#early bronze age fantasy silliness instead of llamasward this time

[squirrelwrangler]

The Sphinx’s Son

The sandstone lions that guarded the Great Temple had human faces that were carved to look stern and imposing, but Arus thought that the statues just looked sad. They had his mother’s face, though the masons who had carved the human-headed lions had lived more than two centuries ago. Coincidence or the timelessness of a standard of beauty, the boy could not say which. Arus traced the names of the master stonemasons where the signatures were tucked away on the back heel of the statues, hidden in their cool shadows. The ridge of stone of the carved tail made a perfect bench for him to sit.

The temple processions, carried out by fifty people of various ages, marched on in loops between the temple colonnades. Ganreh, the favorite student of the head priest, led today’s procession, sweat dripping down his shaved head and wilting the starched linen of his tabard. The clinking sistrum dictated the cadence of the march, and the pinched expression of intense concentration on Ganreh’s face to keep the metronomic chinking of rattled metal beads consistent made Arus choke back laughter. Ganreh was too kind for scolding, but Head Priestess We-se would box his ears for disrupting the ceremony. The chanting combined with the sistrum to make a pleasant if monotonous song. Arus wondered if the real purpose was to soothe the gods to sleep with such droning lullaby-like music. 

The attendant priestesses carrying the smoke-filled braziers noticed where Arus sat waiting for today’s procession to finish –the second of a six-day ceremony– but as Arus was silent and sitting clear of the path and not yet necessary for any of the rituals, their side-eyes were of measured approval instead of mistrustful scorn. Arus’s siblings were too young to sit quietly through any long religious ceremony and had been left in the care of palace nannies, but he was old enough to observe ceremonies. Not join them. Yet. Maybe. Arus had yet to show definitive proof that he had inherited his mother’s gift.

Sehmket walked between an entourage of priests and priestesses, their feathered staffs and leopard robes penning her in as she performed her role. Small statues of the deities were carried before and behind her, and a cloud of incense clouded her. Inside the temple the statues were milky stone, but when the procession exited into the afternoon sun of the courtyard, sharp light reflected off of the translucent quartz of the gods and the crushed mica of the priestly face paint. Each quartz statue of a god, goddess, or divine beast was carried on a bronze platter by an attendant priest or priestess, except for one. Two strong priests carried the litter bearing the largest of the holy statues, that of the winged warrior magician goddess O-sesmiat-et. Supposedly it was a replica of the main statue at the furthest altar of the temple, the one that only Ganreh and the Head Priest and Priestesses attended. The winged goddess with her tall crown had a carved face that mimicked the faces of the stone lions but whose expression remained fathomless. Arus wondered who carved the image of the goddess, the only statue chiseled from precious blue stone instead of semi-transparent quartz. Privately he thought that the craftsman was not as skilled as Abidus or Senos-se, the names carved on the heel of the guardian lion statues. A large fan of dropping white feathers angled to further shade the pair of litter bearers of O-sesmiat-et from the sun, but the fan bearer was a short apprentice that struggled to keep the correct angle. In the morning the apprentice had no difficulty with his task, but hours later the heat was affecting him. The two stout litter bearers seemed not to mind, but surely their shoulders ached by now.

In their own way the marching priests were as impressive as the soldiers drilling in the royal barracks. 

Arus waved at his mother each time that the ritual brought her to the outer temple courtyard with its stone lion guardians. A silent wave, for the boy was mindful not to interrupt the chanting prayers of the priests and priestesses. Each time a small smile graced his mother’s thin lips. She would not wave back, as that would be unbecoming of dignity and disrupt the careful folds of the heavy cloak around her body and the long train that dragged behind her, the many gemstones and painted feathers that decorated her singular regalia scooting along after each small gliding step that Sehmket took to preserve the illusion that she was gliding like a windborn barque across the giant sandstone paving stones, her feet hidden by reed-thin folds of a long linen shift. Dressing his mother in her ceremonial regalia and laundering the expensive garments required the skills of two priestesses that focused on nothing else but the special garments of the highest priesthood and Arus’s mother. That Sehmket was mindful of her duties was a great irony, for she had a pivotal role in the assassination of the previous high priest and the uncovering of the great conspiracy among the temples and the altering of religious teachings.

The long six-day ceremony was one of the results of the purging and purification of the faith, to restore old ceremonies and old rituals of performing them. How Sehmket was included in them was not an old process restored, though the chant was something transcribed off of a once-forgotten and half-buried tomb wall dating back two dynasties. The priesthood enthusiastically searched for the old methods to honor the gods, eager to reform the lies of their forebears and restore trust in the gods and their chosen representatives. Arus’s mother was the lynchpin to their efforts, however uneasy the truth of the alliance.

His mother was no prisoner, however much Arus sometimes felt that she might be, but he knew that the trust given to Sehmket was conditional. Revered asset instead of hounded traitor, but he was old enough to understand the looks that others bestowed upon his mother, from priest and noble down to the day-laborers of the city. Awe and fear, and the cautious pride that one gave to a tamed hunting cheetah. 

A woman that could transform herself into a divine sphinx would always inspire fear.

The first statue in the procession was the only one carved after Arus’s birth, the newest and the only without a holy name. It was of the sphinx, winged cat with the face and chest of a woman. The rosettes of the body had been carefully chiseled, and that was how Arus knew the statue represented his mother’s divine transformation, even though the statue’s nondescript face had closed eyes and full lips. And large breasts. The old artistic representations of sphinxes on the wall reliefs of the main palace, temples, and tombs had lion bodies - all but one painting in the palace complex that dated back to the first dynasty. Prince Hama discovered the painting of the spotted sphinx and had artisans reproduce it across the kingdom. The Master of Scribes bragged that the revived old sphinx design was the most popular tapestry sold throughout the eight cities. Mehbebli was more honest with Arus, explaining that the true sphinx was seen as the most fitting burial shroud for fallen soldiers, in honor of his mother’s divine strength and her efforts to safeguard their kingdom. O-Sehmket transformed had the dappled pelt of a leopard below her waist, of fur the palest gold and darkest bronze, and her wings were the bright green of papyrus sedge. The statue did not include the horns, each as green as fresh reeds: two that curved around her ears to rest against her cheekbones like those of a ram and the four that spiraled out like the addax to give the divine beast a crown. Horns were hinted at via a single wavy shape on that old painting. The toll of his mother’s magic weighed too heavily on her health to be used in frivolous displays, but only those new to the capital or as young as Arus’s second sister had never seen the divine sphinx form of O-Sehmket. Two years ago Sehmket had transformed at the great plaza, careful to lessen the divine storm that accompanied her accession, and hovered above the palace walls, all to prove to the ambassador from Kirop that the tales of the divinity that protected the Kingdom of the Glass Mountain was no mere exaggeration.

The old priesthood had branded his mother a monstrous mockery because of the discrepancies in known form. Head Priestess We-se called it yet more proof of how deeply the priesthood had strayed from the strictures established during the reign of the first dynasty. And their foolishness: O-Sehmket guarded the subjects of Prince Hama, frightening his enemies and strengthening his rule, and brought pilgrims to the temples. Only the army loved her more, for the destruction she could wrought and the peace that she brokered with the griffins.

Arus’s mother was no prisoner, for it would be nigh on impossible to imprison a woman that could transform into a giant chimeric beast of divine powers and flight. But their rulers could not afford to lose their leash on Sehmket, too dangerous an enemy and too vital to their safety. 

Magical chains were forged, invisible ones crafted by links more precious than metal: lodgings within the palace complex, amnesty for her murders, reforms among the priesthood and the ousting of corrupt ministers, new laws to protect the slaves and widows, the safe borders of the kingdom and the prosperity and happiness of the common subjects, and the preferential alliance with the griffins of the northern mountains. All to hold Sehmket here and summit to the parades around the temple colonnade and transform into the sphinx when demanded.

The strongest chain, Arus knew, was himself and his sisters.