Page 6 of The Secret Shape of Worship
When Mina opened his eyes again, Anubis was tilting his head to the side.Uh oh,thought Mina.Can this thing read my thoughts?
A rumble, not from below but from all around. Like great stones cracking and falling down a mountainside. Except this was no earthquake, no stones. This was a voice. Deep and resounding as if the bedrock itself were the vocal cords and the chamber he was standing in a throat.
“Son of man.”
Mina would have fallen to his knees if not for the giant iron hand pinning him to the wall behind him.
“You have come to Anubis, Lord of the Sacred Land, Ruler of the Nine Bows, Guide to the Duat. You are not dead. You are not supplicant. You do not offer your spear in my service. You do not kneel before me, a god of the necropolis. Instead, you…” The echo of his voice reverberated like thunder.“…desecrate.”The last word came out in a growl so deep Mina’s bones vibrated.
Mina’s vision went foggy, and his knees started to give. But before he could fall, the figure tightened the hand on Mina’s chest into a fist, clutching the shredded scruff of his ruined shirt to hold him upright. A long, clawed finger reached forward from his fist and caressed Mina’s clean-shaven cheek.
This is the end,thought Mina.A giant, jacked jackal god is going to annihilate me and drag me to Egyptian hell.
“You are delicate,” the thunderous voice cracked. “Supple. A sapling that refuses to break.”
Mina wondered if he should kneel now. If he should bow or raise his hands in worship. All the empty movements that always felt so awkward to him in church services suddenly felt like the only logical response. And if any being deserved it, surelythis one did. At least until Mina was sure that he’d appeased whatever wrath he’d invoked.
Still, something in Mina fought against it. From the father who didn’t believe he was worthy to the religion he always felt too misshapen to fit inside, Mina wasn’t going to contort himself for one more authority. He locked his knees and threw back his shoulders.
“Mina.” The vibration of his name shook his chest until he felt lightheaded. “Son of man. I have seen your heart.”
Fuck.This time, Mina didn’t bother reprimanding himself for the swear.
“It is light and pure. And yet it is split. Torn. It wars with itself as two armies of a brother land. It is unnatural and wrong.”
Oh, good,Mina thought.Anubis is homophobic, too. Bye, world.
At that thought, Mina could have sworn he saw the red eyes squint, the shadow of a smirk. Though with the canine features, it was difficult to tell.
“You are a man without a god. Your knees smooth and unblemished. Anubis, Shepherd of Souls, Guardian of the Lost, will show you the meaning of supplication.”
Show?
“But first, be still.”
The creature let go of Mina’s shirt and, slowly and with the utmost care, wrapped the long fingers of his clawed hand around his throat, leaning forward, the black snout inches from Mina’s face. The spice of the god’s breath filled Mina’s head with a sleepy fullness even as panic tried to scream its way through the fog. And then the long, clawed fingers began to squeeze. Mina felt his windpipe close as stars danced before his eyes.
Frantic, Mina wrapped two weak hands around the enormous forearm of the creature and pulled, but it might as well have been made of marble.
So this was death,he thought, with a calm resignation.
Mina closed his eyes as the stars in his vision turned to black spots and the world went dark and quiet.
PART TWO
The God
CHAPTER FOUR
WORSHIP
As a child, Mina would sleepwalk constantly. Waking in odd places around the house with his mother’s hand wrapped protectively around his arm or his father’s gripped sternly at the back of his neck. Even as a college student, he still occasionally woke up standing in the kitchen or pacing his tiny hallway, usually induced by bad eating habits when he was in the middle of a particularly difficult stretch of classwork. Mina was familiar with the feeling of waking standing up and in shock.
So, as consciousness slowly washed over him, his first thought was,No more Taco Bell,followed by,What an insane dream.
But as Mina opened his eyes and took in the dark room around him, his memory resurfaced, and he realized:not a dream.He was lost deep beneath the Temple of Abydos. He had encountered an ancient god who was going toshow him the meaning of supplication,which didn’t sound great.
As the blur cleared from Mina’s eyes, he saw that he was in a different room now. A room fit for a king.Or a god.The ceilings, at least 20 feet high, held chandeliers of flame that bathed theroom in a soft orange glow. And there was gold—glittering gold everywhere. Statues of jackals and cats as tall as Mina. Beautiful plates and bowls piled on thick, glossy wood furniture. Porcelain vases with richly colored depictions of mummification. And covering about fifty percent of the walls, a collage of vivid artwork that seemed to depict varying scenes of Egyptian life. Some appeared to be unfinished, as if the artist had merely stepped away for a moment.
