by E. A. Copen
They’re not on you, I told my brain. Your body is lying on the altar in the mortuary chapel and Sybille is watching over you. My brain refused to listen, continuing to register the feeling of them biting into me, burrowing under my skin and moving around inside me. It’s not real! There are no bugs, and you’re safe. It’s all an illusion, designed to make you afraid. To make you quit. And you can’t quit, Lazarus. Not when you’ve made it this far. Emma needs you.
I called up the sound of Morningstar’s whip cracking against Emma’s skin, the sight of her back scarred by its bite. The cruel laughter in a voice not his own. Rage drowned out the fear and the disgust, pushing away all other feelings until it lit a fire in my gut. I was going to crush the Devil with my own two hands when I got to him and no one—not a god, not ghosts, and certainly not illusionary bugs—was going to stop me.
The bugs around me let out a sudden screech, sounding like a bunch of giant hissing cockroaches being crushed, and fell dead to the floor. The ones I’d felt moving around inside me slipped out through holes that appeared in my skin and fell alongside the others. Exoskeletons tapped against the stone floor like rain.
I changed my mind about the venomous snakes. I’d rather have those than a bunch of ancient Egyptian roaches crawling around under my skin any day.
With the bugs taken care of, I turned back to the task at hand and began running my hands over the raised hieroglyphs, drawing the symbols in my mind’s eye. “I am not alive, but I grow,” I read to Jean. “I do not breathe, but I need air. I have no mouth, but must be fed. Give me a drink, and I will die. What am I?”
He was silent for a moment. “A flame.”
Light sparked in the darkness at the center of the room. It was so bright at first, I had to cover my eyes, but as I adjusted, I realized we stood in a huge sandstone chamber with a large pool in the center. The fire burned in the pool, which meant whatever was in there wasn’t water. Four cloth-wrapped wooden sticks stood around the square pool, one at each corner. I walked over and grabbed one, dipping the cloth end into the pool before thrusting it into the flame. It lit right up.
When I turned away from the fire and held the torch out, a wave of black moved away from the light, retreating into shadow. Corpses of giant, jade-colored beetles, each one as big as my fist, lay scattered around the room. I shuddered at the sight of them.
“Come on,” I said turning back to Jean. “We’ve got a sphynx to pluck.”
There was only one exit from the room which led to a long, downward sloping hallway crawling with more beetles. They ran shrieking from the light, heading for lower ground and more darkness.
The hallway spilled into another chamber with a raised square section in the middle. A line bisected the top of the platform as if it might open. Stuck to the front of the stone platform was yet another plaque. At least I could read it with my eyes this time.
Worthless, yet treasured
And by actions measured
For this, wars are fought
Yet I cannot be bought
I make heroes weak
And let the mute speak
I am a whisper on every breath
Yet I survive even death
What am I?
Jean frowned and rubbed his chin after I recited it for him. “I don’t know this one. Give me a minute.”
“I do.” I stood from where I’d knelt to read the symbols. “It’s love.”
The stone doors shifted aside with a grinding sound, revealing a dark pit. Somewhere deep inside the pit, chains rattled to life, twisting and turning gears that rose another platform to fill the void.
Resting on that platform was a lion with golden feathered wings and the head and torso of a young man. The only thing he wore was golden fur that stretched from his lion-like paws halfway up his arms. He sat as a lion resting, body reclined with paws in front of him. Chains of the blackest obsidian stretched from somewhere far below and threaded through his body, crisscrossing and wrapping around him a dozen times. They clinked as he raised his head to look at me.
“Why have you awakened me?” His voice was deep and distorted with an uneven pitch that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
I was only there for the feather, which I could easily climb up and pluck, especially with him chained down like that. In two minutes, I could be on my way to meet Osiris and claim my key, feather in hand. But that would mean leaving him suffering and clearly in pain. “Osiris sent me to take one of your feathers.”
The sphynx stood slowly, wincing as the chains pulled at his flesh. Each movement of every muscle opened wounds at his side that bled, painting all the gold around him crimson. The air reeked of fresh blood by the time he got on all fours. “You are not Anubis.”
“Well…” I rubbed the back of my head. “He’s sort of dead.”
“A pity. He was just. Tell me, for what purpose do you seek the feather?”
I exchanged glances with Jean. Osiris had said to speak true, whatever that meant. I didn’t know for certain what Osiris would do with the feather, but I had a pretty good guess. “Osiris’ office is disorganized. Without a feather, he’s having trouble sorting the souls that come to him.”
He tilted his head. “I ask you your intentions, and you speak to me of another. I did not ask about Osiris. Why do you seek the feather?”
I rolled my shoulders back and stood a little straighter. “I want to go through the next gate. There’s a woman in Hell whose soul doesn’t belong there.”
The sphynx squinted. A lion’s growl rattled through the room, stirring my primal urge to run and hide from the much larger predator. “I sense hesitation in your words, human. You’re not certain about your quest. Why?”
I looked down at my shoes. “I’m certain Emma doesn’t deserve to be punished on my account. However, I had to set Fenrir free to get this far. There’s this prophecy that opening all these gates is going to set Hell free on Earth. End of days. I don’t want to be responsible for that.”
“You wrestle with yourself. Is saving this one soul worth potentially damning billions more and ending your world?”
I nodded.
“Prophecies are curious things,” said the sphynx, leaning forward and straining against its chains. “Often vague, often confirmed only after the fact. Yet so many worry over them. Perhaps you are meant to open these gates and unleash Hell on Earth. The hands of fate move men in strange ways toward an unchangeable goal. Annihilation of the human race is all but inevitable. One would even argue it is overdue.
“Look at how your kind treats your world. You choke its breath. You pollute its blood, steal from its body until it has nothing left to give. She quakes. Her oceans rage. Yet you cannot stop. Mankind is inherently destructive. Therefore, you are only acting according to your nature. To expect anything less would be folly.”
I studied the sphynx, trying to decide on its end game. Unlike Fenrir, he hadn’t asked me to free him to get the feather, yet all the feathers were out of reach with him standing up. Even if I climbed up onto the platform, I couldn’t reach them. Maybe if I kept him talking, he’d help me out. “You’re overlooking something.”
The sphynx stared at me expectantly.
I took a step forward and continued. “Yeah, we like breaking stuff, but humans are also creators. We make great movies, paint some gnarly art, and build some awesome buildings. I refuse to accept that destruction and chaos are the default roles of people in the universe. We’re meant to do good. To be good. Emma…” I trailed off, trying to find the right words. “She’s proof that there are good people.”
“And you are not?” The sphynx tilted his head in the opposite direction. “I see the blood on your hands, the weight of guilt on your heart.”
“I’ve done some terrible things,” I admitted. “But Emma and my daughter, they make me want to be a better person. If I lost them, I…”
The sphynx spread his wings wide. Chains clinked. Golden feathers glistened in the firelight. “
Loss is a part of life. People die.”
I shook my head. “Not like this. I can’t leave it like this. I need her back.”
He was silent for a long moment, considering. “I have enjoyed our conversation, human. Answer me these questions three with honesty, and I shall give you two feathers as a token. One, you may give to Osiris. The other, you may use however you desire.”
Two feathers for the price of one? Not bad. Maybe today was my lucky day. “Okay, sphynx. Shoot.”
“Imagine in the future, you will go to a beach,” began the sphynx. “Warm sand beneath your feet, a bright sun above. But a storm churns far out in the ocean, and it makes for choppy waters. You tell your child to stay out of the water, but she does not listen. Your lover, this Emma, is the first to respond and jumps into the rough waters, but she is not a strong swimmer. You are. You can save them, but only one at a time. If you try to save them both, you will die and so will they. Emma is the stronger swimmer, but she is being swept out beyond reach. If you save your daughter, it is unlikely you will be able to save Emma. Whom do you save?”
Great, moral dilemmas. I remembered those from my ethical philosophy course in college. There were no correct answers. No matter which choice you made, it was going to suck. My professor had gone on about a study that proved people answered moral dilemmas like the one the sphynx had given me differently depending on whether they were alone or in groups, which meant most people lied. They gave the answer they thought the asker expected, the one that made them seem like a good person.
But the sphynx had already told me which answer he wanted. He’d asked for an honest answer.
“My daughter,” I answered.
The sphynx gave me an appraising glare. “Yet you brave Hell for Emma and unleash it on your daughter’s world.”
I expected him to point that out. “My daughter’s not in Hell. Emma is. If their roles were reversed, I wouldn’t change a thing. I’d still go after her. The only difference would be that Emma would be standing beside me right now instead of Jean. No offense, Jean.”
He shrugged. “None taken.”
“Next question,” I pressed.
The sphynx nodded. “Imagine now you are a slave, forced to weave tapestries all day. You are paid nothing, but you make the most gorgeous tapestries and put all your effort into your art, despite your situation. Completing a beautiful piece is the only thing that gives you solace, despite your poor treatment. However, one day you find out that no one buys your tapestries from your master because the customers think they are ugly. Do you feel disappointed that no one likes your work and all the misery has been for nothing? Or are you glad that your master has not profited from your mistreatment?”
I opened my mouth but stopped. That was a tough one. On a personal level, I was opposed to slavery in all its forms. Free will was an essential part of being human, and everyone had the right to it as far as I was concerned, ghosts and spirits included.
My gut reaction was to say I’d be glad the asshole in charge wasn’t making a buck, except I knew how it felt to work your ass off only to be told your work sucked. I’d never been an artist, but I had tried my hand at writing and acting. I wasn’t great at either, and I knew that, but it was one thing for me to know it and another for a critic to point that out, especially when they fixated on something I thought I was good at. In high school, a teacher bled all over one of my short stories with her red pen, one I was proud of. It crushed me. I didn’t write anything again until I opened my shop and needed some pamphlets for customers.
“Nothing hurts more than having some asshole tell you that you suck at something,” I said. “And for them to take the one thing that makes you happy and use it to crush you just that much more? That’s something you never shake. That voice will be in the back of your head for the rest of your life. I’d be pissed. Next.”
“Your sister has died tragically at a young age, murdered. Her ghost has asked you to avenge her death. After years of searching and much personal sacrifice, you finally find the killer, but instead of a deranged madman, you find it was your own father. While your father is penitent, your sister’s ghost demands blood. However, killing your father will not bring your sister back. Yet if you don’t, her ghost will haunt you forever. What do you do?”
I stared at the sphynx wondering if it could read my mind. The other dilemmas had been hypothetical, but this one hit close to home. My little sister had been tragically murdered. While I’d never spoken to her ghost directly, I had always felt compelled to find her killer. Part of that drive was my own guilt. I still felt like I could’ve saved her if only I had acted sooner, even though I didn’t know how at the time.
I also needed closure. Without more information, it’d always seemed like Lydia’s death was a random unexplained phenomenon. It felt like chaos in an otherwise orderly world. There had to be a reason she was chosen to die, and a reason I couldn’t save her. I didn’t believe in chaos. My world had rules, and Lydia’s murder felt like a gaping hole in the fabric of all I knew.
But my father hadn’t killed her, that much I knew for certain. He was in prison at the time. After he beat me near to death, Lydia and I were taken from the home, and he was brought up on a laundry list of charges. As it turned out, dear ol’ Dad had several warrants out for his arrest. Unlike me, he’d never see the other side of a prison fence in this lifetime. It couldn’t have been him.
The sphynx’s dilemma was just another random question. I had to get my heart out of it and answer if I wanted to move on.
“No one who hurts a child deserves to keep breathing free air,” I said, clenching my fists.
The sphynx frowned. “The question was would you kill your father to avenge your sister?”
“My father’s a dick. He’s already dead to me.” I paused to think about it another second. “But I couldn’t kill him. Doing that would make me just like him.”
“We are all born in the shadows of our parents.” The sphynx sat, resuming its relaxed position, lifted one paw and plucked two golden feathers from its wing. He drew one across the pad of his paw, wincing, before offering the bloody feathers to me. “With the blood of a Titan, you may pass.”
I stepped forward and claimed them. I’d expected them to be heavy since they were made of gold, but they weighed practically nothing at all.
“Remember these lessons, Lazarus,” said the sphynx. “Be true to yourself in the times of chaos to come. I see much darkness ahead for you.”
The sphynx stiffened, its skin lightening from bronze to the pale sandy color of the surrounding desert as it slowly turned to stone.
Jean floated closer, eyeing the bloody golden feathers in my hand. “Is it me, or was that encounter…unsettling?”
“It was a sphynx. What’d you expect?” I closed my fist around the feathers. “Come on. Let’s get these to Osiris and move on with our evening.”
Chapter Thirteen
We found another passage on the other side of the sphynx room that took us up a sloping staircase and to a trap door. Sand fell in my eyes when I pulled the door open, but not enough to bury us. The stairs went up further.
Stepping through the trap door somehow transported us from the ancient pyramid into Osiris’ throne room. The smell of fresh ink was heavy in the air. Frantic gods spoke in hushed voices against the whirr of printers and the clacking of keys.
Two cat guards were the first to notice us coming out of the floor. One pulled on the other’s sleeve and pointed. “My Lord Osiris.”
He lifted his head from his fist. The god looked like he’d fallen half asleep sitting in his throne. Osiris eyed the feathers in my hand and jumped to his feet. “Stop! Stop everything!”
The din of noise halted abruptly as he held up his hands. Everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at me.
Osiris descended from his dais. “You reached the sphynx?”
“Wasn’t easy,” I said holding out one of the two feathers. “You could’ve told me what an Ammit
was, and about the flesh-eating beetles.”
“And the riddles,” Jean added, crossing his arms.
His eyes never left the feather I held out. “It was forbidden to speak of. How did you get there if I may ask? Until today, only Anubis could speak to the sphynx. He spoke to no one else. Tell me what he spoke of.”
I looked at Jean who shrugged. “Moral dilemmas mostly. Why is he chained up like that?”
“Atonement for his own sins,” Osiris answered. “In a millennium or two, he’ll be set free and allowed to move on.”
“Whatever he did must’ve been pretty terrible to get a punishment like that.”
Osiris finally looked up from the feather to study my face. “Those who challenge the gods receive the harshest punishment come judgment day. You should remember that, Horseman. Now, the feather, if you please?” He stretched out his hand.
I dropped the feather into his open palm.
Osiris nodded to one of his flunkies who promptly went to a filing cabinet, opened a drawer and leafed through the pages before coming back with a single page and a wooden box. The god took both and offered them to me.
I frowned at the page. “What’s this?”
“The key.”
I took the page and scanned it. There were only three words written on the paper in hieroglyphs: ajar, fire, love. The answers to the three riddles I’d had to guess. An answer key. Leave it to the Egyptians to turn the key they guarded into a piece of paper. “It’s not what I was expecting.”
“I know,” Osiris beamed. “But you know what they say. The chisel is mightier than the khopesh, or whatever they’re calling things these days. You’ll need these also.” He shoved the box at me.
I popped open the lid before giving him a curious glance. “Cigars?”
“Not an aficionado, I take it. Ghede Nibo, the Loa you’re on your way to see, is. These are Gurkha Black Dragons. Very expensive. You’ll make sure he knows they’re from me?”
“Sure, whatever. Just point me toward the door.”