The Eater of Gods

THE EATER OF GODS Dan Franklin Cemetery Dance Publications Baltimore 2023 Copyright © 2022 by Dan Franklin All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. Cemetery Dance Publications 132-B Industry Lane, Unit #7 Forest Hill, MD 21050 http://www.cemeterydance.com The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. ISBN-13: 978-1-58767-858-5 Front Cover Artwork © 2023 by Elderlemon Design Digital Design by Dan Hocker Dedicated to my two girls, Kelsey and Layla To the mother, the mentor, and the friend And to all those who remain. “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” —William Blake CHAPTER ONE In her letter she called it paradise. A quaint and quiet desert town living proudly in the grip of the Libyan desert, ancient Berber roots running strong among the sand and stone and rugged flowers. A land so plentiful in silver that a local had given her a necklace with a silver disc on it, free of charge, simply because it was custom for the women to wear them even thousands of years after the mines had run dry. They had greeted her warmly, given her shelter and food. Nine years had passed since then, and nothing remained. Not as she described it, anyway. Norman absentmindedly stroked the letter in the pocket of his cargo pants as he surveyed the aftermath of her dream deferred. Where Clara had described vibrance and hardiness, generosity and beauty, he saw only the rubble of senseless violence, hopelessness and decay. Al Tarfuk was a dying village, had a year or two left in it, he guessed. Maybe only months. She had called it paradise, but Norman knew the word that he would have chosen. Lost. The journey to eastern Libya took him nearly six thousand miles. From North Carolina to Cairo, then a bus ride to Bahariya, a second bus to the Siwa Oasis, and two days ride on the back of a stinking, surly camel until he arrived here, at the tiny village of Al Tarfuk, roughly sixty miles west of nowhere. At no point along the way did Norman really understand why he agreed to come. Oh, it made sense on paper. The funding was going through its last spurt in reaction to Clara’s death, and there was little to show for their ten years of research. Egyptology was just about as dead as its subjects, as far as the University was concerned. The program would probably not outlast the village. There would be no further expeditions. Why they chose Norman still confused him, but he supposed he should be grateful. He wasn’t. It should have been Clara. Clara had spearheaded the entire research into finding the lost queen Kiya, had spent years meticulously poring over half-defaced inscriptions, raising funds, keeping the magic alive in Norman and in everyone else she could infect with her enthusiasm. Clara, who was reduced year after year into a mumbling skeleton by the chemotherapy. Who left him alone on the sunset side of middle-aged, too young to simply die and too old to start over. She had been insistent that he go and finish her work. History, she said, is what makes the future. Nothing ever really dies if it’s remembered. Norman saw no evidence to support her. As best he could tell, the majority of the buildings that still stood were dottering, bomb-scarred hulks near collapse, and most residents lived in a cluttered tent slum guarded by tangled barb wire and the occasional teenager toting an assault rifle. Norman could smell the stink of sweat and sweltering rot and abandoned waste so strongly that it left a taste. He couldn’t help but notice there were very few adult men. They’d pulled her out emergently the same night she wrote the letter. Gaddafi had been dragged through the streets of Sirte, shot in the stomach, raped and tortured and God only knew what else, although Norman suspected God wisely kept His distance. Civil war swept across the Libyan countryside in a volcanic wave of blood and bullets. Militias formed, petty despots rose up and dropped by the day. Everyone wanted someone to blame, persecute, kill, and there weren’t nearly enough alternatives to keep the tiny native villages safe. He should have felt pity. He mostly felt jet-lagged. Norman picked his way across the sand-studded rubble and garbage, down what marginally qualified as a street, looking for someone who might answer questions. “Where should we go?” Norman asked. The woman standing next to him gave an indelicate shrug and fanned herself with a hand. The heat from the sun was unrepentant, dizzying. “Your call. I’m a fly on the wall,” Anita said. “You just tell me what you need to say. But the best way to go about it is to find the oldest man you can and ask him for Hazred. Village this size can’t have more than a hundred people. Shouldn’t be too hard to find him.” Anita Sidhu was a translator. Forty some years old and sharp-witted, sharp-faced, and sharp-tongued. She wore pant suits to work, but not in funky colors. While she had no particular affiliation with Islam, she kept her head covered and out of the sun. She was one of the few people Norman had met who could speak Siwi as well as read ancient hieroglyphics from most of old Mesopotamia as well as ancient Egypt. Her face was pinched and her eyebrows seemed forever furrowed in concentration and when the Egyptology program died, he had no doubt she’d do alright. Norman eyed the tent hovels. The oldest man he could see watched the two of them under the shadows of a tent made from layered dingy carpets. His beard was