The Sorrow Anthology

by Helen Allan

  Nut smiled, drank the elixir her mother had sent, and closed her eyes.

  When she opened them next, she was being bundled through a portal into another world, and a life, far different to that she had known on earth for the past 2000 years.

  “My son,” Amun said, standing to embrace Geb as he entered the room. “How I have longed to see you.”

  “What is this about Father?” Geb frowned, “you know where Nut and I live, you could have visited anytime. Yet how long has it been 100? 200 years?”

  “Closer to 600, boy.” Amun chucked, his eyebrows raising in welcome as the door opened and closed behind Geb.

  Turning, Geb saw Shu and Tefnut enter the room. “Well, isn’t this a fun family reunion,” he said dryly. “Welcome, Killer 1 and Killer 2.”

  The twins grinned.

  “And so, we come to the purpose of your visit,” Amun said, coming to stand beside Geb and resting his hand on his shoulder. “You know that your mother and I love you and your sister-wife very much.”

  Geb frowned. “Yes,” he said stiffly.

  “And you know that all that I do, I do for the good of our race,” Amun added, mock sadness filling his voice.

  “Father,” Geb growled. “What have you done?”

  The twins giggled but Amun held up his hand, and they stopped immediately.

  “Your mother feels that to ensure harmony, to ensure this world does not become overshadowed by bloodshed and insurrection as so many of the worlds we settled have, that there needs to be some, how shall I put this, changes, to the way we go forward.”

  Geb suddenly felt the hair on the back of his neck rise.

  “What have you done to my children?” he demanded through gritted teeth.

  “My grandchildren?” Amun stepped back, a look of mock horror on his face, “nothing, nothing at all. Why would you say such a thing?”

  Geb stood perfectly still, waiting for the axe to fall, he knew his father too well.

  “No, your children, my grandchildren, are precious to me, very precious. And perhaps, more so, because there are only four of them.”

  “What do you mean?” Geb asked, puzzled.

  “I mean, dear boy, that four is more than enough. Given the scarcity of the scarabs. Already, my dear grandson, Seth, grows anxious and disgruntled that he was not given a scarab. I know, I know,” he said, raising his hands to forestall Geb’s interruption, “you gave the seventh to your eldest son, Osiris, as it was deemed you should. But Geb, Geb,” he came close again and looked into his son’s eyes. “Do you not think four children enough? Have you not done your part now, for this planet, for our kind?”

  Geb stepped away from his father, his eyes shifting as he noted the body language of his brother and sister.

  “We are blessed with the ability to have children, to continue our race. I see no reason why we should limit our children. And as for Seth wanting a scarab, he and Nephthys do not need it, they are unlikely to have children together, Nephthys has ever favoured Osiris, and he is married to Isis. Although, perhaps,” he said, thinking aloud, “if we were to have another son, a better son than Seth, one without his, ah flaws, Nephthys might find herself paired with one more attuned to her sensibilities.”

  “Exactly,” Amun said, shaking his head, “it is as Amaunet says.”

  “What do you mean?” Geb asked, “why are your own retarded throwbacks Slayer One and Slayer Two here? Shouldn’t they be out continuing their hunt for Nu?”

  Amun shrugged. “There are many ways to kill a cat,” he said enigmatically.

  “What have you done?”

  “I have done what I must to ensure the safety of our family, of Earth,” Amun said, turning and sitting. “It would not do to have my grandchildren feel they are entitled to hold the power of the scarabs. It will not do to have them fight and cause disruption among my cattle through their desire for this technology. I have done what you could not and would not. I have given Nut’s scarab to Seth.”

  Geb stood still, silent, speechless for a time. Finally, he formulated his thoughts, his voice calm, emotionless.

  “And my sister-wife?” he asked.

  “Nut is gone,” Amun said, rising and signalling to the twins to approach Geb.

  Geb watched them sidle closer and waited until they were within arms-length, before raising his index finger to them and pressing his scarab. He transported himself to his first son Osiris, to warn him of Amun’s intentions towards his grandchildren.

  Later, after a hurried briefing with Osiris and Isis, he gave Isis, his eldest daughter, his scarab. Ensuring that his children, already married, would also be able to know the joys of parenthood.

  He then made his way to the gates, where he would begin the search of all known planets, for his wife.

  7

  Nephthys sobbed in her brother’s arms and begged him to relent.

  “Please Osiris, it is only you I love, please, take me away from Seth. You and Isis have not had children; I know that together you and I could have a baby.”

  Osiris sighed. He loved his sisters, both, but he was married to Isis, and his love for her ran deeper, always had. He believed this was partly because she was the more intelligent of the two, but also, they were attuned, they were both kind, had empathy. Isis was the one who most resembled their now long-lost mother, Nut.

  “It is true, Isis and I have yet to conceive a child,” he said, gently rubbing his sister’s golden head. “Perhaps that is why grandfather has yet to try to take the scarabs from us. Nephthys, I love Isis. I love you too; you know that, but I could not abandon my wife.”

  “I’m not asking you to abandon her,” Nephthys said, drying her eyes and sitting up to meet Osiris gaze. “I’m asking you to borrow her scarab, to let me wear it for a night, so that you and I, when we make love, can conceive of a child. Is it not bad enough that I am married to Seth, one who hates women, who tortures girls for pleasure? Is it not enough that I am left alone in this world with one so terrible? Please Osiris, please, give me a baby, someone to love. Someone to spend my eternity with.”

  Osiris sighed, word of Seth’s atrocities against the cattle, humans, had spread the length and breadth of the world. Everywhere he tortured and killed women, his scarab allowing him to flit back in time and destroy whole lineages with one flick of his weapon.

  Thinking about the weapon made Osiris angry. One proton laser was all each ship had on board, and Seth had managed to squirrel away both of them before his parents, or grandparents realised the danger he posed.

  Already he had caused another great flood, not as bad as the original that Amun had caused when first taking control of the planet, but lethal enough. And now he had split the earth asunder and completely destroyed whole continents. One of Isis’ favourite island homes, Atlantis, was just one of the casualties from Seth’s latest fit of pique.

  Osiris had confronted Amun, warned him that Seth was out of control, would destroy the planet, but his grandfather had not seemed to take the threat seriously.

  “He has been stirring up dissent in the human royal houses you know,” Nephthys whispered, turning her head from side to side as Osiris stroked her hair. “He has managed to kill many of Amun’s Earthborn children. He says they are an abomination. He says it is only a matter of time before he destroys you and his mother and father. I’m more frightened than ever, my brother.”

  Osiris sighed.

  “Our brother is crazy. We all know that Nephthys. But he is weak. He has only one scarab and no support within the family. Even our bloodthirsty uncle and aunt, the twins, would never support his plans against our grandparents.”

  Nephthys shook her head.

  “You don’t know,” she said, “he has been talking of Malachi, of forming an alliance with Malachi, to lead him to this planet.”

  Osiris frowned. “He would never do that. Our brother is fucked in the head, but not that fucked. If Malachi ever found this planet, he would take the scarabs and use them for his own mea
ns. Sure, we could kiss goodbye to this planet, with its viable germplasm, to all Amun’s little half-god half-humans he has been busily making these past few thousands of years. But more importantly, Seth would lose his opportunity for power. What he wants, above all, is to rule this planet. He doesn’t want Malachi to rule; he wants to rule. And to do that, he needs the scarabs.”

  “Yes,” Nephthys sighed. “And thankfully even those are useless with Nu’s still lost to us.

  Osiris felt himself stiffen at the mention of Nu. No one could know what he knew, especially not his sister Nephthys, so weak and prone to tell all she knew to whoever applied a little pressure.

  He changed the topic back to the one at the forefront of her mind. “I will see what I can do. If, as you say, we can simply borrow it for a night. If no one is the wiser, then a baby we shall try to make.”

  “Thank you, oh thank you, brother mine,” Nephthys sighed, sinking to her knees before him and taking his massive member into her mouth.

  Osiris’ eyes rolled to the back of his head, all thoughts of betraying his wife, of the ramifications for what he planned to do, of Nu, wiped from his mind for a time.

  8

  Seth held the knife to Nephthys throat as the baby emerged from her womb.

  “See it once, bitch,” he muttered, ignoring her tears and pleas for mercy, “and know that I call it Anubis, the God of Death. For that is all it has brought you, and all it will bring to every other conniving female on this planet,” as he said the last word he cut off his sister-wife’s head and cast it into the fire.

  Rising, he picked up the baby and entered the small silver ship he had parked nearby on the soft desert sands.

  “Think you can betray me, screw our brother, have a child, and live? Stupidity, stupidity dear dead sister mine.”

  He set a course for the palace where Osiris and Isis lived, high up on the Nile, where the river met the sea.

  “And now for your father, Anubis, my son,” he laughed, laying the baby down on the floor and picking up his photon weapon.

  As he left, he didn’t notice the small craft high in the clouds above him. It zipped to the ground the moment his orbited off, and the twins stepped out.

  “Shall we save her, brother mine,” Shu asked.

  “Why yes, we must, sister mine,” Tefnut grinned, drawing back his leg and kicking Nephthys head out of the fire.

  Shu picked up the head, and the pair prepared to journey to Ship 2, to place Nephthys in the regeneration tank.

  When she emerged, 70 days later, she would learn of her debt to the pair.

  Isis screamed and tore at her clothing, her hair, her face, until blood ran down her cheeks and her hair fell out in tufts.

  “Osiris, Osiris, my love, my love,” she moaned, gathering grains of sand soaked in his blood and pressing them to her face.

  “And they couldn’t put him back together again,” Seth laughed, standing over the prostrate Goddess, his weapon at his side. “Funny thing about photon weapons, I mean, did you see how he kind of just disintegrated into thousands of tiny, infinitely tiny, pieces? Really, really impressive. But I have to go now. Oh wait, there was something I meant to give you, what was it?” he put his fingers to his forehead in a sign of mock forgetfulness.

  “Oh yes, this.” He entered his ship and returned momentarily with a bundle. “Apparently Osiris left it inside my wife about, ooh, I’d say 9 months ago.”

  Isis stared at the baby, incredulous, stunned.

  “Are you mad?” she screamed. “Nephthys didn’t have a scarab. She couldn’t have had my husband’s baby.”

  “Oh yes, about that,” Seth spat, “our little sister informed me, right before I cut off her head and threw it into a fire, that she borrowed your scarab one night, for her little triste with our dearly departed brother.”

  Isis put her head down in the sand and moaned.

  “I don’t think you will need this anymore,” he said, reaching down and ripping the scarab from around her neck.

  Isis gasped as Seth, laughing, turned on his heel and re-entered his craft. It lifted off instantaneously.

  All that was left behind was the sound of the baby wailing on the sand.

  Isis stayed where she was for some time before a plan began to formulate in her mind. No part of Osiris her brother-husband had been taken, all was scattered, yes, but not taken.

  She began searching the sands for his scarab. Finding it, she put it around her neck, picked up the baby, and turned back to the palace.

  It would take her two months, but she would find every piece of her husband, each piece carefully transported to the regeneration tanks ready for the day when he could be reformed.

  When he emerged, months later, it was to find the world considerably changed.

  9

  Amun balanced his great-grandson on his knee and looked across at Isis, proudly wearing her newly returned scarab.

  His eyes narrowed as he considered her, as though for the first time.

  “I underestimated you, grand-daughter,” he said finally, leaning across to hand her child back.

  “Yes,” Isis said, balancing the baby on her knee and offering him a breast. Anubis, Nephthys’ child, her son’s half-brother, played on the floor at her feet.

  “I did not think you able to bring back our most beloved grandson, Osiris, and now, to also have presented him with a son, a pure God, little Horus. Ahh, one just never knows how the future will pan out.”

  “Cut the shit Grandfather,” Isis said, smiling and looking Amun in the eye. “Do we have a deal or not?”

  Amun grimaced.

  “For Horus to rule Earth as my emissary, and for you and Osiris to depart this planet for Heaven?” he smiled, seeing her annoyance as he toyed with her. “Oh yes, I suppose, that all makes sense. You and your brother-husband will leave the scarabs behind of course.

  “Of course,” Isis said through gritted teeth, “and you will ensure Seth stays here and is better kept in control.”

  “Ah Seth,” Amun said, musing and taking a sip of wine. “Seth, Seth. He was not happy about giving you back your scarab,” he laughed. “You know in some respects he is more worthy of running this planet than Osiris or your young Horus. He is ruthless, yes, but strong. However,” he held up his hand to forestall her interruption, “we both know that mankind would not do well under his authority and both your husband and I do appreciate all that this planet can offer.”

  Isis rolled her eyes. It was no secret that her husband and Amun had fathered many, many children with humans. Amun called them Earthborn. She knew he had, for some reason, a particular affection for these children. He preferred them over all the hybrid babies he had spawned on other planets. This and her husband’s love for them had helped formulate her plan to blackmail her grandfather in the first place.

  After regenerating Osiris, she had convinced him that their future was no longer secure here, as long as Seth retained the control of the photon weapons. They had agreed they would leave, and lead the Earthborn to a new planet, where they could live in peace. Horus would return when he was of age to rule.

  Amun, at first reluctant, had agreed when Isis revealed both she and Seth had been in contact with Malachi, who was still most interested in finding his son. Isis told Amun she had secreted information about Earth’s location, which would be forwarded instantaneously to Malachi, should something untoward happen to herself, her husband or her child.

  Amun considered his granddaughter through half-shut lids as she spoke.

  Since colonising Earth, his plans had changed considerably regarding his domination of the universe. He was delighted with this planet and its inhabitants and confident that it was only a matter of time before he had all eight scarabs back in his possession. When he did, he would use them for plans he had yet to reveal to anyone, even his wife. In the meantime, emptying this world of all pure Gods, other than himself and Amaunet, was at the forefront of his mind. Isis and Osiris had offered him the perfect oppo
rtunity to rid the planet of their influence without any need for further violence against his own bloodline. Seth, he was still considering how to deal with.

  “Of course,” he mused out loud, “Seth is busy hunting down and killing all my little Earthborns at the moment, and that is, I understand, keeping him quite busy.”

  “Yes,” Isis agreed, sipping her wine and placing Horus on the ground to play with Anubis. “I understand he is most recently hunting down the half-breeds sired in some strange breeding program being undertaken by the twins. You wouldn’t know anything about that would you?”

  Tefnut grinned as he put the scarab necklace around his niece’s throat.

  “Not again, Uncle,” Nephthys moaned, “please, how many can you need?”

  Shu, standing at the door, guffawed.

  “How many, Brother?” she asked, mimicking Nephthys whine.

  “Well let me see,” Tefnut said, straightening from where he had bent to secure the scarab and looking to his sister.

  “At last count, we had produced 2000 Earthborn of my line and at least 3000 three-quarter Earthborn. But, no, little niece,” he laughed with Shu, “I feel a few more thousand are required – and this time they shall come from your body.”

  Nephthys paled.

  “You plan to keep me prisoner here, having baby after baby, year after year, just one month in between, for another thousand years?” she moaned.

  “Or longer,” Shu said, shrugging and leaving the room. She returned momentarily with a man, evidently an Earthborn, a half-God, half-human hybrid.

  “This is Thoth,” she said, pushing the man into the room.

  “Where do they all go?” Nephthys asked, ignoring the man who stood awkwardly in the centre of the room, naked. “Where will you be sending my babies?”

  “Should we tell her sister-mine?” Tefnut asked, cocking his head and studying his niece as though she were some strange kind of bug he had just found crawling up his arm.