by Stephan Loy
Nephthys gasped, startling the men. She stared wide-eyed at nothing. Is that the answer? Is that it, so simple, so symmetrical?
Yes, as symmetrical as Ma’at.
Nephthys wasn’t a balance for Set. Set was a balance for Osiris. Osiris was goodness personified: law, honor, and civilization. Set embodied evil: chaos, treachery, and the anarchy of storms. Then there was Isis, wife to the king of order. She was the soul of life.
Nephthys balanced Isis.
“It’s true,” she said through sudden sobs. “I’ve found my purpose at last.”
“So, where to now?” Hordedev asked from the boat.
Anubis stood by the empty house, looking down with consternation at his lone companion. The cleric was gone, long since dropped at a convenient town. “What do you mean, ‘where to now?’ I was hoping you would provide that answer.”
“Sorry. Like I told you before, I only know the routine, not the specifics." Hordedev doubted he would aid the god in any event. This Anubis creature had cut him, after all. "Everyone knows where this house is. Only a few know Isis’s exact location.”
“And you’re supposed to be one of them,” Anubis snapped. “Hathor was counting on it.”
“Hathor was misinformed.” Hordedev took pleasure in that response. Let the god feel discomfort for a change.
Anubis shook his head and turned into the house.
From his place in the boat, Hordedev scanned the nearby islands, but the village lay still, deserted. Where were they? This had been an Osiran hub. What reason had they to abandon it? He thought Anubis could answer that question, and considered going to ask him. But his violated crotch still throbbed, though the pain had lessened from hours before. Begrudgingly, Hordedev gave Anubis the credit for healing his wound more quickly than expected. The god knew his business. Hordedev felt he could walk, even run if forced to, but his tenderness urged him to neither. So, he waited. He listened to Anubis cursing walls, and thought about what life had become.
Hordedev doubted he could be more lost, and his melancholy went beyond mere disfigurement. He had last felt confidence years ago on the farm, a farm in a city that no longer existed. He worried over his family, scattered like sand in the wind, and wondered if any of them survived. Isis had said his father still lived, but that had been years ago and secondhand from Hapi. What were the odds after all these years, burdened by the Wadjit Eye and hunted forever by Set? What of mother and the girls?
Hordedev had left them at the border of Abydos, prevented by Setim from entering the Fayum. Rebel news claimed that most of the girls had survived the famine, though Hordedev didn’t know which ones. Mother had brought back a farm on that border. That farm had been burned, and the family taken prisoner. He had heard those stories through his fog of delirium, and was shamed that the news hadn’t touched him more. Then, all he had wanted was Isis.
He squeezed shut his eyes until they hurt, but he still saw the goddess naked before him. He tried to make sense of the subsequent weeks, but he couldn’t remember everything, and what little he did was strained through gauze. He knew he had dishonored himself as well as the goddess he served. Isis had anchored him against a life of chaos, had taught him better than killing and eating Setim. She had given him purpose, and so a measure of the confidence he had lost. She had trusted him, had sought his meager wisdom and, as far as such things were possible, the goddess had been his friend. How had Hordedev repaid her? He had regarded her as the cheapest of whores.
He hadn’t seen her since the ship. He hadn’t deserved to, considering his disgrace. Now he was cut, chopped apart like a common pig, and so made lucid to endure unending self-castigation. That, also, he deserved. Anubis, for all his callousness, had done Hordedev a favor.
“Hey! Are you ignoring me?”
Hordedev flinched at the shout, so close was it to his ear. Anubis stood one leg in the boat, looking put out.
“I’m sorry,” Hordedev said. “I was thinking. Excuse me, what did you say?”
That look again, appraising, irritated, judgmental, but curious.
“I hope you were thinking about how to contact the goddesses. Without your Osiran friends, that could prove a problem.” Anubis finished climbing into the boat. He sat in the stern, his posture alert as he worked the puzzles before him. “I was saying that the evacuation here was clean, nothing of value left behind. The place is wrecked, indicating a struggle, but your friends left of their own volition. They didn’t go off hunting and simply fail to return. I suppose they learned of the Setim build-up east of here, and ran while escape was possible.”
“How do you know that?” Hordedev asked. Oddly, he felt no fear of this god. They almost seemed contemporaries. “I mean, you know about Set’s army to the east, and all about my service to Isis. Have I been out that long, that information travels so freely?”
Anubis grunted. “I’m a god. Information comes as I need it. You overhear much as a jackal in the night. The whole region is nervous, certain a war approaches. You should have stayed sane, young human. You missed a lot.”
Hordedev remained unconvinced. Anubis’s knowledge seemed greater than rumor. His doubt must have shown, for the god leaned toward him. “I also talk to my mentor, Thoth. He sees all that transpires on this earth. You’ve seen his eye in the night sky. Nothing escapes it.”
“Except Isis?”
Anubis frowned. “Well, almost nothing. If a god wants privacy, a god creates privacy. You know, you’re awfully bold for a mortal. Other gods would crush you for such insolence.”
Hordedev shrugged, and was relieved when his groin didn’t notice. “I’ve eaten human flesh and swilled human blood for sustenance. I’ve lived in the lap of Set, in the deep desert, and attacked him at every turn. For years I lived--” He paused. He had meant to say he had lived for years with a goddess as a friend, but he didn’t feel worthy to mention that relationship.
“Oh, a tough one. I must admit, you surprised me with your toughness when Hathor was around. How did you do that, withstanding her power? Isis taught you some trick?"
Hordedev turned his eyes to the deck, shame heating his face. He remembered Hathor, vaguely. He remembered her as dirty. "I've seen beauty," he said, and swallowed. "Sex is nothing by comparison."
Anubis huffed. "Interesting. I suppose there's something to be said for fidelity. Well, tough one, I need direction. I need troops of my own, people to help me search these swamps. I need to find Nephthys before my uncle does. I need to help her escape, her and Isis. If escape is not possible, I need friends to defend them. Any suggestions, seeing as you’ve eaten human flesh and swilled human blood?”
“Well, no.”
“I thought as much.”
“Well, I’ve been ... indisposed.”
“Maybe you’ve been indisposed quite a while. Maybe you aren’t as tough as you claim. Maybe you’re just another self-important farmer who once met a god.” Anubis shook his head, then turned to stand at the pole. “I suppose I’ll leave you at a village somewhere. Really, Hordedev, I had greater hopes for you.”
The goad stung. Hordedev didn’t like being useless. Still, he offered nothing as Anubis angled them among the slimy trees. Hordedev offered nothing for he had nothing to share. How could he know where to locate his rebels? They were a fluid bunch, with no permanent camps and no formal command. They were as easy to locate as nomads on the--
“I think I have a suggestion.”
Anubis hardly looked at him.
“I can’t locate the rebels except by accident. They move around constantly, and without much plan. But, the Bedouins are different. They, too, live in the deep desert. We’ve had dealings with them on many occasions.” He straightened a bit on the deck, careful of his movements. “The Bedouins keep a schedule. They follow the water in the deep desert, the wadiis as they fill during different parts of the year. They also follow the trade routes, for they survive partly by selling their goods. It shouldn’t be hard to locate a particular Bedouin clan.”
“And, that’s supposed to impress me? The Bedouins are no friends of Egypt. They’ve no reason to help a god.”
“One does. He honors Isis. My father told us once that he offered a gift to her. His clan is Djafa. This time of year, they should be just north of Fayum, hoping to sell their wool. They’re usually close to Wadii Al Fayoum.”
“That’s a long way, and he may have mellowed his esteem of Isis. It isn’t wise to pin our hopes on Bedouins.”
“Well, there’s more. Hapi once said that my father, who Isis entrusted with the Wadjit Eye of Ra--”
“The what?”
His sharp tone warned Hordedev to caution. “Umm, the Wadjit Eye of Ra.”
“She put the eye in the hands of a mortal? You’re sure about this? It isn’t a tale your father invented to muster respect from the women?”
The god’s voice held urgency; Hordedev dared not retort in his father’s defense. “She gave it to him for safekeeping, to keep it away from Set.”
Anubis stood at the stern, oblivious to his rudder pole, oblivious to Bedouins and to Hordedev. The boat began to drift, but Hordedev thought better of warning his inattentive pilot.
“Astonishing,” Anubis said to himself. “Is that what Hathor meant? Could Isis actually be so bold?” He mulled the matter, releasing the rudder to rub his neck. “That explains the confusion. Not long ago, that incident in Abydos near the Fayum border. A Setim detachment routed, its commander cremated, others burned or blinded. Set blamed it on Ra, accused him of interfering in the normal governance of humans. But, the attack happened at night, so Ra couldn’t have been involved. A human was responsible, and this human was using the power of Ra--”
“Excuse me, but we’re about to--”
The boat bumped a tree trunk. Anubis, startled, almost fell overboard. He snatched at the rudder pole and maneuvered clear of obstacles. “We’re going the wrong way,” he said. “We need to head west, to the desert border. Your father hides among Bedouins?”
“That’s what I was told, but the news is years old, and Set’s been hunting him ever since the fall of Osiris. There isn’t much chance...”
“There’s plenty of chance, Hordedev. If Set had caught your father and recovered the Wadjit Eye, he’d have crowed obscenely. Tell me all you know of this Bedouin clan Djafa.”
Hordedev squirmed at that. He didn’t know very much, just gossip picked up in Abydos, where the Bedouin were a mystery of heresy and barbarism. He knew tidbits gleaned as a rebel, where contacting the Bedouin was a tactical necessity. And all his intelligence was years old, at best.
“Just tell me what you know,” Anubis insisted. “We’ve the talent to find them.” He winked at the question in Hordedev’s eyes. “What? You’ve never suspected why jackals howl at the moon?”
The men huddled apart, giving the goddesses privacy. Night had fallen, and a mist rose to hide them from the moon.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Nephthys asked. She held her sister, but avoided the disgusting bulge in her torso.
“I didn’t know,” Isis answered sleepily. “I never imagined, not until I was forced to defend my husband from death, and realized how much it felt like you. Not until I returned and learned of Anubis. His fascination with human anatomy and with the structure of the afterlife. Strange interests for a son of Osiris.”
“But, Anubis is like Osiris. He seeks knowledge, like Osiris. He seeks order. He wants to understand, as Osiris did.”
“Nephthys, Osiris ordered life. He lived for life. He was always careless of death. Your son, though, he worships death. As he worships you.”
He worships me? Nephthys thought, and her heart warmed.
“I know what I say is true,” Isis continued, “but, you needn’t trust my word. The time has come to learn for yourself.” She sat up, leaning away from her sister. With a shaky hand, she pointed into the mist.
A trail of luminous green snaked toward them through the trees.
“They come,” Isis said. “You must send them away.”
Nephthys’s breath caught in her throat. She stared wide-eyed from Isis to the vapor trail and back again to Isis. “But, I can’t. I’ve no power. I’ve--”
“Goddess!” Amnet called. He and the pilot stood. They watched, eyes wide, as the mist approached.
“You must do this,” Isis whispered. “I’m too tired...”
She means it, Nephthys realized, and felt sudden terror. She bolted to her feet, banging a shoulder against the platform. In her visceral urge to flee, she hardly felt the impact. She wrung her hands. She glanced to the boat, but Amnet and the pilot had abandoned it; they backed toward the platform as the vapor, now separated into three distinct tracks, snaked toward them. She couldn’t run, her heart whimpered. She couldn’t work the boat herself, and she hadn’t the courage to approach it through the eerie light of Osiris’s spirit selves. And, no, she couldn’t leave her sister.
“I don’t know what to do!” Nephthys moaned.
Isis said nothing, just leaned against the platform. She watched the spirits approach, watched in dead exhaustion as they swept over the island. They illuminated gods and humans alike in their menacing phosphorescence. They drew overhead and hung there, perhaps in triumph, perhaps poised for battle, Nephthys couldn’t tell. Then they began a slow descent to the platform, ready to claim their own without intervention.
Nephthys cringed. “Go away!” she shouted.
And, they did.
Nephthys blinked in the sudden darkness. After so much light suddenly extinguished, she saw only hazy red spots.
“Goddess?” she heard Amnet ask. “You did that?”
“Yes,” Isis answered. “She did.”
Nephthys collapsed in a heap to the mud. She lay there overwhelmed, breasts heaving in ragged sobs, tears furrowing the filth on her cheeks. She wasn’t sure if she cried from joy or sorrow. I am a goddess of death, she thought. After all these millennia, I come into my purpose. All men will come to me. The poor, the sick, and the miserable will adore me; rich men will cringe at my sight. After so long alone and frightened, I’ve become a force in the universe.
She found this funny, and laughed a cackling, gruesome sound that made the humans back away.
“She’ll be fine,” Isis said from far away. “Just let her take it in.”
The island waited in that strange tableau. The two men crouched in the boiling mists, watching a goddess prone in the mud cackle like a lunatic. Isis, too, stared at her sister, but her eyes did not hold the mortals’ fear, only extreme fatigue. No one moved or spoke; they were prisoners of Nephthys and what she might do next.
The sound of her epiphany slowly faded. Then Nephthys rose up on an elbow with the air of an old, arthritic woman. She sighed, then looked around her. She seemed surprised to discover the others.
She sat up and tried to wipe mud from her face and clothes. In that furious pantomime to make herself presentable, she almost seemed familiar again. Amnet went to her. He offered her a rag with which to wipe her face.
“Thank-you,” the goddess said.
She scrubbed at her face and arms, but did little more than move the crud around. Finally, she gave up the effort. She tossed the rag aside, then rolled onto her knees and faced her sister.
Isis forced a tired smile, and patted Nephthys’s cheek.
“I want to help,” Nephthys said. “Tell me what to do.”
Chapter Eleven:
When Thoth appeared to Djafa Seniram, bedlam erupted throughout the Bedouin camp. Camels honked and strained at their hobbles. Women snatched babies and ran for the tents. Men drew knives and scattered from the campfire to make less obvious targets. Some rallied to their shayhk, but with no clear idea how to defend him against the apparition.
Thoth stood in the campfire, twice as tall as a man, his bird’s face a horror in the flickering light of the flames.
“Djafa Seniram!” he boomed. “Now is the day you repay your debts! The goddess Isis, wife of murdered Os
iris, is hunted by Set in the swamps to the east. She will flee for the western desert, where you will meet and shelter her at the North Merimde eddy. The goddess Isis depends upon you, Chief of the Deep Desert. Do not fail in this task!”
Then he vanished, as if he had never intruded.
“A trick!” someone shouted. “An illusion! It was never there!”
“It looked there to me!” someone else retorted.
But, after decades of trading on the edge of Egypt, the Djafa knew the signs of foreign gods. He recognized the ubiquitous melodrama that buttressed their mighty temples and maintained their armies of well-dressed priests. He disapproved of the so-called gods of Egypt, but knew he could not ignore them, not while he lived on the land they owned.
While the others debated in confusion, the Djafa rubbed his chin and thought. After a while, he stood, and held his arms aloft in the flickering light of the desert camp.
“Silence!” he commanded, and waited for the hubbub to die. When he had everyone’s attention, he lowered his arms and spoke quietly. “Where is Qebera?”
“In Abadi’s camp,” a man offered. “His family’s tent is there.”
The Djafa nodded. “Bring him. We will talk.”
Qebera took the news with granite self-possession. It was, after all, the call he had expected for six long years. He held the reigns of his snorting horse, his friend Abadi beside him in the dirt, and nodded at the report of Thoth’s incursion. His only thoughts were of stale duty he no longer wanted, and what to tell Sanni when he found his way back home. But, he shook off those tangents as he stood before the Djafa and focused on the trial at hand.
“He wanted you?” Qebera asked his adoptive chieftain.
“Demanded.” Djafa Seniram’s tone was harsh. He needed information.
Qebera sighed. “He must know that you honor Isis. He needs humans for whatever reasons, maybe to fight the Setim. He thinks you’ll oblige him for Isis’s sake.”