by Stephan Loy
“The Eye of Ra. That would be wonderful. But what makes you think I won’t get it anyway? I’ll torture it out of you, don’t you think?”
Something like a chuckle escaped Qebera’s throat. “I’ve fought your kind for six years. I’ve run for days with no time to rest, no food, no water. I’ve survived the deepest desert, even monsters from the hand of Set. I’ve lost three children to your murderous hands, and many, many friends. After all that, why should I buckle to the likes of you?”
Again the magistrate nodded. “I take your point. Perhaps I’ll torture him, instead.” He pointed to Abadi.
“He doesn’t know I have it. No one does.”
“I hardly think that matters. If I torture him properly, you’d surrender the ensign for his sake alone. Or perhaps I should start with these instead.” He signaled someone. A scuffle erupted within the soldiers, then Sanni and the girls were manhandled through the crowd and fell to their knees in front of Qebera. They were dirty and disheveled, but seemed otherwise well for the circumstances. Sanni showed a stony exterior. The girls blubbered and clung to her. The magistrate stopped pacing just at Sanni’s side. “Well?” he asked. “Are you a hard enough man for that, my friend?”
“I am,” Qebera said. He stared at the magistrate, who rubbed his chin.
“Again, I cede your point,” the soldier-priest shrugged. “Of course, you may not have the ensign. You may be lying to save your family.”
“I’ll prove I have it.”
“Then do so.”
Gods protect us, Qebera prayed. Don’t let me mess this up.
“No need to cry,” Qebera told his daughters, his heart twisting when he couldn’t for a moment recall who was who. “No need for that. I’m here to save you.”
That brought laughter from the surrounding soldiers.
Qebera tried to ignore them; he caught and held Sanni’s eyes. “It’s going to be all right,” he insisted. He stopped a moment to consider his words. He needed Sanni to understand, but not the Setim soldiers. “I promise I’ll get you out, but it might get ugly first. Whatever happens here, I want you -- all of you -- to just close your eyes. I don’t want you watching what happens next. Keep your eyes closed. I’ll tell you when it’s over.”
“Ha!” someone said from the crowd. “Want me to inform the ladies? You’ll be in no condition!” Another roar of laughter.
The magistrate cleared his throat. “That’s enough,” he said to both his men and Qebera. “Now, show me this proof you speak of before I gut these women in front of you.”
“You won’t hurt them,” Qebera said, still holding Sanni’s eyes, willing her to comprehend.
“That depends on your proof,” the magistrate said.
The two men measured each other. Qebera itched for his blade, to bury it in the magistrate’s throat. Then he broke eye contact. He reached into the neck of his robes and hauled out a linen-stuffed pouch hung by a cord about his neck. “The proof is in here.”
The magistrate snatched the pouch from Qebera’s neck. He eyed it with a frown. “What is it?” he asked.
Qebera stared hard at Sanni. “Open it. I can’t explain the matters of gods.” Never open the bag. Never touch or look upon the amulet inside. To do so, for a mortal, would surely mean death.
Sanni’s eyes brightened at Qebera’s last words. She nodded to her husband, hugging her daughters close.
The magistrate opened the pouch.
A flash. A roar. A blast of heat knocked Qebera onto his back. He held his eyes shut and hoped the others did the same, Sanni, the girls, Abadi, and all those waiting in the dark beyond the camp. He heard a brief, startled yelp cut short by the blast, then a chorus of screams.
Qebera opened his eyes a faction. The magistrate was gone, replaced by a settling pile of ash. A half dozen corpses littered the ground close to his cremation, each laid neatly on its back, seared almost to ashes. A little farther off, men staggered about engulfed in flames. Still others stood grasping at air, their eyes blinded, their skin blistered. Abadi crossed Qebera’s line of sight. He snatched his knife from the dry earth and drove it into the nearest Setim soldier.
Qebera wanted to go to his family, but forced himself to more urgent matters. He glanced about for the Eye of Ra, found it and looked away. He wrapped a hand in a strip of wool torn earlier from his garments.
“Qebera!” Sanni yelled. “What should we do?”
“Stay put!” Qebera answered. “Protect the children as best you can!” He scuttled toward the eye, feeling the ground with his cloth-wrapped hand. He found the amulet and scooped it into the wadded wool of his cloak while he searched for the pouch in which it belonged.
A Setim soldier burst out of the darkness, intercepted by Abadi. More on the way, Qebera thought. The eye had dispatched perhaps half of the garrison.
He found the pouch, stuffed the amulet inside, then hung it from his neck. Still, he avoided seeking his wife; he searched for his sword instead.
The night swarmed with running figures. The flaming men still staggered about, or fell to the dirt and writhed. Abadi engaged two ax-wielding Setim, and four more rushed at Qebera and his family. Sanni and the girls crouched low to the ground. The girls screamed, and Sanni screamed at them not to scream.
Qebera snatched his sword from the earth and moved to protect his family. The first Setim fell from a slash at his ribs, another to the return stroke. The others braked their reckless charge and took up more defensive postures.
An arrow slapped into one man’s shoulder, then another into his neck. He fell backwards onto the ground, thrashing for life. The other Setim glanced about, alarmed. Two arrows attacked the earth at his feet. Prudently, he ran.
Camels rushed in, lit by the light of burning bodies. Their Bedouin riders held hunting bows ready, loosing a rain of arrows into the routed soldiers. More arrows whistled through the dark desert air than Qebera counted riders to launch them; the rebels had approached to within shooting range.
A protesting train of camels hauled up only a few paces away, riderless but for one. Another animal trailed them, almost invisible with its black hide and dark leather tack.
“It’s about time!” Abadi shouted as he helped bully the camels to their knees.
“We came as soon as we saw the flash!” Nasiir said. He slid from his mount and ran to the girls. His father did the same, and each wrenched a daughter from Sanni’s embrace. “Come along, ladies!” Abadi called. “This is not a place for loitering!”
The girls struggled to free themselves.
“No!” Sanni cried to her daughters. “Go with them! They’re here to protect you!” The girls fell limp at her voice, and the Bedouins loaded them onto the beasts.
Qebera sheathed his sword and took his wife by the shoulders. “I’m sorry!” he yelled above the sounds of combat. “They came for you because of me!”
Sanni forced a smile as she touched Qebera’s swollen lip. “It seems they came for you, as well.”
“Did they touch you, the bastards? Did they touch the girls?”
“It wasn’t too bad. You didn’t give them time.”
“And, I won’t, ever! You’re coming to live with us!”
He helped her onto the saddle behind Abadi. The question in her eyes spoke more clearly than words.
“No!” Qebera responded. “Forget the farm!” He stabbed a finger at the glowing southern sky. “That’s what’s left of your farm!”
“Oh, Qebera!” Sanni cried. “How much more must we suffer?”
Qebera knew no answer to soothe her. He slapped Abadi’s knee as his friend, mounted ahead of Sanni, forced the camel onto its feet. In an instant, they, the girls, and their allies vanished into the dark.
Qebera mounted his horse to indignant whinnies. He looked around at the carnage, at the Setim corpses, some still burning like bonfires, at the burning huts and the far greater flame of the Setim warship tied at the river’s bank. He wished to do much more. He wished to punish the minions of Set for the chaos bro
ught to his life, to his family, to his kingdom. But, he hadn’t the men or the talent to oppose the legions of Set and win. That task remained for greater soldiers.
With a satisfied grunt at the sting he had inflicted, Qebera slapped his steed’s flanks and sped it into the dark.
“The gods! They attack us!” someone yelled.
They had been at the oars, twenty men against a stubborn current, trying for the port at Baal Saphon before the fall of night. They couldn’t help their collective anxiety; seamen hated losing sight of land, and these were marginal seamen. Now a bizarre green light drifted out of the sky, settling about the ship’s mast in eerie concentric rings. With land vanishing and a coffin aboard, such apparitions could only mean disaster.
The panicked cry rang out. The crew, confused, lost rhythm and tangled their oars. The ethereal smoke condensed, then stretched into long, questing, emerald fingers. It hung about the mast as if resting before a strike, then descended toward the deck.
Pandemonium erupted. The rowers’ benches emptied. Men scurried about like beetles exposed to light, but found no refuge short of the sea. Many, in their terror, almost leapt to the water, but Amnet herded them away from the rails, then to center deck.
“Get hold of yourselves!” he bellowed. “Remember who you are, and who you serve!”
“But, the gods have come to claim him!” someone shouted. “They’ll punish us for touching him!”
“No! It’s Set come for revenge!”
“And quailing like mice will protect you?” Amnet shouted above their cries. “Now, surround the coffin! That’s it, lay hands on the coffin! We will sing the prayers of Osiris! We will sing this devil away!”
Hordedev bolted to Isis’s cabin. As the chants of the priests found awkward form, he grasped a support of the linen enclosure and shouted for his queen. “Goddess! A monster has come!” Hearing no response, seeing the eerie light reaching toward deck, he threw aside caution and pulled open her drapes. She could punish or forgive him later, but they needed a goddess’s power more than they needed songs.
The cabin stood empty. Isis’s robes lay folded to one side.
Empty? Uncovered? How could that be?
He rushed through the tiny enclosure and out the other side, glancing about an aft deck deserted except for the bug-eyed men at the steering oars. Hordedev ran around the cabin, back toward the bow, and stopped just past the enclosure walls. “Amnet!” he cried. “Isis is missing!”
Amnet ignored him, or couldn’t hear him through the chants. The green light had reached the deck. It wafted from fixture to fixture, from singing crewman to singing crewman, alive, intelligent, searching. Everything it touched glowed. The men’s hair stood on end.
It found the coffin. With one green wisp it invaded the box’s innards, despite a host of forbidding incantations, despite the patches of tar and gum. The box glowed from within. Then, as if thrilled to recognize some sought-after treasure, the light retracted to hover above the box, blazing enough to hurt the eyes. Hordedev squinted past his palm.
The priests cringed away from the coffin, driven to the rails by terror and light. The light took form, a strange green likeness of the long-dead god, his face above his coffin. Then something, a bird, flitted up the deck. A kite? It landed upon the coffin, screeching at the light, wings spread wide. The blaze lost form and dived at the bird -- or was it at the box? Hordedev couldn’t tell. It whirled about the animal, but retreated against a rage of wings and talons. The kite screeched threats and bullied the light into a concentrated sphere. Then it broke from the coffin and darted down the deck into Isis’s cabin. The radiant ball hesitated a moment, then pursued the bird like a comet.
Hordedev saw the whole thing, his eyes round and bulging. He glimpsed a sight no mortal man had ever been meant to behold. He spied no bird in the goddess’s private space, but an awesome, glorious Isis, a perfect expression of life, love, and carnal promise. She stood over her discarded robes, arms outstretched, welcoming the invader light. Hordedev stared for just an instant, just long enough to drown in her glory. Then the light slammed into Isis, entered her, and exploded with such force that Hordedev went flying, tumbling into the sea.
Chapter Eight:
Hathor beamed with ecstasy. So excited was she that rain showered the river bend at her stronghold in Dendera. It was a light rain from thin clouds in a mostly clear sky, with bows of gauzy color glittering in angled sunlight. The humans it soaked wondered at the miracle, for the Denderan desert, like the rest of Middle Egypt, rarely saw rain. It derived its meager allotment of water from the river itself. Now the Denderans gaped at the sky and muttered prayers to their patron goddess, prayers of thanksgiving for a miracle of which she was barely aware.
The goddess sat enthroned aboard her personal barge. She was beautiful always, but more so in glittering jewelry and the whitest of nearly sheer linens. A canopy stretched above her to fend off the sun. It also kept her dry while those about her fidgeted in the rain.
And those about her were many. Her crew and attendants stood at their stations, the rowers and riggers sweaty, welcoming the shower after their hurried push from Abu Simbel. None of them looked at the goddess, afraid of the consequences. They knew that Hathor cared little for their worries; it amused her to destroy men simply by heaving her bosom.
Closer in to the goddess, a dozen of her priestesses kneeled in supplication. They had come from as far away as the rich, green delta, and from as near as tortured Abydos, a day’s sail to the north. They all kneeled in the steady shower, attending their goddess and awaiting her command. Hathor’s mood had been foul earlier, only recently lifted by the rain-bringing news.
“Where is she?” Hathor asked, her fingers squeezing the armrests of her throne. “You spotted her in Rosetta. Where did she go from there?”
The priestess kneeling at her feet cringed at a question she clearly preferred not to answer. "We were few and without her resources. We lost the goddess Isis at Buto.”
The sun shower faltered. It became a pensive drizzle. The priestesses and crewmen watched the sudden gathering of darker, lower clouds in the west.
“You lost her,” the goddess echoed, and frowned. She didn’t strike out at failure, this time. She glanced about at her human cattle, dismissing the priestess before her, the bearer of such promising -- but ultimately fruitless -- news. “Are there no other reports? Did I rush up here for rumors only? Isis has not been seen for years. There are those who believe she has fled this world, or joined her husband in the land of the dead. Her return can only mean a challenge to Set, to the new order in Abydos. Chaos follows her home. So, I ask again: is there no other news?”
No one offered any.
Hathor drummed her fingers. Dendera was her heart, but people worshipped her throughout Egypt, especially in the Delta, where Isis had appeared. She should know all that occurred there. Someone hid her prey. “I won’t trail Thoth in learning my niece’s plans,” she promised.
She waited. So often with humans, all one had to do was wait. And stare at them.
“Goddess, forgive me,” another priestess whined from the assembly. “There is more information that may be of help. I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure it mattered.”
Hathor’s eyes caught the speaker as a falcon catches a hare. “Come before me,” she commanded. The woman moved forward, trading places with the priestess just dismissed. She kneeled on the slick decking, right in a runnel of rain draining from Hathor’s canopy. “Speak,” the goddess said.
“I’m sorry, goddess. The news is indirect...”
“Continue.”
“Her crew, goddess, the ship she accompanied into Rosetta. The crew apparently works for provisions along their voyage. They worked for weeks on the coast, earning trade for food, other essentials, and ... and payment for a river boat.”
“Yes, yes,” Hathor sighed. “I already know that. Weren’t you listening?”
“Yes, goddess, I’m sorry. But, that crew has since broken up. T
hey sold their ship and returned to their homes in the Delta, homes they’ve made since escaping from Abydos. They work to clear their debts and to manage the river boat purchase, but they also work for themselves and the maintenance of their sect.” The priestess fiddled with her gauzy linen skirt and the lapis lazuli bangles hanging from her wrists. Fear showed on her face, intermixed with excitement. “Goddess, the men haven’t lived in a community for years. They ... talk.”
Thunder rolled in the heavens. The priestess jumped in surprise. Hathor leaned forward, hands clasped and elbows on knees. She disguised her frustration with a smile.
“My dear, are you nervous?”
“Yes, goddess, I am.”
“And that’s understandable. You want so much to please your goddess in this most delicate matter, is that not true?”
“Yes, goddess, it is.”
“Good. Then you’ll understand my interest here.” Hathor stopped in mid-speech to wonder at her words. Had she chosen sides, allied herself to Set, Thoth, or Isis, or did she just seek the drama of conflict? And, why not, if the last were true? There was too little conflict in the world. It was such a boring place, sometimes. “Anyway,” she continued, “I have an interest here.”
“Yes, goddess, you do.”
“Of course I do. So you will understand when I tell you that I need information, not slavish circumlocutions.” She sat back in her throne. “I need information, and if you can’t supply it in short order, you’ll be thrown from this barge so someone else can.”
No one reacted; they knew better. The priestess kneeled there, eyes wide, mouth moving silently, the rain plastering hair and gown to her body. Hathor waited. She almost made good her threat, almost had that wretched animal heaved over the rails and out of her sight. Why not? It wasn’t like she would get any wetter.
“I-- I--“
“Yes?” The tone held silky menace.
“I’ve reports of a man brought ashore from their ship, held in a hidden sanctuary. He was delirious after having witnessed the glory of Isis. They say he is held there because he cannot be controlled in her presence, that he is lost in her, that he is drawn to her as a moth seeks the flame. They say he knows where the goddess is headed, and they keep him hidden to keep him silent.” It rushed from her in a torrent. Afterwards, she gasped for breath.