to the Osiris and Horus mythology. Or vice versa.
If the scarab shell is unbroken when the Akhet’s bullhorns haul the boat of Horus to Aten, the Benu will be lost and the Halls of Ma’at shall close.
Go in like the hawk and come forth like the Benu, the Morning Star of Re.
And so the translation finished. And with nothing about twenty-four bones.
To David, this was an example of the Christian Judgment Day myth written in an ancient Egyptian script. Nothing short of stunning—and for all of the reasons that Pope Shagar and the Sisters of St. George, including his grandmother, had been long disappointed with his choices. The phrases that weren’t related to the Bible derived from the Pyramid Texts and the Book of the Dead. Both of these were funerary texts that combined spells and ritual for the journey of an Egyptian soul, or Ba , through the underworld.
The last portion contained a most interesting kernel, however. It suggested a timeline to fulfill the prophecy. It answered the question, why it would fall into David’s hands now. Akhet, the ancient Egyptian new year, approached.
Packing away the translation, a thrill ran up his own spine. The blow that this stele could strike would shake the foundation of Christianity. David’s derision for organized religion extended to the Church for good reason. After his failed indoctrination into the Shemsu Hor, he’d been shipped first to England and then to Canada where he attended private boarding schools. Father Trent had been the Headmaster of the Highbury Catholic School, and someone who, at David’s grandmama’s request, had taken a special interest in him.
Late for Mass, David had been regularly tacked, or lashed, by a thin whip of wood. Often the wood would splinter across his back and leave fragments imbedded in his flesh. But worse than the tackings were the runs. Father Trent ran daily, and every Saturday, when most boarders had returned home to their families, David ran with him. Tied to the Father’s waist by a rope, David gasped scripture and ran until he vomited. Father Trent had always completed his task in the moral certitude that David could be saved.
A man carrying a shovel and hauling a bucket of earth shouldered past David. David blinked in the settling dark.
Tara could answer his remaining questions. Now that he’d spoken with Shagar, he knew he wasn’t only here to complete a translation. They had brought him here to help fulfill a prophecy, to take up some connection with Shemsu Hor. He chuckled a little maniacally at the thought.
He checked the address in his pocket again. It was copied in his rushed scrawl onto a slip of paper. He took a last look for Zahara.
Despite the shadows in the tunnel that led into the walled city, the streets at his back were more frightening. David glanced down the narrow paths into a neighborhood of poor apartment blocks. Children played among refuse. Shuttered windows were missing blinds. Steel pipes and wires climbed the raw concrete shells. A figure watched him from a shadow pierced only by a cigarette ember. When his gaze lingered, she stepped forward into the rays of the declining sun.
The woman’s skin held a grayish cast, but even at a distance, her eyes were a startling green. The hijab framed a complexion like cracked glaze, a network of veins meandering over the porcelain sides of her face. He would have sworn the veins glowed faintly. The definition of bone, sinew, and muscle made her skin as translucent as a scorpion’s carapace. David thought her attractive, but too attractive, like a model that skipped past beauty into an alien world. Her skeletal smile erased even this.
Suddenly a vice clamped his chest, finding his heart and almost stopping it as she held his stare. Tired sweat pores reopened and dripped icily from his temples.
He clutched his chest, but not his left side, the right. David had dextrocardia, a rare condition that shifted his heart to the opposite side. Slowly, the
If the scarab shell is unbroken when the Akhet’s bullhorns haul the boat of Horus to Aten, the Benu will be lost and the Halls of Ma’at shall close.
Go in like the hawk and come forth like the Benu, the Morning Star of Re.
And so the translation finished. And with nothing about twenty-four bones.
To David, this was an example of the Christian Judgment Day myth written in an ancient Egyptian script. Nothing short of stunning—and for all of the reasons that Pope Shagar and the Sisters of St. George, including his grandmother, had been long disappointed with his choices. The phrases that weren’t related to the Bible derived from the Pyramid Texts and the Book of the Dead. Both of these were funerary texts that combined spells and ritual for the journey of an Egyptian soul, or Ba , through the underworld.
The last portion contained a most interesting kernel, however. It suggested a timeline to fulfill the prophecy. It answered the question, why it would fall into David’s hands now. Akhet, the ancient Egyptian new year, approached.
Packing away the translation, a thrill ran up his own spine. The blow that this stele could strike would shake the foundation of Christianity. David’s derision for organized religion extended to the Church for good reason. After his failed indoctrination into the Shemsu Hor, he’d been shipped first to England and then to Canada where he attended private boarding schools. Father Trent had been the Headmaster of the Highbury Catholic School, and someone who, at David’s grandmama’s request, had taken a special interest in him.
Late for Mass, David had been regularly tacked, or lashed, by a thin whip of wood. Often the wood would splinter across his back and leave fragments imbedded in his flesh. But worse than the tackings were the runs. Father Trent ran daily, and every Saturday, when most boarders had returned home to their families, David ran with him. Tied to the Father’s waist by a rope, David gasped scripture and ran until he vomited. Father Trent had always completed his task in the moral certitude that David could be saved.
A man carrying a shovel and hauling a bucket of earth shouldered past David. David blinked in the settling dark.
Tara could answer his remaining questions. Now that he’d spoken with Shagar, he knew he wasn’t only here to complete a translation. They had brought him here to help fulfill a prophecy, to take up some connection with Shemsu Hor. He chuckled a little maniacally at the thought.
He checked the address in his pocket again. It was copied in his rushed scrawl onto a slip of paper. He took a last look for Zahara.
Despite the shadows in the tunnel that led into the walled city, the streets at his back were more frightening. David glanced down the narrow paths into a neighborhood of poor apartment blocks. Children played among refuse. Shuttered windows were missing blinds. Steel pipes and wires climbed the raw concrete shells. A figure watched him from a shadow pierced only by a cigarette ember. When his gaze lingered, she stepped forward into the rays of the declining sun.
The woman’s skin held a grayish cast, but even at a distance, her eyes were a startling green. The hijab framed a complexion like cracked glaze, a network of veins meandering over the porcelain sides of her face. He would have sworn the veins glowed faintly. The definition of bone, sinew, and muscle made her skin as translucent as a scorpion’s carapace. David thought her attractive, but too attractive, like a model that skipped past beauty into an alien world. Her skeletal smile erased even this.
Suddenly a vice clamped his chest, finding his heart and almost stopping it as she held his stare. Tired sweat pores reopened and dripped icily from his temples.
He clutched his chest, but not his left side, the right. David had dextrocardia, a rare condition that shifted his heart to the opposite side. Slowly, the
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