24 Bones

by Stewart, Michael F.

  CNN’s headlines flickered on the wall-mounted television, Return of a God? and Cracks in Aswan Dam Threaten Millions.

  His mobile rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Something is wrong, Mr. Chin. The diviners … they’re dying.”

  Ancient Egyptian God Returns scrolled across the muted screen.

  “Let us pray for Pharaoh and his great works.” Father John Harrelson intoned from his velvet-upholstered chair. “Let us turn our minds to Egypt, to Cairo, and pray that our Lord gives Pharaoh strength in his time of need.” Beside Father Harrelson, Ashley Starr, three sheets to the wind, looked earnest and then broke into his dazzling smile.

  “Alleluia, praise the Lord.”

  Chapter Forty-three

  Pharaoh moved to the Great Pyramid’s entry. A wire mesh gate blocked the passage. Osiris’s heart pulsed, and the gate shrieked and crumpled like tinfoil. A low stone tunnel led into the Grand Gallery where the walls were pressed beneath six million tons of rock and sand.

  “The southern ones, those who are upon earth, belong to this pharaoh. He comes indeed, this pharaoh, weary of the nine, an imperishable spirit.” He passed the ladder that descended to the pyramid’s subterranean cavity and climbed above the tunnel that led to the Queen’s Chamber. This night lay with the heavens, and the majesty of the gallery rose before him.

  “The northern ones, those who are upon earth, belong to this pharaoh. Those who are in the lower sky belong to this pharaoh.” Massive blocks of pink granite vaulted in seven courses, each closer to the next. “He comes indeed, this pharaoh, weary of the nine, an imperishable spirit.” He climbed.

  As the sloped stairs rose, the courses of stone pinched the gallery and narrowed to a point high above. Cerulean energy wormed over Pharaoh and arced in and out of his flesh.

  Void and Fullness—both powers could be drawn or relinquished through the fiery faucet of the Osiris, but only Void remained.

  Seth entered the lowest course of the gallery.

  Pharaoh glanced down at the bright-coal eyes and then strode past the tri-portcullis and into the King’s Chamber.

  Fifty-ton blocks of granite formed the walls of the hall and eighty-ton slabs its roof. The room’s only decorations were two holes in the northern and southern sidewalls and a rose-colored sarcophagus.

  At the first hole in the sidewall, a hole considered a ventilation shaft by Egyptologists, Pharaoh jammed the diamond prism. With a single pulse of the spine’s heart, he blasted a path to the heavens. He stepped across the floor and opened the second shaft.

  “The double doors of heaven are open for thee. The double doors of the stars are open for thee,” he recited. The twin veins connected the chamber to the stars. Their cold light shed for him.

  Pharaoh stood over the sarcophagus and plucked a glob of gum from its side. Flicking it, he clambered in and lay down. He extracted the cup of the Eucharist from his robe and dribbled water inside from a waterskin. He placed the cup at his feet.

  “Homage to thee, Osiris, lord of eternity, whose names are manifold, thou being of hidden form in the temples, whose Ka is holy. Thou art the substance of two lands …”

  Outside the pyramid, the cameraman recorded the sonic booms and the blast of masonry that erupted from the pyramid’s sides. The thunder of a thousand tons of falling stone only briefly covered the sisters’ and companions’ cries of pain as hounds and crocodiles pulled apart the army of brown-robed men and black-robed women.

  He recorded it all. Through his microphone and lens and via the satellite antenna, which rose like a periscope above his media truck where he kneeled, the world listened and watched.

  Beside him, the reporter prattled: “In other news, cracks have formed in the Aswan Dam and authorities have ordered a complete evacuation of the city of Aswan and surrounding area.” Her hair was matted and her mascara smudged, but she continued the live feed; klaxons and gunfire punctuated the newscast. For the first time in five hundred years, the voice of a god ushered forth from the Temple of the Phoenix.

  The pyramid began to hum.

  “The stars in the celestial heights are obedient unto thee, Osiris, and the great doors of the sky open themselves before thee, Osiris,” Pharaoh spoke in a bass. The words blended in the resonant chamber to repeat: Osiris, Osiris, Osiris.

  The vibrations filled the room and rose through the five hidden chambers above, each augmenting and echoing the sound to send it back into the chamber. The sound waves clashed, pushed through the shafts, and launched to the heavens. Outside the pyramid, the Shemsu Seth took up the call. Soldiers and dwarfs paused in their carnage and exulted in their leader’s reincarnation.

  Inside the coffin the decibels collided and lifted Pharaoh. On a bed of sound, he floated at the level of the sarcophagus’s lip. The staff above him shone like a struck flare; its phosphorescence cast Seth’s face into a repulsive mask of shadow.

  “It is I, Osiris. I am the Benu bird, which is in Anu. I am the keeper of the Tablet of Destiny, of the things which have been made and of the things which shall be made,” Pharaoh affirmed.

  Sam cowered from the pain in her chest and hunched in darkness. Something pushed at her neck, furry and wet. And then, teeth clamped around her throat. She swatted at it, but her fists fell on a fuzzy muzzle. Fangs bit, but not deeply, and then tugged and pulled. Still she fought for sanctuary within herself, unwilling to open her eye. She bathed in Void.

  A low growl reverberated and her eyelid flew open. Faris’s fur shimmered blue, his great mane a loop of fire, and his eyes radiated like a witch’s crystal ball. Sam stiffened at the sight of him. One tip of her spear had embedded in the Valley Temple floor; the other wedged into a massive block that threatened to crush her. She slipped her legs out of the path of its trajectory and rubbed her chest.

  “Askari.” She remembered.

  From outside the shattered remains of the Valley Temple came strangled cries. Sirens sawed the night. Using the Void, she shifted the stone block and wrenched her lance free.

  “Faris, I need to find Zarab.”

  Faris crouched, eyes glazed with Void. Then he pounced.

  Sam twisted, but the lion was too fast, and his jaws caught the back of her neck and hoisted her. She waited for her neck to snap, but instead she hovered in the air, carried like a kitten by its mother. Across the Giza plateau, the lion loped.

  Many sisters had been torn to pieces. Those that lived lay on their sides, eyes open and shining with Void.

  Faris dropped Sam at the tomb’s entry where she had left Zarab.

  She walked stiffly down the steps, spear before her. Zarab glanced around the tomb’s arch, and she waved him forward.

  Seth’s vision narrowed to a slit-eyed glare and he licked his lips as Pharaoh floated above the sarcophagus. The Spine of Osiris sank into Pharaoh’s chest slowly and without movement from Pharaoh or cries of pain. Seth’s robes trembled with the hum of the room and the earth shook.

  The crocodiles and hounds were unleashed upon Cairo’s streets. Sobek had joined the fray. The tips of its talons disemboweled sisters, and the snap of its jaw split Shemsu Hor in half. Water slopped over the rim of the Aswan dam. Lake Nasser frothed with a god’s fury. And Seth smiled.

  “I have knit together my bones. I have made myself whole and sound. I have become young once more. I am Osiris, the lord of eternity.”

  Pharaoh’s words snuffed out Seth’s grin.

  His lips twisted in a snarl as the spine’s heart neared Pharaoh’s ribs. The transformation neared completion. Pharaoh’s chant buzzed in Seth’s head. The diamond tip stabbed through Pharaoh’s back in a stream of blood. Pharaoh didn’t flinch or convulse with the mortal wound.

  Seth stared at the sarcophagus, perhaps the same tomb in which Seth had originally trapped Osiris. He considered wha
t power could replicate a myth six thousand years later. The Heart’s throbbing light vanished. The drone rose to a maddening pitch like the wings of a hundred thousand scarabs. Only Seth’s eyes illuminated the chamber.

  Osiris’s heart throbbed in place of Pharaoh’s dying one.

  Seth tucked his chin to his chest at the glow that began to light Pharaoh from within. Arms stretched out. He made his choice. “I would be the Osiris,” he cried. “The throne is mine!”

  Seth grabbed the staff and hauled.

  Pharaoh’s eyes flared open. One gleamed as the moon, the other as the sun. They flickered as Seth wrestled with the backbone.

  Pharaoh grabbed Seth’s throat, his hand vast and viselike. But when Pharaoh’s body shifted beyond the sarcophagus, the light was eclipsed from his eyes, and he fell to the floor. He regained his feet, but the transformation was imperfect. His face crumpled with agony, and his fingers clutched the spear that skewered his heart.

  Seth struck with the back of his fist, and teeth exploded from Pharaoh’s mouth. Seth rammed his elbow into Pharaoh’s chin and broke his jaw. Seth’s brow flattened Pharaoh’s nose. Pharaoh choked on the wreckage of his face. Seth struck until the blood-masked Pharaoh remained upright only by the grace of Seth’s grip on the staff. Then Seth jerked the spine free.

  Pharaoh slid onto the cold stone at the base of the coffin. The staff was colored the ruddy brown of liver.

  “You never would have shared your power,” Seth said to the broken pharaoh at his feet.

  Seth held the muddied diamond of the backbone above the left side of his chest. He shut molten eyes and grunted as the tip split flesh, wedged between ribs, and then crawled of its own volition, deeper and deeper and deeper, until the darkened gem beat beside his black heart.

  Zarab and Sam broke from the shelter of the tombs. Immediately, the Shemsu Seth bore down on them. Hounds howled and gave chase. Lizards assailed, their fluid gait kicking back sprays of sand as they sprinted.

  Sam spent her strength whirling her blades to protect Zarab from the shower of missiles and rip of claws. Without the Fullness, the winged spear shone like the moon making a low passage. The cool disc drove snouts into sand and deflected quarrels, but she tired. When she arrived at the first course of the Great Pyramid, the blades turned slower, now a waning crescent. The Void threatened to consume her. A girl’s face streaked past. Bob-cut hair flailed about a small mouth stretched in rictus. Rage shook Sam.

  “Wedjat,” she roared and pushed forward.

  Another cry rang out: “Re Riseth,” intermixed with: “For Christ!”

  A swarm of men and women eclectically attired in jeans, pants, and robes attacked with makeshift spears and rifles. A helicopter soared overhead. Its spotlight lit the bishops’ force. And Sobek’s ivory scales.

  Sam and Zarab climbed several courses of stone. She hoped to narrow their foes to bolts and arrows, but the hounds followed above, below, and beside. Sam’s twin blades sliced heads and hides. A crossbow bolt struck her thigh. The tip buried in tendon and bone. She limped around the pyramid’s corner, and a hound shot at Zarab’s head, jaws wide. Sam was too slow. But as paws slammed between Zarab’s shoulder blades, the ghostly apparition of Sekhmet caught the dog midair. He snatched it and flew thirty feet to break its back on the stone below.

  Zarab’s arms windmilled. Sam lunged, but her injured leg gave way, and they toppled down two courses. Dogs pounced. But Sekhmet tossed them aside and straddled Sam and Zarab protectively.

  Fear prodded Sam forward. Although the bishops’ forces now guarded the physical bodies of the companions and sisters from hounds and crocodiles, nothing sheltered their minds from the Void. Sam struggled to her feet and hauled up the stunned Zarab, a goose egg rising from where his forehead had struck rock.

  Sekhmet trampled a hound, and his claws raked open the chest of a Shemsu Seth. Amidst his screams, gunfire stuttered.

  A dwarf leaped down at Zarab from above. Sam’s spear caught him on its tip and continued his flight down to the base. The pyramid reverberated with power.

  Above the pyramid’s entry, the charred remains of Askari sifted in the wind. Sam squeezed shut her eye and limped toward the opening. She released the Void as she ducked inside and pulled Zarab with her. Inside, she leaned heavily with her back against the wall.

  Zarab’s breath rasped in his chest.

  When she relinguished her grip on Void, Sekhmet winked from sight, but she knew this last vestige of Faris remained. His haunches guarded the entry like the sphinx defended the pyramid.

  Void tugged at Sam. She could only risk a connection once more before she lost herself and became as Faris. Part of her wished to join him, but nothing of him remained but the fierce loyalty of an animal.

  Sam clucked her tongue to test the distance of the walls and the path ahead, but the constant booming from inside rolled over her and blocked the talent. Sam strode into darkness.

  And Zarab followed.

  Chapter Forty-four

  Seth glowered from the roof of the gallery. With the Spine of Osiris buried in his chest, only his eyes casted light and illuminated a hellish passage. From his outstretched hands, black lightning snaked across the walls and down the stairs. Tendrils groped at Sam’s flesh and left blisters and burns.

  Sam broke her spear into twin scimitars, the better for fighting in the narrow hall.

  “Seth has defeated Osiris and gained the kingdom of the Gods!” Seth announced.

  Sam pushed Zarab down the ladder that led to the subterranean cavity of the pyramid. Without the connection to the Void, her leg ached and her chest burned.

  “You will die today, Wedjat.”

  The red robed giant, power writhing in his grasp, was the embodiment of Seth. A vision of twisted cities and humans driven by only their most basic needs burst into Sam’s mind. A tentacle of Void caught her leg and pulled her from her feet. She cried out as she fell on her hip. Her scimitars clanged on the granite. He dragged her up the steps.

  Sam lunged for a blade and caught the hilt. She swung it down and severed the limb of power that snared her ankle. Seth howled his frustration. She dove for the second blade, rolled, and came up in a crouch.

  “Isis isn’t here to stop the Wedjat from killing you this time, Seth,” Sam said, but her voice cracked and echoed hollow in the gallery.

  Seth laughed as Sam charged up the stairs.

  Although the Fulllness was gone, Sam sensed splinters of it outside the gallery. Sam stretched out her thoughts and found the thousands of souls that swirled around the pyramid. The I-Ching diviners, minds set adrift when the Fullness disappeared, came to her. Together they gathered those souls who had given themselves to Pharaoh’s prayer and folded them into the Wedjat’s lance. The last vestiges of Fullness clung to them and grounded Sam. With this fragile link, she plunged into the Void.

  She drove upward.

  Seth countered like a ram of Void.

  Sam could not match Seth’s strength. The gathered thousands must be enough. The psychic scents of others appeared, Askari, Tariq, and even Trand. They held her steady. From the rags of the Fullness Sam braided a needle, small and fine. Around it, she sheathed Void so that it was lost in the bulk of blackness. She climbed and spun the thinnest of wires; decades of practice made it fine and strong. Her skin blistered from Seth’s heat.

  Seth saw the miserable weapon and swiped at it with arms made clumsy by their power.

  The needle slipped past the broad blows and wove the Fullness in and out of his Void. He contorted like a man swarmed by bees. Void zigzagged in frenzy. The brushes of his Void tore hunks from Sam’s flesh. Even as he twisted away from the needle and its golden sutures, his momentum carried him downward.

  Sam’s blades shattered on the wall of Void. Wafts of heat baked, and she pushed into the furnace, his
Void-crucible. Her hair flared and was gone. The needle darted past. Tiny and true, the small arrow slid into Seth’s chest and sewed tight his false hearts. He reared.

  “No!” he cried.

  Sam hauled upon the needle’s thread and clamped the ventricles. She snuffed the heat of the Void. His shout shook the pyramid. Its fitted rocks shifted and ground. Sand sheeted from cracked walls.

  Sam clambered closer to Seth. Every nerve still burned, although the fire was gone. Trapped by Sam’s threads, Seth’s eyes raged. A shard of Sam’s spear, lethal and ready, rested on a step. Sam reached for it. Seth’s gaze followed.

  “I will finish the task Horus failed to complete so many millennia ago.” The words raked her seared throat. She reached—

  A voice ordered from below: “Stop.”

  Sam relinquished enough hold on Seth’s hearts, still throbbing bloodlessly, to turn and see her mother. Beside her stood the shrouded crone, Mother Isis.

  “Leave.” Sam marshaled into the command what strength she retained.

  “The balance, daughter,” Tara said.

  From beneath the folds of the crone’s shroud, the Mother of the Sisters of Isis lifted a dagger, its hilt a scorpion, its tail a curved blade.

  “We are the keepers of compassion. Mary, Isis, motherhood,” Tara continued and started up the steps.

  Beside them, Zarab exited from the subterranean tunnel. For a moment, Sam feared they might kill the prophet.

  Sam shut her eye. All that remained of the Fullness was the thread in her mind. The fragment of blade scraped against the step like a match across flint. She reeled herself toward Seth with the golden bond. In her grip, the shard cut into the palm of her hand. Seth’s eyes held chaos, but Sam’s hold remained firm. She caught the spine and yanked. Seth’s hands groped at the staff, slipping over its precious vertebrae as it slid out. The staff pulled free of his chest. He sagged against the steps.