by Stephan Loy
Qebera went to his fidgeting horse. He released its saddle and harness. He removed the great beast’s hobbles, keeping up a calming monologue to counter the background mayhem. He and the horse had ridden long together; the animal quieted, even in the presence of death.
“It’s okay,” Qebera said. “Those knives aren’t for you. I’m setting you free, that you might avoid our fate. You’re a good friend, and you’re a survivor. You deserve no less.”
He stood, then slapped the animal on the rump and watched it gallop away.
Abadi drove the others. He insisted Isis spoon with Sanni inside the cavity of an eviscerated camel, packs and blankets blocking the opening. But the stench of death lay too heavy upon that carcass. Isis clawed and screamed to escape it, calling Hordedev’s name.
“I’ll take her,” Qebera’s son offered, and peeled the goddess out of the restraining arms of his mother and Abadi. He pulled Isis to him and held her.
“Be careful, young human,” Anubis called. “Remember what happened last time.”
“I can’t,” Isis whined into Hordedev’s chest. “Too much death. I can’t get in that box.”
“Are you sure?” Abadi asked Hordedev, shouting over the rising wind. “A woman--”
“I’ll do it,” Hordedev insisted, and waved them all away.
Abadi ceased arguing. He paired Sanni with Nephthys. He wrapped them in blankets from the discarded packs and stuffed them into a nearby camel. Then he closed the carcass breach with more blankets and heavy packs. He did the same for Naasir, shielding his son from the imminent carnage with hardly a word or a break in rhythm.
Hordedev held Isis next to the hollowed-out camel. He appreciated the filth that disguised her beauty. He treasured the layered wools that shielded him from her skin. But her curves still flowed against him; he could feel the mounds of her breasts and the great swell of her belly. So, why did she not intoxicate him? He felt her power, but in a muted, distant sense. Where was the well into which he should fall, the desire that should consume? Did her pregnant state dilute such reaction? Did the cure from Anubis protect him, that ritual still throbbing dully in his loins? Was he somehow, now unable to breed, removed from the call of life? So much from the gods defied a simple answer.
He peeled her away from him. He tried to project calm despite the howling wind. He wanted to show her confidence. “Goddess,” he said, “it’s time to do as the Bedouin commands.”
“No!”
“We need shelter. We won’t survive without it.”
“It’s like the box!” she whimpered. “A box killed my husband!”
“It’s hard, I know, but we have to. You trust me, don’t you? Trust me to take care of you?”
She clutched his arms with fierce will. He took that as a yes.
“I’ll care for you,” Hordedev promised. “I did it before. On the fishing boat long ago. But we have to do as the Bedouin says.” He reached for the blankets Abadi had dropped and began to wrap her gently.
“Please, no. I can’t.”
“You can. It’s like the box on the ship. Only this time, I’m in there with you.” He coaxed her toward the camel, toward the bloody gash in its belly. She didn’t resist, but she clutched at Hordedev as if she were a child.
“I’ll protect you,” he promised again. “I couldn’t live if you were harmed.”
He pulled her toward the carcass. He turned her to enter behind him. She mewled, and jerked in wracking sobs. He thought she might bolt a couple of times, but the goddess held true. Trembling, terrified, she gave herself over to a young man she trusted.
Qebera watched the approach of doom, that black wall of storm crackling with sparks and the hate of a vengeful god. It loomed before him for leagues from north to south, blotting out the sun and turning the world a golden hue. Wind preceded the storm, whirling in all directions at once, scouring exposed skin with glassy shards of sand. Anubis stood at the eastern wall staring into the tempest, the leather pouch held at his side. What he thought, Qebera couldn’t guess. Did he look upon the storm with wonder (Hordedev had called him a scientist), or did he tremble in fear at its power? Perhaps he prayed, the thought occurred suddenly. Did gods pray to gods?
“Come on!” Abadi shouted into the wailing wind. “I’ll tuck you in!”
Qebera followed his friend to a camel. “No! I’ll do you! This isn’t your fight!”
“I won’t argue!” Abadi already wrapped himself in blankets. In just a few seconds he backed into his carcass. Qebera collapsed the cavity’s opening and braced it closed with packs. Then he turned to his own refuge.
“Anubis!” he shouted as he wrapped himself in blankets. “Anubis, protect yourself! Get inside that last carcass! It’ll brunt the worst of the storm!”
Anubis yelled something back, but Qebera couldn’t hear above the wind.
“What?” he called, but without hope of an answer. “Anubis!” Too late, he thought. The sudden full weight of the storm obscured the god completely. Qebera pushed into his refuge and pulled a pack behind him to block the fall of doom.
Chapter Fifteen:
“Oh, dear,” Hathor said, wrecking Set’s concentration. At that moment, his storm embraced Anubis, but the god of deserts missed that vital intelligence. He turned an irritated frown on the goddess. Seeing her gaze raised to the sky, he looked up out of reflex.
Above them where the sun had been, a great blazing ball descended toward earth. A barge floated within the ball, a bare silhouette through the dazzling sphere. It landed in the swamp, hissing steam. The trees nearby wilted, afraid of catching fire. The ball’s brilliance diminished somewhat, and the boat inside pushed lazily toward Set and the bloodied island.
“The Boat of a Million Years!” someone whispered, their voice tautened by fear.
The humans present shielded their eyes; none could withstand the coming glory.
The boat was indeed magnificent. Its hull reflected a sheen of lacquer as if it rarely touched water. Its rails and mast displayed striking geometric carvings, diamond and spiral and pyramidal relief so ornate it could not be read completely in years. The sail on its mast was spun of the finest, almost transparent linen and flaunted an icon of the Wadjit Eye emblazoned across a yellow sun. Before that backdrop, far to the bow, a canopied throne stood surrounded by a host of gods. There stood Hapi, uncomfortable in the steam, and green-skinned Geb, god of the earth, accompanied by his wife Nut, who blazed ethereal blue and showed the fire of stars embedded within her person. Ma’at, beautiful and grim, stood beside the throne, the feather with which she judged braided into her hair. Shu and Tefnut were there, and many of the lesser gods. All stood solemnly about their creator, from whom emanated the blazing sphere of light. He sat upon his throne as he always did by day. Only at night could he leave his court on the Boat of a Million Years, and then only to walk among the dead.
Ra.
Set’s face twisted at the sight of his master. Only one thing brought the creator-god to earth. “Ra!” Set thundered. “Do not interfere! This is my right, my vengeance for grievous wrongs!”
Hathor kept sensibly quiet. She touched the minds of her crew and ordered a discreet departure.
Ra ignored Set’s hysterical claim. His court remained aloof, as if they, too, were carved from the ship’s polished wood.
“They’ve taken what’s mine! They’ve sought to destroy what’s mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!”
Ra barely nodded, a slow, regal movement almost lost in his radiance.
Geb stepped forward to speak.
“Set, my son. You torment your sisters Isis and Nephthys, also Anubis, the son of Nephthys, and the humans who serve them. You are commanded by Ra to desist and return to your fortress at Abu Simbel.”
“I will not be denied my revenge!”
“Set,” Geb continued, this time in a more fatherly tone, “you cannot continue this tirade. You have drawn your creator’s attention because of the havoc you have wrought in Abydos, and because your actions h
ave triggered ... circumstances ... here in the world, and beyond. Set, you’re out of control. Ra commands you to get hold of yourself. If you do not--”
“You threaten me, father? Is this your doing, Hapi? You and Thoth turned my father against me?”
“--if you do not, Ra will be forced to take action. For once, Set, you must stop and think. This tantrum of yours is dangerous.”
But, as usual, Set didn’t think. The ultimatum infuriated him. His face contorted, all human aspects devolving to something hideous, pinched, and red from trembling rage. Set wanted to speak, to curse his creator and all in his company, but his rage prevented coherent speech. All that escaped him were animal growls. But, still his fury had voice, as the storm he had launched in search of his enemies lost all mindful control. In seconds, it grew to cyclonic proportions, expanding into all the desert between the delta and Fayum. It reached beyond the desert, blasting into the green farm belt like a starving animal hunting for food. It tore across farms and towns, then into the swamp that had always muted Set’s power. It raked over trees and diverted waterways with its tremendous winds and its tons of sand. Then it rushed on to the island and reared to strike at its master’s enemies.
Ra merely sighed, and that sigh became a command.
Geb, as was his right, denied Set the use of sand.
Nut, as was her right, denied Set the use of wind.
The storm winked to nothing, as if it had never been, and a thick shower of grit fell on all those present.
Ra turned to Ma’at, who considered something a moment, then nodded ever so graciously.
“It is done,” Geb announced, and stepped back into the court. “Ma’at is appeased, balance rendered. Set will return to his lair at Abu Simbel, and await the vengeance justice has decreed. For the enemies of Set will acquire new forms and newer resolve, and raise their claims to all that has been taken. This will occur in the fifteenth year from now, when Ma’at and Ra will judge once again.”
Set bellowed defiance. He hurled his power at the brightly shimmering boat, but nothing happened. Nothing obeyed his temper. The land and its energy were cut away from him. Further incensed by this latest insult, he flung himself screaming at the barge, driving across the island and into the fetid water even as the boat lifted once more into the sky. It left him there a powerless hysteric, and became the sun again.
Set tripped, and landed face first in the muck. By the time he clawed to his hands and knees and brought his head above water, his face had regained a much more human countenance. He wrenched with the effort to force back tears.
“Hathor,” he croaked, trying to wipe his face with muddy hands. “My power is gone, another thing stolen.” He gasped, forcing his tone away from the piercing hysteria that scrabbled up his throat. “Come to me, Hathor. Use your charm. Bring forth a lion to strike at my enemies.” He couldn’t speak anymore. He convulsed in a fit of frustrated blubbering.
Hathor heard none of it. She was already gone.
The wind died with a peevish sigh, dropping sand like rain. Still Qebera huddled within layers of woolen blankets, fearing some trick of Set’s. He waited a very long time before curiosity eclipsed his fear, then he slowly pushed away his shell. When he peeked clear of the blankets, he found not camel gore above his face, but blue sky crossed by thick white ribs. His shelter was gone, ground down to bone. If the storm had continued a few moments longer...
Stunned, he squirmed from that bony cage, his hands and knees squishing on gritty dampness he preferred not to notice and hoped to forget. Only the camel’s upper carcass had disappeared in the storm; the rest oozed blood from under a revoltingly sticky layer of sand. Qebera’s blankets and clothes were soaked, and when he rose to his knees outside the carcass, the clinging goop held a layer of grit. The rest of the sand, and there was plenty, dropped in streams from the folds of his clothes. Its clattering cascade taunted him, letting him know it owned his world. It loaded every wrinkle of his skin. His scalp itched from it. He coughed and wished for water, for his throat, nostrils, and ears were thoroughly coated in sand. In all his years in the desert, he had never really noticed the dominance of sand. It had always ranged about him; now it invaded him, too.
No more camels, he thought dully. Gristle swung from a rib or two, otherwise nothing remained of their sacrificed mounts but a sculpture garden of bone. Qebera watched the others struggle from their blankets and gaze around in bare stupefaction. They were coated a washed-out gold. The world had lost its color.
“Hordedev!” Qebera called through a rasping throat. “Sanni! Abadi! Does everyone yet live?”
“We’re well,” Hordedev answered as he unwrapped his goddess and patted the sand from her robes.
“Thank-you,” Isis whispered. “Thank-you for everything ... for all these years of everything.”
“I’m not done yet.” Hordedev coughed sand. “If you’ll forgive the insults I’ve heaped upon you, all those things I said, I’ll serve and protect you until my dying breath.” It came from him in a rush, embarrassing but necessary. Then he waited, expecting a reckoning for unpunished sins.
Isis kneeled beside him, her mood indecipherable beneath her mounded robes. Then she closed the scant space between them, and nuzzled close. She held Hordedev possessively. “Never say you’ll serve me. Just try to be my friend.”
Struck by her plea, its power greater than spells, greater than her intoxicating presence, Hordedev returned her hug. What overwhelmed him then was not the force of her nature, but her need for him in her life. He felt proud. Even more, he felt forgiven.
Abadi staggered up to Qebera and helped him to his feet. “Tell me something good,” the Bedouin said. “After an experience like that, I crave perspective.”
“We survived.”
Abadi returned a hacking laugh and kicked the gleaming rib at his foot. “Sure, but now we have to walk.”
“Sanni?”
“She’s fine, and Naasir, too. I don’t know about that other goddess. She’s an odd one on any day, I wager. We’ll have to divide the supplies--”
“Where’s Anubis?”
They scanned the area, but found no sign of the strange new god. He had been on the wall, Qebera recalled. Now the jagged rock that had bordered that side of the box lay buried beneath undulating waves of sand. Qebera plodded over there, Abadi following.
The sand at the wall shifted under their feet, hampering their ascent to the slight summit. But, they made it up, and stood there bewildered. All they found was the gentle reverse slope and leagues of rolling dunes. They stared over that vista, perplexed and disappointed, until Abadi sighed and turned back into the box. Qebera followed his lead. Anubis had vanished from the earth.
They descended the slope, their eyes on the ground to find passage over the fresh fall of grit. If Qebera had not been checking his footing, they might never have found their comrade. He first noticed a protrusion from the sand, a small, lusterless dome he at first took for a stone. Then he caught the glint off a shinier surface, and realized with a start that he stared at someone’s toe.
“Wait,” he said, and stooped to the object. He dug and found the toe connected to a foot, which was, in turn, lashed to a leather sandal. Abadi joined him then, each shoveling with his hands. They called to the others. Hordedev and Naasir trotted over, as wobbly as everyone else. Sanni had Nephthys up and led her slowly to the hill.
Despite abraded fingers, Qebera and Abadi continued to dig. They shoveled even as their stomachs rose in their throats, even as they unearthed what was not a welcome sight. Anubis lay beneath a good pile of sand, head downwards on the hill. He lay splayed on his back, as if struck senseless by some giant fist. His clothes were stripped away, and large portions of skin hung tattered and twisted from mere threads of flesh. Red muscle showed like sunburn over great lengths of his body. Much of that meat was packed with sand.
Worse, he lived. His eyes flitted within a face rubbed raw.
“Gods.” Qebera bared his teeth agai
nst such horror. Hordedev and Naasir were there, leaning over the stricken god.
“All safe?” Anubis forced past scoured lips. Clearly, talking stung him with agony.
“Yes, my lord,” Hordedev said. “Everyone’s safe.”
“My mother?”
“She’s fine.”
A satisfied grunt, quickly truncated. “My left hand. The eye--” He convulsed in a fit of coughs. His eyes widened at the agony of it, each tiny movement searing his nerves. He writhed, scraping exposed muscles against sadistic sand. Abadi, without thinking, shot out a hand to steady him, and this, too, caused terrible pain.
“What do we do?” the Bedouin yelled. “He can’t last like this!”
“Oh, yes he can,” Qebera said. “He’s immortal.”
It took a second, then the full impact of Anubis’s plight caused Abadi to swoon. He fell backwards, and crawled away for air.
He bumped into sandaled feet, and legs clad in the filthy linen of a once elegant dress. He didn’t look up. Neither did Qebera. They couldn’t, not to witness a mother’s grief at seeing her son so afflicted.
For her part, Nephthys approached with calm. It was the calm of surrender, slack-faced with dim eyes. After all her trials, she had nothing left, even for her son. The humans parted to give her way. She kneeled at Anubis’s head and looked upon him with a heavy, wrinkled brow.
“Anubis...” Her eyes pooled with tears.
“Ironic, eh?” the god managed. “Now I live forever.”
“He’ll heal?” Hordedev asked.
Frustrated, his father tore from the group. He turned his back on tragedy. He wanted to curse its author.
“He isn’t a god of life,” Nephthys answered.
Qebera shook his fists at the heavens. “Set! Enough of suffering! He’s your kin, you bastard!” He turned to the blazing disk of the sun. Heedless of the danger, he directed his fists at it. “And yours, too, but you let this happen! If you were a god worth your name, you’d put an end to this misery!”