Nothing answered Amun. There was no other voice, no ear waiting for a sound, no ground on which a listener might stand.
He had no mother to cradle him and no father whose hands had shaped him. Hidden even in his beginning, he brought himself into being. No eye witnessed it.
Around him the unmade world unfolded: depth without a bottom, darkness without an edge, water with no bank to hold it. The Eight took form within that vastness. They were the first unfolding of his power, yet none could turn and see the whole of the one from whom they came. Wherever they looked, something of him was there. Wherever they looked again, he was beyond it.
The water lay still.
Then a patch of earth broke its surface.
Water slid from the rising ground in thin sheets. Its sides shed their last streams, and its summit lifted clear. There was somewhere to stand now. Amun had become the risen land, firm beneath the weight of what would follow.
Upon it, he took the shape of a goose.
The bird settled its feet into the clay. Its body had weight; the soft ground received it. Beneath folded wings, feathers lay close in broad, dark layers. Its neck curved above the water, and its beak pointed into a distance where no shore could yet be seen.
It stood without calling.
No reed scratched against another reed. No insect hummed. Nothing moved beneath the surface to wrinkle the reflection of the little mound. The silence reached everywhere, unbroken by so much as a breath from another living throat.
The goose lifted its head.
Its breast rose. The folds of its neck drew long. For a moment the opened beak was only another dark shape against the dark.
Then Amun cried out.
The harsh, living note struck across the water. It did not return as an echo: there was no distant wall to throw it back. It went on, sounding through the emptiness, and the emptiness stirred.
Light spread.
A pale gleam ran along the water beside the mound. It widened, finding every wet furrow in the earth, drawing out the curve of the bird’s breast and the tips of its folded wings. Farther away the dark began to separate. Water could be seen against land, distance against nearness. The new light strengthened until the whole face of the water shone.
Amun rose in the sun.
Warmth touched the ground. The Eight were no longer alone in the brightness. The gods came into their forms, distinct from one another, each with a presence of its own; yet the power that filled them was the power of the hidden maker. The first cry still seemed to tremble through the world as eyes opened to receive the light.
A human hand stirred against the earth.
The fingers bent, pressing into the damp surface. A face lifted. Light fell upon the closed lids, and they opened. For the first time, someone looked out across the world and saw it.
The brightness was everywhere. It lay on the water, on the ground, on the moving hand. The hand turned in it, palm upward, then downward, and a small shadow turned beneath it.
The new being drew breath and rose.
Weight shifted onto one foot. The other lifted, hesitated above the earth, and came down farther forward. Clay yielded beneath the sole. Another step followed, firmer than the first. Around that small movement, other eyes opened and other bodies stirred. The stillness filled with breathing.
The gods looked upon the shining world. They could see its waters and its earth, its sun and the lives waking beneath it. They could see one another. But no gaze reached to the end of Amun, and no god saw the whole of him.
Sunlight warmed the fresh footprint. Water seeped into its hollow.
Beyond it, another foot came down.