Fables/Fairytales Fan Fiction ❯ End of Chances ❯ Cast Out with the Offal ( Chapter 1 )

I actually wrote this for NaNoWriMo 2007. I ended up taking my main story in an entirely different direction, but this little bit turned out pretty self-contained. I hope you like it.

 

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There weren't any chances left. That's what he'd remember thinking, that this was the end of chances. Then there wasn't much thinking to be done.

It was the strangest thing. He could feel his heart still in its place, his liver, lungs and kidneys all where they were supposed to be, clearer than could have been expected, but his thoughts were foggy. He could barely remember how he'd gotten here. How long had he been walking?

One hand trailed against the walls. They were rough but not rough, only scouring his skin in the crevices, worn smooth by a hundred thousand great-grandfathers all pacing this same pathway. His feet kept moving, toes, soles, pads against the floor, feeling its smoothness through the foot-cloths. Why were they moving? Why didn't he want them to stop moving? Could there be someone behind him?

But he wasn't supposed to look back.

A throb, a pounding. He knew that. He could feel it in his thumbs. What was it?

Fear. It was some kind of fear. He'd been expecting this. Still, he was supposed to go there anyway, wherever there was. His legs worked and his feet lifted and slapped back down again. He couldn't move them right. There was no reason for it. Skin, muscle, sinew. They all were perfect. Still his legs worked like a horse without a rein.

Come. The feather-woman didn't speak. She didn't have to. The place, the time, the situation from the stones in the walls to every fiber on his skin spoke for her, clear even to his fogged river of a mind.

He walked smoothly. The fog in his mind began to part as the stiffness left his limbs. He dropped down to both knees like a kite falling to the heart, stretched out both arms with all grace of a dancer and touched his head to the rock at her feet.

Something about the feather, the scales. He was supposed to give them something. They'd wrapped it so that he could give it to them...

The devourer growled, growled and all the bowels of the earth were rumbling, hungry.

They never bring me any! It's mine by right and they've cast it out with the offal. The thought that was more than thought pierced through his—

But that was it. It wasn't the heart at all. The white thing. He'd left it behind. They'd just thrown it away.
Ammit, you must content yourself. You're given plenty.

But it's mine!

Should he go back? Did they have any of it left or had it been eaten?

No, he couldn't go back. He wasn't supposed to turn around. His mind was clearing steadily as he knelt before the daughter of Isis. He couldn't think on his own, not anymore. She thought and he obeyed, but it came from her, not him.

She spoke with a speaking that was more than words.

What is your name?

It had been preserved. His name had been written on the stone. He gave it to her.

Have you conducted yourself as a true son throughout your days in the world?

His mouth opened. There was no sound, no memory. The scales quivered. The devourer hissed impatiently, trunklike feet stomping as her claws tore the scarred earth.

He can't say. They never say!

Something was blocked. Something was wrong.

Ma'at pulled her feather from the scales, lifted his heart from its place. There is no going forward without an answer.

He hadn't brought it with him. He had to go and find it. His arms flexed. They were stiff again. He made them work. All the desire, the purpose, the animation behind his dried limbs had pulled him to this place. Now it was pulling him toward the key.

The devourer gnashed her fangs, but did not leap at him. The lady did not call him back.

And the jackal-headed god, who had been silent all this time, did not do anything at all.

He turned, drawing one foot from the ground and then the other. Back through the jackal's tunnels to the world above, to the house of rock. Pulled them past his tomb, through the corridor to the gate, the sealed gate. He pushed and nothing gave. He scratched and scrabbled in the darkness but the cloths on his hands made no mark on the stones.

A sound that was not speech came from him, low and loud as he pounded both fists, his empty skull against the rocks. A crunch. A fingerbone snapped. They'd known. They'd known!

The Egyptians believed that death broke the spirit into pieces, the conscience, the memory, the animating force, and that pieces that had to be reunited afterward. The living did all they could to help. But all isn't always enough.

And still, he couldn't stop, lifting his body, and dashing it against the sandstone, so long as one fiber lay beside another.

Modern peoples believe that the Egyptians built great tombs for their dead to honor them and sealed them carefully to keep out thieves, wove spells into the shrouds to protect the spirits. But that does not explain why the stronger a man's will was in life, the stronger they built the tomb.

 

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drf24 @ columbia.edu