. If he could sneak up on him…Khemes left his hiding place and took slow, careful steps forward, wielding his stick like a woodsman’s axe.

  “Fix! Or I kill mau! All mau!”

  Khemes froze. What. Had. He. Just. Said?

  Ta-miut fixed her good eye on the thug, her face unreadable. Then, she screamed. A deep, steady scream. Not a helpless crone’s terrified cry, but a warning. Some things should never be uttered.

  Hail, Hetch-abhu, who comest forth from Ta-she, I have not slain those belonging to the gods.

  His master’s voice, joined by the voices of those who came before him and those who’d follow, resonated inside Khemes’ skull, reciting the words of the gods. All around him, countless eyes lit up, green, yellow, amber, huge and unblinking. Watching. Waiting. Measuring his steps until his stick crushed the bones of the blasphemer. Khemes tightened his grip. This time, he marched on.

  “How dare you?”

  He blurted out the words before he could harness his tongue and warned the thug, who turned around just in time to avoid getting his head cracked. The tip scraped his shoulder instead, and–damned be his bad leg—the ill-balanced hit almost made him lose his footing. Flailing his free arm, he stumbled past the thug and managed to stay on his feet, until the thug rammed him from behind with his elbow and sent him face first in the dirt. He rolled over just as the thug jumped him, dagger in hand. More out of reflex than skill, Khemes’ arm darted out and caught his wrist while his other went for the thug’s eyes. The thug went for his throat. He squeezed. And squeezed. Air hunger burned Khemes’ chest. His eyes watered. Not yet. Not like this.

  Ta-miut screamed again. Deeper, louder than before, it penetrated the buzzing in his ears. Not a warning this time, but a call to arms.

  Cursing and howling, the thug released his throat. Khemes kicked him and crawled a few paces back, panting and blinking tears away. Ta-miut’s cats had come to his
aid: they pounced on the thug, aiming for his throat and face. On his knees, the thug tried with one hand to reach the cat that clutched onto his back, while throwing punches around with the other. Most of them hit empty air. Some did not. Cats hissed and growled and charged. Some of them retreated whimpering, limping, breathing hard.

  Khemes forced himself up and reached for his discarded stick.

  The cats darted off just in time to allow the thug a moment of wide-eyed clarity as Khemes swung his stick. The thug bent backwards to avoid the hit, but not fast enough. It broke his nose. The second swing clashed with his skull, above his ear. Bones cracked and he fell sideways, blood spilling from his nose. He lay on the ground, his eyes fixed somewhere past Khemes, his limbs twitching and trembling.

  For one long, breathless moment, Khemes leaned on his stick. Was it over? Oh Bast, let it be over now. He was too old for this. Now, he needed ale. And bread and a nice hearty supper with roasted perch and radishes and onions and leeks. He needed his bed to rest his old bones and his aching leg. But he also needed that rascal Nedjem back, so his master’s soul-sickness would be lifted. He drew in a deep breath and limped to Ta-miut’s side.

  She sat amidst her cats, humming softly, stroking their fur and tracing limbs and bodies with nimble, careful fingers for fractures. He sat beside her under the watchful gaze of the more suspicious of her cats. The bolder ones just climbed on his lap and shoulders. She flashed him a toothless smile.

  “I’ll take you to a healer,” he said. A few paces away, the thug’s convulsions had subsided. Rosy froth came from his mouth. “After I’ve taken care of those two.”

  Her grip on his arm was soft but steady. She shook her head.

  “You don’t want a healer?”

  She shook her head again.

  “And those two?”

  She glanced at the bodies. Then, at the cats. Then, toward the Nile. Then, back at the cats. Then, straight at him, her good eye cold and merciless.