An Offering for Revenge: Pt. 2
An Offering is Considered
"I will not ask you a second time Una, where is that little maggot?" The doubled rope dangled from Kel's hand before his younger brother. His knuckles were white with anticipation for another game.
Eilum had been missing all afternoon. The servants claimed that he returned with them from the temple, but no one had seen him since. No one that is, except Una.
The sun was favoring the west when the younger brother saw the figure of Eilum running down the road, carrying a large water skin and a blanket tied into a sack draped across his back.
He wished him luck in his escape, he even envied him, his brief liberty. It was not out of loyalty or love that Una kept his silence now, rather than fear. Una did not know how his father would react if he learned of his silence in the matter of Eilum's escape. That not knowing what his father would do was more than enough to keep the secret.
Si would go after him in time of cores, and he would catch him, and Eilum would suffer. But for the time, he was free, and Una was glad for that.
***
The sun had fallen below the horizon. The shadows of the desert were gone. The first lights of the stars were showing in the east. Exhausted, the young Hittite collapsed at the base of a small cliff. A shallow hole in the rock base would provide the shelter for the night. Eilum finished the half loaf of bread he swiped from the kitchen. He had not managed to get away with much, but he would not need much for the journey he was on.
Giddy from his freedom, he untied the twine from the blanket bag and spread out all he had. Taking a quick but conservative pull from the water skin, be began.
Suat, the household cat licked his fingers as Eilum withdrew her from the bag. The cat was his only source of comfort. She would not be missed from the household, and eager as he was to escape, could not bear to face this journey alone.
Eilum set the small statue of Anubis he had- borrowed- from the temple on a flat rock. Lighting a few twigs, he sprinkled a pinch of incense into the flame. A tiny altar, in a temple as great as the evening sky.
He began to chant; his words carried on the wisps of smoke into the night as they had come to him in the temple a few hours before. As the night wore on, Eilum slipped deeper and deeper into his trance. He could feel Suat stretching her tiny body against his legs as he prayed, asking for a little attention. He ran his palm lovingly across her back a few times, but would not allow himself to be distracted. Hours passed, the night wind began to dance in his tiny fire. Sleep began to come to Eilum, but only for a moment. His head bowed, he saw a figure appear from the shadows. The full moon cast a shadow profile of pointed ears, then a snout onto the sand.
Standing before him, the jackal-headed god of the underworld, Anubis, approached. The god's high-pitched voice was soft, yet sounded of supreme wisdom and authority. "I have heard your prayer young one." The mouth these words flowed from did not look to be one that could speak so plainly, yet there he was.
"I have kept faith with you for as long as I can remember great one, I have tried to honor you in every way that I could. Now, in this little time I have, I pray to you, please accept my offering and grant my prayer."
As Eilum cradled Suat in his lap, petting him with one hand, he drew a knife from beneath the blanket with the other. "I have come here to make you an offering of all that I have." Speaking quickly, the god's eyes fell on to the helpless, trusting animal in the boy's lap "I do not accept your offering! What you ask is great, and foolish. Si-Hotep will be dead soon enough, and no matter the prayers, offerings or spells that are buried with him, I know his heart. When he stands before my scale, he will know justice, the rest of his family soon enough as well."
"Soon enough for you eternal one. To you, our lives are but drops of water, fading in the hot desert sun, but not soon enough for one such as I!" The boy tried not to raise his voice, but his pain was controlling him. "I am free now, but the old man will soon come after me, and there's no place in this land that will hide me from his fury. It is only a matter of time before I am killed. If not now, then a year, two years. Years I do not want."
He tried desperately to choke away his emotions. "When that time comes, there will be no one to bury me, no one to mourn me. My bones will be shattered, and my Ka will be lost to eternity, and the house of Hotep will live on. I beg you, oh master of the great scale, guardian of eternal justice, the only chance I have for peace, is now, in this life, for me, there will be nothing else."
The jackal considered these words, a great weight on his scale, but what he asked was heavy as well. "And in return what do you offer to me? Some stolen incense, and a house pet that you cannot feed?"
Eilum shooed the cat from his lap, raised himself on to his knees before the god and met his gaze with all the open honesty he could find. "No great one, I have come here to offer you all that I have." With these words, the boy plunged the kitchen knife low into his belly and pulled the blade across his front.
The pain was searing. He cried out and buckled to the ground clamping both his hands across the riven he had made.
The eyes of the jackal opening wide with admiration, this was much more than he expected. He looked at the devotion before him, the child was used to pain, but this was unlike anything he had ever experienced.
"Impressive."
"I b-b-b-beeg you Mm-m-m-my lord-d-d... Ppp-p-p-ppleease..." The boy was balled on the ground, quivering. Then he felt the blanket carefully draped over him, he looked up to see the face of the jackal looking into his eyes.
Patting the boy gently on the shoulder, "I will consider your offering---" His words trailed away. Just behind him, a great black jackal appeared from the night. The god looked at the creature, panting in the moonlight, a curious look on his face.
"Well, young one, it appears you have also caught the attention of another. My brother has agreed to stay with you as I consider your offering."
Eilum looked into the eyes of the god and tried to thank him, fearing that he would scream again. "Say nothing," the spirit said. "You will need all your strength."
Eilum looked into the eyes of the hound, as it carefully approached. As he looked deeper and deeper, he felt himself begin to fall. For a moment, all went black, was he dead? No, he could still feel his heart beating, strong and steady.
Then, it began to clear, he was looking back at his own face. The scared trance of the boy he was a moment ago.
"And so it will be young Eilum." He looked up to see the face of Anubis speaking down to him. "You may run with my brother for as long as you can, but remember this well. You are now a creature of the night, what you do, you may only do when Ra sleeps. You must take shelter when he rides the heavens in the morning.
"Eilum listened intently, the way a hound listens for the movement of an animal. A thrill like none he had ever known burned within him.
"Go---"
The hound turned and tore through the desert, anticipation throbbed through every sinew of his shared body. His eyes glowed red, like flames, dancing in the windows of a house burning from the inside.