The Ways of Eternity

by D.A. Dean

Chapter 4: To Save Them

  Carefully, keeping one leg touching Teo, Horus edged himself up, quickly rolled his mat, and wedged it against Teo's back. Satisfied, he nodded. The mat's placement should ensure Teo didn't wake, at least for a while, affording Horus time. Stealthily, he crept from the clearing.

  Why was he employing subterfuge, slipping away from those he loved? Horus tilted his head, considering. He knew only he must be alone.

  The prickling sensation spreading along his skin and through his insides increased.

  Perhaps he would find relief in the marsh. He stole into the reeds, glad of the water's coolness against his feet and ankles.

  Somehow, he had to discover the way to fulfill his vow, had to find the means of protecting Nalia and Teo. He couldn't do that in his present physical state. Could Isis aid him, help him find the solution he needed? No, based on Nalia's and Teo's response to his assertion, even Isis didn't hold knowledge of how to make mortals immortal.

  Suddenly, he recalled his mother's whispering to Nalia, when he was two, her intent to consult with Ra. Maybe Ra possessed the wisdom and power to guide him.

  Lifting his hands to the horizon, imagining the dawn, he called, "Help me, Grandfather. Help me find a way." He scanned the horizon then the sky. There was no answering flash of light, no alteration in the stars' twinkling. He sighed hard. What had he expected, for Ra to speed the dawn?

  It was possible Ra, so far away, hadn't heard. Horus shook his head. Even if Ra had heard, would he give aid? Or would he find fault with Horus' desire to change the natural order? The division between the mortal and the immortal might be a result of Ra's edicts. Could Horus dare defy him? He lowered his fists from his hips. He'd make Ra understand.

  The island seemed to tip, the muddy ground he stood on to spin. He skittered back onto a low rise of rivulet-traced, sodden earth. Shakily, he lowered to his knees.

  Teo's voice rang out, "Horus!"

  Teo was tracking him. On instinct, Horus pictured himself re-entering the marsh and moving through its undergrowth in the opposite direction from the path he'd taken, creating in his mind the shoots, pools of water, seeing himself covering and hiding, feeling himself there, building his focus.

  Teo moved off, following Horus' imagined path.

  Horus dropped the images from his mind, seeing again the reeds in front of his face. Cautiously, aware of each sound around him, he stood. Why had he fooled Teo? They weren't training. A part of Horus ached with remorse, but another part, a primal, unknown flicker of himself, lifted to rejoice and submerged. How odd, he noted dully, suddenly exhausted.

  The prickling of his skin built in intensity to an itchy burning. His muscles twitched. He convulsed. Arms and legs flailing, he fell face first to the mucky earth. Mud seeped between his clenched jaws, and he choked.

  As abruptly as it had begun, the convulsion ended. Horus tried to push the mud from his mouth, but his tongue wouldn't move. Alarm building, he attempted to lift himself. His muscles gave no response. "Nnn," he murmured, fear rising. He attempted to move his fingers, but his body had shifted from one extreme to the other. He was paralyzed.

  Horus' senses sharpened, the wind through the reeds a gale, the rush and retreat of the sea claps of thunder. The frogs' croaking, the insects' buzzing vibrated through him, growing louder, threatening to silence all else.

  The fecund and metallic taste of the mud overwhelmed his sense of smell, its bite overlaying the musky-sweet scent of reeds, the sharp saltiness of the sea.

  The black of the marsh's water became like gleaming stone, catching in its reflection the stars, moon, swaying brown-tipped green reeds, the white flash of an ibis soaring past, the swarming of tiny winged insects.

  All around him began to waver.

  Wildly, Horus scanned, searching for an object to fix his focus on. There was only grey. He strained, willing his arms and legs to obey his commands. They would not. His faint perception of light and shadow faded.

  All around him was formless, colorless, devoid of light, devoid even of darkness.

  He was blind.

  His remaining senses lit on fire, the soft sounds of the water's gentle eddying becoming the sharp beating of a torrential rain, the cool mud enveloping the front of his body transitioning to molten quicksand. He clenched his teeth, struggling to keep from crying out. "Mother, what's happening? Oh, Mother, it hurts."

  His nostrils, throat, and chest burned, the air becoming pungent flame. His body screamed with the searing pain filling him, as though his skin was being peeled from his body. His eardrums throbbed, threatening to burst from the forceful pounding of his heartbeat within them. His swollen tongue, retaining the taste of mud, its layer of metallic increasing, issued warning. It wasn't only earth he tasted. It was blood.

  "Mother, what's happening? I'm frightened. Please, answer me, speak to me."

  The pungent smell disappeared. No scent took its place.

  Horus exhaled hard, his heart skipping. The tastes of mud and blood were gone, as well.

  His body's burning lessened and ceased. He no longer felt the ground beneath him.

  He strained his ears. There was a breeze. Why couldn't he feel it? The sounds around him blended to a humming, changed to a ringing, and were gone.

  Sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste...only consciousness remained.

  Was this what it was for Osiris? Not living but existing?

  Now wasn't the time to wonder. Horus was in the middle of the marsh, surrounded by dangers, unable to move, unable to sense. If he didn't find a way through this, whatever this was, he was dead.

  Struggling to heed Nalia's lesson about focus requiring calm, he forced his attention to his breathing, his heartbeat, slowly stilling them, turning deeper inward.

  Blackness transitioned to golden, swirling mist.

  The vision began. Upon a verdant precipice stood a falcon-headed man, wearing a headdress of blue and gold, topped with a circlet of gold holding a rearing gold snake. Pain and sorrow in his eyes of sun and moon, he stared at what he'd won, the crown of red and white, laying at his feet. Body and being scarred by the tragedies he'd endured, he hoisted across his chest a crook and flail. Wrestling memory, he gazed into the twilit sky. Finally, he turned. He had a duty. He wouldn't abandon those he'd promised to serve.

  The falcon-man closed his eyes, concentrating. Colored lights zipped past him. The soft grass beneath his feet became cold marble. With sharp resignation, he opened again his eyes and lifted his chin. Burden great, shoulders aching but unbowed, he entered the room, filled with golden light, awaiting him.

  Upon a gold dais stood a gold throne, where sat a hawk-headed man, a robe of malachite across his shoulders, a collar of malachite and gold around his neck, a disk of sun above his head. His intense stare fixed to the falcon-man, he slowly rose. Regally, he stepped forward. "You've come." He slipped his hand beneath his collar and withdrew a necklace holding a symbol fashioned in gold.

  Anguished by the intimation, the falcon-man took a step back then stilled. He hadn't wanted this. And yet, he understood now, the symbol and its onus had always been his. "Yes." He allowed the necklace to be fastened around his throat. The symbol disappeared into his chest. From the necklace, tight around his neck, spread a collar of lapis lazuli and gold. The concealment was complete.

  The hawk-man spread his arms, sending his energy to encircle the falcon-man, the servant.

  Blue and green glowed in the gold, the falcon-man's essence merging with the hawk-man's. If only the falcon-man could remain here, hidden within the other's power.

  But that wasn't his destiny. He'd hold to his promise.

  The two beings separated. Above each was a disk of sun encircled by a rearing snake.

  Trembling, the hawk-man bowed and stepped aside, gesturing to the throne.

  Within the room appeared a ram-headed man, wearing a double-plumed crown, his arms and chest golden, h
is abdomen ochre, his legs black, his feet white. His eyes, hidden, were eternity and truth. With him, floated a double-plumed, twined staff of brilliant white light.

  Head bowed, the falcon-man knelt.

  The ram-man gazed at the staff.

  "Please. It's too much to bear," the falcon-man answered. Then he remembered. It was his destiny to wield the staff, his own creation. The staff slid into his hands. Straining against its weight, he wept.

  Golden mist filled the room. It faded to black, Horus' vision ending.