Cursed Times - Only Yesterday! Sequel to Wattys 2015 winner!

Chapter 4 - Trueth: Scorpions

The dry rustling of chitinous bodies filled the ante-chamber with an ominous buzz.

Far too many tiny feet were pattering against the glass as the quivering mass composed of thousands of pale insects was scrambling and crawling atop, around and below each other. Occasionally, brown pincers would show in one place while tails with yellow stingers surfaced in another. Once in a while a whole specimen appeared, only to skedaddle to safety among the wriggling sea of its mates. The glutinous smear of venom partially obscured the viewing pane which separated Trueth from Selket's finest.

As far as she was concerned, these blighters might as well squirt out more poison and conceal the rest of this mess. The sound effects alone were rubbing on nerve ends that were already raw.

Trueth turned her back on the bugs.

Through the lotus-shaped pillars on the other side of the room she could see the first rashers of dawn grilling in the early morning sun. A silly metaphor-there was not a single pig in sight in the whole of this version of ancient Egypt. Still, her rumbling stomach seemed to have a mind of its own, sending inappropriate smoke signals to a tired brain.

She had been waiting for over an hour, to judge from the amount of sand that had trickled through the timing device in the corner, and the good sisters had not seen fit to provide her with anything else than a carafe of water. As well as a tank full of scorpions.

The catering in the temple of Selket was not usually that bad, but serving cappuccino lattes to her followers was obviously not among Her Wisdom's key priorities. Also, these people-despite all their trading-knew neither coffee nor tea. Which made the high priestess hard-pressed to procure one key ingredient for Trueth's craving, even if there certainly was plenty of the other. Trueth conceded the popular drink of warm honeyed milk with aniseed would be preferable to the lukewarm water she had at her disposal-

'-Ey, pssst!'

Even in her semi-comatose state Trueth did not believe for one second the scorpions had gained swarm intelligence and were addressing her. The voice came from a human agent, one she was familiar with. One that belonged to her new family, to be more precise.

'What are you doing here?' Trueth addressed the second pillar to the left with a chilled tone that was unsuccessfully trying to mask the fact how pleased she was to hear this voice. Her delight was entirely unrelated to the pitcher of the milky drink Trueth had been fantasizing about which appeared to be hovering next to the stone colonnades.

Not the one with the extra caffeine. The one that was available to the inhabitants of this world such as herself.

'I thought you might be hungry and thirsty-and stuff,' Rani-Ra, her adopted sister said, as she emerged from behind the column. 'They tend to forget that sort of thing if one is not a patient.'

Rani-Ra poured some hot milk into the mug she held in her other hand and passed it to Trueth, who took a hearty swig. The pitcher hovered towards the nearest of the low wooden tables scattered around the room; there it landed with a clunk.

'Ouch, that milk is boiling.' Trueth aired her tongue, hoping this would take care of any potential blisters.

'Make sure Her Wisdom does not see you like that,' Rani-Ra giggled, as she stepped towards the tank with the scorpions and knocked on the glass.

'Stop that! You never know what these crawlies are up to. With all that poison, I'm sure they'll eat their way through eventually. Your, eh-our father keeps saying the ancient Egyptians did not really have sheets of glass like that. So if it doesn't exist, it's even easier to break, I suppose.'