The Love Game (Gods of the Universe: Book 1)

Thirty-Seven

Anubis told me what happened to Horus. What his punishment is. He thinks it should be longer. I can't help feeling sorry for him.

I don't forgive him. I don't think his punishment should be less. If I ever see him again, Anubis better not stop me from beating the crap out of his falcon feathers. But I feel sorry that his actions and desperation have led him to spending five thousand years in the desert.

I told Anubis, and he said he understood. He didn't feel sorry for him, but he understood, and I was grateful for that. He didn't try to convince me that his cousin was Chaos incarnate; he only said Horus deserved more time in the dark.

Which led to my next question: why was it so horrible that Horus doesn't see the light of day for five thousand years? I mean, not seeing the sunlight is pretty horrible, but for these Egyptian gods it's the worst punishment possible.

Anubis laughed. "It is," he answered. "Lana, we are a sun-based system. Our entire beings are connected to the sun and the sky. To not see either for so long..." Anubis took a deep breath. "It cuts us off from our powers, makes us human with immortality. And being alone for so long will drive even a god crazy."

He looked so sad, I stretched up and planted a kiss on his cheek. "So don't do anything stupid, then," I suggested.

His smile was infectious, like rain after too much sun. "Wasn't planning on it," he promised.

*******************

Now I'm in Egypt. Many people wondered why I'd go to the country where the man who kidnapped me is currently rotting underground, but Anubis swore up and down that he wouldn't let anything happen to me.

We've been traveling on camels at a steady pace for about four hours now, traveling from the Giza Necropolis to Ain Sokhna, a town on the other side of the Nile. We're both wearing pretty much the same clothes; linen cargo pants, a loose cotton shirt, hiking boots, and broad hats that he clearly despises. I got him to compromise, though; kohl around the eyes if we wear the hats.

Anubis pulls a string instrument that resembles half of a carpet and a double-sided drum out of his rather large bag and hands me the drum. "I know you have a good ear for music," he tells me, offering me a dazzling smile as we sway on the backs of the camels. "I'll play this," he says, holding up his carpet triangle, "and you follow along with that whenever you feel it."

I don't ask what the carpet is supposed to be. I'm not sure I want to know.

Then Anubis starts strumming, and I forget about the carpet. Focus on the sound.

For a while I just let him play in the hot sun as we pass great sloping dunes of sand, orange and yellow in the light. He looks like, well, a god, sitting on the back of a camel in the middle of the desert, the light hitting his gold skin just so, strumming an ancient instrument with his eyes closed. He looks so... happy. At home.

He is at home, I realise. The northwest coast of North America isn't his home; it's here, in the Egyptian desert. Can I really take him away from this?

Anubis' strumming speeds up a bit, and I hear the perfect opening. I start to lightly tap the sides of the drum; dun, dun dun dun, dun dun dundundun. Then he smiles at me encouragingly, and with a thrill of enthusiasm I beat the sides harder, sending the sound out into the desert air. Anubis speeds up and I steadily follow on the drum, until a sudden impulse has me adding my voice to the mix. I don't sing any particular words; it's all just meaningless sound.

But the look on his face tells me it means everything.

He would leave this behind. The desert, the instruments and music and clothes and pure culture he wants me to see. He'd leave everything behind. For me.