“Precisely, but deeper there is a mystery impossible to untangle.”
The oar’s rhythm filled the following silence as I contemplated what such a mystery might be.
“Your own fate overcame whatever the Fates had in store for you. I’ve spoken of Wyrd before and assume that you’ve met her since, right?” Hesiod said, his head turned back to look at me while his lulling row remained at the same pace.
“Yes. She was an odd one. A Fate belonging to the Lord.”
“Her discordant harp string is the one that must be plucked, not only by her and your Lord, but by you. If you choose such an instrument, people will view you as being weird as Wyrd; but to play such a chord as your own is to embrace and smile with your entire soul at the indifferent nothingness the abyss of time threatens to swallow you with. Instead of running away from the shadowy end, or pretending it isn’t there, you simply surrender to it in such a way that it becomes your own. Therein lies transcendence. Therein lies the freedom of the now, the freedom of the discordant man humming outside of the mortal realm—the man willing to embrace the infinite in the face of his own mortality.”
Hesiod faced forward again and I finally stopped fidgeting with the edge of the boat. I scratched at my beard and leaned over the water, its black color offering no reflection. Our discussion offered me the only reflection of myself I needed. Talking of such concepts reminded me fondly of time spent in my father’s study, going over Plato and Aristotle, always learning and trying to make sense of the world. And here was Hesiod, a man before even those great philosophers, speaking with the force of eternity. I was grateful for his words. I needed them in this strange time of so much unknown. Trying to comprehend existence and meaning had been one of my foremost methods of battling against the tides of mortality when I’d lived. Fitting it was continuing even further now that I was dead.
“I knew that there was something more for me during my life, but I never hoped or pretended it would be. I can recall facing each day as its own forever. In life or death that hasn’t changed,” I said with my hand buried in my beard.
Hesiod nodded his head and looked at his swinging oar. “I look ahead to where I want to row this boat, and thus the wooden craft is guided there. For man it is much the same, only one looks by not looking forward.”
“Riddles, poet?” I did not smile despite the obvious jest. His words were worth much.
“No, no, let me finish. To guide your spirit into the glorious and heroic realms of reality is to look inward at the always-present now, the moment that is instant yet never finished. A repetition of power that must be reenacted again and again—each eternal moment lived until the spirit has flown forward to the course best suited for glory. Like a ship guided by the oar, a man is guided by his will. Only, this will is not directed at a space in front of him, but at a space within and also without. It is pointed through the present past of heroic men who never die and live on through everything the true man does when directed towards glory. But you must row, for to row is to be, and to not row is to cease to exist, meaning: never existing as a being worth being—never becoming the javelin spear that pierces the shroud of time and catches all of eternity on just the tip, in that one moment of glory.”
I pulled at my beard and nodded. “Time decays a will directed at nothingness.”
“Time cannot touch the spirit of substance, the spirit aimed at the glorious now of eternal heroism,” he said.
“So, I was chosen through my own willing?”
“If you need to ask, then why would I answer?”
“But I had to relive my last moments several times over to perfect my will. How was I allowed such a choice, if I were not already chosen by some Fates?”
My return to Constantinople refused to let my mind rest. How had I truly died? I looked up at Hesiod, hoping he could give me some reprieve from such barbed doubt.
“You met Wyrd and we discussed her discordance, yet you still question? Your returning to that moment was the realignment of what already was. You simply did not comprehend because, as you died there on the battlefield, your mind was clouded by the animal instinct of survival. But your spirit acted accordingly. How could it not be as such? For you would never have been able to walk as you do living among the dead—reliving the end of life in an authentic way. Your memory must realign itself with the discordant fate of becoming that sings in a perfect hum when embraced by the purely willed spirit, glory directed eternal.” Hesiod nodded at the horizon and I found myself doing the same.
I leaned back and pondered the nature of it all. I, a Christian soldier of Constantinople, dead along with my people, was here in a foreign mythology. As strange as Tartarus had been, at least I knew of the mythos there, as I’d grown up hearing and reading of it. I was a Roman Greek after all. But the Duat? Pyramids and waterlily gods? Hesiod seemed at home. But then again, he might well have wandered here on his own before I’d ever come to this afterworld. I inhaled the swampy air, hot and heavy with a smoking rot, and I let my eyes drift towards the black river’s murky waters. I stayed there staring silently, no signs of any movement but for the gentle tearing of the water from the slice of Hesiod’s constant strokes. It mesmerized me and I leaned further over.
And then, I saw something break the surface: a ridged, dark spine the same color of the water. It was that mossy, blackish-green that could only belong to one beast. Then another ridge popped up, and then another. I stood to my feet and looked behind, and to the other side. All around our boat, scaled bodies wriggled through the water with yellow eyes glaring at us with terrible hunger. Yet they kept themselves alongside us as if being forced to hold back by some greater will. I didn’t want to know what beast could possess such a will, but Hesiod answered my thought.
“Sobek comes,” he whispered. He kept rowing, but at a slower pace now, careful to avoid touching any of the crocodiles’ gargantuan bodies.
My arms glowed, the serpent bite blue and the wolf brand red. A strange golden block arose from the water, right behind our boat. Attached to the gold was a giant crocodile head, by far the largest of the surrounding beasts. The large head under the golden block came closer to the back of the boat until a strong arm, like that of a man, pulled the strange being aboard. I stumbled backwards and managed to catch myself against Hesiod’s back. The strong and tanned body of a man now stood on our boat. Sobek’s muscular frame matched the size of his reptilian skull. His massive form loomed over us. The boat rocked as his weight nearly capsized us, but the crocodiles gathered together along the sides, pushing it straight and holding us there while continuing to propel us down stream. Hesiod’s oar smacked against the deck as he at last took in the sight of this strange and terrifying being.
Sobek’s body was garbed in a gold embroidered waist-robe. His exposed torso was thick and swollen with heavy rolls of muscle covered in a layer of fat. His golden eyes were flecked with bits of silver, and his black slit pupils remained unblinking as they stared at us. His green-black crocodile head was as long as my body, and his mouth gaped open in a snarling smile. He had sharp fangs piled atop one another that were an unholy white, pure and pristine in a frighteningly impossible manner. Even stranger was the blue headdress he wore which cascaded down his back like hair. On top of the headdress was that strange golden block which towered atop his head. Two green-jeweled serpents were sculpted under the base of the block from inside the blue headdress, and an orange-red disk like the sun was placed in the center of the block.
Hesiod stared in silence. My fingers twitched and I held out my glowing arms. “Sobek,” I said.
He pounded the boat with his strange staff that was forked on the bottom and colored a solid blue. He lifted his other hand in which he carried an ankh—an arched and t-shaped talisman that was the same color as his staff.
Sobek said, “Ra blazes forward, and I follow his path in my sacred waters. What is it you desire here, mortal? How is it that you possess a living body in this realm of death?” His voice was
foul like the gurgling rush of an overflowing sewer.
I held up my arms higher and the solar disk in the center of his headdress lit up in flame, a perfect circle of fire that burned so smooth that it glowed as if made entirely of a glassy ember.
“You bear marks of the solar kind, but do you yet bear the gifts my people once possessed?” he said. His mouth yawned open, a terrible maw of blackness inside, and he snapped his jaws shut with a crack. “I know you, Rangabes. We have awaited your arrival. You have a sacred task, but are you worthy of bearing the flames of the sun? Does Ra truly shine down upon you? Many of us do not believe in your strange path. To live again and leave behind death, you must inherit the full power of the sun, through the great civilizations’ mythic might. This is the only way a mortal such as you can complete such sacred duty that is best left to the gods. To found a new holy land based on the ancient power of the sun, you must be able to join it in its fullness. Here in the Duat, I can add to your strength.”
“And why would you help me?” My arms were still before me and glowing, my fists at the ready like a fighter.
“Help must be earned. Otherwise, debt will be accrued. There is no lending amongst gods. It must be gained with glory, power and honor. There is no honor in taking and expecting more,” he said.
“I didn’t ask for your help. I am here only to move onward towards my goal.”
“Ra has touched me,” he said, placing his hand upon the fiery disk on his head. His skin scalded and smoked, but when he pulled his hand away there were no burns or blisters; if anything, his skin looked somehow purer. “You must be tested by my soldiers upon the shore.”
“A test? Again? Do you see these marks? I am a Hyperborean and I do not need your dull gifts to sharpen my might.” I did not trust this twisted god.
“Sobek-Ra is a lie. He is merely Sobek. He pretends to carry the light of the sun the same way the moon shines false,” Hesiod whispered behind me.
The boat lurched as the crocodiles nudged it ashore with the full weight of their bodies. Sobek stared at us without speaking as we waited. Hesiod’s whispered warning held truth. Sobek was neither Helios nor Hyperion. Their rituals had been built for my blood, while Sobek merely wanted to prove that he was greater than I. There was little to trust in his monstrous appearance, the sun disk on his head be damned. The crocodile god appeared more and more beast-like as his silent waiting devolved into a snarl. His jaws snapped open and shut, chomping the air as if it were his prey. His swarm of crocodiles, numbering twelve in total, slinked onto the shore as our boat propped up onto an empty plane of land. Sobek lumbered after them, dragging our boat further ashore with his arms and not looking back.
Hesiod grimaced as our boat was dropped with a bang. He grabbed my shoulder just as I was about to step off. “Rangabes, we do not need this monster’s approval. He merely wants to claim the feat of besting the sun's champion. He is not truly Ra’s chosen. Sobek has always been a god of chaotic in-betweens. There is no guessing the depth of his murky waters—we cannot see what lies in such a sordid spirit as his.”
I took his hand off my shoulder and stepped onto land. “If he seeks to challenge my honor and worth then I will best him. He will not leave us alone; he must be dealt with. Sobek does not belong amongst the solar beings.”
“Do you back away from this challenge, mortal?” Sobek growled.
He stood on the wide and desolate sandy shore with his crocodile soldiers beside him. The land here was wide, rocky and white. Patches of dying reeds slumped alongside the banks of the river. One of the lantern-like turquoise trees shined off to the right, casting the landscape in a cold, bluish haze.
“You’re not my kin. You’re an abomination,” I said. Ready to leap at the slightest sign of aggression, I moved forward. “Stay aboard the boat, Hesiod. This is my honor at stake.” The poet didn’t respond but I knew he understood. I could best this foul beast of a god, this faux solar beast. A crocodile slinks in the shadows of his murky domain. Light only exposes his filthy form.
Sobek’s twelve crocodiles flanked him on each side with six to his left and six to his right, angled like an arrowhead with Sobek as the sharp point. He roared and his gold tower headdress darkened, shimmering in a rainbow of colors like oil on the surface of clear water, and then it went black. The solar disk burned red in the black and then went dark, snuffed out in a strange puff of black smoke, turning the disk gray. A fitting symbol—a dull beacon like that of the full moon on an overcast and gloomy eve.
His body rippled and bubbled, and his tanned skin thickened into a sickly gray. His flesh shook and black-green scales like that of his crocodile head pushed to the surface, covering his human half. Now he was his true nature, a crocodile beast standing on two legs like a man. A long, scaled tail sprouted out from his backside like a creeping vine. Silver spikes bristled out from his black scaled tail as it snaked out behind him. The serpents on his headdress glowed green and wriggled to life, extending all the way to his shoulder.
His crocodiles underwent similar monstrous transformations. Their bodies all rippled like jellyfish, and their forms stretched upwards until they stood like their leader. Over their reptilian bodies was spiked, green-scaled armor that had ivory thorns sprouting out as if grown from a bony bush. They donned and clothed themselves with the dead flesh of their kin. The ignominy of such wicked redundancy!
“I will use nothing but these fists!” I yelled, letting the glow of my arms subside. My body as it always was would win this fight. My chance at Herculean honor. “Like Hercules, I wear nothing but my own flesh. Weaponless and honor-bound, I challenge you.”
Sobek lumbered forward as he stretched out his clawed hand and motioned for his soldiers to hold formation and stay back.
“I have my ankh. I have my staff. I have my soldiers. I have my divinity. What can you hope to accomplish by deliberately weakening yourself?” he said, unimpressed and unwilling to part with his added strength.
“I earned my marks,” I said, holding my tanned forearms up without any spark of light. “Yet as a man alone, I want to best you. My Hyperborean might is earned, but it is also by birth. My pure spirit willed in perfection. My Hyperborean spirit is enough.”
I paced in a slow and loping gait—the wolf waiting for its prey to panic. Sobek held up his staff and ankh as if in offering to the dark sky. Both of the strange artifacts were bathed in black energy like an electrified shadow. The shining black shadow gathered together in his two weapons and bloomed out in a patient pulse. The spreading shadow of shimmering black suddenly lasered forward in a sharp rush at me. I dove out of the blast’s path but a crackling whip shot free from the shadow beam and clipped my left shoulder, my flesh turning black and rotting where I'd been struck. The burn and decay were instant and my surroundings wavered. I clung to consciousness and pushed the taint from out of my mind while the burning and stench remained.
As Sobek growled some sort of spell in a strange language, and the same black shadows once more shrouded his weapons, I sprinted directly at him. He roared as he shot his beams of dark light at my direct approach, but I sidestepped the first while ducking the second. I leapt at Sobek and struck down with two hammerfists right at his underbelly. Its soft tan color and lack of scales were surprising, considering he might have been just as unprotected there had he kept his human form. As my fists landed, thudding against the taut skin, the crocodile god let out a deflated hiss. I followed my attack with a quick succession of jabs to his gut.
Sobek snapped his mouth at me and I spun away from the bite, jumping backwards. Enraged, he threw his weapons to the ground and stormed forward with his claws tearing at the air. He’d taken the bait and I quickly rolled twice until I was behind him. His nasty, needle-covered tail swept and swung at me, clipping my shin but only just as I sprung onto his back. I pulled myself upwards as if he were a wall to climb. Blood from my ankle painted his black scales red, and his arms stretched desperately back but were unable to reach me. He thrashed w
ildly, but I hung there like stubborn fruit clinging to a tree through a storm.
Scrambling all the way up to his head, I reached around his bulky headdress and pressed my thumbs into his eyes before he could close them. I pressed harder as he bellowed and I dug my fingers in and dislodged what remained of both eyeballs. His snakes snapped at me, biting into my wrists, but I would not release my hold. Whatever poison they spewed was no different than the darkness already rotting my shoulder. I’d win this first, then worry about any after effects.
As his eyes tumbled out, his pained screams crumbled into whimpers. Seeing their master rendered so, the crocodiles surged forward. They desperately reached upwards while I clung to my perch atop Sobek’s head. I pulled off the serpents latched onto my wrist and grabbed his black pillar, pulling backwards with all my strength and throwing my weight off his body as I held on. The black pillar came toppling down and I fell to the ground along with it. My palms were stained black where I had touched the thing, but at least it hadn’t hurt and it had humiliated the monster god even more. The serpents hissed down at me from under his blue headdress, their eyes burning an even brighter pale green.
He thrashed out in a tornado of black, his tail and arms swinging everywhere as he bit at the air, all while I backed away, dipping and ducking the crocodile soldiers’ blows. Sobek’s insane attacks were inadvertently bludgeoning and slicing his own soldiers. Three of them were felled by their master in mere moments.
Their armor covered their vulnerable underbellies, forcing me to stay on the defensive. I tried to draw them into the flurry of Sobek’s despair as he continued his mad lashing out. I ducked the unpredictable swings and bent back just as two crocodiles lunged forward and stumbled into death by their own crippled god’s scythe-like fingers.
“Hand me my staff and ankh!” Sobek cried.
They raced over to grab them and hand them back to the finally sobered Sobek. Two of the crocodiles closed in on me, and I swung my bruised fist at the nearest one’s snout while kicking the other with enough force to knock it backwards onto the ground. They backed up and joined the remaining soldiers standing by Sobek.
Cerberus Slept Page 6
