by Daniel Caet
It took me two more days to find myself strong enough to get out of bed and walk to Sadith's quarters. I found her surrounded by papyrus rolls and wax tablets as always, but her face showed the effects of not having slept for days.
“I see you feel better.”
“I cannot say the same about you, you seem exhausted, Sadith.”
“I am,” she said, smiling weakly, “but the effort of these days has been worth it. I think I've found him.”
Her words made my body tense in anticipation like a panther preparing to attack.
“Where?” I asked anxiously approaching her.
“In the most obvious place you could imagine. Hell.” All the energy that had begun to accumulate in me with the hope of being able to culminate my revenge disappeared suddenly leaving me scarcely without strength. “You do not seem too happy.”
“No, I am not, Sadith. Are you sure Narmesh is in hell? Because if so, it's completely out of my reach.” I said, sitting down on one of the chairs in the living room.
“You're wrong, Helel. I know why you say that, but you're wrong. The celestial creature that you were cannot enter hell, the man you are today, he can.”
The logic of her reasoning almost made me laugh. Once again, I had forgotten who I really was. And for once, being human was going to be an advantage.
“But, why do you think he's in hell?”
“Last night they found Sarureptah's body, lifeless in the middle of the desert. It is evident that it did not serve him anymore, so he got rid of him. They brought his body to Thebes to embalm it, and during the process, they found that it had fire marks engraved on the chest. None of the soldiers who checked his body could identify the symbols, so one of them, an old friend, called me to see if my magical knowledge could help them. The marks,” she continued, “turned out to be a possession spell of a Kiajt demon.”
“The usurpers,” I said, recognising the name.
“Exactly,” she said, “and I suppose you'll know that the Kiajt demons are given that name because they only possess their victims from a distance, they never physically invade their bodies.”
“Because they cannot leave hell ...”
“Correct. Their dependence on hell’s dark energy is so great that they cannot trespass its boundaries, so they invade the bodies of humans to be able to act outside the underworld.”
“But that does not mean that Narmesh is in the same situation ...”
“Narmesh is human, Helel. As human as I am, and the fundamental rule of hell is that it claims everything that enters its domains as its own; that is, as a human he cannot leave hell once he enters it. That's why he calls you to his house, Helel. And for that reason, his only appearance as Seth of which we have record occurred in the temple of Isis in Nbwt.”
“I think I'm lost.” I admitted without qualms.
“In the Egyptian tradition, Isis is able to travel to the underworld where her husband Osiris resides. Do not you see it?”
“Sorry, but no.”
“The temple of Isis in Nbwt is one of the gates to the underworld, to hell. The gate functions as an extension of the same underworld so Narmesh could appear before Tuya in the temple. If we want to find Narmesh we must go to Nbwt, to the temple, there is the entrance to hell.”
That explanation had all the sense and I had no doubt that Sadith had studied all the options before reaching that conclusion, but there was one thing that eluded her.
“I'm afraid we have a problem, Sadith. If everything you've discovered is true, this is going to be our last trip.”
“I know, Helel.” she answered, sitting down beside me.
“Because as humans, once we enter the underworld ...”
“We can never go out.”
We left that same night towards Nbwt. The city was located north of Thebes and would have been much faster to get to it by boat, but Sadith insisted on using a means of transport that was as inconspicuous as possible, so she arranged for us two horses that were waiting for us at one of her many friends’ house in the city. Sadith left the palace at dusk with the excuse of going to buy herbs for her potions accompanied only by a slave, me. Obviously, we never went to the market but to the place where the mounts awaited us, and we left immediately for Nbwt. I was not surprised that when we reached the city gates they opened wide to let us pass without a single question because I had already understood that Sadith's networks in that city were much larger than anyone could imagine.
The trip to Nbwt took us all night and Sadith did not say a word the entire way, just spurring her mount as if her life was at stake. And maybe it was. I could see the city on the horizon at dawn. Nbwt was very small compared to Thebes, in fact little more than any village, but to my surprise Sadith did not enter it but guided me bordering it to the north side. From there, I could see in the distance a small building next to the river and I understood that it was our destination. When we arrived and left our horses I found that the infamous temple of Isis was actually a tiny building of white stone clearly aged with a single entrance that was far from the greatness of Karnak.
“I see the disappointment in your eyes,” she said. “This is not Thebes, Helel.”
“I understand, but I thought that this temple was famous.”
“It is,” she replied slightly annoyed, “but it is for something important, the faith and the love of those who come here to entrust themselves to the goddess. This temple is far from the politics and the desire for money of the priests of Karnak. It is the people of this city who take turns to maintain the temple in the best possible conditions, who are responsible for caring for the image of Isis and those who strive to preserve what originated this place, pure and sincere love. Tradition says that in this place the goddess Isis found the heart of Osiris after Seth dismembered him and divided his parts throughout Egypt. Upon finding her heart, Isis's own heart broke with pain, and the goddess wept for her lost love. Her tears over the heart of Osiris returned the halo of life making the heart beat for one last time, only for her.”
Sadith looked at me but her eyes were absent, and I thought I saw a tear sticking out of them. Sadith did not cry only for the beauty of the story, but there must be something else that was stirring in the depths of that eternal and eternally lonely woman, but she turned immediately to go to the temple and I decided to swallow my questions.
When we entered the temple a terrible sensation of anguish and oppression filled me inside. The place was even smaller inside than it seemed on the outside, and it was as if the walls were going to collapse on us at any moment. At the end of the small nave a statue of the goddess standing with her son Horus in her arms ruled the tiny space.
“We could not be so lucky, I suppose.” Sadith said suddenly, finishing the sentence with a small sigh.
“What do you mean? What happens?” I asked.
“If, as I believe, the access to the underworld is in this temple, we have to find the door and open it, and I'm afraid it will not be so simple considering that there are approximately a dozen in this room.”
I looked around without understanding what Sadith was referring to since I did not see any door inside the temple until I finally realised what she meant. Except on the wall where the entrance was located, the entire enclosure was covered by the same structures. Some small cubicles of different sizes and widths that were framed by carved stones that imitated lintels.
“Are these doors?” I asked Sadith as I approached one of them.
“Yes. They are doors, or rather representations of doors. The Egyptians place them in the tombs as a way of passage of the spirit of their dead towards the other world. The engravings you see are in most cases magical prayers to guide the spirit to the place where your soul should be judged.”
“And how are we going to find out which one is correct? I do not perceive anything special about any of them.”
“That's because these doors are only doors when they are opened with the right spell. Without it, they are just a pil
e of stones put together.” she answered without looking at me. “The truth is that it is strange, I have seen doors like these before in a temple, but never so many.”
“Which brings me back to my question. How are we going to find out which one is correct?” I repeated slightly irritated by the loss of time.
“Well, to begin with, it's better to look at the right wall that turns out to be this one here.” she said, addressing the west wall of the temple. “The door to the underworld is always facing west.”
“Well,” I said, joining her, “that leaves us with four doors. And now what?”
“Now we read, Helel.” And without saying another word she read the symbols written on the door while she ran her hands through the engravings.
I felt helpless for not being able to do anything to accelerate her task but, although what remained of my divine nature made me capable of speaking all the languages of men, my ignorance of the Egyptian magical rituals made me unable to distinguish a mystical prayer from a fragment of mediocre poetry. I tried to keep quiet for a long time thinking that this was how I could best help Sadith, but my natural impatience made me ask a couple of times if she had found something until, the third time, Sadith explicitly asked me to close my mouth. Then time became eternal until I suddenly heard her voice rise.
“God, son of god, father of god. Guardian of the four cardinal points, Lord of the West, the first of the living, father of light, loving husband.”
“What is that?”
“They are the titles of the owner of this door. The doors always carry the titles of those for which they are built.”
“And that's important here because ...”
“Because you just heard the titles of the god Osiris described by Isis herself, the only one that would refer to him as a loving husband.” she answered with a look that made me feel more than a little clumsy.
“Then if that's the door, let's open it.” I replied with anxiety.
“That's a bit harder, I'm afraid. To open it we would need the blood of Osiris himself. This is magic of the highest order, I had never seen an enchantment like this.” she said in a tone of defeat. “I thought there would be an alternative way to open it, but I do not see anything to indicate that is the case. This door was created for a god and only a god can open it, this is beyond my power, Helel.”
Suddenly a chill ran down my back and somehow, I knew what I should do. Without thinking for an instant, I made my sword appear, with it I made a cut in my hand and without further delay I went to the door and daub the lintel with my bloodied hand. Immediately the door reacted to my gesture and the hole that occupied the central part emitted a blinding light that forced us both to look away from the door. When the light disappeared, the only thing left in its place was a large dark glass, like that obtained by polishing an obsidian stone.
“I cannot believe it. How is it possible? What have you done?”
“I ... I do not know,” I lied, “I just knew I could open it.” But I knew inside that made sense. As Osiris I had been the closest thing to a god apart from my father and, just like him, I had been betrayed by my brothers and my body had been broken. Like him, I had been resurrected by love, not from one, but several women, and like him, I had been banished to a world that was not mine. I did not think I could fit the description of the most loving husband, or at least they never gave me the opportunity to be one, but that did not seem to matter to the door. Sadith kept looking at me as if she was not very convinced that I was telling her the whole truth, but her pragmatism made her silent all questions.
“We'd better get through as soon as possible, the door will not stay open forever,” she said as she threw her body through the black and bright space in the middle of the door without thinking twice. I followed immediately, but I received a brutal blow to the face that returned me to the temple and left me lying on the ground. Sadith went through the door again this time in the opposite direction.
“What happened, why did not you cross?”
“I couldn’t. Something has pushed me back as if I had been hit with a rock.” Suddenly, I put my hand to my right forearm from where a burning pain began to run all over my arm.
“What's wrong? You're good?” Sadith asked.
“No,” I replied barely unable to speak because of the pain. “It is my arm.”
Sadith lifted the sleeve of my tunic and we both saw how the marks of my arm that constituted my angelic name burned now as if they were marked by fire.
“What is this? Have you seen it before?”
Barely able to speak because of the pain I told Sadith what those marks were and how thanks to them I could keep my sword attached to me at all times.
“You have to get rid of it,” she said without hesitation.
“What? Are you crazy? I cannot go into hell without a weapon.”
“Listen to me,” she cried, losing patience. “You cannot bring anything in the underworld that does not belong to the underworld. It's the rules of this game, Helel. Either you leave the sword here or you will not be able to access at all, that is the reality. And decide what you decide you should do it fast because we run out of time.”
Her words were a blow. I doubted that she was aware of the kind of creatures we could find in hell and what they would do to us if we did not have a way to defend ourselves, but at the same time I knew that she was right. My hunger for revenge, for retribution, would be of no use if I could not reach Narmesh and that door would not let me have access while I had my sword. With the terrible feeling that I was making a mistake I closed my eyes and pronounced my angelic name as I opened my hand to let my sword go from me. Immediately, I could hear the metallic noise of the sword falling on the slabs of the temple, and once again I felt as naked as the first day at Armesh's house. Sadith wasted no time and helped me up to pass through the door that this time welcomed me without grudges, letting me bring my thousand years of existence into the underworld for the first time. And what I saw filled my eyes with disbelief.
I suppose that the angels have an inherent arrogance that makes us think that we are above the other creatures created by our father, so much more so about creatures that we consider repulsive, low and simple as demons. But what was shown before my eyes was far from what I would expect from such simple creatures. In front of me, a great cavern of dimensions bigger than those of any temple of the men that I could have seen in Uruk or in Thebes, was unfolded. The walls seemed to ascend to infinity, so we could not see the end, and it was decorated with statues representing different races of demons, some immediately recognisable and others that even I had never seen before. The cavern was illuminated by a warm light like that generated by many fires although we could not see where it came from. To our back we did not find as we would have expected a door like the one we left in the temple of Nbwt, but some stone arches carved with symbols that I could not recognise. There were about twenty arches, and they were arranged in a semicircle so that they all opened to a large space in the center of the cavern in front of which was a black stone staircase that ascended towards the center of the cavern to an elevated platform, so high that it was impossible to distinguish what was beyond the last step. I realised that if the arch behind us was really a doorway to our world, it was almost certain that the other arches were too, and I wondered where those doors would take. That cave was an entrance created to receive anyone who managed to access the underworld from any of those doors, and it transmitted a clear message of power, designed so that any visitor would not forget what domain he was entering. Maybe I should have felt scared or at least have some kind of precaution but, in reality, what I felt was a kind of strange emotion, an anxiety to see more, to know more that should be reflected in my eyes.
“Helel!” Sadith whispered, grabbing my arm and shaking it as if she wanted to wake me up. “Helel, listen to me!”
“What happens?” I said, coming out of my reverie.
“The underworld is a well of dark energy, an energy conceiv
ed so that whoever enters this place does not want to ever leave. That energy gets inside you, feeding the dark part of all of us until that part devours everything else and you become a creature of hell,” she said, staring at me. “You have to stay focused.”
“I'm here to end the life of my son, Sadith,” I answered acidly. “you and I have embraced our darkest part a long time ago. This will make no difference.”
I do not know if it was my words or what Sadith could read in my eyes, but I saw her hands withdraw involuntarily from me even though the rest of her body showed no reaction. Without saying another word, I turned to head towards the staircase and Sadith followed me a moment later. I do not know if at that moment she came to consider for an instant leaving me alone in that cave, but the fact is that she did not, and together we started the ascent of the endless staircase. The steps seemed never to finish and as we climbed we could see in more detail the degree of realism of the statues of demons located on the walls that surrounded the staircase which almost seemed to be alive. Finally, we reached the platform and we could see where the light that illuminated everything came from. The level on which the platform was, extended far beyond what we could see from the lower level, and at the end of the platform a great cascade of fire closed the way. Almost reaching the waterfall was a raised structure, some throne of black and shiny material, and on that throne, sitting as if he were a god was Narmesh surrounded by three women whispering in his ear and caressing him while he was clearly pleased by the attention. It seemed that this distraction had made our presence go unnoticed, but suddenly his voice resounded in the cave.
“Welcome father, I knew you would find a way to get to me.” His face turned to fix his eyes on us and his look reminded me of his mother's. “But do not stay there, get close. I promise I will not bite you,” he said in a tone that tried to sound mocking but actually sounded threatening.
“Do you know what we came for?” I said, walking slowly along the platform followed by Sadith.