Gate: A Falcon Statue
I entered the vision gate and found myself walking in the moonlight through thick reeds beside a dark river. At first, Badger trundled along beside me in his animal form. But then, he shifted into his human aspect and carried a brightly shining torch to light my way.
Dream appeared to my right, also in his human form, and held aloft another torch. A light breeze passed over the river, making the torches flicker and jump, and the shadows seem to move.
The breeze also fluttered my garments, a shining covering made of white linen. It was open to my navel with only a mere suggestion of cloth about my shoulders though the skirts were full and shifted about my legs as we traversed our way forward through the reeds.
An Egyptian wig made of thickly-woven blue hair hung down my shoulders and nearly covered my breasts. The moonlight was doing something strange to my skin and I literally glowed like I contained diamonds.
My friends and I didn’t speak as we continued along the river. After a final parting of the reeds, we came upon a barge waiting by the bank. A throne of gold sat in its center beneath a canopy made of the same shining cloth as my clothing. Naked men with poles manned either side of the craft and they began pushing us out into the water as Badger and Dream helped me aboard.
A drum sounded from somewhere to encourage the men to move in unison and the rhythmic pulsing motion of the barge put me into a deeper trance.
Bbbbrrrrum, bbbrrrrum, bbbrrrum, went the drum. The men chanted along in a language I felt like I could understand if only I could draw my attention out of the trance created by the barge and its attendants. Because of their tireless efforts, Badger, Dream and I were moved swiftly towards a landing platform across the wide and dark river.
The platform was lined with priests, kowtowing towards a pyramid entrance at its far end. The barge halted and the men with poles dropped to their knees, gazing studiously at the waters of the river rather than me.
We were met by a priest with heavily-kohled eyes who held a burning censer of incense in one hand and a small woven mat of reeds in the other. The censer gave off thick clouds of incense which the priest waved in my direction with his fan, anointing me and my guardians in three efficient swipes.
“Welcome Isis Reborn,” he said in a voice that was surprisingly deep and melodious. “The god waits for you.”
As the priest escorted my friends and I to the pyramid’s entrance, I recognized its interior as the abandoned temple in which I had first contacted Khonsu. The worshiping priests raised their voices in a frenzy of noise as Badger, Dream and I crossed the threshold.
The priest sent a final wave of incense after us and the pyramid door closed with a snap, cutting off all sound, and leaving an eerie silence in its wake. Ahead, a beam of concentrated moonlight descended from the heights of the temple, lighting upon the great moonstone of Khonsu which rested upon a tall pillar. It glowed with the power of the moon and the resident god.
The god himself stood at the base of the pillar. He chose to appear in his human form as a pharaoh in rich robes of gold. There was a bright smile on his face.
“O Great Khonsu, you’ve made some renovations,” I said by way of greeting. But the god did not deign to answer.
Instead, he lifted his arms and began to move around his temple space in the unmistakable motions of the Dance of Now, the most proper and formal greeting given between members of the Light Congress. Badger and Dream stepped aside as the god and I danced, swirling chips of fragrant cedar and rose petals beneath our feet as we did so.
As we took the final steps of the embodied heavenly stars and embraced, the god shape-shifted and turned into a falcon. He flew to the top of his great moonstone where he changed himself into stone.
“I am greatly pleased,” he said after a moment, his voice coming from the falcon statue. “What is it you wish of me?”
“I have not come to ask anything of you, Khonsu,” I said. “Though I do wish to express my ardent desire to know you.”
“Then know me,” he said. There was an explosion of light as the god changed back into a living falcon and flew directly into the center of my forehead.
I blinked and was flying above the Nile river in the daylight as a powerful falcon. I delighted in the strength and surety of my wings as I dipped and soared in the air’s changing currents. Then, I saw a fish beneath the waters and dove. The moment my claws closed about it, my shape changed again.
Now, I was a black serpent gliding effortlessly on the river between the reeds. There was a curious sense of weightlessness to my body as I moved back and forth upon the water, my pointed tongue tasting the air and bringing a new kind of inhuman perception to my mind.
Day abruptly turned to night. The moment the moon touched my skin I changed back into Heidi, but found myself sinking into the river. My limbs and torso dissolved and I became the particles of water in the Nile.
I could feel where I met the ocean and where the tributary waters flowed into my being. All along the river banks, I heard unfortunate and suffering people calling out my name. “Have mercy, Khonsu,” they said. “Hear me. Hear my prayer.” “Break the whips of the mighty.” “Feed my children.” “Have mercy, great falcon! Have mercy on me.”
I heard every single person who called my name near the river. I drew myself through the water, emerging when I chose, retreating into deep waters when I wanted solitude. I was awake and aware.
Then I blinked again and was merely Heidi once more, standing within the temple of Khonsu. My limbs collapsed with the psychic pressure of the experience as Badger gathered me into his arms. “What have you done?” he growled at the god.
“She was Khonsu,” he said and shrugged. “She will recover.” He turned from his place of power before the moonstone and gestured towards a tunnel leading further into the pyramid.
Carrying me between them as I was still experiencing the fall out of embodying the spirit of the river, Badger and Dream followed the god away from the main chamber into a passageway lined with torches. Between the lights and within the flickering shadows, animals paced up and down the sides of the hallway. First, they were small cats, then enormous ones. Then they took the shape of serpents, small then large, then birds of prey, then more. The shapes and sizes of the creatures within the pyramid changed as quickly as the passing of a shadow.
Badger bared his teeth at the creatures but Khonsu waved him off. “Do not mind my guardians,” he said. “They dare not accost anyone under my protection.” Finally, we came to the base of a staircase leading up and out of the pyramid.
Khonsu and my friends climbed the stairs and there were many. At last, we reached a small platform at the top where there was nothing but a simple throne made of carved stone. Badger lowered me onto the throne, then he and Dream knelt by my feet, changing into stone themselves and joining with it. I rested one of my hands limply on an armrest shaped like a dragon and the other a badger.
The god disappeared behind the throne and I felt a circlet being lowered onto my brow. “See with my eyes, Heidi,” he said in benediction.
My eyes rolled back into my head and I found myself in a different place. Crystalline stalactites and stalagmites of a cave reflected my face back to me. A delicate crown made of moonlight sat on my head and a flat moonstone fastened to its front covered the entire area of my third eye.
I ran my fingers along the stone’s smooth surface as I approached a center pool within the cave. The Horned King in his aspect as a powerful man with the horns of a stag stood within this pool.
He gave a loud snort like a buck when he saw me, the light from my skin and crown reflecting brightly in his large eyes. I didn’t say a word as I began pacing the steps of the Dance of Now which he mirrored. We moved closer, then away, and closer, finally stepping into each other’s arms.
The Horned King tore my gossamer robes away and sat in the sacred waters of his pool, moving my body with his in the simple, ancient motions of the Great Rite.
I heard the cry of a falcon and Khonsu tore through the cave, trailing light behind his wings. His entrance disrupted the vision like a pebble in water, and the Horned King and I dissolved into crystalline light. When I could see again, I was once more sitting on a stone throne gazing down upon the world far below me.
“I thought you were pleased with my offering,” I said as I blinked the vestiges of the vision from my eyes and the god stepped to my side.
“I am,” he affirmed.
“Then, if I have pleased you, Khonsu, why do you injure me with the strength of your visions?” I asked.
“This is not pain,” the god said. “This is prophecy.” And Khonsu spoke words of such power into my ear that my vision broke apart and ended.
The Light Congress 