The way he had it figured, a man was who was neither alive nor dead was on a one-way trip from one to the other. Osiris seemed to be dodging the central issue.

“If I was alive, and now I’m between, can I conclude that I’ll shortly be dead? I’m on my way to the Underworld, right?”

Let him dodge that.

“Only the faithful may enter the Fields of Rejoicing. You are not faithful. The gates of the Underworld are shut to you.”

It was an alarming response in no way superior to previous hedging. The dead enjoyed few options, and the Underworld was most of them. He tried to imagine himself a feeble shade lingering miserably above the desiccated wreckage of his corpse for all ages to come, forever formless, powerless and alone. The prospect was too dismal to contemplate.

“Great and Merciful Lord,” he began, diplomatically reversing a longstanding policy against flattering titles, “that I receive this condemnation from your own perfect lips is a blessing beyond measure, and I’ll concede your point that I haven’t always spared the gods their due attention. But if I’m not staying here, O Light of Compassion, and I’m not traveling through, then where am I going?”

“You will return whence you came.”

The words were plain enough, their precise meaning somewhat less so.

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“You will resume your place among the living.”

Disappointing, yes, but he’d heard worse news. Going back to an unsatisfying life was certainly better than eternal impotence, and he could consult with a priest regarding his prospects for eternity at leisure. Still, he was a meticulous man accustomed to straight lines and right angles, and he could see no sense or object in this strange ordeal. He cleared his throat softly and stole a glance toward the silent kings, still perched indifferently upon their bench like graven images. Even should Osiris excuse him from final judgment today, wasn’t it just a matter of time before he was again summoned into their presence for a more permanent accounting? He shrugged his shoulders, blinked twice, and lifted his gaze to address Osiris directly.

“Great God, it looks to me like you’ve gone to a little trouble for this interview, and I know I’ve gone to a lot of it, but I’d feel more comfortable about the whole business if I knew exactly what kind of business we’re in. If this is a trial, shouldn’t I get a word or two on my own behalf?”

“This is not a trial, and no words can expunge your guilt.”

“Perhaps if you told me what I’m guilty of…”

“The greatest crime of which a man is capable,” said Osiris, without apparent rancor, his voice still the stealthy rush of water and reeds. “You abandoned your god.”

That was a glancing blow. There was no disputing the fact that he’d devoted considerable thought and energy to minimizing his religious involvement. On the other hand, one simply could not exist in Egypt without yielding the occasional nod to its gods, and he’d ever been careful to make what conciliatory gestures as tradition and geography required.

“You do me a disservice!” he cried, genuinely aggrieved. “Maybe I never saw the inside of the king’s temple, and that’s no easy trick, I can tell you, but who serves a country serves its gods, and I’ve been sweating in Pharoah’s service these many years without rest or complaint. And haven’t I always made offerings as the law requires? I think it’s fair to say I’ve been faithful to the letter of the creed, if not the spirit of it.”

“You have been faithful to neither. Gods are not sustained by tax and tithe only, but are most nourished by true allegiance and honest devotion.”

“Well, I suppose it’s no secret I’m not much for worship, Lord, but I’ve been given to understand that even murderers and heretics can find a berth aboard the Eternal Barge, whether or not they like the accommodations.”

“Even a murderer may worship with a true heart, and the heretic, however misguided, acknowledges the gods’ primacy. Your sin is neglect – a murder of the spirit and a heresy against the living and the dead. There can be no harvest for one who does not sow.”

It seemed to him that Osiris was quite deliberately ignoring some very solid arguments in his favor, and his frustration was mounting.

“I hope you’ll correct me if I go over the banks, here, Splendid One, but was all of this really necessary just so you can tell me in person that I’ll have no place to go when I die?”

“It was necessary. You are an affront to Ma’at.”

There was no mistaking the sharp edge on that statement, or the hot force of the god’s displeasure. He studied Osiris to see if he could get a better read on the god’s mood, and realized the room had gradually brightened until the source of its illumination was apparent. Light rose from the god’s wrappings like a fog, a curiously substantial radiance that drifted slowly about the chamber in blooms and tendrils, winding about the pillars and insinuating itself into every corner, steadily accumulating until no place was left in shadow. In a very few minutes, he estimated, the tomb would be, quite literally, blinding.

“Stand,” ordered Osiris.

He rose hesitantly to his feet, casting a nervous eye at Eater of Souls. The twelve silent judges turned their heads toward him, their eyes as white as new limestone, without iris or pupil. He realized with a shudder that their eye sockets were stuffed with wads of clean linen. Thoth raised his right hand to his shoulder, holding in his grip a sword as long and slender and curved as his mighty beak.

“The impious may not enter the Land of the Dead,” continued Osiris. “Yet for the dead to remain among the living disturbs the balance governing both dominions. It is for Ma’at’s sake, not yours, that  I grant this audience.”

Now we’re getting somewhere, he thought, relieved and gratified, but forcing himself to a remorseful expression. Osiris himself was about to reveal the foolproof antidote to damnation. A little penance, a few prayers, the appropriate offering at the appropriate shrine and all would be forgiven. Despite the harrowing journey, it looked as though his long-term situation was about to improve. He was suddenly glad he hadn’t died in the river.

“I am your clay, Lord Osiris,” he said, bowing deeply for effect.

“Take care, irreverent fool, for your path to the Underworld will not be as straight as you imagine. To achieve balance, you must practice balance. To satisfy Ma’at, you must obey Ma’at.”

“I see what you mean.” He knit his brow and nodded slowly, trying to convey thoughtful agreement, then carefully brightened, assuming what he hoped was a credible mask of resolve. “Balance will hereafter be my guiding principle, and Ma’at will be my guide. I think the gods of Egypt will find me a most attentive servant from here on in.”

“The gods of Egypt will accept those words as your binding oath,” said Osiris, “but your chief sin is not against any god of this land. Your crime is against the god of your inheritance.”

 That caught him up short. He gaped, disbelieving. The idea that he might owe a debt to his ancestral deity seemed preposterous.

“Begging your very great pardon, but are you talking about Bibleb?”

“It is to Bibleb that you must atone.”

“But…but…Bibleb isn’t even Egyptian!”

“You are Egyptian. Bibleb is your god.”

“Well, okay,” he said, not really following, “but I can’t imagine why you bother extending yourself on his part. I can assure you Bibleb doesn’t rate the trouble.” He was genuinely incensed and didn’t bother to hide it. “I don’t know if you’ve got all the facts of the case, but my clan has been propping up that holy fraud for ages, and all they’ve got to show for it are double helpings of abuse, grief and sand for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I’d say it’s we who’re due for some atonement.”

The amorphous light filling the chamber abruptly fell in upon itself until only Osiris remained, a shining white sun from which no reflected beam escaped, afloat in a black and empty universe.

“You have forsaken the god of your fathers. If you would live beyond your grave, it is to him that you must atone.”

He feared to test the god’s patience, but wasn’t yet ready to accept the absurd pronouncement.

“I don’t think you understand, Great God Osiris,” he began again. “It’s me and mine that are forsaken. Bibleb failed us. He’s always failed us. He failed me!”

Light flooded back into the tomb. Without sound or warning Thoth reached out his sword and, with a single fluid motion, hacked off his left leg at mid-thigh. He felt the impact, like a kick from an ass, but no pain. The severed leg tipped over, hit the floor with a dry thud and began surrounding itself with a dark moat of blood. The silent judges regarded him passively with their white linen eyes. He stared at his severed limb in bewilderment, feeling like he should say something, but unable to think of the appropriate words.

“It is you who do not understand,” said Osiris. “The failure is yours.”

A dull ache began growing at the neatly cleaved frontier of his missing leg. His head started to swim, and the slowly swirling white light began dimming into shades of gray.

“As by your inattention Bibleb was hobbled,” the King of the Dead continued, “so by the judgment of Ma’at you will travel the path of atonement a cripple.”

He stood balanced, quite unconsciously, on his right leg, but as his senses rapidly drained away with the blood pouring from his wound he toppled over onto the gushing stump. He gasped and winced, bracing himself for the agony that must result, but the throbbing merely kept expanding apace. His relief of moments earlier was quickly disappearing beneath spouts of red horror. Dismemberment was a particularly serious matter to an Egyptian, who can take nothing into the next world that they don’t possess in life. For most of common station, the only reward for drudgery and sickness and subjection and privation was the prospect of a marginally better life in the death. Irretrievably maimed he faced the strong likelihood of spending the remainder of his living days an unemployable ruin, his mutilated Ba thenceforth a useless shade, an object of pity and scorn begging contemptuous strangers for crusts and prayers. Terror returned, far stronger than before, but it was not the hot, immediate terror of impending pain and death, but the cold, slow, infinitely sad terror that his every secret hope had slipped forever out of reach. If a conciliatory gesture toward his ancestral god seemed preposterous before, it now seemed outrageous.

“Don’t you see?” he groaned, weakly. “Bibleb let this happen. Bibleb lets everything happen.”

“You let this happen. And yet the god that you despise may yet provide the key to your redemption. If you would find peace, it is to Bibleb that you must atone.”

It seemed a slim reed, and monumentally unjust, but he grasped it with everything left in him, his only thought to somehow salvage

“What do you want? How do I …?”

“Only by your god’s rehabilitation will your own be accomplished,” murmured Osiris. “Your fates one. Your fates have always been one.”

The soft light was bleeding away quickly, and he felt the stone begin melting beneath him, sensed his body dissolving and his mind tipping into the void. His last chance to get a straight answer out of Osiris was rushing away on a relentless current, and he needed an answer. His life, and afterlife, depended on it.

“For the love of Set” he rasped, “just tell me what to do…”

But his mouth had already evaporated into the ether, along with the rest of his face and attendant parts, and his words fled like water spilled on sand. Damn the gods and their riddles, and damn me for asking, he spat, the voiceless curse dissipating into nothing as his lamed spirit plunged into oblivion.

 And yet, as luck would have it, the gods are perfectly capable of hearing mortal thoughts, and are, when they care to be, equally adept at answering them.

“Do as you have been told, Djamose,” commanded Osiris, “for the love of Bibleb.”