I lifted my head, tears still falling but starting to dry, as I sought out my lover, despite him sitting right there with me. As expected, that other Nakht was there,here, close but still so far from me, standing in the archway into the room.
He looked luminous. Older than the version beside me, his hair was longer, adorned differently with more fanciful baubles. His face was painted so flawlessly too, light and accenting rather than bold, and his attire, while similar to our dancer’s garb, sparkled…
As though the gods had woven it with stars.
I’d had that thought before. I remembered it like a dream, but this older, brilliantly beautiful Nakht was not the illusion. The one holding me was. A memory. Because this awful day happened years ago, hadn’t it? And I was…
I was…
Oh gods.
With my eyes locked on my real beloved, my panic faded as soon as it rose within me, and everything,everythingburned away in a bright, blinding luminance.
NAKHT
I stumbled against the rocks. I had been there again. Shown like a carrot leading a steed that my love was drawing nearer to me, and I to him, as he relived his memories from the end to the beginning.
I remembered that day too, so well, and my eyes stung with wetness from the resurgence of my first great loss. Meryt’s mother had been my mother too, as close as I had ever had to a real one. It was so much easier then, because while I too mourned deeply, I knew Meryt mourned harder, and it helped that I could be there for him. That we could be there for each other. We knew we could survive losing her and taking up our duty to lead the other dancers because we were together.
Without Meryt, I had no such companion to lean against, other than, perhaps, Pasht the cat, following at my heels through the palace halls before the gods took me.
I did not expect to catch up to the Pasht guiding my journey, for she was merely my beacon leading me along, not meant for me to capture and cuddle. I hoped I would get to again someday, however, and that Meryt would too, right there beside me.
I continued forward, banishing the unexpected pain that particular memory caused. I braced myself on the rocky wall with my left hand as I went, for the ground was just as uneven as the cavern arch enclosing me. The tunnel I tread down seemed endless, and the walls around me had been growing narrower. It was dark in here, and yet I could see clear enough, for therocks themselves had a glittery illumination to them, casting everything in soothing blue.
This truly felt like traversing the bowels of the underworld, and in truth, I was. Through part of the primordial, Ptah had said.
But to where?
The further I went, I at least contented myself in that no brush of the stones against my feet or hand hurt or left any marks. I just as easily could have been walking upon pillows, and yet I did not wish to test that theory by stumbling.
Then, as the narrower and narrower path began to turn, I saw ahead what might be a larger opening, and from it came the strong scent of something metallic and salty. There was maybe the faintest hint of sulfur mixed in, but not so strong as to be unpleasant. All together it gave the distinct impression of a natural hot spring.
Meryt and I had been to one once when Pharaoh chose us to be among his companions for an oasis holiday. It was as close to paradise as I’d ever thought we’d get before reaching the Field of Reeds.
This was different. Buried deep within a… mountain? The core of the earth? I wasn’t certain, but when I crested that opening and exited the tunnel into a great cavern with a fissure in the rocky floor that indeed steamed and bubbled from its hot water pond, I knew why I had been sent to traverse the primordial earth.
“Welcome, Nakht,” a deep, rumbling voice boomed from the handsome yet strange figure lounging in the pool.
He had medium-dark skin halfway between mine and Meryt’s. At first glance, he seemed… normal. He was a ways from me yet as I strolled closer to the pond. The steam made it difficult to make out his details well. He had long, braided black hair, that was clear, and a… short beard? But it was a strange beard. UnlikePtah’s, it appeared real but close to the skin, like thick scruff on his cheeks and chin. He certainly had the eyes of a god, amber-colored but even more vibrant than just that, almost as if they were two glowing oranges ripe within his eye sockets.
His arms were outstretched on either side of him to rest on the pool’s edge and keep him lifted, for the pool seemed quite deep, though I couldn’t truly see beneath its bubbling surface, for within was darkness.
He wore no adornments in his impressive mane of braided hair. He appeared to wear almost nothing at all, save a few rings and a thick wrist cuff in gold and blue on his right arm. As I drew closer, there did appear to be something on his shoulders, stretching down his arms almost like sleeves made of blue-black feathers. They didn’t expand past his elbow, however, ending at his forearms.
Something about his chest was odd too. It was broad and nicely muscled.Hewas broad. Though I could only see him from his ribs up, how muscular and large he seemed made me assume he would be a behemoth when standing and would tower over me. But somewhere in the center of his chest where I’d expect more of his bronzy skin was a thatch of pure white.
The closer I crept, the better I saw him through the steam, and the more I was certain of which god would test me next. Of course we were in the primordial. I did not need to see the golden goose on the side of his wrist cuff to understand this was Geb.
God of the Earth and Father of Snakes.
I gasped. My mind had not been equipped to decipher the truth of him until I was too close to deny it.
“Do I frighten you, mortal?” Geb asked, smiling wide to show the twin fangs of a cobra. His amber eyes were slit like a snake’s as well.
What I had taken for the scruff of hair on his cheeks and chin were bronze and black scales. What I had thought to be sleeves attached to some sort of form-fitted cloak were black feathers with azure tips. Feathers and scales faded to skin but then to feathers again where, central on his stomach and half hidden beneath the water, was the white I had seen, now understanding it as downy tufts.
“Well?” Geb pushed from the edge of the pool to drift toward me on the other side, like some ravenous crocodile hunting across the Nile.
