by Stephan Loy
“Don’t...” Isis insisted, but her protest hardly registered.
Nephthys recoiled from the curse. Her mouth moved, but shock silenced her tongue. Good. If she had spoken just then, Amnet would have wrung her neck.
“Nothing?” Amnet fumed. “Fine! Stay there in the water. I hope a crocodile gets you!” He turned to the pilot. “Take the boat. Go in search of a midwife. Get back here as soon as you can.”
“Yes, Amnet, I’ll be swift.”
“No...”
“Stop!” Nephthys shouted. “Don’t you see? This ... this isn’t natural. She’s been enchanted, attacked by a god, and only two gods can do such a thing. Isis is one. The other ... the other is Hathor!” There, it was said, the trap laid bare.
The pilot sprang to his feet. He glanced around with quick, birdlike energy, as if expecting lions to pounce from the shadows.
“Hathor, Amnet!” Nephthys cried. “She’s beaten us here!”
Amnet’s conviction faltered. His embrace of Isis loosened. His arms began to tremble.
“No,” Isis said, then tried to sit up straighter. “No!” she forced from the depths of her strength, and every face turned to the hood that hid her. “It isn’t Hathor,” she said more quietly.
Her three visitors stared at her, uncomprehending.
“The child belongs to my husband,” she said. “I bear Osiris’s heir.”
Hordedev awoke on a small boat cramped with two other men. He lay on his back, grimy, starved and confused. His groin burned. Moaning brought a face above his, a bearded face with a big nose, one eye clouded by film.
“It’ll hurt a good long while,” the face said through a toothless mouth. “Count your blessings. At least you've a mind to mourn its loss.”
The face retreated, and Hordedev tried to sit. The effort sent flame through his midsection, so he froze at an awkward slump. Behind him, the third man poled the boat. Hordedev looked up to catch the man’s face, and wrenched in a spasm of fear.
The pilot had the head of a jackal.
“I wouldn’t jerk around like that,” the canine face warned. “It’s bad for your sutures.”
Hordedev thrashed for the rail to escape, but pain like grinding glass in his groin paralyzed him. He lay back on the deck, whimpering.
"What--" he began, and gulped air against the pain. "What have you done to me?"
"I've saved you from a life of madness," the monster said. "Oh. It involved castration, if that's what you're asking."
Hordedev's labored breath caught. He was unsure he had heard those words.
"Yes, yes, castration. You humans are partial to certain unnecessary items of anatomy. So you won't be spreading pups about the desert. At least you're lucid enough to realize it."
Hordedev had worked his way up onto his elbows. He stared down his torso to his groin, which was wrapped in soiled, bloody rags. A razor's edge of pain broadcast from beneath those rags. The truth of the creature's words solidified.
"My ... gods ... you-- You cut it off! You cut it off! I-- I'm a eunuch!"
"You have a keen grasp of the obvious, human. Yes, you are now a eunuch. You didn't volunteer, but you needn't launch into a tragic soliloquy, either. Between madness and manliness, which would you have traded?"
"My gods!"
"Not the reasoned response I hoped for, but--"
"You cut me! You cut it off!" Hordedev focused on the bedraggled, half-blinded man. "You had something to do with this! You did it, or you helped! I'll kill you!" But agony radiated from his midsection when he attempted a lunge at the man. He froze mid-reach, trembling, then settled into a slump on the deck.
“That’s it, learn the hard lessons. Cleric, arrange him. He and I are due a conversation.”
“Yes, lord.” The bearded man hauled Hordedev around to face the pilot. This, too, was torture. Hordedev sweated profusely, and breathed in ragged gasps against the pain. He noticed with a mixture of relief and confusion that the jackal-headed monster was gone, replaced by a young, fit man.
“Listen, young human,” the pilot said. “I am Anubis, son of Nephthys and Osiris, a god of the house of Ra. My mother is allied with Isis on a mission I don’t understand. Hathor is allied against them, and so is Set. Over the last several days, they have transported many Setim north to the delta, and will loose them into the swamps to hunt down my mother and aunt. You know what this means for my mother and Isis, and also for your friends hiding in the delta. But, it also means something bigger, something I can’t discern, and to which you are privy. So, I’ve brought you back from insanity, so that you might answer my questions.”
Hordedev blinked. He found it hard to concentrate. What did he care for the politics of gods? He tracked a hand across his torso toward his throbbing groin. He halted that hand at his navel; it refused to reach any farther. “I don’t know any Anubis.”
“Of course not. You’ve been crazy. What do you recall from the last few months?”
“Uh, vague impressions...”
“Do you recall a dog, perhaps?”
A dog. Leading him to Isis? Hordedev sank against the deck from shame. Perhaps he deserved his gross mutilation.
“That was me,” Anubis said. “I meant to return you to Nephthys. You seemed important to her. But, we met Hathor several days back, and she made me suspicious. Now, I need your help to warn my mother, much as she needed you back in Abydos.”
“Wait,” Hordedev managed as his pain died down. “You’re a god?”
Aggravation clouded Anubis’s brow. “Right yourself, human. My patience is limited.”
Hordedev gathered himself. This was a strange god, and apparently a new one. He seemed to carry no love of Set, or, it seemed, of Hathor, but neither was he a friend if he could take a knife to the unwilling. This ... thing had violated Hordedev's body, had mounded shame upon him. Hordedev wondered what this butcher's job could mean. What would his friends think of him now? What would women--
"Oh, for the light and life-giving power of Ra!" the god complained, rolling his eyes. "You were insane. You had a penis, but you weren't going to enjoy it. For pity's sake, man, plenty of eunuchs live respectable lives. You could grow up to carry Hathor's palaquin!"
In Hordedev’s experience, gods were dangerous when peeved. “Forgive me, Arubas--”
“Anubis.”
“--Anubis. I’m a simple, ignorant farmer--”
“You’re more than that, and you know it. You fought the Setim as a rebel. You smuggled Isis out of Abydos. What you did then, I don’t know, but it made you a confidant of Isis and a desirable source of intelligence for Hathor. So, don’t pretend stupidity, human. Your goddess and my mother are both in danger. Set will find them if we don’t, and his mood will be murderous when he does.”
Anubis watched Hordedev from the stern of the boat. Frowning frustration, he shipped his rudder pole and squatted down close to the man. “Look,” he said, “I brought you back from insanity for a reason. I didn’t have to do it, and it wasn’t to serve the one who killed my father. Now, I know you’re unclear on much of the last few months, but you have to make some decisions. You have to settle your loyalties here and now. If you don’t help me, Set gets my mother and Isis. They’ll be tortured for all eternity, and whatever they plan will not succeed. If you want to help them, then talk. Right now.”
But, that was perhaps too pat. Risking much, Hordedev clung to distrust. “How do you know so much about me?”
“Oh, come now. I could say ‘I am a god I know all see all’, but the truth is, my mother brags. After Thoth rescued her from Abu Simbel, she told anyone who listened how clever and brave she was, and how instrumental in saving Isis. I’ve listened to her stories since birth; she never ceases to enjoy the telling. But, there are holes. I knew she rescued Isis, and I knew you had a hand in it, but I never knew where Isis went, or why. I think I should know that now. It seems everyone knows it but me.”
Hordedev heard pique in Anubis’s voice. He also heard worry, and a
certain pride in his mother’s past glories. This god loved his mother; he worried about her. It was in that peek at selflessness that Hordedev caught a glimpse of Osiris.
“Isis has found the body of Osiris and hopes to resurrect him.”
Anubis stared for a moment, then collapsed backwards onto his rear. “What?” he whispered. “My father might live?”
Hordedev noted the anguish of hope plain on Anubis’s face. In that moment, he decided his loyalties. Over the next several minutes, he told Anubis everything.
Fifteen Setim ships crowded the quays in Tanis, half the fleet out of Abu Simbel. They unloaded nearly five hundred troops and prepared to shuttle back for more. With six hundred soldiers recently landed, Tanis had become a Setim stronghold. Worse, the gods had come as well as their army and now occupied the two largest villas in town. Hathor came and went from hers with the frequency of a busy conspirator, but the house stolen by Set remained dark and still, if not quiet. The locals avoided that place. Set’s immediate neighbors had moved to the fields beyond the city, preferring the elements to the whims of an evil god. Rumors spread of monsters prowling that house, and of screams peeling out from behind its walls. Thunder growled from that place. Clouds shrouded it from otherwise sunny skies. The house had once been an active, prosperous enterprise. Now it shuddered with pent-up fury.
“For the last time, no!” Hathor railed as she paced the room’s perimeter like the lion she sometimes became. “I’m sick of your whining, and I’m sick of your thoughtless tantrums. Now, I want this thing. I want it done, and I won’t have it ruined because you can’t control your temper!”
Set stood centered in the room. He followed the pacing goddess with hostile eyes. “You will not speak to me thus,” he fumed. “You know what I am. You know--”
“I know that you’re a lower god half my age and worth!” Hathor suddenly changed direction and drew up close to her glowering lover. “You want to threaten me, Set? I’ve seen the roots of creation. You’re scary to all the little ones, but challenge me and you’ll finally know what a force of nature is!”
Set bared his teeth. Outside the house, sand danced up through the verdant grass, then whipped into dust devils that combined into a hungry storm. It happened in moments, sending the townspeople cowering for cover.
Hathor snapped her wrist in dismissal. The storm died in a thin, dusty drizzle of sand.
“I’m done playing your demure lover. You will not send that army into the swamps. You will not give orders of any kind to that army. They will go into the swamps when I say so, when the full complement of soldiers is present and they are properly deployed. Is that understood?” She didn’t expect an answer, just his characteristic sneer. After a moment staring him down, she turned away to continue her pacing.
“The little monkey,” she muttered. “He rejected me, me the very object of desire--”
“Perhaps he saw your true face.”
“--and all because of her and her infernal pretense at purity. Isis will pay for this insult to her betters--”
“Now who needs to control their temper?”
“--and so will her worthless cow of a sister! They’ll all pay! All of them! No one insults me and goes unpunished!”
“You will not ignore me like this!”
Hathor diverted the breeze in the room, removing the air from around Set’s face. He gasped, emptying his lungs. He fell to the floor, scrabbling at his throat.
The goddess stepped up to his thrashing form and stared at him with cold disinterest. “And they’re afraid of you,” she said. “Well, soon they’ll learn what fear really is.”
Nephthys shook her head. “No, I don’t believe it. Osiris could not have done this. It isn’t possible.”
They sat facing each other beside the gruesome platform, Isis leaning against Amnet for support. They had been there for hours, but still Nephthys balked. “It’s Osiris’s child,” Isis said. “I know that for a fact.”
“Are you insane? Look at him! He’s a rotting corpse!”
Isis sighed, tired of repeating the story. “They came to the ship, but I wouldn’t let them take him. His Ka, his Ba, his Akh. They came to escort him into the afterlife. But they couldn’t get past me; they have no taste for undiluted life. They promised me a child if I let Osiris go. They offered me his essence, which the three of them share.” Her voice took on a serrated edge. “I agreed, though I reneged on the deal. They’ve been surly ever since--”
“But, it isn’t so! Look at you, bloated like a human? It makes no sense. From the head, Isis. A god is born from the head.” Nephthys pounded her own temple.
“I can’t explain it,” Isis muttered. “I only know it’s true.”
They sat silently, Nephthys wringing her hands in the mud, the pilot snapping his wide eyes from goddess to goddess. Amnet chewed on the story so far, in part to understand, in part to distract from the curves pressing against him. After much consideration, he puzzled out their mystery.
“I think I have it.” The pilot’s eyes snapped toward him. “Goddess, you said our lord’s Ka, Ba, and Akh made the deal to give you a child, but what of Osiris himself? Surely, he had no part in this...”
“Osiris is barely with us,” Isis said. “He could do nothing, but try to live.”
“Then, the essence, uh, given to you ... that essence was incomplete. Perhaps, without all four parts of our lord’s godly essence, the child you carry may not be a god?”
“Oh, it’s a god. I feel its power.” Isis looked from befuddled face to befuddled face, to the horror that dominated Nephthys. “I don’t understand it, but this is true. I carry a god in my womb. The child grows as a human grows, but faster. It has nearly come to term in just a few months.”
“It’s an abomination!” Nephthys shrilled. “How can you be so calm in this?”
Amnet was done with her nonsense. He wanted to slap some sense into her head.
“No,” Isis commanded. She sat up awkwardly due to her belly. “Nephthys,” she whispered, but her tone held urgency, “please come around, my sister. You came to my rescue in Abydos. I need your help today, as well. You told me Osiris lived. You sent me on that quest. Now, I have him back, on the threshold of resurrection. I need your help again to bring him back to the world.”
“You’re crazy. He’s a rotted corpse.”
Isis chuckled, the sound a little mad. “The body is nothing if the spirit still endures. I need you, Nephthys. I can’t do it without you.”
“What can I do? I have no power. I’m no more use than these two humans.”
Less, Amnet thought without charity.
“No,” Isis asserted. “You’re just what I need to bring my love home. Tell me, have you been fading?”
“What?” Nephthys recoiled at the question.
“You told me once you were fading. No worshippers, no power, no office of state worth mentioning. You were fading from this world because you had no place in it.”
“Yes,” Nephthys moaned. “Bearing Anubis brought nothing to me. I’m weak and fading again. But that’s why I’m no use to you. You need a god of power, like Hathor, or Thoth.”
Isis slumped. She seemed so tired, barely able to stay awake. “No, I need you.” She stiffened, as if bracing against a storm. “Nephthys, have you ever wondered about Anubis?”
“What does my son have to do with this?”
“He comes from a god of order, art, civilization, life. So why does he live in the swamps, alone? Why is he so fascinated by the vehicles of human mortality? Why does he take the form of a jackal, a carrion eater, a brother to death?”
“My son is a great god. He cures disease and settles the human soul.”
“He’s a caretaker of death, and he’s your son.”
Nephthys hugged herself. “What are you trying to say?”
“Something my senses always knew, but my mind could not grasp until I came to wrestle with death. I’m saying...” She paused and breathed a lungful of fetid air. “I�
��m saying you fade because you don’t belong. You belong on the other side, Nephthys. You are a goddess of death.”
The pilot flinched. He took a long, sidewise look at Nephthys, then started to inch away. Nephthys sat perfectly still.
“You don’t belong here, sister. I want you to go to the other side. I want you to die, and guide Osiris to life.”
Nephthys wanted to challenge that absurdity, but couldn’t imagine what to say. No protest escaped her lips and no argument formed in her mind. She found herself immobilized against her sister’s assertion.
She couldn’t argue Isis’s point because she knew it was true.
It all made sense at last. All her eons out of step with the world, her dark nature, it all supported Isis’s theory. Nephthys was a goddess of death, always at her best in the worst, most deadly circumstances, incompetent in happier times. She had survived that terrible marriage to Set; who else could do that but death? Ma’at had wed her to Set, Ma’at who practiced balance over all. But, how had that balanced the evil god of storms, the god of the dead western lands? Nephthys tried to figure it out, but she saw Set as more her match than as a weight against hers on a scale.
She thought a long time, furrowing her brow, almost forgetting the others. She heard Amnet accosting her to act, to come to her sister’s aid. She also heard Isis quiet him, and divert his attention to other concerns.
“Are you ill, goddess?” she heard. “You tremble so. Are you hurt?”
“I’m weak,” Isis muttered. “I’m not made for fighting, Amnet. My opponents are greater at this than I.”
“Who could be greater than you, goddess?”
Isis croaked a mangled laugh. Her voice sounded as fragile as crystal. “There are many greater than I. My father Geb, lord of the earth, could easily retake my power. Ra holds a grudge from millennia ago. I’m not that strong, Amnet. It’s the way of Ma’at that balance prevails, that Nephthys, Osiris, Set and I are not powers equal to Ra, but four parts of a single force. None of us alone could resist our elders, and we are too disparate to confront them together...”