Blind God's bluff

He cocked his head. “What?”

“When I was outside my body.”

“All I know is that someone tried to keep you from getting back in, but you managed to break free of his grasp. I couldn’t perceive any of the details.”

“Then let me tell you about them.”

When I finished telling Timon about my trip to ancient Egypt and the five mes-Silver, Red, Shadow, and so on-he said, “The Pharaoh.”

“I figured. But how did he split me into five different versions of myself? What would have happened if Big Ugly in the pit had eaten one of us?”

Timon scratched his stubbly chin with long, dirty nails. It made a rasping sound. “I’m not sure I can explain it completely. There are many systems of magic, each based on its own view of reality. I’m not an initiate in the Pharaoh’s version.”

“Well, do the best you can.”

“All right. Modern humans tend to think of themselves as being all one thing. Or, at most, two: body and soul. But many esoteric philosophies see the spirit as made of separate elements that fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, or matryoshka dolls.”

“Or the parts of an engine?”

He shrugged. “I suppose. At any rate, if I’m not mistaken, ancient Egyptians believed that people have five souls, not just one. The individual just isn’t able to perceive it under normal circumstances.”

I remembered the painful moment when my brain had tried to handle five different trains of thought at once. “Thank God for that. So what was the point of splitting the souls up?”

“To cripple you.”

“And why feed one of us to Godzilla?”

“I can’t be sure. It could have killed you-the whole you. Or permanently crippled or enslaved you.”

“Nice.” I mulled it over for a second. Then: “But here’s what I don’t get. I’m not sure that being split up really did weaken me. I–I mean, the self that I remember as being the real me through the whole thing-managed to work some magic, and another version of me did, too. I made a rifle, and he made a wall. Four of us working together fought our way through the giants where one probably couldn’t. Hell, once Shadow committed to the program, he was death on a stick.”

“That’s because the Pharaoh underestimated you. If you’re strong enough, you can actually accomplish quite a lot by temporarily splitting off a part of yourself, or bringing one aspect to the surface and burying the rest. That’s because each part is in tune with certain forces and suited to certain tasks. By forcing you to divide, the bastard may actually have helped you develop a useful ability.”

“Yeah, lucky me. All you guys keep jumpstarting me. It’s going to be great right up until the time it doesn’t work and I just get killed instead.”

“Concentrate on protecting yourself and that shouldn’t happen.”

“If you say so. But what are a person’s ‘aspects?’ What’s each one good for?”

He leaned back in his chair, brought his hands up in front of his chin, and tapped the fingertips together a few times, like it was helping him organize his thoughts. Professor Hobo.

“There are seven influences in all,” he said. “Or perhaps ten, but the classical system works better for me. The sun self is pure power. You can invoke it to act in matters involving creativity, health, and your ambitions. The moon self comes into play when you’re concerned with change and transformation. Mercury-”

“Hang on,” I said.

His scowl reminded me that he didn’t like being interrupted. “What?”

“You’re telling me about seven selves. I split into five, so how does that match up?”

“It doesn’t. I’m teaching you the system my masters taught me.”

“Fair enough. But… ” I fumbled for the words to say what I was feeling. “The Pharaoh broke me into five pieces, and I think that’s where the… fault lines are now. I think that anytime I split, it’ll be the same.”

“You can’t know that.”

“No, but that’s my hunch. So it’ll do me more good if you explain about the five Egyptian souls.”

“I told you, I’m not initiate in the Pharaoh’s disciplines.”

“But you’ve watched him. Studied him.”

“True. But almost no one walking the earth today fully understands the old Egyptian religion. The Pharaoh and the few like him work to keep it that way.”

“Just give me what you’ve got.”

“All right. If you promise to focus on what I want to teach you afterwards. And understand that even when you’re at full strength, it’s dangerous to try to work any magic based on partial knowledge.”

“Sure. I get that.”

His mouth twisted in a skeptical kind of way. “I hope so. At any rate, let’s get through this quickly. The Ba is what we might loosely view as the personality.”

“I don’t understand how I could have souls that don’t have anything to do with my personality.”

“Well, you do! And you don’t. I’m trying to take a completely foreign way of viewing existence-one I don’t fully understand myself-and translate it into terms that will make sense to you.”

“Sorry. Go on.”

“The Ba is something like a copy of you. It’s the piece we could most easily mistake for the whole, and I think it’s the piece whose memories you kept after the aspects joined back together.”

“Okay.”

“The soul you called Silver may have been the Ib, or heart. That’s the part that lives on after death. Except that really, all the souls continue after death.” He cocked his head, waiting for me to complain about the contradiction.

I decided not to give him the satisfaction. “I’m with you.”

He frowned. “The ancients probably considered the Ib to be the finest, or potentially finest, and most important part of you. Although we can’t be absolutely sure.”

“But we can be pretty sure it would have been bad to let a giant monster eat him.”

“Yes. The soul that looked exactly like you-or exactly like the Ba-may have been the Ren. Your name. The aspect that will survive as long as people talk about you.”

“That makes sense. He was worried that we’d die and nobody would remember us. So he’s my ego, or pride, or something like that?”

“Possibly. Particularly if you’re inclined to see it that way. The glowing red soul may have been the Ka. Your physical vitality. The dark figure was almost certainly the Sheut. Your shadow.”

“My evil side?” That might explain why he’d kicked so much ass.

Timon smirked. “Not necessarily, or not entirely. But then again, perhaps.”

“Okay. Whatever they all are, how do I use them?”

“I already told you, I have no idea. Which means we’ve been wasting time we don’t have to spare. Now, it occurs to me that, even though we don’t want you using any power, we can still work on your ability to visualize. I want you to be able to invoke your protective sign at will, instantly and effortlessly, as clearly as you can see me now.”

I could see how that would be useful. So I put aside the rest of my questions and did what he wanted.

It took a while. By the time we finished, I was hungry again, and glad to hear we were adjourning to a buffet in one of the rooms adjacent to the Grand Ballroom. But what I saw there killed my appetite.

All the other players were already inside, although naturally, Gimble wasn’t eating. Neither was the Pharaoh. He was just puffing on another cheroot. I had a hunch it was the only physical pleasure he had left.

The kitchen staff had set out several jars of half-paralyzed bugs for Queen, and she was chowing down. It was gross, but it wasn’t what rattled me. That was Wotan piling his plate high with raw bloody meat from a long silver tray. The meat lay in several heaps of different colors and textures, and, from the doorway, in the dim light, I couldn’t see any pieces I absolutely recognized. But I was pretty sure that if I went too close, I would, and it made