Isis Wept

by Stephan Loy

  The throne room froze to a human still life as everyone awaited the hooded one’s response. Then hands appeared from beneath the folds of cloth, and rose to take back the abundant hood. Malacander, sharply observant, noticed those perfect hands, noticed the foreigners turn away in terror, and quickly moved to foil the woman's intent. He grabbed Isis’s wrists at the sleeves, careful not to touch her skin.

  “A test only,” he said, and drew her hands away from the hood. "A risky test, to be sure. If we stood upon your native soil, just the glimpse of your fingers might have meant the end of me." He turned away. He placed one sandaled foot back upon the dais.

  “A man’s life is finite,” he said with tired longing. “He hopes to see all there is in his time, to thrill to beauty, and riches, and power beyond all others. But, there comes a time when wealth ceases to matter, when the carnal gifts of women are but diversions from the truth, when sometimes love is just enough for life.” He spoke to Isis, but turned his eyes to his youthful wife. “Sometimes, love is more than enough, more than a man deserves.”

  He signaled his guards. The doors to the throne room opened. Everyone, the queen included, moved aside to the wings. A maid scurried in, holding a wriggling bundle in her arms. The bundle screeched to make men wince.

  The maid stopped before her king and handed him the baby. Malacander took the child tenderly, undaunted by its thrashing fit, then sent the maid away.

  “Fix this child,” he said, and his voice, though strong, held a hint of appeal. “That is all I ask, that my son be whole again.”

  For a moment, Isis was still. No one could say if she might refuse, or if she considered the king’s request. Then she raised a hand to the child and traced a finger along its cheek.

  The young prince calmed. He ceased his writhing as if surprised. He relaxed his face from its livid mask. His fists loosened. He fell asleep.

  Malacander held a finger to the baby’s pursed lips. He smiled as the infant suckled.

  “Astarte,” the king boomed, “come and see to our son.”

  Astarte rushed forward, her face streaming tears. She offered profuse thanks to her husband, her gods, to everyone, it seemed, but Isis. She took her baby, hugged it, then fled the room, guards and attendants following. She left her husband to repay her son’s silent benefactor.

  “Guards!” the king shouted. “Bring axes! Bring ropes! Let’s tear open this box around a box!”

  Hordedev, Amnet, and all the other Abydans lent their hands to the effort. The goddess herself stood unmoving, her head bent in fatigue.

  They destroyed the king’s prize, tore it asunder with chisels, ropes, wedges, and axes. The expected box presented itself like the meat in a tightly packed nut, requiring hours of work to force it from its prison. Few heeded the goddess standing in their company. She did nothing to dull their focus, and the work left no time to recognize her presence. For the first time in her life, Isis became invisible.

  To everyone but Hordedev, that is, who knew Isis better than anyone in that room, better even than Amnet, who had served the gods in the days before betrayal. Hordedev knew his queen’s moods and her unconscious body language. The two had spent months in a small boat together, rarely more than an arm’s length apart. No pile of robes could hide her from him. He also recognized pain after suffering so much of it himself. After long minutes of hesitation wondering what was wrong with her and then how to help, he left the work gang and approached Isis, concern etched on his face. His expression seemed directed to one held dear, not to his sovereign goddess.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to her still, cloaked form. “We didn’t think how you might feel...” He took her elbow, felt a flinch of surprise as if she noticed him only then. “Goddess, let’s leave this place.”

  When he led her away, she did not resist.

  They found privacy in an anteroom to one side of the throne. There they rested on the floor’s thick rug, back to back with Hordedev facing the door. The habit was old, from those close days on that tiny boat before Amnet’s help. The arrangement kept their relationship clean and Hordedev’s mortal weaknesses checked. Still, her scent filled the air, and Hordedev felt her trembling through her clothes. To distract from her allure, he followed the lessons of years in her company. He mentally listed the better strains of grain seed and cataloged the commercial qualities of each. In this way, he could just stand her nearness.

  “It made me sick,” Isis said in a low, anguished voice. “I don’t know what I expected when I started this quest, but seeing my husband extracted from that tree like ... like stone from a quarry ... well, that wasn’t it. I’ve little experience with death, Hordedev. You people live so casually at its side.”

  “No.” Hordedev shook his head. “There’s nothing casual about death. We mortals learn to live with it, but wish we didn’t have to.” He foundered, wondering what to say. The awkward silence between them soon gave him words. “When the Setim killed my sister, we couldn’t stay for the whole rite. They were nearby; we had to escape before they returned. We buried Nefera, but we left her no possessions for her Ka to take to the afterlife; we had no possessions to leave her. And we couldn’t wrap her properly; we had little cloth and even less time. We treated her poorly, my sister, and all those buried with her. I hope her Ka forgives us.” He sighed. “Nefera had it easy, considering those I left in the desert while fighting the Setim. For most of them, friend and enemy alike, their greatest comfort in death was to feed vultures and warm the eggs of beetles. You see, goddess, I’ve much experience with death, more than enough for both of us.”

  “I’m sorry,” his goddess said, her voice low and sad. “You’ve lived with more misery than Ma’at should allow. What has become of your youth, that one possession unique to man? Those are the years in which sadness is fleeting and cynicism is just a word. You’ve lost your youth. Now you only look death in the face.”

  Hordedev thought about that, but not very seriously. Why fret over things he couldn’t control? “I can’t miss what I never had,” he said in answer to Isis’s concern. “As for the rest?” He shrugged. “Staring down death at least leaves no surprises.”

  King Malacander granted Osiris the honors of a fallen monarch. He ordered the mildewed coffin cleaned, then patched with gum where the wood had split. Guards bore the box to Amnet’s ship, docked for months at the merchants’ quay. The king then spoke at the ramp, a rambling but heartfelt denunciation of treason. So great was his esteem for the dead Abydan king that he openly eulogized a foreign god.

  Isis paid little attention. She appreciated the gestures, but looked toward the journey home and the work of resurrecting her love. Her prospects were slim. Osiris’s body had so decomposed that his coffin had not been opened; the stink made apparent the extent of his decay. Though Isis felt his spark within that box, had felt it since arriving months ago, she doubted it was strong enough for her to reinforce. Had she come all this way through time and trial only to fail with her love within reach?

  She brooded thus through the ceremonies, through the loading of the body and the start of her journey home. The crew drew quiet at the end of its quest. The coffin filling the amidships deck did much to check any expression of pride. It was a gloomy reminder that victory sometimes sang a dirge.

  “We never had a child,” Isis told Hordedev on the third day out from Byblos. She spoke through the opaque curtains of her cabin, where she spent all her time when not at the box. “We thought we had lots of time,” she continued, her voice almost a whisper. “We were busy, committed, satisfied as lovers. But, I always hoped to one day see his eyes in another face.”

  Hordedev remained silent on the other side of the screen. Perhaps he waited to see if she continued. “I’m sorry, goddess," he finally said. "I’m sure he lives on, if not in the eyes of gods, then in the hearts of men.”

  Isis didn’t answer. She had never thought of Osiris in quite that way. Perhaps he had stolen immortality after all, a more permanent, meaningful immortal
ity than the simple act of breathing.

  Hordedev left her after a while, and Isis, alone, considered her husband's true legacy.

  Isis sank further into melancholy with each day of the long voyage home. Amnet’s crew hardly noticed; she wasn’t the lightest of souls to them, so this deeper moodiness was nothing new. Amnet noticed, as did Hordedev, and both watched their queen with concern.

  “Her confidence is gone,” the priest said on the tenth day out from Byblos. He and Hordedev stood at the bow, watching for overdue landfall. Hordedev stole a glance at the goddess’s cabin, then returned his eyes to the sea.

  “Can she really do it? Can she bring Osiris back from the dead?”

  Amnet shook his head, a head now thick with tumbling gray hair. “Who can say? Once I would have said yes, confident in the power of gods, but then I dug out that box...” Amnet sighed. “He wasn’t supposed to die at all. I suspect the gods were mightily surprised when Set committed his dog-cursed treason. I think they’re all a bit frightened by now. They’re touched by mortality, and don’t know what to do with it.”

  Hordedev spit over the rail. “I heard a lot of strange things, that Set has gained power over the lives of gods, that he’ll use that power to depose Ra.”

  “I heard that, too. But if he had such power, it failed against her.” Amnet tossed his chin at the linen-draped cabin.

  “I also heard it was always possible to kill a god, but nobody knew because nobody tried. How do you think they came across their plan? Set and Hapi, I mean.”

  “Who knows how they hatched such dishonor. Anyway, it didn’t work, so I guess they still don’t know.”

  Hordedev frowned. Amnet mocked his point, and it didn’t sit well. “All right, so they didn’t do it right, or Hapi backed out. Who can say why it didn’t work? It hadn’t been done before.”

  “Exactly. It’s a whole new world for them. And for us.”

  “So.” Hordedev wanted to stress his concern. “If no one knew how to kill a god -- since it had never been done -- then who can say how to resurrect one, or even if it’s possible?”

  Now Amnet frowned. He looked hard at the younger man. “Of course it’s possible,” he said. “It has to be, for the sake of our lord and all his realm.” He looked away. “Don’t you think I’ve harbored such doubts? Don’t you think we all have? But, we must have faith in the goddess. She is, after all, the expression of life. If we don’t see that, if we don’t believe that, do you think we could struggle for years as we have?” He nodded once more toward the cabin. “Faith and dreams are what keep us going, not the rigors of logic. It must be possible to bring Osiris back. And if anyone can do it, she’s there, beyond that curtain.”

  Yes, Hordedev thought, if anyone can do it. But, she isn’t confident that anyone can. She never was. Wasn’t this all Nephthys’s idea?

  He turned his eyes to the rotting box stretched between him and the goddess. She’s even more doubtful now, he supposed, and the thought stung. “We do so much in faith for her,” he said. “My father took the Wadjit Eye of Ra for her. She told me once that he still lives, that he still runs from the Setim out of duty to her ... and to that.” He nodded toward the coffin. “Now, I am bound by duty to her, duty because of what she may attempt, and duty because of my father’s example. Tell me, Amnet, for you’ve spent your whole life with gods. Is that duty misspent? Is there any point to our labors?”

  Amnet stared into the lowering night. “At one time, my friend, our lives were full of certainty. We knew our gods and knew they were omnipotent. There’s decadence in such certainty. Worship becomes routine and purpose becomes procedure. But things are different now. Faith is all we have these days.” He shrugged. “Perhaps anything else is fantasy.”

  They sailed on. They reached port, slept the night, and worked several days in exchange for provisions. Isis remained in her cabin.

  Qebera turned from the Setim garrison before him to the fire behind, the fire from Sanni’s farm. His rebel contacts had told him the story: the Setim had come in the night, had taken Sanni and the girls and set the farm ablaze. They had come for the ensigns of Abydos, the same ensigns they had neglected for years. Rumor had reached them from Matmar that Abydan guards walked the streets disguised as Bedouin traders. They had taken the man Ay Horemheb, with whom the Bedouins traded. His body had turned up in the river, half eaten by crocodiles.

  Now, finally, Qebera was free of conflict. For too many years he had suffered the denial of even basic pleasures, had carried that millstone to protect his wife and daughters. Now that lie stood exposed before him, lit by Setim flames.

  “You don’t know they’re in the camp,” Abadi said for at least the tenth time.

  “Of course they are. Where else would they be?” Qebera dropped behind the rise from which they watched the Setim encampment. "Anyway, we do this thing in order to find out." He fingered his sword in its worn scabbard — his ceremonial bronze blade, that gift from Osiris himself. He knew it couldn’t help him right now, but its presence gave him confidence. “Our rebel friends say she never entered a ship and was not observed on the Nile road. The Setim have taken her and the girls to the closest garrison -- this one.”

  “If you’re wrong, it’ll cost us our lives.”

  Qebera grunted. “If I’m right, the only lives lost will be Setim. Look, we’ve twenty rebel fighters positioned around this garrison. They know what to do and when to do it. You don’t need to be here; I can rescue my family alone.”

  Abadi shook his head and sighed. “You’re so slow to learn. Is that a common Abydan trait? Maybe you’re a strange one anywhere.”

  They remained there for long minutes, lying on their backs in the sand. Qebera grunted when the sun touched the western horizon. “It’s time,” he said.

  “So, tell me again why our twenty rebel fighters don’t just storm the place ahead of us?”

  “I can’t protect Sanni if I don’t know where she is. I don’t want to give the Setim time to kill her.”

  “Instead, you give them time to kill me.”

  “I said you don’t have to come.”

  “I’m just stating the obvious. Someone ought to. Shall we go?”

  They climbed over the rise that had hidden them from notice. Without another word, they trudged toward the Setim base.

  The place had grown from a clutch of tents years ago to a motley town of mud-brick barracks. Qebera and Abadi crossed the hard, grassy earth toward the approximate center of the military village.

  “Halt!” a soldier called, and ran with two others to intercept the pair.

  When the soldiers had them covered, Qebera spoke the agreed upon lines. “I am Qebera of Abydos, a former guard of Osiris. I want to see my family.”

  The place felt slack for the camp of a ruling army. Qebera discerned no culture of discipline, just unruly bullies in sloppy linens. They tormented their two kneeling prisoners, laughing at them, taunting them, kicking and punching them. But it all seemed careless, as if they only went through the motions. Of course, Qebera guessed, these were abandoned men, assigned years ago to their mission and forgotten by the god who had ordered them forth. They barely remembered the guards of Osiris, let alone why they were enemies of Set. Qebera wondered through the half-hearted abuse how such men found verve enough to leave their ramshackle camp at all, let alone to kidnap families and burn their farms. Who embraced such ambition here? Certainly no one apparent so far.

  “That’s enough there,” someone shouted, and the soldiers gave way.

  Qebera and Abadi waited in the dry grass. They ached and sucked on bloody lips, but they weren’t badly harmed. Their weapons lay before them in the dirt, a further sign of careless soldiering.

  A man stepped forth from the soldiers and the dark. He wore the badges of a Setim magistrate: the red linen wig, the red linen belt over his kilt, the sculpted flint knife he braced in the folds of that belt. The wig was faded, the kilt dirty. That told Qebera much. This was a high priest of Set, wh
o once would have stood at the altars of Abu Simbel. Not anymore. Aside from what devotions he led at this miserable garrison, he would have spoken no liturgy in the years of his exile. He was likely as tired as his men, but ambitious to leave them. Now he paced before Qebera and Abadi like an officer inspecting troops. “You are one who served Osiris?” he asked in an even, perhaps bored tone.

  “I am,” Qebera answered.

  “You’ve eluded us for years. Why come in now?”

  “Because you’ve taken my family.”

  The magistrate nodded. “So we have. But I’m still confused. I mean, either you’re very misled or very stupid, because I now have you and your family.”

  “You have me. Let my family go.”

  The magistrate looked puzzled. “Why would I do that?”

  Qebera’s eyes sparked. So, this was the one who kept things going. “We both know your orders,” he said. “You don’t want my family. You don’t even want me. You want the sovereign ensigns of Abydos, to legitimize your usurper god.”

  Grumbling sounded among the Setim.

  “Watch your tongue,” the magistrate advised. “You’re in no position to insult our god, the god of this land.”

  “Is that what he calls himself?”

  “You had a more tenable point to make?” To underscore his warning, the magistrate signaled to a soldier in the crowd. The man kicked Abadi square in the face, dropping him onto his back, howling.

  Qebera flinched, but otherwise held his ground. “Are you all right?” he asked in Bedouin.

  “Oh, yes,” Abadi groaned, and rolled onto one side. “Can we go now?” His face bled into the crackling grass.

  Qebera stared at the Setim magistrate. “You need the ensigns. Release my family and you can have the greatest ensign of all. The Wadjit Eye of Ra.”

  That drew gasps from the soldiers. The magistrate nodded.