55: How Long Was I Awake?

            As the wild storm winds diminished and the incredible lightning show between the two Gods who were now one diminished, the sun had been steadily setting and now Nuit’s skirt covered the sky completely.   A five year old, blue-skinned boy took the hand of the three year old girl wearing the double crown.  “Come on.  We need to let the Temple recover from our visit.”

            “But Amun-Re,” she said.  “My mama wasn’t going to go to war, for reals.  She was threatening that Greek Queen who was said to be eating her son’s heart… and that Roman Empress who poisoned the pears on the trees for her husband.  Both of them were threatening Egypt.  And the Bull’s Heart on Kreyen… she was watching for when the Golden Boy was going to attack…”

            “Yes… yes.  The priest had things wrong.  He closed the borders to try and make a peace where nothing would grow.”

            They walked down the steps toward where Naida sat, on the stone, with Kurama on her lap, Asteri at her back.

            “Lady of Flame,” Re said as the two children came level with Wadjet.  “If I might ask You to leave your avatar for now?  We must ask one of the other lamia to visit if they are willing to host you.”

            The gigantic cobra reared up and smiled, showing her long, pointed fangs.  “She was an excellent avatar, my brother.  I was wonderfully pleased to be allowed access to her voice.  I approve of the lamias.”

            It was as if two snakes spiraled out of a single body, one black and green, one green and blue.  “Sister,” Wadjet said.  “I gift you with right of passage in Our lands.  Our thanks for the use of your body and your power.” Her tongue flashed out and Sybaris’s ruby tiara flared up like fire for an instant as she licked it.

            Sybaris bowed and Naida could see that more of her black scales had become emeralds.  “You are most gracious, Protector of the Royal House.” She turned and Naida noticed that Bodhi’s lotus was gone.  He stood on his own two feet and had a staff to lean on, and his orange clothes looked a bit more worn than they had at first.  Naida stood up, slowly, and bowed to Wadjet.

            “Child,” Sybaris said.  “Do you realize that you have been awake since you found the Re in the desert?  You need to sleep.”

            Naida swayed where she stood and Kurama leaned against her knees to help her stand up.  “Kurama!  Stop that, this instant!” Sybaris’s face was down against the fox’s nose.  “You’ve been bolstering her staying awake.  She needs to sleep and to eat and to drink.  You don’t push humans like that!”

            “You don’t?” Kurama sat down and Naida sank onto her heels as a wave of energy flowed out of her.  She blinked and yawned and tried to keep track of what Syb was saying but couldn’t manage it.

           “Syb… did you know that the desert waves are like ocean waves?” she said.  “They wave up… and down… and up… and down…” her hands fluttered up and down as she drew what she saw on the air.

           “Into the lamp.  Right now!”  Syb snapped.  “And you! Asteri, how could you just let Kurama pour all that energy into her without a by-your-leave!”

            “I didn’t think… I mean I didn’t know… I mean…”

           “You might take a bit more time to mature, Chimera!”

           “You’re right,” he said but still sounded huffy.  “I messed up.”

           Naida saw the pillows and the silk brocade walls of Syb’s lamp in front of her and her hands hit the stone and she crawled forward.  Her head was so heavy and she wanted to lie down and sleep so badly. Her right hand passed through the opening and she was pulled in to curl up on the sweet-smelling cushions, that whiffed of sandalwood and cinnamon and other exotic spices.  “G’night Syb. I’m gonna sleep now… How long was I awake?  There’s a little yellow man in red sandals running in the sky you know.”

           “That’s the aurora from the Goddess Belt,” Syb said.  “You were awake for three whole days and nights.”  Naida shook her head and sank into Syb’s nest of pillows. 

           “No wonder I’m tired,” she said.

           “We’ll see you safe to the Egyptian borders lovey,” Sybaris said.  “Amun-Re owes you and I’ll make sure He remembers that.” She waved at Kurama.  “Get in there with her, you.  And no more messing with her energy until she gives you leave!  She needs to recover from this little adventure!”

           Kurama slunk into the lamp, all three tails tucked under.  “I was doing my best.”

           “As we all were.  Shut up, fox,” Asteri said.  “You didn’t know.”

           As Naida let her leaden eyes fall closed in the nest of cushions she smiled because Bodhi was sitting on the stone, offering everyone tea.

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Tomorrow (really later today) is Canada Day and I will not be posting!  Have fun guys!

54: First Priest of The Eater of Bones

           Standing before the Shining God, two small human figures stood.  The little girl in the double crown raised her chin and spread her hands, one with the crook and one with the flail.  “You are the Re,” she said.  “But You are the Amun as well.”

            “You see clearly child.”  Amun-Re bent his head and placed one finger on her forehead.  “With Me you shall be safe.  Safer than your mother.  I am sorry.”

            “She trusted You,” the little girl said.  And the God flinched.

            Naida caught her breath.  How on earth could a God flinch?  “I’m sorry,” He/They said.  “My priest here just didn’t care about earthly things like love. Empathy. Mothers and children. Even species survival.” His burning eyes turned to the man with the staff.  “You were one of My voices on earth.  Well?”

            The wind flowing from the God buffeted the man this way and that, plastering his robes against his body.  “I sacrificed humans to the idea of ultimate power, yes.”

            “And yet you have enough feeling that your blood circle loves you.”  The God’s sharp hooked beak turned sideways as he stared at the priest first with one eye, then the other.

            “You KILLED my mother because she wouldn’t obey you!” The little pharaoh shrilled.  “And you KILLED one of Bast’s lives!  You nearly killed Re’s boy avatar and you led to Amun’s avatar being taken up.  That’s NOT being a good priest.”

            He turned to the pharaoh and bowed, exactly correctly.  “Many, many more people would have died if your mother had continued in her course of war.”

            “She was defending Egypt!”

            “She was expanding an Empire.”

            “Enough,” Amun-Re said, quietly and both humans bowed to Him.  “Royal House, you have accused.  Please go sit with Bast and Wadjet as your protectors and advocates, while I speak to this priest.”

            She bowed even deeper and ran to sit in Wadjet’s coils.  Naida was suddenly jealous because she hadn’t been able to cuddle with Syb like that for a very long time.  Kurama licked in her ear and Asteri rumbled a purr at her.  Bodhi bobbed in his lotus, watching.

            “Priest… you have forgotten that most of My worshipers are concerned with one life.”

            “I am abjectly sorry, oh God.  That is my fault.”

            The Horus eyes of the God grew even more fiery gold.  “Your humility is a form of pride, oh priest.” Nieth-Amun drew breath as if he would dare and interrupt but the God raised one talon-tipped finger to silence him.

            

            “LET ME PLAY WITH HIM!” Bast snarled and sank to all fours.

           

            “That would not be just, oh Bast,” Amun-Re said.  “Oh priest. You would have power and truth?”

            “That would be my highest blessing, oh God.”

  

          “Excellent.  Then I bless you.”  He turned and shrieked a word into the sky and a surge of mud rose out of the Nile and rolled into the Temple.

  

          “Oh, Gods,” Asteri said, and sat down, wings clamped tight to his back, tail coiled hard around his paws and hooves.  “He’s called Amit.”

  

          “Who is Amit?” Naid asked.

  

          “The Devourer,” Asteri said.  “She can eat ANYTHING. Crusher of Bones.”

  

          “Even sin and evil,” Bodhi said quietly.  “There is nothing in creation that cannot be remade in Amat’s gut.”

  

          “Oh.” Naida put her hand over her mouth.

  

          The Goddess that heaved up out of the mud was awe inspiring and terrifying. She had the head of a crocodile, the hind quarters of a hippo, the torso of a cat.  Bast howled and Amit roared back, like a lion.

  

          “You who would be Highest of High priests, so you shall be!” Amun-Re proclaimed.  “You shall be the First Priest Attendant of Amit, She of the crocodile head and hippo gut.  She who cleanses all.  She who passes all.”  Everyone was looking around, confused, until Amun-Re waved his hand and the High Priest’s staff became a shovel.  An electrum shovel but still, a shovel.

  

          “I will not see you again, until you have learned true humility at Amit’s backside,” Amun-Re said, and Amit seized Nieth-Amun in her long jaws, complete with his excrement shovel, and they vanished in a blaze of yellow fire.

  

          “I give him a thousand years before he learns,” Bast said smugly.  “Fifteen hundred years, tops.”

53: She's MY Hooman!

            “Bodhi?” Naida didn’t try to squirm out from under Bast’s paw, but put up a hand to keep her hair from being pulled out of its fancy dressing.  “Bast?”

            “Yes, dear,” They said almost as one.

            “Where did the other little boy go?  The other avatar?  He was the avatar of Amun and Re’s avatar is the only one left.” Bast looked at Naida and sat up, washing the paw She’d just used to pin Naida down, claws spread.

            “No, Bast,” Bodhi said with just the tiniest bit of disapproval in his voice.  “You’re making me connect to this world again.  Enlightenment isn’t exactly detachment, or disavowing the world you came from.  Enlightenment is compassion.”

            Bast shrugged and Kurama dared a tiny little growl at Her. “I think Re took him up.  He’ll be reborn, probably.” She stretched.  “If he wants to.”

            “That’s good?” Naida was, if anything, more confused.  Avatars and Gods… and Spirits and the one avatar vanishing.  It didn’t seem that it was a good thing to be chosen as an Avatar of the Gods.  “Is Sybaris all right, being avatar to Wadjet?”

            Kurama barked and jumped.  “I know the answer to THAT!”  She circled around in a blur of white fur and ears and tails before settling back into Naida’s lap.  “She’s FINE.  She gave Wadjet her voice and the Lady of Flame will remember that.”  She sat up.  “Oooh look! Re sent Horus to fetch the Pharaoh and the High Priest!”

            The blue tinted wings were visible even against the blue sky, almost transparent. The sun had almost touched the horizon by now and the Falcon raced the edge of Nuit’s robe, rising up from the east, the first few stars showing since the moon wouldn’t be up until much later, the Belt struck with red fire against the expanding dark.

            Naida could just barely see a tiny figure crouched low on the Falcon’s neck, while another curled in massive claws.  Naida was suddenly terrified, shaking, weeping.  The sound of wings and she could almost feel talons all around her.  Asteri scooped her out of Bodhi’s lotus with his snake’s tail, Kurama snapping and clinging to come with, hanging from her jaws.

            “It’s all right, kitten,” all three of Asteri’s heads focused on her, Ram in the middle, massive horns curling over the other two, blending with the Lion’s mane on one side, the Serpent head that she hadn’t met yet a sea-serpent turquoise with fins and gills and bright, bright red eyes with gold pupils.  “You’re safe.” Asteri’s voice was now resonant, three tones that locked together like golden rings.  “We are your mother’s beloved monster and no winged thing will hurt you.”  His wings flapped and covered up the whole sky so Naida didn’t see Horus landing, then vanishing.  She buried her sobs in Asteri’s silky goat chest.

            “I… didn’t think I remembered anything.  I was just a baby.”

            “Hey.  Fang Face! You’re not the only one here to protect her.  She’s MY hooman!” Kurama actually danced on one paw, on the top of Naida’s head so she could look into Asteri’s eyes.  Naida hardly felt her there at all, like a feather on top of her head. “WE will keep her safe!”

            “Indeed, little one,” Asteri rumbled solemnly, as if he had not been having adolescent monster fits just weeks ago.

            Naida grabbed hold of Asteri’s fur and pushed away.   

“Let me see what’s happening!”

            The glory that was Amun-Re shone so bright that Naida squinted through her fingers to see a tiny little girl with the two crowns on her head, hands empty, and an older man who stood tall before bowing his shaven head before the God, sun-disk staff still clutched in one hand.

Chapter 52: Reconciled

            The two gods were perfectly in sync even as their hand claps grew ever faster and lightning began arcing between their hands.  The sound of it was a continuous roar that even pushed Wadjet and Bodhi back.

           

            The sky immediately over them had gone black and the Goddess’s Belt shone clear and hard edged as a sword blade against the stars. The pressure of wind and sun spinning against one another grew and grew, gradually expanding until even Wadjet couldn’t hold against the stone and was blown backwards, rolling, with Bast dug into the rock with all claws, eyes slitted, all her finery blown to shreds, her tail lashing and fluffed into a club. The lotus actually rocked and Asteri, wings folded tight, reached out with a serpent’s tail and with Wadjet wrapped it and held it down.

            Wadjet’s hood was spread wide to intervene between the boy gods and their hapless followers. “Bodhi… did Asteri just grow a serpent’s tail?”

            “Yes, he did.  He’s almost grown again.”

            “Really?”  Naida buried her face in Kurama’s fur. “His goat head and his lion head are arguing… a snake will just make things worse.”

            “No, no. It will be fine,” Bodhi said.  “Look… the boys have almost finished.”

            Her heart was pounding and Naida squinted into the crackling, roaring funnel into the sky, and only saw one figure, dancing. Re’s face, Amun’s face, Re’s face flickering, gold, blue, gold, blue. “playmate, enemy, frenemy, playmate, friend, enemy, playmate…”

            Bast, in her leopard form, circled around the edge of the conflagration, stroking up against it, bunting her head into it like a house cat greeting people. Her golden fur stood up in electrical spikes and every time she purred and stropped the Gods’ fire it eased a little, it calmed a little.  She drew off the wildest sky fires and drained the energy into the stone under all four paws.

Wadjet reared up, hood spread, but her green scales washed darker and Sybaris’s magical voice soared up to the sky, spreading like ungent over a wound. She sang of peace, and an end to rage. She sang of glorious sunsets with the wind tossing palm leaves across it, clacking. She sang of the cooling wind out of the night desert riffling over the Nile in the dark when Re rested in his boat, rocking as though in His mother’s arms.

            Naida found herself crooning with her, Kurama sitting up pretty on the edge of Bohdi’s lotus, her white fur reflecting blue, her voice high and wild, answered by Anubis out in the sand somewhere.

            Finally, finally the fires and the lightning around the Gods subsided and there was only one figure there.  One avatar.  A terrified silence held the Temple in its fist as everyone waited to hear the pronouncement of God. He diminished from twice manheight to a short little boy, still under scalp-lock.  He shimmered all over his skin, golden but shone blue as the edge of a white-hot fire. His face was solemn but his eyes glinted as if from the excitement of play and a slow smile spread across his face. The stone at His feet healed itself, and the green palms and gardens that had been damaged grew as if under a gentle sun.  The fountains flowed clean and clear. “We are now reconciled. We are Amun-Re. And we will speak to Our High Priest.”

            Bodhi smiled as Naida buried her face in Kurama’s fur, fingers buried in her ruff.  Kurama snuffled in her ear and made her yip and sit up when her cold nose and licking tongue tickled her there.  “Hey!”

            Bast bounded up into the lotus and flopped down across Bodhi’s lap, demanding to be petted, still crackling from every hair of her pelt.  “All better.  I want to chase that meddling Priest all the way to the First cataract and play ‘dead mousie’.”

            Bodhi petted her fur flat, sparks flying up into the blue sky, barely visible.  “You’re such a cat.”

            “Aren’t I though?” She started purring and flattened Naida under one velvet paw, though gently, and started washing her as though she were a kitten with a dirty head.