by Jonah Hewitt
The brackish waters behind the earthen dam had backed up and flooded around the city, increasing the marshes in all directions, but the earthen causeway had held, and it had worked. Now hundreds could walk across freely from the Gates of Erebus unabated to the realm of Limbo without the aid of a ferryman or approval of any sentinel. It was all very democratic now and far less impressive.
Nephys was just approaching the close side of the causeway where it crossed the river and emptied out into a broad plaza of debris. The crowd was already immense and growing. Hundreds of souls wandered about in confusion, some not even aware that they were dead, most were muttering to themselves. Nephys caught faint snatches of dazed and disoriented conversation, pleas or prayers in many languages.
“Is this the land of my fathers?”
“Where is my husband?”
“Oh, Great God, protect me…”
“Where am I?”
Many had horrific wounds and one young man was wandering around carrying the wheel from one of those deathcarts. He kept looking around as if he was searching for the rest of the wretched device. All were awakening to their new life – some were adapting better than others. Some met it stony-faced, others with wailing and tears. Many of the more morose ones probably turned to shades right there and were lost to the swamps immediately. Everywhere there were dashed expectations and misery.
Amongst them, nimble of foot and ever polite was an army of young, blind children carrying wax tablets or notepads, asking for names and birthdates, cataloguing the who and how and when of each new arrival. What was done with this information was a mystery, but the names were tallied and recorded and handed over to representatives from the Halls of Death all the same. The young record keepers were often met with angry and ardent questioning.
“Don’t you know who I am?”
“I have to be getting back to the convention floor. They are expecting me to give the keynote any moment now!!”
“Will my luggage be checked through Denver? I have to make the connecting flight.”
The assiduous young bureaucrats of the underworld, however, avoided making any concrete commitments or answers. They had none to give anyway – only a job to do. They placated all, took the names, and with blank stares, directed all the members of the loose throng towards the city. Several of the children of Limbo eyed Nephys suspiciously. No one ever walked against the flow of traffic here, but there was too much to do, so many new arrivals, they couldn’t be bothered to question him. So, Nephys elbowed his way past the crowd without being waylaid. Deeper and deeper he pushed into the mass of people, until there was barely enough room to pass. Once a woman met his glance and fell to her knees grabbing Nephys and shaking him.
“Where is my daughter?!! Where is she?!! Why have you taken her?!!”
She had a horrible gash across her forehead. Nephys just pushed her away. “Them!” he said, pointing to the young children of Limbo taking names. “Talk to them!” She let go and he quickly shoved past her. As he pushed on, he looked back, but she was already lost in the crowd. She had been someone like Maggie, he thought, but no one would help her and take a note back to her daughter.
Nephys approached the edge of the causeway where it met the river. The crowd was so thick and pressing, they hardly noticed him but just roughly brushed by. He craned his neck to look over the crowds. Far away, on the other side of the river, he could barely see a vast, black granite statue with half its face missing.
“Anubis,” he said faintly to himself. His grandmother always said Anubis would ferry his soul to the land of the dead. She instructed him that Anubis would present his heart to Osiris and weigh it against the feather of truth. If he passed this test it would be recorded by Thoth, the scribe of the gods. Horus, far sighted, falcon-headed and son of Osiris would then usher him into the rest of the blessed. If not, his heart would be fed to the devourer of souls, Ammit. Nephys lived in fear of that day, but Anubis never came. There were only the children of Limbo and they were utterly disinterested in truth or judgment. As he looked to the far end of the causeway towards the massive statue, he thought maybe this was his test, finally.
He paused and looked at the stone the Chamberlain had given him. There was no going back now. He was filled with equal parts dread and anticipation. Would the stone work? Would the statue of Anubis on the far side really help him? There was only one way to find out. He took an empty breath – the dead couldn’t breathe, but the habits of life were hard to break – and he plunged forward into the crowd and out into the causeway crossing the river.
By the time they crossed the causeway and reached the outskirts of the city, the dead had assimilated something like their earthly forms. Their spirit bodies bore the wounds of their passing, but they were human at least, and to the other dead felt and appeared solid, but further out into the causeway, in the middle of the great, black river, they began to lose form and shape. A never-ending stream of bluish and white ghosts poured through the gates and across the causeway, so many that it didn’t even resemble a crowd as much as a river of ghostly light. Nephys pressed first through the human crowd and then at some point, gradually crossed into the torrent of insubstantial souls. Soon, it didn’t feel like he was in a crowd of people at all, but rather like he was standing in a dense, whirling, freezing mist. He could still catch the whispers of regret and moans of grief of the dead blowing around him before their ghosts hurried off to the other side.
The black waters on either side of causeway revealed nothing deeper than an impenetrable, opaque surface like a sea of ink. The river was nearly still, languid and stagnant with hardly a trace of movement, but every once in a while, a ripple would indicate the presence of something darker underneath. Nephys had only ever seen the murky waters of the swamp close up. He had never seen the Stygian waters this close to the source. Nephys’ toe kicked a loose piece of rubble. Curious he picked it up and tossed it in. It vanished without a trace of a ripple, almost exactly how the herald had vanished through the doorways to the halls of Death.
At first it was easier to negotiate this stream of spirits than having to elbow your way past a crowd of angry ghosts, but it was cold, bitterly cold. However, he could feel the warmth of the green stone in his hand, and it seemed to warm him from within, making the trip passable, but with every step it got harder. He pulled his thin linen robe tightly over his shoulders and curled his toes under, but Egyptian clothing just wasn’t made for cold weather, let alone a current of dead souls. Each step grew wearier, and the cold stabbed deeper, until only the part of his body close to where he clutched the stone to his chest felt warm. The intensity of the deluge of departed souls became stronger. It roared in his ears like a storm and he had to walk against it like a stiff wind.
Afraid the stone was fading, Nephys took out his hand and peeked at it. The glow was faint, but it was still there. Around the stone in the palm of his hand, the flesh still looked real and solid, but towards the edges of his robe he could see that his form was trailing away into nothingness, becoming just another part of the swirling river of mist that was the souls of the arriving dead. He clutched the stone even tighter to his body and redoubled his speed.
It seemed to take nearly forever to reach the statue. At first it appeared to be only a few hundred yards away, but frustratingly, it never got any closer, only larger, like a mountain that seemed deceptively close until you realized how massive it really was. The wind roared like a monster but also moaned with the miseries of all the dying, thousands of them. It was nearly impossible to think in the din, but he blinked against the gale and kept his eyes on the statue, inching ever closer to it.
Finally, after an interminable time and a constant fight against the gale of souls, he reached the gigantic statue. It was larger than all the great statues of the Pharaohs of Egypt, more than double the size of the colossus of Memnon, or the statue of the great Pharoah Ramses in Memphis. He paused and examined it, holding his hand above his face to shield himself from the fierce
tempest of the souls, like the blast of a sandstorm. The statue sat rigid, in the old style, on a simple throne, a solid block of black granite. The toes of the god were nearly above Nephys’ eye level. Looking up, he could see the god in his kilt with his hands laid flat, serenely on his lap, stoic and utterly lifeless. Half of the god’s Jackal-headed face was missing. The broken parts of his cheek and right ear lay in the rubble close to his feet. It seemed impossible that this statue was the god himself, the god of death and judgment, the one that had haunted his childhood from the earliest years as he listened to stories at the feet of his grandmother.
“ANUBIS!” he called out. His voice was nearly lost in the roar of the souls rushing past him.
He stared up at the statue, but it did nothing. Perhaps it did not like the new names, the Greek names, so he called again, this time in the old tongue.
“APNU!!” He cupped his hands around his mouth to help project the sound, but it sounded barely louder than a whisper in the onrush of souls. “APNU! THE CHAMBERLAIN SENT ME!! HE TOLD ME TO FIND YOU!! HE SAID YOU WOULD TAKE ME BACK THROUGH THE GATES OF EREBUS!! HE SAID YOU WOULD TAKE ME BACK TO THE LAND OF THE LIVING!!”
Still nothing. Nephys was frantic. He pulled his thin robe over his head and shivered uncontrollably, clutching the stone tightly against his chest. Then he had a thought. He opened his hand and held the stone aloft for the god to see. As he did so, he could feel the wind of death tearing his lower extremities, drawing them out into wispy mists that were quickly being swept away. The longer the stone was held away from him, the weaker and the more insubstantial he became. Without it, he never would have made it this far, but he had to communicate with the statue somehow.
“APNU! I HAVE THE STONE!!”
But still the god was unresponsive. Nephys would have wept if he had had the energy. He gripped the stone back to his chest and felt only slightly better. He realized that even with the stone, he couldn’t last long. Time was running out.
“PLEASE!!!” he screamed as loud as he could, “I NEED YOUR HELP!!! I MUST RETURN TO THE LAND OF THE LIVING!!! I HAVE TO HELP THE NECROMANCER RESTORE THE BALANCE BETWEEN OUR WORLDS, AND THERE IS NO MORE TIME!!”
There was no response. He fell to his hands and knees panting and began to despair. He had failed. He wouldn’t even make it back to the other side. He would be torn to pieces and wind up a shade in the marshes for sure. There, in front of him, was the broken half of the face of dog-headed Anubis, its large, impassive eye staring blankly past him. And then slowly, slowly, the eye turned to look at him. Then the eye blinked. Nephys scrambled backwards in shock until he fell against the toes of the massive statue. Then he heard something like stone grating on stone, and a faint trace of dust and rubble fell around his shoulders. It seemed to fall unaffected by the intense wind of the passing souls, as if it were perpetually calm. Nephys slowly looked up. The statue, or rather the god himself, was standing above him and looking down at him as if he were a small and curious beetle.
“NOOOO TI-IME,” it said in a booming, sepulchral voice.
“AAAyah!” Nephys had hoped his first utterance to the god would have been more eloquent, but he had lost the capacity for rational speech at the moment.
“THERE IS NOOOO TI-IME,” the god said again.
“Yes! Yes…no time! I have to go now!” Nephys said, delirious that the god had finally understood.
“COME,” the god spoke before it slowly turned away as if to go.
“No! Wait!” Nephys pulled himself together and climbed on top of the god’s toes, pulling himself up just before the god’s foot took one, massive step forward. The god’s right foot lifted him high above the stream of dead souls. Nephys had a momentary relief from the cold and dread before the god’s step came crashing down again, shaking the earth underneath it, plunging him, once more, into the icy stream of spirits.
“Ach!” Nephys scrambled higher up the god’s foot and stood up, clinging to the carved stone ankle like he was hugging a column in a massive temple. His arms didn’t reach all the way around, but it was the best he could do. This position spared him from the worst of the current of souls that burned like ice every time he touched it. The god completed the step and raised the right foot again, swinging it forward, taking in strides of more than a hundred cubits in a single step. Nephys gasped and held on, closing his eyes. The foot came down hard, and debris and dust showered down on Nephys. Again, the blast of the souls seemed to have no affect on it, but it fell straight down instead.
The god stepped again and again. Each time the right foot came down, Nephys held his breath and closed his eyes and endured the frigid torrent of souls for a moment before being lifted again high into the air. From the god’s ankle at the top of his stride, Nephys could see all around in every direction: the causeway, the black waters, the marshes, the city of Limbo and even all the way to the acropolis and the Halls of Death himself.
Ahead of them on the other side of the river directly opposite the causeway was a vast tunnel of smooth, black stone, long and deep. At the far end of it was a single bright light. Streaming from it at terrible speed were the brilliant blue vapors that were the insubstantial souls of the newly dead, pouring out of it like a great torrent of icy water. Some called it “The Eye” or the “Light” or “The Tunnel,” but Nephys knew it as The Gates of Erebus. The passage to the land of the dead and to the land of the living, but the trip from this side was considerably harder.
The world of the living and the world of the dead were like a giant hourglass, with the land of the living on top and the underworld on the bottom. The narrow neck of glass between them was the Gates of Erebus, the slender passage between worlds. The sand, forever flowing downward, was the souls passing on. And like an hourglass, the sand only flowed one way – downward. It was against this flow of thousands and thousands of souls that Nephys now had to forge, like a small boat paddling against the tide. Only the tide was full of the newly departed, their memories and fears, and all the anguish and misery of their passing.
Nephys had never seen the gates before, or at least, not that he could remember. But he could see it now. He could actually see his destination. It wasn’t far now. And with the god taking him, he hoped the rest of the way would be easy. Every step brought them ever closer. Every step, Nephys clung on desperately to the ankle. And all the way, the god kept talking.
“NO TIME,” it said, “THERE IS NO TIME.” It kept repeating itself over and over again.
“I know!” Nephys finally replied, annoyed. “There is no time, but it is all right now. We will make it.”
“NO,” the god replied, “NO TIME. THERE IS NO TIME. TIME IS NO MORE.” “UGH!” thought Nephys, “What was this thing babbling about?!” Was it this annoying when it greeted his countrymen to the afterlife long ago? No wonder no one believed in the old gods anymore. Perhaps the god had waited too long and had gone mad. No matter, they were halfway down the tunnel now. It was hard to tell how far ahead the light really was, but soon they would be there.
The foot came down hard again. More debris and dust fell from above. Nephys looked up. The god or statue or whatever it was seemed to be coming apart with every footstep. The arms swung broadly, but they cracked and strained under the movement. Chips and flakes of stone fell all around them. The god’s step faltered and he nearly tripped.
“What’s the matter?!” Nephys screamed up at the god, holding his arm above his face to shield his eyes from the dust and broken fragments of rock.
“NO TIME,” the god said again, “NO TIME. TIME IS NO MORE.”
“What do you mean?!” Nephys shouted back up at him, irritated with the deity’s enigmatic pronouncements. Just then, a large chunk of the statue the size of Nephys’ head broke free and nearly hit him.
“AAAAAH!” Nephys screamed, dodging the falling wreckage. He clung to the stone ankle but there wasn’t much cover. Splintered pieces of stone were coming off in his hands as he desperately tried to cling to its crumbling surface.
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“WHAT’S HAPPENING?!!!” he screamed up at the god.
“NO TIME. NO MORE TIME…THERE IS NO MORE TIME,” the god replied, but its voice was breaking up too. It held up one arm against the torrent of dying souls but as it did so, the fingers crumbled as if from great age into rubble, sand and dust. The large parts of the upper arm crashed down around Nephys, breaking more of the god’s stone body away.
“AAAAGH!” Nephys screamed, narrowly escaping being crushed. He screamed up at the god. “ARE YOU TELLING ME THERE IS NO MORE TIME FOR YOU?! ARE ABOUT TO DIE?!”
“NO TIME. THERE IS NO TIME,” the god replied in answer.
“I CAN”T BELIEVE THIS!!” Nephys looked on in horror. They were still a hundred feet or more from the bright light of the gates, and he wasn’t certain the god was going to make it. It took valiant strides forward, but already both arms were crumbling, as was the torso. The ankles and knees were cracking and the god staggered with every step. Nephys clung desperately to the ankle. Even the god’s stone body, which seemed to be able to magically resist the force of the relentless onslaught of oncoming souls, seemed to be fading. Nephys stared forward, directly into the eye of the storm, but the force of the wind was like looking into a hurricane. All this and the god never stopped babbling.
“NO TIME. NO TIME. THERE IS NO TIME.”
They were getting closer, but would it be enough?! If the god crumbled down to pebbles before reaching the gate, could Nephys claw his way the last few feet?! The god took one last step with the left foot, but the foot broke off at the ankle, crumbling into dust as he lifted it. The broken stub came down hard, shattering the knee above it and embedding itself deeply into the ground. This is it, thought Nephys. This was the last step. The god heroically lifted its right foot, the thigh and knee above it cracking, sounding like an avalanche about to crash down. He lunged forward making as large a stride as he could. As he did so, his torso shattered and fell, the already-broken head falling on top of it. The head had time for one last utterance before crumbling into dust. It was at least a little different this time.