"Abydos" by Ursula Vernon

The world was made of stone and earth, stretching forever, bare rock and soil in a thousand colors. The sun rising was red and orange, striped with copper, so that it became impossible to tell where the vibrant earth left off and the desert sunrise began. Watching, the woman thought that perhaps there was no difference, that the earth rose in a curved bowl above her head, that the desert hawk on the wind was all one with the hawk paintings on the walls, bird and glyph melting together in a black line of feather and stone.
              She looked west, slowly, eyes sweeping the endless canyons, the roaring brown river that pulsed through stone veins. In the west, the farthest west, so far off that it might have been east again, she could see the curve of a mountain, earth red as blood, rising.
              "Abydos," she whispered, tasting the word on her tongue, feeling her lips shape it half-unconscious, letting the sibilant hiss against her teeth. The taste was sharp, rich, like new wine, or the taste of thunder on the horizon.
              Far away, two-thirds of the way up the mountain, a light flared, lion-colored, flashed twice, then died away. A moment later, the wind reached her, whipped around her twice, pulling at her hair, then slipped away. It smelled different--wetter, cold, a scent of digging, of deep things disturbed. She discovered that she gripped her necklace tightly, the curve of amethyst and lapis cool against her fingers.
              She looked up again, unsure, at the earth rising into infinity, at the hawk-glyph written against the sky, carved of flesh instead of stone. It still hung there, wings ruffled by the wind, and perhaps her vision was grown preternaturally keen, because for a moment she saw the hawk's head turn, the eyes of beaten gold, the beak open in a scream. A long time later, because sound travels so slowly, after the vision had faded, the cry came to her, high and piercing, oddly sweet, like the taste of a word against her lips.
              Movement caught her eye, brought it down to the plateau again. On the western edge, trotting quick, quick, quiet, was a black fox, like a pebble of jet against the tawny earth. It stopped on the edge of the world and chuckled softly, then turned a narrow-muzzled head to meet her gaze.
              Its eyes were the same color as the hawk's, two yellow suns, shockingly bright against the dark fur. When it smiled, white teeth gleamed like stars. It chuckled again, voice like water rilling over small stones, pleasantly feral. Then it stood up, stretched, and trotted to a place at the edge of the canyon, stopped, and looked back--Surely you're coming?--before vanishing over the side.
              Her legs were moving before she thought to direct them, as if her body, wiser far than she, had taken matters into its own hands. She reached the place where the fox had vanished and looked down. There was a trail, steep, edged with sagebrush. She looked up. The hawk was drifting west, slowly, and there might have been a trail in the banded sky as well, but she was too young, too ignorant to follow.
              She went down instead, skidding on the loose sand, pebbles raining down the hill after her. Sagebrush offered itself under her hands, tough desert weed to cling to as her feet found the next safe spot. The trail eroded under her feet, it seemed, and when she glanced back up, there was nothing there, no track, nothing that the nimblest-footed goat could follow. Below her, the way opened up, steep but climbable. She scrabbled downward, fingers scratched, catching on rocks embedded in the cliff-face, old roots whose owners had died millenia ago. The going was terrifyingly fast, pebbles bouncing down before her, the sagebrush crackling with kindly laughter when she clutched it. The fox had vanished. She half-stood, trying to see him, lost her footing, and slid downward, scrabbling for a hold, squawking in undignified fear. A rock came under her hand and she caught at it, clinging, feet twisting over dangerously empty air. Blood oozed from under her nails. Somehow, she got her other hand on a clump of grass, her feet back on the nearly-nonexistant trail. Her mouth was dry. She moved a few steps down the path to a broad outcropping where she could sit, and collapsed, heart pounding in her ears.
              The fox reappeared down the trail, looked up at her. He moved away, down the trail, but she could not go on. The yapping laughter drifted up to her again. A sound met it from above, almost blown away by the wind, the faintest thread of a hawk-call. The sound spoke to the woman's spine, to the tracery of nerves embracing her ribs, and stilled the shaking of adrenalin, the pounding of her heart. When she looked down again, the fox grinned at her and flicked his tail, moving downward, never faltering. This time, she followed.
              When the trail flattened out, became a narrow track winding beside the river, it took her a few minutes to comprehend it. Gradually the roar of water entered her brain, flowed through her bones, and washed away the climbing mind, the mind that let her see only to the next handhold, the next clump of sagebrush, the next stone. She shook her head, to clear it, and stood up a little straighter, looking around with interest. The fox was upstream a few hundred yards, black against the white stone and brown-green river, nosing in the shallow pools formed in the rock. He sat back on his haunches and looked at her, tail neatly wrapped around his feet, like a cat. She walked toward him, one hand on her necklace, and he watched her until she was a dozen steps away, then stood and trotted off. Stopped again, waiting.
              In the pool near her feet, where he had been sniffing, was a body, a coyote, eyes clouded glass. She knelt and touched it, fur water-logged, lips pulled back from the teeth in a rictus of death. Acting on impulse, she pulled the eyelids down, scratched behind the ears almost fondly. Overhead, the hawk called again, and she looked up, seeing it hover directly overhead, wings a shadow on the sun. The fox, somewhere close, howled, mournful. "Foxes don't howl," she murmured, looking down again.
              The coyote was gone. Not quite. There were only bones remaining, white-cream with the terrible elasticity of death. Her hand rested on the skull, eyesockets hollow, teeth long and clean. When she moved her hand, the skull came with it, rolling free of the dry vertabrae, tracing a half-circle to rest against her feet. She picked it up, looking in the eyesockets, turned it over in her hands. The sound of the not-fox made her look up again, to find him on the opposite side of the river, smiling. She looked down at the skull in her hands, and now it was not a true skull at all, but a mask, fitting over the top of her head, eyesockets bracketing her eyes. The not-fox chuckled in approval, danced a few steps on the shore, then began trotting downstream.
              She had to cross. The river was a torrent, unswimmable, roaring. Her hawk had drifted across it already, angling west, the sun making red-gold of his wings. Too young to take the sky-road, without the knowledge needed, nevertheless, she must go forward. She looked up, found the fox a small black dot against the sand, far downstream. She closed her eyes and jumped into the river.
              The water was a shock, shouting and thundering, warm water filling her ears, her eyes, but not her lungs. The skull-mask still clung to her, shedding water off the bone, a comfort. Her head broke water, gasped air gone hard and blocky, feeling it like a knife in her chest. The growling river carried her downstream, sweeping towards high rocks, threatening to crush her against them. She cursed, surprised to hear a voice, even her own, and struck out, hard. Luck or the gods was with her, for she caught a rock, swung herself around it, clung while water rushed past. Somewhere over her shoulder, the fox that was not a fox made his odd chuckling cry again.
              The white-edged foam roaring over her changed, became the heads of ermines, chattering, tiny black eyes twinkling, small white teeth showing in a smile. The water was fur-soft, blood-warm, weasel-water climbing over her shoulders. The coyote mask laughed softly, and she laughed with it, and let go the rock. Striking west, she barely needed to swim. The tiny weasels carried her to shore, rolled her onto the riverbank, fled southward. She watched them go, but they were only water again, foam whipped over the rocks. When the not-fox led her west again, she followed without looking back.
              His feet led her to a canyon, an entrance to a maze. The light was white, brilliant, unmerciful. She looked up at her hawk and found him etched against the sun, the sky a hard turquoise bowl. She looked west again, shading her eyes with a hand, and found the mountain like an arrowhead, dark as obsidian, stabbed against the sky.
              Inside the canyon, it was shadier, the high walls leaning overhead, casting a shadow even at high noon. The not-fox melted into one of the shadows and vanished, golden eyes looking out from the rock face. She joined him in the shadow, darkness cool against her skin. Her black furred-guide flicked his tail over his nose and went to sleep.
              The woman could not sleep, not yet. She leaned back, feeling the chipped stone cool against her back, ran her tongue across dry lips. When she closed her eyes, the mountain rose up before them, the light flashed again from its side. "Abydos," she whispered, the word like water in her throat, cool and sweet. She opened her eyes, briefly, saw the not-fox's ears pricked toward the word, though he did not open his eyes. She closed them again, and slept.
              A hawk's cry woke her, sliding down from the air to caress her spine, making her shiver, once, sharply. The not-fox was gone, but as she stretched he came trotting around an outcropping, licking blood from his lips. He was smiling again as he stopped and eyed her, then turned and trotted away again, tail swinging back and forth against his heels. The woman followed, leaving the cool stone and the hollow made warm by the heat of her blood.
              The sun was past its zenith, not yet dying, but moving slowly to the west. The not-fox was moving more quickly now, leading her through a tangle of fallen stone. They were moving upward, but slowly, slowly, black fur bright against the white sandstone, paws making a light tap-tap sound. She followed as best she could, pulling herself up with her hands, wary of twisting ankles in the jumbled hollows. When she reached the top again, she blinked sweat from her eyes, staring.
              There was no longer a desert. She turned east, startled, and found the familiar carvings of canyon, but ahead were trees, thin and twisting. She took a few steps to come under the nearest, brown bark smooth and peeling, and rested a hand on the trunk. "Madrone," she said, quietly, voice lost in the stillness, hands on the bark, on the word. Looking up, through the leaves, she saw her hawk, briefly, circling, the upper reach of her vision edged by coyote teeth. She put her cheek against the bark, feeling the life beneath it, the sap rising. Around the edge of the wood, not-fox chuckled, no humor in it, warning.
              She looked up, one hand curling around the wood, one on the necklace and the crystal beads. Something was moving in the depths of the trees, larger than she was, leaves rustling in its wake. Not-fox barked again, sharply, nervous, and the hawk's whistling cry came down from above.
              She took a step back, around the madrone, pressing her body into its bark. Something looked out at her from the shadows, took a padding step. The trees seemed to move, to draw closer around the dark, holding it in with branch and root. Leaves rattled together. On her head, the mask's teeth grew longer, feral, and half-growled in menace.
              Inside the wood, in answer, came a breathy child-like voice, modulated to hint at speech, but wordless. "Madrone," whispered the woman again, her word, the tree's word. She reached out to touch another tree, to name it, but the voice came out and took the word away, casting it into silence. The tree, unnamed, trembled, wavering.
              Not-fox was back abruptly, closer than ever, a fine edge of teeth showing around his mouth. He moved by her leg, pacing, two steps north, two steps south, eyes never leaving the darkness. His tail brushed her calf as he walked, soft as a dying breath. She would have named him, but she did not know his name.
              In the woods, something moved closer. She could hear the sound of footfalls, deliberate, too large to be so silent. When the sun touched a faint outline among the trees, she closed her eyes. Cold air wrapped around her, bringing a scent of wet leaves, decay.
              "Madrone," she whispered, fitting the word to the tree in her arms, "madrone, madrone." She chanted it like a mantra, fear running quick hormonal fingers up her spine. On the fourth repetition, she stopped. Her lips moved, but there was no word between them. The tree creaked, wood releasing a long, unspeakable vowel, pained. Two bars lay across the woman's lips, hard, cold. She opened her eyes.
              It stood before her. It had no name, perhaps It had never had a name, born of the silence between syllables, the words left unsaid. Its eyes were grey, like cloud, but there was nothing behind them. She looked down, briefly, saw two claws as long as her fingers across her lips, stopping the name she no longer knew. She looked at her tree, her forgotten word, and saw Its hand above her own, two long fingers and a clawed thumb, the color of silence and buried bones.
              Over her eyes, the mask writhed and snarled, furious. The long claws moved away from her lips and touched the coyote skull, stilling its rage, stealing its name. The nameless thing's jaws parted, and It murmured something in the high voice, wordless, seeking.
              There was something she had to remember, a word. Her name. She had not spoken it, or thought of it since entering the dry land, and now she could not find it. There was a place, under her heart, where her name lived, but it was empty, swept away by silence. A long, keening call swept down from above, but she could not remember the name of the creature that made it, or if it even had one. She closed her eyes again.
              There was a mountain before her, blood-colored, firelight flashing from its peak. "Abydos," she murmured, then, louder, "Abydos."
              The unnamed thing cocked its head like a bird, and chittered, high, surrounding the name of the mountain, dragging it down. "Abydos," said the woman, a third time, and the nameless sidestepped nervously, letting the word pass. It did not matter. The name was not her name, and she would joined the other thing in namelessness, in the shattering silence between words.
              There was a hand on her shoulder. There was a voice, and it spoke a word she did not immediately recognize, deep voiced, rumbling.
              The nameless took a step forward at that, reached out with long claws. The word came again, stronger, with a growl in it.
              The unnamed creature danced like an ungainly bird, jaws clicking together. Its eyes were still grey, cold, but it was as if the nothingness behind them had grown larger.
              The word came a third time, and as the echoes died away, she realized it was her name. She took it in her hands like a bird, spoke it to the place beneath her breastbone, felt it snap into place like a bone being set. A shiver ran through her, one quick tremor, as if her skin suddenly fit a little better. She looked up.
              It had taken a step back when she spoke her name, then another. Its long, narrow head reared back, wedge-shaped, hissing like an angry swan. Almost, the woman laughed. She reached out a hand to the tree, and spoke its name, "Madrone!" clearly, as if naming it for the first time. The leaves trembled overhead. She touched her mask, and named it "Coyote," and felt it move against her hair, alive. "Hawk," she said, ÒHorus,Ó to the broad-winged shadow overhead, circling once, twice, soaring west.
              The unnamed stood under the shadow of the trees, watching, utterly still. No breath moved in Its chest. None ever had.
              The woman looked down again, at the hand on her shoulder. It was long, slender fingered, with blunt black claws instead of nails. She followed it up to eyes golden as a hawk's, black fur, pricked ears.
              "Anubis," she said, and saw the lips curl, one fang just touching the lower lip, in a wry smile. He nodded, once. She looked back, quickly, to the forest, but the unnamed thing was gone.
              "Madrone," she said to the tree, swallowing, and then fell against it, leaning her forehead against the cool bark. Two cold tears made dark marks on the wood. The tree trembled with her, leaves rustling. The hand on her shoulder became an arm around her, and the tree, and Anubis held both of them, three words written against the desert.
              It could not be sunset already, but it was. The woman stepped back from the tree, hand lingering on its bark, watching the sun die behind the mountain. The hawk was a distant speck in the west, black on the glorious gold of sunset.
              "Where are you going?" asked Anubis quietly.
              "Abydos," she said, still looking west, seeing the red spearpoint to the east.
              "The funeral mountain." Anubis's voice was solemn, but almost fond, as if he knew the place from long acquaintance. He took her hand and led her by the eaves of the forest, three steps. The landscape changed. Night fell so abruptly that she barely noticed, only pausing to look at the Cheshire Cat moon, to return its grin with one of her own. A fire gleamed at the edge of the wood, warm and cheering. When the woman looked back, the forest stretched behind her for miles, the canyon country gone. She looked west, and Abydos was still there, dark and massive in the sliver of moonlight.
              Anubis led her to the circle of firelight and pushed her down with a hand on her shoulder, that one wry fang still touching his lip. There was another person at the fire, a small, dark woman with eyes that glowed flat, reflective green in the firelight. Anubis bowed to her. The small woman sat up very straight for a moment, eyeing him, then sank into a sudden, boneless sprawl. Purring drifted around the fire, and shook the woman's bones.
              "Bast," said Anubis, sinking cross-legged down beside the fire. Bast ignored him, politely, cat-fashion. The fire snapped cheerfully, sending sparks up to dance on the wind. The woman blinked as the fire wavered before her eyes, the deep, hypnotic purr rumbling in her bones. She found her head pillowed on a cat-flank, the grinning moon overhead. A shadow moved across her vision, a long-eared, sharp-muzzled shadow. She slept.
              When she woke, the fire was only ashes, but the black-furred cat in the hollow between her hip and her last rib was warm. She sat up, fingers working behind the cat's ears, and saw not-fox, the jackal, sit up from the other side of the fire, and shake once, all down his length. With a huge yawn, he stretched from tail to nose, shaking each foot, then regarded her solemnly.
              She rose to her feet, holding the coyote-mask in one hand. Bast grumbled to herself and stretched out in the warm hollow her body had left behind.
              It was still dark, the soft-edged grayness a little before dawn. JackalÕs tail moved away in front of her, like a plume of frozen breath. She followed.
              Aybdos rose up before her, now, a mountain of red-black earth and broken stone. The slim-hipped black jackal that had guided her looked down from a rocky outcropping above her head and laughed to himself, then slipped away up the slope.
              She walked the last way alone. The air was cool, and soft twitters of bird-calls began around her. Her hair was colorless in the muted light as she pushed it out of her eyes, her fingers edged with shadow. When she took a breath, the air smelled like the first rain on dusty ground, alive with possibilities.
              Her own footsteps marked the path before her as she walked towards the lion-colored light at the entrance to the cave. She remembered. It had been a long time.
              The woman paused, her shadow streaming behind her, away from the mouth of the cave. She turned, and looked behind her, to the edge of the world.
              The sun was rising. Fingers of watery light slipped up from the horizon, reaching towards the mountain. Overhead, still undimmed, burned fierce and alien stars.
              She nodded, once, in recognition, and turned back to face the cave, returning to the fire, and Anubis, and home.