by Gene Wolfe
"No," I said.
He laughed. "Remind me never to debate you. But you're wrong. I'm not starving, and I would starve if they did. I expel the harmless spirit for a modest fee-and charge a great deal more for the worse one who finds the first's house empty."
"Could you drive out the cat?"
"Perhaps." Sahuset turned away to gaze out over the river.
"Would you? If Qanju ordered it?"
He shook his head.
"Why not?"
"You are a soldier. Would you accept an order from someone who knew far less of the military art than you do?"
Now it was my turn to watch the sails and the wheeling river-birds. "It would depend on what it was," I said at last.
"Just so." Sahuset held out his wine skin. "More? You, Myt-ser'eu?"
She accepted a second cup; when he had filled it, he poured another for himself. "I have offered my wine and my friendship. You are both afraid I'll ask some service for them. I will not, but will gladly do one for you if you ask. Do you? Either of you?"
Myt-ser'eu said, "Would you want money if I asked you to tell my fortune?"
Sahuset shook his head.
"Then please, would you?"
"Certainly." From the pouch at his belt he took four gold sticks, none of which were quite straight. "I should have my wand for this," he said-and it was there, a rod of carved ivory, though I had not noticed it before. He laid the gold sticks on the grass, each a corner of a rough square, then traced a circle about them with his wand. Closing his eyes, he looked toward the sky. For a time so long that I grew sleepy his lips moved, though I could not hear what they said.
At last he picked up the sticks, shook them in his hands, and flung them toward Myt-ser'eu. They landed in the circle, as well as I could judge, and he bent above them. "Much sorrow soon," he said, "but joy not long after it."
"That's good," she said.
He nodded absently. "You will travel to strange lands, and will be in danger there. You will return to your native place-and leave it again. Hathor favors you. That's all I can read here."
"That's what I've always wanted," Myt-ser'eu said, "to get away from my family and see strange places and meet new people like Latro. Hathor must be very kind."
"She is. Latro?"
I shook my head.
"Please?" Myt-ser'eu's hand tried to squeeze my thigh. "For me? Just this once?"
I shook my head again. "I'm a soldier, as he said. I'll die on some battlefield, and knowing that I know as much as he can find out."
"But you might not, and we're together, so if we learn about you we'll learn more about me."
I shrugged.
Taking it for consent, Sahuset scooped up his gold sticks and flung them at me. For an instant it seemed they had struck my face; they had not, and fell in the circle as before. One lay upon another there.
Sahuset leaned over them. I heard his indrawn breath, but he did not speak. He rose, walked toward the temple wall, then returned to us and studied his gold sticks again from a different angle.
"What is it?" Myt-ser'eu asked.
"You are frightened," he said. "So am I." He picked up his sticks slowly, one by one, tossed them straight up into the air, and studied them as before.
"Tell us!"
"Latro? This is ill news, I'm afraid. If you demand it, I'll tell you. I advise you not to."
"I would rather hear bad news," I said, "than know myself a coward."
"Very well. Death is near you. Very near. Myt-ser'eu and I may save you, but we may not. We will try, of course. Certainly I will. Will you, Myt-ser'eu?"
She nodded, and I felt her hand tremble. I said, "How near is it?"
Sahuset bit his lip. "Before sunrise tomorrow. You may be confident of that. If you see the sun rise, you are out of danger. Beyond the proximity of your peril, there is no certainty. Be careful this evening. Be very careful tonight, and recall always that death may be kinder than Hathor. That is all I can tell you."
He left. I opened the leather case that holds this scroll, and Myt-ser'eu fetched water from the canal for me. She said that fortunes told are sometimes wrong, which I know is true. I said that it would be hard to think of a place where danger threatened less than here, which is true too. We made jokes and kissed, and soon her tears dried.
10
WE ARE ONE
DEATH DID NOT seem strange then. I will write it all, though I may think I went mad when I read it in days not yet come. I forget, as the captain told me. And the woman, and the seer. The healer said it was best to remember nothing, but Uraeus tells me that I must remember or wander lost until I die once more.
I flew to this ship. I cannot say how I knew where it was-I flew at the word of the man who gave me the serpent from his crown, and it was before me. I knew I must go there. My body lay in the bow, screened with sailcloth. "Lucius," the seer whispered over it. "Lucius, do you hear me?"
Then I knew that the thin man had returned already, and I must return too. I did, and it was like walking into a cave to rejoin friends. The small man came too, and I sat up. The sailcloth would not let me see whether the dark man had come as well. I took it down, and he had not. I bent to comfort the woman who wept, and quickly he was there. Uraeus is with us too.
Here is what happened.
A man wearing a strange crown came from the direction of the temple. "Get up," he told me, "you must come with me." There was no threat or anger in his voice, but I knew that he must be obeyed. I rose and felt myself pulling others behind me as I rose. I drew the man whose hand I clasped, he another, and so on. I was also drawn by the man whose hand clasped mine. I rose, and we were four.
"Come with me." The crowned man beckoned with a stalk of papyrus. "I am Sesostris."
We did as we were bid, but looked behind us. A fifth man was being rolled into a cloth while women wailed.
One was dark. One was thin. One was small, but shone like a star. All were I, and so was I. Our body was I as well.
"Who are we?" the small I asked Sesostris.
At this, the thin I said, "I am Lucius."
We pressed forward. "Who are we?"
Sesostris pointed to the one I am. "You are Ba." To the small shining one. "You are Ka." To the dark one. "You are Shade." To the thin one. "You are Name."
"I am Lucius," the thin one declared again.
To this Sesostris nodded. "You are."
"Are we dead?" we asked.
"He is," Sesostris told us. "You are not. You came from another land with him who is dead, and have never been taught. If I teach you now, will you learn of me?"
"Yes," we said, "teach us!"
"A man is of five parts," Sesostris told us. He held up his hand, its fingers wide. "A woman or a child, the same. They are Body, Name, Shade, Ba, and Ka. At death, Body sleeps. You will be judged by gods. If you are found worthy, you will wait in the Field of Reeds until the day when all shall be reunited. If unworthy, devoured."
We nodded one by one, first the small shining one, last I. I said, "There are many gods here."
"There are more than you suppose, more gods than men, by far. Do you fear they will all judge you?"
"I do not fear," I said.
"You need not. Forty-two will judge you, with Osiris to preside."
The gate of the temple wall stood before us. We walked through it, though it was shut. Within were the temple, not large but fine in the way of Kemet, and other buildings.
"What are these places?" we asked.
"That is the House of Life." Sesostris gestured with his stalk of papyrus. "That is the House of Priests. Some are storehouses. Many are thought empty."
"They are not?" Shade said.
Sesostris shook his head, and the cobra on his crown hissed.
"You are Sesostris," Name said. "What is the serpent's name?"
Sesostris smiled. "In a thousand years I have not been asked that question. His name is Uraeus."
We walked, and he taught again. "I was king," he sa
id. "Dying, I was judged worthy and became a god. So you will become at last, if you too are judged worthy. You will dwell in the Field of Reeds until you are needed or invoked. Then you will return to this world of the living, unseen save by those you would have see you."
"All of us?" we asked. "Do we all become gods, who die?"
"Only those deemed worthy. The rest are devoured by Ammut."
As soon as he spoke her name Ammut waddled beside us, huge and stinking. Her head is like a crocodile's, though it is not a crocodile's. Her body is that of a fat woman with misshapen feet, though it is not a fat woman's. "Did you ask whether I would eat you all?" She simpered. "Yes. All of you, if the heart is heavy."
"Better to be devoured by you than to fare in the Deadland," said the small and shining I.
"Here is the Deadland," Ammut told him, and smote her great belly.
We passed through the temple. The figure in the holy of holies was old, the man who walked with me young.
"It is too dark here," the I called Shade said; but his voice was weak and far.
Inside the mountain-tomb it was darker still until Sesostris kindled his light. Then we saw everything, stairs that led only to other stairs, chapels in the rock where no priest sacrificed. The riches of his burial chamber would take more men to tell of than man this ship. From it a stair led down and down through stone until it reached the chamber where the court sat. Sesostris walked before us to show the way, Ammut after us, slow and laboring, panting and slavering.
"You stand before your judges," the bleeding man said. He was the chief judge of that court, a handsome man sorely wounded. He wore a white crown with two plumes. "We shall question you, and you will answer us honestly. You cannot do otherwise."
We nodded. "We cannot." We knew as we spoke that it was true.
"I am Strider of Annu," said a god. "Have you done iniquity?"
"I have not!" We all said this.
"I am Burning of Kher-aba," announced another. "Have you robbed by violence?"
"I have not!" we said.
"I am Fenti of Khemennu," declared a third. "Have you broken the nose?"
"Yes, as a boxer," we said.
"I am Am-khaibitu of Qereret," said a fourth. "Have you stolen?"
"Yes," we said, "we took the Horses of the Sun, doing the bidding of the Lady of the Beasts." This theft has left my mind now, yet I must have known it then.
"I am Neha-hra of Restau," murmured a fifth. "Have you slain man or woman?"
"Many men," we said, "for I was a soldier."
"I am the Double Lion-God," roared a sixth. "Have you given short measure?"
"To none!" we said.
"I am Burning Eye of Sekhem." This seventh god spoke in stately tones. "Have you sworn falsely?"
"Never!" we said.
"I am Flame," hissed an eighth. "Have you stolen from Ptah?"
"Never!" we said.
"I am Set-qesu of Suten-henen," whispered a ninth. "Surely-surely you have lied."
"Never to you, Set-qesu," we said.
"I am Khemi of the Hidden Place," a tenth god told us. "Have you carried off goods by force?"
"We have looted the goods of some we slew," we said.
"I am Brightflame of Mennufer," crowed an eleventh. "Have you uttered words of evil?"
"Never have I cursed anyone!" we said.
"I am Hra-f-ha-f of the Caverns of the Deep," said a god who had no face. "Have you carried off food by force?"
"I have," we said.
"I am Qerti of the Underworld," intoned the sepulchral voice of a thirteenth god. "Have you acted to deceive?"
"Often," we said. At this Ammut edged nearer us.
"I am Firefoot of the Night," shouted a fourteenth god. "Have you raged?"
"Yes," we said.
"I am Shining-teeth of Ta-she." The fifteenth god grinned as he addressed us. "Have you invaded a foreign land?"
"I have," we said.
"I am the Eater of Blood…" So sighed a sixteenth, whose voice was like the wind. "I am he who comes forth from the tomb. Tell me, have you slain the Beasts of Ptah?"
"Yes," we said, "I have slain them."
"I am the Eater of Entrails." The seventeenth licked his lips. "Have you laid waste to plowed land?"
"That also I have done," we said.
"I am Lord of Maat," trumpeted an eighteenth god. "Answer me! Have you pried into the affairs of others to do them hurt?"
"Never!" we said.
"I am Themeni of Bast," mewed the nineteenth. "Have you slandered man or woman?"
"Never!" we said.
"I am Anti of Annu," growled the twentieth. "You have raged, and I know it. Was it without cause?"
"Never!" we said.
"Tututef of Ati am I." The voice of the twenty-first god was an insinuating whisper. "Have you sodomized a child?"
"Never!" we said.
"I am Uamemti of the slaughterhouse." The twenty-second studied us coldly. "Have you poisoned waters?"
"Never!" we said.
"I am the Seer of the House of Amsu. How often have you lain with the wife of another?"
"Never!" we said.
"I am H-her-seru of Nehatu," quavered the twenty-fourth. "Have you made men afraid?"
"Often," we confessed.
"Have you been hot of mouth?" asked Neb-Sekhem, who comest forth from Lake Kaui.
"I have," we said.
"I am Seshet-kheru of Urit," affirmed the twenty-sixth. "Have you been deaf to words of right and truth?"
"More than once," we admitted.
"I am he of Lake Heqat," squalled an infant god. "Have you made others weep?"
"I have," we said.
"I am Kenemti of Kenemet," boasted the twenty-eighth. "Have you blasphemed Ptah?"
"Never!" we said.
"I am An-hetep of Sau," whimpered the twenty-ninth god. "Have you acted with violence?"
"Often," we confessed.
"He was a soldier," said the bleeding man. "We might forgive him that."
"I am Ser-kheru of Unsi." The thirtieth god shrugged. "Have you acted without thought?"
"Too often," we said.
"I am Neb-hrau of Netchefet," cackled the thirty-first god. "Have you taken vengeance on any god?"
"I have willed it," we said, "upon a goddess."
"I am Serekhi of Uthent," lisped the thirty-second god. "Have you multiplied speech?"
"No," we said.
"I am Neb-abui of Sauti," said the thirty-third god levelly. "How many men have you defrauded?"
"None," we said.
"I am Nefer-Tem of Mennufer," thundered the thirty-fourth god. "Have you cursed Pharaoh?"
"I have not," we said.
"I am Tem-sep of Tattu," said the thirty-fifth god, and his voice might have been the chuckling of a brook. "Have you fouled running water?"
"I have slain men whose bodies the river took," we said.
"Beyond that?" inquired Tem-sep.
"Or the sea," we said.
"I am Ari-em-ab of Tebi," the thirty-sixth god told us severely. "Have you boasted?"
"Only in boyhood," we said.
"I am Ahi of Nu," mumbled the thirty-seventh god. "Have you defamed Ptah?"
"Never!" we said.
"I am Uatch-rekhit of the Shrine of Uatch-rekhit," sneered the thirty-eighth god. "Have you acted with insolence?"
"Seldom," we said.
"I am Neheb-nefert, he of the Temple of Neheb-nefert." So saying, the thirty-ninth god stared blindly at a place where we were not. "Have you judged unfairly?"
"No," we said. "Never."
"I am Neheb-kau who comest forth from the Cavern," rumbled the hollow voice of the fortieth god. "Have you augmented your wealth through the property of another?"
"With that other's permission," we said.
"I am Teheser-tep of the Shrine of Teheser-tep," breathed the forty-first god. "Have you cursed that which is Ptah's while you held it?"
"Never!" we said.
"I am A
n-a-f of Aukert," said the final god. "Have you scorned the god of your own city?"
"Never!" we said again.
"You are not without sin." The bleeding man rose. "But not without merit. Go to the scales."
We did, and he came after us. Sesostris was waiting there with the monster-woman Ammut. A baboon crouched beside them, holding a reed pen and a tablet.
"Will you bless him?" the bleeding man asked Sesostris.
"I will," said Sesostris, and gave us his blessing. It filled us, and we knew then that we had been empty.
"He has been blessed by Sesostris," the bleeding man told the gods who sat in judgment. "Shall he be subjected to the ordeal? Stand."
Five rose. They were the faceless god, the god of the Underworld, the Eater of Blood, the Eater of Entrails, and Neb-hrau.
"Osiris will take your heart for the weighing," Sesostris explained. "Do you see the feather in the other pan?" His hand directed our eyes to the scale.
We did, and said that we did.
"It is Maat, the Law of Ptah," Sesostris told us. "If Maat rises above your heart-"
Ammut said, "I get it and you," and licked her lips.
"But if your heart rises above Maat," Sesostris continued, "it will be returned to you, and I will conduct you to the Field of Reeds."
No sooner had he finished speaking than the man called Osiris motioned for Shade, Name, and Ka to stand aside and thrust his bleeding hand into my chest. For a moment I felt my heart fluttering in his hand like a captured bird.
When it was gone, I was empty of life. I had not known that a man might be emptied like a wine skin, but it is so; I longed to be full once more, and feared I would be cast aside.
Laid upon the scale pan, my heart sank. It had no sooner done so than it rose, higher than the feather by the width of my hand. At once it sank as before, only to rise once more.
"He still lives," the bleeding man declared to all the gods, "and should not be here." Picking up my heart, he returned it to me and spoke further, but so overcome with joy was I that I did not hear him. Only my delight remained.
We were alone in the Hall of Judgment when Sesostris said, "Do you hear me now, Ba?" His voice was kind.
"Yes, Great Sesostris," I replied. "How may I serve you?"
"By doing what you must. But first I tell you this, as Osiris did. His blood has touched your heart. Touching it, it has mingled with your own. It cannot have been more than a drop, but even a drop will have great power. What effect it may have, I cannot say, but you should be aware of it."