Fire in the Abyss

by Stuart Gordon

  Then the apparition dissolved away, leaving me with hard-beating heart, and much to consider. Still I wished to reject such stuff, but I was no longer in my own world, my rules of faith and conduct were all snapped, and I had to admit I was glad to see that fine calm copper face again. And though still it shook me to think that maybe this face and vision came from one who’d lived over two thousand years before my own time, now I was anxious, indeed eager, to meet the Egyptian woman, and I wondered when this would happen.

  The answer was, soon.

  Yet before we met Masanva and Mery-Isis we met Dion the Athenian, who first appeared Outside with Hyperia, a pale and long-faced woman from Roman North Africa of the early third century after Christ.

  Hyperia’s health was poor, but her spirit was strong: she did not last the year, but worked hard towards our unity in Circle, being a voice of reason and good humour, and I’ll have more to say about her.

  Dion was a thin young man, demoralised and perpetually dazed. Several times in the next few months I tried to speak with him in his own tongue, but he refused reply. Perhaps my Greek was poor, or perhaps he feared he’d be punished for not speaking in broken American. In any case, he had no control of his mind. I know not if this sad state came from Vulcan or from what the doctors did: no doubt some of both, yet I suspect he was not too bright to begin with. Yes, he said, he had seen and heard Socrates: he had served in the Athenian army with Socrates before deserting during the war against Sparta, which act had apparently thrown him into a dreadful odyssey involving enslavement, sale to a Carthaginian pirate captain, and three thousand miles of ocean rowing ended only by Roman Vulcan’s American hammer cracking him from 426 BC to 1983 AD. No wonder his wits were fled: he must have been deeply frustrating to the experts, for when I asked the poor wretch my inevitable stupid Socrates question, he gave me a sallow grin and nodded vigorously in his suit:

  “Soc-rat-ees! Soc-rat-ees! Great—guy! Great—guy! He—drink with us! He get—very drinked! He say—knowing is… is…”

  “Knowing is what, Dion?”

  He stared at the ground in crestfallen silence.

  “I… I not… remember…”

  Dion, you are not the only one.

  17. The Nine Dreams of the Hawk

  If seeing is believing, and nothing’s done without belief, then that day when we first met Masanva the Dancer and Nefertari Mery-Isis in the flesh is the day that our Circle was sparked into active life, being the point at which our vague dreaming found a solid common base from which practical consequences might be developed.

  Now, reaching this point, remembering, with the wind howling outside in yet another Welsh gale, I regain sense of connection with the wellsprings, finding strength in recollection, feeling that finally I begin to rise again from the mire in which I have stuck myself so long. Yes, trouble closes in, but I’ll do this, and then we’ll see… for it is how we live that counts, not how long.

  The little group emerged from the West Block door one sunny day in early June. Coningham, Herbie, and myself were standing talking outside the library. The two DTIs were preceded by the birdlike figure of Director Piggot in his grey suit and shirt and tie, and were followed by three white-suit guards. When we saw them we wondered immediately at the guards and at Piggot’s unusual presence, and at the way in which, before starting forward, Piggot stood measuring the quadrangle suspiciously, as if afraid that somebody might jump from the sky and abduct or kill his two prize specimens.

  This done, he started a walk that took them out of our sight behind the chapel and presumably round the back. We eyed each other. We all thought the same: these two must be the Egyptian woman and the mysterious man from ancient America. Certainly one of them was a small woman and the other a thickset man, and hopefully they’d be brought round this way. So, we lingered tensely where we were, and, as we waited, Azurara drifted up, eyeing the sky, and Jud Daraul, and Lucie Hopkins, smiling at nobody in particular; and lastly Utak came out of the Library, scowling, muttering to himself. But he shut up and joined us, his face suddenly intent, as Piggot’s group came round the comer and approached us. And I saw Tari for the first time.

  I had awaited this, and thought myself ready, but still I went weak at the knees when I recognised her from the visions.

  Yes, they were both bald and caught under plastic and plexiglass just like the rest of us. What else? Yet in her case there was the raven-haired image to contend with. I had no difficulty recognising her. Her face was the same, with the same deep eyes, straight nose, wide mouth. There was no mistaking her, despite the incongruity between her image and her reality. I wondered why she used that image as her present signature, for unlike many of us she was not dehumanised or stereotyped by baldness or by the suit. She was small, not much.more than five feet high, and the immunity-suit lay somewhat too baggy and crumpled about her. Yet, she approached us walking in a precise way which somehow suggested that the suit was irrelevant, or not there at all. This was heartening, and commanded immediate respect and affection from those of us who felt perpetually stifled and imprisoned in the suits, as I did.

  The man who walked on her right side was also short, but massive and wide, with heavy jowls and a broad dark forehead. His skull was unusually large, with strong slopes and plates of bone tight beneath the gleaming skin. He could have been anywhere between thirty and seventy: his age was never made clear. His eyes were brilliant, and black as ink, and he walked not on his heels but on the balls of his feet. My gaze returned to his eyes… they were deep and very deep and deeper still. And where from the woman I felt a shining-forth of inner steadiness, a consistent unity with known purpose such as few of us have, of the man I could not tell what I sensed. It was not that he was a closed book, simply that I could not read his character at all. This is what I first learned of Masanva.

  They both studied the not-so-casual group of us as Piggot, flicking a glance at us and holding his parchment-pale face slightly away, tried to steer them straight past us to the library door. At this the woman smiled very faintly, and stopped walking even as the man, Masanva, stopped too, despite the attempted onrushing-of-them by the three big strong young white-suit guards. Piggot turned impatiently even as one of the guards, a burly red-haired man, succeeded in delaying his own halt long enough to manage to bring his own foot down heavily on Masanva’s left heel.

  Masanva turned and looked at him without expression. The guard stared back for several seconds—then abruptly shook his head, and looked dazed as if he’d momentarily forgotten who he was, then stationed himself further back, biting his lip and confused.

  Masanva said nothing.

  “I want to speak with these people,” the woman said. Her voice was low and her spoken American already as precise as her physical movements. Piggot looked annoyed, and glared at the crestfallen guard, but tossed a stiff hand and said, “Very well, go ahead!”

  I could feel beside me Utak’s attention on the massive blackeyed man as she, taking her time, met the eyes of each of us one-by-one. Her own expression was quite mobile and curious as she did this, with a sort of keen zest in it. And when her eyes met mine I felt a great cool clear rush, but there was something fierce there too, and very determined… and I felt the air between us charged with at least two levels of things: the apparent and not-so-apparent—the day and the night, the sun and the moon.

  “My friends call me Tari,” she said at last, smiling very warmly, then asked our names, which we gave, and even Azurara seemed impressed, for there was none of the usual haughteur in his self-announcement. Jud Daraul called her “ma’am,” Lucie was flushed and slightly breathless, while even Coningham seemed a little awkward, and only Utak and Herbie Pond seemed quite unglamourised. For myself, I managed to say “Humphrey Gilbert,” and leave it at that.

  “Well, friends,” she said to us, ignoring Piggot’s scowl, and with some other DTIs drifted up from here and there, “How do you do?”

  “Dunno.” Herbie Pond grinned engagingly. “Ho
w do we do?”

  “Pond!” snapped Piggot, “that’s enough!”

  I thought so too, and glowered at him, not then realising that he had asked a specific and necessary question, and at the time I felt quite jealous that she gave him such a slow, sweet, thoughtful smile.

  “Well, if you relax,” she said. “Not so well if you try too hard. Try to be like a bird, not like an ass with long ears.”

  “Now come along, please!” insisted Piggot, most uncomfortable at this. “We really don’t have much time!”

  Myself, I did not pick it up at all, and was amazed that she told Piggot so blunt and publicly what she thought of him. But later she said she phrased it as she did so he would take it solely as a personal insult, and not think to look under the surface, beyond himself.

  “We’ll meet again soon, I hope,” Tari said to us, then turned to Piggot with a polite but distant nod. And Masanva remained massively silent, expressionless and not introduced, as Piggot chivvied them into the library’ to show them computers and Modern knowledge.

  “That’s one regular lady!” declared Herbie with awe in his voice as soon as they were gone. “And I mean regular!”

  “Regular?” I snapped, scandalised, “You are a cheap man!”

  “Humf, you’re just jealous,” he drawled, grinning.

  “Gilbert, you must consider what she meant!” Coningham murmured softly, significantly. “About the you-know-what.” So I thought about it, and my stupid feeling faded.

  As for Masanva, that massive man, only Utak had a firm impression.

  “That man,” he said in his rapidly improving American, “That man is in centre of… of… what is name for it?”

  He made a whirling motion of both hands round each other. “Storm?” hazarded Jud Daraul. “Cyclone? Tornado?”

  Utak nodded sharply. “Yes. Cyclone. That man rides cyclone. Very strong man. He knows music of gods. Hears and knows.”

  With that for the day we had to be content. But then came the night, when many things began.

  So we met Tari. Now is the time for her tale.

  I’ll tell it as I heard it from her, in her voice, the very best I can. Yet I must admit: it is true I never quite rid myself of the suspicion that her claim to a high Horus-mission in this age was but megalomaniac delusion, induced by the need to believe in some strong purpose after the frightful accident of Vulcan. Likewise I always doubted her claim that she (and Masanva, as she said, for he never said anything of himself) had sought the vortex deliberately. This seemed absurd and impossible. But so indeed she did claim, and who am I now to doubt it, with her ghost alive both within me and without me, as it seems? So here is her voice, as I know it and love it:

  The Tale of Nefertari Mery-Isis:

  Nature’s creatures above are the stars of Nut. Below live men and beasts, plants and minerals, and every one with its signature, its divine nature and function, inscribed at birth by Thoth.

  In every man and every age the scheme of things is writ down plain to see, as is known to every beast and bird, so why not to man? For every man has affinity with his special creature with whom he shares particular tendency—from whom at Dawn he learned his arts by imitation, whose nature at Noon he refines by human struggle, and whose destiny at Dusk he realises by ascent at last to the gods, or neters. When thus at last he joins himself with Divine Principle from which all comes forth, then the Nine Aspects of his Individuality are united; he is initiate, and may know his secret name, and knows why souls are bound in matter, and remembers what is to be.

  My name on earth is Nefertari. My soul-name is Mery-Isis. My name in heaven I know not yet.

  My service is with Great Isis, and with Osiris the Dead and Risen God, and with Horns their son—the Avenger, the Hawk, the Dawn, the New Age!—and my affinity is with the Hawk.

  Who is Great Isis?

  She is Mother of Earth and Mother of Heaven and Mother of Sorrows and her Star is Sothis, which disc she wears above her head. She contains all other goddesses and has power over the Father of the Gods, for she tricked him out of his secret name and forever holds it against him. She bore the Hope of the Future from the dead and dismembered body of Osiris, her Column goes from the depths to the heights, her ray is blue, her perfume is sweet; she has her seat in every woman and in every man—and each may find it if they seek, and make alchemical marriage, and go through the tomb alive.

  For also she is the Dark Queen. Why do men fear the Dark Queen? The Black Isis leads through death to the Triumph of Beauty.

  I have been instructed in the wisdom of Isis and Osiris, and it is through Vision of the Hawk that I am here.

  The hawk-affinity was always clear. I knew it, and others saw it, for when I was young the hawks would hover over me, and once, when I played by the river, a hawk descended in a great rush of wings and landed on my shoulder. It took off again immediately, but my brothers and sisters were scared, and I was scared too, but for a different reason, for even then I knew it meant I was chosen. This may seem a wonderful thing, but it is fearful too. It meant I had much to learn and risk and endure, for when I was young I was not sensible, being rash and haughty by nature.

  In time I went for training to the temple of Isis on the isle of Palak, which is shaped like a bird and lies in the River on the Nubian border. All to do with Isis and Osiris and their liberation in Horus was studied, taught, and practised there, and it was there I received the name Mery-lsis, meaning, The Beloved of Isis, It was my opinion that I should have a Hawk-name, but I was told that my opinion did not count, and that I must learn to obey, or else I would never develop the strength and purity to see beyond the shape of things.

  Of my first training I will describe only this: After I passed the first examination I was taken through many inner courts and into a small temple which was the entrance to the underground crypts and hidden sanctuaries. The door was disguised by a statue of Isis, and flanked by two columns, one red and one black. The goddess was seated, and held a closed book in her lap, and her face was veiled, and beneath the statue was written, “No mortal has lifted my veil” Of the two columns, it was explained to me that the red one represented the ascension of the spirit into the light of Osiris, but that the black one referred to its imprisonment in matter, and to the threat of utter annihilation. It was made clear to me that whosoever would approach this science must risk everything; that were I weak or wicked I should find only madness or death through that door, and that many went in who never came out. I was told to consider it all most carefully, for there would be no turning back.

  Well, in time I went through that door, and came out safe at another level, but it was only a beginning. There were other kinds of tests, and one of them I nearly failed. For it was outside the temple that I tamed two wild hawks, and was nearly tamed by a third.

  No, “tamed” is not right, save in the third case. The two wild hawks came because of our affinity. They would stay quietly on my arms without a hood. This got me many odd looks, but nothing was said—until the third Hawk came.

  There was a time when I was in rebellion against the rigour of the training, and tempted to believe it was all for nothing, a pack of lies and illusions. I suffered doubt and nightmare, but the only answer I ever got to my questions was “Wait and work.” And so I was in an angry condition when I met and was tested by the third Hawk.

  He was a tall wanderer, admitting no other name but Hawk, who one summer was hired as a carpenter in the outer precincts. Soon enough he caught my eye, and I found him very handsome, and my regret at abandoning the outer world became more bitter than ever. We spoke together when we could, and came the night when he said he loved me and wished me to flee the temple with him.

  For three nights I could not sleep. Which Hawk would I fly with, the neter or the man? Did I truly wish to work to be a Wâb priestess, seeking and finding and fulfilling my function and service in the god? Yet at length I made my decision, and went and told the man I would go not with him, but with the god.
Then he looked at me gravely, and from his robe he took a knife, which he showed me.

  “Had you answered otherwise,” he said, “you would have married not a man, but Osiris. There is no turning back.”

  Only then I knew how close I had come to the abyss. After this I worked hard for a long time, and learned gradually, and was confirmed in certain things. At length I was sent to the other end of the Two Lands, to Per wadjet in the Delta, close by the isle of Chemmis where Horns is said to have been born.

  Now, for a reason, I tell part of the popular tale:

  Osiris was murdered by his evil brother Set, the Red One, who hoped to usurp his brother’s high office, wishing also to prevent the birth of a son to Isis. Knowing of the magic skills of Isis, cunning Set cut up the body of Osiris and scattered the pieces in the Nile and all over the land. But Isis patiently sought and found the pieces of Osiris, and reassembled the body of the Listless One, and her power was such that she conceived! Yes, and some say that she found every part of the body but for the phallus, which had been swallowed by a crocodile, yet her Fertility was so great that still she conceived!

  Then Osiris went down to the Underworld, to await revival by his son, who would bring him a new function. But Horus was not yet born, and in great danger. Isis fled and hid from Set in the Swamps, on this isle of Chemmis, which many call a floating isle, for the way it sits in a wide deep lake. So, Horus was born, and watched over by Sekhat-Hor, Nepthys, Nut, and Selkis, while Isis went about disguised as a beggar-woman. But the four of them had other things to do and had to go, so that often Isis had to leave the child alone. One day she returned to find Horus bitten and poisoned by a snake, which she said must be Set. But the doctor-woman who came to treat the child said it was but an ordinary serpent, for evil Set could not set foot on this holy isle. Yet the child was very sick, so Isis cried to the sky to stop the Boat of the Sun, and her cry was heard, and Thoth came down in a hurry, because the Boat of the Sun couldn’t wait very long for him. He cured the child as quick as he could, so Horus lived, and grew up, and there were terrible quarrels between him and Set that seemed to go on forever. They fought, and Horus wrenched off Set’s balls, and Set tore out the Hawk’s left eye and threw it into the outer darkness, where Thoth found the pieces and made them into the full moon.