The Sorrow Anthology

by Helen Allan

  “Come,” Haunet said, “let us explore this new planet and decide where we might settle before we talk of babies.”

  “You explore,” Amun said, grabbing Amaunet’s hand and leading her towards their ship apartments, “my wife and I will ensure the continuation of our race.”

  “Our race continues on many planets now Amun, as you well know,” Naunet said quietly.

  Amun paused and narrowed his eyes.

  “Our race,” he spat, “our pure race, not the half-breed creatures we spawned on Heaven, or Avalona or any of those other forsaken planets we now rule. And don’t think I don’t know that you still hearken for that disgusting thing you created on Avalona.”

  Naunet gasped. She was about to respond when Nu interrupted.

  “Come, love,” he said, pulling her away from Amun’s venomous gaze, let us join Haunet and Hey and traverse this new planet. Who knows what we may find.”

  Naunet lowered her gaze and nodded, allowing herself to be drawn away. Bitter tears rolled down her cheeks as they piled into the small spacecraft and left Ship 2. She wiped them away with her sleeve and concentrated on looking out the window. This planet reminded her very much of Avalona. The thought made the tears well once more.

  5

  Naunet turned from the gate and sighed.

  Twelve gates, twelve worlds, the portals between them opening just once a year for a few days. The ships which had created the portals could not sustain the power to keep them open longer and could make no more of them.

  But it was just one of these twelve, shimmering and bright, that was a constant ache in Naunet’s heart.

  One thousand years they had been on this planet, and every February they sent thousands of human soldiers and slaves through the portals. The slaves were destined for other planets, to help the Gods subdue the locals and repopulate the 12 colonised worlds. And every year, for the brief time they opened, Naunet sat by the gates wishing, hoping, that the fates would change her destiny and allow her to return to the one world that held her heart.

  Hearing a noise behind her, she turned slowly.

  “Nu, why do you lurk?” she asked shaking her head, “you know I would never do it.”

  “One day you might,” he said, smiling, “and then where will we be?”

  “Free,” Naunet whispered.

  Nu shook his head. “Amun wants us all on the foredeck; perhaps the cattle have annoyed him again, I imagine he wants to teach them another lesson.”

  Naunet grimaced. “Why does he toy with these sentients so? On every other planet he simply destroyed or enslaved, but here he seems to take a personal interest in the matters of their rulings, their decisions, even their genealogy.”

  “They are the closest germplasm to us we have ever discovered,” Nu shrugged, “and we should be thankful this keeps him occupied. Before he began playing with these humans, he was fully occupied with us. Remember?”

  Naunet nodded and linked her arm with her brother-husband.

  “So, what has annoyed him now?”

  “I don’t know,” Nu said laughing gently, “but it might have something to do with a female. It usually does.”

  “Disgusting,” Naunet said, shaking her head. “He reviles me for having given birth to my son on Avalona, tells me he is an abomination, and yet he breeds with these humans, spends more time with them than he does his own wife, and that is perfectly acceptable.”

  “Of course it is,” Amun said, walking out from behind a column where he had been standing, concealed.

  Naunet blushed angrily. “What business do you have sneaking around the ship and spying on your fellow Councillors?”

  “I was merely curious as to whether this would be the year that you jumped, dear Naunet,” Amun laughed. “My wife and I have bets on which year it will happen.”

  “Which wife?” Naunet spat.

  Amun rose to his full height and narrowed his eyes.

  “I have only one wife, bitch; I might dally with the locals, help improve the gene pool so that my cattle are hardier, but there is only one true wife and only four true children.”

  Nu and Naunet shared a look. Of all the couples who had landed on Earth a thousand years before, only Amun and Amaunet had managed to have baby Gods. Kek and Kauket had lost two babies, miscarriage for the first, death after only a few days for the second, although the cause of the death was still shrouded in mystery.

  “And how are your delightful twins Shu and Tefnut?” Nu asked sarcastically, as they followed Amun from the gates to the foredeck of the ship.

  Amun shrugged. “They are enjoying themselves, as always.”

  Nu and Naunet said nothing. The twins, born first to Amun and Amaunet, were curiously insular and strangely bloodthirsty from the outset. Not content with destroying most of the dragons who had existed when they had first arrived on Earth, they lived for the hunt, the thrill of the kill, just as the Gods did on every planet -hunting species to extinction.

  The Councillors, and their parents, rarely saw them lately, so content were they to flit through time seeking and destroying.

  For the past two centuries they had journeyed back and forth from the present to this planet’s far distant past, hunting dinosaurs and other creatures. Some monsters they occasionally bought back with them for sport, others they sent through the portal, to cause further uproar and destruction on the 12 captive planets.

  And what of those planets? Naunet wondered. She and the other councillors had not used the portals once they had settled Earth – only the twins jumped through and back occasionally. Once regular, now contact with the Gods that had chosen to stay on those planets had dwindled to virtually nothing.

  Each planet had a portal, God’s could jump from one planet to another, yet Amun had closely guarded Earth. None were allowed entry without his behest. None came. And none were permitted to leave, she grimaced, if he deemed it so.

  Naunet hoped those she loved on Avalona were thriving. She was not permitted contact with them. The twins taunted her when they could, whispered rumours and hinted at tragedy. But she and the other Councillors knew much of what they said was untrue. She and Haunet had speculated on more than one occasion that the pair were lacking in some vital God-like qualities, for they seemed to have no conscience or empathy for any creature. It had not escaped Naunet’s notice that Kek’s child had died while the twins were on the ship during one of their rare visits. But whatever the case, they had been absent for many hundreds of years since, so she had not been able to seek further information from them about the death.

  Kek and Kauket had left the ship not long after their child’s demise and now lived on the top of a mountain in Peru, surrounded by human slaves and separate from the day to day machinations of their Council leader. Nu and Naunet had not seen them for close to 800 years.

  “And what of Geb and Nut?” Nu asked, shuddering away from the remembrance of the twins and thinking of Amun’s other children.

  “We are here,” Nut said, rising from a chair near the central console and giving Naunet a warm hug.

  Naunet saw they both wore scarabs and gasped, casting a quick look at her brother-husband. The deck of the ship contained not only Amun and Amaunet but all four of their children. The twins, appearing suddenly from nowhere, leant smirking and shrewd-eyed, against the wall nearest the door. As Naunet watched, Tefnut casually pressed the button to close and lock the door.

  “What is going on?” Nu asked.

  Naunet could hear the strain in her brother’s voice as he tried to make his enquiry sound merely curious.

  Amaunet smiled and looked to her husband.

  “It is time,” Amun said.

  “Time?” Naunet asked, her voice low.

  “Yes,” Amaunet said, sadly, shaking her head from side to side.

  “How is it your children wear scarabs?” Nu asked brusquely, all pretence at civility discarded.

  “Let us just say that Kek and Kauket no longer needed them,” Shu laughed from behi
nd them.

  Naunet and Nu shared a long look. They had speculated that Amun and Amaunet planned to rule this planet alone, with their children. Over the years the signs had been there, but always Amun had held off, leaving the Councillors to live as they chose, providing they aided him with their combined scarab powers when he needed them.

  Now, it seemed their prediction had come to fruition. But she and her brother-husband had a plan prepared for this eventuality. Of all those who now wore the scarabs, only she and Nu had been considered worthy of the honour by Gaea prior to the fall of the Council. Naunet knew the time would come when Amun would revenge himself upon them for that fact. The pair had always had a contingency.

  “Why now?” Naunet asked, stalling for time. “We always knew you lusted for power, Amun. But why now?”

  “Isn’t it obvious,” Amaunet snorted, “our children are married. With the scarabs they will give us grand-children, pure Gods, we have no need for any dilution of our blood on this planet. You and Nu have no children, Kek and Kauket, Hey and Haunet; all are barren. Only I can produce our species, I and my progeny.”

  As she took a breath, ready to continue her rant, Nu pressed his scarab and disappeared.

  Naunet smiled at the wide-eyed shock on the faces surrounding her.

  “Did you think we did not anticipate this?” she laughed. “You will never find Nu. Not without my help. And this, I swear, you will never have.”

  “You are dead,” Tefnut hissed, coming up from behind her and twisting her arms behind her back.

  Naunet grimaced but made no sound.

  “Take my scarab,” she hissed, “see if it will do you any good Tefnut. You can have no babies without Shu also wearing a scarab.”

  Amun stepped closer to her and looked into her eyes.

  “Why do you play this deadly game?” he asked through gritted teeth. “What do you hope to gain?”

  “Oh, I would have thought that obvious,” Naunet laughed.

  As she said this the air suddenly shimmered behind Amaunet as Haunet, jumping into the room, swept her weapon down, taking off the matriarch’s head.

  Tefnut and Shu screamed in unison and drew weapons from their belts just as Hey let out a mighty shout.

  “Drop your weapons or I disappear with the cunt’s head.”

  Everybody stood perfectly still and assessed the situation. A scarab could only be used to jump time every seven days. Between jumps it needed time to recharge. But Hey, and Haunet had time-jumped into the room using Haunet’s scarab and could instantly transport themselves out with Hey’s. If they took Amaunet’s head, she would not be able to be rejuvenated; she would be forever gone.

  Naunet was the first to move, walking to the door and pressing the button. The portal would remain open for only another half hour. If her plan was to work, she must move now.

  Taking a long, mournful look at Hey and Haunet, and seeing the latter nod to her to move, she ran out the door and down to the stasis room. Pressing the buttons on the liquid-filled glass dome, she tapped her fingers in agitation as the liquid drained from the dome and Gaia gasped.

  Lifting the God, who had been kept in stasis for the past thousand years, trapped by her own son, Naunet gripped her wet body in her arms and sprinted from the room towards the gates.

  “Hang on Mother of All,” she whispered, as she approached the shimmering portal, “many have sacrificed themselves today that we may be free.”

  She paused to wrench the necklace from her throat and hurl it to the ground in front of a different portal.

  “Wait,” Gaea gasped, “You cannot leave this. My son…”

  “Your son will gain them all,” Naunet sighed, “but only after many thousands of years of searching for my brother, and by then, President, we will have figured out a way to stop him. But for now, he is all-powerful. We must leave in order to one day return and set to right the universe; he will not hunt us if we leave the transmuter behind.”

  Gaea nodded. She had always known the future of her species lay with Nu and Naunet. She had to trust that this generation, the last of their kind, would right the wrongs of the past. She held tight to Naunet, and the pair jumped.

  “Hold your breath,” Naunet whispered. The planet they would arrive in had no land, only sea. It was the last place Amun would think to look for her; she prayed the same could be said for Malachi.

  6

  Amun smiled as his grandson, Seth, left the room, his black robes swirling around him, head down.

  He and Amaunet had set in motion a plan until now known only to themselves, but one that, given a little luck, would ensure he continued to rule Earth as its supreme God.

  Seth had been only too happy to comply, knowing the reward. And he also had his own plans, unbeknownst to his grandfather.

  “But it will come to me the same day?” he asked, his voice slightly lisped from the forked tongue he had chosen to manifest recently. All the Gods had the ability to cast illusions, to take on the guise of an infinite variety of beasts. Strangely, Amun thought Seth most suited to the serpents he so often resembled.

  “Of course,” Amun crooned. “You have ever been my favourite grandchild Seth. You and you alone understand our, how shall I put this, our bloodlines, our purity, and its importance in this imperfect galaxy.

  Seth nodded, keeping his thoughts to himself. ‘More than you know old man. And one day you will pay for your deceit.’

  “So, let us be clear,” Amun said, unaware of his grandson’s mental plotting. “I do not want my daughter killed. Your mother is dear to me, as are all my children. But she must be separated from Geb; they cannot have any further children.”

  Seth grinned. His parents had sired four children. Osiris, Isis, Nephthys and himself. But four was too many, for they only had seven scarabs. Amaunet feared that if Geb and Nut had more children, her daughter would soon look to take all the scarabs, as Amun once had. Amaunet feared Nut would seek to bestow them upon her own children, disinheriting her brother and sister, the twins Shu and Tefnut and, eventually, her own parents. She had whispered her fears to her husband, and he had concurred. The scarabs, the power, was his alone to control, as was this planet. He could not have a rival family, even if it was his own flesh and blood, taking control.

  At present all but one scarab resided with his bloodline. Shu and Tefnut had taken Hey and Haunet’s scarabs before destroying the pair. Geb and Nut had those that once belonged to Kek and Kauket. On the day Osiris, Seth’s older brother, had been born, he had been given the seventh scarab - Naunet’s, left behind when she escaped Earth with Gaia.

  The eighth was still hidden somewhere in the world by Nu.

  Seth, born third in the brood, had searched for aeons for Nu, but finally realising he was wasting his life in a fruitless search, had turned his eyes homeward.

  “And when?” he hissed to Amun, “when will it be mine?”

  “The moment your mother, Nut, is cast into the portal you shall have her scarab, dear boy,” Amun said quietly.

  Seth nodded, turned and left.

  Amun sat quietly, fingering his own necklace in thought.

  “Ship,” he said, after a time. “Call forth my son Geb. I wish to have a word.”

  Geb stretched and ran his hand down his sister-wife Nut’s long, pale back.

  “You are the most beautiful Goddess,” he whispered, his lips tracing the line his fingers had left.

  Nut smiled and rolled over, allowing his mouth to capture her nipples.

  “Brother-husband,” she sighed, as he rolled onto her body and entered her, “how I love you.”

  “And I you,” he said into her hair, “more than life itself, forever and always.”

  The pair, locked in their embrace, were interrupted by a knock on the door.

  “Go away,” Geb moaned, his mouth capturing his wife’s, their tongues entwining.

  “Master,” a human slave shouted, his voice muffled by the heavy wooden door. “A missive has come from your father.
He seeks address.”

  Geb grinned as Nut rolled him onto his back and straddled him, her hips moving fast as she gripped his shoulders and flung her head back. He put his hands on her pelvis and pulled her in tighter, matching her speed.

  “Master,” the voice came again, slightly whining, “the God will brook no delay.”

  Nut clenched her teeth and shuddered to a climax, a smile spreading across her face as Geb pulled her down for a kiss and, groaning, rolled out from under her.

  “We will pick this up when I return, lady,” he smirked.

  “Oh, with pleasure,” Nut laughed, rolling over and pretending to sleep.

  Geb gave her butt a friendly slap and, wrapping a short shendyte around his waist, answered the door.

  “What is it, Slave?” he asked, pushing his hands through his thick hair. “What is so important that you knock until my door would come off its hinges?”

  “Your father seeks you,” the slave said hastily, “He has sent a silver ship. He says you are to come immediately. He also sent this drink from the goddess Amaunet. She said the mistress should take it – it is helpful for promoting fecundity.”

  Geb raised one eyebrow. Usually, he would journey under his own steam to Punt if he needed anything. It was unusual that a pod had been sent for him from Ship 1. Unusual and concerning.

  “I’m coming,” he muttered.

  He turned back to the room, admiring his sister-wife’s lean nakedness. Even after four children, her body was perfect, initially rejuvenated every 30 years, as they all were, she looked ravishing in all her blonde beauty. Now immortal through the use of the scarab transmuter, she would forever remain as nubile and smooth as she was today.

  “Mother has sent you a drink for fecundity,” he laughed, putting the bottle of blue liquid on the bedside table.

  “I know one thing that helps with that,” Nut laughed, rolling over and spreading her legs for him to view her in her entirety.

  “I will see you tonight,” he groaned, turning reluctantly and leaving the room.