Chapter 47: Exculpation
"You never actually intended to kill him, did you?" He asked, knowing full and well the answer.
Thoth nodded and rubbed the sore patch on his right arm where it had met the firm breadth of Thrall's impromptu defensive measure. "Yes, I... How did you do that?"
"Oh, do you not know? I thought you were supposed to be omniscient, Neter! The Dominions were the wisdom dealers within the choirs of the host of Heaven. I matched your aptitude of intellect with the tiniest patch of skin on my forearm. You are nothing more than a well-read hermit, in comparison to the genuine article of omniscience."
'Aswad shook under the canopy of his blade-like arms. Here was evidence plain and simple that Thrall had further aptitude than had been formerly revealed during their exploits. He had never attempted to transform when faced against the Sphinxes! The bird could not understand why, and he was tired of being the most blind member of their party.
He bravely stepped out of the shadow of Thrall's arms, and spoke out of turn, before the so-called god could respond to Thrall's rebuke. "I have come to another decision, great Neter."
The figure's eyes shone with warm brightness at the expected shift in his constituent's demeanor. "Of course, little one. What is it that you currently desire?"
"I would like Thoth to give his servant understanding at least as great as your sphinxes, that I might too, wield the power of a hex, and bring the spider much pain and torment for his actions which has shamed the gods."
Thoth raised his eyebrows in surprise. "What a bold request! You know that I cannot manipulate the form of another goddess's steward. It is blasphemy. Denied."
He was not dissuaded, of course. "I was promised anything within your power. Are you not the god of Balance, as well as Wisdom? Is your wife not the very form of Law and Order? Your honor compels you to satisfy my desire!"
"Again, these mortals think themselves capable of defining what is honorable, to I; who decides the very meaning of the word! You are not worthy of making demands." said he, but Ma'at was the one to defend the honor of the bird this time.
"He speaks the Truth, husband. This spider must be brought to Justice, and you will not stand in the path of his advancement toward that goal. Let me handle Nephthys, over the loss of her servant, but you must do the task that you had promised." Her quail-headed scepter had returned to her hand at the moment of invocation, and she pointed the forked end at Thoth's throat.
He no longer had any say in the matter. Her was made any decision impossible to ignore. Thoth could not speak, could not cry, could not breathe, until his end of the contract had been fulfilled. He robotically knelt down onto the mangled earth underneath, and leaned forward with his outstretched fingertip to press against the chest of the diminutive creature.
The lights overhead slowly dimmed, as a wiry strand of the glowing mist reached down through Thoth's nostrils, and he funneled all that collected Knowledge through his body into the heart of the dark-feathered bird. Slowly at first, and then a gradual luminous increase in volume and intensity forced its way through both their bodies as he refined the light into its most potent and nourishing form.
Ghurab 'Aswad began to scream, as light poured from every orifice. Every fragment of Knowledge that Thoth had gathered in the space above their heads was slowly being compressed into his puny frame, until he was full to bursting with all the semiscience that his body could carry.
Once he was sure that there was no space within himself left to fill, the light coalesced into a dense fluid that slowly replaced the blood that flowed through the organ by igniting it on contact. He started coughing and hacking as his lungs readjusted to the idea of being a vestigial organ, as they could no longer impart oxygen into the strange, syrupy liquid that infused the cells of his body with Truth instead of Energy.
'Aswad collapsed onto the earth, and trembled violently, so that Xantheaa had to be restrained. Ma'at signaled to the Seraph, who seized her without a word. "You must not move him! What you are witnessing is my husband's greatest and most powerful spell. He gathers bits and pieces of Knowledge over eons, in order to force the manifestation of some great primordial force. Now, all that wisdom is flowing directly into your crow. If you interrupt the process before it is complete, he will surely die."
"What?! You were trying to manifest Mudaut in here?!" Thrall cried, knowing exactly the primordial entity of which she referred. "Are you mad‽ Don't you see that this is a dream? You could have killed us all!"
Ma'at stitched her eyebrows together and tilted her quail-feathered head, as if studying the air around them for the first time. "Is that what it was...?" and she tapped her chin with the hand that was not concerned with the staff at her husband's throat. "Yes, now I see. I am not the real Ma'at. I am a figment of someone's idea of me. That is... quite relieving, actually. I have not lived up to my own expectations of myself as of late, and my husband is but a shadow of his form self."
"I'm sorry?!" Xantheaa screamed, incredulous at the implication. "You mean to tell me that I fought and nearly died to a mere tulpa of a goddess, and that you are not actually here?"
Thrall quirked his head at her. "Did you really think yourself capable of slaughtering the Greek pantheon with only two centers of power?"
"N-no, but...!" she huffed.
"Or did you somehow think that these gods would be inherently weaker than your own home reality?"
"I kind of hoped..." she admitted. "But if I am a foreigner to this world, and you have not been to Egypt in thousands of years, then whose dream are we actually within?"
Then, all of their assembled eyes drifted over to the convulsing form of the bird who had known every detail about the place from the moment that they had first arrived, and he writhed about in painful agony as more light filled the spaces newly vacated by the condensed light flowing into his veins.
"No, not... Really?! Him?!"
Thrall smiled. "Pretty vivid imagination for a 'dumb bird,' don't you think?"
"I do not believe it."
"Believe it or not," Ma'at replied, "It appears that all our lives depend on the success of my husband's spell. We can only hope that his body is corporeal enough to sustain the massive influx of power" The rest of them nodded, and held their breath as even more feathery lightness descended into the intense pressure cooker that his body had become.
The light of Mudaut was intense, refining, and unfathomably pure. It seemed to cauterize every hint of flesh it met upon contact—both purifying and reinforcing the tissues with a meaning so incorruptible that it emerged impervious to all natural affliction; or be consumed outright by the sheer overwhelming force of contrast.
Anything so weak as to be vulnerable by entropy and deceit could not be permitted to abide within the presence of that all-consuming ionic power. Like the sun bleaching dye from the fibers of cotton, Mudaut cleansed any impure ideas from the makeup of his skin. The spaces left behind in his hollow bones and pockmarked organs were happily filled with a newer, denser form of the light; as the fluid condensed further under pressure into a crystalline substance that shone with the exact same texture of a rune hung in the emptiness of space.
Even if it lacked the form of The Word itself, this here was proof that Thoth had indeed approached omniscience. The Knowledge present was enough to approximate the makeup of not only the angel's language, but its narrative weight as well! If he had only a few more millennia to cultivate his great opus, then maybe he might even be able to manifest the rune for Curiosity, or Fortune.
Still, The Word itself would remain ever elusive, as it was not a power that belonged to the paradigm of the Egyptian pantheon. Thrall shook his head in pity for the incredible resources that would go to waste within this world. The amount of improvements that could be done within their land with that store of power alone was incalculable. His hubris would sacrifice all that great potential for a hope that would never actualize.
Finally, at long last, the final dregs of light flowed down from the canopy, into Thoth's nostrils; and Ma'at lowered her was from his throat. The process was irreversible, and immutable. Thoth regained his senses only to realize that he had no reason to stop.
'Aswad was complete.
Weekly Power Status
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