The Wadjet Eye by Jill Rubalcaba Page B

under a cot and spread it over his father. He called to the physician, "I need help over here!" When he looked back, Artemas was gone.
    "There's nothing we can do for him. It's his heart," the physician said, with nothing more than a glance.
    "There must be something!" Damon shouted at the physician's back. His heart! Damon had broken it—he knew it. He had wanted to hurt his father. Hurt him like Damon had been hurt. But not this. Damon hadn't meant for this to happen. "You can't just let him die!"
    The physician turned with a questioning look.
    "He's..." Damon looked at Litigus, then without looking back at the physician said, "He's my father."
    "I'm sorry. It's between him and his gods now. I can stitch a wound. I can sometimes remove an offending limb and save the man. But there is no way to mend a failing heart."

    "No spell?"
    The physician shook his head. "I'm sorry." He returned to his operating table.
    Damon wrung out a cloth dipped in water and swabbed his father's neck and arms. "I'm here, Father. I'm here." His father lay so still that Damon kept putting his ear to his chest to be sure the heart still beat, each time holding his breath for fear he would hear nothing. "I'm here."
    Damon groped for the amulet around his neck, then remembered it was with his mother. He searched through the pouch tied to his belt and pulled out the stone Cleopatra had given him. With his thumb he rubbed the carved surface of the wadjet eye and recited the healing chants. He begged Horus to make his father's heart speak out again.
    Damon closed his eyes. He was startled to see behind his closed eyelids the god Bes waving a sword and sticking his tongue out of his lion's mouth.
    Damon opened his eyes and listened again to his father's heart. It fluttered. Then beat. Then was quiet. Damon pressed his ear harder. There it was, faintly.
    Damon closed his eyes and Bes appeared again. Damon wanted to shout at the image.
Go
away. Take your sword.
Then he remembered a story about Bes his mother had told him when he was little. God of family. Strange little god. But his sword repelled danger. Damon squeezed his eyes shut and watched the dwarf-god Bes dance behind his eyelids, all the while stroking the stone.

    When Artemas entered the tent carrying the dead legate, Damon silently thanked Isis that Artemas was safe. Artemas slumped in the corner still holding the man in his arms. There was nowhere to put him down.
    Damon stood quietly and shifted two stretchers to make room for the man. He strung a torn cloak between tent posts so the men could not see what had befallen their leader. He looked back at his father. He looked so old. And fragile. How could he have said those things to him? This wasn't the giant he remembered. This man was no bigger than Artemas. Did six years make such a difference? He took his father's hand in his own, pressing the amulet between their palms.
    Artemas sat in the corner, his head drooping his arms resting on his knees. The physician rubbed a damp cloth across the back of his own neck and stretched his shoulder by rotating his arm. How long had the man been without sleep? Days, Damon was sure. Sleep. They all needed sleep.
    The groans of the soldiers had quieted. Or had Damon grown used to them? He felt his head bob. He jerked it up. He couldn't sleep. Not yet. He prayed to Ra to give him the chance to tell his father he was sorry. He prayed their last words spoken on earth weren't those he had shouted in anger.
]ust one more chance, Ra. One more.

    Damon snapped his head back. He'd fallen asleep. His father groaned and rolled his head from side to side. Damon stroked his brow. "I'm here, Father." He gripped his father's hand in his own. Pressed between their palms, the wadjet eye felt warm, with the Pharaoh's own heat.
    His father blinked. "My Seshet?"
    Damon blinked back tears—the first tears he had shed. His father was calling for his wife. Did he see Mother in the otherworld? Did his father have one