The Book of Cthulhu

Lost Stars

Ann K. Schwader

Wind driven sleet spattered Obscura Gallery’s windows, turning a late November afternoon even gloomier. Sara sighed. Just what she needed, after a long day hanging large-format photographs for tomorrow’s meet-the-artist reception.

Shards of Rameses II strewn across Lower Nubia mocked her in black and white. Lost Aegypt was their most important show this year—as her boss kept reminding her. Never mind that she’d already taken off, or that Sara herself should have been home half an hour ago.

So much for attending that women’s spirituality meeting tonight. Not that she’d been looking forward to it, but Diane was counting on her… opinion? Support? Reassurance? Her friend hadn’t been clear, only anxiously enthusiastic.

Enthusiasm was a big part of Diane’s personality, but anxiety wasn’t—at least, it hadn’t been. They’d fallen out of touch these past few months. Sara had been working a lot of overtime, while Diane whirled through diets, feminist causes, and dead-end relationships at her usual breakneck pace.

In all three departments, she’d been certain each latest discovery was the Real One. Her voice on the phone last night hadn’t sounded so unshakable. She’d just insisted that this new group was unlike anything she’d ever been involved in. More authentic. More empowering.

The gallery door’s tinkling bell interrupted.

“Oh wow,” came a female voice moments later. “Can I borrow your employee discount?”

Sara snorted. “My what?”

Halfway down the tippy ladder, she got her first good look at Diane. Her friend had been struggling with her weight for years without much success. Now the wrists protruding from the sleeves of her loose black sweater were positively bony. Her jeans sagged in the rear, and even her features looked pared down.

“Good God, girl. What diet drugs are you on?”

Diane laughed, but her laugh was thin too.

“Just plain old womanpower—really old womanpower.” Her eyes lit with secret humor. “It’s like we’re all tapped into this ancient matriarchal energy source. There’s nothing it can’t help you do: lose weight, find a job that doesn’t suck, get clear of the idiot men in your life.”

“Not a problem.” The idiot man in Sara’s life had left on his own. And not recently, either.

“Sorry.” Her friend’s smile faded. “I guess what I’m saying is, you’ve got to try it yourself. Come meet our circle tonight. Meet Sesh’tet …”

“Who?”

“Our High Priestess, except this isn’t Wicca. It’s way older, out of Egypt. Like Sesh’tet.”

Sara stifled an inward groan. She’d tried women’s spirituality groups before, and remained unimpressed. Too much New Age crap. Too much lip service to Sisterhood, with the same bitchy backstabbing afterwards.

But Egypt?

“Come on.” Diane grinned. “You know you want to.”

The hell of it was, she did. Egyptology was a recent but major hobby. She’d even taken a class last summer, accumulating embarrassing quantities of books and Egyptian jewelry since.

Fingering the ornate silver ankh under her collar, she sighed.

“Just let me get these last few straight.” Heading for the front door, she locked it and flipped the CLOSED sign around. “You can tell me all about Sesh’tet. What’s she working from, anyhow—Isian mysteries?”

“Older.”

Something in Diane’s tone made Sara frown. “I can’t imagine what might be older and still documented, not in that part of the world.”

The secret look flashed in her friend’s eyes again. “I can.”

Sara took a deep breath to quiet her own frustration. Whatever cult Sesh’tet was selling, it obviously resonated at some deep emotional level. Maybe tonight’s meeting would show her how to unsnarl Diane from this latest spiritual tangle.

Of course, it might be legit. She’d read about some pretty strange religious survivals, animism and shamans and such. And this was Boulder: People’s Republic of Alternative Reality.

“So who made this Sesh’tet a High Priestess? Was it part of an initiation, or what?”

“An initiation in the Valley of the Kings.” That proud-confused tone was back in Diane’s voice. “She hasn’t told us much about it, though. I think she’s afraid of the Egyptian government—they’re not exactly big on religious freedom.”

“Makes sense.” A nastier thought occurred to Sara. “Have you been initiated yet?”

Diane’s chin bobbed down before she could catch herself.

“Don’t worry—I won’t ask for details.”

The secrecy didn’t bother her. Mystery cults worked like that. What she deeply didn’t like was the idea of initiation after maybe three months. Didn’t Wicca require a year and a day?

Of course, this wasn’t Wicca. It was far older—or so this Sesh’tet person claimed. Which meant she wouldn’t learn a damn thing without meeting Sesh’tet.

Straightening one last photograph, Sara climbed off the ladder and dusted her hands on her chinos. “Ready to go?”

Diane blinked at her. “I thought you weren’t… ” The corners of her thin mouth twisted. “Egypt snagged you, didn’t it?”

It’s snagged one of us, anyhow. And I want to understand why.

At least the incense smelled right. Balsam and cedar and something else, ancient and bitter, still thick in the air an hour after tonight’s “open” meeting. The one she’d been allowed to sit through before Diane and about a dozen other women left to attend an initiates’ circle with Sesh’tet in the basement. The High Priestess didn’t always attend open meetings.

Which really fueled Sara’s suspicions, since she’d been tonight’s only non-initiate.

After another glance at her watch, she debated switching on the overhead light and cracking a couple of windows. She was getting a headache, and she still had no idea of her surroundings. When they’d arrived at the shabby two-story house off Pearl Street, no one had greeted them at the door. Diane had just hurried them both down a pitch-dark hallway, toward candles flickering in some wider space at its far end.

There wasn’t enough light to know what kind of space. This might be somebody’s made-over living room, or a specially consecrated ritual area. A cluster of guttering candles and tiny brass incense burners occupied an altar at one end of the room, but even that was draped in dark cloth. From the way the walls absorbed the candlelight, they might be draped as well.

Maybe the draperies also accounted for tonight’s muted voices. Or maybe not. Even by candlelight, many of the initiates looked —and sounded—unhealthy. A few had racking smokers’ coughs. Another used crutches, and still another wore a colorful, tightly wrapped headscarf with no hair or eyebrows showing.

Tonight’s leader had urged everyone to remember “our absent sisters” in their meditations through the week. She’d ask Diane later what absent meant, but it didn’t sound empowering.

The meeting hadn’t told her much about Sesh’tet’s agenda. There had been readings from something called The Gate of All Lost Stars, which sounded Egyptian enough—though the subject matter was odd. If Diane was right about how old this cult was, Gate should have echoed the Old Kingdom’s Pyramid Texts. It didn’t.

She’d heard no references to any solar deity, or to Osiris. The primary god-name had been Ammut-something. Ammutseba, maybe? At least it sounded female—most of the others, she couldn’t even guess at. Nyarlat and Assatur sounded potentially Egyptian; but Shuddam-El, Karakossa, and Shuppnikkurat were utter mysteries.

They weren’t good names to sit alone with in the dark, either: all hard Ks and hissing Ss and weird gutturals that barely sounded human. Not that anybody else had had problems. The smokers coughed worse when they said them, but that’s why you didn’t smoke.

Light. Oh God, she needed more light.

Sara struggled up from her pile of pillows and headed for the nearest wall, intending to work her way around until she found a switch plate. Surely nobody would have been stupid enough to drape over one—and if they had, she’d rip through and damn the consequences.

Shoving her hand hard against the wall—which was indeed draped heavily—she started groping for a switch. Ks and Ss clicked and hissed in her brain. Her sinuses shriveled with the incense, and cold apprehension traced her spine as her fingers burrowed into the cloth.

Then light appeared somewhere behind her, faint and flickering. Moving closer.

As her fingers closed on the nub of a wall switch at last.

“Sara?”

Diane’s voice in the doorway came just as she flipped that switch —and nothing happened. Whirling, she saw Diane cradling a flat clay oil lamp in both hands, staring at her. A second thin figure stood just behind and to the left of her friend.

“Sara, this is Sesh’tet.”

Her first impression was of something closer to a bush baby than a woman—a tiny creature with too-large eyes in a narrow dark face. When Sesh’tet stepped past Diane to greet her, her bare feet barely whispered on the hardwood floor.

The clay lamp’s additional light didn’t help much. Except for her feet, hands, and face, Sesh’tet’s whole body was swathed in loose inky fabrics. Where these fell away from wrist or ankle or throat, Sara glimpsed only more formfitting darkness: a turtleneck leotard and dancer’s tights, maybe. Islamic modesty meets Martha Graham.

“Welcome, Sara.”

The words emerged as an arid whisper between Sesh’tet’s lips. Without waiting for an answer, she reached forward and grasped Sara’s right hand in both of her own.

“Thanks for letting me come.”

She pried the words from some last reserve of politeness, trying to ignore the worst—or at least the weirdest—handshake she’d ever experienced. Sesh’tet’s hands felt dry-slippery as snakeskin, and about as warm. Sara was suddenly aware of her own palms sweating terribly… and of the other woman’s surprising strength. The tendons in those hands felt like roped steel.

Sesh’tet released her grasp slowly, leaving behind a lingering chill. Sara fought the urge to wipe her hands on her chinos. At least they weren’t sweating now—in fact, they felt dry enough to be itchy. Almost painful.

“What do you think, then?” The High Priestess glanced past her to Diane, who stood by with an expression approaching awe.

“I wouldn’t have brought her if I didn’t think she could… benefit.” The last word emerged with shy hesitation. “She’s been through some bad times.”

Sara scowled at her friend.

“I just came tonight because Egyptology fascinates me.” She could feel heat spreading across her cheekbones. “I’m not exactly what you’d call a seeker.”

Sesh’tet’s bush-baby eyes blinked at her. “Are you sure?”

Before Sara could reply, she dropped something into her hand: a small flat stone lozenge on a braided cord. The lozenge felt deeply engraved on one side.

Diane’s expression shifted from awe to disbelief.

“Wear that until our next meeting,” Sesh’tet continued. “Next to the skin, preferably. Let it serve as a focus for your own power. A reminder of the strength She holds for all who hunger, whose hearts are aligned with Hers.”

With Diane and Sesh’tet both watching, Sara had little choice but to unwind the cord and slip it over her head. The stone pendant slid under her collar to hang between her breasts, just below but touching the ankh she already wore. It felt oddly cold, as though no one else had touched it.

“Thanks.” What else could she say?

“Be sure to keep your thoughts focused on what you want happening in your life right now,” said Sesh’tet. “Focused female energy is very powerful. It may take a day or two, but most of us notice some change right away.” The knife-thin lips quirked in a smile. “Diane’s already told you how effective this can be, I’m sure.”

Diane’s own smile filled with nervous relief. “I’ll get her a copy of this week’s Gate readings.”

“I think that would help a lot.” Sara meant it, too—though not in a seeker’s way. Unless or until she could identify the engraving on this amulet, she needed every available clue.

That night she slept badly, her mind churning with random phrases from The Gate of All Lost Stars—or rather, her own fevered memories of those readings. Surely Behold, Ammutseba has devoured the light of the stars, she has eaten their words of power, she has eaten their spirits wasn’t meant literally. All religious writing was rooted in symbolism. References to devouring the light (among other things) probably meant the light of truth. To devour was to internalize, so devouring light would be internalizing wisdom or…

She woke up suddenly, bruised where the new amulet had gotten between her chest and a hard corner of the bed.

What the…?

Reaching down to pull the amulet around behind her neck, where her ankh already hung quite comfortably, Sara found that the small chilly thing wouldn’t budge. It also didn’t feel much like stone against her fingers. The polished basalt surface had turned yielding and gummy—almost leechlike.

And it was stuck to her.

Flipping on her bedside lamp, Sara peeled up her t-shirt. The lozenge of greasy blackness was still wedged between her breasts—and pulling at it did no good. When she pried underneath with a thumbnail, though, she heard a miniscule pop of broken suction. Prying harder, tearing skin in the process, she finally got it loose and yanked the braided cord over her head.

Still shuddering, she threw the ugly thing across the room. The movement slid her silver ankh around on its chain. When she tried to toss it back behind her, she noticed it wasn’t catching the light.

Then the chain broke, and she found herself holding the tarnished ruin of her favorite Egyptian pendant. The mess in her palm looked about a thousand years old, its elaborate hieroglyphs reduced to dust on corroded metal.

Sara folded her fingers around it and got up carefully. Heading for her desk against the far wall, she scrabbled one-handed through its drawers for a clean envelope and spilled the ankh into it. Then she laid that on her desktop and flipped on the overhead light.

The new amulet lay in plain sight on the floor where she’d thrown it. She knelt down and prodded it with a finger: cold black stone.

Cold black inscribed stone.

Picking it up by its cord, she put it on her desk and shrugged into her bathrobe. Sleep was no longer an option. Neither was handling this alone. Taking a deep breath, she began by sketching the amulet’s design, taking care not to touch it again

After that, she turned on her computer, swallowed her pride, and started a very long e-mail—to the only Egyptologist she knew.

Despite the short notice, Diane was happy to join her at work for lunch next day. She arrived with a bag from the mall’s burger joint. While Sara nibbled at raw veggies and yogurt, her friend devoured a large order of fries, a cheeseburger, and a strawberry shake.

Sara wasn’t sure whether to be jealous or worried. “Is that the Sesh’tet diet plan?”

Diane grinned and munched another fry.

“That’s what’s so great about being tapped into all this energy. Once you’re focused, dieting doesn’t matter. I want to lose weight, so I do.”

She pulled a sheaf of papers from her black leather backpack. “There’s a lot about focus in this week’s readings. I went ahead and photocopied them for you.” Her grin faded a little. “You must’ve really impressed Sesh’tet last night. She doesn’t just hand those amulets out, you know.”

Sara frowned. “I hope not.”

Setting aside her yogurt, she went to her back room desk and returned with two small white boxes. Diane looked puzzled as she handed her the first one.

“What’s this junk?”

“My ankh I ordered direct from Cairo back in January.”

“God.” Diane looked sympathetic. “What happened to it?”

“That damn amulet trashed it.”

Sara told the story as simply as she could, leaving out the bad dreams and her nagging suspicion that more than a simple chemical reaction was involved. It didn’t make sense—not twenty-first century, daylight sense. What had driven her to copy the amulet’s design, then send a frantic e-mail to the one expert she knew of, was impossible to explain over lunch.

“I’ve never had any problem with mine.” Diane touched the lump beneath her heavy sweater. “And I’ve been wearing it nonstop ever since Sesh’tet gave it to me.”

“When was that?”

Her friend’s expression clouded. “When I got initiated.”

And if Sesh’tet had given her one right away, what did that mean? There was no kind way to ask. Instead, she handed Diane the second box.

“Well, you can give this one back to her. It’s sticky and creepy, and it wrecked my necklace.”

Diane frowned. Her chin twitched sideways.

“What do you mean, no? You’re the one who dragged me to that meeting!”

“I mean no, you can’t give it back. Sesh’tet made it for you.”

Cold anger knotted in Sara. “Because she knew I’d be there last night?”

“I didn’t think you’d mind. Really. Sesh’tet’s always asking if we have friends who might benefit from our group—women with, um, life issues. Women who need empowerment…”

“Don’t give me that psych crap!”

Even as her temper flared, Sara was sorry. Diane worked in a metaphysical bookstore. It wasn’t her fault that she picked up the buzzwords, or that she’d wanted to help a friend. Sara just preferred keeping her private life private.

Including the fact that she hadn’t had a private life for way too long.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to apologize. Diane listened silently, finishing the last of her fries and wadding her trash into a tidy ball. She didn’t look so much offended as preoccupied—or maybe distracted.

Finally, Sara gave up before she got angry again.

“Look, just keep the amulet. Please.” Diane handed its box back to her. “I’m sorry it messed up your pendant, but you need to give it another try. I know it sounds weird, but these amulets do help you focus on… well, the energy. Sesh’tet calls them power triggers.”

Noticing Sara’s dubious frown, she shrugged. “Anyhow, mine started working for me really fast.”

Diane shot her lunch trash into the back room wastebasket. Watching her sweater sleeves flap around her arms, Sara felt like screaming.

“Maybe you’ve lost about enough weight,” she finally said. “Maybe you don’t need any more meetings. Or that amulet. I know you’re feeling all empowered, but this Sesh’tet just seems like bad news.”

She hoped she didn’t sound racist. It wasn’t Sesh’tet’s Arabic looks that set off her shivers, but the cold reptilian feel of the woman’s touch. The way her eyes bulged dark, unaccustomed to the sun.

Diane just looked amused. “You mean her clothes—that whole bundled-up thing?”

“Partly.”

“Oh, that’s gotten a lot better. When I first started coming to meetings, she was wearing a veil over her whole body. And gloves. She’s really loosened up since…”

Diane glanced past her at the wall clock and broke off mid-sentence.

“Since when?”

“Since she’s been in this country, I guess.” Diane reached for her big duffel coat and backpack. “I’ve got to run. Visiting hours at the hospital started half an hour ago.”

Her expression was so grim, Sara hated to ask.

“It’s one of my circle sisters.” Diane bit her lip. “She’s… not good. Sesh’tet asked me to stop by and drop off the week’s readings, maybe pray with her if she was awake.”

Her gaze slid away. “Not likely.”

When Sara got home that night, she had two messages on her machine. One was from Dr. Stanley, her instructor from last summer’s Egyptology course.

The other was a voice she’d never expected to hear again.

“Sara? Sara, pick up if you’re there. Please.” The speaker hesitated. “OK, either you’re gone or you’re still pissed at me… but I’m back, and I wanted you to know. That job in Seattle didn’t work out. I’m staying at my sister’s for now.”

Another pause, longer this time.

“I know you’ve still got her number. If you haven’t eaten yet, give me a call and we can go out. Greek or Chinese or whatever you want. I’d like to talk.”

Mine started working for me really fast.

Sweat trickled down inside her shirt, stinging the raw spot Sesh’tet’s amulet had left. Absently, she scratched it as she played her ex’s message again. It sounded unreal. Scripted, though the shadows in every corner of her very empty bedroom didn’t care. You wanted who you wanted, and if…

No.

With an effort, she deleted that message and started the other. Martin Stanley sounded older than she remembered. All he’d left was his San Francisco phone number—which she’d asked for in last night’s e-mail—and a terse suggestion to use it immediately.

He picked up on the second ring.

“I’m glad you called, Sara.” His voice was shaky and exhausted. “I’ve been… concerned about that information you sent. Ammutseba isn’t a name one runs across often in the literature. She’s strictly First Intermediate. Very esoteric—fortunately.”

Which explained how her own small library had failed her. But “fortunately”? Martin’s lectures had never shied away from the controversial, the bloody, or the morbid. He delighted in the details of mummification. When he described the contendings of Set and Horus, eye-gouging and castration figured prominently. So what made Ammutseba different?

“To begin with, she isn’t actually Egyptian. Probably a leftover from Stygian cultic practice, though some think she goes back further than that.”

“Stygian?”

“A very early pre-Egyptian culture. One can’t call it a civilization, from the evidence.” He laughed mirthlessly. “The only Egyptology program in this country that covers it is Miskatonic’s. I did post-grad field work with them in the ’70s, on linkages between religious change in the First Intermediate Period and the rise of tomb-robbing.”

Sara frowned, fascinated in spite of her own problems. “Sounds, um, esoteric. Did you find anything?”

“More than we’d expected.” She heard pages being turned. “Your scan of the amulet’s design didn’t come through on this end. Could you describe it for me?”

“Three upside-down, five-pointed stars under something like a table. The amulet looks like basalt, but it didn’t feel…”

“I know.” More pages. “Three is the Egyptian number of plurality—representing many, or any large number. Your table hieroglyph is probably pet, sky. The star hieroglyph, seba, hardly ever appears inverted. Are you sure?”

“I have the drawing right here.” She reached for the amulet’s box beside it. “Do you want me to check the original?”

“God, no. Don’t touch it.” He took a long, unsteady breath. “Sara, are you wearing that amulet?”

“Not now.”

There was another silence, punctuated by the thump/shuffle of books being moved.

“OK, Sara,” he finally said. “I want you to wrap that amulet up and send it here. I’ll e-mail you the address, and I need yours. I’ll be sending you some photocopies, plus an old field journal I’ve got. In the meantime, stay away from that study group.”

“It’s a women’s spirituality circle.” How could she have read him so wrong? Despite his flair for the sensational, Martin had never struck her as anything but a mainstream Egyptologist. She’d expected help, not a one-way ticket to Bram Stoker country.

Now he was laughing again, bitterly. “Well it would be, wouldn’t it? How utterly perfect. Seven Sisters all over again.”

He hesitated, his breathing ragged. “Listen, Sara. Ever read Lovecraft’s Egyptian stuff? ‘Older than Memphis and mankind?’ HPL didn’t know the half of it! He’d never walked on those sands at the dark of the moon, under the dying light of murdered stars. He’d never been inside an Old Kingdom tomb, seen what the two-legged jackals left… what they scrawled on burial chamber walls after they’d torn royal mummies apart for the jewels and the gold. Maybe he’d read about it happening, all right—but he didn’t know in whose Name they did it.”

Reaching for her desk lamp, Sara turned it on and felt a little better. Maybe.

“Martin, this is sounding way too Indiana Jones. My friend Diane—the one who took me to the meeting—isn’t a tomb robber, for Godsakes. She’s just a New Age feminist who thinks she’s tapped into some ancient ‘female energy.’”

Martin snorted.

“The poor fool’s got it backwards. There’s ancient energy, all right… unless I’m very much mistaken… but it’s tapped into her. Her and all the others. This High Priestess Sesh’tet isn’t some neo-pagan pretender. She’s the genuine article, though I can’t think how it happened.”

“Diane said something about an initiation in the Valley of the Kings.” Sara hesitated, thoroughly confused. “It was kept secret because of the Egyptian government.”

“The Egyptian government’s notion of evil begins and ends with radical fundamentalist Islam. This particular evil is far older than Mohammed—or even Alhazred.”

He paused, and she could hear him gulping water. “All these pagan revivals and survivals…. mix and match spirituality… it’s no good, Sara. Not good at all. Traditional ‘earth religions’ have their dark side—and Kemet’s is darker than most because it’s so much older. People have no idea… they buy their Mommy Isis statues and little Bast cats and never think about the rest of it. Set chopping up his own brother. Apophis coiled in the Underworld and, God, what the Sphinx was first carved to mimic…”

She heard a rattle of pills, then, and more gulping. More ragged breathing.

“Martin? Are you OK?”

“Just tell me you’re going to leave this alone. Send me that amulet—quickly—but leave this ‘spirituality group’ alone. Leave your friend Diane alone, too. She sounds like a believer, and belief is power. Belief raises power—they knew that, in ancient Memphis. And in the cult-temples of Stygia.”

Sara reached for a notepad and wrote the last word down, underlining it twice. “All right,” she said. “I won’t go to any more circle meetings, and I’ll send you the amulet tomorrow.”

Martin laughed dryly. “That’s a start.” The humor drained from his voice. “It’s been good talking to you. You take care.”

He hung up before she could reply, leaving her alone in her desk lamp’s inadequate light. Scrambling to her feet, Sara flipped on the overhead.

Then started digging through drawers for mailing labels.

Next morning, exhausted by broken sleep and worse dreams, she sent Martin the amulet from work. Next day delivery weighed on her conscience, but she couldn’t imagine explaining to her boss. After the phone call last night, she’d checked through Diane’s photocopies. The Gate of All Lost Stars was a creepy piece of work, though it did sound believably Egyptian.

And, indeed, this week’s readings were about focus.

For the true intention of Her heart is hidden from the lesser gods of this world, and her aspect is unknown. She is darker than the shadow heart of night, deeper than the Duat. No lesser eye knows her true appearance… none testifies to Her appetites accurately.

She called Diane during her lunch hour, hoping for a little enlightenment—only to be told that her friend had left work early for a doctor’s appointment. Not a short one, either, judging by the disapproval in the bookstore owner’s voice.

Sara hung up frowning. She couldn’t imagine what her friend might need to see a doctor about, though yesterday’s lunch suggested an eating disorder. Was she supplementing woman power with bulimia?

The longer the afternoon wore on, the more she worried. Martin was right, unfortunately: Diane was a believer. What she’d latched onto this time almost certainly wasn’t good for her. Nor did it seem to be healthy for some of her “sisters”… unless that was sheer coincidence. Had Martin’s rant about pre-Dynastic cults done a number on her nerves last night?

She finally decided to swing by Diane’s on her way home from work.

A half-familiar smell lingered in the stairwell of the basement apartment. Balsam and cedar and—dust? earth?—plus something else she couldn’t place. The first three scents reminded her of the incense from the circle meeting. The last was… almost reptilian, she’d have said, but garter snakes didn’t hang around this late into fall.

Diane answered her knock by peering through the peephole. When she opened her door, she didn’t take the chain off immediately.

As Sara reached through to do it for her, she caught a stronger whiff of incense—and a glimpse of burning candles on Diane’s altar in one corner of the living room.

“I really do need to talk to you.” She slipped inside before Diane could change her mind. “It’s important, and it won’t take long.”

Her friend just shrugged. Her eyes looked red-rimmed, bloodshot, and not too focused. She was holding a nearly empty wine glass.

Sara felt her stomach knotting. Diane almost never drank.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, heading for the battered couch. Diane perched on one arm of it, clutching her glass in both hands now. She made no effort to speak, drink, or offer any hospitality—and she looked as though she’d start crying again any second.

Frustrated beyond words, Sara decided to check out her personal altar instead. After last night’s phone call, she wasn’t in the mood for manners. She needed information—any information—which might clarify Martin’s disturbing hints.

It didn’t take long to find some.

Depending on the season and Diane’s current pagan interests, the small table might hold any combination of votive candles, statuettes—generally goddesses—and found objects. Pride of place tonight went to a dull black bowl holding charcoal and a few nuggets of incense. Incense wasn’t Diane’s thing. Sara’s frown deepened as she examined the bowl itself: a pet hieroglyph with three upside-down stars had been incised deeply into one side, then filled with red pigment.

The rest of the table top was crowded with lit votives in wildly assorted holders. “What’s this?” she asked, trying to keep her tone light. “Your whole supply?”

Diane nodded.

“Mind if I ask what for?”

“I thought they might help. More light. More energy.” She waved feebly toward the little candles, which weren’t burning well. “Maybe I haven’t got enough.”

Sara’s stomach clenched. “Enough for what?”

When her friend didn’t answer, she returned to the couch and sat down. “Look, I know you’ve been to the doctor’s. Your boss told me. She sounded pretty concerned.”

Diane took a gulp of wine. “It was just some tests, OK?”

“What kind of tests?”

Her friend’s lips tightened. In the silence, Sara could hear the votives sputtering in their holders, threatening to go out. The bitter incense curled in her nostrils as she grabbed Diane’s hand. “What kind?”

“Cervical… cancer. Maybe cancer. Maybe just a bad Pap reading.”

The way she said it, though, this wasn’t the first round of tests. Or even the first doctor. And cervical cancer was nasty even if you caught it early, which Sara was guessing they hadn’t. So much for weight loss.

Diane’s fingers slipped inside the open neck of her flannel shirt, twisting her amulet’s cord. Biting her lip, Sara yanked her friend’s hand away.

“Leave that damn thing alone!”

Diane just stared at her, crying. Sara grabbed the braided cord and tried yanking it over her head, cursing again when that didn’t work. In a burst of fear and rage, she pulled the shirt open—sending buttons flying—and winced as she saw what lay underneath.

Angry streaks of inflammation fanned out from the top of a black camisole. Her amulet nestled between her breasts, as Sara’s had, but it didn’t look much like stone. Its slick oily surface pulsed and rippled with each breath Diane took, bulging like a pustule.

Or a leech gorged on blood.

Diane kept crying as Sara wrapped her hand with tissues and tried to pull the thing off. It finally came away with a sharp wet pop, seeping blood and yellow fluid. The underside bristled with writhing cilia.

She yelped and threw it at the door—then ran to crush it underfoot, frowning when her boot heel met something hard rather than squashy. Gritting her teeth, she ground until she heard a brittle snap.

Diane gasped.

“That’s done it—I hope.” Still using a tissue, Sara gathered the amulet’s pieces and crumpled them into it. “I’d pitch this in the outside garbage if I were you.”

Diane stared down at the wad on the coffee table. “What was that? I mean, it looks OK now, but when you pulled it off…”

“I don’t know.”

But whatever it was, Sesh’tet made it for you. Your so-empowering High Priestess who worships this Ammutseba thing, this ancient darkness even tomb robbers were probably scared of.

One by one, the altar votives began flickering out. Diane looked up to watch them briefly, then buried her head in her hands.

“I’m sorry,” Sara whispered. “I just wish there was something else I could do.”

Diane raised her head to stare at her with bloodshot eyes. “You mean that?”

When Sara nodded reluctantly, she dug a photocopy from under some magazines. It showed a crude map and a few driving directions.

“Our circle’s doing a healing ritual on the night of the 18th,” she said, handing it to her. “Leonids night. Sesh’tet’s going to lead it for all of us who have…problems. It’s a power raising, so the more women who come, the better.”

Sara hesitated. Power raising was common to many traditions—but it wasn’t Egyptian.

“It’s going to be outside, under the stars. The shooting stars.” Diane smiled faintly. “Sesh’tet says they’ll be a strong focus for intention and healing. ‘And the stars are as bread for Her body; even the imperishable stars in the height of the sky are as thousands of bread. For Her restoration she shall swallow up their fires in the night.’”

Tiny hairs rose on the back of Sara’s neck. “Where did you get that?”

“One of the Gate readings. Powerful, isn’t it?” Her smile faded. “Just tell me you’ll come, Sara. Please. For me.”

Next day at work was a slow-motion nightmare, haunted by the images of Lost Aegypt. Even the Rameses II photo she’d once been tempted to buy made her shudder. Its chunks of eroded stone in the Nubian desert now resembled a tomb robber’s leftovers, some dismembered royal victim whose once-imperishable body now fed jackals.

And beyond those robbers rose something even older and more malevolent. Something which granted worshippers the gift of moonless, starless darkness. The cult of Ammutseba: a name she’d translated as Devourer of Stars.

Martin Stanley was right. Some lost gods needed to stay lost.

Sara called the metaphysical bookstore during her lunch hour, only to be told Diane was out sick. She knew she ought to check on her on the way home, but she wasn’t nearly ready to face that situation again. Not until she’d read whatever Martin had promised to send her.

The padded envelope with its Next Day stickers was jammed into her apartment’s mailbox. She pried it out with difficulty, then took the stairs up two at a time.

Her answering machine was flashing for attention as she walked in.

“Sara? Sara, if you’re there, please pick up… OK, here’s the deal. I’m still at my sister’s and I’d still like to see you. Could you please call me?”

She was tempted. Dinner with her ex (though he hadn’t offered dinner this time, she noticed) just might be a good idea. A break from this sick morbid mess Diane had gotten her into. All she had to do was call Martin first, let him know his stuff arrived, and then she could take a little time for her life.

With guilty relief, she laid the envelope on her desk and dialed San Francisco.

Somewhere in the static, Martin’s phone rang… and kept ringing. She was about to hang up when a younger male voice answered.

“Could I speak with Dr. Martin Stanley, please?”

For several seconds, the unfamiliar voice—Middle Eastern, and very musical—said nothing.

It was too busy stifling grief.

“I’m sorry,” she finally broke in, feeling awful. “I’ll try back later. I’m a former student of Dr. Stanley’s…”

“Are you Sara? Is this about the package you sent him?”

“Actually, about the one he sent me. But I did send him one, too. Did it arrive?”

Only faint, sick laughter replied.

“I’m sorry?”

“Yes, your little box arrived. This morning it arrived. Martin took it to his study to examine it. When I called him for lunch about one o’clock, he didn’t come out.”

“What’s happened?” She knew, suddenly, that something terrible had.

“Martin’s dead.” The voice took on a cautious tone. “He’d been ill for a long time, but we both thought he was coping well. Then, this afternoon, it… exploded. All over his body, his face… “

“What’s happened?”

Another, longer hesitation. “Did he ever tell you why he stopped teaching and moved back here?”

“Not really.” Though Martin had mentioned something, just before he left, about health problems. There weren’t many health problems people wouldn’t discuss in Boulder—but she could think of one that might fit these circumstances.

“Ever heard of Kaposi’s Sarcoma?” asked the voice. “Connective tissue cancer—very ugly. Dark lesions under the skin, and Martin had them everywhere when I found him. Purplish-brown blotches like medieval plague, like his whole body was rotting.”

He took a long, shuddering breath. “They aren’t sure yet how he died, but his doctor says his lungs were involved—and that he’s never seen lesions erupt so rapidly. I mean, Martin had been living with AIDS since… “

Sara felt herself start shaking.

“Please—can you tell me what happened to the box? Did Martin even open it?”

The only response was an agonized flood of Arabic, or maybe Farsi. She got the vague impression that he was cursing someone. Her? Fate?

Ammutseba?

Murmuring condolences, Sara hung up. With one trembling finger, she erased her ex’s message—then sat motionless for several minutes at her desk, paralyzed by shock too deep for grief. She knew, as surely as the voice in San Francisco did, that her amulet had killed Martin Stanley. And that Diane’s amulet was trying very hard to kill her.

Cilia writhed behind her eyes as she reached for Martin’s padded envelope.

The contents hardly seemed worth dying for. Only a worn canvas-bound field journal and one sheaf of photocopies—though several slips of paper and yellowed newspaper clippings protruded from the journal. Blinking back tears she had no time for, Sara opened it carefully.

Journal of: Evelyn Bishop, Valley of the Kings, 1924–25 Season.

Evelyn was a copyist, the daughter of an American excavator working some tomb site in the vicinity of KV 62. That meant they’d caught the aftermath of Howard Carter’s discovery… though she couldn’t recall anybody else in that area then.

Curious, she flipped through the first few pages. It seemed to be both diary and sketch book, including some watercolors. Evelyn didn’t draw maps of the area, however—and she never mentioned the tomb by number.

Instead, she used the same nickname Martin had: Seven Sisters. It didn’t take long to see why. Their entire season had been taken up with removing over a dozen mummies from niches cut into the tunnel-like tomb’s rock walls. All the mummies so far had been female.

Sara frowned. Aside from a few stockpiles of already-desecrated royals, hidden in the vain hope of protecting them from robbers, multiple entombments weren’t common. These women hadn’t been re-entombed—or even apparently royal.

Priestesses, Evelyn noted, below a sketch showing one entire wall of niche tombs. But not Hathor’s, or anyone recognizable. She added a hieroglyphic scrawl after this last: three spiky blobs under some kind of table. In red ink.

Next to the scrawl, a slip of paper bore one word in Martin’s handwriting. Ammut-seba?

That same glyph turned up all over this sprawling tomb, always in red. Like a good copyist, Evelyn recorded each occurrence, though none of the excavators had any theories. They were also beginning to grumble that this site wasn’t even a proper KV tomb.

Too early. And the walls look wrong.

Evelyn added a sketch to illustrate. Where a normal rock-cut tomb had chips and flaws marking door-sill edges, Seven Sisters had what looked like drippings—as though something had burned through it, melting rock like wax.

Another slip of paper fluttered to the floor. Stygian: Shuddam-El, Martin had written. Devourer of the Earth (Khemite), or ??? S-E in service to A? Alliance? No wonder tomb robbers 1st Intermed. so hideously effective!

Sara stared. Martin had called Stygia a “very early” pre-Egyptian culture—which made it just about older than any she could imagine.

Maybe even pre-human?

Of course, this tomb couldn’t be pre-human. Evelyn’s fragmentary grave-goods list on the following page suggested early Dynastic, with an abrupt cut-off near the end of the First Intermediate period. After that, the tomb had been sealed up (how? from which side?) and hidden so well even catalogers never found it.

The only evidence that anyone other than the occupants ever had known its location appeared in a sketch a couple of pages later. Red clay potsherds, as found near the misshapen crack of the tomb’s only entrance.

Breaking the Red Pots, Martin’s note added helpfully. Early ritual exorcism—funerary rite?—to destroy malign spirits or?

The tomb’s occupants hadn’t been popular in life, either. Several had died by fire, or violence so obvious even mummification couldn’t hide it. Evelyn’s father expected to find more of the same when he unwrapped his chosen specimen. She would be sketching it, of course, but she confessed to feeling queasy about the assignment.

Queasy didn’t begin to describe Sara’s own feelings as she read. For a while it was mostly sketches: not mummies, yet, but wall ornamentation. Walls and ceiling. The tomb’s main chamber ceiling boasted a strange variant on the Nut-mother of later tombs, her dark form twisted and bloated by cankers which—on closer examination—seemed to be clusters of stars. Another steady stream of stars poured (or was being sucked?) into her gaping mouth.

Gate p. 12, Martin noted. As highlighted.

Sure enough, the sheaf of papers was entitled The Gate of All Lost Stars: A Fragmentary Translation. She couldn’t find a translator’s name, and the manuscript looked as though it had been photocopied at least a dozen times. The handwriting was clear enough otherwise, though: tiny neat academic script below meticulously drawn lines of hieroglyphs.

Page twelve had its own heading: Of How She May Come Forth By Night. Behold, Ammutseba has devoured the light of the stars, she has eaten their words of power, she has eaten their spirits…

Sara stared at the highlighted passage. Here it was, from And the stars are as bread for Her body to For Her restoration she shall swallow up their fires in the night. The whole week’s reading as Diane had supplied it to her—but how had Martin known? She hadn’t quoted it to him on the phone, or in her e-mails.

Turning back to Evelyn’s drawing of the Nut-like figure, she found three words written beneath it in faded pencil. Devourer of Stars.

And, again, the table-and-three-spiky-blobs glyph. This time, though, the blobs were three upside-down stars. This thing… this diseased, woman-shaped black hole… was Ammutseba. And swallowing stars (weren’t stars the souls of Kemet’s blessed dead?), nourished her.

Allowed her to her come forth by night.

Desperately, Sara dove back into the journal. Gate had something to do with the Seven Sisters tomb, and she guessed it might have been found there. But where? She’d seen no mention of papyri found with the mummies, or any tomb texts on the walls.

It took her a month’s entries to find out. In the meantime, she came across another of Martin’s notes—with the epithet Daughter of Isfet (Chaos / Azathoth?)—accompanying a tomb wall sketch with similar hieroglyphs. Copying this bit of art had given Evelyn nightmares.

It’s as though we aren’t alone here any more. All the mummies… the awful ways some of them died… really starting to wear on me. Father says they found the ideal specimen today, though. A High Priestess, from her regalia, maybe the last one entombed here. Strangled and stabbed and burned…

So the worship of Ammutseba wasn’t healthy then, either. Sara flipped forward. Sure enough, Evelyn’s father picked this last mummy to unwrap—defying the wishes of his colleagues.

But it’s all right, Evelyn noted the next day, because there’s actually writing on some of the bandages. Hieroglyphs. Whole words and phrases and prayers.

Sure enough, she’d found Gate. Skimming ahead, Sara learned that several other mummies were also being unwrapped, in search of more texts. Meanwhile, Evelyn’s father continued with his High Priestess.

I’m supposed to start sketching her tomorrow. I don’t want to. Her face is… awful, what’s left of it. What they did to her…

Besides, I’m nursing Dr. Parker now. He’s got a terrible fever and none of the fellaheen will go near him.

She was skimming ahead, noting uneasily that the native workers disappeared from the site soon after, when she came across another sketch. This one was full page and tinted with watercolor, but less detailed than Evelyn’s usual.

And something about it was faintly, hideously, familiar.

Readjusting her desk lamp, Sara studied it. She’d seen unwrapped mummies before, in half a dozen books. The look of ancient death had never bothered her. So why did this particular one send cold spiders down her spine?

To start with, it didn’t look quite human. The frail woman’s face was freakishly narrow, and her leathery eye sockets took up far too much of it. They’d been both rounder and larger than any normal person’s. More like a nocturnal animal…

She whispered the name an instant before she read it, penciled below the sketch. Sesh-tet.

She’s the genuine article, though I can’t think how it happened.

The journal slipped from her shaking hands, scattering newspaper clippings like dead leaves. The Cairo Daily News, 1925: three brief mentions of a young woman rescued in the Valley of the Kings. Delirious with fever and sunstroke, she’d had nothing with her but a knapsack stuffed with what appeared to be mummy wrappings. Under these, they’d found her field journal—which was fortunate, since her tongue had been too swollen for speech.

She died alone in a charity hospital two days later.

Diane called Sara at work next morning, but only to remind her about the power raising. If she’d heard back from her tests, she wasn’t telling—and Sara wasn’t asking. She just wanted a few particulars about the ritual site, a recreational area a few miles outside town.

“Good and private, this time of year,” Diane assured her. “Unless we get too much cloud cover, it’ll be fantastic. Just be sure to set your alarm!”

Sara frowned. “On the weekend?”

“Leonids should be peaking around 3 A.M. Sunday. The 18th, remember? The paper says we’ve got a good chance at the meteor storm of a lifetime. Sesh’tet’s really excited.”

For Her restoration she shall swallow up their fires in the night…

“I’m sure she is.”

Fighting the urge to warn her, Sara halfway promised to come if she didn’t oversleep. Then she hung up, her exhausted mind spinning. After reading Martin’s photocopy until dawn, all she knew for sure was that power wouldn’t be the only thing raised this Sunday morning. Not if Sesh’tet had her way.

She tried catching up on her sleep that night—hardly her idea of a Friday—then spent Saturday running around madly. The Gate translation offered little guidance, and less encouragement. Like other tomb texts, it was a “book” for believers… but not for use in the next world.

Instead, most passages spoke of Ammutseba manifesting in this world.

Hail, O ye who open up the ways of night, O guide and guardian in the nameless hours… devourer of the beaten path of stars, She who was the thought of Isfet before the sky was split from the earth… before the Ones Who Were withdrew to their abysses beyond the sky…

That sky was utterly clear when she drove out of Boulder around one on Sunday morning. Sara cut her headlights a mile from the site, praying she wouldn’t cause an accident. Faint meteor streaks in the distance tempted her to drive faster—what if the ritual had already started?—but gravel roads weren’t quiet at speed.

She inched along impatiently until she spotted the first parked cars. Then, turning off her engine, she waited for her eyes to adjust. In the open field ahead, flashlight beams bobbed and wove in some kind of dance. She watched for a while, then eased her door open. The light sharp wind carried women’s voices, raised in a song—chant?—which didn’t sound Egyptian at all. Or like any pagan ritual she’d ever attended.

Her spine stiffened as she recognized names and phrases from The Gate of All Lost Stars. They were burning incense, too, the same bitter stuff from the circle meeting… and one page of Evelyn Bishop’s journal, where she’d smeared yellowish paste from a jar in the tomb.

Grabbing her overstuffed knapsack, she ducked away from her car.

Meteors were streaking above the Flatirons now, more every minute. The chant grew louder. Some of the women were coughing as they chanted, choking on the strange gutturals—or perhaps on the smoke twisting up against the night. They’d marked out their ritual circle with smudge pots.

Stepping carefully on the crisp grass, Sara moved forward until she could recognize people. Diane, of course, her believer’s face lifted to the shooting stars. Seven or eight other women—two on crutches, one on blankets on the ground—and, in the center, a tiny figure swathed in darkness.

Sara loosened her pack’s drawstring as she slipped it from her shoulders.

It was Sesh’tet’s voice, she realized, which rose so clearly over the others—reedy and thin, yet with unmistakable power. Every syllable fell crisp and perfect from her lipless mouth, ringing with adoration.

“Ia! Isfet-daughter! Ammutseba!”

A collective gasp rose from the circle of women. They were all staring into the sky—even Sesh’tet, though she still kept up the chant, soloing now.

Sara noticed nothing at first. Nothing but a thin dark haze, like incense smoke stretched across the night… but too high and far too plentiful for mere smudge pots. The wind wasn’t moving it around, either. When one meteor’s path crossed into that haze, it flared abruptly and vanished, like a candle flame blown out.

Sesh’tet raised both arms in a wide, triumphant gesture. “Ia! Ammutseba!”

As the others echoed her, the woman on the blankets began moaning. Diane and another circle member hurried toward her, only to be intercepted by their High Priestess.

“She is first to ascend!” Sesh’tet cried. “She is first among us all to live forever!”

From where Sara stood, the stricken woman was doing no such thing. As her moaning changed to whimpering, she lifted herself on her elbows, staring around in shock and agony. Then one thin tendril of whitish… smoke? …seeped from between her parted lips, snaking on the wind toward Sesh’tet.

Sesh’tet inhaled. Another meteor winked out in the thickening mist overhead.

“Ia! First among us all to live forever!”

As her circle sisters took up the cry, the woman on the ground collapsed. Sesh’tet lifted her arms higher, their enfolding dark sleeves slipping back for the first time. The skin underneath, though brown and smooth and perfect, was crisscrossed with some very odd striations. Like bandages.

Wishing she’d brought binoculars, Sara felt her gut clench. What she thought she’d just seen—what the Gate translation had predicted in gleeful detail—simply could not be happening. Meanwhile, the Leonids kept raining down just as predicted, a real banner year.

Except that now a lot of them weren’t raining down. Just vanishing into that body of dark vapor overhead—which was looking more and more like a real body.

The body of Nut-mother, but twisted… corrupted… stretching out across the stars to devour them…

Diane wasn’t chanting now. She was screaming. Wrenching her attention from the horror overhead, Sara saw her friend fall to her knees at one edge of the circle. The others spiraled out in their dance without breaking step, leaving her alone at the center with the body sprawled on its blankets.

And with Sesh’tet.

Fishing a lighter from one pocket, Sara reached into her knapsack. The first bottle gurgled in her hand as she lit its rag wick. Barely pausing to aim, she hurled it flaming toward the circle’s heart, praying Diane wasn’t wearing anything flammable.

Her first throw went wild, catching one of her target’s flowing sleeves. Sesh’tet shrieked and tore the burning cloth away, exposing her right arm to the shoulder. Just above the elbow, that same arm dwindled to a dark twig of leather and bone. Worse, her enveloping hood had slipped back. Above that narrow face with its strange, too-wide eyes, nothing but mummified skin stretched tight over her skull.

“Look at her!” Sara yelled at the others, voice raw with desperation. “She’s not human! She was never human!”

Their chanting faltered as dancer after dancer—all but Diane, sprawled on the ground now—broke step and stared. Sara lit another bottle. This time, it landed right at Sesh’tet’s feet, spattering her with broken glass and flaming fuel.

Without stopping to watch, Sara ignited a third. Sesh’tet shrieked again, gesturing in her attacker’s direction with her still-draped arm.

“She must… not… live!”

The others hesitated, trembling like aspens in a high wind. Then, in one tight silent pack, they rushed her.

Sara hurled her last missile over their heads and ran as hard as she could. Circling wide, she doubled back toward Diane—and the writhing woman-torch still lifting her hands to the sky. Still calling on the Darkness now stretching Her solidifying mass above their heads, quenching meteors like so many fireworks.

“Isfet-daughter! Ammutseba!”

Diane was on her hands and knees now. Crawling toward the High Priestess, she grabbed a handful of burning hem and yanked with all her strength. Sesh’tet staggered. Still racing to help, Sara stumbled over one of the smudge-pots, shattering it.

Sesh’tet’s shriek changed to a high, terrible wailing.

Breaking the Red Pots. These pots weren’t red—aside from their distinctive hieroglyphs, anyhow—but they were certainly breakable enough. Sara turned and kicked another pot, then another. Charcoal and incense scattered across a patch of snow and died.

As the pack caught up at last, Sara kicked at more pots and shouted for their help.

“They’re making her stronger. They’re making that thing in the sky stronger! Get this stuff put out now!”

One or two women grabbed at her, still confused, but the rest started stomping or swatting with crutches. Sara looked around for Diane. She was still dragging at Sesh’tet’s robes, her own hands and arms horribly burned. Her lips moved in a profane litany.

It took Sara a moment to realize what Diane was dragging the burning woman toward. Her final missile—unbroken after a bad throw—lay on the ground, still half-full. Releasing her hold on Sesh’tet with one hand, she grabbed for it.

“It’s OK,” Diane said, grinning at Sara as she raised the smoldering wine bottle. “I’m taking the bitch with me.”

Tightening her grip, she smashed it against Ammutseba’s priestess.

Somebody ran back for a Land Rover’s water jugs, but it didn’t matter. Seasoned by thousands of years, Sesh’tet went up in a flaming pillar against the night. The last sound from her dying captor’s mouth was a scream of triumph.

Overhead, the dark mist-shape quivered and swirled, coalescing again briefly. Then it dispersed on the wind, accompanied by a few scattered meteors.

“She really was dying anyway,” the Rover’s owner told Sara softly. “She told us tonight, before the ritual. Those tests…”

Sara turned away. There was a hard, cold lump in her throat, and she didn’t want to start thinking about lumps. Maybe she and the others would be all right in the morning.

Maybe that tiny burning pain she’d felt in one breast lately would be gone.

∇