Page 45 of The Secret Shape of Worship
Mina felt strength start to leave his body as if gravity itself were increasing. His knees threatened to buckle, and beads of sweat ran from his forehead. He pushed all of the strength he had left down into his legs.
But he did have a god. His god was pleasure and truth. His god was himself and Anubis and the love they’d found. Those were his gods. And they would be his shepherds through fire and through darkness.
The creature cocked its head. “Yesss,” it said. “Yes, I do see a glimmer in you. I sssee the truth that you tried to hide from yourself and othersss.” The creature’s muscles flexed and rippled beneath his glistening skin. “I see the echoes of it blooming in you now. But you shall never make it to the Temple of Osiris. Not without the help of me and my children. For you are but a hair’s breadth away from forever darkness. The abyss into which even I cannot go.”
“I’ve made it this far. I can make it the rest of the way. If only you’ll let me pass. Please. It feels like I’ve been lost here forever. It feels like my time is running out.”
“Worssship me, ssson of man.” The great serpent’s eyes burned as it reached down toward Mina, brushing a smoothly scaled finger down the length of his neck to his stomach, pulling at the hem of hisshendytso that it began to hang loose around his hips.
Mina’s eyes fluttered. His skin beneath the monster’s touch sizzled, and from it a warmth spread as if a drug had been injected directly into his veins. His eyes rolled back, and his knees started to give again.
“Yesss,” the serpent hissed. “I can taste you. Desire sits so close beneath your ssskin. Lust is your worship. Pleasure is your piety. Bow to me.”
The boat rocked, and Mina’s eyes fluttered open again. The serpent had shrunk itself, standing now seven feet tall inside the boat with him, two strong legs to match its muscled arms. Its serpent tail, which extended beyond the length of its broad back, coiled up Mina’s leg, and he felt the tip of it caressing the hardness under hisshendyt.
“You will be my first supplicant. Let Ra have his sun. Let Horus, Bastet, and Thoth have their adorers. You will be mine. My little golden star at the edge of the abyss. You will shine for me. Do this and I may let you pass.”
Mina’s stomach tensed with pleasure. A desire to please. To do what was expected. To do what was asked. To submit to the authorities that stood before him and told him to kneel. To bow. When to close his mouth and when to open it. A part of him wanted to give this god what it wanted.
But beneath the desire, there was something else. Anubis’s words, the first lesson his god taught him.
You should never devote yourself to a god in whom you do not trust. The first god you must trust, the first you must love, is yourself.
Trust. An earned thing. Not something to be dictated or demanded.
Trust in the Lord with all your hearthad been a lesson his church had taught for as long as he could remember. But what had that Lord ever done to earn his trust? What had this god done?
Mina was done giving himself to gods who did nothing to deserve him.
He took a step back. “No.”
Red eyes flared. “You would deny me? Deny yourself? I can feel the want sssizzling in you, wanting to boil over. You wish to be devoured.”
“My worship does not belong to you.”
“Foolisssh!” The great serpent god hissed. “I have offered you a way out of the abyss and ssstill you deny me?”
The god began to grow. The boat began to tilt, and Mina saw the sea begin to writhe.
“Stop!” he screamed, scrambling for the sides. “You’ll tip us over.”
“Let me introduce you to my children. For they will be your companions along your long journey into forever darknesss.”
The god slunk into the sea, growing back to its full size as the front of the boat dipped into the writhing mass of snakes. Their bodies pulled at the bow as they slithered their way up the planks. Mina tried holding himself to the side, but the tilt was too great, and he began sliding down the length of the boat. He scratched and kicked his feet, but with only smooth boards beneath him, he couldn’t stop himself. First his feet and then up to his knees, and finally his entire body up to his neck was submerged in the cold, undulating mass of snakes. They moved between his legs and filled every inch, holding him up just enough so that he could breathe. So that he could watch the boat sink into inky blackness. So that he could continue to look into the eyes of the monstrous god slithering down to his level.
“Now,” it said, a giant forked tongue flicking out and caressing his face and neck. “You will descend into darknesss. Farewell, mortal.”
Mina began to descend. The snakes became frenzied, sliding all around him, nipping at his skin, coiling up his neck, andpulling him down. Mina closed his eyes and pictured Anubis, a curious sense of peace coming over him. For the first time in his life, Mina found himself doing the right thing for the right reason. For himself. He would never worship halfheartedly ever again. Would never let another unworthy god make demands of his body or soul. He would be true to what he loved. If there was any real justice in the afterlife, then that had to count for something.
A hymn, the wordless melody he’d first hummed for Anubis, soft and delicate as the scent of a flower on the wind, rose from Mina’s throat. It filled his senses. The slithering bodies pressed in around him became the arms of his lover. The darkness cresting over him became the warm furs of their bed. Mina sang…
…and then the sea overcame him.
Mina heldhis breath and squeezed his eyes, refusing to let one of those awful slithering things find a way inside of him. But just as his lungs were beginning to burn, he felt something press against his feet. The familiar feeling of smooth wood. It pressed, and Mina began to rise. Soon, his head was above the writhing mass, and he pulled in a desperate breath. The ship had risen, and the snakes had all slithered back into their sea.
Apep was again before him. Eyes wide and searching.
“This song. I have heard it. Sung upon the shore by another.”
