“Finally, their work produced results, but they brought forth only a frail human girl who Lucius was adamant was not Isis. Furious, he left her with the Druids, whose boat, on route back to their homeland, was overtaken by Romans.”
“Gaia,” David said her name softly, the cockles of his heart, long dormant, emitting the slightest of flickers.
Anubis’s eyes confirmed. “Little did he know, she actually was Isis, but just a piece of her soul that was completely stripped of magic. Lucius had no idea that she would survive or that you would find each other and fall in love. Yet once he discovered it, he realized it could be the key to your undoing. He wanted you to become an immortal willingly, so that you would never think to abandon him like Libraean did, and by allowing her death, it would hasten the process.
“My purpose in telling you this is because you need to know that your love for Gaia was real, not a plan put together by Isis and Lucius. She was a human, a pure, innocent soul, and when she died, that soul returned here to rest.”
Consolation settled over David, his words offering him the closure he hadn’t realized he needed. “Thank you,” he said softly.
“I felt you needed the truth in its entirety before you entered into battle,” Anubis elaborated. “Do not believe anything Ares tells you, he exalts conflict and thrives off chaos.”
“I sensed as much, but I have not been myself since injured,” David confessed.
“Do not worry, I also brought you here to offer you the last bit of heka available to us, in the hopes that you will use it to kill Set for good. Before your father died, he left you all the earthly power remaining in the realm, putting it in the hands of the Council to give in pieces as you became ready.”
“My father.” The words seemed strange to say out loud, the memory of him so distant, David struggled to make it clear.
“Not long after Lucius created Gaia, far away in the land of Gaul, you were brought back in your mother’s womb. Your father recognized you immediately upon birth, seeing the imprints of both your godly lives. He remembered a promise he made to the Morrigan, years prior, to deliver you to Lucius. She foresaw your arrival in your mother’s womb and knew if given to Lucius, he would turn you into a creature like him, therefore making you equals on this earth. So, your father invoked him, convincing Lucius that he was simply desperate for power.
“Lucius, thankfully, did not remember anything about the true nature of the Celtic Daghda. He was convinced that only reincarnated gods could handle the transformation and he longed for companionship after the disappearance of Libraean and Isis. So, a deal was made. Now, whether my cunning mother anticipated all this unfolding is speculative, but I am convinced it was all part of a greater plan. She has always understood that dealing with Set requires a mental game of chess and she plays it well.”
David smiled sadly.
“Rest assured, once he is back in Tartarus, I will make sure he remains there,” Anubis promised. He leaned his staff against one of the nearby rocks before continuing. “You may have noticed that your powers faded over time, as mankind has slowly abandoned their belief in and desire for magic, affecting their entire realm. But your power is still with you, simply awaiting your retrieval.”
“And Lucius’s power?”
“That I do not know for certain, but I would guess Hekate has helped revive her father’s manipulation of flame, as well.”
“Does she have the power to bring back the Morrigan, as he hopes?” David asked.
Anubis shrugged, the gesture appearing odd coming from a usually grim-faced animal. “That I do not know. But I would prefer if my mother was not forced to inhabit a body she does not want to. I have no doubt that if that were the case, you would take care of it.”
David frowned, reminded of his confliction. He longed to be reunited with her again, especially now that he could remember most of their past, able to put history to what had always been a perplexing desire. Yet Anubis was right, bringing her back as Morgana was not the way.
“You remember her as your mother,” he commented with a smile.
Anubis nodded, his ears relaxing backwards, softening his narrow canine face. “I have never forgotten her. Horus and I were robbed of her presence, yet our father kept her alive in our hearts. We watched her from afar and we watch over her still.”
“It pains me that I cannot remember you, nor my life as it existed before.”
Anubis placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “My father, the revered Osiris of Egypt, has long since passed. He has borne many heroes since then, including the Great David, soon to be known as the Great Dragon Slayer.”
David placed his own hand on his. “Thank you, Anubis. Truly.”
“Thank me by delivering Set, so this business can be finished.”
David nodded his head once in firm resolve. “I will.”
No sooner had the words slipped from his mouth did he hear a voice, spinning around to apprehend its owner. His tension softened when he realized it was Libraean.
The Underworld had improved his appearance, revealing a glimpse of the god Horus who David had seen in his visions. He stood up right next to his brother, matching his height, waves of golden hair sweeping his collarbones. His white eye glowed an iridescent opal, while his other radiated a cerulean hue that matched his mother’s. Although his forehead was still studded with interrupted horns, bare human feet moved with agile grace across the plane where they stood. His pearly wings were whole, folded neatly behind his back.
Libraean embraced David before he could speak. “I am so glad we could meet again,” he said, his voice tight with emotion. “They told me everything, everything about our past and how we almost lost you again.” He pulled away from him, and for the first time, David was struck by the wave of familiarity one feels when they can’t quite place where before they’d met a soul.
“Have you passed on?” David wondered.
“I am also a visitor to this realm,” he replied. “Anubis brought me here so that we can offer you the last bit of power that we have left to give.”
“Is your mother here?” David suddenly thought to ask them.
Anubis shook his head. “We cannot find her in any of the realms. We can only surmise that she is hiding somewhere in the astral plane, waiting for the right time to reveal herself.”
David nodded, silently hoping Lucius and Hekate would also be unable to locate her whereabouts.
“We will find her,” Libraean assured him.
Anubis withdrew to the edge of the cliff, reaching his clawed hands over the raging waters below. They rose at his command, funneling upwards before accumulating into a perfect sphere. Anubis guided the sphere back towards them, cupping the swirling ball of waves. Libraean lifted it from his brother’s possession with great care, the energy from his hands brightening the orb until it transformed into a shimmering mass of luminosity.
He then approached David, its blinding light bathing his face in its incandescence as he grew closer to where he stood. He waited until they were inches apart before he blew into the orb, transferring its light onto David. He was struck with a foreign sensation, a calm serenity that settled over him like a heavy blanket, the chill of his bones instantly soothed. He sighed with relief, instantly renewed.
“Until we meet again,” Anubis said, directing his attention back towards them.
The apparitions of the two brothers were rapidly fading. David reached out to say goodbye, but the world was shifting again, leaving him with a vision of them holding hands, but as two young boys, one light, one dark, lifting up their opposite hands to wave farewell to their father.
Romania, 1462
When David awoke, he was back in the cellar of the tavern, Danulf’s broad frame towering over him, his arms crossed. “That was much quicker than I thought,” he remarked.
