by Stephan Loy
“Well, I don’t know...”
“Of course you do.” Anubis ceased his scrawls in the mud and gave Hordedev steady appraisal. “You haven’t so far been shy with your opinions. I’m sure you have plenty concerning my kin. You certainly had some about Isis, but I guess that was delirium talking. What about Set? You’ve murdered his soldiers and burped on their meat. Surely you’ve an opinion of him, and not a nice one, I’d wager.”
Hordedev felt no discomfort pinned by the god’s scrutiny. Anubis seemed more a contemporary than a natural superior. “It isn’t usually safe for humans to speak unkindly of gods. That sort of thing comes home to roost. What I meant earlier was that you’re willing to sit and just talk to a human, and I’m not even an important human.”
Anubis nodded. “Well, that’s true, about you not being important. So, you say I’m not as arrogant as my kin?”
“In a way, I suppose. Not that you aren’t arrogant. You have piles and piles of arrogance. But it doesn’t interfere with good conversation.”
Anubis stared at Hordedev a moment, then exploded in heartfelt laughter. “You’re so funny, human. Like owning a monkey.”
A pet? No, that wasn’t it.
“Anubis, why do you keep me around?”
The laughter slowly subsided. “Oh, I don’t know. At first I wanted to snap your neck, back when you were crazy. Since then, however, your own brand of rebel ‘arrogance’ has meant some ‘good conversation’. I mean, do you realize how rare conversation is? Good conversation? You and I, we understand each other. For instance, I’m curious as to why a Setim dies and you’re curious as to how to make him die. It’s the same thing, really, and comes from the same place. I talk to my own mother, and she can’t understand a word. With Thoth, everything’s technical. And the others? Well, you noticed the way Hathor treats me. Oh, sorry, maybe you didn’t.”
Actually, he had. Hordedev remembered more than Anubis knew. He thought a moment, absorbing the words. So, Anubis was basically a young, untried adult, patronized, misunderstood, and unfathomable to his elders. Hordedev understood that, though he couldn’t really appreciate it. He had been raised in an atmosphere of trust by parents who recognized potential in their son. Respect had been his from the start, and increased in measures as he earned it. His family had been close; no secrets survived a three-room dwelling.
His family, he thought. His mood sank. Anubis’s family was not as close. It didn't deserve the word. But, family or not, most of them lived.
That was where Anubis and he were different. And alike.
God and human sat on the log. They spoke of common whims and thoughts, and so got to know one another. About nightfall, some of the jackals returned.
This time, Hordedev tried to relax.
“It’s time,” Hathor breathed from the mid-deck of her ship. She surveyed the Setim-crowded quay and drifted her eyes over the fearful city. Only a few miles beyond her sight, a thousand Setim awaited her order, all poised, like hounds after a leopard, to sweep the swamps for Isis. Hathor felt drunk from the power arrayed before her.
She breathed in a lungful of fear. The humans sweated it out by the jar, a sweet, electric taste for her senses. Then there was Set, who steamed aboard his own ship a scant distance away. His boiling anger caressed her mind. It thrilled her almost to rapture because it, too, was spiced by fear. He would explode, that impetuous god, but not until Hathor decided, and only at a target she chose. Fear, anger, anticipation. Only fornication pleasured her more. She could get that from the Setim general kneeling at her feet, but she needed this adventure sprung from its cage, and officers who could run it.
“Inform your lord that his forces are ready. With his permission,” she said with a grin, “we may now begin the sweep.”
“Yes, goddess. I do your bidding.”
Of course you do, Hathor thought as the man made his exit. She took another luxurious breath, then smiled at her excitement. Go, she whispered ever so quietly into the root of Set’s mind. Take your army, and play.
The trips grew longer. The rapture of her first speculative venture settled into a gentle massage of quickening energy, like the attentive strokes of a lover. Nephthys smiled within herself, for when had she known a slow, attentive lover except in her fantasies at Set’s barren fortress? Osiris, she thought, but he had been half asleep, thinking her someone else. He had been kind and receptive, but certainly not attentive.
She tried to concentrate, tried to ignore the erotic caress that drained her life into another and brought her close to meet him. She would never leave this place if she failed to concentrate; she would end as Osiris had, trapped between worlds. Nephthys found that prospect revolting. Life or death was fine, she thought. She knew life and ruled death. But this limbo between was a gray void. It was without form, but paradoxically familiar, as if she walked through fog. It felt forlorn, a lost road on the way to home.
And people filled the place, hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, shadows moving in and out of sight like the ghosts they were. They stood, or sat, or aimlessly walked, and all stared in hopeless confusion at the gray, ambiguous nothingness. These people had not found their Ka; no one led them beyond this dismal place. Nephthys’s heart ached for them, and she found in that ache the crux of her purpose. She was the guide, the leader of wayward souls to their spirits, the cleanser of this limbo. The prospect made her giddy.
She bent down to a little girl, just another shade in a world of shades. The thing was dirty, scrawny, and probably ridden with fleas, but she whimpered so pitifully she broke Nephthys’s heart. “What’s the matter, little darling?” the goddess asked in a soothing tone.
“My mommy!” the little girl wailed. “I can’t find my mommy!”
“Oh, I’m sure she’s here. Don’t fret. We’ll find her for you.” She took the girl’s hand before realizing her mistake.
Unless the two had died together, there was no mother to find.
“Umm, what’s your mommy’s name?”
The girl didn’t answer; she cried. She walked along with Nephthys and held tight to her hand, but she cried as if her world were crushed.
But, of course, it was. She was a child who might never see her mother again. From the girl’s point of view she was orphaned, and unless she found her way beyond, she would remain alone for eternity.
With a pang of helplessness, Nephthys realized that finding the afterlife might not help. With no godly regime there, it wasn’t exactly an organized place. Only one god had visited the land to the west: Ra, the creator himself. Ra arrived at the end of each day, dead until he was born again at dawn. But Ra focused on the living; the afterlife earned only his cursory attention. The people of the west lived as nomads among strangers, with no means to find their friends, and without governor or advisor to help them. Osiris would have come to their aid, but Osiris was trapped himself.
Nephthys neared panic. Not even the titillating stroke of draining life could sooth her sense of helplessness. What could she do with the child? She couldn’t find its mother, and if she had learned anything from Merferet, from Hordedev, from so many nameless, selfless humans, she couldn’t abandon that clutching hand. Or, maybe she could. After all, these humans were made to suffer. How was this any different? She looked down at the little waif with its pouting lips and large eyes, and felt ashamed of herself.
“What’s your name, dear?”
The little thing squeaked something garbled between sobs.
“Come on, tell me. We can’t be friends if we don’t know each other.”
The response trembled in the gray air. “N-Nefera...”
“Nefera. Well, Nefera, we’re going to be good friends. So, can you tell me if you came here with your mother?”
“The Set men came! She put me in the wheat! Hordedev told her to!”
Hordedev? The name pricked at Nephthys’s heart. Hordedev? Hordedev had rescued Isis and was driven insane for his heroism. Nephthys felt herself swoon, felt weight and nausea rush
ing to claim her. “Hordedev?” she said. This meant something. Of all the teaming masses in the misted gray world, why had she met the dead relation of a bitter rebel, a rebel Nephthys had used, who had served Isis in her quest, a man at the center of this long, gruesome epic? Why was he important?
Nausea whipped at Nephthys. She felt herself falling. Her discovery so disturbed her that she failed to realize the source of her queasiness until it was far too late.
“What’s the matter?” the little girl mewled as Nephthys fell apart.
Nephthys didn’t know what to say. She had promised to help, but instead slipped away like a coward. “I’m sorry,” she said, ashamed.
“What’s the matter? Did the Set men get you, too?” The girl’s voice rose toward a squeal.
“I’m leaving...”
The response was immediate and heartbreaking. “But, you said I’d find my mommy!”
Nephthys’s heart pounded; she grunted from the pain of it. What was this? Why was this time different? “Call my name. I’ll come. My name is Nephthys. I am goddess here.”
She expected more crying as she fell away, but the sobs abruptly ceased. The girl tilted her tear-washed face as if considering a puzzle. Then she spoke in a trembling, sob-roughened voice and pointed into the gray.
“You’re with him, the one my daddy worked for.”
She crashed to earth in a fit of agony. Her heart pounded like a hammer against glass. Her lungs refused to gather air, and her eyes swam in mist.
“What do we do? She’s having some sort of fit!”
The humans flitted in and out of view, blurred and frantic in the mist. Their fear pierced Nephthys's pain, and made it that much worse. Isis leaned over her, looking haggard. She placed a trembling hand over Nephthys’s heart, and grunted.
The agony receded to a dull throb. Nephthys lay gasping, a light rain pelting her upturned face.
Rain?
“It’s Hathor,” Isis said, her voice husky. “We haven’t much time.”
Nephthys blinked the rain from her eyes. She rose to one elbow, heedless of the sliming mud. Hathor? What did Hathor-- “Hathor’s not important, not if Osiris lives.”
“We have to leave,” Isis said. “She’ll be here soon, and she'll bring Set with her. We’ve failed, and now we must run.”
What kind of talk was that? Nephthys wondered, then the pounding in her chest reminded her. Isis could do only so much. Reaching too far would not help Osiris, and might doom them all. Isis couldn’t survive in that gray, lifeless world awaiting Nephthys’s rule. Nor could Isis kill her sister to save her husband’s soul. Her nature precluded it.
“I have to go back,” Nephthys said, and shook her head to clear it. She looked around for the others and was surprised to find that night had fallen. At least a dozen humans scurried over the island.
“Amnet’s people,” Isis said. “They came to warn us of Set.” Isis squinted at her sister. “Nephthys, why did you resist me?”
The question startled Nephthys. “What? What do you mean?”
“You wouldn’t come back when I called you. I had to tear you from that place.”
Nephthys retreated within herself. Resisted? She had thought the rough withdrawal a symptom of Isis’s failing strength. Was this not the case? “I didn’t want to come back,” she muttered. “I have power not to come back...”
Amnet approached. He half interposed himself between Nephthys and Isis. “Goddess, we’re ready,” he said to his queen. “We can leave at once.”
“Leave?” Nephthys shrilled. “Leave? But, we’re so close.”
“We’ve no choice,” Isis moaned, and Nephthys saw tears on her face.
“Setim troops in the east, south, and north,” Amnet said. “The nearest are less than half a league away. They bring Set, and a pride of cats. We’ve no choice but to leave this place.”
“But, we’re so close,” Nephthys insisted. “He was near. I should go back to find him.”
“We’ll take his body,” Amnet said. “You can continue this in a safer place.”
Nephthys glanced from Amnet’s sharp, embattled face to her sister’s blank expression. She took in the frenzy of movement around her, the desperate character of every human present, and the defeated nature of Isis’s complacency. The darkened swamp made fear more obvious. Nephthys took it all in, and knew she listened to lies. “We can’t begin again later, can we?” she asked her sister. “If we relocate Osiris, the move and delay will weaken him. We’ll have to start all over, and you haven’t the strength to do so.”
Isis nodded almost imperceptibly.
“We have to do it now, Isis. We’re too close to give up.”
Isis’s eyes flitted to the humans. Nephthys cut off her sister’s obvious thought. “They’re his, Isis. If they die defending their lord while we bring him back to life, the better it is for them. They’d become martyrs. Besides,” and she spoke with special emphasis, “I’ll be there for them.”
“This is no game!” Isis protested. “These people’s lives are not toys for you! Osiris would despise me if I killed his people to save him! I couldn’t do that! I couldn’t do that regardless!”
Nephthys glanced again at the frenetic action around her. Frightened people, desperate to leave, men boarding the boats, some standing by to take Osiris’s body. Set was close.
“Well,” she said, drawing out the word, “we’re lucky it’s not up to you.” She straightened, and looked to Amnet.
The ex-priest, flustered, stumbled over his words. “None of us wants to die,” he said, “but, we will for Osiris’s sake.”
Isis protested, but Nephthys hardly heard. She had accepted Amnet’s offer. He disliked her mightily, but he had shown only steadiness in all their short acquaintance. Nephthys trusted his word as she trusted no other human’s. Now she knew she must match his fealty. She had to bring back Osiris, and force her sister to feed him life. Once again, she became the schemer, once again, the manipulator. She concentrated, unsure, untried, but hopeful. She was a force of nature, she thought. Now that she knew her purpose, surely that nature would bow to her bidding.
The frenzy about her receded to only a background nuisance, muted as if she watched from another, distant plane. She considered a panic as a boat approached, watched the Osirans take up weapons. Then she saw who rode the boat, and watched with wonder as Anubis landed among the men, Anubis, her darling son, who worried over his useless mother. Now she could make him proud. He approached, and she noted agitation. When he bent over her, concern etched his face, the same concern Nephthys had endured for millennia. Poor, poor Nephthys, said that well-meant expression. We must all do our best for Nephthys, for she can’t do much for herself.
She felt satisfaction at proving them wrong, and flew like a dry leaf into death.
Chapter Twelve:
Set grabbed the messenger by his neck. He snatched the man into the air and shook him like a rattle. “They’re only dogs!” He shouted. “My army will not be routed by dogs!”
The man struggled, and Set shook all the harder. He heard a dry, sharp snap, and the messenger went limp. Set hurled the body overboard, where it splashed and vanished in the murky water.
Set glared at the generals in his boat, at the captains in boats nearby. He glared at the other messengers sent from his officers searching the swamp. “I won’t be routed by dogs!”
No one contradicted him. No one suggested that the dogs were, in fact, jackals, and seemed to attack under godly direction, or that they attacked in packs of a hundred or better, though they were normally solitary animals. No one offered the obvious suggestion that the jackals defended some prize, or that considering the pattern of their attacks might expose that prize’s location. No one offered any views at all; they saluted and poled quickly away.
Set steamed at the prow of his boat. His face flushed, and the veins at his temples throbbed. “You’re out there,” he muttered, unsure whether he referred to Isis, Nephthys, or both. “You’re out
there, and I’ll find you. I’ll find you, and make you pay.”
Pay for what? For driving him to that hellion Hathor? For robbing him of the legitimate crown of Abydos? For drawing Thoth's attention, and therefore that of Ra? Set owed much to his former wife and his unwilling toy of a sister. He hoped to properly thank them both.
He growled under his breath, a sound like sand against stone. The human crew behind him shrank from his notice as they propelled the boat toward his quest.
She shot through that dense population of forsaken souls as if through an inventory, faces blurring past her with marvelous rapidity, with marvelous precision. She hadn’t even recognized Nefera’s small form before drawing up short behind her. Nephthys’s new skill both perplexed and delighted her; she had thought of the girl, and found her. It was as simple as that. Nephthys reached out and squeezed the girl’s arm. Nefera jumped, almost screamed.
I’ll have to be careful of how I arrive, Nephthys thought. “It’s okay, it’s me.”
“I thought you were going away.”
Of course, Nephthys nodded. Just recently mortal, this child had no experience with time in its absolutes. To her, she had lost her mother mere minutes ago, and Nephthys had just now faded. “I managed to stay,” the goddess said, smiling to hide her anxiety. “Please, Nefera, who did you mean by ‘the one your daddy worked for’?”
“You said you’d find my mommy. I want to see her.”
“I know, but first you must answer my question. It’s very important. Have you seen this one you spoke of? Is he a god, like me?”
“No, he’s like daddy.”
Nephthys blinked. Like daddy? Who might that be? “How do you mean, like daddy?”
“Why, he’s a man, of course.”
“A man? Do you mean just a man, or a god who looks like a man?”
The little girl shrugged. “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him? He’s right over there.” She pointed behind Nephthys.
No, the goddess thought. It couldn’t be that easy. Stiffly, she brought herself erect. Holding her breath, she turned to peer behind.