by Stephan Loy
She knew where to go. When she found the room at the back of the house, she paused just a moment before entering.
Osiris lay in his bed, motionless in sleep. The night was still hot, so he used no covers; he also wore no bedclothes. Nephthys approached, as tense as a frightened cat, and stood for a moment beside the bed. She forced her breath into a slow, deep rhythm. Then, feeling her resolve beginning to crumble, she fumbled quickly with the ties of her linens and let them fall to the floor.
She climbed into the bed and drew herself to her brother.
“Mmmm,” Osiris murmured, reaching for her. “How well I dream, my wife...”
“Shh...” Nephthys breathed. She kissed his neck, took him in her arms, and brought him steadily to arousal. It didn’t take long; he, too, thought she was someone else.
When he was ready, she mounted him.
Set’s feast was a stilted affair, doomed from the start by its clique of strutting nobles and the presence of two powerful gods, one with a foul disposition. The main hall fought to dispel the awkward atmosphere, proclaiming celebration through a galaxy of glittering lamps, brightly decorated flax rugs, and bold banners hanging from the forest of palm columns supporting the ceiling. Musicians alternately circulated alone and joined into a band, playing an energized repertoire of ballads, hymns, and bawdy drinking songs. Their drums, cymbals and reed pipes mixed with the athletic thrashings of professional dancers, performers of both sexes clothed in little but loincloths. A conjurer accented the manufactured glee by blowing fire, making trinkets disappear, and releasing birds from his sleeves. Beer and wine wetted every tongue, and course after course of meat, vegetables, and sweets tempted the guests, the fare served by polite Setim priests.
The guests sat at two banks of low tables, in richly appointed chairs of ebony and ivory. The nobles stayed to one side of the gathering, the soldiers to the other. They were too class conscious to mix. The two gods, eating little, sat at a table that joined those uncomfortable camps. They were draped according to their stations, in magnificent translucent linens intricately pleated, in heavy jewelry about their necks and in their ears, and in exquisite wigs of wool and linen. Osiris seemed uncomfortable in his trappings, but he made the best of it, passing jokes to nobles and soldiers alike, challenging the groups into fitful, short-lived conversation. But he was tired, so his heart wasn’t in it; he often fell to silence. Set sat with his arms crossed, glaring at his company as at long hated enemies.
“The guests don’t seem to be mixing very well,” Osiris said as he toyed with a bowl of wine.
“Reminds me of animals from two separate packs,” Set said. “Perhaps they aren’t as civilized as legend tries to assert.”
“Legend? What do you mean, my brother?”
Set’s tone held sarcasm. “You are Osiris, he who brought civilization to the tears of Ra, and farming, and law, and the city itself. If they can’t even think to speak to one another, then perhaps your reputation is sorely overstated.”
“Civilization is a process, not a thing.” Osiris looked at his bowl and swirled the red liquid. He didn’t feel like sparring with Set. He wanted to go home. He wanted to find Isis, and look into her eyes. Their lovemaking had been intense, but strangely joyless. Was she as tired as he? Had something happened during her day, something he ought to know about? He wanted to dismiss the gathering before him and find his way to her rooms. He wanted to hold her in his arms and ask the questions his heart demanded. Are you all right? Is there something I should know? She had seemed so forlorn in his bed...
Qebera’s mind, too, wandered far from the amusements at hand. He felt a surreal disquiet at the storm god’s foundering party. The gesture was so unlike Set, and contrasted with the god’s apparent mood. What schemes did he harbor? Why had he left his desert haunts? Surely not out of filial love, or because his equally inscrutable wife had demanded to visit her sister. Confound these gods; they were too easy to fathom. All that they did was constrained by their natures. So, this party of Set's was evil.
Qebera ate and conversed with his twenty-five elite guards -- all the guard Osiris commanded -- and grunted to himself at the truth of his thoughts. He also took care not to soil his tunic with the rich, saucy foods or the showers of libations. Sanni had toiled to bleach his uniform, to make it white again. She deserved a little effort to keep it that way.
Still, Qebera tried to enjoy himself. No sense in wasting such food and drink. He even lost himself for a time in the amusements, at least the part where the athletic, half-naked women danced before his eyes. The traditional, religious theme of their art did nothing to lessen his libidinous attention. Half-naked women were half-naked women no matter the protestations of art.
Finally, like Osiris, Qebera tired of playing the guest and sank into his chair, intending to wait out the evening. He drank beer, nibbled at food, and waited for the dirge to play, for all important parties included a dirge, and it came near the end of festivities. The dirge reminded humans of the essential fact of mortality and the precious state of the life they owned. It alerted their Ka -- their twin, unseen spirits on earth -- to watch over them until death. The Ka needed reminding, for if it failed to find its corporeal partner when mortal life had run its course, both man and spirit would wander lost into the afterlife. A very bad thing, Qebera asserted as he told this to a half-drunk lieutenant, a likable fellow with little self-control and a weakness for beer. The afterlife was eternity, Qebera warned, not this small diversion, and therefore in need of order. The dirge cautioned all who gave it heed that men and gods alike must keep company with their Ka, or risk suffering forever in a world as empty as the deep desert in summer.
Not that Qebera was a connoisseur of dirges. They also meant the party was over and he could go home to his wife.
Set scared away two presumptuous nobles who approached to offer their compliments. He murmured something close to a growl.
“So, why did you invite them?” Osiris asked, sounding bored. He made conversation, Set knew. Osiris had given up puzzling out his brother.
“I thought you’d like the company,” Set answered with scorn. “The wretched bags of meat, it’s like we're trapped in a room full of beetles.”
Osiris sighed. “The beef was very good. Compliments to your cook.”
Set ignored the comment and signaled one of his circulating priests. A moment later, the background music faltered, then began again with a familiar tune.
With much irritation, Set heard relief from the crowd.
“The dirge,” Osiris said, nodding. “A good move, brother. Despite your fine hospitality, I think everyone is tired.”
“Ungrateful vermin, that’s what they are. I do this for you, brother, not for them.”
The conjurer exited the floor. The dancers arrayed into a unified, somber procession full of the miracle of life, death, grief, and rebirth. Then, from far into the hall where the oil lamps failed to reach, a crew of priests appeared as if ghosts, hauling a long wooden sledge by taut ropes. A large, bulbous cedar box weighed on the sledge. As the priests muscled it into the light between the banks of tables, the crowd drew in its collective breath.
A beautiful coffin, Qebera supposed from their reaction. He had never seen a coffin himself. His people buried their dead in bags, in shallow graves in the desert.
The coffin lid was sculpted into a reclining male figure, richly garbed in pleated linens, copious jewelry, and a ceremonial linen wig. Details flowed through the most involved inlay of colored wood strips Qebera had ever seen, and he had seen much in the riches of the palace. Many of the guests commented that the coffin looked fit for nobility.
“And, so it is!” Set announced, and stood. He clapped his hands twice, and the music ceased. His priests left the coffin amid the crowding humans and began ushering performers from the hall. Qebera, always suspicious, squinted about the room, into the darkness beyond the lamps. Were there more Setim than a moment before? Many, many more?
“My guests,
” Set continued when the entertainment departed, “we have come together to honor my brother, who is returned from yet another long journey. This occasion should be memorable to all present, indeed to all Abydos." He gestured toward the box. "As a god I have no use for coffins, but I have commissioned this piece as a gift. To whom? Why, to one only, here in this room. To him who fits the coffin perfectly.”
A murmur of excitement rolled through the hall. It wasn’t exactly approval, but it wasn’t horror, either. It was a soup of both, flavored with longing. Most of the guests moved closer to the coffin, their eyes huge with awe. A few stepped away, their faces drawn.
Set smiled. “So, who will be first to try it on for size?”
No one volunteered. They looked at each other.
Four priests stepped to the coffin, two each at the head and foot. They grasped hidden handles in the lid, then lifted it up and away from the box. Qebera noted that they remained beside the sledge; they did not put the lid down.
“Well?” Set coaxed. “Anyone interested?”
A nervous silence reigned a moment, then Unas the architect put up a hand. “I’ll do it!” he announced, and everyone laughed.
“Well said, noble Unas,” Set called, chuckling, “but I think we should concentrate on frames of less ... heroic proportions.”
“I’ll try,” a thinner noble ventured now that the tension was broken. He ambled up to the sledge. Two Setim priests stepped from the surrounding darkness and helped him onto its runners and then into the coffin.
How many priests did he have? Qebera wondered. He noted that the noble would not fit the box. Too much room and too little body.
For the next several minutes, noble after noble -- and even a few soldiers -- climbed into the coffin. It became a morbid joke, the only interesting part of the party. But no one fit the interior space. They were too broad or too thin, or too long or short. Set’s present remained unclaimed.
“Will no one else attempt?” Set wondered, sounding distressed. “Such a wonderful bed upon which to enter the afterlife, sure to shame kings from ages past. Surely, someone-- Brother, what about you?”
Osiris had been staring into space. Now, he looked up in confusion. “Me? Whatever for?”
“The spirit of the game, O king. Come on, take a chance.”
Osiris chuckled, and shook his head. “I’m immortal, brother. I have no use for coffins. Allow my subjects the prize.”
Set huffed. "Such arrogance in the face of eternity. True, you and I will live forever, given the grace of Ma'at. But this is not certain by any calculation. Even the great Creator Ra dies each evening to be resurrected with the dawn. Besides, this box is a work of the finest art."
"Agreed, it is magnificent." Osiris waved his brother's speech aside. "But I still have no use for such mortal themes."
Set turned to the crowd. “Well! A king who doesn’t lead by example? Oh, please, keep this from the people! What do you say, pillars of Abydos? Should the king also try?”
“Yes! Yes!” the guests cried, and laughed at the silliness of the idea.
“Well, Osiris, your people have spoken.” Set seemed to enjoy the moment.
“No, no,” Osiris protested.
“Yes, yes!” the crowd returned.
The king couldn’t win that hearty exchange. After a few more raucous moments, he surrendered and approached the sledge. The guests cheered. Some forgot themselves and slapped him on the back. He climbed to the box himself, pulling himself up by the holes drilled in the rim of the coffin, the holes drilled to match other holes in the lid, and through which wooden pegs would be forced to lock the container closed. Should the coffin ever be used.
He lowered himself into the plain wood interior, joking about the coincidence that he usually slept on his back. He laughed, the guests laughed, even Set was disposed to humor. It was a perfect moment of camaraderie.
Then Qebera noticed that his king fit the coffin. He watched Osiris cross his arms over his chest and complain of a chafing at his shoulders. He watched as the priests urged the guests away. Then suspicion sparked comprehension. Qebera noticed the coffin itself, its lid held close to the box, close to Osiris within. Osiris. The lid. With the king in state regalia, the two looked much alike.
“Osiris!” Qebera yelled. “My king!”
The priests moved, heaving the heavy lid onto its box. They fell across it, holding it closed as Osiris struggled within. Four other priests burst from the darkness, carrying hammers and pegs. Setim flooded the chamber. They became a wall between coffin and guests. They held flint axes at the ready.
“Set!” Qebera roared, and snatched his sword from his belt. “What is this, you-- you--?” He wanted to curse the monster, but some cautionary impulse arrested the words.
Set stepped aside to give his people room to work. Priests hammered at the edge of the coffin’s lid. “I’d watch your tongue.” The god sneered at Qebera. “You address the reigning king of Abydos.”
“Osiris is king! This is his city!” Qebera held his sword in two trembling hands. He was enraged, frightened, and confused.
“Not anymore,” Set said. “Osiris the former king is dead.”
A muffled pounding sounded from the coffin. The priests across its lid shuddered.
“Well, he will be soon,” Set corrected himself. He fixed Qebera in a threatening stare. “This is not your business, human. You were invited to witness my triumph, not to critique it. Do yourself a favor. Go home.”
Qebera couldn’t think what to do. Osiris needed him. Osiris, who had never needed anyone, who had always been his soldiers’ protection, never the reverse. He needed help, and Qebera couldn’t respond. How does one battle a god?
“Go home,” Set warned again.
Qebera looked to his men, to their wide eyes and indecision. He turned to the stunned, useless nobles. He looked to the dense swarm of Setim warrior-priests. How many? Seventy? A hundred? “Set!” he bellowed. “This will not stand! Though I perish in the attempt, I will defend my king!”
An affirming roar from Qebera’s men. Whispers of metal clearing linen belts.
Set frowned. “Very well.” He nodded to his people. “Kill them. Kill them all.”
Isis staggered. She had been walking the edge of her roof, a moment’s self-collection after just returning home. If not for her attending priestess, she might have fallen to the courtyard below.
“Goddess!” Merferet gasped, hauling her queen from the precipice. She released Isis’s arms then, bowing and cringing over the affront to her deity. “Goddess, forgive me! Are you all right?”
Isis settled to the mudbrick roof. She trembled. Her body ran with sweat. “I felt something,” she said, her voice husky. She grasped her chest above her heart. Darkness stirred there, and fear. “The king is in trouble,” she forced from her lips. “Where is his guard? Where are his priests?”
The Setim attacked as a wave. The nobles quailed and ran for the exit. Before it could register, Qebera gutted two men, Qebera, who had never killed in his life. His men crashed into the fray. The hall rang with the sound of bronze on wood and stone. Oil lamps toppled, spreading darkness. Men slipped and fell on the slicked floor, some to not rise again. The Setim were fanatical, driven by fear of their master. But they were ill-trained. They fell like reeds before Qebera’s men. Still, the king’s guard were few, and the Setim an army.
And half of Qebera’s people were drunk.
Qebera blocked a wild ax stroke, kicking back that assailant and slicing open another. Blood slimed his sword and covered his arms, striking him with horror.
How had he managed years as a soldier, and never seen the gore of combat?
Set worked across the room to the exit. Eight priests lifted the coffin and bore it behind him.
Qebera tried to separate from the bloody melee around him. The fight was a diversion, keeping him from his king. But to free himself of the Setim was no easy feat. They were unskilled, but numerous as ants. They slaughtered his men
, chopped down cowering nobles, and replaced their own fallen without thought or command. Then they heightened the level of calamity. A sword rang against Qebera’s blade, a sword taken from among his fallen comrades. The sacred metal of Osiris now served his brother’s minions. The sacrilege enraged Qebera further; he fell on his enemies as if possessed.
His remaining men fought with equal vigor. They hacked, kicked, and skewered their attackers, and felt the Setim buckle. But they could only watch with ineffectual rage as Set left the hall with Osiris’s wooden prison. Qebera cursed as he fought, screaming damnation at the Setim, at Set, and most roundly at himself.
His first chance to prove his worth, and he already failed.
The Setim broke, their ax-wielding ranks retreating among the dark palm columns of the hall.
“Let them go!” Qebera shouted. “Form a shield here to keep them off our backs! You three, with me!”
With his three chosen comrades, Qebera charged out the main doors. He rushed from the hall and across the empty foyer, out the palace doors and into the starry night. Qebera halted his men then. He formed them into the secure wedge Osiris had drilled into him. He wanted to rescue the king, not fall into ambush.
They stalked down the ramp from the porch and into the courtyard before the palace gates. The hairs rose on Qebera’s neck, for the courtyard stood in deep shadow beneath palms, acacias, and a black row of cedars, the last a gift from Syria years ago. The place had been a second home, its cultured beauty soothing the most troubled heart. Now, the courtyard threatened, its shadows impenetrable and numerous. Somewhere out there among the beds of reeds, about the house altar to the now captured god, and near the low brick walls and oversized sculptures, Setim might wait to waylay pursuers. Qebera would have done so in the service of Osiris.