by Neil Gaiman
Diane just looked amused. “You mean her clothes—that whole bundled-up thing?”
“Partly.”
“Oh, that’s gotten a lot better. When I first started coming to meetings, she was wearing a veil over her whole body. And gloves. She’s really loosened up since…”
Diane glanced past her at the wall clock and broke off mid-sentence.
“Since when?”
“Since she’s been in this country, I guess.” Diane reached for her big duffel coat and backpack. “I’ve got to run. Visiting hours at the hospital started half an hour ago.”
Her expression was so grim, Sara hated to ask.
“It’s one of my circle sisters.” Diane bit her lip. “She’s… not good. Sesh’tet asked me to stop by and drop off the week’s readings, maybe pray with her if she was awake.”
Her gaze slid away. “Not likely.”
When Sara got home that night, she had two messages on her machine. One was from Dr. Stanley, her instructor from last summer’s Egyptology course.
The other was a voice she’d never expected to hear again.
“Sara? Sara, pick up if you’re there. Please.” The speaker hesitated. “OK, either you’re gone or you’re still pissed at me… but I’m back, and I wanted you to know. That job in Seattle didn’t work out. I’m staying at my sister’s for now.”
Another pause, longer this time.
“I know you’ve still got her number. If you haven’t eaten yet, give me a call and we can go out. Greek or Chinese or whatever you want. I’d like to talk.”
Mine started working for me really fast.
Sweat trickled down inside her shirt, stinging the raw spot Sesh’tet’s amulet had left. Absently, she scratched it as she played her ex’s message again. It sounded unreal. Scripted, though the shadows in every corner of her very empty bedroom didn’t care. You wanted who you wanted, and if…
No.
With an effort, she deleted that message and started the other. Martin Stanley sounded older than she remembered. All he’d left was his San Francisco phone number—which she’d asked for in last night’s e-mail—and a terse suggestion to use it immediately.
He picked up on the second ring.
“I’m glad you called, Sara.” His voice was shaky and exhausted. “I’ve been… concerned about that information you sent. Ammutseba isn’t a name one runs across often in the literature. She’s strictly First Intermediate. Very esoteric—fortunately.”
Which explained how her own small library had failed her. But “fortunately”? Martin’s lectures had never shied away from the controversial, the bloody, or the morbid. He delighted in the details of mummification. When he described the contendings of Set and Horus, eye-gouging and castration figured prominently. So what made Ammutseba different?
“To begin with, she isn’t actually Egyptian. Probably a leftover from Stygian cultic practice, though some think she goes back further than that.”
“Stygian?”
“A very early pre-Egyptian culture. One can’t call it a civilization, from the evidence.” He laughed mirthlessly. “The only Egyptology program in this country that covers it is Miskatonic’s. I did post-grad field work with them in the ’70s, on linkages between religious change in the First Intermediate Period and the rise of tomb-robbing.”
Sara frowned, fascinated in spite of her own problems. “Sounds, um, esoteric. Did you find anything?”
“More than we’d expected.” She heard pages being turned. “Your scan of the amulet’s design didn’t come through on this end. Could you describe it for me?”
“Three upside-down, five-pointed stars under something like a table. The amulet looks like basalt, but it didn’t feel…”
“I know.” More pages. “Three is the Egyptian number of plurality—representing many, or any large number. Your table hieroglyph is probably pet, sky. The star hieroglyph, seba, hardly ever appears inverted. Are you sure?”
“I have the drawing right here.” She reached for the amulet’s box beside it. “Do you want me to check the original?”
“God, no. Don’t touch it.” He took a long, unsteady breath. “Sara, are you wearing that amulet?”
“Not now.”
There was another silence, punctuated by the thump/shuffle of books being moved.
“OK, Sara,” he finally said. “I want you to wrap that amulet up and send it here. I’ll e-mail you the address, and I need yours. I’ll be sending you some photocopies, plus an old field journal I’ve got. In the meantime, stay away from that study group.”
“It’s a women’s spirituality circle.” How could she have read him so wrong? Despite his flair for the sensational, Martin had never struck her as anything but a mainstream Egyptologist. She’d expected help, not a one-way ticket to Bram Stoker country.
Now he was laughing again, bitterly. “Well it would be, wouldn’t it? How utterly perfect. Seven Sisters all over again.”
He hesitated, his breathing ragged. “Listen, Sara. Ever read Lovecraft’s Egyptian stuff? ‘Older than Memphis and mankind?’ HPL didn’t know the half of it! He’d never walked on those sands at the dark of the moon, under the dying light of murdered stars. He’d never been inside an Old Kingdom tomb, seen what the two-legged jackals left… what they scrawled on burial chamber walls after they’d torn royal mummies apart for the jewels and the gold. Maybe he’d read about it happening, all right—but he didn’t know in whose Name they did it.”
Reaching for her desk lamp, Sara turned it on and felt a little better. Maybe.
“Martin, this is sounding way too Indiana Jones. My friend Diane—the one who took me to the meeting—isn’t a tomb robber, for Godsakes. She’s just a New Age feminist who thinks she’s tapped into some ancient ‘female energy.’”
Martin snorted.
“The poor fool’s got it backwards. There’s ancient energy, all right… unless I’m very much mistaken… but it’s tapped into her. Her and all the others. This High Priestess Sesh’tet isn’t some neo-pagan pretender. She’s the genuine article, though I can’t think how it happened.”
“Diane said something about an initiation in the Valley of the Kings.” Sara hesitated, thoroughly confused. “It was kept secret because of the Egyptian government.”
“The Egyptian government’s notion of evil begins and ends with radical fundamentalist Islam. This particular evil is far older than Mohammed—or even Alhazred.”
He paused, and she could hear him gulping water. “All these pagan revivals and survivals…. mix and match spirituality… it’s no good, Sara. Not good at all. Traditional ‘earth religions’ have their dark side—and Kemet’s is darker than most because it’s so much older. People have no idea… they buy their Mommy Isis statues and little Bast cats and never think about the rest of it. Set chopping up his own brother. Apophis coiled in the Underworld and, God, what the Sphinx was first carved to mimic…”
She heard a rattle of pills, then, and more gulping. More ragged breathing.
“Martin? Are you OK?”
“Just tell me you’re going to leave this alone. Send me that amulet—quickly—but leave this ‘spirituality group’ alone. Leave your friend Diane alone, too. She sounds like a believer, and belief is power. Belief raises power—they knew that, in ancient Memphis. And in the cult-temples of Stygia.”
Sara reached for a notepad and wrote the last word down, underlining it twice. “All right,” she said. “I won’t go to any more circle meetings, and I’ll send you the amulet tomorrow.”
Martin laughed dryly. “That’s a start.” The humor drained from his voice. “It’s been good talking to you. You take care.”
He hung up before she could reply, leaving her alone in her desk lamp’s inadequate light. Scrambling to her feet, Sara flipped on the overhead.
Then started digging through drawers for mailing labels.
Next morning, exhausted by broken sleep and worse dreams, she sent Martin the amulet from work. Next day delivery weig
hed on her conscience, but she couldn’t imagine explaining to her boss. After the phone call last night, she’d checked through Diane’s photocopies. The Gate of All Lost Stars was a creepy piece of work, though it did sound believably Egyptian.
And, indeed, this week’s readings were about focus.
For the true intention of Her heart is hidden from the lesser gods of this world, and her aspect is unknown. She is darker than the shadow heart of night, deeper than the Duat. No lesser eye knows her true appearance… none testifies to Her appetites accurately.
She called Diane during her lunch hour, hoping for a little enlightenment—only to be told that her friend had left work early for a doctor’s appointment. Not a short one, either, judging by the disapproval in the bookstore owner’s voice.
Sara hung up frowning. She couldn’t imagine what her friend might need to see a doctor about, though yesterday’s lunch suggested an eating disorder. Was she supplementing woman power with bulimia?
The longer the afternoon wore on, the more she worried. Martin was right, unfortunately: Diane was a believer. What she’d latched onto this time almost certainly wasn’t good for her. Nor did it seem to be healthy for some of her “sisters”… unless that was sheer coincidence. Had Martin’s rant about pre-Dynastic cults done a number on her nerves last night?
She finally decided to swing by Diane’s on her way home from work.
A half-familiar smell lingered in the stairwell of the basement apartment. Balsam and cedar and—dust? earth?—plus something else she couldn’t place. The first three scents reminded her of the incense from the circle meeting. The last was… almost reptilian, she’d have said, but garter snakes didn’t hang around this late into fall.
Diane answered her knock by peering through the peephole. When she opened her door, she didn’t take the chain off immediately.
As Sara reached through to do it for her, she caught a stronger whiff of incense—and a glimpse of burning candles on Diane’s altar in one corner of the living room.
“I really do need to talk to you.” She slipped inside before Diane could change her mind. “It’s important, and it won’t take long.”
Her friend just shrugged. Her eyes looked red-rimmed, bloodshot, and not too focused. She was holding a nearly empty wine glass.
Sara felt her stomach knotting. Diane almost never drank.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, heading for the battered couch. Diane perched on one arm of it, clutching her glass in both hands now. She made no effort to speak, drink, or offer any hospitality—and she looked as though she’d start crying again any second.
Frustrated beyond words, Sara decided to check out her personal altar instead. After last night’s phone call, she wasn’t in the mood for manners. She needed information—any information—which might clarify Martin’s disturbing hints.
It didn’t take long to find some.
Depending on the season and Diane’s current pagan interests, the small table might hold any combination of votive candles, statuettes—generally goddesses—and found objects. Pride of place tonight went to a dull black bowl holding charcoal and a few nuggets of incense. Incense wasn’t Diane’s thing. Sara’s frown deepened as she examined the bowl itself: a pet hieroglyph with three upside-down stars had been incised deeply into one side, then filled with red pigment.
The rest of the table top was crowded with lit votives in wildly assorted holders. “What’s this?” she asked, trying to keep her tone light. “Your whole supply?”
Diane nodded.
“Mind if I ask what for?”
“I thought they might help. More light. More energy.” She waved feebly toward the little candles, which weren’t burning well. “Maybe I haven’t got enough.”
Sara’s stomach clenched. “Enough for what?”
When her friend didn’t answer, she returned to the couch and sat down. “Look, I know you’ve been to the doctor’s. Your boss told me. She sounded pretty concerned.”
Diane took a gulp of wine. “It was just some tests, OK?”
“What kind of tests?”
Her friend’s lips tightened. In the silence, Sara could hear the votives sputtering in their holders, threatening to go out. The bitter incense curled in her nostrils as she grabbed Diane’s hand. “What kind?”
“Cervical… cancer. Maybe cancer. Maybe just a bad Pap reading.”
The way she said it, though, this wasn’t the first round of tests. Or even the first doctor. And cervical cancer was nasty even if you caught it early, which Sara was guessing they hadn’t. So much for weight loss.
Diane’s fingers slipped inside the open neck of her flannel shirt, twisting her amulet’s cord. Biting her lip, Sara yanked her friend’s hand away.
“Leave that damn thing alone!”
Diane just stared at her, crying. Sara grabbed the braided cord and tried yanking it over her head, cursing again when that didn’t work. In a burst of fear and rage, she pulled the shirt open—sending buttons flying—and winced as she saw what lay underneath.
Angry streaks of inflammation fanned out from the top of a black camisole. Her amulet nestled between her breasts, as Sara’s had, but it didn’t look much like stone. Its slick oily surface pulsed and rippled with each breath Diane took, bulging like a pustule.
Or a leech gorged on blood.
Diane kept crying as Sara wrapped her hand with tissues and tried to pull the thing off. It finally came away with a sharp wet pop, seeping blood and yellow fluid. The underside bristled with writhing cilia.
She yelped and threw it at the door—then ran to crush it underfoot, frowning when her boot heel met something hard rather than squashy. Gritting her teeth, she ground until she heard a brittle snap.
Diane gasped.
“That’s done it—I hope.” Still using a tissue, Sara gathered the amulet’s pieces and crumpled them into it. “I’d pitch this in the outside garbage if I were you.”
Diane stared down at the wad on the coffee table. “What was that? I mean, it looks OK now, but when you pulled it off…”
“I don’t know.”
But whatever it was, Sesh’tet made it for you. Your so-empowering High Priestess who worships this Ammutseba thing, this ancient darkness even tomb robbers were probably scared of.
One by one, the altar votives began flickering out. Diane looked up to watch them briefly, then buried her head in her hands.
“I’m sorry,” Sara whispered. “I just wish there was something else I could do.”
Diane raised her head to stare at her with bloodshot eyes. “You mean that?”
When Sara nodded reluctantly, she dug a photocopy from under some magazines. It showed a crude map and a few driving directions.
“Our circle’s doing a healing ritual on the night of the 18th,” she said, handing it to her. “Leonids night. Sesh’tet’s going to lead it for all of us who have…problems. It’s a power raising, so the more women who come, the better.”
Sara hesitated. Power raising was common to many traditions—but it wasn’t Egyptian.
“It’s going to be outside, under the stars. The shooting stars.” Diane smiled faintly. “Sesh’tet says they’ll be a strong focus for intention and healing. ‘And the stars are as bread for Her body; even the imperishable stars in the height of the sky are as thousands of bread. For Her restoration she shall swallow up their fires in the night.’”
Tiny hairs rose on the back of Sara’s neck. “Where did you get that?”
“One of the Gate readings. Powerful, isn’t it?” Her smile faded. “Just tell me you’ll come, Sara. Please. For me.”
Next day at work was a slow-motion nightmare, haunted by the images of Lost Aegypt. Even the Rameses II photo she’d once been tempted to buy made her shudder. Its chunks of eroded stone in the Nubian desert now resembled a tomb robber’s leftovers, some dismembered royal victim whose once-imperishable body now fed jackals.
And beyond those robbers rose something even older and more malevol
ent. Something which granted worshippers the gift of moonless, starless darkness. The cult of Ammutseba: a name she’d translated as Devourer of Stars.
Martin Stanley was right. Some lost gods needed to stay lost.
Sara called the metaphysical bookstore during her lunch hour, only to be told Diane was out sick. She knew she ought to check on her on the way home, but she wasn’t nearly ready to face that situation again. Not until she’d read whatever Martin had promised to send her.
The padded envelope with its Next Day stickers was jammed into her apartment’s mailbox. She pried it out with difficulty, then took the stairs up two at a time.
Her answering machine was flashing for attention as she walked in.
“Sara? Sara, if you’re there, please pick up… OK, here’s the deal. I’m still at my sister’s and I’d still like to see you. Could you please call me?”
She was tempted. Dinner with her ex (though he hadn’t offered dinner this time, she noticed) just might be a good idea. A break from this sick morbid mess Diane had gotten her into. All she had to do was call Martin first, let him know his stuff arrived, and then she could take a little time for her life.
With guilty relief, she laid the envelope on her desk and dialed San Francisco.
Somewhere in the static, Martin’s phone rang… and kept ringing. She was about to hang up when a younger male voice answered.
“Could I speak with Dr. Martin Stanley, please?”
For several seconds, the unfamiliar voice—Middle Eastern, and very musical—said nothing.
It was too busy stifling grief.
“I’m sorry,” she finally broke in, feeling awful. “I’ll try back later. I’m a former student of Dr. Stanley’s…”
“Are you Sara? Is this about the package you sent him?”
“Actually, about the one he sent me. But I did send him one, too. Did it arrive?”
Only faint, sick laughter replied.
“I’m sorry?”
“Yes, your little box arrived. This morning it arrived. Martin took it to his study to examine it. When I called him for lunch about one o’clock, he didn’t come out.”