“Finally,” Amun-Ra exclaims with a sound of relief, “the Hall of the gods.”
Aniya looks again. What she took for a mountain is actually a palace so tall she can’t distinguish the top of it from the pink haze of the sunless sky.
“It’s just after noon. I was afraid our run-in with Apophis would set us far behind.”
“How can you tell? There’s no sun,” Aniya remarks.
Amun-Ra looks at her and laughs, “I am the sun!” He directs the oarsmen to make for shore and the boat comes to a stop nestled against the bank of the river. The palace is still far off. Aniya can’t begin to guess how long they will need to walk to reach it.
The loading ramp is lowered down to the bank and the grizzled sun god holds his hand out to the young queen. “Come, we must see my children at once. One of the gods is bound to know what do to help you, snake killer.”
Aniya takes his hand in her own and follows down the rickety wood ramp to the white sands of the desert, while her five remaining shabti follow behind.
“Behold, the Hall of the gods,” Amun-Ra says. Walls tower up before her reaching impossibly high into the heavens as giant statues of gods tower over her and stare out across the empty desert. Aniya looks behind her. The river is just a thin, black thread meandering through golden, desert sands.
A wave of disorientation flows through her for a moment. “But we were just…” she says closing her eyes and putting a hand to her head.
“Sorry about that. Traveling with the gods can be disconcerting for mortals. Are you alright?” Amun-Ra asks.
Aniya swallows down a wave of nausea. “If we could move so quickly, why did we spend all day on the barge?” she asks. “Why not just come here immediately?”
“The sun must travel its path as it will, in its own time. You can not make the sun slow down or speed up. The Hall of the gods is the midpoint of my daily journey so I can not tarry here long. Come, let’s go inside.”
Statues fill the room, taller than anything Aniya ever saw in her city of Waset. The hair on the back of her neck raises and she feels eyes looking down on her. She glances up at the giant statues’ faces and nearly stumbles into the sun god when she sees their heads turn. Their eyes follow the motley party of god, queen and clay as they make their way across the floor. Aniya realizes they are not statues. She is staring up into the face of the gods, truly larger than life.
“Down here,” Amun-Ra instructs “is the throne room. My son and his wife are there. At least, they should be.”
“Should be?”
“I have a feeling it is not just the minor gods from my ship who have disappeared. It seemed awfully empty in the great hall back there.” Aniya takes a look behind. Though they tower over her, she realizes how few there are.
Amun-Ra leads the group down a hall and they stop at a set of double doors guarded by men with black heads of jackals. Without hesitation the guards open the doors and reveal a room entirely plated in gold.
Though the great hall at the entrance to the palace was seemingly empty, this room is not. Gods of all sorts mingle to the left and right of a central aisle. Most of the gods look human, at least parts of them do. A woman with the head of a lioness bows her head at the sun god.
“Sekhmet, nice to see you,” he says, as the giant cat purrs at them.
Amun-Ra leads the way down the aisle and a feeling of disorientation flows through Aniya once again as the gods seem to grow shorter with each step they take down the aisle. When they reach the end of the path, the surrounding gods are no larger than ordinary men and women. Aniya takes a deep breath and pushes away the nausea while she studies the man and woman sitting on the thrones. Though Aniya recognized only a handful of the gods wandering through the throne room, there is no mistaking these. Green skinned with golden eyes, Osiris, king of the underworld sits next to the most beautiful woman Aniya has ever seen, Isis, his wife. The queen turns her gaze to Aniya and smiles. The goddess’ smile is not unkind, and Aniya smiles back shyly.
Next to the throne stands a god with the heavily-muscled body of a man and the head of a black jackal. Aniya recognizes him as Anubis, god of the dead. In one hand is his staff, and in the other he holds a single, white ostrich feather. Resting beside him on the floor lies a beast with the head of a crocodile, the trunk of a lion and the backside of a hippopotamus. A sleepy reptilian eye winks at Aniya. She knows the beast as well - Ammit, devourer of souls.
"Greetings, Father" says Osiris. “It's unusual for you to leave the boat of a million years. Are we to have an extra long afternoon today? You know how the mortals will talk about the sun standing still in the sky if you don’t continue your journey.”
"Yes, yes. I'll take care of that in a moment," the crotchety, old sun god answers. “I’m here about my crew.”
“Your crew, my lord?” Isis asks, her voice as rich as an oasis stream.
“My crew is gone. All of them. Have you noticed any of the minor gods disappearing?”
Isis and Osiris look at each other briefly and nod. The jackal head of Anubis moves slightly up-and-down as well.
“Not only is my crew gone, the Ka of this mortal, Aniya, was able to enter the Duat though her body has not yet received the proper rituals. The boundaries between the living and the dead, gods and men, are crumbling. Vanishing. The crew of my boat has met just that fate. Not to mention that we were attacked by Apophis this morning. There is strange magic afoot here.”
Osiris tugs thoughtfully on his long, black braided beard.“This sounds like the work of my brother, Set. His love for chaos might have something to do with this.”
“I don’t think so,” the sun god answers. “There is a new god causing this mayhem. This girl is a queen of Egypt. She says Pharaoh has abandoned the ancient gods and has forced all of Egypt to worship a new god. We are being forgotten. Soon, even we will disappear.”
Osiris looks long and hard at Aniya. “Is this true, queen of Egypt? Are the ways of the gods being abandoned to a single deity?”
Aniya tears her eyes away from the crocodile’s stare and faces the lord of the underworld. “Yes, it’s true. My husband Akhenaten, and his first wife outlawed the worship of all other gods. Pharaoh died recently, but the great royal wife, Nefertiti, continues to force Egypt to worship Aten, the One God. My son, the new Pharaoh, is only a baby. He will not be able to rule Egypt for many years; he can not change the laws of worship. Egypt prays only to one god now.”
“Osiris,” Amun-Ra says, “This girl arrived just as I needed help. She and her servants helped to fight off Apophis and bring light back to the world. It was she who defeated him and I owe her for her help. Somehow her spirit entered the Duat before her body was prepared properly. If her Ka does not return to her body before sundown, she will become one of the lost souls of the Duat.”
"That is unfortunate," Osiris says. “But what is that to us? Many souls come through the Duat. What would you have us do for a lost soul?"
"I am not a lost soul,” Aniya speaks up. “I'm not meant to be here."
"What do you mean, child?" Isis leans forward. The goddess’ eyes flicker red like rubies. Aniya finds herself staring and lowers her eyes in reverence.
"I don't believe I am dead. Not truly. I think there is some magic at work."
"Only the jackal Anubis can tell if you're truly meant to be here," Osiris answers. “The god of the dead has ways of knowing if you belong in the land of the living or the dead. It is he who will judge you, not I."
Anubis takes a step toward her and Ammit, the devourer, follows behind, sitting on its back legs and opening its great, sharp-toothed jaws wide. The crocodilian mouth is larger than Aniya and she knows it would take only one snap of the jaws for the beast to consume her.
The jackal-headed god takes her hand and places it in his own. His skin is smooth and cold against hers, the skin of a dead man. He places the ostrich feather in her palm. When Anubis speaks to her, his voice is calm and soot
hing. “Come,” he says gently. “Take the feather of Ma’at, the feather of truth, and place it on the scale. If what you have said to us is true, you have nothing to fear. But if your heart is not true, Ammit will consume you and your soul shall be lost forever.”
Anubis places a golden scale on the floor before Ammit’s gaping jaws. The two discs hang equally, neither side heavier than the other. She grips the ostrich feather tightly in her hand and tries not to think about how heavy it feels. The tender hairs of the single plume tremble with each of the crocodile’s slow breaths as she reaches out an unsteady hand, shaking in the air both from fear and the pain of the snake’s venomous bite. With unsure fingers she places the feather onto one of the golden discs. The scale does not tip, and Ammit the devourer of souls remains still.
"What you have said to us is true," Anubis declares. "You do not belong here in the land of the dead, though I’m not sure you belong in the land of the living, either."
He takes her wounded hand in his and closes his eyes. The pain of the serpent’s bite dissipates and when he pulls his hand away, the wound is gone. “The venom of Apophis no longer flows through your Ka,” he says, “but there is still danger in becoming a lost soul. You must return your spirit to your body before the sun sets, otherwise there is nothing I can do to save you.”
Osiris speaks up, "We give Amun-Ra permission to send you back to the land of the living. But know that it is only your Ka that will return. Your body is just as you left it. Unless you can find out why your spirit has been separated from your body, I'm afraid there is nothing we can do. You may be lost forever."
"Thank you for helping me," Aniya says, bowing low before the throne of the gods.
"Looks like it's time to go," Amun-Ra says, scratching an armpit. Aniya looks away, amazed again by the humanness of the sun god.
Aniya, her five remaining shabti and Amun-Ra make their way back to the sun god’s boat. Oars are dropped back into the water and the barge is pushed into the black waters of the river once again.
The sun god spits over the side of the boat and says, “I guess this is where we part ways.”
“Here?” Aniya asks. “In the middle of the river?”
“The waters of the Duat know you don’t belong here. They will lead you home. Hold your breath though.”
Faces of lost souls emerge under the surface of the water, their unseeing eye sockets looking right at her. Dead arms and fingers reach for her.
“You’re sure they know I don’t belong here?”
“Well, that’s what you have these guys for, isn’t it?” The shabti pull up their oars, give the sun god a quick salute and jump into the water. Together they form a ring that the watery souls don’t penetrate.
Aniya embraces the thin, wizened god in a quick, tight hug. “Thank you,” she says. She steps back to the edge of the boat and gives him one last smile. He favors her with an encouraging nod. Aniya takes a deep breath and jumps into the center of the shabti circle and down into the waters of the black Nile.
The light disappears as she sinks further and further into the inky abyss. Though her shabti are near, she can feel the fingers of the dead grasping for her, brushing against her skin, reaching for her. The viscous murk of the river bottom squishes underneath her feet as the lost souls circle around her, their dead faces giving off a faint blue light against the black background of the river.
In a sudden rush of water and air Aniya is propelled up through the waters. The air is pushed out of her lungs from the blast, and water gushes down her throat just as she breaks through the surface.
Retching and coughing she swims to the nearest bank, grabs the green rushes and weeds growing there and pulls herself up out of the river. Her clay protectors follow after, sitting next to her as she rolls onto her back and lies on a bed of river weeds. In the heavens, the sun is beginning its descent through the sky.
“I’m back,” Aniya sighs and shades her eyes.
FOURTEEN
It’s just after midday, Aniya decides as she lies there. The sun is just starting its descent. “All right,” she says aloud to herself and the shabti, “I have to find my son, figure out what happened to me, and make my way back to my physical body all before sunset.”
The five remaining shabti look at each other and then back at her with resolution in their eyes. Aniya draws strength from their belief in her. “We can do this,” she says, standing up. She almost believes it, too.
Aniya and her clay soldiers take care to hide themselves at first, but the streets of Waset are full of people. Every Egyptian fit for travel has made their way to the capital for the naming ceremony of the new pharaoh. Aniya decides to disguise the shabti as children to make their way through the city without being noticed.
“I could go to my family’s home and use some of my brother’s and sister’s clothes, but that’s the other direction, away from the palace,” she explains the plan to the shabti captain as they huddle together in a narrow alley just at the edge of the city. A couple of men haggling together turn into the alley. Aniya stands up to shield the shabti from their sight, but the men walk right past her without a single word of greeting. An old woman rushes into the alley and disappears into a doorway, her eyes never once glancing at the queen and her strange entourage.
“That was odd,” Aniya remarks. “Wait here a moment. I wonder…” she steps out of the alley and turns into the busy street crowded with people. She doesn’t walk, just stands right in the middle of the street. People rush past her. Some look like they’re about to run right into her, but at the last moment, they step aside. The strangest thing she notices is their eyes. They slide right off her, never holding her gaze even for a moment. Aniya steps to the side. The throngs of people continue to walk around her, never touching her, never looking at her. She’s like a boulder in a stream, they simply maneuver their way around her.
“Come on,” she says, returning to the alley for the shabti. “They don’t see me. I don’t think they’ll see you, either, but stay close to me just in case.”
She’s right. No one seems to notice her or the shabti as they walk through the city toward the palace. By the time she reaches the palace steps, Aniya has walked past hundreds of people without a single one turning their head, yet she still hesitates when she must walk past the palace guards at the main gate.
“Let’s use the side entrance,” she decides and walks to the same door that Rahotep sent her through that night long ago when her father drunkenly traded her to pay for his gambling debts. It takes a moment for Aniya to work up the courage to open it. I’m not a slave anymore. I’m not a slave anymore.
“I’m a Queen of Egypt,” she says aloud and pushes open the door.
The guards do not seem to notice the door opening. In fact, they do not move at all as Aniya and the shabti walk through. Just as on the streets of the city, no one in the halls of the palace looks at her or the clay soldiers as she walks by.
“This is useful now,” she whispers to the captain, “but I’m not sure I’m going to get anyone’s attention if I need to ask questions later.” The captain shrugs, and Aniya decides to take that as his way of saying “one problem at a time.”
“We’ll go to my room first. The baby might be there with his nursemaids.”
When she arrives at her personal chambers, the first thing she notices is that there are no guards. During her short time as queen, her room has never been unguarded. She rushes in. It’s completely empty.
“Where’s the baby?” she says aloud, even though she knows no one will answer.
Something red and round catches her eye. She bends over to pick it up off the floor where it has been unceremoniously kicked to the side. The teeth marks of a single bite are etched in the pure white flesh of the fruit.
“We have to find him.”
A search through the palace nursery proves fruitless. The many daughters of pharaoh are being cared for by the palace nursemaids, but Aniya’s s
on is still nowhere to be seen. None of them take notice of her or the shabti. Aniya tries to get the attention of one of the servants, but it’s completely useless. No one can see her. No one can help.
“Come on,” Aniya says to the shabti with firm resolution. “There’s someplace else we haven’t looked yet.”
They stop just outside Nefertiti’s personal chambers. “Maybe we’ll find something in here,” she says, trying to calm the rising tide of panic threatening to overwhelm her. I’ll find him.
She lets herself in. Although the room is heavily guarded on the outside, not a single soul is inside. Aniya looks around, searching for anything that might give a clue to where her son is being kept, but there is nothing. A glance outside shows only a garden with a still pool of water lilies. The only thing that captures Aniya’s attention is a black, glass vase sitting next to the water. She walks over to it and is about to pick it up when she hears someone enter the room.
Knowing that no one can hear or see her, Aniya steps quietly to the doorway nonetheless. The quick slap, slap, slap of sandals pacing the marble floor of the room greets her ears before she spies the Great Royal Wife striding back and forth. Aniya watches in astonishment as Nefertiti takes off her royal crown. She’s never seen Nefertiti without the tall, blue crown adorning her head. She stifles a gasp when Nefertiti hurls it at the wall with a scream.
A knock is at the door. Nefertiti retrieves the crown and places it atop her smoothly-shaved head just before Rahotep enters the room, his white ceremonial robes billowing around him. The Vizier makes a grand show of bowing before the queen while the doors close behind him. As soon as the doors shut she hisses, “Have you found the babe yet?”
“No. But have no fear. He will be found.”
“We don’t have any time to waste. The sun will set soon and the One God will be ready for the child sacrifice at the naming ceremony. If we fail him…”
“We won’t,” the Vizier says, pulls the queen into his arms and presses his lips against hers. “Aten’s gift of eternal life will be ours,” he says as he pulls away.
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