Page 60 of Ra
“I’d say you’ve got that nailed down.”
He gave a non-committed shrug. “What did we do with that immortality? Were we worthy of it?”
“I am. I’m convinced that you are, now at least, if not back then. The rest? That remains to be seen.”
“Don’t you ever bore of playing games?”
“I’m not playing a game.”
“Really? Then what is your purpose? You move us all about like chess pieces. What else can it be?”
“Still can’t see it, can you?” she asked. “Why are you here, Ra?” Neith asked.
“To be honest, I’m not sure. I just know that when I was considering where to go, this is the place that answered.”
“Are you waiting for Azenath to arrive?”
“No,” he said with a bit of laughter in his voice. “She won’t be coming. And that’s as it should be. She has been managed by all of you for far too long.”
“Regardless of how she got to the place she’s in, no one has the power to make her heart do something she doesn’t want to do.”
Ra sat quietly, thinking of Neith’s words, thinking of his life— both this one and the last, thinking of the gods who still waited for theirs, and he came to a decision. “I want to go back.”
“Good. She’s as morose as you are. Maybe between the two of you, you can find a way to dig yourselves out of the doldrums. Come, I’ll take you there.”
“Azi? Do you mean Azi?” he demanded. “I don’t want to go to Azi. This isn't her problem to fix. I am not her problem to fix. I want to go back to the afterlife.”
“That’s foolish. And yes, I meant that I’ve seen Azi. Though she didn’t see me. She’s as bad as you are. You are both very selfish individuals. A whole world awaits. A second life I gifted you, and a better life for her, yet neither of you is very grateful. Not to mention, the entire menagerie of gods and goddesses awaiting their own rebirth, and yet you both sit, nursing regret for one reason or another — none of which makes much sense to me.”
“Are you going to send me back to the others or not?” Ra asked, ignoring her attempts to bait him into an argument.
Neith considered Ra, any doubt she had evaporating as she watched him. “I am not. You have earned the right to be here. Based on the rules of my own prophecy, I can’t take that away from you. But, I can send Azenath. She is the only one with the power to return you to the walls, to the stillness and the emptiness on the other side of them.”
“Don’t send her to do anything. Just leave her alone. And leave me alone. Go away, Neith.”
“So be it,” she said, disappearing before his eyes. But her words spoken as she left the space of the temple were easily heard as they hung in the air. “I’m nothing if not a teacher, Ra. You don’t realize it, but you’ve turned into the male I always knew you could be.”
Chapter 15
Azi’s brain startled, yanking her back into consciousness. Slowly her eyes opened, searching for the reason she was awake.
“Azenath! Do you hear me?” Neith demanded, standing over Azi, her arms crossed, her lips pressed together in irritation.
“Wha?” Azi mumbled, as she blinked slowly, not yet moving any other part of her body.
“Did you hear a single word I said?” Neith asked.
“Huh?”Azi asked, coming awake slowly, her body stiff, her neck aching, her hair plastered to the side of her head, a drool trail making its way from the corner of her mouth down her cheek and neck to her collarbone and the soggy shirt it had decorated while she slept. She blinked her eyes to clear them and sniffed in a very unfeminine manner while looking around for the sound that awakened her.
Neith wrinkled her nose distastefully as she took a step back. “Perhaps not quite a whole bottle all on your own next time.”
Azi zeroed in on her in the darkness. “Dr. Weaver? Why’re you here?” she asked, her words running together ever so slightly as she tried to wake enough to have a remotely intelligent conversation.
“Because you’re here. Why are you here?”
Azi looked around the sun room to make sure she was definitely still in her own house. “Uh, because I live here.”
“You should be elsewhere!”
