by Rain Oxford
“Sofia’s death wasn’t your fault. You were innocent,” my mother said.
“Why? Because I was a kid?”
“Did you want her dead?” Rose asked.
“No, of course not.”
“Did you use your magic to make someone shoot her?” my father asked.
“No. I was ten; I couldn’t control it. I didn’t even know I could control it back then. No one had explained it to me and everyone drills it into our heads that magic isn’t real. It wasn’t like I could go to anyone for help.”
None of them said anything, so I studied their faces. It was the first time I had seen my parents in three years. They weren’t glaring at me with anger. They had died in a car accident, fifty miles away from me. I hadn’t been angry with them, and I damn sure hadn’t wanted it. Yes, I knew I was cursed, but if I could control it, they wouldn’t have been dead.
I stood. “It wasn’t my fault. You died because some drunk guy got behind the wheel after his girlfriend broke up with him. I didn’t make him do it. It could have been anyone.” I looked at Rose. “I don’t know why you did what you did, but had I known, I would have gotten you help. You meant so much to me and I thought you loved me back. I don’t know what I could have done to stop you, because I was a kid. I didn’t have control over you any more than I had control over my magic.”
Then everything grew dark.
Chapter 15
“I’m tired of this. I’ve done enough trials.”
“You are nowhere near finished,” said the voice.
I heard metal scrape stone and groaned. I had seen enough movies to know where this was going.
“There are weapons around you. Find one and face your opponent.”
“Can you flip on the lights for a minute so I can find something? No? Okay, that’s what shins are for, I guess.” I started feeling my way in the dark until my boot kicked something. I found it and ran my hands over the wooden length and metal tip. An arrow. A lot of good that does me. Still, it was better than nothing. At least it’s not a banana. Or some raspberries. Someone was moving quietly. If it wasn’t a matter of life and death, I wouldn’t have heard them at all.
The next thing I stumbled into was a table. Upon which, I found a long dagger and a broadsword. I strapped the dagger and arrow to my side, knowing full well they were going to cut me, but willing to take the risk. It was better to have and bleed than need and not have.
I reached out for the heavier weapon and felt the hilt an instant before the tip of a blade pressed against my back. If it weren’t for my robe, I would have bled. Why doesn’t my curse ever strike when I want it to? “Knifing a guy in the back is really shitty, you know?”
There was no answer.
“I can’t imagine you’re a god or monster.” Nevertheless, I figured he wasn’t an actual person, so there wasn’t a way to bribe him or turn him against anyone.
He grabbed my arm and turned me, pushing me into the table. I wasn’t trained in weaponry, but I could tell, by the movement of his body, what he was doing.
He was going to stab me in the chest.
I grabbed the sword I had felt and jerked it across. The best case scenario I could think of was that I would be stabbed in the arm rather than my heart. To my surprise, the hilt in my hand collided with the blade of the oncoming sword and pushed it to the side, where it struck the table instead of my gooey innards.
Blind luck.
I slammed my elbow down on my opponent’s hand and was disappointed when I didn’t get an audible reaction. He was already stepping back, so I dropped the sword and simultaneously punched him in the nose and kicked him in the side of the knee. At the same time, he punched me in the kidney. Both of us hit the floor, and both of us were groaning in agony.
I was stunned, trying to assess the damage while listening for my opponent to recover. I heard his panting breaths and pained gasps. After a few minutes, when I could breathe, I deduced that he hadn’t gotten in as good a shot as I’d thought. I grabbed the sword and stood shakily. Kicking in his direction until I made contact, I figured out his location. He moved, telling me he was awake and I had to be careful that he didn’t kick my legs. Before he could pull himself together, I aimed the sword down over him…
And the lights came on.
I was standing over Luca, whose face was drenched in blood, and my heart recoiled. I tossed the sword away even as my brain screamed that it wasn’t my brother. We were in a small room filled with weapons on the floor, table, and walls. The only light came from a single torch on the wall. There was also no door, so there was no way to escape.
“I know it’s not him!” I yelled.
There was no response.
Luca started to get up, slowly, and the familiar, zombie-like movements made my blood turn to ice. His eyes, which I hadn’t seen clearly because of the dim light and blood, had the same glassy look as Keeper had when Whisperer was controlling him.
“No. No, you can’t be Luca.”
He clumsily picked up the sword I had dropped. “I have to,” he said, his voice dull. “You can’t survive your trials.”
“It’s not true.”
He said nothing as he swung the sword at me. His eyes were flooded with tears from his broken nose, though, so his aim was off and I was able to dodge him easily. “How can I help? How do I break Whisperer’s control?”
“You have to die,” he said.
“No, I don’t. I bet you know more magic than any caster, even if you can’t use it. You have to know a way to break it.” I grabbed the sword he had pointed at me and used it to block him. A shield would be useful. That reminded me that I had magic. Apparently, it wasn’t a reflex for me yet. “Dje.” Focusing my mind on the spell was easy after so much practice.
Luca levitated into the air and kicked fruitlessly, unable to hurt me or himself.
“I know you won’t like this, but I need to finish my trials before I can help you. I’ll use whatever power I’m given and save you.” And if I die before I can, Painter will do it. I froze, floored by how reassuring that was. The Painter might have been bat-shit crazy, but I trusted him to keep his word, and more importantly, I trusted him to protect my brother over the priests.
I grabbed an axe off the wall and tossed it aside, then levitated Luca over to the hook and lowered him slowly until the hook had a firm hold on his robe. He kicked half-heartedly, but he wasn’t getting free soon.
Then again, we’ll suffocate before too long.
As soon as I thought it, a door appeared next to Luca and Luca vanished.
“That was another test?!”
“Yes,” the voice said easily.
“Luca’s not hurt?”
“Not by your hand, no.”
I was understandably cautious as I stepped into the hallway. I wasn’t alone this time, though. A god blocked my path— the only Egyptian god I would recognize immediately. “Are you Anubis?” I asked.
The seven-foot tall god, like in the Egyptian myths, had the head of a black jackal. His body, however, was that of a muscular man. He wore gold and white clothes and had the gold headdress and necklace that I had seen from the pictures. It struck me as odd that he was exactly what I was expecting, down to the staff he held.
The god nodded. “I am.” His voice was loud and deep, but not as if he was yelling, and his mouth didn’t move.
“Why do you look…?”
“I appeared to you exactly as you expected to see me.”
“Are you going to weigh my heart?”
“Not yet. You have one more trial to complete before that.”
I opened my mouth to say something sarcastic, only to gasp with shock as he reached into my chest and tore my heart out.
There were a few things no man ever wanted to see, and somewhere at the top was their own heart. It was redder than I’d expected, almost glowing. As I stared at it, my shock and horror faded, enabling me to realize that I still felt my heart beating inside of me. In fact, it was pounding ha
rd. Also, there was no blood spewing all over the ground.
“How am I not dead if you took out my heart?” I asked. Even my voice sounded dead.
“This is only the essence of your heart,” Anubis explained. “It is your emotions. You can live without love, kindness, joy, fear, and hate, but it would not be a good life.”
“Are you saying that until you put that back in me, I can’t feel any emotion?” I expected to feel horrified. I didn’t. I expected to think of a sarcastic response. I didn’t. “I don’t like it.”
“You do not dislike it, either.”
I shrugged. “Alright. What’s next?”
Anubis stepped to the side and gestured for me to make my way down the hallway. “That depends on you.”
Instead of asking what he meant, I continued to the end of the hall, where I came to two doors… and two versions of my brother. If Anubis hadn’t taken my heart, I would have been freaking out. Instead, I was empty. There was no joy or fear at seeing Luca; I simply waited for one of them to explain.
“Nathan, the gods sent me here to guide you,” the Luca on the left said. “They created him to mislead you.”
“He’s lying,” The Luca on the right argued. “He’s not real. I’m here to guide you.”
“And I’m supposed to choose which door to take,” I surmised.
“This one is the last door,” Left Luca said.
“No, it’s not. It’ll send you to a horrible place,” Right Luca argued.
I sighed. My mind was unburdened by the lack of my heart, but it didn’t make the decision any clearer. The empty feeling was uncomfortable. Not upsetting, just unpleasant. “When is my birthday?”
“January 21, 1993,” Left Luca said.
“What’s Luca’s birthday?”
“My birthday is on November 15, 1993,” Right Luca said.
“What country was I supposed to go to before our parents died?”
“Japan,” Left Luca said.
“What did Luca say about the trip afterwards?”
“I don’t want to be alone,” Right Luca answered.
I was sure I would feel something then, but I didn’t. Both of them looked completely sincere. Then again, the gods would know that. I had to think of something that was new and disguised by something bigger happening. After a minute, I asked, “What did Luca get me for my twenty-fourth birthday?”
They both froze with confusion.
“You’re both fakes.”
They vanished and the doors fused into one, which opened. The room beyond was massive. Centered on the north wall was an archway and a stream with a small boat, obviously waiting to take someone away. Beside it was a square metal cage, about five feet across. The rest of the room was a set of steps up to the center of the room, which was a round platform. There, I saw three gods, not just Anubis, surrounding a seven-foot-tall brass scale.
Even more surprising than seeing two more animal-headed gods than I was expecting was seeing that I wasn’t the only one who had been taking my trials. A young girl around fifteen was halfway to the top. If I had any emotions, I probably would have felt relieved that I didn’t have to go first. I would have needed the time to relax from the trials and tense back up over the huge test I was about to face.
Instead, I waited patiently by the door.
I was fairly certain the god with the head of an Ibis was Thoth, and the other was Ammut. Ammut was a fearsome creature, with the head of a crocodile, the front body of a lion, and the hindquarters of a hippopotamus. If I could have felt anything, I would have been terrified. The girl clearly didn’t have her heart, either, because she didn’t even hesitate to stop right next to Ammut. Anubis held out his hands and the girl’s heart appeared. It looked the same as mine, but I was pretty far away, so I couldn’t see much.
Anubis set the heart on the scale gently as the girl watched apathetically. She didn’t react when the heart offset the balance and sunk low to the floor. Thoth calmly recorded the results in his book as Ammut licked her lips. Then Anubis picked up the heart and tossed it into the air, where Ammut snapped it up and swallowed it whole.
The girl gasped. Two men dressed in black robes appeared and grabbed her arms. They didn’t have faces. As they started pulling her down the steps towards the boat, she began crying and begging for them to give her another chance. “Why?” she asked. It was the only word I could make out.
“You have stolen,” Anubis said.
“Please! I did what I had to in order to survive.”
“Had you stayed innocent, you would have had all the food you could desire in the afterlife.”
I made my way up the steps. By then, they had locked her in the cage and disappeared. The boat was still there. “What are they doing?” I asked.
“They are waiting to see if they need to take you as well. The boat only comes once a day and leaves once a night.”
“I thought girls weren’t even allowed to take the trials.”
“That is a rule the priests have made up, not us. Furthermore, she did not complete the trials to become a priest.”
“She died?”
“Yes.”
“Then the trials for the underworld are the same as the trials for magic?”
“Yes.”
“How am I any more alive than she is?”
“You are not.”
That really should have bothered me, but in my heartless state, it was just a fact. “Where are they taking her?”
“They are taking her to the fires of Kradga, and they will take you there as well if your heart is not lighter than a feather.”
I didn’t feel fear— I couldn’t, yet I felt something.
Anubis set my heart on the scale, drawing my attention back to my fate. The scale tipped. I knew the outcome already; I wasn’t a saint by any means and I certainly wasn’t any better than a fifteen-year-old.
I looked at Thoth, wondering if he ever got tired of judging people based on their weight. The scale stopped tilting and Thoth scratched his verdict in his book. The air had never felt so still before. I looked at the scale.
My heart was marginally higher than the feather.
That can’t be right. I’m an asshole nine days out of five. Then I looked at the girl in the cage and I felt something again.
Survivor’s guilt. Maybe that was the sum of me. No matter what I did to help people or how many risks I took, I kept surviving and my loved ones kept suffering. I had just accepted that it wasn’t my fault, but that didn’t make it any less painful.
There were people waiting for that girl, wherever it was she wasn’t allowed to go. Is my mother there?
“Is there a way to let her go to the afterlife?” Or wherever it is, I thought stubbornly.
“Only with a good heart can she go,” Anubis said.
“Can you give her my heart?”
“We can, but you would have to take her place on Kradga. Why would you do this? She has darkened her own heart.”
“She’s a little girl who did whatever she could to survive. I had a good life. It’s not fair to her.”
“It is not your responsibility to rectify her fortunes.”
It was only because I didn’t have a heart that I kept my mouth shut when I would have otherwise told him it was his fault. The gods had a duty to protect the people that worshiped them because they could.
“Give it to her anyway. She needs it more than me.”
“As you wish.”
The two guards reappeared and brought the girl up the stairs. She was obviously in shock. When they dropped her at my feet, I saw her face clearly. There was a fine layer of dust or ash that coated her skin, making sweat and tear streaks down her face. “Why would you do this?” she asked. “I’m a stranger to you.”
“Have you ever had anyone take care of you?” I asked. She shook her head. “Then it’s about time.” I held out my hand and she took it. Her hands were caked in blood and mud from her trials. I pulled her up gently, as she barely weighed a feathe
r herself. As Anubis brought the vital organ around the scales to stand in front of us, it occurred to me that the trial where I faced my loved ones had probably saved my heart. After all, a heavy heart isn’t a sinful one but a miserable one.
Anubis put his left hand on the girl’s shoulder to steady her.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Thoth asked. “It will not bring her back to life.”
“Life is too short anyway. If the Land of the Gods is so great, let her find peace there.”
Anubis moved his arm like he was going to shove her heart into her chest, but at the last second, he turned and shoved it into mine instead. It felt like a ball of fire, instantly burning through my flesh. It was the emotions flooding back to me that were so agonizing.
And then I passed out.
* * *
I woke in a room with a light over me. The floor was stone, but I couldn’t see any walls. Above me was a sort of spotlight, which only lit a five-foot circle around me. “Great. I’m being abducted by aliens. I owe Luca ten bucks.”
The light spread, revealing that I wasn’t alone. There were seven gods surrounding me. I recognized Isis easily. They were no taller than me. The women were womanly and the men were manly, but it was the aura of power around them that revealed who they were.
“Kradga is a lot less fiery than I was expecting. Oh, yay. I was starting to miss my sarcasm. Am I in the pyramid?” I asked. I didn’t think Isis would have been in her vessel if I was on Kradga or in the Land of the Gods.
“Yes, Nathanial. You survived your trials. We are all here to offer you our power.”
“But Anubis said---”
“I tested your heart,” one of the gods said. I didn’t recognize him, but I did recognize his voice. He was considerably less massive than he had been in the other realm.
“You’re Anubis in your vessel?”
“Yes. You proved that even without emotion, you could make the true sacrifice.”
“If I hadn’t done it, I would have been killed?”
“No,” he said. “Your heart was pure. It was a second part of the test for those whose hearts were not as good. The fact that you passed both was enough to gain you four more supporters.”