The rabble’s sudden halt kicked up a film of dust, the pure whites of linen kilts standing unequal to the challenge. The people created a half-sun around the formation, allowing for clear passage of the palanquin into their midst. The two front pole carriers yelled “Down!” and there was a cracking of bowing cedar as supplementary serfs arrived to assist its settling. Mata nearly got his fingers stuck, an experience that proved particularly scarring. Obscene really, where is the favor-fuck? He thought he saw the man through the dust, Favor had pushed onwards to observe the scene in the inner plaza.

“Favor-boy, what's happening?” Mata shouted to get his words across. He turned and a hungry smile appeared on Favor’s face.

“Execution, mister!” Mata wasn’t sure how much he cared about an execution at this time with confusion clouding his mind, and phantom pain bothering his finger. There was some hubba-bubba about thieving or the other at the front, and he saw at the height of it there was a temple top sticking out from behind the palanquin’s cover. His back arched obliquely from the pain of his right shoulder. What a burden. Big fat man.

“High Priest of Ayatha, he who graces our lands with the words of the God of Arachnids, the Architect of Poison, and the One God who has come to be known as the Silkway Archon.” The drummers took their sweaty time to catch on to the break in the overall proceeding, therefore no one really heard the presentation being administered. There was still a lot of flesh-on-flesh chomping behind the cover of the linen sheets of the palanquin. A snarly voice exited the linen sheets, distraught that the parading had reached its concluding pageantry.

“Wh-aaaat has happened? I can not d-aaare to believe my serfs have f-aaailed… oh, Am-uuun. Yes, my dear, you are performing spectacularly.” The voice was squeaky. A man clad in all-black garms from head to toe, only a cross-faced slit for eyes showing, approached and spoke in a royal mumble through the palanquin drape. "Oh, we're here, are w-eee?" The man with serpentine eyes nodded softly through the opening.

In the shadow of the temple building site at the end of the plaza stood a band of ruffians equipped with sickles and bronze swords. A burly man had been forced to his knees with hands tied behind his back. Looking smocked; like leather folded one too many times, the man did not express the expected level of discouragement at the preceding events. The ruffians behind him called for the attention of the procession.

“High Priest. High Priest of Ayatha, he who graces Maatkanekht, we request your guidance!” The crowd maintained a respectful burl.

Then, the palanquin’s white drapes cleaved apart as if operating magically - there were actually two slaves, who were surely tired of working without the outset of pension plans or voluntary resignation, performing the trick - and in a crimson-gold throne was a nosey, slightly wrong, sort of man. Mata looked at him from the side and discovered a beaked face and a hooked nose. The priest was aged in his summation; A true tragedy. Although the curtain-pulling slave saw a resignation plan in the geriatric priest. Thank God, he must’ve thought. But then the slave must’ve realized his mistake. Gods, appropriating the blasphemy. The more pressing conundrum at the forefront of Mata’s head was that the High Priest wasn’t fat - the bastard was just skin, bones, and erotic words. He could not wrap his head around this fact.

The people cheered at the reveal. An androgynous person lay with their head in the priest’s lap.

“Priest,” the center figure of the ruffians cleared his throat, ”High Priest, we have captured a thief,” he gestured to the kneeling man. “This man returned to the village with prized ores in tow, such a lowly man did not receive these by fair means, my Highness.”

“And th-iiis is the man? Whom you have beaten in submission yet he does not b-eeend his back?”

“But yet he bends his knees, master.”

“Hmpf, and you and these goo-oons? What are yo-ou?”

“Lowly farmers, we too.” The priest grimaced at the idea of farming. Some figures in the crowd did the same, maybe not realizing their state of affairs for the past, say, twenty years… Suddenly, someone in the rabble of humans pointed to the kneeling man,

“That man, the one kneeling, is Bayek!” Once again, whispers spread in throngs.

“Bayek?”

“The Bayek?”

“Bayek the Free?”

“Our Bayek?”

“The one who escaped the Theban chains?” Bayek stood up. The leader of the gang who captured Bayek moved to kick, the priest’s vizier in black raising his hand in deterrence. The kicker acquiesced.

Mata tabbed into what was happening. Hadn’t the mother, Aya, asked for a Bayek? And there is a Bayek. His belt and sash dangled as he stood; he had a crushing, tanned physique, arm rings of red-dyed copper strangling his biceps. Just earlier, Mata had thought figuring out what happened to this Bayek was beyond his pay grade by many commas and zeros. Seeing him now, he realized this bastard was hard to miss. Bayek’s voice reverberated across the space,

“Cleric of the temple, I have done no wrong. My people know that I carry with me dignity wherever I may walk.” The lack of proper honorifics struck a chord with the clergy-guy.

“Ohh-ohh, this one speaks rebelliously.” The priest bent sideways and exchanged whispers with his adjutant in black, then he straightened like a banana out of its peel, “What kind of materials have caused such a bothersome confl-iiict?” Every sentence of his just seemed to run on. The gang leader interrupted before Bayek could speak,

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“Ochres, mister. Lots and lots of them, honored High Priest.”

“Hmh, not especially precious, are th-eeey, yet one can never be sure with these rubes who have stolen from whom. The clergy will investigate the case of where these ores are from. In the meanwhile… I think we will be overseeing the safekeeping of these minerals.” There was gold fever in his eyes. The kind that shone in the sun. “If you don’t m-iiind.” There was absolute silence. A black cat slank through the crowd and crossed the plaza, both priest and Bayek eyeing it as it passed gracefully. Bayek’s eyes twitched. Many pronounced a quick prayer to the Goddess Bast.

“I do mind. I am free, clergyman, and these were sourced from my own labor in the Western Deserts. One must make due in the inactivity of Akhet, even if it means traveling to the Red Lands.” The priest scoffed.

“You? You have traveled to the Western Deserts?” The High Priest was incredulous at the mere thought. Bayek gave a simple nod and continued,

“Priest, I have walked with the Tjemehu, mingled with the Meshwesh, bartered the stingy Tehenu. I assure you, these ores are true. And they belong to me.” The High Priest considered him closely. It was a bold strategy, but would it work?

“Not to mention the turmoil of the Northland having stretched to the West, oh for how the atrocities rampart in the Red Lands, for someone like you to leave the blessing of the River is… foolish. In fact,” The priest’s eyes lit up, his regular, drawn-out lilt had cinched itself to a calculated noose, “in fact, such incompetence is punishable…” and it was looking for a neck. His fingers tapped the throne like the patter of raindrops, surmising the plain.

“We, the people, object!” A woman had struck out of the masses. “It is obscene to take from a man the thing which came from his labor. These people are surely a gang of thieves, themselves, who attempt to place such indignation on my iry-pat.” It’s Aya, Mata thought. Her complaint stoked the fire of Bayek’s capturors and the lay people stirred restlessly. The man in black raised a simple hand and it stopped, all of it, like rain under the umbrella. The priest spoke,

“You, whose opinion is colored by affection, have little authority here.”

“And yours, colored by the pots of shit poured into the Nile, why would it matter here?” A hunched man leaning on a walking staff poured through the crowd. The priest teased a haughty smile.

“Hah, I advise you not to speak further, Village Headman. For the respect we still award you; do not displease the chosen of the Silkway Archon.” The Headman peered up from his bowed neck. He was older than most of these people.

“How many years have I lived? More than you all, I have surveyed the interruptions of Akhet, I have noticed the droughts.” His voice was wheel through gravel. “These are abnormalities, High Priest. They spell the end for those who follow an uninitiated fool.” The priest suddenly sniffed the air - he’d recognize this scent anywhere, one needed only to waft his words a little further to make it spread.

“In troubling times only, Headman, will the Gods make such a wager as choosing a conduit of their power - you must understand, they chose me, Headman. Silkway, herself.” The High Priest had to deal with the scent time and again.

“You dwell so much in the divine that you forget the practical!” It was blasphemy. “If faith stuffs our mouths then why do we toil so in the fields? Why do we furnish our young with hoe and shovel? Is it not by holy sacrifice we have reached such a rotten state, failing to meet basal necessities?” The High Priest allowed himself to flourish in it. “And the taxes you embark on us? Is this really the word of the bureaucracies of Abu Simbel? I cannot believe it - I will not believe it. And if it is so that the goddess hath chosen you, then… she, bless her highness, has chosen… wrong.” A collective gasp.

“Slaves! This old man. Take him back to his quarters.” Shirtless and sooted men arrived to escort the limping Village Headman.

“Do not let this signet of avarice control you!” The Headman was being strung away, eyes feistily fixed into the eye of the palanquin, his throaty voice shooting out toward it, “And the object of your greed? It is beyond self-sustainment! The people of squander build your ‘Palace of Decadence!’ You eat the meat and they feast on the bones!”

“Away with him! Now!” The man in black received orders through the whispering of the High Priest, Mata being one of the few close enough to hear it:

“To the dungeons with Headman Imhotep. Invoke the Tjemehu for their special purpose, do not let word slip of this act.”

“Yes, finally, my liege, your investment in the Nubian medjay-tat will come good.”

“Ay, and more arrive by the decan.”

Bayek had not been sure to act, nor had he been swift. He pronounced a muttered “Nek,” and then directed his attention to the serfs burying their hands into Headman Imhotep. “Gentle with him, now,” he said, pillow-soft. One of the boy-serfs raised his fist to strike the resisting Imhotep, and Bayek turned into dynamite, “Stop! He who does not respect an elder, his heart is disturbed and his senses scattered! If harm comes to elder Imhotep it will be returned to the offender doubly. Detain him, but he is not yours to do with whatever you wish.” This time, when they dragged the old Imhotep away, it was more like an assisted promenade than a prisoner due for the dungeons. Bayek had to trust that the High Priest had enough sense to treat this old man well.

Satisfied, the priest initiated a change of topic,

“Bayek the Free, I will investigate these ores. As for these men who captured you, they will be dealt with appropriately.” Bayek moved to leave, not interested in the punishment of his perpetrators. “Oh, and Bayek, justice will be served, rest assured.” Bayek ignored him once again.

The Village Headman is powerless in the presence of this High Priest and his entourage, Mata thought. How could that be? And the ores? Ochres, were they enough to cause such a conflict between Bayek and these men? Mata’s clothes, although of airy linen, were sticky from sweat. The sun dizzied his thoughts, phosphenes overlaid his eyesight. As he moved, lolling his head back and forth, he recalled that image - the one of Favor-boy embracing the sun - a man brimming with worryless zeal, and the rays of the sun as enveloped in him as he in them. He walked, heedless of the temple at the boundary of the plaza, he bore a migraine of the sun, and as he walked, he thought of the fat and of the rich, and of the meager priest. He found it a little scary, how dangerous a combination capability and culpability really was. An almighty glutton, a 'signet of avarice,' that remained skinny. What is such a man? On a diet plan. No, no. The glutton who took but did not see fit to consume was all the more powerful. 'You eat the meat and they feast on the bones.' But this was not entirely true, either. Mata’s instincts told him to run away from this place. The sun told him to find shade.

A thickly sinewed hand gently grabbed his shoulder,

“Stranger Lost in the Dune, come with us.” It was Bayek. The man on trial. The man who saved him.