CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ASCENSION
Mina opened his eyes, and it was twilight.
He reached his arms above his head and stretched out his legs, a wide yawn escaping him as he realized he was lying down, his body stiff and aching to be stretched as if he had been sleeping for a very long time.
As he lay, his skin cool on the boards of the great wooden boat, the sky was a swirl of soft ocean blues and salmon pinks.
He was outside, he realized, with the sleepy detachment of someone reluctant to wake up on a Saturday morning.
Wait. Had he really fallen asleep? When?
For how long? In a sense, it seemed that moving through the portal had been instantaneous.
But now, as he willed his stiff body to lift itself off the floor of the boat, taking in the scene around him, he wasn’t so sure.
The boat was floating down a river, cobalt blue, nearly black. And deep. Deeper than all of the rivers of the world combined, Mina thought. The Waters of Osiris. Where had that thought come from?
He could feel the rush of the water, something like gravity, pulling at him. Wanting him.
A swirling, ethereal quality hung over everything, like a Van Gogh painting come to life.
The banks of the river were marshy with tall reeds bathed in dark hues of blue and pink, swaying on a gentle breeze.
Beyond them, date palms as tall as skyscrapers towered.
Mina followed their trunks as wide as school buses up into the sky until he felt dizzy and had to look back down.
As he regained his balance, Mina felt at peace.
Drunk almost on the tranquility of the place.
Before him, the river stretched on as far as he could see.
Endless and unbroken. Mina closed his eyes and felt the warm breeze.
Inhaled the sweet mingling smells of papyrus reeds and fallen dates the size of watermelons ripening in the sand, still warm from the sun, at the base of their trees.
Mina shook himself back to the present, remembering why he was here, and started to wonder how long this journey would take.
How long he’d already been on it. Gods had no real concept of human time.
He could be here for a relative eternity.
He had no food, no water, no shelter. Completely exposed under the otherworldly sun.
Except—Mina looked up—there was no sun. Because Ra was the sun in this place, Mina realized.
And he was on his nightly journey through the underworld.
And if there was no sun, perhaps there was no danger of the elements.
No hunger or thirst or any of the things he had to worry about in the mortal world.
Because Mina was no longer on the mortal plane.
He wasn’t even sure he could be considered mortal at the moment.
He’d done it. He’d really made it. He was in the Egyptian underworld—the Duat.
Just as the realization began to fully dawn on him, something thumped the side of the boat.
Mina latched onto the side to steady himself, the boat rocking gently.
Again, thump, on the opposite side. Mina stepped closer to the edge and peered down into the water.
As he did, he threw himself so hard in the opposite direction, he had to pinwheel his arms to regain his balance and keep from teetering over the other side.
Beetles. Giant scarab beetles the size of sea turtles skated across the water, knocking their pincers against the boat. Trying to eat it? Trying to eat him?
Mina pulled himself back to the center of the boat and looked around for some mechanism to steer or propel himself.
But there was nothing. No paddle or oars or even a seat to sit on.
He was moving at a glacial pace as more and more beetles were drawn to him, their knocking becoming incessant, the boat rocking side to side, the edges tipping closer and closer to the water. They were trying to tip him over.
“Shit!” Mina cried out, looking frantically around. “How am I supposed to make this boat go?” No sooner had the words left his mouth than the boat lurched forward, sending Mina flying onto his back, legs in the air. No way.
He stood and in a loud voice said, “Boat, go!” And again, the boat lurched out of reach of the congregating beetles.
“This is fucking wild.” All Mina had to do was tell the boat to move forward, and it would move forward.
But even as the word move passed through his mind, the boat jolted again.
Wait. Mina imagined the boat moving at a steady pace down the river, and instantly the boat began to move as if by a small propeller.
Mina looked back to see the beetles skating after him, but much slower than he was moving. They wouldn’t be able to catch up.
Thoughts have power, son of man.
Anubis’s words came back to him.
Keep a bird caged long enough, and it will forget it can fly.
Fly. As the memory flooded him, the boat picked up speed, leaving behind a wake and a flurry of dancing reeds. Ahead, the cobalt sky began to spin. And then it elongated into something like a tunnel.
Mina’s stomach lurched, and again he gripped the side of the boat. This one was even worse than the first, and Mina thought for sure he would capsize.
He shut his eyes and prepared for the plunge into the water and the eventual pinch of giant beetle mouths eating him alive.
Despite the sensation of falling, the plunge never came, and Mina fell deeper into the underworld.