In this, Raine was not like Morwenna much at all. Morwenna's enthusiasm had always been staid, controlled, visible only in her attention to detail. But Raine's was infectious and it still made Solomon laugh, and more of the tension left him.

"The Egyptian perception is difficult to understand without cultural context," he explained, "but I have the gist of it, I think. A person's being is made of six parts: the ren, their name; the baa, their individuality or unique self; the kaa, their vital essence or spirit; the ib, their heart, the seat of their emotion; the sheut, their shadow; and their ha, their physical body. But they also believe in a holy river. Among other things, one can only truly join the afterlife when they've crossed the river. It is quite literally the means by which their planes are divided."

He smiled. "That is where Temple tenets enter the equation. We know that the souls of the dead enter what we call the lifestream--the metaphysical current which runs between dimensions and universes, and carries souls on to be reincarnated." Of course, he had no intention of explaining what the Necromancers planned to do with that knowledge. Instead he tilted his head. "Does that sound familiar to you?"

After all, Asti swam in a giant metaphysical current.