Eater of souls

Lynda S. Robinson Eater of souls

Prologue

Ammut, the Devouress

She is the Devouress, Eater of the Dead, Devourer of Souls, creature of the netherworld-crocodile head, lion's foreparts, hippo's hindquarter- she is feared even by the one called Blood Drinker. Ammut the Devouress crouches by the scales while Anubis weighs the heart of the dead one against the Feather of Maat. Toth, Osiris, and the pantheon observe but do not interfere. The scales tilt; the Feather rises. A scream tears itself from the throat of the dead one who stands at the scales. The Devouress salivates, squats on her haunches, and springs. Long, yellow-toothed jaws snap, once at the heart, once at the dead one. Bones crack; flesh is severed; and Ammut the Devouress carries out the punishment dealt to all evil ones-annihilation. The gods turn and face the portal through which the next one will come, the evildoer forgotten. But Ammut lifts her crocodile head and listens to souls in torment in the living world above. Their pain calls to her. Another dead one appears at the portal. Ammut, Eater of Souls, Devourer of Shades, swings her head toward the smell of fresh meat. She is hungry again.

Chapter 1

Memphis, Year Five of the Reign of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun

She could smell the darkness. Night in the land of the living was a feeble imitation of the obsidian nothingness that possessed her own lair, yet she could smell the darkness. Lifting her hard, jutting snout, she sucked in the textured scents-waters of the Nile, mud and refuse from the docks nearby, the faint smell of dung mixed with fish and smoke from a thousand dying oven fires.

The snout whipped around at the sound of a flute, a shriek of drunken laughter from the beer house. A claw, long, curved, with a honed blade-edge as sharp as a physician's knife, scraped over the cracked mud brick of a wall. It snaked back into the shelter of the alley at the sudden appearance of light. Several of the living approached. Eyes with daggered pupils observed the strangers. Rapid, guttural chattering made her wince. Foreigners-in rank, unclean wool robes smelling of beer and sex. Bearing the torch that had assaulted her eyes, they stumbled past and swerved to disappear down the street.

Snorting to rid herself of the stench, she returned her attention to the beer house across the street. One of its wooden shutters was loose and warped, allowing light from within to escape and casting rippled shadows on the packed earth of the road. A larger group burst from the interior, arguing, giggling, swaying to the beat of a sailing song. Men from the docks. Of no interest, no relevance.

She grunted with impatience, something she never experienced below. But the evil one had been in the beer house since dusk. Leaning against the chipped plaster of the wall, she rubbed her haunches against the surface, scraping off more chips of plaster with her rough hide. All grew quiet again, and the light from the beer house began to dim as someone quenched lamps. Far away, in the palace district, a hound howled. At an even greater distance, out in the western desert, land of the dead, hyenas yipped and squealed.

The brittle wooden door of the beer tavern swung open again. She turned a yellow eye and saw, at last, the evil one. He was a small man, as befit his place among the living. A humble farmer with cracked, sunbaked skin, splayed, dirty feet, and three cracked teeth. This was the one who had offended, had transgressed in so callous a manner that she had heard the cry of injustice from below.

She sniffed the air again and caught the scent of a decayed ka, the soul of the evil one. The farmer came toward her. He would use the alley to cross this district of taverns and beer houses on his way to the skiff he'd left at the dock. As he marched unsteadily toward her, she felt the sudden burning rush of power spiced with anticipation. It boiled through her like rolling thunderclouds.

Slinking back into the deepest blackness, she crouched on her hind legs. Heavy, irregular footsteps announced the farmer's approach. And over the sound of his tread she heard that for which she'd been listening all night. The steady, dull th-thud, th-thud, th-thud. The voice of the heart. It grew louder and louder, provoking her, taunting her, invading her skull and battering its low vault. Just as the noise threatened to shatter the bones of her head, she sprang out of the blackness and landed behind the farmer.

He turned and tottered, his mouth agape, his eyelids climbing to his brows. He had time for a rattling little screech before she bashed him in the head. The man flew backward and smacked into the hard earth. The moment he lay flat, she lunged, her forearm drawn back, claws spread wide. They cut through the air, impaled flesh, and sliced, severing the farmer's throat. Drawing back, she shook her claw deftly to rid it of blood and stringy tissue while the farmer gurgled and stared up into a long, rigid maw studded with yellow fangs. She listened for that last escaping breath. Once it issued from the body, she stooped over the farmer once more-to do what had been decreed, what she existed to do, what was righteous, what this evil deserved.

Kysen strode out of his bedchamber toward the hall of Golden House, the ancestral home of his family in Memphis. Dawn approached, and exhaustion nested in his body like a sated vulture. At the same time he had to endure the pounding mallet of dread that beat in time with his heart. He'd slept only a few hours after last night's conversation with his father. Meren was one of the Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh, confidential inquiry agent to the living god, the pharaoh Tutankhamun, but even one so favored as Meren couldn't investigate the death of a queen without risking his life.

Kysen's thoughts careened to a halt as he imagined the magnitude of the risk to his father. Nearly stumbling into the half-open doors to the hall, he placed his hand on the polished cedar and electrum and entered. The scene of splendor before him never failed to call up memories of his own childhood before Meren had adopted him, memories of bare walls, meager furnishings, poverty of spirit, and the devastation of joy.

Before him slender columns painted in green, blue, and gold rose above his head, while lamplight glinted off furniture trimmed in sheet gold or wrought in darkest ebony. He passed the master's dais, on which stood his father's chair with its elegant ebony legs ending in lion's paws. Each carved paw had claws painted in gold. The solid sides and armrests were fitted with sheet gold engraved with hunting scenes.

The contrast between his memories and the hall faded as he approached his sisters, to be replaced by worry. He had searched for Meren without success earlier this morning. If his father wasn't with Bener and Isis… His imagination crowded with thoughts of court intrigue, the enemies Meren had made in protecting and nurturing the boy pharaoh.

Cease. You're weary and not thinking clearly. There's nothing to fear at the moment. He hasn't begun to study the death of Queen Nefertiti.

Raised voices interrupted his worried thoughts. Bener and Isis were arguing as they breakfasted on hot bread, figs, and barley porridge. Holding a rush pen, Bener munched a piece of bread while composing a list of items on a scrap of used papyrus. She glanced up to smile at her brother before responding to Isis.

'You're too young. Barely fourteen.'

'I'm not too young. You're just jealous. Lord Reshep is the most pleasing of any at court, and he hasn't even looked at you.'

Bener wrote another word in her fine cursive script and contemplated it as she replied calmly. 'It would be hard for him to do that, since we've never met.'

'I don't care-'

'Have you seen Father?' Kysen interrupted before Isis succeeded in provoking her sister.

'Not this morning,' Bener said as she added another item to her list. 'Did you know that the steward has been obtaining watermelons from a street vendor?'