Thanks Bee! I'm glad you and everyone else enjoys it. It really does spur me to do more, when I would have normally given up. But to know people like reading it and want to see it continue is just what I need to push my imagination to create more.
Ok a little warning.. This third chapter is gruesome and may be a little unnerving or offending to some. If this may be the case please don't read it. I will summarise shortly, and without detail, what happened in this chapter when I put up the fourth chapter, at the start of that post. If you do read it, it may be best not to be eating at the time, or not to have just eaten, lol. Well.. Enjoy!
They moved about without much hesitation as a young child was brought forward toward the altar of the temple of Seth in Abydos. The boy was led before a small crowd of priests who chanted incantations to the god of chaos and darkness. Hesitant to move at first, the boy's purpose had already been explained to him before the ceremony, yet he had not completely accepted his fate as he walked to the area at the center of the group's attention. On his laying down atop the alter, a single man, new to adulthood, stepped up through the gathering and produced a long, dark hilted dagger with a handle encrusted with jewels, and raised it high. "O Seth, son of the earth and sky, brother of life and death, husband to the fertile land of the Nile. Accept our offering unto you. This child shall be sent to you as you had sent your own brother." At these words the boy shuddered and turned his head to face the knifeman.
"I hope you will gain the favor of Seth, brother." He could barely make out his older brother's face in the dim lights of the torches that hung on the walls.
"I am sure I will, with this sacrifice. Thank you for accepting." He smiled, as his young sibling prepared himself for death. He knew his brother could not change what was to take place whether he chose to accept or refuse. "Not yet.. Before you die, we will dice you into many pieces. You shall be my Osiris and I shall be your Seth. Are you not happy?"
"I- I am happy." The boy's voice quivered with fear as he looked up to the ceiling, his vision blurring as tears began to form and build up in the corners of his eyes, before falling down the sides of his face. The young priest put the knife to the boy's neck.
"Bless my cuts, mighty Seth." With this, he slit the boy's throat. As the blood sprayed out of him, his life-force rapidly depleting, the man made some more slashes, cutting off his fingers, before chopping his wrists and elbows and shoulders. With his arms separated, he worked from the child's toes, to his ankles and knees, and then to his hips, systematically segmenting his body at the joints and ignoring his young sibling's flinches. The flesh cut so easily with the sharpened blade. The boy's eyes shot open at every rough incision, however with the cut in his throat, he was unable to scream, but instead bit off his own tongue between his clenched teeth, the blood in his mouth slowly drowning him. Next was the stomach. A wide, deep slice separated it from his chest, his lowest ribs visible from his chest while his viscera began pouring out of the gaping hole of his lower abdomen, before the final act of decapitation was performed. The head rolled off the altar, and was caught by the young man before being placed beside the body. The priest's face was drawn into a smile as his brother's suffering was ended, but moreso at the finishing of the dismembering ritual, and at what now came with it. He could not help but feel excited at the honor that had been placed upon him, by taking the role of Seth, and all he needed to do was sacrifice that which had been a burden to him in all it's years of existence. He turned to his peers and lifted the knife once more in the air, this time covered in fresh blood. "And with this I, Kamenwati, shall accept the task placed before me, of leading your followers to do your bidding oh great Seth!"
"
Bak-her!
Bak-her!" The cries started with one and were taken up by the others. "
Bak-her!"What would have been considered unnacceptable to most was revered as a sacred act in parts of the Lower Kingdom; a land where the god Seth was the chief deity in the Egyptian pantheon. The cheers went on for some time in the dark temple.
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"Nefer.." Upon hearing his name called so sweetly, the Pharoah looked to his new bride's face and smiled. He walked up to her standing figure and kissed her neck, ready for another night of passion. His hands reached around her body and lay on her buttocks before he squeezed them in his palms. She yelped in delight, but had to stop him. "Nefer, not now. I went to see the royal physician Taita had trained and left with us." Nefer didn't plan on stopping as he knew she liked it, until he had heard her words. He looked at her inquisitively.
"And?" She smiled and placed his hand on her belly, before nodding to him. His eyes went wide with surprise. "You mean..?" Again she nodded and smiled warmly at him.
"I am carrying your heir in my womb." The words hadn't quite sunk into the shocked Nefer's mind before she added "You are to be a sire!" When he heard this, he grinned widely before embracing his equally jubilant wife.
"I love you so much Mintaka!"
"I know you do, Nefer. You are everything to me and this child is the proof of our feelings." She kissed him gently on the lips and closed her teary eyes as he returned the kiss, before they slept in each others' arms that night.
In your replies, please let me know what you think of this chapter, and of Kamenwati also! Thank you ^_^
Oh and a little trivia. Kamenwati means "dark rebel" in Ancient Egyptian. It would have been a nickname as opposed to a name, so it isn't the priest's real name.