Page 50 of The Secret Shape of Worship
Anubis lurched forward, pulling Mina roughly behind him. “But our deal?—”
“The boy struck a new deal. And as it is his life, I see no reason why it should not be his decision. He will be judged, and he will be sent to his rightful place in the Duat. And you shall be granted your post back in the mortal world if you desire it.”
Anubis’s hand slipped away, and now it was Mina who trembled. The god turned around, his face a mask of fury behind a burning veil of sadness.
“You did this?”
“Like I said. It wasn’t fair that you were punished for wanting to help me. And you did help me, Anubis.” Mina stepped toward Anubis, reaching for his hands, but the god stepped back. Mina faltered, but kept on. “I experienced more happiness in our short time together than I had in my previous two decades of life. And if you have an opportunity to help even one more person, I can’t let that be taken from you or the other souls you might be able to shepherd. You love mortals. You love our world. You deserve to go back.”
“And what about what you deserve?”
“You’ve given me more than any one person deserves. I’ll be happiest knowing you’re happy. If I go back to my old life knowing what’s happened to you, I’ll never be truly happy.”
“The same will be true for me.” Anubis softened. He knelt and took Mina’s small hands in his. Mina twirled one of Anubis’s golden rings around the god’s finger. It wasn’t fair that they couldn’t both go back to their old life together in the necropolis.
There is no ‘fair’ in the world of gods or men. There is only what is, what happens, and what we do.
Well, maybe there was something Mina coulddo.
He turned toward Osiris. “Why can’t we both stay here in the underworld together?”
“This is but a liminal space, a dwelling for gods alone. Your mortal soul can only pass through. You must be judged. And then you must pass to your place of reckoning. Whether paradise or abyss, that will be determined by your heart upon the scales.”
“Ok. Say I pass the test, and I go to heaven or paradise or whatever. Why couldn’t Anubis just come with me?”
“Anubis may go anywhere he pleases within the Duat. However, when a soul is judged, each one passes to a different afterlife which manifests from their own hearts. Even I cannot know what will become of you when you pass beyond. The samefor Anubis. You may both cross over. But the chance that you will find each other again is almost certainly zero.”
Mina turned back to Anubis. The god gave a sad smile, knowing Mina’s thoughts, his heart, before he even opened his mouth.
“This is truly what you want, isn’t it?” the god said.
“You know me. So, yeah, you know it is.”
“And I cannot convince you to simply go back to your mortal life and enjoy your many years that remain.”
“Analmost certainly zerochance to be with you is better than no chance at all.”
Osiris stepped forward and took Mina by the shoulder, his dead hands bone-chilling. “The boy’s heart is set,” he said. “And now it shall be judged.”
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
DEVOURER
Up close, the Temple of Osiris defied Mina’s senses. The giant pyramid rose before them as high as the tallest mountain on Earth. Whereas on Earth, the clouds would mercifully bisect the view at some point, stifling the dizzying vertigo, this temple rose unobstructed into the sky.
As they climbed the stone steps, which Mina had to stretch nearly to his legs’ limit to summit, he found he couldn’t look up at it for long without the nauseating sense that somehow he’d become untethered from the ground and sucked up into the sky. He squeezed his eyes closed and then bolted them to the ground in front of his feet. One foot in front of the other, up the obscenely high steps and across the long expanse of the marble courtyard until Mina sensed a heavy darkness press in around him.
Mina looked forward just as he was passing through the entrance of the temple. If he expected the vertigo to disappear once he stepped inside, he couldn’t have been more wrong.
Inside, the walls and ceiling above him rose to such impossible heights that Mina’s head continued to spin, and he nearly fell onto his back. Huge limestone columns aswide around as small houses rose up all along the corridor that stretched before them. From the columns and walls hung torches with flames like bonfires so that everything was swimming in warm amber. Gold and marble statues, massive alabaster pottery, and decadent, god-sized furniture littered the alcoves and antechambers beyond the columns. But the most surprising thing about the place, as Mina took in the enormity and richness of it all, was the fact that not a single living soul or god or creature was anywhere in sight, though the interior of the structure seemed to span the length and breadth of a city.
The group walked the column-lined corridor for what felt like miles. Eventually, Mina saw materializing ahead what appeared to be steps, a huge throne perched at the very top. The closer they got, the higher the steps rose until, reaching the end of the columns where the space opened up into the structure’s massive center, the stairs rose nearly two stories high. Osiris waved them onward toward the top, and the trio, again, began to climb. A quarter of the way up, Mina cracked his shin painfully against the corner of a step, his curses echoing in the massive chamber. Halfway up, his legs finally gave out. Anubis scooped him up before he even had a chance to curse and clutch his sore feet, carrying him the rest of the way to the top.
As the group reached the final step, Mina thought he understood what a cat must feel like in a human world. Everything loomed above him, the throne so high he couldn’t even see the top of its red velvet cushion. Next to the throne was a great golden scale, the bottom of each tray as high as Mina was tall.
“And now,” said Osiris, turning to face Mina, bony fingers pressed together as if in prayer, “your heart will be judged.”
Mina looked around. He expected a little more of a ceremony to it. Maybe a crowd. A terrifying throng of gods and monstersto watch the ceremonial weighing of a human heart. But it remained just the three at the top of the platform.
