by Stephan Loy
“Something’s not right,” he said. “Thoth and Nephthys are threatened...” He seemed to listen to words only he could hear. “...in Abu Simbel!”
“They call to you?” Isis asked.
“I feel the tides... The moon is ... wrong.”
At that moment, the river rippled, then agitated as if rain pelted its surface. Hordedev and Isis peered around. Families evacuated huts near the bank. Parents ran for children.
"Earthquake," Hordedev said.
“Go to Thoth," Isis said to Hapi. "We can handle things here. We’ve only to obtain a seaworthy ship...”
“Already done,” Hapi said as he seeped through the deck. He reappeared at the waterside rail, jiggling much as the river he commanded. “Someone in Damietta has the resources you need, someone you can trust. Go to Damietta, and he will take care of you.”
“Who is he and how will we find him?”
“He knows you, and he will find you. I know he will. He told me so. I have to go. Thoth and your sister need me. They do, and my waters are threatened.”
“Go, Hapi. Take with you my gratitude.”
But he was already gone. The Nile grew very quiet.
"The trembling stops," Hordedev said.
Isis sighed beneath her robes. “Well, Hordedev, we’re on our way back to Damietta. Feel like a refugee yet?”
“I am a refugee,” the young man answered. “I'll remain one as long as my family suffers. But I feel I’m more fortunate than most men, for I serve you.”
Isis’s smile shone too brightly for mortal man to stand, but she hid it beneath her voluminous hood.
The earth began to tremble again.
Nephthys barely escaped with her life. This new reality of immortal mortality reached its public and desperate zenith as Set flung hate at his just-abandoned wife. Mountains of sand rose up from the earth to dive like drills at Nephthys’s head. Lightning blasted, ripping the heavens with roars enough to deafen the humans fighting alongside Thoth. Bolts bombarded the running ships. They scorched decks, shattered masts, and shredded folded sails. Sailors stared wide-eyed at nature run amok while Thoth did his best to fend off their tormenter. But his powers were either too passive to help or calamitous enough to kill those he protected. He attacked the citadel with earthquakes and rockfalls courtesy of his moon, to busy Set with self-preservation over murder. He fought as befitted the second to Ra, but two vessels sank under the storm god’s wrath.
Hapi saved them all. He snatched the boats downstream at harrowing speeds, every inch an inch farther from Set’s killing madness. When sand attacked, he threw up walls of water that chopped assaults apart before they gained momentum. Crewmen thrown from broken ships he scooped into his watery grasp and heaved onto the one surviving vessel. He was helpless against the lightning, but no single bolt could claim a right to accuracy. Set, in his rage, showed terrible aim.
During the battle, Nephthys cowered against Thoth’s throne, feeling too much a target. Two of Thoth's standard bearers guarded her with their bodies, trying to mask her from Set's sight by placing themselves between her and the fortress. When she could think at all from the heart of the conflict, Nephthys wondered at the verve with which they defended her. During her period of confinement and degradation, she had thought much on that paradox. These were not dogs trained to obedience. They did not protect her out of fear of their master. Merferet's loyalty to Isis could not have been fobbed off as the instinctive fidelity of a simpleminded pet. Merferet had died rescuing her goddess, an expression of deepest love. These men, strangers, defended Nephthys not because orders demanded it, but because they were selfless in the face of adversity. They cared, she knew. They cared to do right, and by anyone.
One of those men died in her defense. When a lightning bolt struck and skittered across the deck, seeking Nephthys like a sniffing dog, he hurled himself into its path. Nephthys did not even know his name.
How fitting that the goddess of nothing, who had seen nothing though surrounded by wonders, should face extinction as she glimpsed the mortal heart.
But Set was too unbalanced, too far away, and too heavily opposed to make good his murderous purpose. He failed to destroy Nephthys in those first few hours, then fractured his interest against matters nearer at hand. Like the goddess Hathor, for instance. The attacks lessened in intensity, and then ended altogether except for sporadic fits of spite. In three days the ship escaped, passing Matmar and entering Fayum. There the crew collapsed in relief. No one noticed the children romping down the bank, waving after the vessel.
Sanni watched the battered barge limp downstream. She watched her girls chasing after it. Many ships had passed her adopted home in the last several months. Some were Setim, some rebel, some, like this one, the state barges of gods. She recalled the ship’s appearance days before when it had swelled with pride in its pompous parade of what, five, six vessels? Now it seemed to groan for its shattered mast, its pounded rails, and its charred, smoking hull. What had become of the others? she wondered. Did the earthquakes provide a clue, or the black skies to the south? Once more her heart ached at what had become of her kingdom, her home, her fractured family. The wound for Nefera reopened. It breathed in grief.
“The merchants over the border cry war,” Ay Horemheb said from beside her. They stood in the sand-sprayed grave of his fields, she in a loose, cool shift, he in a laborer’s loincloth. They thought it unsafe to enter the shaken house. “War,” he repeated. “War between gods.”
Sanni shook her head. “It’s easy to see who’s winning.” She turned away from the river and stooped to the patch of ground she had swept clear of sand. Something had drawn her attention there, something greater than the ships of gods.
“There’s never been a war among gods,” Ay Horemheb continued, his tone full of dread. “They made war on us once, thousands of years ago. Hathor, at Ra’s command, sought to destroy our ancestors. The only thing that stopped her was Ra changing his mind.” He sighed. “Do you think we’ll fare any better as bystanders?”
“Fairy tales and myths,” Sanni said. “Look here. This is real.” She tapped the speck of ground framed by her hands.
A network of hairline fissures webbed the dirt at her knees. From some of those fissures, tiny sprigs of green presented cautious heads.
“The land lives again,” Sanni said in a voice flattened by hardship. “Next year, you’ll have a crop.”
Ay Horemheb kneeled beside her and sighed once again. “That’s very nice, for whoever owns the place by then. We won’t last that long, Sanni. We’ve only a few more things to trade.” He looked at her with shamed, apologetic eyes. “I can move on to Fayum when all else is lost. You can’t pass the border, not as long as you are who you are. I’m sorry.”
Don’t be, Sanni thought. You took us in. You fed my children. You made us welcome and respected me as wife to another. You are a good man, Ay Horemheb. You’ve nothing for which to apologize. “We’ll manage,” she said.
Together, they cleared more earth of its smothering blanket of sand. Green sprouted over the land. It was the green of weeds, but weeds were only the first reborn. Soon, the green of food would arise.
Until then, even weeds could fill an empty belly.
Isis expected a long search, but her contact found them almost immediately. He approached them as Hordedev secured the boat, a lanky man in cheap, scratchy linens, a short growth of hair atop his sharp-featured head. “Goddess Isis,” the man said to the bundle of robes in the boat. “I wish to serve you as I served my immaculate master. I do so for his sake.”
Hordedev failed to recognize the scruffy clothes and face. Isis looked deeper than that.
“Amnet,” she said. “This is a blessing.”
The former high priest of Osiris bowed. “I’ve prepared a place for you and your servant.”
“Hordedev is not my servant. He is the greatest of friends.”
“Excuse my ignorance,” Amnet apologized, turning from Isis to Hordedev.
Amnet noticed her woolen hood following his movements. He shook his head and chortled. “Surviving the desert humbles a man,” he said.
“What happened?” Isis asked.
Hordedev helped his goddess to land. Amnet explained as he led them along the docks. “We priests were easy targets,” he said as he touched his hair. “The baldness was an obvious clue. Many were cornered and killed by Set. He has regained some of the royal ensigns, minor pieces, but a portion nonetheless. Those of us who escaped did so in the desert, far from dependable food and water. I made it here, as far from Set as I could imagine. For a time, I worked as a laborer, but as I discovered other refugees of my order, I began to bring them together. We’ve formed a small but self-sufficient chapter-in-exile here, using what regalia we managed to protect as the core of a holy sanctum.”
“How did you find us?” Isis asked. She marveled at the strength in his voice. Was this the same bureaucrat she had known in Abydos?
“Hapi approached us days ago. He commanded us to seek you out, described your ... disguise, and the manner in which you traveled. We might have ignored him, his tone was so imperious, but we could think of no better service to our fallen lord than to aid and support his wife. Ah, here we are.”
He halted before a heavy merchant ship, a solid craft of wood at least twenty rods long. A single mast rose amidships, and at least twenty rowing stations bristled at the flanks, oars shipped. A small cabin with linen walls stood near the stern. At least ten men scurried about the enclosure, securing the poles that framed it. All the crew wore the same short hair as Amnet, and dissimilar but still gruff attire.
“We sold everything in trade for this ship, all but the relics stored in the hold. The provisions are chancy; we’ll have to work for food along the way. I hope the goddess will forgive the lack of comforts...”
Isis laughed, a sound devoid of humor. “Comfort? What is that?” She shook her head. “No, I require only the cabin on occasion, to free myself of these hot robes without causing a riot.”
“You will have it on more than occasions,” Amnet said. “The cabin is erected for you alone.” He bowed and invited her aboard.
She mounted the ramp with no more fanfare than any bent old woman, but still the milling expatriate priests stopped in their work to honor her. Isis, touched by their bows and salutes, halted speechless among them. It was up to Amnet to address the crew.
“Brothers,” he called, “we embark today on a great mission, one to validate our life’s faith. Through treachery and tragedy we have not abandoned our god. Now we fight for him, and bring aid to others who honor his name. The goddess Isis needs our help to seek out Osiris and return him to life. I would surrender my life for his, if the sacrifice helped her succeed. What do you say?”
“Yes!” the men roared as one. “Our lives for Osiris! Our lives for his queen!”
Their devotion overwhelmed her. After months of torture and dishonor, she drowned in it. She wanted to address them, to show them a goddess worthy of their fealty. She wanted to honor their strength, their determination, their hope in her and the hoped for life of her husband. But, she could not. Her voice faltered in the warmth of their love, and her vision blurred from tears. “Thank-you,” Isis managed. “I don’t deserve this.”
Amnet looked at her, almost cross. “Our land is dead, our city destroyed. You, goddess, are the only thing unspoiled from former times. If you do not deserve fidelity, then our dreams of a better world are doomed.”
“We are men,” Hordedev whispered into his goddess’s ear. “Dreams are all we have.”
“Dreams of death?” Isis asked. “Dreams of persecution, then succumbing to a predator god? That’s what you’ll get, going against Set. I cannot protect you; I couldn’t protect myself.”
Amnet nodded. “We understand the risks, but we've chosen our paths to the afterlife with care and deepest faith. We choose dreams of victory, of vindication and revenge. In your presence, and in the presence of our resurrected lord, perchance we dream of life.”
With that proclamation, so bold in the face of so much sorrow, the priesthood of Osiris joined with his wife and the rebels in his cause. They set sail from Egypt into the unknown world and did not return for years.
End of Part One
Isis Wept
Part Two: Resurrection
Chapter Seven:
The great conflicts of human history are fraught with periods of frenzied activity followed by torturous lulls. The struggles of gods are no different. After the death of Osiris and the theft of his throne, the rise of the human resistance and the escape of Isis from Set, after Thoth rescued Nephthys and Hathor betrayed them both on a lark, Egypt idled into a stillness that lasted five long years.
It wasn’t as if the region languished. Life continued as usual in the almost untouched Fayum, and prosperity crept back to Abydos as the earth shrugged off its year-long struggle with death. Within four years, the land fed its people again and exported surplus products. Farmers returned to their chores and the refugee rich reclaimed their haunted villas. The capitol was still erased, but Mostagedda replaced it, complete with an administrator appointed from Abu Simbel. As for Set, who had so coveted his brother’s riches, he never set foot in Abydos again. Without the Wadjit Eye to legitimize his rule, Set felt no triumph in sitting upon his dead brother's throne. He preferred to brood in his dead fortress in his dead desert far to the frontier south.
Hathor, amused by his smoldering, focused hatred, came often to Abu Simbel to fan those dangerous embers.
The object of Set’s enmity remained out of reach as Nephthys took up residence in Thoth’s palace at Fayum Oasis. There she brought her son into the world, a god born handsome, dark and adult in a flash of light from her brow. He was her pride, and she called him Anubis, Lord of the Higher Ground.
The new god was bright and well-mannered, thus earning respect from his powerful host. Thoth appreciated etiquette in a god, and had seen so little in his peers lately. He also appreciated a keen mind. Finding one in Anubis, he took the newcomer as his apprentice. He taught him the powers for which he was legendary: the sciences of mathematics, of biology, and of the powerful tongues known to the gods since the dawn of time. Month by month, the new immortal honed his skills and focused his interests. As with all gods, he sought his purpose, and believed he could find it in Thoth’s craft of logic.
As time went on, he became his own master and spent less time in the company of his benefactor. He liked the old god, but Thoth had a passion for math that bored Anubis. The new diety took up residence in the marshes east of Fayum Oasis and continued his studies in his own unique way. The news from those marshes was not all worthy of the ‘higher ground’ for which Anubis was named. Stories of murder leaked from that land, and of grisly dissections and bizarre experiments. Anubis’s talents soon grew apparent, and they included an aptitude for human physiology.
Five years passed, an age to men, a blink of the eye to that youngest immortal. Soldiers who guarded the Abydan frontier forgot what enemy kept them at their posts. Few beyond the most ambitious remembered Qebera or his family, or any other fugitive of the former king’s guard. Their minds worried over rebel doings, for such were the bane of any Setim soldier. Sanni could have crossed the border any time she pleased, as long as she lied about who she was. But Sanni could muster no reason to run. The barren earth Ay Horemheb had left her now grew grain of the finest quality, and she had her girls to harvest it. Ay Horemheb had moved over the border, had set his future on storing and selling overflow grain on consignment. He had no wish to return to the farm. The engine of Sanni’s growing we
alth was to him a place of sorrow. He gave it up, and wished Sanni all the luck denied him in his time.
But the retired farmer’s memory was sharp. When the Bedouins came to him proposing an exchange of goats and trinkets for grain, Ay Horemheb discerned the identity of their spokesman with the Abydan accent. He directed the man to the old farm, and wished him happiness in what he might discover there.
He rode between the squared-off blocks of crops, his horse hidden below the shoulders by the burgeoning fields. He zigzagged along the lanes toward Sanni until he reigned in his steed by the irrigation ditch that occupied her time. Sanni’s daughters were there, mud caked over arms and legs. Sanni, too, was filthy, having just stepped from the ditch herself. She stared at the strange, bearded Bedouin, at his peculiar and fidgeting mount. He stared back, his eyes a churning mix of emotions.
“Well, it took you long enough,” Sanni finally said.
Qebera shifted his grip on the reins.
Sanni turned to the girls behind her; they stood frozen, uncertain, their calves awash in brown water. “Daughters,” she said, waving them from the ditch, “come and greet your father.”
They obeyed without question, but stayed close to their mother.
Qebera leaned across the front of his saddle, an insubstantial saddle compared to those for camels. “They’re so beautiful,” he said. “I’d almost forgotten how much.” He pointed to the tallest. “You must be Nefera.”
The children flinched a step backward.
“No,” Sanni corrected her husband. “This is Meri, and this is Maya. Nefera is dead.”
Qebera stiffened. He rose higher in his saddle. His casual air vanished into shock.
“Setim did it,” Sanni continued. She didn’t want to hurt him, but the scars of experience dulled her to his pain. “It happened as we ran. We buried her outside Hammamiya.”