by Stephan Loy
“Sit down,” the shadowed goddess said, and gestured at the ground before her.
Hordedev obeyed, facing her. Nephthys was a strange creature; it was best to wait rather than coax her out. One never knew what to coax anyway, or how.
“You leave soon? Within the hour?”
“Yes, goddess.”
“Take care. The Setim will not easily surrender the organs and limbs of Osiris.”
“We realize that. We will, indeed, take care.”
“Much rides on your success.”
Hordedev said nothing. He wasn’t at all sure what rode on his quest. He knew it struck a blow against Set, and that was good enough. Some other motivation had been carefully explained, but it impressed him as little more than godly politics, of no consequence worth a thought. His motive for helping in Isis’s quest was selfish, and Nephthys knew it.
“I’ve committed many crimes,” the goddess said, “crimes of action and inaction, crimes of insufferable foolishness. I have much to atone for.”
Hordedev continued to listen, but he recalled the almost cocky Nephthys who had commissioned him and his rebel friends to smuggle out Isis years ago. What had become of that creature that she now hid her face from the sun in shame?
“I’ve done nothing good for my sister; I’ve betrayed her. I’ve done no good to anyone else. Death follows me like a servile dog. But that is my destiny. As penance, I sit in this dark hole, and cover my face when I must go out, and think how my power might help man rather than grieve him. I will need such means to aid the coming king, the son of my sister. How is Isis, Hordedev? Is she well?”
Don’t you see your own sister? “She’s well, goddess. She’s in my mother’s care.”
Nephthys fell silent for a long, uncomfortable minute. Had she heard my thoughts? Hordedev wondered, then worried over that one, too.
“All that you do is important,” the goddess finally said. “Your family lives at a nexus; it is the key to probabilities. I don’t understand it now, but I will in time. It is my destiny to know the map from life to death, to know all things that lead onto that path. I know something of you, Hordedev, something of great importance.”
“Yes, goddess? What do you know?”
“I know my son respects you. He considers you the first of his priests.”
Hordedev sat up straighter. “I’m sorry, but that can’t be. I serve the quest. I serve no special god.”
“That’s one reason you interest him, that and your love of death.”
“I’m a warrior against the Setim. I do what is necessary, nothing more.”
Nephthys waved his objection away. “You’ve done more than you claim and more than you know. You’ve murdered Setim and eaten their flesh, and your only reason for joining this quest is to find still more of Set’s men to kill. But, all your deeds were foreseen by Ra, and make you the man he needs at this time.”
“My father--”
“Your father’s time has past. Ra calls to you. I know this is true. In my penance, I have seen it so. I also see that you cannot prevail in the quest to come, for your motivation is suspect.”
Curious, Hordedev thought. It’s my time, but I won’t succeed. I have no motivation? “I’ve pledged myself to destroy the Setim. They took my home, my family. They brutally murdered my sister Nefera--”
“You have much cause to fight,” Nephthys said, sighing. “That cannot be argued. Now what you need is a cause to fight for.”
Hordedev flinched as if knifed. What she said was so obviously true. All he wanted was to kill Setim, revenge for the anguish he had so long endured. Was that enough for a long and arduous mission? To kill Setim and serve the former queen, was that the gist of his life? It was more than enough for father. Father had served Abydos for years, and that kingdom still lived in the pit of his heart. Not so for Hordedev; Abydos had died when he was but a child. Beyond hatred for its killers, that long-dead home meant little anymore. Hordedev squinted in renewed respect for the fledgling guide to death. How had she known what skulked so deep in his soul?
Nephthys patted the ground at her side. “Come closer, Hordedev. I’ll tell you something to give you purpose. I'll tell you about Nefera...”
The camp teemed with people, whole families of the Clan Djafa come to see off a mighty quest. Camels grunted and people cheered as Djafa Seniram blessed the travelers, for though four men and twelve beasts made a meager caravan, these bore the weight of honor on their shoulders, and deserved a sendoff for heroes. In just this light, Naasir rose on his beast and waved to his cousins as he pulled his camels toward the blank, hostile desert. Hordedev did likewise, but with a face grimmer and more preoccupied than that of his reticent counterpart. His thoughts dwelled far from the good wishes of friends; they had grown from the dark of a goddess’s tent.
Qebera and Abadi rode side-by-side, smiling and waving to milling friends, conversing in private through grinning teeth.
“Well, back by dinner?” Abadi asked.
“Of course,” Qebera answered. “Five years hence, or ten?”
“I have to say, if I had known your friendship required such maintenance...”
“If I had known you were such a whiner...”
“I don’t see your goddesses anywhere. You’d think we’d get a blessing or two before running off for years.”
Abadi’s comment brought no return, for Qebera, too, felt Isis's absence. This wasn’t the note on which to start a journey.
Clear of the camp, the four men converged, a haphazard mob of eleven camels and one black horse.
“Take care,” Qebera said. “I wish I had an inspiring speech, but we’ll be years alone with only Anubis and his jackals to communicate back and forth. There are dangers in this desert from both nature and man, and both can be subtle and extreme. Remember who you are and what you’ve survived these last many years. You have the blessing of gods.”
“I just hope I have enough water,” Abadi yelled, then kicked his camel into a trot.
Qebera watched them march to the north and south, then sighed and turned his horse to the east. He kept his eyes to the ground, for he knew he was alone for years to come, and resolved to get used to it at the start.
But regardless of loneliness, regardless of danger, he would succeed in his mission. He would find the scattered pieces of his dismembered lord, and bring them to Isis so that the king might complete his journey. He would do this thing without the Eye of Ra now held by Isis. He would do it for duty, and for the honor of a kingdom long-since lost to the sand.
What was it Osiris had said to his brother years ago? The mortal animals of this earth still hold surprises for gods.
Set never paid much heed to men. That oversight would cost him.
Isis missed the sendoff of heroes. She tramped into the desert to the west of camp, plodding until the hard ground vanished under her feet and only the shifting sand remained. She carried her baby close in her arms, his delicate skin hidden from the sun. Occasionally he complained, preferring the comparative coolness of his tent. She cooed to him, and sometimes sang.
When the landscape grew sufficiently fluid, when the sand shifted like waves about her, Isis finally stopped. She stood there for minutes, barely moving as she cradled the baby. The wind droned. Sand clattered against her robes. The sun watched her from low in the east, puzzled. She waited until she had their attention, until the earth, wind and sun eyed her uneasily. Then she reached up a hand to lower her hood.
“My time has come,” she said into the wasteland. “My time has come. My love was taken from me. My honor--” Her words caught on barbs. She started over. “My time has come. I am the instrument of retribution, you who claim the world as your own, you gods. You have played your last game with the lives of men. Now, they play with you.” She looked down at her child, who watched her in attentive trust and wriggled his plump little body. “This one will bring an end to gods, and claim the world for men. He will send the gods to the stars, and rule in their place
on earth. His ascension means the twilight of Ra, the exile of all who defy man’s will. He will make this so. He is my son. He is his father’s son.”
She began unwrapping the baby, allowing his blankets to drop to the ground. “He will be king of Egypt: of Abydos, of Fayum, even of Abu Simbel. He will control the Nile and bring the crops from the fertile earth. He will do all these things because he is my son.”
She shifted the child in her arms until she held him up by his armpits, facing away from her. She held him high above her head, presenting him not to the sun in the east, but to the west, so her husband might see him. She held him in triumph and boiling pride, and shouted her words to creation.
“He will conquer not as a god, but as a man born of gods. He will learn and grow and use his power in new and wonderful ways, will use it to protect man and mete out justice in an unjust world.” She hoped Osiris could see his son. She hoped he was proud.
“Behold, all you gods, and cringe from the hand that destroys your reign. Behold, all you men of earth, all you men who have gone into the west. Behold, your salvation and your revenge!
“Behold Horus, first Pharaoh of Egypt!”
The wind whipped in a gasp of dismay, and Isis laughed in its face.
Help!
The author here, dear reader, sloughing off my Cecil B. DeMille narrator voice to offer you a hearty thank you for reading Isis Wept. I hope you enjoyed it, and I suppose you probably did, if you got this far. Rest assured, this is not the last story in Isis's quest. She, Nephthys, and their human entourage must deal with more and greater conflict where their tormentor Set is concerned. It'll be a while, as I have other projects boiling over on the burners, but I will return to this treasured child of a storyline.
In the meantime, we can do one another a favor. Writing is an artistic mission, and I'd much rather be writing books than marketing the ones I've released. Many pundits insist today's writers must also be marketers, that they must blog, podcast, email, Facebook, tweet and otherwise promote, promote, promote if they hope to be successful. These people make me ask, "So when am I supposed to write a new story if I'm busy doing all that?" My answer is: right now. The marketing still has to get done, though, or Isis Wept and all the others drown in a sea of millions of other books, undiscovered and therefore unappreciated. So, I've devised a fiendish plan to make that marketing happen.
I'm asking you to do it.
If you liked Isis Wept, I want you to return post haste to the Kindle store and put up a review of the book. It doesn't have to be long, but do include a star rating. Give the rating you feel the book merits, of course, though I prefer five stars to any other number, hint, hint. Once you put up that review, send me your email at [email protected] (put 'Isis' in the email header), and I will send you, for your promotional help, a spanking new story continuing the adventures of some of Isis's stalwart allies. This story is yours for a review at Kindle, and with my heartfelt thanks.
Let's be clear. This is a promotional stunt that I'm engaged in with your help. Let's say the bonus story offer is good for the first fifty reviews. This is just so that my capacities as a mere human are not stretched beyond the snapping point. A guy can only do so much, eh? Speaking of which, why not join my email list at stephanloy.com, through which you can get more freebies, plus news of what's coming up.
That laid bare, I'm hoping for your help in ticking off a series of great reviews for Isis Wept. The more and more positive the reviews, the higher Isis will rank in the lists, the more readers will find her, and the more stories I can get into willing, excited hands. Isis is a goddess of life, love and fertility; let's make her a goddess of literature, too.
Thanks in advance,
Steve.
More Books by Stephan Loy
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On March 13, 2013, the Catholic Church elected its final pope. An obscure and contested document in the Vatican archives asserts that this pope will see the burning of Rome and the Judgment of the world. There are always apocalyptic predictions, of which this is the latest. Y2K didn't pan out, neither did the Mayan Apocalypse. Now doomsayers latch onto the so-called Pope Prophecies. A mysterious evangelist gone terrorist with supernatural origins latches onto this latest end of the world prediction as a sign that Judgment Day is upon us. He hopes to usher in a biblical apocalypse using stolen atomic warheads. Three stand against him, a seer of good and evil, her academic beau, and a disaffected FBI agent. They and their enemy claim to be soldiers of God, but who, in these times, does God truly favor? An urban fantasy thriller, Last Days and Times delivers an engrossing plot, compelling characters, and a challenging theme.
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The year is 2058. Still no flying cars, still no jetpacks. But we do have demographics, statistics that show white people becoming a minority in America for the first time. Will the founders of the United States lose power gracefully, or will they fight back, threatening the very democracy they created? Steve Tallman produces See It Now, a TV investigative journalism show that unearths a frightening plot to hijack a nation and subjugate its people beneath a paranoid and violent right wing conspiracy. He will risk his life and those of his friends to build a world-wide coalition that combats that conspiracy. Civil war, twenty-first century style, waged over TV and the social media. What will it cost, in blood and spirit, when opponents care nothing for the lives of their enemies? Where is the heart of patriotism? Does it lie in the people who dreamed of freedom, or in those who finally achieve it?
Conqueror's Realm is a warning, a demonstration of the fragility of democracy. It is a lesson in social order, a sure demonstration that we will all hang together, or we will all hang separately; that democracy extracts a price for its gifts, for there can be no justice unless justice is for all.
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Don't forget these books, currently from Mid-World Arts
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By James L. Wilber
A serial novel about the paranormal and dark desires. The story of a cursed young man who has an intimate view of the Apocalypse. My Babylon weaves elements of urban fantasy, erotic horror, and real-world occult practices, to form a unique personal tale that thrills, terrifies, and even enlightens.
My Babylon is told in a series of novellas at the Kindle Store. At the time of this printing, it has been published through Book 3: Risen.
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By James L. Wilber
"I make people. I make your perfect match, your best friend, your true love. I make them alluring, breathtaking, hard as hell to resist. All the data that goes into a human being, memories, genetics, biochemistry, I collect and process that information. I put it together, mix and match to taste, and spit out the person you're going to fall in love with.
They're 100% real, and 100% virtual.
But is that enough? Where's the spark? What’s the thing that makes love true?"
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Table of Contents
Publication Statement
Part One:
Death
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Part Two: Resurrection
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
Afterword