Stolen Souls

by Sackett, Jeffrey

  She gasped in shock as the buzzing in her thoughts became suddenly clear, as she realized what she had heard. "SAM!" she yelled, struggling to get up, blocking the kicks of the guards with her arms, "SAM! IT'S EGYPTIAN! XEPER MEANS TO BE OR TO BECOME IN EGYPTIAN!" A guard struck her across the face with the hilt of his scimitar, and she fell back upon the stones.

  Sam Goldhaber had heard her cries, but they were meaningless to him. Poor Harriet, he thought. On the edge of death, and all she can think of is some silly little scholarly question we raised back home. Xeper is Egyptian. Xepheraxepher is an Egyptian god. Well, he thought sadly, at least we've figured out one final point of etymology before we die. Scholars to the last, for all the good it does us.

  Harriet Langly screamed horribly as the corpse of Meret sucked forth her life. Sam sighed and closed his eyes once again, trying to withdraw into himself, to separate himself from all that was happening around him. The chanting continued, the screams and cries of the tekenues one after the other reached his ears, the words of praise to Anubis were repeated over and over, but he felt strangely removed from the proceedings. It was true, as Hadji had said, that he was too old to be a tekenu for one of the seven immortals, but he felt certain that this fact bore with it no element of hope for his survival. They would use him for a tekenu of one of the other priests, the mortal priests, or they would just kill him outright or use him for another sacrifice, or something. He was a dead man, and he knew it.

  Sam Goldhaber opened his tired eyes and looked toward the front of the temple. Seven people stood around the free standing altar, all of them dressed in white linen, six of them pink-skinned and fleshy, and he did not have to look to know who they were. Sekhemib and Meret, Yuya and Senmut, Herihor and Khumara and Wenet, walking dead, living corpses, vampires from the dawn of history.

  He watched as Sekhemib cried out, "Anethrak 'Anpu, urk er nebt neteru!" Praise to thee, Anubis, greater than every other god!

  "Anet hrauthen 'Anpu!" the priests chanted.

  The seven immortals joined their hands as they stood in a circle around the altar and closed their eyes. Samuel Goldhaber could not understand the chant which arose from the priests who knelt before the seven immortals. As with one voice they sang, "Anpu xepera xer khat, iuk em arauk!" Anubis, who came into being in ancient times, they chanted, come to us in thy form. "Anpu xepera xer khat, iuk em arauk! 'Anpu xepera xer khat, iuk em arauk!"

  Sam blinked and shook his head, thinking for a moment that he was beginning to succumb to the fatigue and the series of emotional shocks he had sustained, for there seemed to be spots before his eyes. But he realized almost immediately that it was not his vision with which something was amiss. There seemed to be a sparkling glow suffusing the air in the temple, a glow which appeared to grow increasingly bright as the chanting continued. The glow slowly circled the room like a languid whirlpool of charged air and began to coalesce in the area of the altar, slowly drawing together above the bloody marble block, in the midst of seven entranced ancients.

  "Anpu xepera xer khat, iuk em arauk!" the chant continued. "Anpu xepera xer khat, iuk em arauk! 'Anpu xepera xer khat, iuk em arauk!"

  The whirling glow continued to spin more and more rapidly as it drew together into a pillar of brilliant, radiant light upon the altar, a pillar stretching up above the heads of the assembly, illuminating the interior of the temple with a painful intensity. Soon the glowing whirlpool was moving so rapidly that the human eye could no longer detect its motion, and it seemed to solidify, seemed to begin to assume a form. It formed itself into what seemed to be the rudimentary shape of a torso, which glowed indistinctly as the blur slowly resolved itself down into clarity.

  A bellowing cry, inhuman and terrible, a roar of hatred and anger and triumph and joy, smote the ears of the assembly, echoing with a deafening power from the trembling stone walls of the ancient mastaba. Sam's mouth hung open in an astonishment so profound that even his own danger was momentarily forgotten.

  Its fist raised defiantly at the sky, the god Anubis stood upon the altar.

  The creature was huge, at least fifteen feet high, muscular in the chest and arms and narrow-waisted. The muscles of its arms and legs and stomach rippled as it moved. Its phallus was huge and erect, throbbing eagerly as its inhuman voice bellowed insanely at the silent heavens. Its head was that of an animal, long-jawed, flat-nosed, covered with fur, bristling with fangs.

  "This isn't real," Sam muttered to himself. "This can't be happening."

  Anubis looked down at the seven holy tekenues who circled the altar, and a lascivious grin seemed to spread across the canine face and brighten the mad, staring eyes. A low but loud growl of joy and approval issued forth from the salivating jaw as it looked from one to the other, from Sekhemib to Meret, from Yuya to Senmut, from Wenet to Herihor to Khumara. Then it raised its snout at the sky and raised both its fists and howled deafeningly.

  One of the guards, almost paralyzed with fear, dragged a young Arab from the rear of the chamber and dropped him before the altar. Anubis watched with its irrational eyes as the guard scurried back to the rear of the room. Haleel Haftoori crawled forward on his stomach, and his voice trembled as he cried imploringly, "'Anpu, urk er nebt neteru, ikua xerten! Tartan Tu neb aria ma ennu ari en ten en xu sefex apu, amiu ses en nebsen neb neteru!" Anubis, he had prayed, I have come before you! Do away with all evil dwelling within me as you have done for those seven spirits who follow the king of the gods!

  A pleased snarl escaped from the creature's jaw, and it stretched out its hand at Haftoori. A charge of brilliant light streamed forth from the creature's taloned but humanoid hand and engulfed Haftoori and the terrified tekenu. The stream of light, blinding all who did not avert their eyes, continued unabated for a few seconds, and then ceased suddenly.

  Before the altar was a charred heap of ash and smoldering bone, all that remained of the tekenu. Beside it stood a young man of no more than twenty-five years, tall, straight, strong, his rich jet-black hair streaming in waves down his neck onto his muscular shoulders. It was Haleel Haftoori.

  Haftoori turned to the assembly of priests and cried, "Anet hrauthen 'Anpu! Anet hrauthen 'Anpu!" His cries were echoed by the others, who wept and fell upon their faces and cried out words of praise and raised a cacophonous, frenzied din. The guards began to drag the tekenues forward one by one as the priests and priestesses, one by one, crawled on their stomachs toward the altar and the god. Anubis emitted howls and roars of triumph and pleasure as it engulfed each priest and each tekenu in the power of its blinding divinity, giving to its servants the souls of the people. It had slept in limbo for all these thousands of years, and its joy at resurrection caused it to howl and shriek and bellow. As the power flowed forth from the taloned hands and the thick, heavy saliva dripped from the grinning jaws, its phallus began to spew ejaculate freely. The priests and priestesses, male and female alike, rushed forward to cover themselves with the inhuman seed, to bathe in the potent, splendorous liquid which streamed forth from the enormous, throbbing fountain.

  Samuel Goldhaber felt himself being lifted up from the floor of the temple by strong yet trembling hands. He did not look at the faces of the terrified guards, did not notice the frenzied, orgiastic priesthood which rolled about the floor amid cries of praise and terror. He was staring at the monster which stood upon the altar, its eyes blazing madly and sounds, too awful for the human ear to hear or the human mind to accept, bellowing forth from the moist, open maw from whence the long red tongue slavered obscenely over the pointed fangs.

  "This can't be happening," Sam cried aloud as the guards dragged him forward from the rear of the temple. "This can't be happening!" This can't be happening, his mind repeated madly, this can't be, it just can't be, it just can't

  be.

  It can't

  be.

  It can't . . .

  Be.

  Be.

  Be!

  Samuel Goldhaber felt his body rock as if he had been struck by a
bolt of lightning; but it was not the power of the monster Anubis which had struck him. He suddenly understood what Harriet Langly had been trying to tell him before her death, and the impact of the realization had dealt him an almost physical blow of shock.

  "Sam," she had cried, "it's Egyptian! Xeper means to be or to become in Egyptian!"

  "Yes!! Yes!!" he screamed aloud. "He dictated it! He dictated it!" Ousha—Joseph—did not write the scroll with his own hand! He dictated it to a scribe! He spoke the ancient Semitic tongue which would one day evolve into Hebrew, and he dictated the scroll to a Hyksos scribe! Of course he did, of course he did! Samuel Goldhaber began to laugh insanely and struggled to maintain his wits even as the truth flooded in on him and filled him with a mad, desperate hope. Xepheraxepher! There never was a god named Xepheraxepher! When Ousha came to the name of the god he dared not speak it, so he translated it into Egyptian! Xepheraxepher! The Being Who Becomes, the Existence Which Exists, the Self-created One!

  Then Moses said to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they shall ask me, 'What is his name? what shall I say to them?' And God spoke from the burning bush and answered Moses, saying, I AM THAT I AM. Say this to the people of Israel, "I AM hath sent me."

  Xeper, to be! Sam thought. Egyptian!

  Hayah, to be! Hebrew!

  I am that I am, the Being Who Becomes, the Existence Which Exists, the Self-created One!

  Xepheraxepher!

  Yahweh!

  The Lord God Almighty! The Lord of Hosts! The God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.

  And of Joseph! And of Joseph!

  Sam felt the golden chain being slipped around his neck, felt himself being pushed down to the ground before the altar, saw the monster grinning insanely at him, saw the priest beside him crying in ecstatic supplication, saw the creature Anubis begin to raise its hand in his direction, and the ancient words of the psalms of David rushed from his memory to his tongue, and he cried them aloud in Hebrew, he cried out the name of the Lord, he cried out Yahweh, to the God of his fathers.

  "OUT OF THE DEPTHS HAVE I CRIED UNTO THEE, O LORD! O LORD, HEAR MY VOICE!"

  The monster seemed frozen as the sound of the word "Yahweh" reached its ears.

  "IN THEE, O LORD, DO I TAKE REFUGE! MAKE HASTE TO HELP ME, O LORD! BE NOT FAR FROM ME, FROM THE VOICE OF MY SUPPLICATION! SAVE ME, O GOD, FROM THE EVILDOERS, PROTECT ME FROM THOSE WHO SEEK MY HURT!"

  The words "Yahweh" and again "Yahweh" assailed the pointed ears of the creature which stood upon the altar, and it bellowed forth a scream of fury as the bolt of power shot from its hands and engulfed Sam and the priest who lay beside him. The heat of the energy surrounded them, and then…

  Nothing.

  Nothing happened.

  The temple was suddenly silent. The priests ceased their frenzied cries. The tekenues ceased their terrified wails. Anubis stood motionless upon the altar, glaring at Samuel Goldhaber with undisguised dread.

  Sam rose to his feet and returned the monster's stare. Then he shouted, "THERE IS NONE LIKE UNTO THEE AMONG THE GODS, O LORD, NOR ARE ANY WORKS LIKE THINE! FOR THOU ALONE ART GOD!"

  The ground began to tremble.

  "BE THOU TO ME A ROCK OF REFUGE, A STRONG FORTRESS TO SAVE ME, FOR THOU ART MY ROCK AND MY FORTRESS, O LORD OF HOSTS!"

  The trembling increased rapidly, the low rumble growing into a loud roar as the stones of the ancient mastaba began to shake and dislodge, casting dust into the air and bits of age-old mortar flying in all directions. Anubis lost its balance and tumbled from the altar, falling headfirst onto the ground in front of Sam. The monster looked up at him, no more than two feet away, and the howl which it cried out assaulted Sam's face with fetid, damp breath. It reached out and tried to swipe at Sam with its talons, but it could not, for some reason, make contact with the human's flesh. Anubis pounded the stone floor with its fist and bellowed hideously in overwhelming, furious, impotent wrath.

  Sam's face seemed aglow with ecstasy as he cried, "O LORD, THOU GOD OF VENGEANCE, THOU GOD OF VENGEANCE SHINE FORTH! RISE UP, O JUDGE OF THE EARTH, AND RENDER TO THE PROUD THEIR PUNISHMENT!"

  The rupturing earth began to sunder and a long fissure opened abruptly in front of Sam Goldhaber. He feared for a moment that it would draw him into it, but he found that the ground upon which he stood held firm. The stones of the floor of the temple split and tumbled into the fissure, and Anubis, caught unaware by the sudden split in the surface of the floor, fell feet first into the black gulf. Its talons clawed hopelessly at the edge of the fissure, and billows of flame shot up and enveloped the creature. The inhuman cry of pain and fury rang out as the god of the dead fell into the fire which issued forth from the bowels of the Earth.

  Sam laughed and wept simultaneously as he heard the words of the prophet Isaiah spilling out of his mouth. "How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down, thou who didst lay low the nations! Thou art brought down to Hell, to the depths of the pit!"

  With a painful cry of sudden and unexpected revival, Sekhemib and the six immortals fell back from the altar, their trembling hands grasping their heads. Pain shot through them, a wrenching pain of abrupt disconnection. Sekhemib looked out at the chaos in front of him and cried out, "What has happened? What has happened?" but no one answered him. The priests of the cult were running madly from the temple, screaming and crying in fear. Sekhemib saw Sam Goldhaber standing alone before him, a look of anger, of triumph, of hatred, of vengeance, of vindication beaming from his ecstatic face. He shouted joyfully, "WHO IS LIKE UNTO THEE O LORD, LORD OF HOSTS?"

  Sekhemib recoiled from the sound of "Yahweh, Yahweh," and he shouted as loudly as he could, "Stop his mouth! Stop his mouth! Silence him at once!" but no priests remained in the holy place to answer his command. Sekhemib rushed forward from the altar and leaped at Sam, but a power which was horribly familiar to him, a force which he had known before, long ago, stopped him and sent him sprawling backward onto the hard, splintering stones.

  Sam raised his eyes to the black sky and cried out, "THE LORD REIGNS! HE IS ROBED IN MAJESTY! THE LORD IS GIRDED WITH STRENGTH!" He stared directly at Sekhemib and shouted, "HE WILL BRING BACK UPON THEM THEIR INIQUITY AND WIPE THEM OUT FOR THEIR WICKEDNESS! LET THEM WITHER, O LORD, LIKE THE GRASS WHICH TAKES ROOT UPON THE ROOF! LET THEM FALL DOWN IN THEIR DESPAIR, O LORD! LET THE MIGHTY BE BROUGHT DOWN!" And then, softly and in his own words, not the words of the ancient King of Israel, he prayed, "And Lord, I beg you, let the souls they have stolen be freed."

  The rumbling ceased abruptly, and a chilling silence descended upon the mastaba and the surrounding desert. Sekhemib drew himself up slowly from the cracked stones and stood erect before Sam Goldhaber, his livid face shaking in fury. "Thou miscreant!" he spat in the ancient tongue. "For thy blasphemy shalt thou pay dearly, in pain shalt thou slowly pay for this sacrilege!"

  Sam understood not one word of the threat, but Sekhemib's tone and expression communicated it to him quite clearly. But the just shall live by faith, the prophet said. The just shall live by faith. He lifted his eyes once again to the dark vault of the heavens, and he cried out the name of God over and over and over. "YAHWEH! YAHWEH!"

  "Servants of the gods!" Sekhemib shouted. "Return ye to this place! I command you, in the name of Anubis! Return ye hither!"

  The priests and priestesses heard the command of the high priest of Anubis and they began slowly and hesitantly to walk back to the mastaba. They entered the ruined holy place in timid groups of twos and threes, looking furtively about them, shamefacedly drawing closer to the altar. Sekhemib stood and glowered angrily, his balled fists resting upon his hips. "Cowards!" he spat. "Hope ye all to drink of the font of life, and yet tremble before the tricks of a Hyksos god? Know ye not that Anubis cannot be conquered, that Anubis cannot be defeated?"

  "YAHWEH," Sam cried. "YAHWEH! YAHWEH! YAHWEH!"

  A very, very soft and gentle sound seemed to arise from t
he patches of sand which were visible between the rubble of cracked and broken floor stones. The sand was shifting, moving, undulating to some unheard rhythm, sending feathery, rippling waves outward from the center of the mastaba. The waves swelled increasingly, and bits of sand flew outward in all directions. As the clumps of sand fell to the ground they did not dissipate, they did not merge back into the desert floor, they did not scatter into the myriad grains of which they were composed. They fell into patterns: long, narrow rows here, shorter narrow rows there, spherical piles in some spots, large rectangular piles in others. And regardless of the particular pattern of the individual sandpiles, they had one characteristic in common: they were moving.

  Sekhemib struggled to keep his balance as the stone floor block upon which he was standing began to move violently from side to side. He jumped back onto the altar slab and watched dumbfounded as the long, narrow piles of sand and the short, narrow piles of sand sought out the large rectangular piles and attached themselves to the corners, as the spherical piles of sand seemed to waddle and roll to the rectangular piles in their turn. "'Anpu," Sekhemib muttered fearfully, "nekhemkua . . . nekhemkua . . ." Deliver me, Anubis, deliver me.

  Sam's mouth was hanging open in wonder as he watched the moving, shifting formations of sand. "O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, and His mercy endureth forever," he whispered as he slowly came to realize what exactly it was that he was seeing.

  The long, narrow piles of sand slowly assumed the form of human legs; the shorter narrow piles assumed the form of arms, all now attached to the rectangular patterns which were solidifying into human torsos even as the spherical sand concentrations formed themselves into faceless human heads. The sand creatures were forming themselves everywhere, in the mastaba and out on the desert beyond. One of them came to its final shape at the foot of the altar, and it stood to its feet. Moments later dozens, and then hundreds, of the humanoid beings stood up and began to move unsteadily upon stiff and fleshless limbs.