It took hours. Agonizing ones. In the third hour, Horus was impaled by the beast that they fought, and Set reached to tear him free. It didn’t matter that they had fought each other for thousands of years. Here, at the end, the only thing that mattered was that they had been brothers since the beginning of time. Tendrils scored and scraped along Set’s body as he grasped Horus’s wrists, trying to pull him away, with more than just his body. He was trying to send him to the Veil. Where it was safe. Where Horus could recover. No one kills my brother but me, Set snarled. He is mine. We are bound.
Horus fought. Struggled. And finally, looked up and whispered, Take care of our people. And then he smiled Osiris’ smile, and released all of his energies, and all those that he had caught from poor Iset, and gave them to Set.
Transfers of energy worked best, when like passed to like. Horus-Osiris had been creation and protection, a god of the skies, the sun, and the moon. Set was both a storm-god and a chthonic power. He was destruction, and he screamed in pain as his brother’s essence found a home within him. There were losses, which the mad godling lapped up, eagerly, and which poured out anew through the battered world. The next series of earthquakes brought most of a mountain down across the Nile, damming it far back from Lake Nefertiti. A whole region of Nubia would shortly become an inland sea, unless the water found another outlet.
In response, Set lashed out blindly, tearing at the mad one, sundering it. And did his best to swallow it whole.
That, too, did not work entirely. He was far more like this creature than Horus. But the beast had devoured Astarte and a dozen other gods. He couldn’t contain it. Not all of it. Raw energy arced from him into the ley-lines, and flooded out through the world. He was still numb to almost all of his senses. He couldn’t feel where the energy went, or what it did. But he could feel the mad one clawing and snarling inside of him. Still wanting to devour. Still looking for a way to split him apart from the inside, spill out, and consume, and consume, and consume. And for a heady instant, that was all he wanted, himself.
Horus-within whispered, No, brother. There wasn’t much of the persona left. Just an echo. More Set’s memory, than the entity that had borne his brother’s face. But Set listened, and set out, still blind, for where he had last felt Aten and Sekhmet fighting. And arrived, sight returning in time to see Sekhmet slicing the creature’s tendrils away with her twin swords, her leonine body bare and red with blood. Aten was caught and suspended in the creature’s grasp, his body growing fainter by the moment as his energies were absorbed. You could at least show as much courage as my brother, Set said, contemptuously, and did what he’d been longing to do for three thousand years: he sank his spear into Aten’s treacherous heart.
Sekhmet screamed and flung herself at him to try to stop him, and he backhanded her away, barely able to control the seething energies inside of him. It was too late, in any event. Aten’s dying energies flooded out, and the godling, already gorged on Thoth and Amun-Ra, shattered in the overload, sending hundreds of smaller godlings flying, and releasing waves of yet even more energy. The khaki sands of the desert melted, turning into waves and ripples and ridges of carbonized glass. Black in places. Yellow at the periphery of the blast zone. The few plants that grew, vaporized, and Sekhmet dropped to her knees, trying to contain the destructive forces.
There were hundreds of the damned godlings, all small. As with ants, however, a hundred stings could kill, even if a single one could not. The creatures swarmed around them, buzzing and dazed, for the moment, and Set fought the energies within himself, that seethed and churned. His control over his avatar shattered, and he could feel the body starting to disintegrate around him. Pieces were falling away—he looked down in time to see the flesh slough off his left hand, leaving nothing but bone, connected by lines of energy, instead of sinews.
No pain from the body; the nerves were all dead. But there was agony in his essence, in his core, as far too much energy, and conflicting types of energy, warred with him for control. Like a reactor core without a damping rod, he was overheating. Go, Set commanded Sekhmet, straining to keep his thoughts coherent in the face of the pain. Long ago, only enough was left of Ra, your brother-husband, for you to birth again into Amun-Ra. And you lost him again today. No more losses, Sekhmet, daughter of battle. Take as many of our people as you can, and go.
She staggered to her feet, snarling at the thought of retreat. Her avatar was scored with a hundred wounds, and the blood that dyed her skin red was, for once, her own. I do not surrender!
You do not surrender. You fall back to a more advantageous position on the battlefield. Now go! He sensed something fall from him, which slapped the ground wetly. His vision failed him, and he had to rely on Veil sight to ascertain that what had fallen . . . had been most of his face. Eyes, muscles, and skin. No pain. The nerve endings of this avatar were dead.
GO! That was a roar as he threw his recent memories to her. And Sekhmet, finally broken from her battle frenzy, stared at him. And then, as the godlings began to swarm in, regaining their bearings . . . she turned to lope away, her paws shattering the glass that covered the sands below.
Sekhmet, looking back just once, could see pieces of Set tearing away, as if caught in some intangible wind. His essence began to stream out of him like ink in water, and she could feel something deeply wrong with the land under his feet. The energies of it were warped, and not even the godlings were attempting to feed off of them. She could see Set raise his hands, the flesh being torn away as he did so, and then a vast surge of his chaotic powers rushed out, catching dozens of the godlings, and pulling them to him. Go to the Veil! Sekhmet cried, and fleeted through to the home of the gods, herself.
She did not see Set there, but when she emerged back into the mortal realm, in Leontopolis, the minds of the people there gave her a confused account of seven earthquakes. Seven. Iset. Horus. Their godling. Thoth, wise and peaceful. Amun-Re, whom I loved and lost. Aten. The godling Set destroyed. He must have managed to return to the Veil. Or he still fights. As he was always meant to fight the darkness at the edge of the world. Sekhmet closed her leonine eyes for a moment. It was a terrible thing, to find in someone she had known for five thousand years, a fighter’s heart and courage that she had never known were there . . . only to see it far too late. In him were the remains of Horus and Isis. Five thousand years of power and knowledge, gone, if he did not make it to the Veil. And if he is there, he may take much effort to stabilize. I will . . . honor his sacrifice. Horus’ sacrifice. Iset’s. Amen-Ra, the last relic I had of my love, and the last reminder of myself when I was . . . when I was more than what I am now.
She threw back her head and screamed, the low roar of a lioness echoing back from the temple walls. She stumbled through the halls, her fingers opening and closing rapidly, and found her humans outside. Where they had gathered in parks and plazas, away from buildings that might fall. We do not have time to tend to those who cannot control themselves, Sekhmet ordered, her voice clear. If someone has run mad, kill him. For the sake of all who are yet alive and sane. Then pack your goods. Necessities. Nothing else. No luxuries. No keepsakes. Bring weapons, food, water, and means of lighting fires. Follow me, if you wish to live.
Not all of the gods had taken the forms that humans had imagined for them. For example, Set had never taken the face of the long-nosed, improbable creature that human imagination had foisted on him. Iset had never opted to make herself a cow. And Horus had usually chosen a human face for his humanoid avatar, not that of a hawk. But Sekhmet did usually go about with a lioness’ head and paws. Still, seeing humans warped in her own image sickened her. She personally struck off the crocodile heads of at least two humans who had gone mad after the transformation. Her leonnes, all Carthaginians who had years ago found themselves with the lower bodies of lions, and the upper torsos of humans, and come to serve her, moved through the city, winnowing through the population with grim efficiency.
She did not have the skill to change
her people back, or re-kindle their thoughts. Her healing powers had died with Hathor, thousands of years ago. But she knew where there were those who did possess such gifts.
“Lady Before Whom Evil Trembles . . .” one of her priests said, his voice breaking as he dropped to the ground, putting his head on the cold stone. “Where will we go?”
Sekhmet gestured, and the tame lions that had lived in her temple padded out to surround her. Where else can we go, she replied, grimly, but Judea? East. Everyone who can walk. Children carried by parents. Set may have fallen. We must hurry.
She brought fifteen thousand people from her city, and the next day, fifteen hundred Atenists from a small commune joined her column. She could feel them, like a canker, and sought them out after nightfall. She could hear their words, rustling out from them on the chill evening wind. The one god, the true god Aten, is responsible for our survival. Give all praise to the Aten.
Aten is dead, she told them bluntly, standing before them, and letting her words carry all the force of her power. He could not do what Horus did. Horus sacrificed himself, so that Set would have a greater chance of defeating one of the mad gods. Aten was defeated, and would not sacrifice himself to avoid his power being consumed by the mad one. So Set killed him, and used his power to destroy the godling.
And then she saw the power of human belief. Sometimes it was a beneficent thing. And sometimes, it warped and shaped those who believed, as much as those in whom they had faith. “Aten cannot die. What you saw was only a shadow of the true Aten,” one of the humans told her. He was shaking, but he believed. “The Aten is beyond and above all other gods. He would not allow a mere spirit, such as Set, to destroy him. Set is not capable of killing him. The Aten is the universal life force, the true creator—”
You are, I think, too stupid to live. Sekhmet turned away, and her golden eyes gleamed in the low light, reflecting it as a lioness’ would. She met the gaze of two of her leonnes, and ordered, This one is to be left at the end of the column tomorrow. Without food. Without water. Let what he carries be distributed among his fellows. Any others who would like to claim that I lie? Will suffer the same fate. Let us see if their dead god sustains them in the desert.
November 10, 1995 AC
Snow drifted down into the garden, and Minori stared out at it, remembering the garden of her father’s manor in Hokkaido, where she and Kanmi had been married. Her mother moved, stiffly and carefully, her back perfectly straight, to stand beside her. “The world has become a very strange place,” Aika said, after a long moment. “Your husband died, and he became a kami. The kami themselves die. In a way, it is reassuring to look out into the snow as it falls, so peacefully. It makes everything look so clean, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, it does,” Minori agreed, but her mind churned with worry. Amaterasu was a tight knot of apprehension and grief at the back of Minori’s mind; the great kami had been aware of the deaths of Isis, Horus, Thoth, and the other Egyptian gods as they’d happened. All of them had been as old as Amaterasu herself, and while she believed that Set might still be alive, in the Veil, only Sekhmet was left to tend to their people, who were streaming across the desert and into Judea. Some of the more conservative Judean newspapers had headlined this event with the words, Pharaoh, Take Your People Home! which was apparently a reference to something that had occurred some three thousand years ago. Minori wasn’t clear on what.
Even without Amaterasu’s fear coiling in her mind, Minori’s own thoughts were dark. She’d prepared an article on climatology, running her own calculations with Kanmi and a high-powered calculus before taking them to Prometheus for another of view. The titan had looked through her scenarios, and finally nodded, his face grim. Yes. Between the rampant volcanic activity, Skadi’s death, the continuing damage to the ley-lines, and the increasing pace of god deaths . . . the planet is facing the largest crisis it has seen in twenty thousand years. I agree with your analysis that this may provoke an ice age. And at the moment, human civilization is breaking apart. Becoming isolated pockets, rather than a global system that can respond to the crisis. He’d shaken his head. But what can we do, besides win?
Kanmi slipped into the room behind them, and her mother jumped. Min winced inwardly as her mother bowed with profound formality to Kanmi. Kanmi caught Aika by the shoulders, however, and helped her back upright. “I do keep telling you not to do that,” he reminded her, gently, and Aika gave him a wide-eyed look. “I’m the same person I always was. And I hate the idea of people being on their knees.”
Aika nodded rapidly, and then escaped the room. Kanmi shook his head as the door closed behind her. “You’ve never told her about your houseguest?” he asked, tapping his forehead.
Minori shook her head, rapidly. “When she asked about my apparent age, I told her that Amaterasu had rewarded me for helping so many of our people to escape.” The number had evened out, eventually, at some fifty thousand, over the past five or six years. “Which is the truth.” She gave her husband a rueful glance. I could not tell her that I am Amaterasu’s comfortable room at the inn. Either she would not believe me, or set up a shrine.
Kanmi snorted, and reverted to mind-speech, as well. Trennus is going to Egypt. Saraid’s asking if we’d like to come see the tear in the ley-lines there. I said I wanted to get thaumic readings, if at all possible. You want to come along?
Minori nodded, immediately. I’ll get my equipment.
Two hours later, they’d traversed the Veil and arrived in Egypt, where the scene was reminiscent of the area around the Chott el Jerid, where Kanmi had . . . died. Rolling sand dunes, covered in a thin shell of glass that people either slipped and fell on . . . or shattered underfoot. The worst-case scenario was, of course, falling on it as it shattered. As such, Minori lifted herself into the air and hovered, while Saraid circled the area in the form of a hawk. Trennus eyed the ground, concentrated, and the glass began to form into spheres, rolling down the dunes to land in the valley between it and the next solidified dune. Kanmi stumped along the ground behind Trennus, the cool breeze carrying fragments of razor-edged glass into their faces, until Kanmi flicked a finger, irritably, and created a wind-screen ahead of them, to deflect the debris.
It only took a few minutes to find the area that had been affected. On cresting the next dune, Minori stopped in her tracks, staring down at what should have been a sea of similar ripples, extending to the horizon. Instead, there was a yawning hemisphere carved out of the earth, several hundred feet deep. As she stood there, she could see a steady stream of dust, sand, and rocks, some as big as her fist, drifting towards the center of that area, where they vanished. The local wind currents reversed themselves, and seemed to be drawn towards the center of the hole as well. She felt . . . heavy. Far too heavy, in fact. “Are we looking at the event horizon of a black hole?” Minori demanded, Amaterasu-within rearing up sharply to examine the area.
This is not a singularity, Amaterasu told them all, with a degree of confidence that Minori did not entirely share. The kami’s voice had strengthened, as she’d put more and more of herself into Minori over the years. Even a tiny singularity would be crushing you all by now. And there is no time dilation present.
“Comforting,” Kanmi assessed. “Very comforting.”
“Each of the ley-line breaches is a little different,” Trennus called back. “The one in the Arctic just pumped the local magma under the crust with additional heat. That was pretty basic. The one in Novo Gaul? Foreign energy—anti-energy, Saraid called it—coming in from a different universe, and causing explosions at the subatomic level. It was releasing some pretty exotic particles, and Saraid had to shield me from it. Everyone else wore rad suits.” He paused. “The one up in Asia Minor, where Sunna and Diana died? It seemed open on a universe where the universal constants weren’t . . . quite the same as here. Light going into the region warped. I think it slowed down, to be perfectly honest.” He grimaced.
Kanmi and Minori both took measurements rapidly, and s
crawled notes on small pads of foolscap. Kanmi held up a handful of sand and glass fragments, and let it pour down. There was no wind at the moment; his deflection spell was ensuring that. And still, the particles drifted, noticeably, towards the hole. “So,” Kanmi said, wiping his hand clean, “the ley-lines weakened here have created a thin point to a universe where the gravitational constant is heavier?”
Trennus dropped to a crouch, his blue-green kilt spread over his knees. “It would explain almost everything here. Hold on. Let me work, and . . . don’t get too close. I think there’s an actual exit point at the center, and I don’t think I can get back anyone who happens to fall in. I wouldn’t even know how to begin.”
Minori had studied ley-energy and engineering for a very long time; she wasn’t capable of using ley-power, but she understood it. And so she asked Trennus questions and took notes to document his entire process, watching as sweat broke out on his face and body at the strain of repairing something that shouldn’t even have been capable of being broken. “A good thing you weren’t tucked away for your winter’s nap in the Veil this time,” Kanmi told Trennus. “Don’t know what we’re going to do if you’re stuck there, and we get another one like this.”
The next month was as grim as the rest of the year had been. Over fifteen thousand Egyptian refugees, along with a few more Carthaginians, made their way into Judea, but Judea, Damascus, and Tyre could offer no assistance, no relief in the way of food or supplies, to Egypt, or the remnants of Carthage left in North Africa. Emperor Julianaus, in a speech broadcast on INN, touted this as evidence that the so-called Eastern Alliance was weak. “It’s not a victory for you,” Kanmi growled at the far-viewer. “There were eighty million people in Egypt. Between seven major earthquakes in a single day, the Nile being blocked so far south that it may never actually flow through North Africa again . . . loss of arable land, loss of potable water . . . .” He shook his head. “There aren’t even numbers coming out of Egypt on the death toll yet.”
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