shadows and stones - an original fiction series of gothic, horror, dark fantasy

The sandals burned away from my feet yesterday: leather was not meant to last so long in the terrible heat of this desert. Nor is the skin upon the soles of my feet, though I had thought them worn tough from wandering the hard earthen roads of Mennefer while I played. They do not even leave a bloody trail, however, for even as they are torn, the heat burns closed the wound. All of my body feels embraced with fire, yet I cannot stop and I cannot turn back. I swore to my Mother I would keep going across the sands until I met the being she says is my father.

“He will find you in the desert, Iyneferti. This he promised when he made you within me.”

Did he really, Mother? Or did the fumes of the temple incense make you dream that Ptah came down and gave you the child your husband, the man I call Father, could not? Have you sent me here to die, Mother? To die alone and unmourned, with no funerary rites to help my soul travel to the west? If I die, my ka will haunt you Mother – that I promise.

Before me is a darker spot upon the sands. A bush, or a stone? Something, at least, which must give a little shade so I may rest out of the heat of Ra’s majesty. There is pain with increased motion, but I force myself to run forward, to reach that lone speck of hope upon the sands. I fall crying my thanks to whichever god hears me for this gift of shadow.

Crawling into its meager space, I curl as closely to the stone as possible, letting the sweat and sand-stained linen of my dress absorb what little coolness it may bring. Five days I have journeyed in this land of death: for two I have had no water. Here in the desert I believe I will die.

Cool breezes of night wake me. Somehow I had fallen asleep in the burning day. Travel will be much easier now, without the sun blazing from above, but I cannot move. The soles of my feet are raw and torn, even moving my toes brings agony. My mouth feels as though it has been filled with the dry straw of the fields: what little moisture remains has become mud clogging my throat. Not even tears are left to me.

“Mother, why?” I cry into the dark night sky.

How could she send her only child into the desert to die – how could she destroy my true Father this way? I am the jewel of his heart, his laughter and joy. No day passes that he does not tell me of the great debt he owes Hathor for bringing me into his life. No day passes that I do not thank Hathor for the bounty of his love. Why did you tell me the truth, Mother, when I was happy in the lie? What does it matter who lay with you so long ago?

“Hathor, lady of truth, Maat, lady of justice – do not let me die here without knowing why!”

Six days ago I had ended the time of my first bleeding. I should be seeking a husband. I should be dreaming of raising children. I should be happy. I should be safe within the house of my beloved Father.

“I should not be dying.”

A sound reaches my ears, surprising in the silence of the desert night. Something has heard my cries and is coming to investigate, for there is the regular pace of footsteps in the sand. It is not help, though, nor human. I see a jackal approaching with purposeful strides towards where I lie still by the stone. Anubis comes to wait for me – will he take my heart and weigh it? Will he give me a chance at eternity, even though there are no priests to perform the ceremonies? When there are only a few paces left between us he stops, settles himself casually upon the sands, and begins to groom his paws.

At least now I will have company as I die. I can only hope he will wait until I am dead, before he begins to devour me. Perhaps, if I ask him politely, he will honor my final request. Such a silly thought to have, as if the jackal would understand my speech. For the first time since I left my home, I laugh. The sound startles the jackal and he looks at me quizzically with his head tilted like one of the house dogs. Though it may be silly, I decide to ask: I have, after all, nothing to lose.

“I am sorry to have disturbed you honored jackal. I only wished to ask a favor: please, will you wait until I am truly dead, before you begin to eat me?”

“Why should I eat you?”

I am truly close to the realm of death, for more clearly than my own voice I have heard the jackal speak. Before me, he sits now on his haunches and I see for the first time that the eyes of deep brown are full of wisdom. Mother said my father would find me in the desert – yet she said my father was Ptah and it is not he who wears a jackal’s shape. This cannot be what she meant for me to find, yet how can a jackal speak? I look again into his eyes and see that the jackal is waiting for his answer. I shift myself so as to see him better.

“Most certainly I would prefer you did not eat me. It is, however, in the nature of the jackal to eat that which is dead upon the desert.”

“Ah,” he responds with another tilt of the head. “So it may be, but it is not in mine, Little Child. And you are not dead.”

“I soon shall be, Honored Jackal.” How do I ask if he is my father? Or do I wait for him to tell me himself? After several moments of silence, I decide to ask a question I have finally formed. “If you do not plan to eat me, have you been sent by one of the gods to be my companion as I die?” Surely this will give me the answer I seek.

“I do not know any gods, Little Child, but I know, from time long ago, the one who is your sire. Having long desired to meet one of its getting, and sensing its presence within you, I have come.”

I had thought my mouth and throat dry, now I realize I was wrong for his words cause my tongue to sit heavily so I cannot reply. Only after much struggle can I put my thoughts into voice. “My Mother said Ptah was sent by Hathor, to answer her prayers for a child. She told me I had to walk the desert after my first bleeding, and he had promised to come to me and make himself known.” My hands clench the torn edges of my linen shift tearing it further.

“Ptah?” He rolls the name about his long pink tongue curiously. “I do not know Ptah. I know only The-One-Who-Left, The-One-Who-Was-Of-Us, the Outcast. If it calls itself Ptah, then I know it.”

”How?”

The jackal rises, moving to my side. No fear stirs in me as he presses his wet nose against the skin of my arm, then onto my face and down to my breast. Even when he places his nose close to the place of my womanhood I do not flinch. If Ptah has sent this helper to test me, I will not fail.

“Ahhhhh, you have not awakened yet. This is why you are dying, Little Child. You must wake up now.”

Only confusion comes from his words. I know I am awake, the pain of my feet, of my thirst and my hunger, are all too intense for me to be sleeping any longer. To prove it, if only to myself, I strike my fist against the great sheltering stone. Blood erupts from the all too real wound and, had I water for tears, I would be crying from the knifing pain.

“How can I wake when I am awake? Will my father be coming soon, is he nearby?” In answer the jackal simply turns, trotting away into the desert night.

“NO!” Without thought, I rise to follow. “You will answer me! I will not die without knowing the truth!”

Heat still radiates from the sands, heat built up during the long blazing day, yet I do not feel it. One foot before another I match the trot of the jackal, keeping pace but unable to overtake him. Seeking strength within I find just enough to drive myself faster. The gap between us begins to narrow: the jackal breaks into a run.

“Maat, aid me, Isis, do not desert thy daughter, Hathor, hear my prayers and do not let my mother’s daughter fail…” I appeal to all the gods whose names I can recall to give me their power. There are so many it becomes a chant following the pattern of my feet pounding upon the sands. Like the jackal, I am running, but the close linen dress hampers my movements, allows him to pull ahead. Without pause, I grasp a tear in the fabric at my throat, finishing the linen’s destruction, letting it fall behind me on the sands.

Freed, I move with animal swiftness and the jackal grows closer and closer before me. I can count the hairs of his tail now. Only a few steps more and the tail will be in my hand – I will have him, and he will answer me. Here, in the cold night, I will have my truth. My fingers brush the bristled hair, and the jackal laughs, leaping beyond them, out of my grasp.

Only night air is enclosed by my fist as I fall forward into the sand. Paces away, the jackal stops. He looks back at me, smiling his canine smile and laughing in great echoes across the desert. My eyes darken with the blood of anger at this taunting. I will not just catch this jackal and make him talk: I will kill him and I will eat his flesh here in the sands. Within me there is a boiling, as though the stored heat of the day had collected into my blood and was now causing it to roil within my veins.

“Come, Little Child, you are almost there. To catch a jackal, you must run like one.” Then he leaps off again with that echoing laughter.

There are no words in my scream now, only rage. Flinging myself into the air, I make the sand erupt beneath my feet. Clenching my hands, I race as I never have before. Though my heart may burst, I know I will catch the jackal.

“Like a jackal, Little Child, like a jackal!” his words float back to me on the winds.

They echo in my mind. I see his paws blurring before me as they carry him further ahead. I see the tail like a banner in the wind of his passing. Like a jackal, he runs. Like a jackal, he moves. Like a jackal.

Everything shifts, my vision blurs. Dizziness tears through my skull and pain shoots through each part of my being, but I do not stumble, I do not slow. I move faster. The earth is much closer beneath my feet and paws. I cannot understand why I did not realize how much better it would be to move this way. Was I blind that I did not see?

In only three paces I have him. Stronger, I bowl him over, knocking him to the sands. Placing my paws upon his chest to hold him, I then open my jaws to grasp his throat firmly. Now I am the master and he will tell me what I want to know. From beneath me I hear him speak.

“Ahhhhhh, good, Child, good. Now you truly bear the heritage of your sire. Now you are one of the Children who walk between worlds.”

“Enough riddles,” I bark. “I will have truth now!”

“Look at yourself, Little Child, you wear the truth.” Only now do I realize I am no longer a woman of Egypt. Only now do I realize I have somehow become a jackal of the desert, almost identical to him who is pinned beneath me. I let go his throat and push away. I try to sit, but suddenly the form is unfamiliar and I fall awkwardly onto my side, legs flailing in the air. In fear, I begin to cry – what has happened to me? Where has my true body gone?

Blackness, blurring, a dizzy moment of confusion, and I sit once more in my own skin, naked beneath the stars. No more pain comes from my feet: they are healed. No more hunger or thirst torments my belly: I am fulfilled without having eaten. Rising gracefully, the jackal comes to me, brushing against my side in a cat-like gesture. Gently it licks away the tears from my closed eyes. But when I open them again he isn’t a jackal anymore. Before me something that is no creature, yet all creatures, hovers just above the sands.

I see the jackal again for a moment, until it melts, vapor-like into a form of bird I have never seen before, only to continue shifting from one form into another until they are all a blur. Formless smoke, hovering water, swirls of earth and sparks of flame all cascading around and into one another. I try to look away, yet I long to look even deeper, to see how far within it I can go before I fall forever.

“We are those born with the world at time’s dawning.” The jackal’s voice sings into the night. “We wear all shapes, yet none. For all the time of existence, we have danced with the creatures of the world. Yet as many of us as there are now, have there always been. We dance with all creatures, doing as we will, save for our one law: with other creatures may we never breed.”

“The Outcast defied the law. The Outcast went into the world alone and made children with the two-legged race who rose to become called human. It made children who may wear the shape of all things, yet who may also wear the shape of their mother’s race – a shape we cannot have. I wanted to see its offspring: I wanted to see if what it does is worth the price it pays.”

Hovering close to me, I can feel changing winds of cold and warmth coming from the creature’s flicker form. Somewhere I see a smile flash within it, which is almost a reflection of my own.

“Our law will not be changed, no other will break it. We will not seek to end the Outcast, though, we will allow it to continue in its folly.” I feel a light touch, soft as the fur of a kitten, touch my cheek. “What it creates are new creatures of beauty, of which we approve.”

“Wait for your sire no longer, Little Child. That one is long away from the sands of your desert, and its promises hold as much substance as our shapeless forms.”

I see no sign, no shift, nothing; suddenly, it is simply not there any longer. Can he disappear, or has he taken a form so tiny it escaped my notice? Alone, I sit in the desert as Ra begins to show his face along the eastern horizon. I ponder the jackal’s words. He has given me answers, but only a few, and for each question answered, a new riddle in its place. What am I really become? Are there others like me, others who know more? His words implied it was so.

Sunlight brightens the sands as I ponder, the east glowing with beckoning light. Home is to the east, home and my true Father. How has he suffered while I have been away, what did my Mother tell him to explain my absence? Five days away on foot to return to his side. Five days too long.

I rise to feel the sensuous warmth of Ra’s flames upon my skin. How long to reach home as the jackal runs? There is only one way to know.

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episode i: journey into darkness - episode ii: tea party - episode iii: awakening
episode iv: the book of grief - episode v: paterfamilias - episode vi: breaking points
episode vii: the dark of the mind - episode viii: decisions
episode ix: momentary distractions - episode x: exorcising demons i
episode xi: porcelain visions - episode xii: the nature of jackals
episode xiii: exorcising demons ii - episode xiv: the invitation
episode xv: body & soul - episode xvi: mothering sunday
episode xvii: imbalance of power - episode xviii: interlude
episode xix: between life and death

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