Scribe

Nothing was, for nothing was written. Beings came and went, yet lived not, and nothing was anything, for names could not stick to the fabric of history. At first, all who existed were content with the transient nature of their lives, but soon there came a time when the desire to remain, to endure, burned bright within the hearts of all creatures. While they lived their temporary lives and searched for a way to weave them permanently into the tapestry of the world, the gods and goddesses responsible for that world watched them closely. Closely, that is, unless necessity turned their focus to each other.  

"You are certain of this?" Ra clicked his beak in agitation, and he gripped the arms of his throne to keep from raking his fingers through his plumage. He fixed his golden eyes on the dark muzzle of his messenger.

"I am," came the curt reply of Anubis. His voice never wavered, but the way his ears lay flat against his narrow skull betrayed his unease. Ra made note of it with growing anxiety; the Jackal was not easily troubled.

"How? What evidence do you have?"

Anubis huffed his displeasure at being questioned but wisely refrained from voicing it. "Long have I led souls through the halls of Osiris, and you know as well as I that most flee gratefully from bodies grown bent with age or sickness. These souls have grown sparse as of late, and I am met instead with keening spirits longing to return to their earthly prisons. Many have hearts too young to know the weight of many conscious misdeeds and thus the jaws of Ammut are often left empty after the weighing ceremony."

"And what are Thoth's thoughts on the matter?"

"You will have to ask him yourself. He remains ever the pinnacle of reticence."

"Ask him if he will come before me, then. In fact, I want to speak to others as well. If the humans are killing each other off in rising numbers, let us find out why. Make sure the war deities are included. I shall be very curious to know if this is the beginning of an unsanctioned large-scale cleansing."

And so it was done. Anubis spread the news that Ra wished to address an earthly disruption and no one refused the call. Thoth the Timeless arrived, and when his quill was in his hand, the meeting was begun. One by one, the gods and goddesses of war were questioned, and each one denied a hand in the deaths. When Ma'at declared them to be truthful, they cried out at the unfairness of being questioned.
"Why not bring forward those who are responsible for love?" they demanded. "It seems the problem lies with someone failing to do a job, rather than one of us carrying out a duty too well."
At this suggestion Hathor was called upon to speak in her defense and in the defense of any who followed in her ways, and she claimed that the lives were not taken with malice. It was not for lack of love that the humans were behaving so wastefully.
Blame was tossed carelessly from one god to the next, and yet after some time a culprit had not been discerned. In fact, the gods and goddesses had become so enraged at perceived discrimination that they had forgotten humans entirely.


"Perhaps it would be best to end the meeting at this point."


The voice quieted the crowd as water douses a flame. Everyone turned to see Thoth still sitting at his desk, quill still working to capture every accusation, each scathing insult. He cocked his head to the side and rested his small round eyes on Ra. "Unless you must have your curiosity satisfied as to just how Min will respond to the accusation that 'the seasons this past year would have been milder had the earth not been over-stimulated by excess sexual energy.'"

All felt the shame of their conduct. Without being asked they left Ra and Thoth alone, and Thoth bound the papyrus scrolls, his record complete.

"Tell me, my friend," Ra began, "what do you think is the reason for how the humans are behaving? More importantly, why did I not notice what was going on before Anubis brought it to my attention? Am I not the Sun, the one who shines light on the world, who turns my eye upon all things?"

"Ah, your eyes might forever gaze, but they do not always see. You will recall a time when you had me make note of a certain distress you sensed in them, some pulsing inside that had not been present before?"

Ra slammed his mighty fists upon Thoth's desk, infuriated with such unflappable composure. "And if you will recall, that concerned every creature, not just the humans."
"All the more reason to explore further, would you not say?"
Ra tried in vain to make Thoth give him answers instead of more questions, until finally he resigned himself to taking his advice. He covered the earth with his selves, his eyes and ears. He heard the people speak and watched them go about their lives. Ra looked. He watched young ones kill young ones and he found that with every murder, a ceremony followed lasting for days, sometimes entire weeks. The people gathered and told stories of the recent dead while children sat and learned of fresh loss, bore witness to shared tragedy. Ra looked. The people chanted the names of the dead to the sky, to each other, to everything.
"We will remember," they cried. "We will remember how you left us too soon, how your blood is on our hands, and the pain of your absence will be the sign that you did indeed once live."

Ra saw.

He called Thoth to him and asked him to write down every word of his findings, so what was seen could become what was known and true.
"They want to be remembered, Thoth. They want to know that when they journey to Duat and follow Anubis to their fates the world will not forget them."

When paused to fill his quill with ink, Thoth prompted, "And the humans? Why do they resort to murder?"

"The strongest memories are forged by pain. They seek to cause the highest form of it and capture it with speech. They tell stories, teach them to their children. They are trying to keep people alive forever in stories by ending their true lives far too soon! What idiocy! You do not see the other creatures of the world executing such a stupid plan, tipping the balance so dangerously. Leave it to humans."

Thoth nodded in a way that, were it possible for any action of his to be done in an absentminded fashion, would have been so. "They do seem to have trouble thinking outside of themselves... I suppose all that must be decided now is how to stop them. How do we give them what they apparently want so desperately?"

Ra sank into his chair, exhausted. "I do not know. We are immortal. People are not. That is how they were made and that is how they should continue. They must leave the world to make way for new life. I do not know how to give them what they seek."

In a voice so quiet only godly ears could hear it, Thoth uttered, "We could teach them the secrets of the written word."

Ra was on his feet again in an instant, given energy anew by his incredulity. "Writing? The final sacred art? Have you gone mad?"

Even as Thoth recorded the words putting his sanity in question, he did not reply in anger. "Is every important declaration ever made by one of us not perfectly annotated somewhere? Are not all meetings, special celebrations, disputes, and more safely preserved within these scrolls? Do the humans not see life as the total sum of easily recordable moments? If you cannot make them immortal in body, let them immortalize themselves in the words they leave behind."

For the first time since he had begun to exist, Ra was so close to shaking the Ibis that he had to momentarily clasp his hands behind his back with all his strength. When the urge had all but left him, he spoke again. "I brought humans into being from my tears and sweat. I taught them the secrets of speech so that such vulnerable creatures might always have the means to support and counsel one another. Look what they have done with such a gift! Twisting words until Ma'at weeps at the deceit. Branding one of their own kind with hateful titles that drive him from his fellows. My one form of solace is that one day those words will scatter in the wind and it will be as though such ugliness was never allowed to touch the world! And you want to give them the means to carve those words into the stone of Time? You want to give them the power to record the thoughts and actions of any person, no matter how cruel, and write their names on any corner of the earth they decide belongs to them? If such a step is to be taken, then by all the gods alive, it will not be by me!"

Thoth was silent for so long that Ra began to think the god had decided to drop the subject. However, just as he was about to ask for another, saner suggestion, Thoth said, "I will teach them. There might be some who abuse my gift just as they abused yours. Some will try to live on when all that they are is a poison. Do not think only of them, Ra. Think of how, with the knowledge I give to them, humans can create beauty even in the face of eternal evil. Imagine how they might learn to pay closer attention to other creatures as they write the names of each one. Consider how one might show future generations the wicked deeds of a man who thought he could make a glorious name for himself by simply speaking honeyed words into the air. What of them?"

Ra warred with himself. He tried to find a flaw in Thoth's logic, to think of something better. When he failed, he slumped back into his chair once again and gripped a tuft of feathers at the back of his neck. "If you feel so strongly about this matter, then do as you will. However, I will not leave such a power unchecked in their inexperienced hands. We are giving them one of the purest powers of creation possible. I cannot have humans writing themselves into situations in which they have no business being present. I certainly could not allow any of them to carry themselves too far away from their own reality. They have enough problems dealing with the one they have. If you pass the secrets of writing onto the humans, you must see to it that whenever one is on the verge of experiencing something greater than he can handle, the gift momentarily eludes him. The words will not reveal themselves, will not obey. Do you understand?"

Thoth nodded. "I do. It is a necessary precaution, I would say." He filled his quill once again and held the tip to a new sheet of papyrus. "It is decided, then? I will teach the secrets of writing to the humans, so that they might live on even as their bodies leave the world."

Ra took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "So shall it be written, and so shall it be."

And so it was.