The Call of Eternity

57 | SIX HUNDRED DAYS

"Wait," Arinna said, looking at Teshub, sudden tears blooming in her eyes. "Then you are not my Teshub?"

"To me," Teshub answered, tight, "you will always be my Arinna, but to you, I am not the one you remember since you were captured by Marduk."

"So my Teshub is still there, suffering," Arinna whispered, a tear sliding free. With a quiet groan, Teshub took her into his arms and cradled her against him as she grieved for his other self.

"But," she murmured, pulling back, "what do you mean I will always be your Arinna? Is there not one of me here, just as there is another Thoth?"

Teshub brushed aside a tendril of her hair, tender. "Arinna, my love, after you disappeared I never found you again."

"Yes, but what--"

"He lost you," Thoth broke in, gentle. "In this world, you ceased to exist, consumed by Marduk's device. The corridor is where we go when we return to the Creator."

"Are you saying there is only one of me?" Arinna asked, stricken.

"What happened to you in the device," Thoth said, "whatever it was, was so powerful it caused you to cease to exist and exist at the same time. The only way the universe could accommodate such an outcome for a god was to split into two--a world where you are and one where you are not."

Silence fell. Urhi-Teshub glanced at Istara and took her hand again. He lifted an eyebrow, his question clear. She nodded. She understood. Enough, anyway. Two worlds: one with Marduk as an immortal, and one with him as a mortal. Arinna alive and dead at the same time, her strange dichotomy the reason for the split. Teshub reunited with his consort after a million years, and two of Thoth in one place meant the threads holding their world together were unraveling.

"So you came out of the portal into our world," Istara said, bringing the conversation back to how Arinna and Thoth had ended up in Marduk's palace. "And?"

"And as soon as we emerged I knew something was wrong," Thoth said, pouring himself a cup of wine. He took a sip. "We emerged onto a desolate island inside a cavern, surrounded by cold, dark waters, when we should have come out into a verdant glade. I was intrigued. The mathematician in me needed to study the discrepancy." He blinked, his eyes unfocusing for a heartbeat. "Worst mistake of my existence, because my curiosity cost us our immortal light. How could I have known this world wouldn't tolerate gods? Soon after our transformation into mortals, Marduk arrived--not our Marduk, the immortal one, but yours and--" Thoth's bony shoulders lifted and fell, "--since we were no longer gods, he couldn't use us to access the portal, so here we are." He glanced at Baalat. "I sense he has been keeping us as bait, hoping to draw out Horus."

"And how long have you been here?" Urhi-Teshub asked, quiet.

"It's hard to say," Thoth said, taking another, deeper sip of his wine. "Arinna has kept a record of sorts, based on the daily supplies we receive--it's the nearest thing we have to being able to count time."

Arinna met Urhi-Teshub's eyes. "Today marks the six-hundredth-twenty-second day since we arrived," she said. "I thought we would die here, but perhaps, now . . ." she looked back up at Teshub, hopeful. His grip tightened on her, protective.

"Six-hundred days," Istara repeated, slow, calculating backward. "That was when the weather in Kadesh first took an unnatural turn. Spring never came. It rained all the time. The crops rotted in the ground. Before the battle at Kadesh, I learned the change in weather was just the beginning of all manner of tragedies to follow and was told the end of civilization would fall upon all the empires apart from Egypt--it is the reason I went to Ramesses, to save the people."

Thoth sucked in his breath, the air hissing between his closed teeth. "Ah, well, it seems you were not given the whole story." He set aside his empty cup. "If I continue to remain here, no one is going to survive--god or mortal. It is only a matter of time until the threads holding the universe together unravel to the point where it becomes utterly uninhabitable."

"But," Istara protested, rising to her feet, panic clawing at her, "if what you say is true, and we are all meant to die, then everything we have gone through since the battle at Kadesh has been for nothing. Everything," she said, low, "has been meaningless." She looked at Baalat, who eyed her, bleak. "Why? Why would the gods give up their light and become mortal? Why would Sethi--" She stopped, thinking of Sethi's heart locked in the wooden cage, of the sacrifice he had made, his soul, lost. A tear slipped free. She brushed it away, desolate. Once, she had thought she was a token on the game board of men, then later, of gods, but now, it seemed she was a token of the Creator. A cruel, heartless being who cared only for the grand movements of a game she could never comprehend. She staggered. Urhi-Teshub caught her, steadying her. He eased her back down beside him, gentle.

"She has a point," Baalat said, taut. "Considering what Horus and I have lost, I would like to know why, too."

"Before I left the Immortal Realm," Teshub said, loosening his hold on Arinna. "Thoth managed to reawaken the vision pool." He paused and glanced at Baalat. "It showed us the future."

"The Immortal Realm," Thoth repeated, intrigued. "I admit I have been wondering where the gods were. And this 'vision pool' of yours," he said, leaning forward, "what did it predict?"

"It showed Marduk taking his ship through the only portal still left standing. Surru." Teshub said, tight.

"No," Thoth breathed, paling. "For him to be immortal in that world, to have control over a pristine universe. The things he is capable of--the destruction, the brutality, the death." He stood up, agitated. "We have to stop him."

"You must be mistaken," Baalat said, putting her hand on Thoth's arm. "Marduk needs a god to traverse a portal, and there are none, and there never will be considering how long we last here before we are transformed into mortals."

"Well," Teshub said, uneasy. "The vision pool showed him having one, restrained, inside his ship."

"Who?" Baalat asked, her doubt tangible.

"May the Creator forgive me," Teshub answered, low, "he had Horus."