In the Hall of Two Truths

“We have all the time in the world,” she said.

I think that was supposed to be reassuring, but her expression was hard to read. The Assessors sat silently, heads bowed in fealty. I tried my best to emulate their formal demeanor, but I desperately wanted to ask about the turquoise feathers sprouting from her arms.

After an excruciating wait, I was finally at the head of a massive line that wound its way through the dimly-lit hall. Throngs of people bunched together just enough that you felt obligated to ask each one if they were in line before inching along, stretched behind me farther than I could see. We were all patiently waiting for our turn to step out from the shadow of the limestone columns and stand atop the dais to proclaim our worthiness to a gallery of solemn judges. Unusually, these judges were chimeric amalgamations of man and beast, with recognizably human torsos that abruptly bloomed into the head of a crocodile or the hooves of a water buffalo. Each sat behind a tidy placard enumerating their name and title, which I felt was a thoughtful touch even if I would’ve liked to see their qualifications as well. The feathered woman, Maat, presided over the scene.

She seemed easier to get along with than the jackal-headed man I’d met first. Seeming to function as something between a bailiff and a butler, he had informed me that I was dead and now stood at the threshold to Duat, that I was to wait quietly until the Assessors were ready to pass ritual judgment on my earthly deeds, and that my soul would be devoured and thus denied existence after death if I should be found wanting. Which was all simple enough I suppose, but an awful lot to drop on me all at once. He answered all my questions and protestations by shepherding me to end of the line with the blunt end of his spear. Dark and angular, he might have been quite attractive if not for being so impatient all the time.

“We have all the time in the world,” Maat repeated, “but you keep Osiris waiting. Compose yourself and bear witness. Speak the ren of an Assessor and give confession.”

“So, uh, you said it was forty-two confessions I needed?”

Severe and regal, but not humorless, Maat corrected me.

“Forty-two negative confessions. Centuries ago, it was customary to arrive in this Hall with a written account, but the practice seems to have withered among your kind. Nonetheless, the sun has set on you and your deeds, whether pure or wicked. Let none stand in the way of your testimony.”

She waited, with a strange half-smile that seemed to hover somewhere between genuine amusement and contempt. It was impossible to say whether warmth or fury rested on the other side of this layer of decorum, which concerned me. Still, a clear improvement over the impetuous, jackal-headed man that had brought me to this place. All teeth and pecs, that one. The animal lover in me wanted to reserve judgment on the half-crocodile, half-hippopotamus creature seated obediently at the feet of Maat, but realistically, he didn’t look like a natural ally either. Best to reach an understanding with the bird-woman.

“Sure, negative confessions. You know, I guess I must have done a lot wrong, or at least I’m used to having to answer for my sins. Kind of drawing a blank on what I haven’t done.”

I trailed off, looking up at Maat hopefully.

“Humans fall ever farther,” growled the jackal-headed man. “Allow me to present him to Ammit so that we can move on.” He rattled his spear in a way that made it clear that while he wasn’t imminently planning to skewer me, plans change. In fairness, a line was starting to build up behind me. The beast licked its lips in approval.

“I’m not being held responsible for this, right?” I protested. “Like, it’s not being added to my existing judgment balance? Because to be frank, it’s your business process holding up the line, not me.”

“Do not be afraid, these proceedings will not change the outcome. You will end up where you are supposed to be,” Maat said.

“Right, right, you know, I just thought of something. A whopper too. Didn’t kill anyone, the whole time.”

A man in full regalia with the torso of a lion stood up from the gallery. Maat looked down at me expectantly. I resisted the urge to give her a thumbs-up, it seemed like the kind of gesture that just wouldn’t land here.

“You have offered confession, but not spoken the ren.”

I sheepishly stumbled through the lion’s very difficult name. Satisfied, he made a short bow, and exited the Hall.

“Just forty-one more. I’m on it, don’t you worry. Well, I didn’t covet. Much at least. I’m actually kind of unclear about what strictly counts in that category?”

The jackal-headed man shot to his feet, apparently having found the perfect time to butcher me, but Maat spoke sharply before he could act further.

“Anubis, you will be seated. This court is charged by Osiris himself to separate the pure from the tainted. Regardless of how long it takes the truth to come to light.”

I was warming up to Maat. She had a hard job and she was handling it with grace and dignity. I think we could’ve been friends if she wasn’t an immortal deity, saddled with a sacred duty to process the dead for passage into the afterlife. Careers are like that sometimes; they can get in the way of relationships.

***

Mercifully, the final Assessor accepted my stilted pronunciation, bowed his horns forward in recognition, and clopped his way out of the gallery. I’d given up trying to look dignified beneath Maat’s gaze about thirty confessions ago, so I just sat on the dais, sweaty and apprehensive. Justifying your own purity in the form of forty-two items that you probably didn’t do is a strange act of omission. It doesn’t feel like absolution.

“On behalf of Osiris, the Confessions have been accepted.” Maat raised her left arm and plucked a single feather, allowing it to drift down on some unseen current, coming to rest on a golden scale.

“Anubis, have you collected the ib?”

A rough hand lifted me by the scruff, like a naughty puppy caught under the dinner table. It pressed down firmly, past the skin, and pulled sharply. I had the horrible sensation of heat rushing from my body, flooding out of some unseen wound, like an ailing hot air balloon.

“Yes, Maat. I have claimed this one’s ib and offer it willingly to be measured.”

Anubis approached the golden scale, holding an oily lump aloft. Having no interest in putting two and two together, I averted my eyes.

“Let the Weighing of the Heart begin,” Maat said.

An ibis-headed man stood at attention, quill and parchment ready to record the result. Across the Hall, future plaintiffs jostled for favorable viewing angles. But before Anubis could drop the putrid mass opposite Maat’s feather, the crowd became agitated, first murmuring discontentedly but soon shouting in alarm. They scrambled to either side of the hall to make way for the monstrous snake that was roiling its way to the vacated gallery. The serpent was at least a hundred feet long, with almost beautiful indigo and yellow heathered scales, and a head the size of a minivan. What I’m saying is that I was having a hard time imagining this guy was a harbinger of good news.

Maat wrinkled her nose, as if she had found bugs in the flour sack.

“Be on your way, Apep.”

“Tut tut tut” the snake clucked, which I thought was a bit on the nose given present company. “So hasty, so unimaginative.” His coils billowed and writhed, looping under and around themselves as he lounged on the gallery steps. “Would the Court of Osiris really turn away a guest? Just here to watch.”

“Your brother shall hear of this,” Maat said coldly.

“My brother hears of many misdeeds and yet, we sin all the same. Do go on, I wouldn’t dream of interrupting.” He flashed his long fangs in approximation of a disarming smile.

Apparently choosing defiance, Anubis strode over to the scales. I winced, hearing the wet smack of my heart on its burnished platform. Maat and Apep were mirror images of each other, her somber with arms crossed and him watching with unrestrained amusement, bopping his massive head to a song only he could hear.

The scales swayed, then steadied as they found equilibrium. I watched in growing horror as my heart sank and the feather rose.

Maat bowed her head, but spoke with conviction.

“A verdict has been reached. The impure have no place among the akhu and you are therefore barred from Osiris’ blessed domain.” She looked directly at me, pitiless. “You have been sentenced to destruction, in the jaws of Ammit, Swallower of the Dead.”

Just as panic grabbed hold of me, something that had never been seen before in the Hall of Two Truths happened. Whether it was the result of divine intervention, evil’s eternal machinations, or dumb luck is strictly a matter of opinion. All the same, with a whine and a creak, the scales began to drift, raising my heart high above the feather.

I was elated; it’s not every day you avoid absolute destruction. At least until the platform holding my heart descended once again, a grim visualization of my fate. This too was short-lived though, as the scales tossed and turned, seemingly unable to reach a final decision. All eyes were fixed to the strange cycle, up, down, then up again, but feeling suddenly feeling very queasy, I found I had to look away.

Apep was visibly delighted, such that a totemic serpent can express its self. “Haha! Now that is a delightful result!”

Maat, once calm and reserved, had lost all restraint. “This is your doing, Apep! I will see that you suffer greatly for this offense!”

“Maat, you spoil me with praise. Unfortunately, I haven’t the guile to engineer such a wonderful turn of events.”

Lacking any sense of timing, I tried to offer a solution. “You could send me back up for a few minutes, maybe? Just long enough for me to do a quick good deed or two and bam, I’m right back here for a proper weighing?”

“Surely this Court can make one little exception,” Apep wheedled.

“You will be silent, serpent!” Anubis roared.

“Maybe we should listen to the big snake? He has some good ideas,” I said, which is a thing that calm and reasonable people sometimes say.

The Court was quickly devolving into shouting and confusion as the gods bickered.

“Thoth!” Maat shouted over the din, pointing at the ibis-headed man. “Take this one somewhere safe until this is sorted out.”

***

While Thoth usually appears as a man with the head of an ibis for official business, he prefers to take the form of a very talkative baboon during his downtime. Frankly, it’s a bit insulting sitting there as a monkey chitters and prances, yet you know everything he’s saying is true because he’s the literal god of knowledge and wisdom. There’s no good way to handle a conversation like that.

He had a sort of office tucked away behind the gallery, sparsely furnished, with most every available surface covered in scrolls that meticulously detailed every decision reached in the main courtroom. After my “judgement” (such that it was), I found myself seated in this office, awkwardly waiting on Thoth to finish attending to his paperwork. Anubis guarded the door, preventing anyone else from entering the office, and I suspected, discouraging me from leaving.

“Well, that was exciting! Completely unacceptable of course, but quite an interesting outcome. What will I do with you? You don’t look exceptionally useful. You can’t stay here naturally, but Sekhet-Aaru is out of the question. Osiris won’t be pleased.” He never looked away from me the whole time he spoke, despite using both hands and his tail to scribble away at three different parchments.

“What’s Sekhet-Aaru?”

“The Field of Reeds, a vast river delta where the earth is sweet and a man can reap what is sown. It's where the akhu that pass judgment go.”

“Oh.” I’ll admit that I wasn’t thrilled with the result of my trial, but hey, it seemed I’d dodged an eternity of farming.

Thoth peered at me, moon-faced with bright eyes. “The joy of honest work does not interest you so much, hmm? Well, I suppose that doesn’t matter so much now.” He trailed off, finding some bit of writing more interesting than my company.

I picked at a spot on my arm and swung my legs back and forth. You’d think it would be the threat of absolute destruction that gets you, but it’s actually the waiting.

“So, Osiris. What’s the deal with him? Everyone is acting like he’s going to flip over this.”

Thoth peered at me, moon-faced with bright eyes - turns out this is more of a general baboon thing than a specific expression.

“He is the first king. His dominion stretches over life, death, and the afterlife. If you speak his name, do so in gratitude.”

I blanched. “What would I thank him for? Not sure if you’ve noticed but this isn’t going well. And do you know what it’s like up there these days?” I gestured vaguely above, at the surface world, all of it.

The monkey nodded slowly. “Yes, I think I know what to do with you.” He scampered to the door. “Anubis? Our mutual friend has need of an escort.”

Anubis entered, muttering an ancient Egyptian phrase under his breath, which Thoth helpfully explained later was absolutely not something to repeat in polite company.

“Anubis, I’d like you to take him to meet your daughter.”

***

I couldn’t help but shiver when Anubis clapped my shoulder with his vile hand and roughly hurried me down the long hallway. The line of recently deceased, eager to give their testimony, had only continued to grow. Most ignored us, wrapped up in their own anxieties, but a few met my gaze and smiled thinly, perhaps trying to express camaraderie as schoolchildren do when they see a fellow student being marched to the principal’s office. We walked a long time.

After some time, the stately stone floors began to fade into something more like a garden path. This too became less orderly as we walked, disintegrating into scattered stones and trampled foliage. We finally slowed as a shoreline came into view, with a black sand beach. Occasionally, stubby wooden riverboats eased onto the beach, releasing a new crop of passengers before departing again, bound for somewhere over the water.

Wordlessly, Anubis stopped and pointed at an ostrich carrying a large jug of water by a rope clamped in its beak. Strange as it may sound, the ostrich was girlish and pretty. She had the thoroughly charming habit of needing to delicately set the water jug on the ground before speaking.

“You again,” she said, but not unkindly. “You won’t remember me, but my name is Qebhet.”

“I’m, well, I’m just me,” I blundered.

 “Um, what do I do now?” I asked, somehow hoping to impress the fetching water-bearer.

“You serve water. Start on the shore and walk towards the Hall. You won’t run out.”

“Did you bring me water when I got here? You must have, but I don’t remember.”

“Those who have never served cannot know gratitude.” She picked up her water jug, making it clear that the conversation was over.

By now, I knew better than to test the patience of gods. I retrieved a water jug half-buried in the dark sand and filled it in the river. Then I walked to the back of the long line of the dead. I stopped in front of a man whose face was creased with anguish, suddenly uncertain about the exact mechanics of serving water to a ghost.

He held his hands out cupped and plaintive. I poured and the creases softened and I wanted to ask him about his life before he got there, but the woman just ahead of him in line had already seen me and was waiting with outstretched arms.

It got easier. By the time I had served fifty or so, I had learned to only look at their hands and not their faces. By the time I had served five hundred, I barely needed to slow down, tipping the jug backward and forward in a smooth rhythm with my gait. Given that there was still a reasonably high chance that I would be utterly annihilated soon, I decided to live a little and took off my shoes to feel the earth beneath my feet. I walked and they drank their fill. Qebhet was right, the jug never ran dry.

My reverie was disrupted when a calloused hand tapped on my own after being served.

“If it wouldn’t trouble you too much, I think I’d like some more.”

I turned towards the voice to see a very tall man with deep green skin. He was wearing white embroidered robes and a feathered crown - all in all, the sort of person that you really ought to notice instead of daydreaming about a cute ostrich.

“Please,” he said, “I’d really appreciate a little more water.”

“Of course.” I poured into his hands and he drank deeply and slowly, seeming to relish every drop.

“You’re an odd one, aren’t you. You have no ib and yet you still wander these halls.” He smiled. “I wonder, how has that come to pass?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Of course, I didn’t mean to impede your work. Perhaps you will come visit me among the reeds sometime to tell me that long story.”