Gamers and Gods: AES

by Matthew Kennedy

Am-heh was not pleased when the woman with two swords vanished right in front of him. Growling, he spun and looked around him, but she had escaped. For now. He sniffed the strange air. No, she was definitely not in this place.

  Very well then. He would go to other places, until he found her. The thought of her brought two distinct hungers. Perhaps he could enjoy her in another way before he consumed her.

  Something about this place allowed such travel. He did not know the secret of it. But he did not need to know. All he needed to know was how to get someone to show him the way.

  Am-heh lifted his dog's head, sniffing. Yes. There were more of them, among the soulless ghosts at the largest of royal tombs. He moved off in the direction of Giza, where mighty piles of man-hewn rocks stabbed the sky with proud defiance.

  Eternal day. The sun god Ra held vigil immobile, refusing to stir from his height above. Am-heh cursed the heat. He knew that rain seldom fell in the land of Khem, but this was ridiculous! Had some great magician found a way to stop the sun, perhaps for fear of night? It was maddening.

  Continuing to walk. He felt the heat, but he was tireless. Once he was away from the river, though, the grass faded to sand, whipped by the wind into missiles that stung his eyes and invaded his nostrils. He growled and reached out with his heka-power, parting the wind before him so that the driven grains slipped past on either side.

  Much better. As he walked, Am-heh thought again about the woman's swords. Steel. Not copper or bronze. Where had she obtained them? The material was not common in Khem. Even the tools the mortals used to dress their stones and carve their inset hieroglyphs were only made of copper or bronze. A few pieces of iron had fallen from the sky, but they were mere novelties, hammered into ceremonial daggers or other trivia.

  The Great Pyramid loomed before him. It was another mystery, and Am-heh hated mysteries. He knew what it ought to look like. The mortals had covered the crude limestone blocks with a layer of white polished limestone. The white of the sides had been dazzling under the noonday sun.

  It was (still!) noon here. But the pyramid was no longer dazzling. The polished limestone was gone, giving the edifice a rough and unfinished look. In the distance, he could see two more of the monuments. They were likewise denuded, one of them with a vestigial cap at its top where part of the facing remained.

  Am-heh growled. The pure geometry was profaned, desecrated. Why had the gods permitted such disrespect? Mysteries piled upon mysteries.

  Approaching the ancient pile of stone, he came upon two mortals having an argument.

  “...was not a tomb, I tell you! The ancients learned how to tap into cosmic energy, using precisely oriented geometry. It powered their heka, the magic used by gods and magicians–”

  “You are so full of it! The pyramids were tombs, but they were mainly a way to provide off-season employment for the farmers while they were waiting for the Nile floodwaters to recede every year. Your so-called 'pyramid power' theory was discredited back before you were even born! These king-sized mastabas came from pride and economics, that's been clearly–”

  “You just cut your throat with Occam's Razor! The simplest explanation is not always the correct one. That kind of attitude is why experts thought Troy was just a good story until Schliemann came along and decided to trust Homer. Major myths usually have some basis in fact.”

  “Sure, the fact that people like a good story! Wanting the pyramids to be magic alien technology doesn't make it so. What's your Doctorate in, anyway? Wishful thinking?”

  Am-heh looked from one to the other, trying to decide which one to eat first. They certainly were noisy creatures.

  “If you're so obsessed with facts and physics, why don't you go see the real pyramids, you Philistine! You never understood how important gods and ancient beliefs were to human development. Why on UE did you bother to come here?”

  “Because I heard you were here, Victor, filling my students' heads with nonsense. It's hard enough to get them to think objectively without you pouring your pretentious delusions into them. What happened to you? You weren't this way in graduate school.”

  “You came here just to waste my time? As if I believe that. And you weren't always a whiny bitch, Howard. You've changed, and not for the better. Your mind has closed like a fist. Frankly, it's getting hard to remember what I ever saw in you. Someone sucked all the beauty out of you, leaving a walking textbook...and a dull one, at that.”

  Am-heh grinned. He was beginning to understand this strange language better, now that he had heard more of it.

  “I grew up, Victor. You should try it. Let go of all this mushy craziness that's wasting your life and get back into real science. I came here to tell you that. Anything else is...just wishful thinking on your part. You can't sharpen razors with focused optimism. Either do some real science or at least publish your next book labeled properly as the fiction it is.”

  Am-heh stepped closer to the two men. “I might be able to settle your argument about the gods,” he said casually.

  The two men turned and saw him. “Butt out, dog-face,” said the one called Howard, his face wrinkling with distaste. “See that, Victor? That's the kind of crap religious thinking turns out.”

  Victor wasn't listening, Am-heh noted. “I recognize you,” said Victor breathlessly. “I've seen your likeness. You're...” His eyes were faraway for a moment. Then he snapped his fingers. “Am-heh! From the lake of fire, right? What happened to your shenti? They didn't usually draw you naked.”

  “He's an ugly NPC wasting your time,” said Howard. “Fuck off, Fido, and go entertain someone dumb enough to believe this crap.”

  Victor rolled his eyes. “Howard, there is no excuse for that kind of disrespect. It's not just rude, it's stupid. This is Am-heh, the Devourer of Millions.”

  Howard just looked disgusted. “Is that who you're supposed to be? Ooh, I'm so scared of 3D cartoons. Eat me, you mongrel superstition!”

  GLOMPH!

  Am-heh burped. “Happy to oblige a noisy fool.” He turned to regard Victor, who was slack-jawed with shock. “You, however...”

  He was interrupted by the strangest sensation. Before he knew what was happening, he found himself lifting off the ground. There was a roaring in his ears. There was a sweet pain that grew, building up to a shattering explosion of light. He felt himself fall back to his feet. He felt something else: his power had grown.

  He looked up. Victor was staring at him with a mixture of awe and terror on his avatar's face. “You...you devoured him!”

  Am-heh shrugged. “It's what I do.” He reached out suddenly and grabbed Victor's arm. “If you want to stay off the menu, you are going to help me, mortal. Do you know how to leave this place?”

  Victor swallowed, looking a little pale. “Um, sure,” he said quickly. “You want to go somewhere else?”

  “Maybe more than one place.” Am-heh grinned, sniffing the air. The other god was out there, somewhere. “But first I want to find a place where women fight with swords of steel.”

  Chapter 35: Farker: shadow boxing