Reluctant Gods (The Awakening Book 2)

by Keri Armstrong

  “Is there anything more?” asked Sara, in an excited whisper.

  I groped about, and pulled up a little linen bag that contained something hard. I handed it to Sara to open, and she pulled a couple of old daguerreotypes, a beautiful miniature painting in a gold looking frame, and also a small chocolate-colored scarab, marked with symbols which, given our unusual education, I knew meant “Suten se Ra,” which could be translated the “Royal Son of Ra” or “The Sun.”

  The photographs were of people we could only assume were some ancestors, since there was no writing to indicate who they were. However, there were a set of twins, as well as one a woman who looked so uncannily like Sara we both gasped when we saw it. The miniature we recognized as portrait of our Mexican great-great grandmother—a lovely, dark-eyed woman. On the back of it was written in spidery handwriting, “My beloved wife.”

  We both looked in the box and excitedly pulled out the remaining leaf-like material, but there was nothing more in it.

  “Well, that’s it,” said Sara, putting down the miniature, at which she had been gazing affectionately. She picked up another yellowed envelope. “Let’s see what craziness this letter might have. Do you want to do the honors?” She handed me the last fragile looking envelope, but I motioned for her to do it. I was still overwhelmed from Gran’s letter and didn’t think I could handle more bad news at this point.

  She broke the wax seal, and it crumbled into a few pieces over the table. She carefully brushed them into a little pile then began to read.

  ‘To the latest Vincent heir, when you open this, if you ever live to do so, you will have attained to manhood—

  She stopped reading there as we simultaneously scoffed and shared wry grins. What about womanhood? Sheesh.

  She continued reading.

  ‘—and I shall have been long enough dead to be absolutely forgotten by nearly all who knew me. Yet in reading it remember that I once lived, and I stretch out my hand to you across the gulf of death, and my voice speaks to you from the silence of the grave. My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are completed, it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me if I do wrong. At the best I could not live more than another year.’

  “Wow. I think he and Gran would have gotten along great,” I said.

  Sara laughed. “Yeah, ya think?” She bent back to the letter and laughed again when she read the next sentence.

  ‘And now, enough of myself.

  What has to be said belongs to you who live. It is my intention to confide you something of the extraordinary antiquity of your race. In the contents of this casket you will find sufficient evidence to prove it. The strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress upon the potsherd was communicated to me by my father on his deathbed.’

  She stopped again, looking confused. “Potsherd?”

  “That thing,” I said, pointing the curved, clay tablet-looking thing. “Although, technically, I think it might be an Ostracon.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Of course you do. Aaannywaaay… Moving along…”

  ‘When I was only twenty-one years of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors about the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. From all the current known regions of the world from as far as the sun reaches from east to west, and north to south, there existed legends of great beings of enormous power, half-man, half-beast, some winged, some scaled, and god-men of extraordinary appearance and power. The memories of these creatures go past our known history, beyond the ancient flood legends that also inhabit all corners of the world. Throughout time some speculated them to be the offspring of fallen angels. I myself believe them to be the spawn of the very Devil himself. You, who now live beyond me, may yet form another opinion.’

  “Spawn of the devil?” I laughed. “Does he mean our family?”

  Sara grinned. “No, I’m pretty certain we’re just fallen angels.”

  She continued to read.

  ‘For myself, I set out to learn of my ancestors who sprang from Egypt and Africa. I learnt also that, hidden deep within the mountain caves of many regions, there are people who are ruled over by extraordinarily handsome men and women who are seldom seen by others, but who are reported to have power over all things living and dead.

  Of the terrible ordeals that befell me after this I need not now speak in detail. Know only that I lost many provisions and returned to England in illness and ill luck. I have not got better, and, so far as I am concerned, my story is at an end.

  For you, however, my son or daughter, it is not at an end, and to you I hand on the hereditary proofs of your family’s origin.

  There is a spot, or many spots, that, if they can only be re-discovered, where the vital forces of the world visibly exist. The Flames of Life that can forever preserve.

  Do not scoff. Life exists; why therefore should not the means of preserving it indefinitely exist also?

  Though is it wise to seek it? He who would tamper with the vast and secret forces that animate the world may well fall a victim to them. And if the end were attained, if at last you emerged from the trial ever beautiful and ever young, defying time and evil, and lifted above the natural decay of flesh and intellect, who shall say that the awesome change would prove a happy one?

  Choose, and may the Power who rules all things direct the choice to your own happiness and the happiness of the world, which, in the event of your success, you would one day certainly rule by the pure force of accumulated experience.

  Farewell!’

  The letter, which was unsigned but dated as Summer, 1851, abruptly ended.

  After several moments of silence, in which Sara and I just stared at the letter, she finally said, “Well. What do you think?”

  “You mean besides the fact that insanity clearly runs in our family?” I picked up the piece of pottery that we hadn’t investigated too clearly at that point. “Well, let’s see what this has to say, at any rate.”

  “You mean the Osta-Whatsa?”

  I laughed and took up my glasses that I’d left nearby. I didn’t often wear them, but I was going to need them now.

  ‘I, Ammon, of the Royal House of the Pharaohs, son of Izzara the Beautiful in Strength, a Priestess of Isis whom the gods cherish and the demons obey, and brother to Tisisthenes (the Mighty Avenger) leave this history to our sons. My father fled with my mother from their land, causing her through love to break the vows that she had vowed. They fled across the waters, and wandered for twice thirteen moons on the coast that looks towards the rising sun, during which time my brother and I were born. There they lived in some peace, though with hardship for thrice more the thirteen moons until it became urgent to leave once more.’

  I continued reading, but after a few minutes of me translating the difficult and ancient language, Sara cried, “Enough! ‘Readers Digest’ version, please.”

  I snickered then read silently, going back over passages several times and taking pictures with my phone. Sara’s patience was nearing an end when I finally gave her the condensed version, as best as I could tell.

  “So, okay. Apparently some beautiful priestess named Izzara eloped with some pharaoh or prince named Ammon, and they had to run away because people wanted to kill them for breaking their vows to the gods. I’m guessing she was supposed to be celibate and he was probably not supposed to be boning nuns.”

  Sara snorted. “Sounds about right. Then what?”

  “So they had twins somewhere along the way and eventually made their way into some cave where some creepy king named Menhable fell in love with Izzara and killed her husband.”

  “That’s terrible!”

  “Yeah, it gets worse. Menhable claimed to have the secrets to life and death and that he would he would make her immortal, like himself. But ‘surprisingly’, she wasn’t inte
rested in becoming the forever wife to the guy who killed her husband. He was so mad that he tried to kill her kids in front of her—because yeah, that’ll make her want him, for sure—but she threw herself in front of them.”

  Sara gasped, appropriately.

  “So, he accidentally killed her instead. Fortunately for the kids, he was so upset that he grabbed up her body and hurried to the ‘flame of the Pillar of Life and Death’ to try to revive her,” I continued with the story.

  “Flame of what?”

  “Pillar of Life and Death. Apparently some miracle cure all that makes people immortal,” I said.

  “Of course it does,” she said.

  “Right? So anyway, while the king hightailed it off to save the mother, another guy who, coincidentally, was also named Ammon, and who, apparently, was also in love with Izzara—”

  “She must have been some babe!” Sara interrupted.

  “Right? Anyway,” I continued, “this other Ammon who loved her, took her kids to safety and then lied and told King Menhable they were dead.”

  “Well, thank goodness for that,” Sara said.

  “Yes, because apparently, it’s because of those two that we are still alive today.”

  Her eyes widened and I smiled. “Allegedly, they set forth this whole Vincent quest to go back and kill the king, and to…, well, here, let me read you this.” I adjusted my glasses and put the clay tablet closer to my face, translating into a bit more modern language.

  “Now I say to you, my son and to the sons of Tisisthenes, seek out the man, and learn the secret of Life, and if you find a way, kill him, on behalf of your ancestor Izzara and her love. But if you should fear or fail, then I lay down this same pledge to all your offspring and those that follow, until at last a brave one is found among them who shall bathe in the fire of Life and sit in the place of the Pharaohs. I speak of these things, and though they seem unbelievable, I know them to be fact, and I tell no lies. ”

  I sat the tablet back on the table. Neither of us said a word until I wondered aloud if the whole thing was just an adventure story passed down through generations, but at some point, people forgot it was supposed to be a fantasy and started to believe it was true.

  Sara laughed. “You mean like, maybe it was the Harry Potter of its day?”

  “Yeah. Something like that.” I scoffed. “And what’s with that whole ‘pillar of fire’ and ‘secret of life’ bit?”

  Sara shook her head. “Weird.”

  I bent over the pottery and noticed there was more that I hadn’t seen. I picked it up again and began to read the close uncial Greek writing on it; and very good Greek of the period it was, considering that it was supposed to have come from an Egyptian. I turned the relic over and saw a few more things I hadn’t noticed the first time.

  “Huh. Look at this,” I pointed it out to Sara.

  It was covered from top to bottom along the edges with tiny notes and signatures in Greek, Latin, and English. The first in uncial Greek was by Tisisthenes, the son to whom the writing was addressed. It was, “I could not go. Tisisthenes to his daughter, Izzara.”

  Apparently this Izzara (probably named after her whatever-great-grandmother) made some attempt to start on the quest, for her entry written in very faint and almost illegible uncial was, “I ceased from my going, the gods being against me. Izzara to her son.”

  “Huh. I wonder what happens to all the sons?” Sara said.

  “If this is as old as it’s alleged to be, I’m guessing anything could have happened to them.” I shrugged. “Eaten by lions. Chariot crash.”

  “Camel stampede. Oh, I know! Plague of locusts!” Sara suggested.

  We laughed so long and hard we were verging on hysterical. I think it was just getting to be way too much for both of us at this point, but I still wanted to see what was left.

  My chest aching from laughing so hard, I took a few more gasping breaths then finally calmed down. “Anyway,” I said, “I don’t think the average lifespan was that long then. But it’s cool that least the girls got a chance to try.”

  Sara nodded and peered over my shoulder. “Looks like there’s still some more.”

  Even with glasses, it was hard to make out the faded letters, but I was the better translator of the two of us, so I did what I could, following where her finger pointed.

  Of course, some of this was so badly faded that Sara and I had refer back to the surviving transcript that one of Vincent ancestors had made from the time he had the tablet, when, apparently, it was in better condition. We read through this translation with some awe, as it not only contained the transcription of the clay tablet, but also additional history spanning across the centuries. The last entry was a misquotation of the lines in Hamlet, and read: “There are more things under Heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio.”

  I smiled. That had always been one of my favorite lines.

  “Well,” I said, “that’s it. What do you think?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t even know what to think. What do you think?”

  “Call me crazy, but I believe the tablet is genuine and has been passed down in our family for a few thousand years. Though I seriously doubt seventy thousand.”

  Sara frowned. “Maybe they meant seven and it got mistranslated or exaggerated somewhere?”

  “Probably. But even more likely, it’s from just somewhere in the first few centuries of our common era, but they thought it sounded more impressive the other way.”

  She grinned and put out her hands about three feet apart. “I caught a fish and it was this big!”

  “Exactly. But to find out for sure how old this stuff is, we’d have to have it authenticated somewhere, though I have no idea where.”

  “I’d be afraid to. I mean, what if it’s real?” Sara asked.

  “The tablet or the pillar of life?”

  Her laugh was strained. “Either, or both. You know how the government is. They’d try taking this from us, claiming it was an antiquity belonging to the world, and we’d never see it again.”

  I had to agree. “But still, the whole thing is just so ridiculous.”

  “Ridiculous or not, it seems like enough of our family believed it enough that they were willing to try, and willing to keep passing this down through generations,” she argued.

  “Yeah, which just go to show that Gran wasn’t the only one who was nuts.”

  “But Phoebes,” she began, her voice uncharacteristically serious, “This map…. She pointed at the spot marking the cave where our parents died. “Don’t you think we owe it to them to find out where and why they died?”

  I blinked back the moisture suddenly welling in my eye, and swallowed against the sudden sickness in my stomach.

  “They must have believed it Phoebe,” she continued. “Or, at the very least, they felt it was an adventure worth undertaking.”

  Suddenly nervous, I became defensive. “Yeah, and look what it got them. Listen, maybe gran was right and we should just leave this alone.”

  “Maybe so,” she said quietly. “But I’m going to the cave to see it, and if you won’t come with me, I’ll go by myself.”

  Dread sank like a stone in my stomach. She had that tight-lipped look about her mouth that she gets when she’s going to be stubborn. I tried to put on a serious face, but of course, I had no intention of letting Sara to go by herself, for my own sake, if not for hers. I was way too attached to her for that.

  Sara was the world to me.

  “I’m not sure it’s a good idea, but it could be an adventure,” I finally said.

  Her eyes brightened, and I hated to cause the sparkle to dim, but another thought occurred to me. “Besides,” I said more quietly, “It could be a chance for use to have our own, proper memorial for our parents.”

  We’d been too small to understand much about the funeral for our parents and had both found it frightening.

  Her face saddened as she nodded. “Okay, then. Let’s do this.”
>
  Three days later we were in my car on the way to the airport, bags packed, tickets to Arizona in our pockets, and pictures of the writings and map in our cellphones. We didn’t dare risk trying to get any of those things past security. However, Sara did, on a whim, carefully wrap up the gong to take with us. She said she just felt compelled to do so, and only after some minor arguing, I gave in.

  She’d also felt compelled to do a Tarot reading for us, as well. That one didn’t bother me as much, though the cards themselves did give us pause.

  All Major Arcana and it started with the Tower. We’d both been worried about that one, but decided maybe it was about this sudden change in our lives, or about the past cave-in that started the change. Then came the Moon. Again, not the greatest, but since it could be about mystery, that was understandable. We were going to try to solve a mystery, after all. Lastly, the Lovers. We’d both grinned at that. She suggested we might meet some guys by a tower under the moon, get lucky, and live happily ever after.

  I had to laugh even now, thinking about it.

  Feeling good, I hit the gas. As I swerved into another lane, she yelled. “I swear to God, Phoebe, your driving is scarier than the worst flight I’ve ever been on.”

  I glanced over at her. Her hand was white-knuckled, clenched on the armrest.

  “Keep your eyes on the road!”

  “Eye. Only one, remember?” I grinned and tapped under my good eye.

  “Oh, my God! Hand and eye on the road. You’re going to get us killed before we even get a chance to find out if there really is a fountain of eternal life.”

  She let go of her death grip on the seat to poke my arm. “At the next stop, I’m taking over for the rest of the trip.”

  I laughed and turned my attention back to the now near empty road ahead of us. She was such a worrywart. There was barely any traffic, and I was only going thirty over the speed limit.