Kiss of Isis

Excerpt:

The moon shone on her features, which barely shifted in the high winds outside the plane. Her hair hardly rustled. Her golden headdress, with the sun disc mounted between two horns, never tilted. Without provocation, she suddenly laughed, shattering Derek's will to pull away.

            So you see me truly now. I wondered how long it would take.

            Derek shivered.

            I haven't forgotten about you. I'm not about to let you run away.

            He remembered Stonegate's words about Isis' place in Egyptian history as a kind, maternal goddess. The mother of Horus. The sweet model of fertility and womanly beauty. The basis for Aphrodite and the Madonna.

            Yes. It was that way.

            Derek's bare feet touched sea spray and he lifted his eyes to view the remains of Menouthis, one of Cleopatra's pleasure cities off the coast of Alexandria. In the distance, a building lay in ashes and disgrace, columns toppled into the briny mud. Painted murals of sun shot color drained their lifeblood into the rack of rain, seawater and wind. He knew without knowing that this was the end of the last remaining temple of Isis, the goddess.

            It was 414 in your C.E. dating scheme. Christian mobs burned it. The followers of Islam would finish their work.

            Isis stood next to him, robed in white linen, one breast exposed in the style of the Middle Kingdom. She held a small boy by the hand. He clung silently to his mother's sheer dress, tears brimming in his eyes.

            The end of the Egyptian empire filled Derek with depression. Thousands of years of glory toppled in one day by the arrogant Octavian. When Cleopatra VII committed suicide, her entire culture perished bit by bit.

            Some died. Isis pointed to a shattered statue of Hapi, the god of Nile flooding and fecundity. I chose to live on. There is always a place in your world for a powerful woman.

            The waters wore at the temple steps and Derek felt remorse for a crime he did not commit. He wanted to rage for the loss of Isis' realm. He felt her sharp-edge bitterness slice through his body and then he felt nothing at all.

            They flew together. She again was a winged human with Horus, a sharp-beaked falcon, at her side. They sailed over the pyramids, which still rose like mountains from the desert plain, despite wars and countless earthly disasters. Isis, too, had found a way to outlast history. She held out her hand, expecting a tribute. Derek felt weight in his hand and saw that he held the sought-after mirror drive, black within its envelope, a barely fitting gift for a queen. It floated mere inches from her grasp, but he jerked his hand back with a harsh cry. Then he began to plummet to the ground.

            "Why?" he screamed to the night. "What difference does it make? What is it you want?"

            The answer spread across the heavens. Worship. I demand it.