“I do not. Not completely. But we will be together. That is all that matters to me.” Nakht raised a hand palm outward, a subtle smile quirking his lips like it had on his younger self. The practice room seemed dimmer around us, and all I truly saw was him, like a light in the dark or the sun cresting over the horizon. “Dusk to my dawn,” he said.
I mimicked him, aligning our palms, while wishing we could risk pressing them flush. “Dawn to my dusk,” I echoed.
“You look so beautiful.”
“Youlook beautiful. Unfairly so. Far more beautiful than I ever could.”
“Oh hush,” Nakht chastised, as if this were no more different an encounter than any day back home. “I could never outdo you.”
“Your limberness can.” I smirked.
He laughed, tilting just slightly forward so I could feel the heat from his just-out-of-reach hand. “I can accept that. And soon, I will show you just how limber I still am.”
An array of erotic images replayed in my mind of Nakht taking or being taken by one of the gods. “I think you have been. I might be a little jealous.”
“Of the gods? Or me?”
“Both,” I teased, tilting my head at him, wanting nothing more than to kiss him, buthimthis time, not a memory.
Nakht laughed again, breathy and sweet, the loveliest of sounds I had ever heard.
My desire to be with him urged me to raise my other hand, and Nakht paralleled that motion too.
“Oh please…please, gods above and below us, let me touch him,” I beseeched, but as I started to take the step forward that was needed, in that same instant, I knew the answer before a deep, resonant voice whispered at my ear:
“Not yet.”
NAKHT
I gasped as I pushed my hands forward only to make contact with the trunk of a tree.
That, I knew, had been a gift, showing what awaited us should I succeed.
I realized it was not a tree I touched, however. The surface was too smooth, too white, too large in circumference. I leaned away from it and tilted my head, finding myself looking up the length of an impossibly tall pillar. It was carved from white limestone with intricate markings etched into it.
I leaned closer again, realizing that the markings were pictographs, but so tiny, I could barely read them. Then one line jumped out at me almost as if it had begun to glow.
Was it glowing?
Keep thou not silent when evil is spoken
for Truth, like the sunlight, shines above all.
Thoth. Those were believed to be Thoth’s words from one of his records, god of knowledge, secrets, and magic. He was also the god of writing, of poetry, and I tentatively reached forward again to touch the glowing hieroglyphics, having always felt the most affinity for this god, for I knew well the power of words.
“You needn’t strain your eyes, child.”
I snatched my hand back and spun around to seek the voice’s source.
I saw now that this pillar was one among many. The vastness of them could have been their own forest like the one in the oasis I left, for the pillars were equally innumerable, and amidst them were tall shelves with alcoves filled to bursting with scrolls. I was in the center of some immense library, like nothing mere mortals could ever have conceived, with a domed ceiling showing the blue sky above as if made of something completelytransparent. Glass? But never before had I seen it used for such a structure.
Near me but still several strides away was a massive table where Thoth himself sat writing. He was only using a corner of the table, with a small pile of scrolls at hand, and the rest of the large surface was bare.
“I built this place on words.” He spoke without looking at me, a higher pitched voice, light and airy, perhaps the most casual sounding of the gods, as if he had no care in the world other than what he was writing. “But scrolls are easier on the eyes.”
I almost laughed.
Casual was exactly what he was, for as I approached him at his table, I saw how human he looked too. Horus had been the most human before now, but he had wings. Thoth appeared like a quite normal-looking, albeit very handsome, young man—no, not young. He was older. Wasn’t he? But also ageless.
