The Book of Horus:
Breathings
IC.Fisher
Smashwords Edition
IC.Fisher Incorporated
Breathings, The Book of Horus series (Book 1)
Copyright © 2012 IC.Fisher Incorporated
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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Summary: Separated by tragedy, the hawk-headed god Horus will stop at nothing to rejoin with the woman that he loves. The bonds of their love transcend all time and space. Even death could not extinguish the flames. Any sacrifice was not too great. All that mattered is that they could live their immortal lives together.
ISBN: 978-1-4657-6477-5
“This is an epic and inventively told novel. Read it and enjoy.” - Catherine Bush, internationally acclaimed author of Claire's Head and The Rules of Engagement
Dedication
To everyone that helped support this project,
especially
To O’Siris and Isis for breathing life into this book.
Also, a special thank you to my Horus:
Who flew in and swept me off my feet.
PROLOGUE
Present-Day
Life itself is confusing.
I used to think it was pretty straight-forward. You’re born, you live and then you die. For the most part, I believe events in life do come in a sort of progressive way. I mean, a baby has to learn to crawl before walking, or learn the alphabet before being expected to write their name;
But then again, life is not that simple.
I would question why life presented the most harsh lessons when I was least expecting it. Loss of security, separation of loved ones, sickness, even death came at the most inopportune times. Not that I would want these hardships to come at any time in my life or in the lives of others; it just seemed to happen arbitrarily or at random. What I have since realized is that I had to learn certain lessons that I probably wouldn’t have learned at any other time, or in any other way. I learned to hold onto memories of hope after ironically feeling the bitter despair that life sometimes brings.
The trials in my life also gave me empathy, rather than sympathy, for others going through similar ‘character building’ events that I had already experienced. I was able to hold their hands, and say with experience: Life moves on and does get better.
I came to realize this as I walked through the cemetery and its adjoining forest on a well known hill in upper-state New York. The Canisteo Living Sign of cedar trees stood towering over me when I discovered a crumbled up blank piece of papyrus paper. Shaking off the dirt and other debris, I was about ready to toss it away when a peculiar thing caught my eye.
Lines had gotten darker in certain places between the strips and fibers of the papyrus reeds. At first glance I had thought it was an unique shading, but writing appeared as if out of nowhere.
I took the papyrus home and transcribed everything that I saw evolve before me until the papyrus remained blank. Each new message or chapter, seemed to be completely irrelevant to the message before it.
When I read the completed story, I was confused by its presentation, but amazed by its content; much like how my children view the new wonders of life. I came to understand that the various storylines overlapped similar to the individual piths of papyrus reeds to make up one ancient document. It was the only non-linear narrative that I have ever truly come across.
I had in front of me a story about a family that had been betrayed and separated, doing all they could to be reunited. The papyrus was a record of a group of people that survived the Flood of Atlantis and, with their advanced technology over space and time, became known as the powerfully immortal Ancient Egyptian Gods. The papyrus insisted that Horus was a real, living hawk-headed being that desperately searched for his loved one in Canisteo and Hornell, New York during the 1930’s, almost a century prior to me finding the document.
Though it has been blank for some time now, I have no doubt that the papyrus will show me more when it is ready. I was left to ponder if what I had witnessed really did just happen, or if I had imagined it. But then again, I usually feel the same way when the aftershock of my trials has had time to heal. The pain is not as intense as when I first experienced it, but the memory of the experience and the lessons of endurance lives on.
I leave it up to each reader to decide for themselves.
CHAPTER 1
Atlantis - Moments before the Flood
The City of the Sun lay in ruins.
Its citizens frantically searched for a safe haven amongst the war torn landscape. Its soldiers charged in futility as jets of volcanic ash and fire sporadically burst from the abysmal cracks.
Many lay dead or dying.
Distressed and fearful for her lover’s fate, a young woman ran back to the area where she last saw him. Having vanquished his betrayer, Horus lay in pain under the ruins of a building. Fire burned and soot clung to the ruffled brown feathers on his hawk-head. The skirmish chipped his beak. His human arms and legs lay bloodied. She reached out to grasp his hand over the rubble, with little success. Her voice was barely audible over the screaming of the citizens and the eruptions of the earth.
Though Horus had his arm extended toward the sound of her cry, their fingertips barely touched. His wolf-like enemy had blinded him.
As she attempted to draw closer, she was abruptly taken by enemy soldiers.
“Unhand me!” the woman commanded. “I must save him.”
“Hathor?” Horus called out pathetically to his wife while still grasping at air.
Another enemy soldier forcibly removed Horus’ Shen Ring which was embossed with a blue scarab beetle. The brown feathers of Horus’ hawk-head morphed back into his brown hair. Horus’ human head lay heavily scarred and bloodied from his one-on-one battle to the death. His completely white eyes, lacking pupils or irises, shifted in a vain attempt to see her one last time.
“No! Have mercy on him,” Helen struggled and kicked. “He’ll die.”
“Our orders were to retrieve you, Your Highness. Only you,” they insisted as they carried her away some distance away from the carnage.
The elderly King smiled beneath his white beard. His white toga glistened as a ray of hope and purity in this dark, gloomy world headed for disaster. His broach was adorned with a symbol of a single lightning bolt, which mimicked his personality: an electrifying burst of energetic light among storm clouds.
“What are you doing here?” the woman yelled.
The King looked out at the horizon. A thousand foot tidal wave cast a long, dark shadow over the City of the Sun. Atlantis’ buildings and the mountain in the north were shrouded by the darkness. Even the King’s radiating robe grew paler by this overwhelming presence.
“Isn’t it obvious, Helen? I am here to rescue you!” the King shouted over the cries and pleas of the Atlantean citizens. His soldiers were doing their best to hold the mob back and create a perimeter of safety.
“You took me away from my husband,” the young woman cried. She fell to the ground and pushed back her brown hair, which clung to her tear stained cheeks.
The King knelt to wipe away her tears and embrace her. She looked up longingly at her father, trying to make him understand the love she held for her husband and begged that he show sympathy.
“We don’t have much time, Your Majesty,” a soldier insisted. An earthquake shook the very ground they stood on as he spoke. “I suggest we move on.”
The upheaval split the ground separating them from the desperate Atlanteans crying out for aid. Even though the enemy king had brought them war, their impending destruction made them reconsider that it would be better to be alive as slaves, than dead as equals.
The King held his daughter’s hand lovingly and returned her look with a benevolent smile. Helen jerked her hand away in frustration as her father removed her Shen Ring. He held her golden ring in his hand and turned to look at its intricate details. It was designed to look like a twisted cord of flax with a green and red light pulsating on each end. From the side, it was a circle with a line at its tangent. The ring was similar to Horus’ except hers had a blue spherical pearl-like pendant adorned at the top of the ring where the circle met the line.
“You may have forgotten that you are of divine heritage, but I haven’t,” the King calmly stated, watching as his daughter shook her head in shocked disbelief. “You’ve had your fun here with him, but now it is time to come home. Where we are going, you will have no use for these worldly souvenirs.”
The King opened a compartment hidden behind his lightning bolt pin and placed the couple’s ring inside. He then nodded to another soldier to begin their escape. The young legionary approached the full-length mirror in the back of the king’s chariot, and while looking at his reflection, pushed a red button with a symbol of an arrow going through a doorway. Having done so, he proceeded to walk through the mirror’s surface, which only rippled with a slight disturbance, as that of a rippling pond, until he completely disappeared.
The portal was open!
There was just enough time for the King, his daughter and his soldiers to pass through and escape the impending doom of the tidal wave. Helen struggled even harder as she realized what was happening. She would be forced to live apart from her eternal love forever, not knowing if he would survive! She would rather die with him on this doomed island than be pained with the memory of living without him. No matter how hard she clawed and struggled, the soldiers restrained her.
“Besides,” the King persuaded his daughter as she looked at her husband one last time. “…Your half-breed of a husband is as good as dead anyway.”
The former hawk-headed man lay on the ground badly wounded, and barely able to rise only a few yards from his defeated wolf-like competitor.
Helen shook her head in disbelief. She couldn’t believe what her father was saying.
“What’s the verdict, Zeus?” said a voice.
The King glanced up and saw a man standing before them in the tidal wave. Though thinner and younger than the King, with a flare for wearing blue, it was obvious by their looks and mannerisms that they were related.
“I can’t hold back this tsunami forever,” said Zeus’ brother.
“Did we get the technology of the Pyramid, or, at the very least, the Atlantean Papyrus to instruct us how to build it ourselves?” the King asked.
“No, but our brother Hades managed to get us a lot of the other Atlantean technology,” Poseidon responded.
“Not the one that gives us ultimate power. Did we even get confirmation that Hades has obtained control of this island?” Zeus asked.
Poseidon shook his head. “No word. I am to assume that Hades failed his mission here and suggest that Atlantis’ colonies should be divided between us.”
Zeus agreed.
“If we can’t have the Atlantean Papyrus, then no-one will. Send him and this blasted island to the depths of the ocean!” Zeus angrily commanded.
Helen screamed in horror as Atlantis’ verdict was pronounced and attempted to reach out for her husband one last time. The soldiers recaptured her and dragged her through the mirror’s portal. Within moments, Zeus and his entourage completely disappeared, leaving behind the mirror. The portal was shut.
The sun set for the final time on Atlantis as the tidal wave was re-animated from its frozen state to descend violently on the city and its citizens.
CHAPTER 2
Cairo, Egypt - August 12, 1799
Several French soldiers were hesitant to come any closer to the large, black granite stone that lay on a table in front of them. There weren’t any real worries of theft with this massive object, only vandalism, and they understood that a severe reprimand would ensue if damage befell the ancient recovered artifact until their commanding officer, General Jacques-François Menou, had returned.
They were sorely tempted to draw nearer, as its carvings of Ancient Egyptian gods very much intrigued them. It depicted a Pharaoh surrounded by gods in human form with different animal heads etched on the top portion of the stone. The figures were all standing under an arched, blue-skinned, star-covered woman looking down on them protectively.
The stone was a rectangular piece of black granite, except for its semi-circular top. Being almost eight feet long, two and a half feet wide and about one foot thick, it weighed approximately 1,700 lbs.
The soldiers were curious as to this stone’s importance, considering the current trade war with the British. There were several languages engraved on the stone that might offer a clue, though none of which were French or English. Even if it had been a language they were familiar with, any attempt to read its inscriptions would be useless, as they were all illiterate anyway.
They noticed, however, that the writings showed a symbol of a vertical line at a tangent to a circle. In some places the circle was elongated depending on the quantity of hieroglyphs encircled therein.
Overall, the symbol was the same shape as their paper powder cartridge which they loaded into the muzzle of their firearm. If a soldier was a quick loader and able to fire more rounds, they were likewise nick-named after the cartridge. The soldiers jokingly dubbed the circle with a line after their cartridges; a cartouche.
The silence broke with an attention to arms when a five foot, seven inch commanding officer with black hair entered the room resolutely. Being no older than in his early thirties, the officer was religiously followed by several scholars, his personal guards, and General Menou. Removing his hat and handing it off to the closest, unsuspecting guard behind him, Napoleon asked staring intently at the stone, “So this is it, eh?”
His accent, and overall attitude carried a mixture of French and Italian nobility. Running his hands gently over a cartouche, he said reverently, “The symbol of the Egyptians’ eternal Shen… that which gives identity and the breath of immortality to mere mortals.”
“Who is the man responsible for discovering this?” Napoleon inquired.
“Lieutenant Pierre-François Bouchard discovered it a couple of weeks ago, Sir.”
“Pierre, you say… As in, rock or stone? Kind of fitting, isn’t it,” Napoleon chuckled at the irony. “See that he is made a Captain, eh?”
“Yes, Sir!” the fifty year old portly General Menou responded.
“And where was it found?… Alexandria as we suspected?” Napoleon was eying the stone from every possible angle.
“No, Sir. It was found near our Fort Julien while we were in preparation to increase our defenses,” the General reported.
“Fort Julien? Near the local port town of Rashid?”
“Rosetta, as the English call it, yes,” the General confirmed.
“That’s just up the coastline from Alexandria’s fabled library,” Napoleon exclaimed enthusiastically. “Fate finally smiles on me.”
Not fully understanding why the discovery of an untranslatable stone was important to one of the most influential leaders of Post-French Revolutionary Europe, the General had to ask in his heavy French accent, “What is this library of Alexandria you speak?”
“In 323 BC the Library of Alexandria was commissioned to be built by the Macedonian General Ptolemy I Soter in Egypt’s most important port,” Napoleon began.
The General shrugged indifferently.
“Soter was instrumental in Alexander the Great’s campaign in extending the kingdom right out to India… Ah, Alexander you’ve heard of,” Napoleon smiled, sensing the connection in his General’s expression.
“What military leader hasn’t?”
“True, and what a leader! When he was young and powerful, he visited an Oracle in an oasis after freeing Egypt from its enemies. Blind, but able to see his future, she named him a descendant of the great god Zeus through the Sun God Apollo, and therefore an immortal Sun-King by inheritance. Satisfied by the prophecy, Alexander went his way. It seemed as if none could stop him.” Napoleon relished this story and continued to speak passionately:
“Now, Ptolemy inherited Egypt when Alexander was poisoned and merged the Egyptian and Greek traditions together, forming one empire. He then instructed his men to gather and collect all the literature of the known world into the Library of Alexandria. Ptolemy wanted to know the secrets of the universe that somehow had the power to overcome the immortal Sun-King at such a tragic, young age. Mathematics, science, astronomy, tax censuses, languages of all kinds now lost to history, were all just an example of what they collected. Those attempting to prevent the ‘librarians’ from obtaining their records were killed on-site.”
The French guards assumed that may have been more interesting mission to carry out than stand in a desert tent protecting a stone. At least then they would be able to see the world.
“For you see,” Napoleon explained, “if the Pharaoh could not have it, then the opposing party would have the knowledge. Knowledge is power, and none should have more power than the Pharaoh. Those who did were declared rebels and traitors to the throne.”
“Sir, question,” stated the General.
“Proceed, General.” Napoleon replied reluctantly. He didn’t like his stories to be interrupted.
“Isn’t it true that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely?” General Menou asked.
“Quoi?! What do you mean by that?” Napoleon flared at his taller, and older officer. “To say that absolute power corrupts absolutely, means to say that you think that I am absolutely corruptible.”
“Of course not,” the General responded. He had meant nothing of the kind and was a bit shocked by the reaction of his commanding officer to a meaningless cliché.
“You must think so! For I have absolute power!” Napoleon glared.
“Of course you do,” the General reassured. “I meant it only as an idiom.”
Napoleon’s scowl slowly turned into a smirk when he noticed everyone’s solemn expression.
“I have absolute power, for I will be the Supreme Emperor over all of Europe!” he jeered again and laughed. When he was done laughing, he laughed some more, but this time encouraged others to participate; which they did, nervously.
“Now, if I may continue,” Napoleon abruptly ceased to chuckle.
“Yes, yes, of course,” spoke the General
“No more interruptions from the General,… hmm?” Napoleon eyed him for affirmation, pointing at him with his walking stick. The General agreed.
The General wasn’t used to this sort of unstable demeanor from a soldier of such high rank.. He had been in the service too long, however, to create waves now.
“The librarians searched all over until they found this Rosetta Stone. The knowledge contained in this stone leads to that source of immortal power.” Napoleon gestured toward the carving of a hawk with outstretched wings on the stone, grasping a Shen symbol in each of its talons. The guards began to look more intently now, as they were finally getting answers to the mystery of the stone.
“It was for this very same tablet that the library was ransacked in 48 BC by Julius Caesar of the Roman Empire; another Sun-King, like Alexander the Great. He was very powerful, and obsessed with world domination, claiming his right to do so as a god among man. He set the city of Alexandria ablaze. It seemed though, in the confusion of the fires, the stone’s protectors must have taken it away from the scene of the battle to this Rosetta port town. Having then realized that their boats would capsize due to its sheer weight once they journey through the Mediterranean Sea, they must have decided it best to just take the stone’s transcriptions written on the scrolls of papyrus instead,” Napoleon continued his historical narration.
The scholars, who had been making rubbings of the engravings, noted that one of the portions was written in Greek.
“At the age of five, Ptolemy V was crowned as king after his parents were murdered in 197 BC,” a scholar translated from the Greek text.
The translation was about the coronation of the young king compared as an heir of Zeus. The decree stated that all should obey this king’s laws, as if he himself was a god. To gain the local Egyptian’s loyalty, the decree also compared Ptolemy V as equal to Horus, the Egyptian hawk-headed god; Son of Isis and the dead King Osiris; Avenger of his father’s murderer; and who was likewise named a god in his youth. The scholar pointed to the portrayal of the hawk-headed god standing next to his green-skinned father who was tightly wrapped in white embalming linens.
“Should the British defeat us in our campaign here in Egypt, destroy this stone if you can,” Napoleon commanded of his General. “I would prefer that this acquisition die with us, than become the possession of our enemy. Ensure, though, that you give the rubbings to Monsieur Champollion. I am sure that he can decode the hieroglyphics.”
Napoleon turned back toward the stone, rubbing his hand over the smooth finish. “All that matters to me, however, is this portion.”
Without warning, Napoleon abruptly broke the granite stone in half with his bare hands.
“How did you…?” General Menou began to ask what others were thinking.
“Pumice. Romans used this light volcanic cement to mortar different pieces together,” Napoleon responded as the dust filled the tent’s air. Between the scraps of mortar chunks he uncovered a large sheet made of stripped papyrus reeds. Black and red ink depicted the same drawing as that which had been on top of the Rosetta Stone tablet.
Napoleon explained in detail. “All the clues from various recovered Alexandrian Librarian scrolls brought me to this papyrus which was defended to the death by leopard-skinned warrior priests cornered in a remote oasis temple. Once Ptolemy I Soter’s ‘librarians’ recovered the script, they were overjoyed. The librarians over the next couple of years kept relocating the papyrus to other secret places, for fear of its secrets being discovered. When Ptolemy the fifth’s parents were murdered as punishment for not disclosing its location, the librarians figured that the papyrus would be safer, ironically, if it was out in the open for all to see; that is, safely hidden in the child’s coronation tablet of stone.”
“So what’s so important about this papyrus?” asked one scholar.
A very satisfied Napoleon said, as he bent to pick up the papyrus, “Plato claimed that Atlantis sank into the ocean approximately 9000 BC, when actually it was closer to 3500 BC during the time when the night was as bright as day. The contents on this papyrus should tell of the Atlantean inhabitants and about their advanced technology in manipulating the physics of the earth to the point of walking on air and water; navigational transports that transcend time and space; medicine to slow down death and heal wounds. They also had Shen Rings that allowed them to achieve immortality.”
Napoleon paused to let it sit in for a moment.
“Imagine the knowledge that allowed the Atlanteans to be considered by the Ancient Egyptians as Gods among Men!” Napoleon gazed in the distance, star struck.
Then, while hoisting the paper high in the dust filled air, he announced triumphantly:
“Behold, the Atlantean Papyrus!”
CHAPTER 3
Western Front, Belgium - October 15, 1918
The princes of the independent Germanic states had fallen. Morale was at an all time low among the soldiers in the trenches considering their officer’s inability to advance the line since nearly the start of the war. There was even talk that the Germans were losing the war now that the Americans had entered. The twice honored Lance Corporal ignored grumbling rants and held his position in the trench watching for a French attack. The others lacked his commitment, and continued to complain.
“We missed our opportunity to overtake the British. If our leaders had taken advantage of the four mile gap from our chlorine gas attack on the Ypres line, then we would have had the advantage before the Canadians came,” a young private complained.
The prevailing winds, defensive gas masks and cheaper productions of the chemical warfare in the US has given the Allies the advantage over the Germans.
“There’s little use in reflecting on the past. All we can do is learn from it and move on,” said the Lance Corporeal muttered.
His eyes remained on the vast, deadly wasteland between them and the French line, which was only a couple of miles away. Bomb holes, mud puddles, broken trees and barbed wire fences now replaced the once beautiful countryside. Enemy soldiers lay dead beside their own soldiers in the neutral zone.
Each country’s technologies of gas warfare, and machine guns leveled the battlefield. The ensuing advance of 300,000 Americans a day, may tip the scale, and the Lance Corporal felt they had to be ready.
So far, no movement, aside from billowing smoke, lay in the distance.
“So why haven’t they promoted you to Sergeant yet?” a mustached Prussian soldier angrily taunted his superior officer.
“I heard that he can’t be promoted because he’s not even a German citizen. He’s Austrian,” said another heavier set man.
“Some have said that he prefers the simple, uncomplicated soldiering,” a shorter soldier jeered. “If he had his choice, he would continue his old position of being a motorcycle dispatch carrier.”
Again no response came from the Lance Corporal.
“I had thought that there was honor in defending your homeland and family, but what honor is there if you’re dead?” asked one young soldier, newly recruited to the war.
“The Lance Corporal here doesn’t have a home,” the mustached soldier continued. “I overheard his superiors say that they don’t want to make him a non-combative officer because of his mental instability.”
He smiled when his superior looked away from the battlefield angrily. The look offered him encouragement to continue, “Why I heard that his upbringing makes this battle field as comforting to him as my Nana’s home. Memories of an abusive father in his youth; orphaned at age eighteen and rejected by Vienna Jews that crushed his dreams of being an artist or architect. With such torments in his head, it is of no wonder why he doesn’t want to leave here… War is the only place where he is valued and at home with himself.”
The Lance Corporal couldn’t take it anymore, and jumped on the mustached soldier. The others didn’t care who won the fight, but were pleased with the break from the doldrums and monotony of the trenches. It wasn’t until the young private’s scream that everyone broke up the fight:
“Yellow Cross!”
The announced code phrase for the heavier than air yellow mustard gas set everyone on alert as the mist loomed swiftly down into the trenches.
Everyone quickly dove for their gas masks and firmly tightened them on the back of their heads. The Lance Corporal searched for his, and realized that it was near his gun at the top of the trench. As he attempted to outrun the mustard gas, he was distracted by a strange floating spherical object emerging from the yellow mist. From within the sphere he thought he saw a tidal wave of water, before he passed out.
*****
“Is he going to make it Doctor?” asked a lady’s voice above the Lance Corporal’s bandaged body. “He’s been out for two days now.”
“Age: 29. Lance Corporal,” the Doctor read from the medical charts. “Decorated with the Iron Cross. Twice… Impressive. Well, his sight should return in time. Judging by the sound of his harsh breathing, it appears that the gas has permanently scarred his bronchial tubes. I’ve seen worse cases; some dying within weeks, so he should consider himself lucky.”
“Oh good!” the nurse expressed. “Judging by his vitals, I thought for a moment he had died.”
“Something protected him which gave him an inner strength of survival that I hadn’t seen anywhere else,” the doctor replied. “I am pleased to say that young Adolf Hitler will survive.”
The nurse opened up the Lance Corporal’s hand.
“We had to take away this ring while we were removing your uniform to clean your wounds,” she said softly. “I thought you may want it back now that you are better. Is it from home?”
The Lance Corporal lay on the hospital bed, his body and eyes bandaged with white gauze. He didn’t have a home to speak of, so he remained quiet, as if still unconscious, to dismiss the awkward conversation. The nurse took the hint and went to tend another soldier.
Adolf felt the ring with a round stone in the palm of his hand. A hum emanated from the ring, sounding similar to his motorcycle. As he placed the ring on his finger, energy burst out, extinguishing all the lights in the building. A strange sensation came over him, creating peaceful feelings of light and heat, though, ironically feeling some temporary discomfort as his wounds sped through the healing process. He felt a transformation taking place.
He reached up to touch his face.
His nose was wet and cold, and part of a canine’s muzzle. Coarse fur covered his face, head and neck down past his throat. He decided to get up and stumble over to find a sink, feeling his way for a mirror. He slowly unwrapped the gauze from his eyes and noticed the daylight stream in. He was able to see again, and liked what he saw.
A strange empowerment overtook his will to die. He felt more alive and empowered. His will was renewed. His emotions intensified and became more angrier, and lustful for revenge toward those that suppressed him and his Nation. Anti-Semitic feelings encompassed the Germanic Nation as an obvious scapegoat to their economic plight, but for Adolf his resolve to exterminate the Jews solidified at this very moment.
I could have been painting the beauties of my homeland instead of being in this losing war, if it weren’t for them, he wrongfully blamed.
Flashes of future memories quickly flooded Adolf’s mind of a conference where the leaders of America, Britain and France created a world-wide League of Nations and cited responsibility of the war to Germany. Territories were to be relinquished; demilitarization in the buffer zone of Rhineland was to immediately commence; economic reparations were assessed to Germany toward the others nations; worse yet, cultural pride fell. Adolf felt that he could capitalize on Germany’s forced humility.
Seeing America’s great Seal flash in his mind, Adolf reasoned angrily, I’m sure Horus’ family had something to do with the economic decline of Germany.
A symbol of American’s Bald Eagle with its outstretched wings was similar in design to Horus’ hawk emblem… except that the Eagle had above its head thirteen small stars representing the original colonies, arranged to look like the Jewish Star of David.
Those Atlanteans must be in league with the Jews, Adolf assumed. His obsession with the occult mysticism of Atlantis began.
He had a renewed sense of desire to create a master race, one that would be unified in all things and be able to stop the impending world organization that threatened his country’s very survival. Adolf was determined to have a perfect system of order, branching out to the four corners of the world; a perfect Utopia, as it were, and it would start with him as its empowered leader.
He sneered happily at the mirror’s image, and the confidence that reflected back at him. When the nurse returned she screamed in shock. His resolve to instill fear in others solidified.
Finally, people will respect the name of Adolf, he thought to himself. Now, more than ever, his face reflected what his name meant.
Wolf!...
CHAPTER 4
Western Front, France - April 20, 1918
The American squadron leader flew his plane high above the clouds followed by his company of three French Breguet 14 bomber bi-wing, two-seater planes. Though the Captain had been able to handle the Breguet, the single seater, sleeker S.P.A.D bi-plane was the French plane of choice among the American conscripts. While holding up his sketchy map, he tapped his compass to ensure that it was reading true north. Once he saw that all controls were reading properly, he looked to the others rising above the clouds with him. Each pilot wore an aviator jacket, leather flying cap, and goggles. Their white scarf was worn in case they would need to wave it as a sign of honorable surrender.
The Captain nodded to his team and after giving the ‘all clear’ thumbs-up, they all nose-dived toward the surface of the ground to accomplish their mission.
Few understood the nuances of flying in the sky at 100 to 140 miles per hour, but also to fight 16,000 feet in the air. The technology was new and surprisingly simple. Bi-planes consisted of no more than lightweight balsa wood, a single propeller motor, no bigger than a motorcycle’s, and a canvas covering. Each covering bore the symbol of the pilot’s mantra, similar to a self-appointed medieval coat of arms. Some would have their country’s flag painted on it, or their favorite animal. The designation served as a creative outlet for the pilots as well as a form of identification if the plane went down, or to create a sense of fear in enemy planes when they saw that banner approaching. The American squadron leader proudly sported a single black ‘Ace of Spades’ on his white bi-wing plane.
The American had decided to join the Great War before his country did a year and a half ago, in the hope that this would be the war to end all wars. Due mainly to his skill in the emerging flying technology and bravery in the line of fire, he was quickly promoted in the French ranks. Not only had he earned the title of a Flying Ace, which was given only to those that shot down more than five enemy planes, but he was also known as one of the few that had survived multiple interactions with the German pilot, Baron Manfred von Richthofen.
The German ‘Red Baron’ originally had desired to join the cavalry as his father had done before him, but after having found that horses were obsolete in modern warfare, he discovered the same sense of nobility in the air. The Baron proudly sported a black cross on a red background, the Kaiser flag, and intimidated all that neared him in his easily noticeable red tri-plane. Few Allied pilots came close to shooting down as many as the ‘Red Baron’ who was set out to make his seventy-ninth and eightieth kills today.
Regardless of the odds stacked against them, Ace was determined to avoid detection at all costs.
Many other American aviators joined and became the ‘LaFayette Escadrille’, named respectfully after the French Marquis de LaFayette who assisted America in defeating Lord Cornwallis in the War of Independence. The American volunteers felt there was a certain sense of nobility and chivalry in becoming a pilot prior to their country entering the war. They received publicity and recruits for their heroic adventures and their two cub lions which they kept as their mascots.
At the start of the war, pilots on both sides of the enemy lines viewed themselves as Knights of the Sky and, often saluted the enemy scouts as they passed by. Equipping the planes with weaponry was unthought-of, until one British pilot decided to carry a pistol and take advantage of the passing salute. Soon, both sides started to invent ways to attach weapons to their planes. A manual machine gun was realized as more a distraction to the pilots who tried to fly at the same time as shooting. By so doing they often shot off their own propellers. If the machine gun rested anywhere else they would get inaccurate results.
The Germans, through their Dutch war profiteer Anthony Fokker, soon discovered that by allowing the mechanical motor to do the work and synchronize the firing of the bullets to emerge between the passing of the propeller blades, they could have the technological edge. Over time, the Allies soon reverse engineered the remains of fallen Axis planes. Since the escalating weaponry almost equally matched each other it seemed that the deciding factor in the outcome of the war rested on each soldier’s skills. Fighting in the air gave the war a third dimension that soldiers were not yet accustomed to.
Ace and his team, however, were on another mission for the Allies. Their goal was to survey enemy territory and scout reconnaissance missions from the trench warfare below. They accomplished this by taking pictures of the same geographical locations from both sides of the plane. Intel would then create a three-dimensional image to determine target enemy buildings through a system of parallax, similar to how eyes determine distance between objects that are near and far.
Rubbing his goggles, Ace could not believe what he was seeing in the distance. Small at first, but increasingly becoming larger, a spherical object was randomly moving through the sky. The light refracted around the outer edges of the spherical object as it passed in front of the trees. Deep in the center of the sphere, Ace noticed a distinctly different landscape than that of France. He was sure that he saw a tidal wave from within.
“Unidentified Flying Object,” Ace radioed to his company. “Avoid trajectory!”
The bi-planes narrowly missed collision with the large object by instantly veering off and parting from their standard formation.
Ace radioed his rear pilots to shoot down the spherical object as they circled around it. All of a sudden, the American captain noticed that he was faced with twenty German Fokker D-7 bi-planes led by a red tri-wing plane with a black cross in a white circle on its rear fuselage and wings.
“What are you waiting for, Private? Shoot it down!” Ace yelled, while firing his machine gun against his enemies.
The Germans only separated their formations as Ace flew through them. Some nose-dived to the ground, others off to the sides, the remainder flew straight up. Only one continued on its collision course; a red Fokker DR-1 tri-plane. While passing each other, time seemed to slow down as he noticed the Red Baron saluting him.
The Baron’s smile broadened in recognition of the ‘Ace’ banner, and was happy that they were fated to have another encounter. The Baron tugged at his white scarf and then pointed to the American Ace captain, as if asking his opponent if he’d like to withdraw before engaging.
The American captain scowled. Though his face was mostly covered by his goggles, leather cap straps, and scarf, his expression of displeasure was obvious as he tightened his grip on his flying stick.
The Red Baron cocked his head back in laughter, gave the thumbs-up and acknowledged his opponent’s acceptance to a rematch before speeding back up into the blinding sun.
As the American squinted in a vain attempt to locate his enemy, the unidentified flying object engulfed him. Bullets from the Red Baron flew closely behind the Ace as his perception of the world became distorted.
The green trees, blue sky and white clouds of the French landscape blurred together until it was a big cluster of colors. Soon, shapes of dark water waves, bright lightning and two figures emerged. One had a jackal-like head with elongated ears and furry muzzle, while the other had the face of a brown hawk with blank eyes, eerily void of either pupil or iris.
The hawk-headed man’s floating body veered toward the Ace’s airplane as the pilot braced himself for impact. The last image he saw was twinkling stars and a snowy landscape, which starkly contrasted the French battlefield. He was hit with hot seething metal from behind. The pilot gasped for breath just before he blacked out.
CHAPTER 5
70 miles South of Rochester, New York - January 1, 1930
An elderly man stood alone outside his farm house atop Burt Hill. Resting from his chores, he was fixated by the bright stars overhead. He had finished milking his dairy cows and placed them securely in the barn. Now that the sun had set in the south-west, just beyond the nearby Canisteo Valley, his main source of light was exhausted. It was only six o’clock, but being winter, the only thing left for him to do was enjoy the stillness that nature brought to his snow covered hilltop. Only the howling of distant wolves pierced the stillness.
The darkness of the trees hid the village of Canisteo in the valley below and the town of Hornell five miles north, allowing for all the stars to twinkle at their brightest. Only the soft glow of his kitchen window lantern reflected faint hues.
Though his passion was working the land and bringing out the abundance that nature had to offer, he loved gazing up at the stars. He ran his hand through his full Amish beard, indicating that he had married. Though currently separated, his wife had instilled a passion for heaven’s wonders. He couldn’t help but feel close to her every time he looked up at the stars. Thinking of the good memories that they shared brought about a warmth inside his soul, giving him peace to his cold, frail body.
Once the sun’s afterglow disappeared, he noticed an interesting coincidence occur in the sky where the sun just set.
The darkened New Moon was supposed to transform into a waxing crescent over the next few days. The nearby messenger planet of Mercury began its retrograde motion calling attention to the nearby Aquila constellation just now falling below the horizon.
The new occurrence in the night firmament made the man grow inquisitive. Aquila was known by the ancient Hindus as representing Garuda, the hawk-headed divinity and being the only one powerful enough to defeat the intelligent, but destructive, serpent race of the Naga. Falling below the horizon, it was almost as if the heavens lamented that the hawk-divinity failed in defeating the snake, and as a consequence, had both its eyes plucked out; the sun, for seeing in the day, and the moon, for seeing in the night.
Both the Sun and Moon were darkened beside the bird-man constellation, while the king planet of Jupiter, being the Roman name for Zeus, was hovering around the cow-head constellation of Taurus, thought the Amish farmer. Something has gone wrong.
At that moment in the sky, however, a spherical object abruptly appeared out of nowhere, spitting out a plane which lost control and crashed through his barn. The elderly man rushed to get his lantern and ran to the sound of the startled lowing of his bovines. The farmer noticed a single seat, double winged plane, with a black painted Ace of Spades on its side, but without a pilot. His eyes quickly scanned the barn for where the body would have been thrown out upon impact. Nothing.
When a cow moo-ed strangely from behind the farmer, he turned and saw the pilot on his knees trying to console the cow. Some blood trickled from the bullet holes in the back of the pilot’s leather jacket.
“It’s okay, Hathor,” the pilot managed to breath out, gently stroking the cow’s face. “I have beaten him. He may have blinded my eyes, but I have stopped his hands of destruction.”
The farmer walked cautiously around to look at the stranger’s face. The exhausted, and obviously beaten, pilot collapsed to the ground. The pilot’s face appeared dead, and not human. The hawk head lay still. White blanks replaced the irises that were lacking in his eyes.
“Who are you?” the farmer asked the stranger.
The farmer noticed a red light pulsating on the end of the pilot’s ring and pushed it. He abruptly removed the ring from the pilot’s finger and nudged the body with his foot. The pilot’s head morphed into a human man’s, with wavy brown hair as he drew in his last breath.
The pilot continued his blank stare. The farmer drew closer and saw that the pilot had a third eyelid, common to birds. The egg-white translucent membrane was fused shut and his pupils could barely be seen from behind. Suddenly, the scarab beetle from the ring came to life. It scampered over to the pilot’s eye and from the corner, began to carefully peel away the layer of skin.
The farmer stood back and stared. He knew that humans had an inactive membrane, called the semi-lunar fold, in the corner of their tear duct, but birds used it to protect their eyes from dust during flight.
While lifting the third eyelid the scarab beetle rolled it up in a large ball, as it would dung, and tossed it away from each eye revealing the irises and pupils. The scarab beetle then proceeded to the pilot’s nostrils and chirped rapidly. The vibrations in the air caused the pilot to jump up and start breathing. The jacket, and the pilot’s back were intact without any trace of damage. The pilot sat up abruptly, gasping for air, as if almost surviving from being drowned. The farmer jumped back surprised.
“Where am I?” the pilot looked around. “Who are you?”
“My name is Gebediah,” the Amish farmer replied. “You are on my dairy farm. What’s your name, boy?”
The pilot thought for a moment and looked up the farmer, confused.
He then honestly responded:
“I don’t know.”
CHAPTER 6
Hudson Valley, New York State - January 30, 1882
All was calm. The full moon beamed on the lightly frosted snow. Glimmering as if little specks of floating stars were falling to the ground, the snow flakes hid all visible tracks made by the horse-drawn sleighs, and the odd pedestrian that would still wander this late at night. Though cold outside, the warmth and joy that the previous months’ Festival of Lights had brought was still felt by the community. This small, quaint town of Hyde Park had never felt more serene.
Several miles from the town center lay an illustrious Georgian Mansion called Springwood Estate. With its columns for a front porch and large windows on both floors, it gave the illusion of governance and yet, one of invitation as well; the feelings that it invoked on its visitors were no different than the feelings that were ignited by any United States citizen when in the presence of the White House for the first time.
The stern, yet loving Sara and her middle-aged husband, James, had lost their still-born child earlier that day. Having received visits from the doctor, and town priest, she had her house maid turn away the rest of the townsfolk, being overcome with grief. Despite all this, and his failing heart, James constantly had reassured his wife all morning that one day soon she would have a child. Given their age, she had her doubts.
This was to be a joyous welcome to the New Year with their first and only child. Even the forest complimented its welcoming location to foster a new baby. It seemed like a place that would nurture, possibly, a leader among nations, by the way the trees seemed to envelope the home with a sense of cocoon-like protection.
“Come back inside,” Sara called out to her James. “You’ll catch cold!”
The tall, thin husband was standing several yards away from the front porch steps staring up at the moon, with a determined sense of hope.
“I’m fine, dear. Thank you!” he called back to reassure her of his well-being. Though he was physically fifty-four or so now, this evening, he felt a lot younger.
The dark trees stood majestically as a backdrop against the moonlit sky and lightly falling flakes of snow.
James dug into the house robe that he was wearing over his night clothes and produced a metallic Ancient Egyptian trinket attached to his chain-linked necklace. Once a copper-toned gold, the sun-disk shaped emblem with out-stretched eagle wings was now illuminating with a bluish glow, pulsating in rhythm with his warm breath in the cold night air.
“Any moment now…,” James muttered to himself.
Sara continued to look at her husband. His silhouette was surrounded by a pulsating light. Gasping in bewilderment, Sara watched as the flickering light erupted into a straight beam projected out into the distant landscape.
The estate forest then bulged like a large soap bubble. In the midst of the sphere where the middle of the trees bent apart from each other, the silhouette of a man, or at least it has the body of a man, thought Sara, walked out from the light in the bubble. She was perplexed at the oddity since his head was that of a bird.
A hawk or perhaps a falcon, Sara thought again. Its beak is not exactly as defined as an eagle’s.
The man with a falcon-head wore a blue cloth, khepresh war crown. His beak was high, stubby and crooked from seeing much battle. His feathers were black, except for the throat where it was spotted white. The markings under the peregrine falcon’s eye, resembled the Eye of Ra with a single line down from the tear duct and another bent in spiral around its cheek.
As his eyes twitched from side to side surveying the area, his beak opened and cawed, “Prime up the EMP scepters!”
A troop of jackal-headed soldiers instantly ran from within the bubble behind him out in many directions to scout the landscape. They each carried a five foot long scepter staff capable of discharging a powerful Electro-Magnetic Pulse of energy. They each wore armament and a Nemes cloth headdress made of a horizontal striped black and gold pattern. The headdress hung down behind their ears and in front of both their shoulders, similar to the Pharaohs’.
Once determined that a safe perimeter was established, the falcon-headed officer waved his arm down, at which point twenty-five other shadowy civilians emerged from the blinding white light. Each individual in the group were all wearing variations of Ancient Egyptian regal white linen clothing.
“Thank you, Officer Monthu,” said a leading lady who guided the group past her guards. Her appearance was quite noticeable. Not only was she radiant in presence but she had bright red-skin, and wore a black scorpion on her headdress. The scorpion chattered its pinchers while the lady raised up a glowing disk with outstretched wings while walking to James. The two exchanged smiles as they became reacquainted after a long separation.
At this point, Sara rushed up, grasped her husband’s arm, and whispered, “Are these the ones you told me about?”
Smiling, James nodded. “Yes. I have been waiting for a long time now,” and then turning to his red-skinned visitor, he said, “Welcome to our home, Serket.”
Each soldier grimaced and peered about as they sniffed for any danger while the civilians spoke. Their jackal ears flinched at any abrupt sound, and grasped their long scepters tighter at any sign of movement in the distance.
Close behind Serket, a young woman approached and lightly tapped the red blinking light on her ring. The young woman’s frog head transformed into that of a black haired human’s. Her parents stood behind her smiling as well; her father had a toad-head and his wife was beautiful with long, braided hair while a snake skin belt wrapped around her thin waist.
The young woman smiled slightly as she nodded in respect toward the New York State couple that would soon be bestowed a great responsibility. James nodded casually in return while Sara wondered how these visitors were not affected by the cold, given their light clothing.
“How did you do that?” Sara asked, prompting the young woman to show her ring, despite James’ effort to not pry.
“The Shen Ring gives each individual the ability to become immortal when we turn it on,” the black-haired young woman giggled. She showed Sara a round metallic circular band around her finger, which had a horizontal rod resting on top of the ring. There was a red and green light at each end of the rod. “The only side effect is that it changes your head to have the appearance and abilities of a ring specific animal.”
“Can all of you change your heads like that?” Sara inquired.
“No. Only those that have the Shen Rings,” the young woman said. “My dad, Kuk, and I can change into an immortal. My mom, Kauket, wasn’t elected to have a Shen Ring, but she has something better I think. She’s a shape-shifter, you know? A Skin-Walker.”
Sara looked confused.
“She can turn into a full-blooded animal and possess that animal’s qualities. Though they have the same weaknesses as the animal, their strengths and abilities overcompensate for it,” the young woman gloated about her mother.
“I’ve been known to dabble at times,” the mother passively dismissed when Sara’s eyebrow rose. Kauket began to feel uncomfortable when Sara continued to look her over as if expecting that she would spontaneously turn into a snake.
The trees returned to their original shape as the spherical portal closed. James’ sun-disk beacon ceased to illuminate the area as brightly. With the glow of the house oil lamps being their only source of light the jackal soldiers began to sniff and smell their way around to maintain their perimeter.
Serket looked down at her sun-disk device that now was beeping and issuing some text across the sphere.
“Ta’Waret?” Serket requested. “I just received the last transmission of instruction from Queen Isis. Please produce the Son of Horus to the Melanins while I read this.”
Sara was appalled by the creature’s appearance. It had the arms and legs of a lion, a long scaly crocodile tail, and the torso and head of a hippopotamus.
Ta’Waret revealed a baby from under her shawl.
Once Sara saw the child, she instantly grabbed for him, and wrapped him tightly into her thick robe to keep him warm.
The hybrid animal smiled, saying, “Sara, we have been sent by a mother in grave need. Princess Hathor, wife to Horus, has asked that I entrust you with her most precious possession to care for and to raise as your own. Will you accept this great responsibility?”
A single tear fell from Sara’s cheek. Ta’Waret smiled at her appropriate and dedicated response.
“Ta’Waret is responsible for assisting birthing mothers, their babies and their transition into another life,” the young woman beamed. “She’s here in case anyone dies so she’ll be able to bring them back to life before they get stuck in the Neter-land.”
“The Neter-land?” Sara half-listened, being distracted by the baby.
“The after life,” the young woman quickly answered. “It’s a culture shock for the dead to be away from their living loved ones, so the hybrids help ease the transition by being able to cross the dimensions.”
Sara was not accustomed to associating with such grotesqueness. The hybrid spoke, as if reading her mind. “Sometimes for a hippo to best nurture its young, it has to be fierce in defending its territory.”
Sara couldn’t agree more.
“Heqet will assist you as the baby’s nursing maid,” the hybrid gestured to the talkative black-haired young woman.
“My parents will help me, help you,” Heqet giggled again, eager at this honor. “I just have to introduce you to my daughter, Anuket. She’s so fast like the rushing rivers that the Ennead council gave her gazelle abilities with her Shen Ring as a token of gratitude for our sacrifice in coming here. I was so worried that Anuket would be just assigned a frog head like the rest of us in the Ogdoad.”
“What were those words you said? In-Ned and Og…,” Sara asked.
“Ennead and Ogdoad?” Heqet repeated.
“The Ennead council is the organizing body of civil government where we came from. The Ogdoad council is an equal but separate committee assisted with the creation, establishment and protection of families, including the Royal Family. The Sun-King Ra technically presides over both though his emissary Atum, though Hathor leads the affairs of the latter,” Kuk said, explaining his daughter’s overzealous antics.
“So, Heqet. You’re here to help me?” Sara asked.
“With the Son of Horus? Baby prince Qebeh-Senu’ef? Absolutely!” Heqet gleefully said. “Though, you can call me by my original name of Satet, if you like. They changed my name once I was assigned to the Ogdoad and endowed with my own Shen Ring. I think Satet’s a pretty name. Don’t you think it’s pretty?”
The young woman seemed nice and well-intentioned. However, Sara had a sense that this girl would have the ability to talk her ear off all night long if granted the opportunity.
“When I was Satet, I was responsible for the hydrological perpetuation of the main river tributaries during their annual flooding in efficient irrigational practices while conserving the ecology,” Heqet said. “My husband, Khnum, nicknamed me Satis.”
A little baffled at how educated and yet, ironically, how daft she came across, Sara glanced at James and then down at the baby that they had longed to have for some time, but were physically unable. The baby was peacefully sleeping and seemingly unaffected by the journey. He held a transparent glass vial with a dense fluid and ball bearings. At one end was a curved animal head with a long snout and tall, square pointy ears.
What is that? An aardvark, or perhaps a donkey, or some deranged looking jackal-wolf creature? Sara wasn’t really sure what it was.
“Oh yes!” Heqet answered laughing. “It’s just his toy rattle shaped like Ra’s was-scepter to ward off evil serpents.”