Isis Wept

by Stephan Loy

  Set reentered the palace towards the end of the Setim purge. The heads of two priests adorned the main gate, their bald pates peeling in the afternoon sun. The sight delighted the god of storms, as did the corpses strewn in the palace halls. Gone was the stink of business that had sullied those halls in the reign of Osiris. Gone were the humans so stuffed with arrogant protocol that they seemed to imagine themselves as gods. That courier there, beheaded in a dimly lit gallery, was closer to humanity than yesterday’s self-important ministers. Let him represent all his kind.

  As if in affirmation, the hall rang with a chorus of screams. Setim servants replaced the palace staff. Osiris's people endured an overdue comeuppance. They now learned their place in a world ruled by gods. Pleased with their plight, Set laughed mightily.

  His humor lasted only until the reports came in. Few of Osiris’s hunted priests had been run to ground, and much of their holy reliquary had gone missing during the cleansing. The ensigns of authority thought held in the palace were nowhere in evidence, and even the royal guard had vanished, what few still lived. This news stripped Set of his bubble of triumph, for without those ensigns, and with enemies free, he could never truly rule in Abydos.

  Set brooded on the defiled throne. He was a god of storms, after all, a dark god of little joy, quick to anger and devoid of optimism. He saw not the magnitude of his triumph, but his failures. Smoke rose from his enemy’s stricken temple, blocking the town from the sight of Ra. But this signified nothing. The houses of Set’s detractors added to the pall while beetles fed on the former residents. To Set, this meant nothing. All that mattered was the defiance of his rule. Someone had taken his rightful vestments and would not acknowledge his ascension to power. Someone sought to ridicule him.

  The thought of such audacity festered within the god of storms and mayhem, building toward an explosion. But he constrained his eruption enough, at least, to give it an unlucky target. He knew who thwarted his rightful conquest, and knew how to make her pay.

  He crashed from the throne room in a state of rage. He left behind no living thing, only the stiffening remains of the messenger who had brought him the day’s bad news.

  Isis felt his fury long before she heard his approach. For days she had waited upon her divan, the same divan from which she had begged the assistance of Amnet. She had sat there within the bubble of her rooms, hearing and feeling the brutish tortures just beyond her walls. She had wanted to help, had wanted to defend her people and those of her stricken husband, but what can a goddess of life do against a storm of death? Now that storm lurched forth to find her, to taste her flesh and destroy her. All at once, the flowers arrayed about the rooms blackened and wilted from want of life.

  “Go,” the queen ordered her priestess-attendants, who had stood by her through the long ordeal. “Go, before it’s too late.”

  Merferet shook her head. “Forgive us, goddess, but though hell itself burst through that door, we will never forsake you.”

  “Please,” Isis begged. “I cannot endure if I must also grieve for you. Go. He’ll kill you all if you’re here.”

  “Goddess--”

  “GO!”

  In the end, they could only obey. They shuffled as a group to the stairs for the roof. Their shoulders sagged from guilt.

  For the first time since her husband’s fall, Isis was alone.

  “I love you,” she whispered to a spirit she no longer felt.

  Her doors crashed open. Set stormed in behind a rasping billow of sand. Isis hoped he wouldn't notice her priestesses' absence. She hoped he wouldn't see the terror she knew was plain in her eyes.

  “Isis!” he roared, and bulled to within inches of her face. “Where are they? Where have you hidden my due?”

  Isis fought a skittering panic. Rage, she sensed, rage and desire. A nauseating mix from a nauseating source. “I know of nothing due to you. I--”

  He snatched her up by the arms and shook her. “Cow! Where are they? The wigs, the scepters, the Wadjit Eye of Ra! Give them to me!”

  “No!” she cried between gritted teeth, all pretense at strength a joke. “Whatever you do, you will not possess the ensigns of Abydos! They--”

  “GIVE THEM TO ME!”

  “They belong to none such as you! They belong to Osiris!”

  He slammed a fist hard across her face. She tumbled across the room like a doll made of rags. The blow would have killed a human. But Isis wouldn't even bruise; it took more than a beating to kill a god.

  “I am king of Abydos now!” Set quaked with fury. “I am king! Me! You will tell me what I demand to know!”

  Isis struggled to her knees. “You are nothing,” she rasped through tears. “Nothing more than a murderer.”

  Set was upon her, snatching her head by the hair. She felt his hatred; he telegraphed it as he might a shout. She incensed him. He desired her. He wanted to rip her to pieces. He snatched her hair again, just to hear her gasp in pain. “Perhaps you don’t understand,” he said with thin control. “I am king. I own this palace, this land, its people. They are mine, as everything that was his is mine. Everything. Even you.” With his free hand, he grasped the front of her thin linen dress.

  "Please, don’t," she begged as tears flooded her cheeks.

  “The humans have learned their place, goddess. It’s time you learned yours.”

  He ripped open her dress, tearing at it again and again until it scattered in shreds on the floor. He then fell atop her, groping at the body he had long thirsted to conquer. She did not resist his attack though he terrified her to the core. She could not have resisted because of who she was, as he could not be gentle because of who he was. These were not humans, to choose their courses for good or evil, fortune or despair. They were gods, each trapped by their cosmic natures. Set could no more fail to destroy than he could fail to breathe, and Isis, even in rape, proved achingly delicious. Set wanted her; he wanted to hurt her. All he desired, he achieved in good measure. Her sumptuous body stoked his passion despite her shrieks of protest, her pain, and her terror. Grunting, he lifted from atop her enough to dispose of his restraining kilt; he then spread her legs and invaded her.

  The pleasures he derived from that legendary body were greater than he had imagined.

  Qebera struggled up yet another dune. The sand shifted under his weight, as supportive as water. He glanced over his shoulder to where they ought to be. Yes, they pursued him from two dunes back, though their numbers seemed fewer than the last time he’d checked. Maybe they planned some ruse to ensnare him, a flanking effort, perhaps. It didn’t matter, not anymore. He was far beyond strategy. That luxury had deserted him two days back when he had lost his men to a Setim ambush. Now he only ran, a rabbit chased by hounds.

  He lost his footing and fell, but scrambled immediately back to all fours. Keep moving, rabbit, he said to himself as he crawled up the unsure slope of the dune. Keep moving, as they keep moving. Hope against hope to outpace the hounds. He fought up the dune in his soldier’s desert gear, the lightweight linens glued to his body by an oily sheen of sweat. Regardless of how it protected him from the killing rays of the sun, the body sheath of cloth was hot as the deepest hell, not intended for such long-term violent exertions. Not a good thing, he warned himself. He had little water, and couldn’t afford to waste it at a run.

  He had almost topped the dune when five Setim warriors cleared its crest from the other side and skated toward him on an avalanche of sand. They were dressed much as he, covered in cloth from head to ankle, all but their eyes blocked by linen masks. They held their trademark flint axes ready above their heads. As Qebera resignedly drew his sword, his only consolation was their confident, but reckless approach. Ill-trained, all of them. They had topped the crest too quickly and might not brake at a fighting range. They were sure to meet him unbalanced, squandering what surprise they had managed to achieve.

  The first died impaled on Qebera’s blade. The rest braked sloppily and commenced an almost drunken attack as th
eir feet found thin support on the shifting mountain of sand. Qebera fared no better, and the fight became a comic ballet of stroke, counterstroke, pratfall, and parry.

  Qebera dispatched another opponent, but the body fell against him, bringing him down. He blocked three vicious ax strokes as he fought back to his knees, then slit the leg of one enemy, dropping him in screams. The two remaining combatants backed out of reach.

  “Surrender!” one of them said through his face-concealing scarf. “You cannot beat us all! Our men will be here in seconds. You are dead, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “I hadn’t,” Qebera rasped. He licked his parched lips, then tried and failed to regain his feet.

  “You will die!” the Setim retorted.

  “You said I was already dead,” Qebera reminded him.

  The Setim raised his ax and trudged into the fight.

  Qebera looked askance at the man with the wounded leg, who tied off a linen rag just above his cut. Finding no threat from that direction, Qebera braced for the two more dangerous foes.

  One sword against two axes proved an unfair battle. The dune fought as if for Set, rolling away under Qebera’s every lurching move. He dispatched another attacker, but the sword stroke unbalanced him and he landed defenseless on his back. The remaining Setim stumbled to take advantage. He bludgeoned the sword out of Qebera's grasp, then fell to his knees over the Abydan, ax raised.

  “Where is it?” he demanded. “What ensign do you keep from the lord of storms?”

  “To hell with you and your bastard god!” Qebera sneered, and gave himself up to death in this world.

  The Setim's eyes widened with rage. He tensed to cleave his victim, but paused before the strike. He squinted, noticing something. Then he brought his weapon across Qebera’s throat, the handle all but choking off the old soldier’s breath. He jerked the pouch and lanyard from Qebera’s neck, and worked one-handed to expose the linen-wrapped contents.

  The wounded Setim, his leg dressed, pulled himself closer to witness the prize. “What is it?” he asked. “Will we earn a reward?”

  Qebera twisted under the ax handle, turning their distraction into a chance for escape. But the enemy increased the force already heavy on his windpipe, making him wheeze.

  “It’s some sort of jewelry,” Qebera’s captor said. “What’s that symbol? It looks like--”

  A burst of drumming radiance, of light, heat, and sound. Qebera shut his eyes and threw his arms across his face. The blast held for seconds, then winked away like a flash on water.

  Qebera lay in the sand alone. Three corpses littered the dune above and below him. A thin coat of ash covered his sweaty linens.

  The pouch lay next to his hip, the amulet partly exposed. He quickly turned away from it and beat the ash from his clothes in disgust.

  After a moment, he rose on one elbow, facing away from the talisman. Our men will be here in seconds, the Setim soldier had said. They could crest that last dune at any moment, and the rabbit’s run would begin again.

  Qebera tore strips from his rough linen sword belt. He wrapped them loosely around his hands, producing a pair of awkward mittens. Then he breathed deeply to steady himself, closed his eyes, and hunted for the amulet.

  After longer than he’d hoped and a few furtive peeks, he touched the lump of the pouch. He had just stuffed the amulet back within its folds when he felt something sharp at his back.

  “Who are you, and who are these men?”

  Bedouin, Qebera realized by the accent. Better than the Setim, but not by much.

  “I’m Qebera, soldier and farmer, last of the royal guard of Abydos.”

  An uncertain silence. “You are not in Abydos now. Who are these men?”

  “I’m hunted by the Setim. They’ve captured and possibly killed my king, and have taken his throne. These were sent to eliminate his friends.”

  The blade retreated. “Killed Osiris? I don’t believe it. What proof can you lend to your story?”

  “In no time at all, a force of Setim will crest that dune, looking for blood. You can ask them, if you like.”

  A muttered curse. “Get up. Come along. We’ll discuss this further in private.”

  Qebera staggered upright. He turned to face the voice with the knife. Its owner trudged diagonally up the dune, a tall figure garbed from head to foot in mottled blacks and browns. Three other Bedouin followed him, rustic bows held ready. Others waited at the crest of the dune, holding camels in place.

  “Come along,” the leader repeated. “We harbor no love of the Setim. I’d rather they didn’t see us here.”

  Qebera tied the broken lanyard carefully at his neck, then stuffed the pouch into his linens. He thought it wise not to mention the amulet until he knew more of his company. The Bedouin had spoken truthfully enough; his people counted the Setim as enemies, but that didn’t mean the Abydans were friends. Qebera remained alert, hoping for allies but careful of betrayal. The rabbit trusted no one, for it feared more predators than dogs were about.

  Qebera rode behind the leader, balanced at the back of their mount’s long, broad saddle. They wound along depressions between dunes so as not to be seen by searching eyes. After several hours, they reached firmer ground, the terrain changing from shifting sands to rising terraces of rock and gravel.

  They entered a makeshift camp at the top of this rise, where small, tubular tents huddled in the lee of a massive limestone outcropping. Several camel dung campfires burned smokelessly on stones. Some were set to boil water. Others were built up below stones that were propped over the heat by tiny cairns of rock. Women stoked the fires in dark, ragged robes of goatskin and wool. Scarves covered their heads and black veils hid their faces. They paid no attention to the caravan loping past.

  The Bedouins trooped to the far side of camp, where other mounts were hobbled together. Camels brayed at their approach, whether greeting the working beasts back to the fold or just being obnoxious, it was hard to tell with such animals.

  The party halted among the hobbled mounts. The Bedouins clicked their tongues and their rides grudgingly dropped to the ground, first bending their front legs, then the back. The men dismounted. They unloaded cargo tied to the camels’ flanks: the day’s harvest of rabbit, quail, and lizard. They passed these to the women nearby, who took the carcasses to some secret place for gutting.

  Qebera slid from his mount. He waited while the beasts were coaxed to their feet and hobbled with strips of wool. The fabric was evident everywhere, in the black scars of tents and in the nomads’ rustic dress. Qebera understood the insulating value of the rough, mean material, but its use still distracted a person raised in the lighter, airier world of linens.

  Qebera waited while the man whose camel he had shared chose to ignore him for the sake of his mount. The man was bent on securing the animal, mindful of its value and of the beast's well-known penchant to wander. He finally straightened, and grunted for Qebera to follow as he headed toward the tents. He yelled in Bedouin to a lieutenant who moved to join them.

  The men entered a tent near the center of camp, a sparsely appointed shelter containing a few ragged bags, two sleeping mats, and nothing more. They dropped cross-legged to the ground and sat facing each other, at last removing the scarves from their faces.

  “I am Abadi Saliim,” the leader said. “This is Naasir, my first born. Ours is a gathering party, far from the primary camp. We've heard tales from the lands to the east, but they were unclear, the ravings of terrified people. Now we'll know your story, Qebera of Abydos. Explain your presence in the deep desert, and the presence of those you battled.”

  Qebera’s shoulders slumped. He peeled back his hood and ran his fingers through gritty hair. No chance had come to talk on the camels. The party had practiced silence, afraid to attract Setim attention. Now, he wondered where to start and how much to tell, for he realized despite Abadi’s courtesy that he was not a guest of these people, but a barely tolerated prisoner. How or if that status changed depended
on what he revealed to them. The alliances of nomads were fluid, dependent on whatever ensured their moment’s survival. Qebera recalled that meeting in the street, just after Osiris had returned to the city. He remembered the gift brought by Djafa Seniram, the bow for the goddess Isis. In that moment, he knew what to say.

  “Osiris is dead, as far as I know, betrayed and murdered by Set. Set has taken the throne of Abydos and terrorizes its people. He lays claim to all that Osiris owned. The queen, Isis, is in trouble. Set has claimed her, too.”

  The Bedouin seemed unmoved. “Who are these men who pursue you?” Naasir asked. “The Setim rarely enter the deep desert, and then only around their citadel at Abu Simbel. You say they’re the ones who hunt you? Why waste their time on a lowly soldier?”

  He asked about the amulet, Qebera realized, whether or not he knew it. “Isis sent the priests and guard of Osiris into the desert to escape the wrath of Set. We embody the Osiran cult. As Set destroyed my lord’s temple, he must also destroy his chief believers. I was chief of the guard, the king’s trusted confidant. They’ve been after me for days.”

  Abadi had a hawkish face, almost bony. He scratched a bedraggled, graying beard. “This does not concern us,” he said. “We should leave you here to fend for yourself against your petulant gods. But the queen Isis is honored among my people. Shaykh Djafa Seniram may want to hear your story.” He spoke in Bedouin to Naasir, who nodded and left the tent.

  Abadi uncrossed his legs, then rose to rummage through a bag against the wall. “You understand, I hope, that you are no longer prisoner. You may come or go as you wish, but I prefer you come with us.”

  “Thank-you,” Qebera said, relieved. “You are most generous.” He didn’t ask where they went; he didn’t want to press his luck.