Spell Bound (A Fairy Retelling #3) (13 page)

“They saved me,” Aniya says, looking to the captain. He nods.

The great snake, Apophis, captures one of the clay men in its coils and squeezes tight. The queen yells for the other soldiers to help. Trapped, the shabti stabs at it with its sword but with a sickening crunch, shatters completely. Clay shards sink into the water. The remaining two shabti grab hold of the great snake and pelt it with their swords, but it dives under. One of the shabti is taken down into the water while the other floats on the surface. The beast is nowhere to be seen.

“Swim back to the boat,” Aniya yells down to the tiny soldier. He looks up to her and smiles just as the jaws of Apophis open up around him and swallow him whole.

“No!” the queen yells, tears streaming down her face.

The great snake hits the underside of the barge and it sways upward and down. Aniya loses her footing and falls to the deck.

“We can’t hope to win by fighting it in the water. We have to make him come to us,” the sun god yells to the crew. As if the great beast hears him, the snake’s head thrusts up through the water and lashes at him quick as lightning. The sun god lunges out of the way just as the snake bears down on him, his khopesh just skimming the edge of Apophis’ scaled skin. A thin, red trail of blood is left behind as the snake rears back to strike again.

“Aim for his head!” Amun-Ra shouts.

Aniya scrambles back to her feet just as the serpent strikes again. This time the shabti on deck attack along with the sun god. The captain jumps atop the great beast and straddles the monster’s head with his clay legs. He plunges his sword into the snake’s head, but the beast shakes the shabti off and into the water. The captain’s sword clammers onto the deck at Aniya’s feet.

“Come on, you blasted beast!” Amun-Ra shouts up at the snake god. “Let’s get this over with!”

As if in answer, the snake lunges and bites down on the sun god’s arm. Amun-Ra struggles to break free from the beast, but the snake holds tight. The khopesh dangles helplessly from his hand. Aniya takes no time to think. She grabs the shabti captain’s blade in both hands and slices clean through the snake’s neck in one slick, fluid motion.

The body of the snake falls back into the water with a splash and the head flops to the deck as Amun-Ra opens the dead beast’s maw, freeing his arm. It slides across the deck and stops at Aniya’s feet.

“Nicely done,” the sun god congratulates her with a crooked-toothed smile. “Stupid snake shouldn’t have been here until this evening. It’s never attacked during the day before.”

Aniya studies the snake’s milky-white lidded eyes before bending down to throw the head overboard. Lifeless lids snap open to reveal vertical black pupils of the reptile against bright yellow irises. The jaws of the decapitated snake open and the fangs of the beast reach for her. Aniya draws back but not before one of the snake’s fangs bloodies her hand with a long, jagged tear. Aniya seizes the sword once again and drives it down through the center of the beast’s cranium, skewering it. With a cry she flings both sword and beast into the black abyss of the dark waters.

“Good work, crew. Apophis is defeated!” Amun-Ra swings his khopesh in a celebratory circle around his head, smiling at the shabti climbing back into the boat.

Aniya grins at them as well, and then stumbles back in pain and falls to the floor. Blood drips from the wound on her hand and sizzles as it drops to the wooden deck of the boat. Amun-Ra lifts her hand to inspects the wound. With brisk words he orders the shabti captain to gather herbs and clean cloth from the cabin. He makes quick work of dressing the wound, but Aniya’s arm feels as if it’s on fire.

"This is not good,” he says. Blue-black veins slither up and down her arm, highlighted against the paleness of her skin. “Apophis’ bite is meant for the gods, not a mortal. His venom is destroying your Ka, severing the link between it and your physical body. If you stay here in the Duat, the link will be broken and you’ll become a lost soul. Your spirit can not stay here. We must get you to the Hall of the Gods."

Amun-Ra places his hand over the wound and warmth shoots through her body. The pain subsides a bit and the dark veins fade into faint trails of dark blue. "I'm sorry, there is not much more I can do. I do not have much strength left. Even the sun god's powers are fading away,” he says with a sad smile.

The black clouds that rolled in with the appearance of Apophis break and give way to the pink sky once again, and the remaining shabti take up their oars once more to steer the barge down the Nile of the Duat. A look around the deck confirms two of the shabti are gone, destroyed by Apophis.
They died to save me
, Aniya thinks to herself. She tries to help steer the rudder as before, but the captain forces her to sit down. She doesn't want to admit it, but she's glad for the rest. She can feel the poison coursing through her veins.

As they travel down river, Aniya stares over the back of the boat into the inky blackness of the Nile. Foaming water churns underneath the oars. A face appears in the water, and then it is gone. She blinks her eyes, perhaps it is a trick of the light in this strange place with no sun. Another look reveals dozens of faces swirling in the water with hollow black holes where their eyes should be and mouths open in silent screams.

"What are they?" Aniya asks, scurrying back from the edge of the boat.

The sun god saunters over and peers into the water. "Those are the lost souls of the Duat. What is left of their Ka wanders forever through this river somewhere between everlasting life and death."

"Lost souls? Is that what will happen to me?" she asks, cradling her wounded hand to her chest.

"The soul and the body need each other. Even in death," the sun god says and walks away.

"You didn't answer my question."

"Yes, I did."

“What is that?” Aniya asks.

Endless dunes of sand continue as far as the eye can see, broken only by the meandering waters of the black Nile, and in the distance, a lone mountain.

“Finally,” Amun-Ra exclaims with a sound of relief, “the Hall of the gods.”

Aniya looks again. What she took for a mountain is actually a palace so tall she can’t distinguish the top of it from the pink haze of the sunless sky.

“It’s just after noon. I was afraid our run-in with Apophis would set us far behind.”

“How can you tell? There’s no sun,” Aniya remarks.

Amun-Ra looks at her and laughs, “I am the sun!” He directs the oarsmen to make for shore and the boat comes to a stop nestled against the bank of the river. The palace is still far off. Aniya can’t begin to guess how long they will need to walk to reach it.

The loading ramp is lowered down to the bank and the grizzled sun god holds his hand out to the young queen. “Come, we must see my children at once. One of the gods is bound to know what do to help you, snake killer.”

Aniya takes his hand in her own and follows down the rickety wood ramp to the white sands of the desert, while her five remaining shabti follow behind.

“Behold, the Hall of the gods,” Amun-Ra says. Walls tower up before her reaching impossibly high into the heavens as giant statues of gods tower over her and stare out across the empty desert. Aniya looks behind her. The river is just a thin, black thread meandering through golden, desert sands.

A wave of disorientation flows through her for a moment. “But we were just…” she says closing her eyes and putting a hand to her head.

“Sorry about that. Traveling with the gods can be disconcerting for mortals. Are you alright?” Amun-Ra asks.

Aniya swallows down a wave of nausea. “If we could move so quickly, why did we spend all day on the barge?” she asks. “Why not just come here immediately?”

“The sun must travel its path as it will, in its own time. You can not make the sun slow down or speed up. The Hall of the gods is the midpoint of my daily journey so I can not tarry here long. Come, let’s go inside.”

Statues fill the room, taller than anything Aniya ever saw in her city of Waset. The hair on the back of her neck raises and she feels eyes looking down on her. She glances up at the giant statues’ faces and nearly stumbles into the sun god when she sees their heads turn. Their eyes follow the motley party of god, queen and clay as they make their way across the floor. Aniya realizes they are not statues. She is staring up into the face of the gods, truly larger than life.

“Down here,” Amun-Ra instructs “is the throne room. My son and his wife are there. At least, they should be.”

“Should be?”

“I have a feeling it is not just the minor gods from my ship who have disappeared. It seemed awfully empty in the great hall back there.” Aniya takes a look behind. Though they tower over her, she realizes how few there are.

Amun-Ra leads the group down a hall and they stop at a set of double doors guarded by men with black heads of jackals. Without hesitation the guards open the doors and reveal a room entirely plated in gold.

Though the great hall at the entrance to the palace was seemingly empty, this room is not. Gods of all sorts mingle to the left and right of a central aisle. Most of the gods look human, at least parts of them do. A woman with the head of a lioness bows her head at the sun god.

“Sekhmet, nice to see you,” he says, as the giant cat purrs at them.

Amun-Ra leads the way down the aisle and a feeling of disorientation flows through Aniya once again as the gods seem to grow shorter with each step they take down the aisle. When they reach the end of the path, the surrounding gods are no larger than ordinary men and women. Aniya takes a deep breath and pushes away the nausea while she studies the man and woman sitting on the thrones. Though Aniya recognized only a handful of the gods wandering through the throne room, there is no mistaking these. Green skinned with golden eyes, Osiris, king of the underworld sits next to the most beautiful woman Aniya has ever seen, Isis, his wife. The queen turns her gaze to Aniya and smiles. The goddess’ smile is not unkind, and Aniya smiles back shyly.

Next to the throne stands a god with the heavily-muscled body of a man and the head of a black jackal. Aniya recognizes him as Anubis, god of the dead. In one hand is his staff, and in the other he holds a single, white ostrich feather. Resting beside him on the floor lies a beast with the head of a crocodile, the trunk of a lion and the backside of a hippopotamus. A sleepy reptilian eye winks at Aniya. She knows the beast as well - Ammit, devourer of souls.

"Greetings, Father" says Osiris. “It's unusual for you to leave the boat of a million years. Are we to have an extra long afternoon today? You know how the mortals will talk about the sun standing still in the sky if you don’t continue your journey.”

"Yes, yes. I'll take care of that in a moment," the crotchety, old sun god answers. “I’m here about my crew.”

“Your crew, my lord?” Isis asks, her voice as rich as an oasis stream.

“My crew is gone. All of them. Have you noticed any of the minor gods disappearing?”

Isis and Osiris look at each other briefly and nod. The jackal head of Anubis moves slightly up-and-down as well.

“Not only is my crew gone, the Ka of this mortal, Aniya, was able to enter the Duat though her body has not yet received the proper rituals. The boundaries between the living and the dead, gods and men, are crumbling. Vanishing. The crew of my boat has met just that fate. Not to mention that we were attacked by Apophis this morning. There is strange magic afoot here.”

Osiris tugs thoughtfully on his long, black braided beard.“This sounds like the work of my brother, Set. His love for chaos might have something to do with this.”

“I don’t think so,” the sun god answers. “There is a new god causing this mayhem. This girl is a queen of Egypt. She says Pharaoh has abandoned the ancient gods and has forced all of Egypt to worship a new god. We are being forgotten. Soon, even we will disappear.”

Osiris looks long and hard at Aniya. “Is this true, queen of Egypt? Are the ways of the gods being abandoned to a single deity?”

Aniya tears her eyes away from the crocodile’s stare and faces the lord of the underworld. “Yes, it’s true. My husband Akhenaten, and his first wife outlawed the worship of all other gods. Pharaoh died recently, but the great royal wife, Nefertiti, continues to force Egypt to worship Aten, the One God. My son, the new Pharaoh, is only a baby. He will not be able to rule Egypt for many years; he can not change the laws of worship. Egypt prays only to one god now.”

“Osiris,” Amun-Ra says, “This girl arrived just as I needed help. She and her servants helped to fight off Apophis and bring light back to the world. It was she who defeated him and I owe her for her help. Somehow her spirit entered the Duat before her body was prepared properly. If her Ka does not return to her body before sundown, she will become one of the lost souls of the Duat.”

"That is unfortunate," Osiris says. “But what is that to us? Many souls come through the Duat. What would you have us do for a lost soul?"

"I am not a lost soul,” Aniya speaks up. “I'm not meant to be here."

"What do you mean, child?" Isis leans forward. The goddess’ eyes flicker red like rubies. Aniya finds herself staring and lowers her eyes in reverence.