“I guess we’ll see if anyone’s on board,” the queen says with a sigh and the shabti lead on. A feeling of uncertainty and helplessness presses down on her, making each step through the sand even more difficult.
The barge is small compared to the ones Aniya has become used to after marrying Pharaoh. And while those boats were always pristine and manned by the strongest servants, this one is not. Gaping holes dot the hull of the ship where the cedar has rotted through and a dingy grey rectangle of linen sail hangs limp and lifeless from the main mast. Aniya steps gingerly on the thin boards of the ramp and with a wary eye at the inky black water, makes her way up. Six empty oars sit on the deck and a small cabin rests near the rear of the boat.
Aniya steps toward the door of the cabin, but the leader of the shabti holds up his hand to stop her. Pulling his small, clay sword from its sheath he motions to three of the tiny soldiers to follow him. The other three stand guard in front of the queen as the leader and his men make their way toward the cabin. Before they can enter, a bellowing shout comes from the door.
“Where’s that lazy crew gone to now?” A withered, old man in a dirty loincloth hunches under the door frame and stomps onto the deck. He peers over the edge of the boat. “Where’d they go?” he asks absently.
“Excuse me, sir,” Aniya attempts to interrupt the old man. “Could I just…”
“That blasted snake probably tried to eat my crew again,” he says finally looking at the young queen. “You didn’t see them, did you?”
“No, I haven’t seen anyone. In fact, you’re the first person…” Aniya trails off as the old man wanders back into the cabin.
She gives a questioning look to the leader of the shabti, but he only responds by shrugging his shoulders. The sound of objects crashing to the floor explodes from the cabin. “Is there anything I can do to help?” Aniya calls inside to the old man.
“Help? Yes! You could help,” he answers as he comes back out of the cabin with two long, wedge-shaped oars. He moves aft, dips the flat of the oars into the river and attaches the handles to rigging, creating a rudder. “What do you know about sailing?”
Aniya looks to the shabti again. Another shoulder shrug tells her they know about as much about sailing a ship as she does. “Ummm...nothing actually.”
“Good. Then you won’t get in the way by telling me what to do. Grab oars,” the grizzled sailor says and waves his hand. The shabti soldiers hustle to pick them up. The little men are barely tall enough to see over the edge of the ship, but somehow they manage to dip the oars into the water.
“What happened to your crew?” Aniya asks as she watches the shabti captain pull up the loading ramp onto the deck and make his way to the stern of the boat.
“Blast if I know what happened to them. The whole lot of them just up and disappeared. Strangest thing. They’re just minor gods, the ones who have helped me sail my boat, but still - they were helpful. One by one, they simply ceased to be here. This morning I found myself completely alone. I can’t sail this ship and fight Apophis completely by myself tonight. I need a crew if we’re to make it through the Duat by sunset.”
“Apophis?” Aniya asks. “The snake god of destruction?”
“That’s the one. I fight that blasted snake every night when I travel back through the Duat, and lately he’s been getting harder and harder to beat. Do you know what will happen if I can’t defeat Apophis? Utter chaos. Gives me a headache just thinking about it,” he says, grabbing a deck pole and pushing the boat from shore and into the current of the river.
“If you fight Apophis, then that means you are…”
“Amun-Ra, the sun god. Pleasure to meet you,” the old man says and spits over the side of the boat.
Aniya falls to the floor of the deck and bows down before him. “Forgive me, great Amun-Ra, I did not realize who you were.”
“Oh nonsense. Get up. Come on, grab hold of the rudder and help steer this blasted ship.”
Aniya rises and goes to the back of the boat to help the leader of the shabti move the rudders while the sun god motions directions with his weather-beaten hands. Although he looks like any normal human, there is an aura of power surrounding him - there’s no mistaking he is truly a god. The gods are truly real. Perhaps they’ve heard my prayers.
“Now that you know who I am, why don’t you tell me who you are,” he yells back to her.
“I am Aniya, third wife of Akhenaten, Pharaoh of Egypt.”
“The wife of a Pharaoh? Well then, this must be quite a change of pace to find yourself working on my barge in the middle of the Duat. Who was it that led you into the Duat and to my ship, Queen Aniya?”
“Led me? No one, sir. I let myself into the Duat. I was in a tomb, and then I found the door that led me here and opened it.”
The old man’s attention shifts from the dark waters of the river back to the queen. “You opened the door to the Duat? By yourself?”
“Yes, I did.”
“But that’s not...Something’s not right here. Who did you say is your husband… Akhentatoon?”
“Akhenaten. He was my husband. He died recently. Is he here in the Duat? Can I see him?”
“Not unless his Ka has been properly split from his body with the proper rituals. One doesn’t simply enter the Duat just because they died.”
“But I did, enter the Duat I mean. I’m not so sure about the dying part.”
Amun-Ra stares hard at the young queen. “Tell me how you came here.”
Aniya tells the sun god of waking up to darkness and the feeling of movement. She tells him of being placed in the queen’s tomb and being left there. His eyebrows lift as she describes waking the shabti and opening the door into the Duat allowing herself to cross over to the land of the dead.
“That shouldn’t be possible,” the sun god mutters to himself, turning his attention back to the frothy, black water. “Only through the proper rituals of the priests of Anubis, god of the dead, does a mortal’s Ka split from their earthly body.”
“There are no more priests of Anubis, my lord.”
“What? How could that be?”
“Egypt worships only Aten, the One God, now.”
Amun-Ra spits over the edge of the boat once again. Aniya wonders how a god can seem so much like a human. If she met him on the Nile, she would have taken him for any old fisherman working the waters.
“Who is this Aten? I’ve never heard of him.”
“Pharaoh and the Great Royal Wife, Nefertiti, decreed that there is only one god, Aten. They have made it unlawful to pray to the gods of old.”
“Preposterous! How could one god do so much? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Well, whether it makes sense or not, that’s the way it is. Even though Pharaoh is gone now, Nefertiti continues to force all of Egypt to worship only Aten. It is forbidden to offer prayers to any other.”
A humorless laugh escapes the sun god’s lips. “Well, I think I know what has happened with my crew, then.”
“You do?”
“Since Egypt no longer prays to her gods, then it seems that we are disappearing. I will need to speak to the other gods about this. Will you come with me to share counsel with my children, Osiris and Isis?”
“Yes, my lord. It will be my pleasure. Do you think they can help me get back to the land of the living?”
Embers of hope begin to burn within her, but just as quickly they are doused by the sun god’s words. “I’m sorry. Once you have crossed over into the Duat, it can only mean one thing. Your earthly body is dead. There is nothing to go back to.”
Fear and frustration threaten to blind her with tears, but Aniya fights them back. She has a reason to go back. She must go back.“My son needs me. Tomorrow evening is his naming ceremony. I have to get back to him.”
“Your son?”
“Yes, the next pharaoh of Egypt. I was the third wife of Akhenaten, and I gave him a son. Now that Akhenaten has pa
ssed on, my son is the only heir to the throne.”
“The Great Royal Wife bore no sons of her own?”
“No, none. Why?”
“Without an heir, she stands to lose a great amount of power. I wonder...do you remember anything about your death?”
“Not really. That’s why I don’t think I truly am dead. I had just been talking to a friend about my son’s naming ceremony. He brought me a gift. I took a bite of an apple, and then the next thing I knew I was being carried into the tombs of the pyramids.”
The sun god motions for them to steer further to the center of the river. “I can not say much more about the matter. When we reach the Hall of the gods, we’ll find Anubis, god of the dead. Surely he will know if you belong here.”
“Thank you, Amun-Ra,” Aniya says just as the pink light of the sky becomes black. Thick, tremulous clouds roll in, shrouding everything in darkness.
“Is it a storm?” Aniya asks.
“There are no storms in the Duat,” Amun-Ra answers and the clouds boil in the sky above them. “This is dark magic. Quickly now,” Amun-Ra shouts to the queen, “help me light the barge torches.”
Aniya follows the sun god into the small cabin. He takes a blackened torch for himself and and hands one out to her as well. She puts the now useless lamp on the floor and takes the torch.
“Is there fire?” she begins to ask, but Amun-Ra answers before she can finish. Flames burst through his fingers the moment his palm touches the torch.
“Being the sun god has its benefits,” he says and fire flames from the other torch in response to his touch. Aniya smiles and follows the sun god out to the deck. Unlit torches hang nestled to the side of the barge, and together Aniya and Amun-Ra bring them to life. The light fights against the darkness, and though the way through the Duat is still clouded and dark, at least the boat is brightly lit.
A single unlit torch remains on the barge’s bow. Longer than the rest, its blackened head reaches far from the helm of the boat and over the black water. Aniya holds onto the ledge with one hand stretching her body out to light the torch. Fire licks the charred torch and embraces it completely just as the water below bursts open and a scarlet-scaled tail whips from the spray to wrap itself around her forearm. Aniya barely has time to scream before she is yanked from the boat and pulled into the dark water.
There is nothing but darkness as she’s dragged farther and farther into the abyss. Aniya’s free hand pulls at the tail coiled around her arm, but it only seems to hold tighter. Like a rag doll, her body is whipped back and forth through the dark waters. The ache for air burns her lungs. The instinct to breathe builds until she can barely stand it. Can she die here? Isn’t she just spirit? Her mouth opens just as the beast’s tail uncoils. Frantic with the need for air, Aniya kicks her legs and prays that her body is moving toward the surface.
Her head breaks through the water and Aniya retches out the vile water, taking in great, heaving gulps of air. An oar smacks the water in front of her just missing her face.
“Grab hold!” Amun-Ra calls down to her. Aniya wraps shaking arms around the wooden pole of the oar and is lifted back into the barge where she falls to the deck and spits out more of the foul black liquid.
“It’s Apophis!” the sun god yells to the crew as he holds up a wickedly sharp khopesh sword to the sky. “Arm yourselves!”
Following the sun god’s orders, the shabti draw their clay swords. Aniya sees that three of them are missing. The captain of the shabti helps her to her feet, and she tries to ignore how unsteady and wobbly her legs feel. “Where are the rest of your brethren?” she asks. He points to the water below and Aniya looks down and sees a great red snake, longer than the sun god’s barge, writhing in the water. Three of her shabti are fighting against him. Great gashes gleam in the snake’s skin.
“They saved me,” Aniya says, looking to the captain. He nods.
The great snake, Apophis, captures one of the clay men in its coils and squeezes tight. The queen yells for the other soldiers to help. Trapped, the shabti stabs at it with its sword but with a sickening crunch, shatters completely. Clay shards sink into the water. The remaining two shabti grab hold of the great snake and pelt it with their swords, but it dives under. One of the shabti is taken down into the water while the other floats on the surface. The beast is nowhere to be seen.
“Swim back to the boat,” Aniya yells down to the tiny soldier. He looks up to her and smiles just as the jaws of Apophis open up around him and swallow him whole.
“No!” the queen yells, tears streaming down her face.
The great snake hits the underside of the barge and it sways upward and down. Aniya loses her footing and falls to the deck.
“We can’t hope to win by fighting it in the water. We have to make him come to us,” the sun god yells to the crew. As if the great beast hears him, the snake’s head thrusts up through the water and lashes at him quick as lightning. The sun god lunges out of the way just as the snake bears down on him, his khopesh just skimming the edge of Apophis’ scaled skin. A thin, red trail of blood is left behind as the snake rears back to strike again.
“Aim for his head!” Amun-Ra shouts.
Aniya scrambles back to her feet just as the serpent strikes again. This time the shabti on deck attack along with the sun god. The captain jumps atop the great beast and straddles the monster’s head with his clay legs. He plunges his sword into the snake’s head, but the beast shakes the shabti off and into the water. The captain’s sword clammers onto the deck at Aniya’s feet.
“Come on, you blasted beast!” Amun-Ra shouts up at the snake god. “Let’s get this over with!”
As if in answer, the snake lunges and bites down on the sun god’s arm. Amun-Ra struggles to break free from the beast, but the snake holds tight. The khopesh dangles helplessly from his hand. Aniya takes no time to think. She grabs the shabti captain’s blade in both hands and slices clean through the snake’s neck in one slick, fluid motion.
The body of the snake falls back into the water with a splash and the head flops to the deck as Amun-Ra opens the dead beast’s maw, freeing his arm. It slides across the deck and stops at Aniya’s feet.
“Nicely done,” the sun god congratulates her with a crooked-toothed smile. “Stupid snake shouldn’t have been here until this evening. It’s never attacked during the day before.”
Aniya studies the snake’s milky-white lidded eyes before bending down to throw the head overboard. Lifeless lids snap open to reveal vertical black pupils of the reptile against bright yellow irises. The jaws of the decapitated snake open and the fangs of the beast reach for her. Aniya draws back but not before one of the snake’s fangs bloodies her hand with a long, jagged tear. Aniya seizes the sword once again and drives it down through the center of the beast’s cranium, skewering it. With a cry she flings both sword and beast into the black abyss of the dark waters.
“Good work, crew. Apophis is defeated!” Amun-Ra swings his khopesh in a celebratory circle around his head, smiling at the shabti climbing back into the boat.
Aniya grins at them as well, and then stumbles back in pain and falls to the floor. Blood drips from the wound on her hand and sizzles as it drops to the wooden deck of the boat. Amun-Ra lifts her hand to inspects the wound. With brisk words he orders the shabti captain to gather herbs and clean cloth from the cabin. He makes quick work of dressing the wound, but Aniya’s arm feels as if it’s on fire.
"This is not good,” he says. Blue-black veins slither up and down her arm, highlighted against the paleness of her skin. “Apophis’ bite is meant for the gods, not a mortal. His venom is destroying your Ka, severing the link between it and your physical body. If you stay here in the Duat, the link will be broken and you’ll become a lost soul. Your spirit can not stay here. We must get you to the Hall of the Gods."
Amun-Ra places his hand over the wound and warmth shoots through her body. The pain subsides a bit and the dark veins fade into
faint trails of dark blue. "I'm sorry, there is not much more I can do. I do not have much strength left. Even the sun god's powers are fading away,” he says with a sad smile.
The black clouds that rolled in with the appearance of Apophis break and give way to the pink sky once again, and the remaining shabti take up their oars once more to steer the barge down the Nile of the Duat. A look around the deck confirms two of the shabti are gone, destroyed by Apophis. They died to save me, Aniya thinks to herself. She tries to help steer the rudder as before, but the captain forces her to sit down. She doesn't want to admit it, but she's glad for the rest. She can feel the poison coursing through her veins.
As they travel down river, Aniya stares over the back of the boat into the inky blackness of the Nile. Foaming water churns underneath the oars. A face appears in the water, and then it is gone. She blinks her eyes, perhaps it is a trick of the light in this strange place with no sun. Another look reveals dozens of faces swirling in the water with hollow black holes where their eyes should be and mouths open in silent screams.
"What are they?" Aniya asks, scurrying back from the edge of the boat.
The sun god saunters over and peers into the water. "Those are the lost souls of the Duat. What is left of their Ka wanders forever through this river somewhere between everlasting life and death."
"Lost souls? Is that what will happen to me?" she asks, cradling her wounded hand to her chest.
"The soul and the body need each other. Even in death," the sun god says and walks away.
"You didn't answer my question."
"Yes, I did."
THIRTEEN
“What is that?” Aniya asks.
Endless dunes of sand continue as far as the eye can see, broken only by the meandering waters of the black Nile, and in the distance, a lone mountain.
Spell Bound (A Fairy Retelling #3) Page 9