Infinite Sacrifice Read Online Free PDF

told them I was
confused. After a moment they let me pass.”
    “Oh yes, I forgot they had guards
at that door,” I say, barely listening.
    Noticing this, Nun says flatly,
“What do you need assistance with, Master?”
    “I need you to guard the entrance
to this room. Play this flute to warn me if anyone should
approach.”
    He eyes me questioningly, wondering
why I would need the door watched, when in walks Bastet,
glowing.
    Nun takes one look at her, and
dread sweeps across his face. “You are provoking the gods! We will
all be judged for this!”
    I give him a seething look and
spit, “On the streets!”
    Nun exhales, reaches for the flute,
and goes back into the corridor. Bastet stands there smiling, not
allowing the ominous comments from Nun to faze her.
    “Dance for me. Not Serapis but me,”
I say as I lean back on my altar to observe.
    Her body starts moving, and I can
hear the imagined beat. She spins, and her eyes follow me. After a
few minutes, I can’t resist any longer and remove my loincloth. I
coat myself in the contraceptive, then pick her small frame up
easily and shove my sacred Omina on the floor. I place my new
religion on the altar, where I read every passage and have all my
prayers answered.

 
     
     
     

Chapter 4
     
    Bastet and I meet four more times
before my month-long rotation is complete. Whenever the dream
chamber is empty and Bastet can get away from Nebu’s watchful eye,
we meet under Nun’s surveillance. I hate leaving the temple to walk
back home. Leaving the fertile black lands to travel to the edges
of the sterile red lands of my fathers. Reaching the threshold of
the white-walled fortress that surrounds the city, I force myself
to step onto the sparkling limestone pathway that leads up to the
lush country villas. The thought of not seeing her again for three
months is painful. I touch my wife only in times of extreme
desperation, and even then, I think of her: she who consumes
me.
    Twenty-one days into my prison
sentence, I seek solitude in the shadows of the date and fig trees
in my estate’s garden. As I watch the ducks dive among the lotus
flowers, a message comes from the temple. It bears Nebu’s
writing,
    Sokaris, come at once.
    I call for Nun to pack up my things
and order him to hurry. Running most of the way in the midday heat,
I arrive at the temple by dusk. Frustrated at the time it takes to
be shaved and cleansed, I rush into Nebu’s harem room and become
frantic when I see Bastet is not beside her.
    “What is wrong? Why have you sent
for me?”
    Nebu, surprised by my haste and
paranoia, says, “Calm yourself, Sokaris. This is not a matter over
which you should be so alarmed.”
    She snaps for a servant to bring me
a cushion. I force myself to relax enough to bend into a sitting
position.
    I ask, “Where is Bastet? She is
usually at your side.”
    She picks up a gold hand mirror to
check how tightly her servants curled her wig. After testing the
bounce of the curls that line her forehead and running her thin
fingers down the long braids that hide beneath the curls, she nods
in acceptance. “Bastet is why I summoned you. She has failed us
greatly.”
    “What do you mean?”
    She points for the ebony-and-gold
cosmetic box to be brought to her. “She has been deceiving us and
Serapis.”
    My blood thickens, and she has the
nerve to fix her kohl as I wait.
    “She is with child,
Sokaris.”
    “With child? That is impossible!” I
can’t sit.
    Not realizing how I meant that
exclamation, she says, “Obviously, she has spit in the face of all
that is sacred and has lain with a man. A man within this very
temple, since she is not permitted outside these walls.”
    “How are you sure?”
    “I am obligated to test my Royal
Daughter’s urine monthly.”
    Thinking of the barley-and-wheat
test I ask, “The grains grew?”
    “Yes, and I tested her twice to be
sure.”
    “Where is she now?” I begin to
pace.
    “I notified the Pharaoh’s
magistrate, Overseer of