The Rise of the Goddess

03 | ALONE

Ahmen paced the length of his rain-swept terrace locked in futility. Above, the splendor of Elati's shimmering canopy of stars and two crescent moons emerged from behind the storm clouds, their reflections spreading across Imaru's vast lake. Though he knew he shouldn't, he let his thoughts wander forbidden corridors, imagining other lives, and other outcomes. Meresamun would have loved Imaru with its wild, chaotic storms and endless skies. To be here, with her, in this beautiful, pristine world, his terrible crime uncommitted, never having led to what she had become, the enslaved consort of a tyrant. No. He forced his thoughts away. He had no right to think such things. None.

He went to the edge of the terrace, unseeing, agitated. He needed to do something. If only he could work with horses again, feel the pull of their reins against his forearms, sense the revolutions of a chariot's axel under his feet. A day in the royal stables working himself to exhaustion was what he needed to clear his mind. Not this. Not waiting, simmering in guilt and indolence, doing nothing. The lack of physical activity over the last weeks had left him caged, confining not only his body, but his mind. Without any way to relieve the pent-up energy within him, without purpose, or employment, his world had collapsed to a single focused point: Meresamun.

The day they had arrived to Elati, he learned Meresamun had cried she no longer wished to be Marduk's consort when he refused to aid her people during Babylon's destruction. Within Ahmen's breast, fury had burned. Marduk had stolen Meresamun's memories, and taken what little she had shared with Ahmen, leaving her mind empty of the love she had once had for him—a love he had destroyed, consumed by bitterness and jealousy. He looked down at his hands clenched into fists, hating himself. What a fool he had been. If only he could turn back time. He pressed his lips together, enduring a punishing wave of regret. And now, it turned out, time was all he had.

He came to a stop, eyeing one of the brighter constellations of Elati's heavens, certain of at least one thing in this place of near-eternal uncertainty: His estranged wife no longer wished to be with the one who had stolen her heart and memories. And if Marduk would not let her go, that made her Marduk's prisoner.

Somewhere out there, in this vast, new world, the woman Ahmen still loved, suffered, and considering what Istara and the others spent their time discussing—the building of a sanctuary from which they could launch their war against Marduk, and the liberation of Sethi from Marduk's clutches—it was clear Meresamun was of little to no importance. If Ahmen didn't help her, no one would.

When he had pressed Thoth to consider Meresamun's plight, the once-god of wisdom had suggested when Marduk was subdued and Sethi had been returned to them, perhaps Meresamun could be considered. Ahmen asked to join the search for Marduk's stronghold, but Thoth had looked away, uneasy, muttering it was a job better suited to his brothers and sisters. Ahmen knew what Thoth wasn't saying: Ahmen was a liability, as was Meresamun. Even if she were liberated, she would never be welcome among the pantheon of refugee gods, not while Marduk remained. Thoth had told Ahmen of the love Marduk had harbored for his first consort, Zarpanitu, the one Horus had beheaded in cold blood during the wars of gods and men—Horus's act the reason for Sethi's enslavement. No, Thoth had said, Meresamun was best where she was, where if she had any influence over Marduk as Zarpanitu had once done, she might be best placed to aid the gods.

Thoth had departed soon after, murmuring he still had to solve the question of the creation of a sanctuary, leaving Ahmen to face his bitter truth: In Elati, Lord Ahmen-om-onet, Pharaoh Ramesses II's Royal Charioteer and Chief of the Archers was no one. As the weeks passed, the connection to his life in Egypt faded—of its orderly, precise seasons measured by the brief span of one's mortality.

He thought of Ramesses, wondering how the pharaoh would have reacted to being flung into another world where he could walk among those he once worshiped. Ahmen lifted his brow. No, far from balking at his fate, Ramesses would waste no time in building his empire. But Ahmen wasn't Ramesses, and never would be. He had been content in the role of a soldier, happy to leave the greater responsibilities of running an empire to others.

He turned his back to the sky. He was on his own, his destiny no longer directed by the gods or the pharaoh. It unnerved him. In Egypt, everyone had their place and behaved according to their station. But now, he had no such constraints. It was time to discover of what he was capable.

He glanced at the tangled sheets of his bed, where sleep eluded him and thoughts of Meresamun and of his failings tormented him. In Elati, there was only one constant which remained from his mortal life: The one he still loved, beyond all reason. He would free her with or without the help of the gods. Had he not survived the odds at the battle at Kadesh, and walked across Thamud Desert to Babylon without their aid?

Even after he learned she had become the consort of Marduk, he had gone to her father, the king of Babylon to face his crimes. Beaten, but not broken, he had followed Marduk into the depths of the Etemen'anki, where he had almost been buried alive in its collapse. With the others, he had escaped by boarding one of Marduk's ships which Thoth had flown across the skies to a distant underground cavern where an ancient, vast, glowing wall of cerulean light led to another world—and to her—the journey through the void between their world and Elati granting him the unexpected gift of immortality. Now he existed in a place between mortals and gods. He wasn't alone. As they had crossed into Elati, Urhi-Teshub, Thoth, Teshub, Arinna, Marduk, and Meresamun had also became immortal.

He crossed his arms over his chest. A strange thing to face—the loss of one's mortality. But if he couldn't die, neither did he have anything to lose. With his crossing into Elati, everything had changed, and he was tired of waiting, of letting others decide his and Meresamun's fate—of being the least priority. He had been someone in Egypt. He could be someone here. He just had to find out who.

He eyed the skies, at the strange constellations of the stars. He couldn't just fling himself out into an unknown world. First, a visit to the palace library, and a map. He didn't even know if Imaru lay to the north, south, east, or west, was an island, or part of a continent. He had no idea what other countries and empires existed in Elati, or what their histories, alliances and loyalties were. Neither did he know who had succumbed to Marduk's control and who still remained free. He had much to learn. As a man who could not die he could take risks, and slip in and out of cities unremarked. He would learn everything he could, and follow the trail he was certain would lead to her. He had no currency, and nothing of value, apart from the blade he had taken from Marduk's armory. He had always been a man of the sword, now he would also need to be a man who used his wits. So be it. He would find her. He would not fail. Let the others fight their battles. He would fight his, alone.