by Chris Fox
He was still gnawing on the problem when they entered a spacious chamber. They threaded through row after row of dark wooden tables, probably a legacy of when Ra’s court had been far more numerous. Each was covered with an array of animal pictographs, though many were faded from simple age. He was amazed they still held the weight of Ra and her court.
Anput leaned closer, whispering low enough that only he could hear. “The man seated to Ra’s left is Horus, son of Isis and Osiris. You already know Anubis, and you met Wepwawet briefly.”
Wepwawet, the wolf-headed creature that so closely resembled a werewolf, now wore golden garments. There was no sign of weaponry on his person, though Trevor had no doubt he could produce one if needed.
Anubis sat between Wepwawet and Ra. The jackal-headed god glared grimly at Trevor, though his earlier ire seemed muted. Perhaps because of Anput. Trevor glanced furtively at Ra, who lounged in her chair just as she had the throne earlier. She’d donned a sheer gown cut from a silky material Trevor had never seen.
The figure on her other side, the one Anput had called Horus, was strange. He was a shorter man with black skin and a shaven head. He was also the only god Trevor had seen to wear glasses, something he hadn’t even known had existed during the previous age. Horus straightened in his chair, peering through the gold-rimmed lenses as they approached.
“Irakesh has already seated himself across from his mother. He does this to steal prestige,” Anput said, guiding Trevor toward the table.
Trevor considered for a long moment, then took the seat to Irakesh’s left. That put him directly across from Horus. Anput gave a tight nod of approval as if he’d done something intelligent, then settled into the empty seat to his left.
“Welcome, Trevor Gregg,” Ra said, in that musical voice. He was once again struck by her beauty, though he did his best to suppress that. “I trust that Anput’s instruction in our ways is adequate?”
“It is, mighty Ra,” Trevor said, ducking his head in what he hoped she’d take for a seated bow. “I have much to learn, and I hope I don’t embarrass her too badly. If I do so, it’s my fault. Not hers.”
Ra raised a delicate eyebrow, and conversation ceased as everyone focused their attention on him.
“You are an interesting creature, Trevor Gregg,” Ra said, straightening in her seat. She clapped her hands once, and a set of doors at the far end of the chamber swung open. Several zombies garbed in simple black robes pushed trays into the room. They began setting covered platters in front of each person.
“It is unheard of for someone to preemptively show weakness,” Anput whispered as a platter was set before her.
The servants removed the platters’ covers, revealing porcelain bowls containing brains, hearts, and stomachs. Trevor wanted to be nauseated, but a tide of hunger immediately filled him. He forced himself to watch the others, particularly Ra.
She deftly picked apart each organ, savoring tiny morsels for long moments before she’d take another. He looked to Anput, who appeared to be the only person at the table with utensils. She used a knife and a two pronged fork to cut thin slices of flesh.
It was only when he saw her open her mouth to eat one that Trevor finally understood why. Anput had two sharp incisors, the kind of fangs you’d expect to see on a vampire. The rest were as flat as any normal human’s.
She is a vampire, my host. A child of Osiris. They are quite different than the strange legends I glimpse in your mind.
Interesting. Trevor turned his attention to his own food, forcing himself to rip off small bites. Each brought a small rush of memory, which revealed that his host had once been a tour guide. The man knew all sorts of things about Sakkara, the Pyramids, and the Sphinx. He’d spent countless days exploring them as a child.
“Do you find the meal satisfactory, Trevor?” Ra asked, in that strangely musical voice.
He looked up at her, forcing himself to focus past the rush of memory and emotion from a large morsel of the man’s prefrontal cortex. “More than satisfactory. This is the first food I’ve had in nearly two weeks.”
“You did not eat when you were with Isis’s pack?” Ra asked, raising a curious eyebrow.
“I didn’t want to alarm the humans we were protecting. They already distrusted me enough,” Trevor said, shrugging as he popped a hunk of heart into his mouth.
“This is why we rule the humans, and not they, us,” Ra said, raising a delicate eyebrow in what Trevor took for gentle admonishment. “They live to serve, while we guide the world they live in.”
Trevor wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so he shifted the topic of conversation. “I notice Anput is different from the rest of you. My risen calls her a vampire. My people have myths, but I don’t understand how or why that’s different than the deathless.”
“A shrewd question,” Ra said, nodding at Anput. “Tell him, daughter of Osiris.”
Anput used her napkin to dab blood from the corner of her mouth, then set down her utensils before speaking. “In the beginning there were only the deathless, fathered by Osiris and my foul uncle Set. They were powerful, but my father felt they lacked control. He hated what he’d become, hated how his former tribesmen viewed him.
“So it was that Isis led Osiris to the repository at the base of the Ark of the Cradle. The Ark in which we now stand,” Anput explained. The tale was clearly one she’d learned, rather than experienced. “She helped him shape the virus that had changed him, to remake himself into something more human. Something that could blend more easily among his human followers. Osiris became the first vampire, and after his change he was indistinguishable from a normal man.
“My kind are blessed with the same gifts as a deathless, but we prefer to feed on blood rather than flesh,” Anput explained, wearing the same posture Trevor had seen on grad students defending their thesis. “This is why I use utensils, while the rest of you dine with your more…natural attributes.”
“That is the heart of the tale, but Anput leaves out much,” Ra interjected, dabbing her own mouth with her napkin. “Osiris and his desire to be more human became a source of weakness for our people. Many chose to follow, diluting their bloodline with his newly modified virus. It caused a schism among our people, one that eventually erupted into war. At the end of this war I stood triumphant, and Osiris was banished to the frozen north to administer to his few followers.”
“Are deathless and vampires all that different?” Trevor asked.
“Different enough,” Ra shot back, something violent smoldering in her eyes. “It is not so much the change in physical appearance, but rather what it represented. Osiris sought the love of his people, but they’ll never love us. To them we are monsters. He sought to cloak that fact, to curry favor with the sheep. I realized we’d never have their love, so instead I take their fear. I show them my true face, so all know precisely who and what they pray to.”
Something incredibly bright played outside the balcony window, slicing the night like the atomic bomb that had so recently detonated in San Francisco. Trevor rolled from his chair, diving under the table. A smattering of laughter echoed around the room, and Trevor’s cheeks heated in a very un-deathless like fashion. He rose to his feet the room full of mocking smiles.
“What the hell was that?” he asked, glancing back at the balcony. The brightness was gone, like a flash of lightning. Something still crackled in the air though, an afterimage he could almost see.
“The pup’s ignorance is limitless,” Anubis rumbled, broad muzzle splitting into a grin. “Calm yourself, boy. It was merely a sun flash.”
“You have no idea, believe me,” Irakesh muttered, mostly under his breath. He eyed Trevor sidelong, and something beyond hatred lived there.
“Sun flash?” Trevor asked, sinking back into his seat.
“Sun flashes herald a sunstorm,” Anput explained, resting a hand delicately on his shoulder. She withdrew it a moment later. “Sun storms strike without warning, cooking the unprotected.”
&
nbsp; “Unprotected mortals,” Ra interjected, leaning forward in her chair. She caught Trevor’s gaze, eyes flaring green. “Humans can be destroyed if caught in a sunstorm. We, however, can draw on their strength. Imagine drinking in the sun’s light for a week or more, but in an instant.”
“What mighty Ra suggests is dangerous,” Horus said, his voice a high, lilting tone that contrasted with everyone else at the table. “Those who drink from sunstorms risk burning themselves up. The power is near limitless.”
Trevor leaned back in his chair, shifting his gaze from person to person. He finally let it settle on Ra. “The event that finally triggered this new age was a coronal mass ejection. I was studying that event before it occurred, and I watched as it crackled across the sky. What you’re describing can only be more CMEs, each more violent than the one I saw.”
Ra raised an eyebrow, eyeing him curiously. “You studied sunstorms?”
“You might say that, yes. Before I became deathless I was a scientist,” Trevor explained. He turned to Anput, since he was more likely to get a straight answer there. “Am I right? Are the sunstorms more CMEs?”
Anput didn’t answer him, at least not directly. She turned to Ra, giving a deferential nod of her head. “Mighty Ra, may I have permission to take the pup up to the observatory?”
“You have an observatory?” Trevor asked, struggling to suppress his sudden excitement. The observatory at SDSU had been his second home and he’d clocked endless hours there, each spent studying the sun or other astronomical phenomena.
“You may accompany us,” Ra said, dropping her napkin as she rose to her feet. She waved to one of the dead servants, who began to clear the dishes. “Come, pup. I would hear more of the science in this new age. Perhaps you have learned things even we did not know.”
Chapter 24- Sun Study
Ra swayed from the hall, shapely legs drawing Trevor’s eyes as he followed. Anput rose to join them, but the rest of the figures remained seated. Trevor caught Irakesh’s gaze on the way out, and if anything the hatred had deepened.
His jealousy is palpable. You have gained much prestige, while he broods silently. Left behind like a child.
That was definitely ironic. He’d gained prestige by diving under a table like a superstitious yokel. Trevor turned his attention back to Ra, following her from the chamber and up a dizzying array of halls. They climbed stairwell after stairwell, gradually making their way to the apex of the pyramid. The hike would have winded him had he still breathed. Instead, he felt nothing as he climbed.
“Ahh, we arrive at last,” Ra said, cresting a final stairwell. She hurried up the black stone, entering a chamber that made Trevor gawk.
Each of the walls was sloped, and they met in a single point at the top of the room. The floor was the same black marble, the walls solid gold. Unlike the rest of the Ark there were no hieroglyphs of any kind; the place was bare of any decoration.
“This is an observatory?” he asked. The walls were opaque, which seemed to preclude any such observation.
“Indeed,” Ra said, sweeping her arms out in an encompassing gesture. The walls faded to transparency, and they were suddenly standing in space. “Watch, and I will show you.”
Trevor spun in a slow circle, marveling at what he was seeing. There was the moon, larger than it could have been anywhere on earth. The sun hung in the distance, impossibly bright, since there was no atmosphere to mute its brilliance. It was as if the Ark had linked to a satellite, and he was observing a holographic representation of whatever that satellite saw. Maybe it had. Maybe the Black Knight satellites were more than just a conspiracy theory.
“This is incredible,” he whispered, truly awed in a way none of the rest of the Ark had been able to provoke. This place made the Kepler program look archaic. Hubble was nothing but an infantile experiment, clear proof of just how far modern science had lagged behind whoever had built this place.
“You’ve not seen even a fraction of the capabilities the observatory possesses,” Anput said, giving him a warm smile.
Ra gestured and a holographic sphere appeared in the center of the room; she stretched out delicate fingers, touching various points on the sphere’s surface. The room answered, zooming their perspective until they were much closer to the sun.
Normally its brilliance would have been blinding, but their transformed eyes made it easier to see. He could make out massive flares all over the sun’s surface, far more numerous than anything in recorded history. At least four looked like they would result in coronal mass ejections sometime in the next several weeks.
“Jesus,” he muttered, taking a step closer to the sun. “Four at once. We’ve never even conceived of that kind of solar violence. It’s a wonder the world is surviving at all. How does that not overwhelm our magnetosphere?”
“Your words are strange, but I have tasted of several scientists,” Ra said, joining him near the edge closest to the sun. “What you refer to as the magnetosphere, we referred to as the shroud. It protects this world from the fury of the sun, but it is limited and easily depleted. The violence you see now is a tiny precursor to what this world will experience over the next dozen centuries.”
“How will we survive?” Trevor asked. He knew far more than most about helio-seismology. There was no way the world could make it through that kind of prolonged exposure. “All life will be wiped out. Not even plants will survive.”
“That would be the case, were it not for the Arks,” Ra said, resting a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see her standing closer than she had before. He was acutely aware of her scent, clean and intoxicating. “The network is controlled by the Nexus, which you passed to reach us here in the Cradle. Each Ark drains a portion of the solar storms, using that energy to cleanse the shroud. In short, life exists on our world because the Arks regulate our atmosphere.”
Trevor wasn’t sure how to respond. The implications sent his entire world spinning. If the solar storms were cyclic, then only the creation of these Arks had kept the cycle of life moving. This explained the previous mass extinctions. The dinosaurs hadn’t been wiped out by a meteor. They’d likely been killed by the sun.
“How does humanity survive?” Trevor asked. “There’s no way they could live on the surface, not if things get as bad as what you’re describing.”
“You are an astute one,” Ra said, beaming a brilliant smile. For once the razored teeth didn’t bother him. “Humanity flees to the underworld. They take shelter in the bowels of the earth, waiting out the worst of the solar storms. Those storms will not be upon us for decades, but if humanity is not guided to safety by then, they will be annihilated.”
Ra turned to face Anput, folding her arms across her chest. “Have you learned anything further about the burst of light?”
“No, mighty Ra,” Anput said, dropping her head in apparent shame. “We have no idea what caused it. Something seized control of the Ark’s systems, and not even Horus understands how or why. He does not believe Ka was involved, as the creature would have left some sign of its passage.”
“You’re talking about three pulses of blinding white light that fired up into the sky?” Trevor asked, with a sinking feeling.
“Just so,” Ra said, shifting her attention to him. “You know of them?”
“A little,” he admitted, combing his fingers through his goatee. “We experienced the same thing at the Ark of the Redwood. An entity we met in the Nexus, while pursuing Steve and Irakesh, claims the pulses were sent either by the Builders, or possibly something it referred to as their progeny. Can you show me the direction the pulses were fired in?”
“Of course,” Ra said, closing her eyes for a moment. The perspective changed, showing a trio of pulses blasting into space from Northern Africa. It followed them into space, drawing a line in the direction they were fired.
“That path looks familiar,” Trevor said, biting his lip. “I could be completely wrong, but they’re aimed in the rough direction of a habitable planet my peop
le recently discovered. We call it Kepler 425B.”
Trevor would have continued, but metal cracked on stone as something large approached up the stairway they’d taken to reach the room.
“Mighty Ra,” Wepwawet’s towering form growled as he ducked into the room. “We are invaded. Isis has breached the light bridge with a small pack. Horus has gone to delay her.”
Chapter 25- Horus
“Are you ready?” Blair asked, stepping onto the light bridge.
“Ready,” Liz said, stepping up to join him. Her gaze was hard. Resolved. She’d come a long way from the timid doctor back in Peru.
“Before we depart I must offer one last warning,” Isis said, stepping onto the disk. “When we arrive, whoever Ra has left in control will sense us immediately. It is my hope she will be willing to parlay, but we must assume they will respond with all the force they can muster. I will handle the greatest part of those enemies, giving you the time to reach the central chamber. From there you must light walk to Olympus.”
“Yeah, I’m still a little unclear about that,” Blair said, shaking his head. “What happens when we arrive? You’re known to these Olympian gods, but they aren’t going to respect us.”
“True, but you are resourceful,” Isis said, her features tightening. “I trust you to learn what we must know: whether the way to the underworld is open. If so, you must convince them to allow us passage. If not, you must find out why. Remember they will see you as standing higher than they. We are the true gods, they are merely sorcerers. They lack the virus, and are far weaker. Even an old god will think twice about attacking you.”
“Why don’t you go with us? If we’re going to light walk I can grab you on the way out,” Blair offered. He didn’t like the idea of separating from Isis. They were dealing with incredibly ancient gods, and while he and Liz fought well as a team he doubted their ability to overcome gods who’d spent millennia learning to fight.
