------------- Chapter 4 - Part 3

Queen Nefertari returned to her throne and straightened her dress in preparation for receiving the divine messenger. The Daughters of Isis exchanged a glance and closed their eyes. An instant later, their silent message was received by the waiting guards and the massive golden doors of the throne room opened to a flood of brilliant light. Tabitha and Dyvynarth stepped through and started the long stroll up the woven carpets to the base of the dais. The light flowed behind her and filled the chamber, which had not been dark to start with, but whose yellow and red guttering fires were no match for the pure white light of the messenger of Saint Martek and her sword arm. At the base of the steps, Tabitha stopped and the procession of sunrays settled into the room like a fog rolling in. She turned her head slightly and a psychic message ordered her bodyguard to dim his glare. That left her standing in starker shadow, with a glowing form behind her that looked much like the setting Apos.

The Queen nodded her head slightly, and those who knew her could tell she was choking back the urge to smile. She held her hand forward, directing Tabitha to approach. The Elysium Priestess stepped up the eight steps and stopped on the ninth, staying just below her old comrade. However, with Tabitha's demure build, she could have stood next to the Queen and still have been dwarfed by the towering half-Frelenat warrior-priestess. Her actions were obviously symbolic and intended to set the tone for the meeting. This was to be an official visit then.

"Welcome, Tabitha of the Golden Light, Acolyte of Martek. The House of Gryphon Amin-Ra, Pharaoh of the Holy Symballan Empire, bids you welcome. We are pleased to see you well."

Tabitha bowed slightly, less a sign of supplication than of recognition for her old friend's station.

"And you, Queen Nefertari. Saint Martek sends his regards, and I add my own pleasure at seeing you well."

The Queen responded with slight head bobble. She narrowed her heavily painted eyes and glared at the brilliant light behind her friend.

"And who do we have with us, bathed in heaven's own light? Is this another of your magical experiments gone awry, Tabitha?"

For a second, Tabitha self-consciously reached for her golden hair, then remembering a time long ago, when her sister, Amanda had baited her, she dropped the urge to get into a childish battle of wits. She held her hand out beside her, motioned downwards once and then forward. The light around Dyvynarth faded to little more than a soft halo and he climbed the steps to stand one step below his Mistress. He bowed deeply, with flourish and mannerisms that made both his elven lineage and his wizardly background obvious.

"Your Majesty. Dyvynarth Summersett at your service."

Queen Nefertari smiled and nodded.

"Dyvynarth? Gleanna and Silver's brother? You are welcomed here as well, Light of the Summersetts. We have heard much of your exploits as of late. It is an honor to meet you at last."

"The honor is entirely mine, Your Majesty."

The Queen returned her gaze to Tabitha and her expression became sullen. For a moment, Tabitha could see in her the old Nahlima, the stern, apparently humorless guardian she had helped rescue from the Pharaoh's Secret Police beneath these very city streets. It had been very much a surprise the first time she had appeared in a dress, and even more surprising to see that she actually had courtly manners and a talent at public speaking beyond yelling at troops. This face said she was focused on a problem, and whatever that problem was, it was about to receive some unwanted attention.

"Then enough ceremony. Formalities aside, you have a report on the results from the Tomb of Harrad'Kepthet. I would very much like to hear what you found there, and how it all ties to recent events."

Tabitha held her staff forward and tapped it lightly on the stones three times. The red crystal suspended within the loop of the ankh at its tip began to hum and glow with an internal fire. The fire grew until the whole end of the staff was alight with red magius.

"If you will permit me, Your Majesty."

Without waiting for approval or even recognition, she reached out through the magius with her Krell sight and twisted the lines and smeared the colors to her desire. In a second or two of casting, she had woven the spell that would aid her in explaining their discovery. A light flowed outward from the staff and encompassed the whole chamber, over a hundred feet long and almost as wide. Where the walls of the throne room of the Imperial Palace of the Pharaoh had been, the rotted, cracked and dusty walls of the Tomb of Harrad'Kepthet were now, projected in a barely translucent illusion. Tabitha turned and pointed at the north wall.

"It was along these walls, amongst the story of the fall of Shaltoor and the rise of his apprentice, Kheleb Al'Setti, that we found the hidden passages. Harrad tells of seeing a vast ocean spanning the Symballan Eastern Erg, where the lands between the Al-Setti river valley and Maruk currently lie. He tells of a flame from the sky and great crack in the land, and a flood that fills the crack with a new ocean. He also makes mention of a dark horde which will ravage the lands and kill everything in the empire. It was dismissed at the time as the ravings of a madman. Harrad was a malcontent, one of those who came before the Muamadim that was founded by my Master. He had no support, no following to speak of, just enough wealth to be buried in relative obscurity in a moderate tomb, with his story and his predictions meticulously recorded."

The Queen rose from her throne and crossed the steps and a section of the throne room to get closer to the section Tabitha was pointing at.

"I see. But how does this tie in to our current situation?"

"Notice the cartouche in this section, here," and Tabitha rolled her staff so that the room projected around them turned and the wall moved closer to The Queen. "It tells of a revolution against the Pharaoh, which of course would have been assumed to have meant the Pharaoh Kheleb Al'Setti. But it also talks of the coming of genocide at the behest of the barbarian war God. That also could have meant the uprising of the Atheaens at the end of the Time of Shaltoor. Or it could be a reference to Ares' newest minion, the Caerrian, Genocide. That is still not enough to say one way or the other. But over here is the final piece of the clue." And the room rolled about them again. "This speaks of a darkness which is born in darkness, deep beneath the Iron Hills, and at first glance tells of the fall of Serqet. However, the hieroglyph is slightly off for Serqet. It is possible what he is referring to here is not the Queen of Scorpions, but the Queen of Spiders. Possibly a reference to the final destruction of Lolth, who at that time was still the mortal Drow, Mellikan. All of this is still nebulous at best. And then we found this."

Tabitha tapped her staff twice and the illusion began to fade. She reached in the satchel that hung at her sash and pulled forth a small stone tablet.

"Buried inside a chest, in an inner chamber, guarded by the undead mummy of Harrad himself, was the key to his prophecies. And the reason we believe the visions were not visions at all."

Tabitha held the tablet up and spread her magic forth. The stone was held aloft by wisps of magius and carried forward to the grasp of Queen Nefertari. Nahlima took the tablet and turned it around. Her eyes grew wide and she looked up with her mouth hanging open. Tabitha merely closed her eyes as if trying to make an unwanted vision go away. Then she opened them and set her concrete gaze on the Queen.

"The markings are confirmed. The language is modern Carellonian. And the age of the tablet is verified as being over nine thousand years old. And as you can see by the inscribed dates, he was writing about these events using the Gailen calendar, which wasn't implemented until after the War of Tryskellias, just over five hundred years ago. He mentions the Kingdom of Atheae by name, which did not exist as such until the dissolution of the Raidon Protectorate less than one hundred years ago. And he tells of the High Priest of Ares, Prince Pentelikon of Thraxus, being freed,... not resurrected, but freed. As we all know, that happened thirty years ago in the Tower of the Serpent at Saramah Neru."

Tabitha stopped and took a short breath. Sarafina climbed the dais, and foregoing all semblance of ceremony, walked straight up to Nahlima and took the tablet. She scanned the passages quickly and turned the tablet to Tasha who was suddenly beside her. She fought back the urge to snarl at the turn of events.

"I knew we should have left him where we found him!"

Tasha looked at her sister sideways.

"You couldn't have known."

Sarafina's glare was not of a sisterly nature and belied the fact that her hedonism had done little to slow her anger.

"I should have! We all should have!"

"Enough!"

The Queen had spoken. She looked back at Tabitha and Dyvynarth.

"So what does it say? How long do we have?"

This time Dyvynarth stepped forward. He had been aching to say this, and though he was well aware of his position, it was time to put aside decorum for practicality.

"Your Majesty. According to his timeline, there will be a catastrophe unlike any since the Planet Shift. The heralds of that destruction are already here in the Empire. The Symballan Empire will be destroyed by the Kingdom of Atheae and invaders from the stars in less than three months. By summer, this land will be a smoking ruin. The Shadows are coming. And they're going to have us kill each other before they even arrive."

As he spoke, his light grew brighter and brighter, whether because of his growing excitement or because he was using it to drive home his point was unclear. By the time he finished, he was filling the chamber with brilliant rays which chewed away the last of Tabitha's illusionary tomb and returned them entirely back to the throne room in New Phoenix. The change was both figurative and literal. Queen Nefertari suddenly remembered where she was. She turned and walked back to her throne, spun confidently and lilted into the seat like a feather falling.

"These heralds you spoke of, I assume Genocide is one of them. Who are the others?"

Tabitha held her hand to one side, palm down, and Dyvynarth retreated to his position of silence, his light once again fading.

"Your Majesty, that is even more interesting. It seems there are three. Genocide is one, yes. She is Ares' Herald, and her name says it all. One is an old friend, long thought lost. His place in this has not yet been set. The last is an enigma. I can not account for her, but I can not debate my Master's wisdom."

Queen Nefertari had a puzzled look, "Explain."

Tabitha didn't quite know where to start, so she said as little as she could to convey her own confusion.

"She is my,... Aunt."