Heartland

I can heal you, my Lord, but I ask a boon.

What is it that you wish? Ra replies.

I wish to know your secret name.

No man may know that secret, he says.

Isis opens the drapes of the tent in which Ra lies and shows him the darkness and sickness that has come over the land as the poison has come over him. The land, locked in the shadow of a perpetual solar eclipse.

The Land languishes, my Lord, and with it, your people, she says. Do you not wish to save them?

This poison will pass, Ra says, I will be well again.

As you wish, Isis demurs.

But he doesn't get better. The poison ruins his veins, causing him to weep internally, blood and pus flowing into his chest cavity. It ravages his lungs and he cannot breathe. It devours his stomach and he is assailed by an impossible hunger. It descends into his groin and he loses the power to create life.

Isis is summoned by her sister, Nuit, who is equally consumed with despair. Heal him, she begs Isis. Bring him back.

Isis bends over the ruins of the god, who does not recognize her as the poison has blocked the path light follows from the eyes to the brain, and whispers into his ear. I only ask a small thing, my lord. Just one tiny word.

Deep in his madness, some part of Ra hears her, and in the shrunken nut of all that remains of his glory, knows that, without Isis' aid, the light that is Ra will go out. He calls forth the only spark remaining in his heart and binds it to the last breath in his lungs. This chariot and cargo fly through the ravaged cavity of his chest, up through a hole in his throat and into his mouth. When it reaches his lips, the spark is transformed into a single word, and Isis, her ear next his lips, is the only one who hears it.

Empowered by the perfection of this word, made glorious by the presence of Ra's secret name, Isis opens her heart and releases her healing magic. Her love drives out the serpent's poison, and she builds him a new stomach, repositions his ribs, and even reaches down into his groin to warm the cold stone of his sex. She brings him back, and when he wakes, the sun is born again and the river flows once more. The Land continues on.

But she knows his secret name now. That can never be taken back.

As for who gave the serpent the secret of poison? Well, that detail may or may not be revealed by the storyteller. He may leave it up to the imagination of the audience, or he may dismiss all inquiries as to the identity of this miscreant. It does not matter, he may say. The serpent is villain enough. For many centuries, the initiates claimed it was Isis who gave the serpent its fangs.

I believe it was Ra himself.

When I opened my eyes, the light was all wrong, and I gradually realized it was soft and ambient and altogether normal. Daylight. I turned my head and discovered I was lying in bed. Next to Marielle.

I had been dreaming. A rocky spur, exposed by the wind from the vast sea of sand surrounding it, had wept water long enough for a verdant oasis to grow around this artesian upwelling. I had been sitting in the shade of palm trees, listening to Philippe tell stories. Cristobel and Lafoutain had been there too; all three were dressed in white-the reflective garb of desert nomads. Nearby, several camels had been contentedly chewing while Detective John Nicols-dressed in a similar fashion-fussed with the high saddles and bags.

I believe it was Ra. .

Marielle stirred, and her leg moved against mine beneath the covers. A tiny smile creased her lips as she turned toward me. The comforter was bunched over her, and one of my feet stuck out on my side of the bed. The bed was like a European double, smaller than it should have been, and it was easy to spill over the edge. You also slept close. I moved my hand incrementally and my fingers brushed across her bare hip.

Close enough to touch.

She was as naked as I.

Orange and yellow was starting to bloom on the curtains, sunflowers of morning light. Dawn was less than an hour away; the light through the curtains over the French doors was no longer the monochromatic shadows of Nuit's palette. A long finger of darkness slowly retreated across the wall opposite the bed.

Marielle sighed, and her leg moved further across mine, rocking my hips toward her. My hand slid off her hip, my fingertips trailing across the slope of her stomach. Like running my hand across a warm stove, tingles of heat rose up to my knuckles, which didn't hurt.

Fumbling with the comforter, I extracted my right hand from the covers. My knuckles weren't bruised, and on my palm, there was a deep line that went all the way to the base of my thumb, a trinity of burn marks, and some striations that looked like the fading print of a typographer's stamp. Half a word. . This was the room where Marielle and I had spent New Year's morning, but my hand bore incongruities, the marks of a different time. Last night-

No. That night. Not last night. The apartment in Montmartre had been five years ago. Last night I had been at the coast, in a stony chapel beneath Mont-Saint-Michel. Where I had killed men for their souls. Where the leys had come back in a tsunami-like rush of noise and energy.

Marielle's leg moved again, in a motion that wasn't unconscious. She was awake, watching me, rubbing the edge of her thigh against my leg. 'Where are you?' she asked. Her voice had an oddly hollow ring, as if it was an echo.

'Right here,' I said, closing my hand and sliding it back under the covers.

She flowed into my embrace, her mouth seeking mine. Breast and belly and hip followed, and we floated away beneath a sea of white damask as the morning bloomed outside. In our room outside of time, we found each other again.

Is it real? I started to ask, but the words were lost in the sudden quickening of my pulse as her hand found my cock. She raised her head so I could kiss the hollow of her throat, so I could chase the line of her clavicle with my teeth. Her legs parted as she shifted her hips, my hand sliding under her. I pulled her closer, and she squeezed my shaft as I rubbed against the smoothness of her upper thigh.

Her arm around me, she held me close, astride the combination of her fist and my cock. My foot, caught in the sheet tucked around the base of the bed, thrashed and kicked free. Finding purchase on the edge of the bed, I pushed, extending my leg. She laughed as we burrowed further into the pillows.

I eased off, snatching her wrist and pulling her hand off me. Catching her arm between our bodies so she couldn't grab me again, I ground my hips against her, feeling her respond in kind. My cock slid between her legs, and she elevated her hips, inviting me to try again. I felt a tiny tremor run through her left leg as the joint at her hip popped, muscles both remembering and imagining another time and place. This time was easier, not so clandestine as the alcove on the boat, in not such an impromptu position. She rotated her pelvis, inviting me to find my way.

She bit my earlobe, exhaling heavily into my ear as I entered her. Does it matter? she moaned, fingers digging into my shoulders. What is real. What is not. It was like the childhood game of plucking petals off a flower. She loves me. She loves me not. She loves-riding a figure eight of motion, back and forth. From shadow to light and back again. From reality to unreality. From what could have been to what was. Back and forth, building speed. Building intensity with each shuddering passage through this central nexus of our cycle. She loves me; is it real? She loves me not; this is how the world is made.

Tell me, she whispered, and I can't answer for my mouth is pressed against her throat, bruising her with my teeth. Her legs wrapped around mine, holding me tight. Tell me-

A light exploded outside the room, the sun erupting into a super nova. Streaks flashed across the wall over the bed, and I reared up, throwing back the comforter. The curtain was flapping on its rod as the balcony door banged open. The sky was burning, a kaleidoscopic confusion of red and orange and black. A confusion of blood- tinged soap bubbles streamed into the room, obscuring the figure standing on the balcony. Outlined in fire.

Beneath me, Marielle shrieked, throwing her head back against the pillows. Her hands clawed at my chest, and her hips bucked savagely. A horrible void swam beneath her, and I was being bent at the middle, caught in the vortex. I tried to pull back, tried to stop from climaxing, but the greedy suction was too much. The pressure on my spine was too much.