Page 9 of Ra
“Fine, suit yourself. Go back downstairs, return to the wall, and live the next three thousand years needing to pee.”
His arrogant demeanor seemed to deflate and he looked at her sincerely. “I can’t. It’s my chance. It’s our only chance. I wished for it daily for so long that I’ve lost count of the days. All I can be sure of is that I’m alive. Beyond that, I have no idea of what is next.”
“Use your powers.”
He looked at his hands hanging loosely at his sides. “I have none.”
“They might come. Just keep trying.”
“I plan to. But for now, I am as helpless as a human.”
“I hate to break it to you, but I think you are human.”
Ra looked down at his feet covered in the dust and sand blowing across the parking lot. He looked at the object she’d gotten out of, then he looked at her. “Take me with you. I do not know where you go, but it is my desire to live, just once more before I must return to those of my kind. Let me see the world. Let me see all that has transpired in our absence, then I’ll do all I can to return to whence I came.”
“How do I know you’ll keep your word?”
“You don’t,” he said honestly.
“I think that’s the first absolutely true thing you’ve said to me,” Azi said.
“No, actually everything I’ve said has been true, at least as I knew it to be at the time I said it.”
She looked toward the tomb and its two guards still standing outside, pretending they didn’t see them. “There’s not exactly a place for you to hide away in there.”
“There is not. And I will be no trouble.”
Azi stood looking at him, feeling the resignation in his demeanor. He knew he didn’t have long to be here and just wanted to experience a little of it. “Alright. Let’s go. I’ll show you what I can before you have to leave.”
“You will?” he asked, with a bare trace of a smile gracing his lips.
“I will. As you so graciously pointed out when you asked me what an Egyptologist is, I’m probably one of the only people alive that can help you understand all that you see.”
“That is my thought, as well.”
She turned her back on him. “Come on, get in. We’ve got to find you some clothes and shoes, and then we’ll see what happens next. But you can’t wander around dressed like that.”
She got in her car and put it in gear, waiting for him to get in so they could drive away. She looked over at the passenger side through the window, not seeing him anywhere. She glanced in her left side mirror and saw him standing there outside her door, simply watching her.
She put her car in park and got out. “Why are you just standing here? Get in!”
“I tried! You closed yourself in the small object, preventing me from entering!”
She shook her head in disbelief as she took him by the hand and led him around to the passenger side, opened the door and stood there as he very gingerly half-sat on the passenger seat.“This is soft,” he said, bouncing just a little on the seat with a surprised smile.
“Yes, it is. Now, put your feet in, like you saw me do.”
He looked up at her, his smile wide and happy as he nodded and put first one foot, then another onto the floorboard of the vehicle. She closed the door, causing him to jump, then went around to the driver’s side and got in. She put the car in drive and pressed on the gas, pulling out of the parking lot and onto the road that would lead to the highway to take them away from the Tomb of Ra and the gift shop and food stalls that had risen up around it since its discovery.
As she sped along, weaving in and out of other vehicles they passed, Ra slammed a hand on the center console and another on the dash while pushing himself back against the seat. “It is a chariot! What magic is this chariot?” he demanded gleefully while watching everything they zoomed past.
“It’s not magic. It’s a vehicle. You get in it, press on the accelerator and it takes you where you want to go. Everyone has one. Everyone drives one, or at the very least, knows someone or has family that has one and drives one. If not, you can hire them to take you wherever you want to go.”
“We are flying!” he shouted as she reached almost sixty miles an hour.
“No, we’re not. And if you’re worried about falling out, buckle your seatbelt.”
“My what?” Ra demanded.
