II

Death and The Lover

Kierlan had not yet decided in the wake of that first night of passion, whether or not he now she was at all pleased with how it had come to pass. Indeed she liked her breasts. She liked them a lot. They were so fluffy and warm yet fleshy and resilient. For the first days of her new life as a woman she had done almost nothing but fondle and tug them, feeling her still masculine tube grow thick and finally spasm from sensitivity alone, and Nefer had been so very encouraging with her lurid licks and sexual grips that they had tumbled from one bed to another in a whirlwind between shopping excursions. After dismissal from the Chohmlathais there was breakfast in Argos, followed by Hashish and Opium in Turkey, with seconds among the modern states that had risen after the fall of Persia. Then another breakfast in Madras, lunch in Los Angeles, fine dining in New York. Kierlan had so easily crossed the world, and so quickly, she remembered none of it except the jet lag as the drugs had worn off. Thankfully the trans Atlantic red eye had been quite nice: after visiting the mile high club she and Nefer had made quite a sight of themselves as two stacked females spread out in their first class seating snoring away. Nefer's money made anything possible, and nothing mattered. And yet the question remained in the back of Kierlan's mind.

Do I want this?

Kierlan remembered that first stumbling step after becoming a woman where Nefer let her up from the chains, explaining all the adjustments Kierlan would have to make. She would have to learn how to walk and carry herself, and how to wear a woman's clothes, how sizes worked, and most importantly she would now have to have a care about her milk giving breasts that had the potential to become exceedingly difficult if they were not regularly cared for. "You mean I'll explode if I don't drain them?" She had asked. "Well," The jackal said sardonically. "I'd get a breast pump if you don't want a bunch of strangers sucking on them like a fat cow."

Breast pump? Kierlan had thought with a shudder at the idea of strangers sucking her now enormous glands. When the hell did breast pumps come into the equation? What is a breast pump? Dimly she envisioned some kind of medieval torture device with plunger cups and tubes leading to wooden buckers where little old Amish ladies were churning her milk to butter. And there was the other thing. Before letting Kierlan up from the bed Nefer had explained in no uncertain terms: "Be warned, as insurance there is a geas upon you, and you may suffer terrible agony or certain death if you contend me."

She was a slave.

It wasn't expressly stated. She certainly didn't look the part as she now stood at the back of a Hamburg classroom, observing the wide open chamber with its high windows. Nefer was here attending a lecture that had seized her interest on the real Hermeticism of the Weimar Republic and the German Volks Movement of the pre-WWII, and Kierlan was here in an official capacity as her bodyguard. The lecturer had digressed onto the nature or evil, which was par whenever started discussing early Nazi Germany, and Kierlan supposed it was Schadenfreude to enjoy watching the jackal squirm uncomfortably throughout. Kierlan thought was a smile: that'll learn you to tease me and not put out. Then she noticed something strange in the lower gallery near the front. A jackal wearing the traditional head dress of the warrior classes but otherwise dressed in a business suit entered and was talking to the proctor who waited by the door. Kierlan mumbled into the communication device at her wrist, but could not get through as the jackal approached Nefer. He bent at half bow while the lecture continued and delivered something into Nefer's hand, then waited. Nefer opened what was revealed to Kierlan's eye to be an envelope and read its contents. Then she covered her face in her hands and began to weep.

The ride back to the motel was silent with Kierlan sitting at one end of the limousine's back seat and Nefer on the other, staring into the street through the heavily tinted windows. Every few moments she wiped her eyes against Kierlan's handkerchief, but otherwise she said nothing as they travelled. The lecturer had not even stopped in his dissertation as the emotive jackal had removed herself from the chamber with her guards and guest in tow, and Kierlan had stood outside the ladies room anxiously while she heard Nefer being sick. Outside because the new arrival, one Amon, had insisted on it.

He was Kierlan's new least favorite person. A member of the Hardai Royal Guard in service to the High Priest of the Cult of Anubis, and his wife the priestess Samah. He had been sent it was revealed at last because Nefer's father Osahar had died, and to Kierlan specifically that this man was the Hierophant of the same. This meant that in addition to her callous seizing of Kierlan's free will, Nefer had also lied about who she was, where she had come from. She had lied about everything. He should have been furious. However, owning to Nefer's already weakened state, Kierlan settled for despising the strange Anubis jackal.

Already he'd earned Kierlan's ire by preventing her to exit the campus doors first with an authoritative snarl of infidel. It seemed Kierlan was to treat Nefer not as a close friend she just happened to work for as a cover, but should worship the very ground the distraught jackal walked as well or be denounced as an unclean outsider. Kierlan let it slide for the time being, but there were few occasions when the two security officials did not look at each other with barely disguised contempt. To him, Kierlan could tell she was more than just an outsider, she was a stupid little woman and an indulged westerner who had yet to be shown her place. To her, he was a patriarchal autocrat and a sexist asshole. Given any excuse, she was looking forward to cleaning the floors with his ass.

Being cute was no excuse.

Once at the motel Nefer wasted no time in heading upstairs to the penthouse. This time, however, when Amon sought to stop her Kierlan was ready, grasping his wrist and twisting it. She used his weight against him but rather than fall at the sudden pain he surged forward and grasped the lapel of her jacket, the two canines baring fangs and about to lay into one another. "If you get in my way again," she said. "one of use is going to have a bad day."

"It's alright, Amon."

Releasing the dark furred male Kierlan adjusted her jacket, smoothing it out, and pressed passed him into the reasonably small two room hotel chamber, closing the door behind her. As she did, she saw Nefer quickly going to pieces as she pulled out her suitcase and began to pack. It was a disaster at that, since Nefer had expected Kierlan to do all the packing and management tasks for the last three cities they'd visited. Kierlan had an organized system, and the sobbing Jackal was now tearing it apart as she threw things into the suitcases haphazardly.

Undoing the buttons on her jacket Kierlan removed it and placed it on a chair nearby to the door. She subsumed a groan of relief as her over stuffed breasts were given some freedom of movement beneath the shifting white linen dress shirt Kierlan wore. Likewise when the heels, Kierlan wriggling her toes as they adapted to being given room to breathe again. Then she approached Nefer and encircled the jackal in her strong arms as Nefer finally began to let out wailing shrieks, collapsed against her fellow shemale. The wolf-turned-Jackal let out a throaty groan when her darker compatriot twisted in her embrace and shoved her face against Kierlan's breast. In no time Nefer had undone the buttons of Kierlan's shirt and exposed the breast from Kierlan's bra she was now sucking on. The comforting sensation of cradling the devastated jackal to her chest was enough to make Kierlan's knees turn inward as she let her eyes close.

Nefer gripped Kierlan's hips readily and that was all the unspoken communication the pair needed. Sending the suitcases to the floor Kierlan allowed herself to be shoved back onto the bed and, as Nefer pulled up her own shirt letting her pendulous breasts bounce and sway into view, Kierlan pulled off her panties, letting her skirt ride up until her thick buttocks and masculinity was exposed.

Since that first meeting there had been a few more body shaping sessions, and Kierlan was now the picture of lust. Her ass was fat and swollen atop two muscular thighs that were tailored to wrap around someone's head and squish it like a grape. When she danced at the clubs with Nefer she knew that her taut butt would jiggle deliciously like an earthquake had taken hold, her broad rounded hips straining to support so much raw sexuality. Meanwhile upstairs her breasts had become truly immense, owning to Kierlan's desire to be the biggest bitch in the room anywhere she went, over the course of treatments going from D-cup all the way to the vaunted Double-E.

Kierlan snarled playfully, licking her jaws, and cupped her breasts in both paws as she spread out her legs, lifting her hips, even as her maleness grew to full ripe fullness and spilled out above. Nefer had dropped her trousers and was now leaking prodigiously from the tip of her tapering black organ as she surmounted the bed and drove herself into Kierlan's body beneath the silky tail. She wasn't unused to taking cock, especially by now, and pushed back against the fat, thick, organ eagerly turning her hips upwards enthusiastically.

"That's it boy." Nefer complimented nastily as she reached down and gripped Kierlan's breasts, kneading them roughly as she encircled each milk laden nipple. Then she began to hilt within her save for the fleshy jackal knot, driving her length inside Kierlan's anal vent and over her prostate with a demanding series of thrusts while her heavy breasts hung in Kierlan's face.

It didn't take long however, before the rampant Anubis jackal thrusting into her lover began to orgasm, her excitement bubbling up along her fleshy tube like a volcano before exploding deep into Kierlan's bowels. Squeezing down on her Kierlan groans with delight as she feels the jackal's heat flow into her, cradling the other shemale to her chest as Nefer lets out everything she has pent up inside her. Only later, in the quiet that followed, did Kierlan finally ask what had affected the Nefer so badly.

"My father is dead." Nefer said as a cold pang welled up in her belly. "He was the Hierophant of Hardai." And having said that, she did not stop, but instead continued to talk. She began spilling a lifetime of secrets as Kierlan listened, her arms coming around Nefer and holding the shaking jackal tightly, unable to do anything else.

---

The tiny land rover found the eastern deserts easily crossed. The driver would have described it as spooky when no rock, no hole, no wandering animal or other intrusion impeded their impromptu highway. But then the things Professor Stockwell of the Sepermeru Museum of Antiquities had seen preceded such naiveté. To his immediate left in the car sat a black furred Hyena with gold and gray highlights, his eyes encircled by dark coal colored shapes that refused to conform to any design for more than a few moments. He clothed himself in a fine dark suit Stockwell himself had fetched, burning through the department's money for both it and this vehicle. The hyena claimed that there were riches to be had that would make up for the losses, but even then he was under no inducement to provide them. He was a living god, and the Scottish terrier's colleagues would never believe him. This was to say nothing of the jury that Stockwell feared would soon judge him on accusation of murder as the police strove to put together what happened to the curator and security guard.

"Eyes on the path, slave." the hyena commanded.

"Your will," The terrier wavered. "Pharaoh."

The Hyena smiled widely.

The teeth that hinted at the end of his muzzle were venom-covered needles.

Less than twenty-four hours ago Amun-Set, Set-Ra, Typhon-Set, the god-king of the Hyksos rulers of the lower Nile had been found in a sarcophagus in the basement of the Sepermeru museum. Now he neared his goal in the form of a vast box canyon of natural red tinged stone, the glowering sun seemingly unable to pierce the perpetual cloying dust that had hounded them since their departure. The sky, the earth, Stockwell suspected even the water was cast in varying shades of gore color. Around the vertiginous height decrepit black buildings cluttered as they no doubt had for generations, having all the appearance of being abandoned, and the professor was certain the canyon was inundated with caves and tunnels as ancient as time. The question of what kind of people lived here, however, was one he was unsure he wanted answered.

Set on the other hand seemed perfectly calm. Not even a fly would touch him and the slowness of overland travel had earned not so much more than a frown of annoyance when Stockwell explained painstakingly that while yes, planes existed, they were incapable of landing wherever they pleased outside of very specific conditions that would make air travel less efficient for their purposes. The only thing the god-king had not compromised on, at any level, was his insistence to carry with himself an iron Khopesh of the Thirteenth Dynasty. He'd stolen the artifact from the museum by smashing the case open bare handed, and lifted the sword out to scrutinize the degree of care that had been given it. In so doing, scrolls that were ancient as the pyramids were broken from their enclosures and quickly fell to rot.

"You can't do that!" Stockwell had cried, trying to save the documents. Set ignored him, instead setting about taking a sword belt from a nearby display recreating traditional Egyptian dress. Only once he had affixed the weapon in place did he respond, extending his arm as a single massive python and wrapping its jaws around Stockwell's unprotected throat. "I am Set." He had said calmly. "I do what I will."

After a moment he added, releasing the terrier to cough on the museum's marble floor. "To ensure his rule, Qin Shi Haung had the histories destroyed and proclaimed himself the first emperor of China. To scholars who questioned this absolute divine mandate he had them executed by being buried alive." He then looked at the terrier as if surprised Stockwell had still been on the floor.

"Shall I reinstate the practice?"

It had also been Set's assertion some time later, at random it seemed, that the weapon belonged to the pharaoh Neferhotep and that he had a great deal of thanks to bequeath to the line of Neferata. This is the riddle that Stockwell had been racking his brain over as he drove. He didn't know of such a line. The only Neferata he knew was from the Egyptian News Service. In conservative circles around Hardai and the seventeenth nome where the High priests of Anubis held great political power there had been some kind of upset, and one of the High Priest Osahar's daughters had been dismissed from the kingdom under a shroud of scandal. Now the throne of the city was set to be delivered to Makare, another outcast but recently accepted back into the fold, but Stockwell hadn't followed the news too closely. There were too many unpleasant rumors of incest and indulgences for a mere professor.

"Stop here."

Stockwell pulled over quickly and glanced at Set nervously as the leonine cheetah got out of the car. He felt sick to watch the whirls of spots, all shaped like blackened spirals, move along the golden fur. Set put black ray-ban brand sun glasses over his eyes and from the professor's position he looked like a character from one of those C.S.I. programs as Set slipped his right hand into the pocket of his slacks and stood out in the middle of the desert. His head inclined upwards, and Stockwell could see Set was staring at a humanoid blob of a shadow atop the canyon wall. "My children." Set bellowed, raising his arm grandly. "Thy father has returned!"

Stockwell let out a scream, diving for the floorboards as a rickety spear burst the rented car's windshield, imbedding itself in the driver's seat where his head had been moments earlier. In an instant the dust and the heat flooded the rover's cabin, covering everything in a ruddy miasma that made the terrier cough as he squinted through his tears. Struggling up he peeked over the edge of the dashboard and saw Set shaking his head like a disappointed parent. "I know you're angry," Set responded. "you have suffered, and nothing has changed for you has it? Thousands of years and you are living out here hunting for their scraps while they live by the bounties of the Nile without a care in the world."

Set gestured with his free hand, a general addressing his parade ground. "I promised you Empire, and a chance to make your mark on the world, and they cheated you of it by imprisoning me." Then Stockwell watched the god-king nod his head, a glimmer of something like regret in his posture.

"I will accept that," Set said. "I failed you."

Then he seemed to grow, his shape shifting, becoming something else. It wasn't a Jackal, or a snake, or an ass, but was so indescribably dark and vile that Stockwell's breath caught. There wasn't any cool air in the world. There was only heat and dryness that could never be quenched with water, and wind moving so fast it could rip the flesh from the bone. And then there was his voice: "But for every year you waited, and every century of unjust imprisonment, my resolve to rule has never been stronger."

It made Stockwell's ears bleed. No, his tear ducts, his nostrils. He felt like his head was suffusing fluids very rapidly as he clutched his hands to his face and curled up on the floorboards. He pounded his ears to try and keep the voice out, but nothing could halt the stream of twisting words infiltrating his ears. "I, Typhon-Set, called Amun-Set, called Set-Ra, shall rule the whole of the Nile just as my brother before me who stole that which was not his, and then I shall bend the world to my will." The god-king howled as the sun's disc was subsumed in a black eclipse. "And of all my subjects, shall the Hyksos who are most loyal be kings and queens in my empire!" "They of the Nile," Set said. "are indulgent, godless, faithless, heathens who live in the lap of luxury and eat from golden plates while the Hyksos suffer and starve." The car began to shake around Stockwell as Set's body again changed, becoming a monstrous sandy hurricane. Through the sand that lashed his clothes to ribbons, however, he could see others now. There were tribesmen of a sort, like Bedouin riders dancing and cheering in the storm even as it snatched at their clothes. They waved silvery swords in the air, and some even fell into paroxysms and fits, striking at themselves with the same until they bled with ecstatic fervor. "It will be my pleasure to once more, and finally, for all time teach the sons of hated Horus-Ra the meaning of punishment, that they who are the faithful shall surely rise."

Set shrank down, became the Jackal once more, and as Stockwell watched through blood leaking eyes he saw the Hyksos tribesmen rush forward to lift their god-king on a throne, carrying the litter about like the monster was at its Bar Mitzvah. Except the cheering, now frenzied in pitch, had come to encompass one word: Typhon, the last and most terrible of the Greek Titans birthed by Gaia, the lord of chaos. Not for the first time, Stockwell wished he could die. But he knew Set would not let him.

---

"So your father was this Osahar character," Kierlan commented as she pulled a new top on more appropriate to travel. Nefer nodded, going about her own preparations. "And he threw you out of the country because you were sowing your wild oats with your young and, admittedly, delicious cock."

"Not just that," Nefer said as she began to re-pack the suitcases with more care. "The royal families of the Nile all conspire to undermine one another, and since the time of Akhenaton physical disparity is seen as a sign of spiritual corruption."

"Right, and you had a huge pair of knockers that couldn't be hidden."

"Right."

"And that's why you said you were from Luxor when we first met."

"Yes."

Kierlan felt anger rush to her cheeks. Lied to again. But that was the past and there was nothing directly to be done about it. Instead she took a deep breath. They had only just calmed Nefer down and it would not do to become upset with her. "So if this old man was such a bastard, why are we going to his funeral?"

"Because it's the right thing to do, and now until my brother Makare is installed as Nomarch the rule of Hardai is in the hands of my mother Samah." Nefer replied. Then she paused, trembling again. She licked her lush lips, then bit them as her shoulders drooped. "And I'll never be able to get to know him." Kierlan paused and looked over her shoulder while Nefer, now not so much packing as moving things around, slid towards the open window and the tiny balcony that commanded the eastern wall of the hotel room. Through it bright sunlight was pouring down and had left the black jackal's fur with a gleaming sheen as she stared up towards the clouds, lost in thought. "He was still my father," she said. "And I have to know if there was ever a man inside who he became that could have loved me."

Kierlan nodded and re-re-packed Nefer's half hearted preparations. It seemed a trip to Egypt was indeed in order. 'And,' Kierlan thought. 'you've never been there.' It was to be an adventure then even if it was a sorrowful occasion. "Aziz!" she called. "Another bag for you to take down." From the outer hall the Jackal guard Amon scowled, his jacket off and sleeves rolled up to his elbows as he arrived to take the next heavy load of personal affects. "My name is not Aziz." he muttered.

"Isn't it?" Kierlan grinned. "So sorry." 'Oh yes,' Kierlan decided. 'She was going to have fun with this.'

To be continued!