Chapter 6 The Hunter
Chapter six
The Hunter
MERYT
Where had he gone? I had felt such a rush of love for Nakht when I was suddenly right there, close enough to embrace him, but then… nothingness. Nakht was gone again, and I… I…
What was I doing?
“M-my lord, I-I can get you—”
“Come, little one, I have all I need right here.” The drunken slurs might have been imperceptible to another, but my attention was immediately drawn to it because the stuttering, frightened voice before that deeper one had been Nakht’s.
One of the older soldiers, inebriated and too liberal with his hands, was trying to pull Nakht into his lap.
But we were not yet acceptable choices for what he had planned.
There were other slaves for that, older dancers trained to please our masters.
Nakht and I were but boys, only here to offer wine and trays of food.
I rushed to the soldier with my own pitcher nearly empty. Nakht was having trouble hanging onto his, while fighting to escape the soldier’s grasp without earning his wrath, something I knew was impossible. Another tactic was needed.
“Last of Pharaoh’s special wine!” I announced, loud enough to draw the soldier’s eye. “But is there anyone worthy enough to drink it?”
“What is that?” He reached to stop me as I feigned moving past him.
“Why, this is Pharaoh’s most prized vintage, my lord, but there is very little left. I was tasked with finding someone worthy enough—”
“Give that to me.” He promptly forgot about Nakht, nearly bucking him from his lap in his haste to snatch the pitcher from my hands. “There is no finer soldier who serves our Pharaoh than the one before you.”
“I have no doubt, my lord,” I said.
As soon as he brought the pitcher to his lips to drink directly from the source, I snatched the startled Nakht by the hand and dashed out of sight with him.
Out of sight, out of mind, I hoped, and given the soldier’s intoxication, I was fairly certain he would not remember what either of us looked like in a moment.
We ran until we were safely tucked behind a pillar on the other side of the hall, laughing a little and out of breath.
Nakht was such a lovely little thing but too thin, not yet mature enough to form the muscles he would one day grow, and at this age with his bronze hair barely brushing the tops of his shoulders.
At this age…
Because we were so much older than this now.
Weren’t we?
“You saved me,” Nakht said, smiling more dazzlingly than I had yet seen from him back then. He never smiled in those early years. He would tell me later that he rarely had a reason to smile until me. Until our friendship formed and blossomed into more.
“Of course,” I answered. “I will always be there to save you, Nakht. We have to look out for one another.”
I had yet to let go of his hand. I hadn’t wanted to.
Nakht didn’t pull his hand from mine either but continued to stare at me with that enchanting smile and the torchlight dancing in his eyes as though they were made from that fire.
The light danced because we were in more shadow than we had been a moment ago.
The ambient light from outside was starting to dim.
Nakht noticed too, and his gaze darted behind me, eyes widening in wonder.
“The sun is almost set.” His attention flickered back to me with a hesitant bat of his lashes. “The dusk reminds me of you. Your darker coloring and how lovely it is.”
“Lovelier than the day?” I asked.
“Oh yes. Don’t you prefer the nighttime?”
“I do, but there is something equally as beautiful about the dawn.”
Nakht smiled brighter, understanding exactly what I meant.
I think I wanted to kiss him already in that moment, young as we were.
We were friends, but that night, after my impromptu rescue, was when I first wondered if I loved him the way love was written about in the poetry Nakht was already starting to read and write.
It had not been a purely selfless act to risk my safety on his behalf.
I hadn’t been able to stand the thought of another touching him when he clearly did not want to be touched.
Once we were older and did want such things, so much would change.
It had changed, for we were twice the age of the child before me or the body I found myself in.
Where was Nakht this time? Where would he appear? I looked around desperately in search of him.
“Mer? What is it?” the younger Nakht asked.
I couldn’t find him. Why couldn’t I find him? Had he failed? Had I failed somehow?
Had I lost him forever outside of these memories?
I whirled around again, more and more frantic, but he wasn’t here. He wasn’t—
I bumped into the legs of an adult and leapt backward, fearing it was the soldier not yet drunk enough to have fallen for my ploy. But no, that wasn’t how this happened. Nakht and I had snuck away and remained safe throughout the night.
I looked up, and it was him, Nakht, even more handsome and perfect than I remembered. Each time I saw him, he looked more radiant, now with shimmering snake scales in his hair, gifted, I knew, by Seth himself for I had witnessed them together in rapturous display.
“Nakht—”
I threw myself forward to wrap my arms around his waist, but I gripped nothing, only emptiness as I plummeted into my next memory.
NAKHT
“Mer—!”
I felt around my waist where he had almost embraced me, but he was gone.
I had felt him knock into me, the little boy he had once been, but with his knowing, adult eyes when he looked up at me. Again I had to think what torture this was, yet I also had to believe these glimpses were a gift, for we were closer to keeping each other each time, so long as I did not falter.
I wouldn’t with Horus. I wouldn’t. I thought it again and again as the underworld shrank beneath me, still being winged away by the falcon god.
I couldn’t say for sure if we were leaving the underworld entirely.
I assumed not, for the Duat was immeasurable and it was my duty to traverse it.
We were in the sky but that was part of the gods’ realm too.
We landed, yet I saw no land anywhere. We were simply on the steps of a great hall, but the building floated upon nothing, an abode in the sky, which made sense for the winged deity who looked down upon and watched over the prison of his…
Beloved?
Horus released me, tucking his wings behind him as he gestured for me to ascend the steps.
“Go on,” he encouraged, voice gentle and soft, perhaps the kindest out of the others, just as Seth’s was the most fierce.
“You need to recover your strength. We will dine first, and if you have questions for me, you needn’t hesitate to ask them. ”
Of course he knew, just like Seth had known, where my curiosity lay.
I nodded and ventured ahead of Horus as directed.
His abode was the antithesis of Seth’s with a tall ceiling, open space, and everything bright and white and gleaming like we truly were up among the clouds, whereas Seth was condemned to his cave in the deep earth.
That made it no less lonely looking to me, the bareness of the walls, where Seth had his armor and artwork made of snake scales and bones.
Here, it was as if Horus wished to make no memories, to leave no impression, until Seth was free.
In the center of the open space, so minimally adorned, with but a small day bed in one corner and an area littered with scrolls in another, was a long table covered in bread, jars of honey, desserts, and bowls filled with dates, alongside every type of meat I could imagine, including some sort of stuffed bird, even cheeses and spices from distant lands.
Pitchers of both wine and beer awaited me too.
Not even in Pharaoh's halls had I seen such a feast.
There were two chairs, one on either side of the table, the shorter length, not across from one another at the longer ends, so I sat in the chair farthest from where we had entered and watched Horus take the seat opposite me.
He removed his headdress and set it on the table.
I no longer knew what forms were true of the gods, but I thought this might be the real Horus, a winged man who wore armor to hide his wounded heart.
Beneath his helm, he had short brown hair.
There were some feathers in it, whether woven in or natural, I wasn’t sure, but he had none anywhere else on his person like Geb or Ra.
“Go on,” he said again, gesturing to the feast before me.
I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until this moment, so I filled my plate and took a few rejuvenating bites before I spoke. “If I overstep, my lord, please tell me, and I will beg forgiveness, but I must ask…”
“Yes?” Horus prompted with a tender smile. He too was filling his plate, but slower, not yet taking a bite.
“Seth all but admitted he fell in love with you during your contendings. You fell in love with him too, didn’t you?”
The sorrow returned that I had seen on Horus’s face when he bound Seth after their kiss, and he paused before answering to drink from a goblet of wine.
“Osiris is the eternal calm. Seth is chaos. I am honestly something of both but was drawn to Seth’s wild spirit, to his primal rawness.
As much as both order and chaos are needed, as gods, we must be above failings, even if drawn to them by our natures.
Seth took things too far and must atone. ”
“Then what truly happened between you two? Seth never told me fully.”