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Excerpts from Tears of Osiris accompanied by music from MOYO
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Harkhebi - Where the Story Begins
The Eighth Chamber, Egypt, 728 BC
At the centre stood the great anthropoid sarcophagus, commanding the entire chamber. He approached slowly, reverently, and halted before it. With a small gesture, he summoned Herya and Shabakha forward to set their torches in the wall sconces.
As the flames steadied, a tightness spread beneath Harkhebi’s ribs. It came as a warning.
Heka does not rise without consequence.
If the rite succeeded, it would disturb the balance between Ma’at and isfet: order and chaos. Harkhebi closed his eyes briefly, then set his hands upon the sarcophagus. The rite would proceed.
Warmth travelled beneath his fingers as he traced the outline of the white Atef crown resting upon Osiris’ head, its tall ostrich plumes spreading on either side. The red and green paint against the gold: life, renewal, divinity. Symbols layered in meaningful order.
His hand moved lower, brushing the menat at the god’s throat. Lapis lazuli caught the light, its deep blue gleaming against the gold, as though rebirth itself had been captured in stone.
Below it, Osiris’ body shimmered with green and silver minerals; the crook and flail crossed over his chest with quiet authority. Jewelled inlays embedded in gold flashed along the sarcophagus’ length. Every instinct urged Harkhebi to kneel in reverence.
Carefully, he extended his hand to the ebony-dark eyes of Osiris, his fingers tracing their hollow curve. Then he untied the cords of his black cloak and let it fall. White linen shone beneath, bound at the waist with a simple sash. At his chest, a golden pectoral bearing the head of Horus caught the torchlight.
Shabakha and Herya followed, casting off their cloaks as they moved to the feet of Osiris, their steps cautious and respectful.
At Harkhebi’s nod, they laid their hands on the sarcophagus lid and pushed. Stone groaned against stone as they manoeuvred it a quarter turn. Too heavy to lift, the displacement was enough to reveal the head and feet of the figure within.
A heavy silence descended. They peered inside and saw Osiris laid out before them in segments, each encased in gold and arranged in solemn order to preserve the form of what had once been whole.
Murdered by his brother Set, Osiris had been cut into fourteen pieces and scattered across Egypt before being gathered again by Isis, who conceived Horus from what remained of the god. The myth lay contained within the arrangement itself: betrayal, division, reunion and rebirth.
Herya’s hand drifted towards one severed foot.
“Stop!” Harkhebi’s voice struck the chamber walls. “Do not touch him. We are not ready.” He reached around his neck and pulled the rope chain, releasing the small linen pouch. Loosening the cord, he tipped its contents into his palm. Two rubies tumbled into his hand, gleaming in the torchlight, burning a deep, living red. His breath caught.
These were no ordinary stones. Legend claimed they had formed from the spilled lifeblood of Osiris, two tears shed at the conception of Horus and hardened through rites spoken by the high priests. They carried the heka of the god himself, the power to command neheh and djet, the eternal recurrence and the unchanging time.
As Harkhebi stepped towards the head of Osiris, a memory stirred. He was a boy again, kneeling in torchlight while an older priest spoke the words that had shaped his life: the guardian of the eighth portal would not die as other men died. Harkhebi’s heart had thundered then with the weight of that responsibility. It thundered now.
Decades of discipline, of ritual and lonely vigil in darkness, had led to this hour. Foolishly, he had once hoped that the burden of the rite might fall to another, but destiny does not bend to hope.
If knowledge of the portal lived within a single mind, it could be hunted and claimed. But if it were divided, it would endure.
Harkhebi sighed as he set the rubies into the tear-shaped hollows beneath Osiris’ eyes. A sharp click snapped through the chamber, the sound echoing against the walls.
His hands lingered on the golden head as he glanced towards the priest and priestess. Herya stared openly. Shabakha had gone pale. For them, this was a story, a rite spoken of but never witnessed. “When you touch the feet, remember your oaths.”
As he closed his eyes and rested his palms over the rubies, the rhythm of his heartbeat filled his ears. Between each beat, he found the still void. A low tone gathered in his chest, the sound of life, of Source Creator. It vibrated against the gold of Horus at his breast.
Shabakha joined, his tone higher.
Herya followed, her clear note harmonising with theirs.
The chamber answered. Their voices merged into a unified sound that pressed against the stone. The torches trembled, the oil troughs dimmed, then guttered out. Darkness fell.
The rubies warmed beneath Harkhebi’s hands. A faint glow gathered, seeping through his palms as though they were made of parchment, threading along his veins in lines of molten gold. It rose slowly through muscle and bone, reclaiming what had always been its own.
His breath thinned, but the tone continued. It no longer came from his chest alone. It vibrated through him, filling his body until there was no boundary between flesh and radiance. He tilted his head back as heka pressed outwards through his skin, forming a wide column of light that expanded beyond ceiling and floor, anchoring heaven to stone.
At the statue’s base, Shabakha and Herya continued their chant, heads bowed, unaware that the man they had followed was dissolving into golden radiance.
Suddenly, razor-sharp rays of light splintered from the column that had been Harkhebi, striking the stone and reigniting the troughs as they raced along the avenue, flooding each chamber with gold. The cavern swelled with light until it reached its limit, and the centuries-old walls trembled briefly on the verge of shattering.
Then... stillness.
As the golden orb reached its apex, the eighth chamber unfolded. Where Harkhebi had stood, the stone wall had dissolved. Beyond it stretched a universe of innumerable pinpoints of light suspended in infinite darkness.
Harkhebi’s hands trembled as he took in the immensity. Stepping forward, his feet left solid ground, yet he did not fall. To his right, a line of twelve doors emerged from the darkness, each one opening onto a different dimension of the cosmos. He stared at them, but he did not move towards them. Instead, he waited.
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Millie & Ash - Fair Was Fair
La Pomarède, France, 2025
Revenge, she decided, cracking one eye open, was wildly overrated. The room swayed as Millie pushed herself upright and promptly stepped on the towel she’d wrapped around her hair the night before. The movement sent a dull thud through her temples.
Great.
Stretching, she winced at the ache in her lower back as she glared at the lumpy mattress, the one thing Ashton had been right about. What was far worse was the sour smell of last night’s abandoned dinner drifting from the trolley. It curled in her throat as her stomach lurched.
Avoiding both the trolley and her thoughts, she escaped into the minuscule bathroom, twisting the shower on and stepping beneath the spray. The heat wrapped around her like mercy. For a few stolen minutes, she let it wash everything away: the headache, the smell, and the memory of grey eyes blocking her on the balcony.
By the time she finished dressing, she’d nearly fallen over twice – once wrestling herself into her striped linen trousers and again trying to drag her white T-shirt over her head. Today’s slogan read: BEING ACE ALWAYS WINS! She felt like she’d earned it.
A glance at the clock made her swear under her breath. No time for breakfast. No time to think. On her way out, she stopped beside the trolley. The stale scent made her grimace, and then, with a spark of wicked inspiration, she wheeled it down the corridor and positioned it directly outside Ashton’s door.
Petty? Possibly. Satisfying? Undeniably. If he were in a rush, he wouldn’t see it until it was too late. Still wearing the ghost of a smile, she hurried down the narrow stairs, turned the corner, and stopped short. A man in a pale grey T-shirt blocked her path.
Not him.
She quickly swung back. I’ll take the lift.
“Of course,” Ash said, already facing her. “It’s you. I’m beginning to think you’re walking Velcro.”
She turned, only to find his T-shirt matched the colour of his eyes. She immediately regretted noticing. “I’m in a rush,” she said, a beat too quickly, guilt following almost as fast. The trolley had been childish, and she blamed him entirely.
He didn’t move. Instead, he planted himself directly in her path, folding his arms as if he had all the time in the world. “Looks like it,” he drawled. “Let me guess, snooze button abuse?”
“Yeah, something like that.” Seriously, what was the point of this conversation? In a few minutes, she’d be gone and this would be nothing more than a ridiculous hotel story. She glanced at her watch. Now she was ten minutes late for Huzur.
“I didn’t see you in the restaurant last night,” he said, his tone less sarcastic now. “I was going to buy you dinner. As an apology.” The word appeared to cost him.
“Oh.” She cleared her throat, aiming for casual. “You don’t owe me dinner. I think we’re even now.” The amount of room service sitting outside his door confirmed that. A smile tugged at her mouth before she could stop it. “Anyway, I really should go.”
Ash studied her for longer than necessary. “Right,” he said finally, before briefly glancing at her T-shirt. “Then I suppose this is goodbye.” He stepped aside, but his eyes didn’t leave her as she passed. “Hey.”
She stopped halfway down the stairs.
“What’s your name?”
She thought about it for a second, then shrugged. “Millie,” she replied, already moving again before he could say more. She took the remaining stairs two at a time, and by the time she reached the bottom, she was breathing harder than she should have been.
At the reception desk, her card covered the original booking. No extras and no complications. Ashton’s restaurant bill had been paid in cash. Guilt sparked again, but it was quickly followed by the memory of her lace underwear strewn across the corridor like festive decorations. Heat climbed back into her face as she lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. Fair was fair.
With the bill settled, she moved away and cast a final glance towards reception, glimpsing pale grey at the other end of the desk. She offered him a faint smile, but it went unnoticed. His attention was fixed on the bill in his hand.
“Oops,” she muttered, picking up her pace and virtually running towards the grand doors.
Almost free.
“What? Four hundred and twenty euros for a meal? You’ve got to be kidding!”
The words cracked across the foyer.
She froze, then turned her head towards him.
Across the tiled floor, his shocked eyes locked onto hers with dawning comprehension.
“Millie!”
Huzur & Séraphine - Some Loves Survive Time.
Mount Süphan, Turkey, 1998
Huzur chose a pew near the entrance. The wood was hard beneath him, unforgiving, but he welcomed the discomfort. Drawing the coarse woollen blanket over his shoulders, he leaned back against the cool timber.
Fatigue seeped into his bones. Only hours ago, he’d been standing in the year 1211 beneath torchlight and falling stone, watching Séraphine walk towards a path he knew too well. He closed his eyes. This time, he let the memory come – not of their parting, but of their beginning.
He’d been in his early forties then. Younger, and harder in ways he’d once mistaken for strength. Grief was still raw after losing his wife, but he’d refused to let it shape the household. His daughters needed stability, not a father lost in sorrow.
That night, as his daughters slept, he sat in the low light of his living room when the atmosphere shifted. A faint crimson mist collected near the far wall, thickening until she stepped through it, crossing from one timeline to another.
Séraphine.
She stood before him – composed, unafraid, and softer than when he’d seen her earlier today, untouched by siege or sacrifice.
“You are Huzur Hafiz,” she said in French, studying him as though confirming what she already knew rather than asking.
“I am,” he replied, rising from his chair, assessing her intent.
Her eyes locked on his. “I have come because of what you carry.”
A pulse beat hard at the base of his throat. “And what do you believe I carry?”
“Saudade,” she whispered. “The lineage of Soul.”
Huzur crossed to the lamp beside the wall and switched it on. Light spilled across her face, revealing her calm demeanour. “You enter my home uninvited,” he said. “And you speak in riddles. Start again.”
A slow breath left her, carrying the weight of what she already knew. “My mother has seen what is rising in your time,” she said. “A darkness intent on devouring the guardians.”
He stood rooted to the spot. “And this concerns me because?”
“Because you stand at the centre of it.” She took a step closer. “The pure line must continue,” she said, more plainly now. “Through you.”
He looked her over, taking her in. “And you assume I’d agree to that?”
“I assume you understand what’s at stake.”
“And what’s that?”
She met his stare without flinching. “Everything.”
She didn’t leave that night. Or the next. Days passed in a strange suspension, as though the world outside his home had stepped back to give them space.
They argued on the first night. She picked apart his reasoning while he challenged her conviction. Neither backed down. By the second day, resistance had softened. The change came gradually, shaped by the way she moved through the house as though she’d always belonged there. Even his daughters accepted her sooner than he did. More than that, he hadn’t expected to look up and find her watching him – not as a guardian, or even as a solution, but simply as a man.
When they finally crossed from duty to desire, it felt as though two halves long separated had at last been made whole. Afterwards, she lay beside him, one hand resting lightly against her abdomen, as if she could already feel the echo of what had begun. “You won’t regret this,” she said.
He had no reason to doubt her. For the first time since his wife’s death, he felt alive.
On the last morning, she stood by the window as dawn filtered in, already composed, already preparing to leave. “When the time comes,” she told him, “I will return.”
“You speak as if leaving is inevitable.”
“It is. You know what will happen to me if I stay longer in this timeline.” There were no tears, no promises beyond what mattered. And then she was gone. The silence she left behind roared louder than any of their arguments had.
Thunder cracked overhead, dragging him back to the present. He shifted on the pew, the wood digging into his shoulder.
Today, he’d chosen the timeline over her, carrying knowledge she didn’t yet possess. She’d had that same strength. That same refusal to bend, but there had been something else in her eyes this time. Trust. She believed in him. He didn’t know if that was mercy or a quiet kind of cruelty.
Séraphine’s words returned to him. A darkness intent on devouring the guardians. Her mother had seen it long before any of them. She’d been right.
Then his thoughts turned to Charles’s letter to Ekrem, the one he’d read aloud to Kazim only days before. One possibility refused to leave him.
Zindel.
If Millie had travelled through the portal, what if he’d followed her? At the auberge – and again beside the lake – Huzur had sensed him. Not within Millie, nor attached to her, but close enough to watch. His fingers tightened around the blanket.
Edward’s death in 1752 remained the missing piece. If Zindel had crossed the timelines, someone else must have opened a door for him.
Sleep came, and he surrendered to it.
Zindel & Lionel - Never Ask Darkness for Help
Earl of Dorset's Manor, 1752
Zindel absorbed the information without visible reaction. Speed altered the game. What once required seasons could be accomplished in days. Borders no longer shielded the rubies. He studied Lionel again. “If you intervene tonight to prevent my death, and I survive to produce an heir, Matthew does not inherit, and your line changes.”
Lionel nodded, solemn now. “Exactly.”
Zindel considered him for a moment. “Why relinquish a title so readily? Most men would not.”
Lionel looked away. “I’ve seen the family records. I know where it breaks.” He swallowed. “Seventeen fifty-two. That’s when everything changes.” His eyes darted back. “If I stop it there... with you... the accident that killed our parents never happens.”
There it was. Not ambition. Not greed.
Grief. How very human, how very predictable.
Zindel angled his head slightly, as though pondering a minor detail rather than the axis of a life. “You assume that if I survive tonight and the line bends elsewhere, the future will correct itself around that alteration,” he said. “And in that correction, your parents remain alive.”
Lionel didn’t deny it. “Yes.”
Zindel regarded him. “A poetic alignment of ambitions, yours and mine.” He paused, slowly taking a last sip of brandy. “Your preservation requires my survival. And my survival,” he added, “requires yours.”
Lionel nodded. “It sounds improbable, I know. My parents would likely still meet at university. Millie and I would still be born, maybe differently. If the accident never occurs, they don’t die.”
Zindel narrowed his eyes. “And it never occurred to you to employ the ruby yourself?”
Lionel exhaled, dragging a hand through his hair. “Millie tried. Two days ago. She went back.” A muscle pulsed along his jaw. “She couldn’t prevent the accident. No matter what she did.” He paused. “So this is the alternative.”
Zindel absorbed that, placing his glass on the side table.
Lionel shifted in his chair. “May I have some water?” he asked, his composure beginning to fray at the edges. “I’m not sure I’ve recovered from the journey through time.”
“Of course.” Zindel rose and crossed the room at an unhurried pace. From a pitcher on the cabinet, he filled a tumbler. Returning, he placed the glass in Lionel’s hand. Their fingers brushed. Only then did Zindel see it clearly: a fine black cord threading from the base of Lionel’s skull, faint as smoke in the lamplight.
“Tonight, you travelled here,” Zindel said, “to save your parents. To forfeit your birthright.”
Lionel tried to steady himself. “Yes.”
“There may be a better solution. I would like to add a third bird to your analogy.”
Lionel blinked, confusion clearly overtaking him. “What do you...” The tumbler slipped in his grip. “The room...” he muttered, his words thickening. “I think I’m about to...” His body tilted slightly.
Zindel’s focus narrowed as the black cord pulsed between them. Lionel’s memories played through it – his childhood, the weight of fresh grief, the manor as it would one day stand modernised, Millie’s hand closing around the ruby. Pieces to be used as leverage. Edward’s body had served its purpose. It belonged to this century.
Lionel’s did not.
Distance would no longer constrain him.
Zindel stepped forward and placed both hands on the armrests of Lionel’s chair. A muted crack sounded from Edward’s jaw as it slackened beyond its natural hinge. The mouth widened, skin stretching thin, darkness visible where it should not be. From within that darkness, a second cord emerged, finer and probing, before coming to rest against Lionel’s brow.
There.
The point where thought gathers.
Where the self lives.