A whimper of protest came from my throat as he rose to kiss me, but the kiss was brief. Amon lay back down, eyes wide, as a trickle of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. Panicked, I backed away a few inches and, to my horror, saw that the sharp blade was embedded in Amon’s chest up to the hilt.
“No,” I whispered. “Amon? No!” I screamed, pulling the knife from his chest. Blood pooled up from the deep gash and flowed down the side of his body. “What just happened?” I cried.
Anubis came over to check Amon. “I gave you a little nudge to get things moving.”
“You did…what?”
Anubis glanced at Amon and then turned and looked right at me. “I helped. I told him I would. Hmm…better say your goodbyes now. He has only a few seconds.”
“Amon?” I leaned over him. “I’m so sorry.” I couldn’t see him through my tears. I angrily brushed them away, pressing kisses on his brow, his cheeks, his lips. Vainly, I tried to staunch the blood that seemed to be pumping in an endless supply from his chest. “This isn’t what I wanted,” I whispered.
Amon sucked in a breath, fluid gurgling in his lungs, and then his body convulsed and his beautiful hazel eyes, which had been looking at me, froze, unblinking. Slowly, the air he’d just drawn in leaked from his mouth and then he was gone.
I cupped his face in my hands, stroking the hair from his brow. With my eyes full of tears, hands trembling, I whispered in a quavering voice, “I love you, too.”
I said a silent prayer that wherever he was, he would hear me and know the depth of my feelings.
Anubis grunted in satisfaction. Angrily, I whipped around and jabbed my finger at him, absolutely not caring that he was a powerful god. “We weren’t ready!” I accused.
He smiled. “I am pleased to see you have more fire in your heart than I previously believed, but let us be honest. You never would have been.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I would have you know, young woman, that I am an excellent judge of character. In fact, judging characters is my forte, if you will.”
“I don’t care what you do in your day job. You could have been more patient. More sympathetic.”
“What difference does it make? You will have a broken heart. He will have a broken heart, though in his case, both literally and figuratively. Prolonging your time together would not diminish the pain. It only serves to make the separation more difficult to bear.”
Gritting my teeth, fiery indignation filling me, I spat, “You know what? You don’t deserve him as your servant. You…you’re unworthy of his sacrifice.”
Anubis lost his smile, his eyes narrowing as he took a step closer. “Because I am a very forgiving all-powerful deity, and because I know that your emotions are not in control right now, I will attempt to forget your disrespect. I will warn you, however, to give your words a bit more regard in the future before you choose to utter them.
“Now, if you will remain quiet, I will allow you to watch as I prepare your beloved incarnation of the sun god for the afterlife.”
Anubis generated a thick pad of wrappings with a flick of his wrist and wiped the blood from Amon’s chest. As he did so, he spoke to me. “Do you know the true purpose of a pyramid?”
My eyes darted up to the god, knowing he was trying to distract me from what was happening. Anubis’s dog nudged my hand and looked at me with mournful eyes as his master repeated the question. “What? No. I guess not,” I said.
“It is a place of ascension. It is also called a house of nature, a house of energy, and a house of the soul.” Anubis raised his hands and Amon’s body lifted off the stone slab. He had crossed Amon’s hands over his chest, in the style most common for mummies. As I watched, Anubis rotated his wrist in a circle and sand rose from the floor, creating long strips of cloth that wound around Amon’s feet and started enveloping his entire body.