by Bill Hiatt
Looking around frantically, I dropped Gordy’s blade and sprang at the one thing that could help me—Shar’s sword, still laying on the ground where Morfran had dropped it.
Ceridwen tried to kick the blade out of the way when she realized what I was up to, but I knocked her off balance as I rushed past her. My hands closed around the hilt before she could complete the sleep spell. When it did hit me, it bounced away harmlessly.
I rose slowly, keeping the blade extended between her and me. It felt awkward in my hand, but that wouldn’t affect the potency of its antimagic field.
Ceridwen’s eyes, now tinged with emerald light, widened as she backed away.
“I don’t know why you decided to betray us,” I said. “But you won’t get away with it.”
I had expected some dramatic attempt to destroy me with magic, but Ceridwen had already seen the sword in action. Her body morphed with incredible speed into that of a raven, and she flew toward the cauldron.
Other Khalid was awkwardly ladling the cauldron’s healing fluid onto Morfran’s wound. The bleeding had stopped, and the wound was closing.
I could have chased after Ceridwen, but she was retreating, and Hafez was a more immediate problem. The strongest weapon against him was the Lyre of Orpheus, and he had hurled the musical power of Hathor at Magnus in the form of a curse that made it impossible for him to play or sing. As soon as the lyre fell silent, Hafez turned on Tal, launching a stream of water powered by Hapy, god of the Nile flood, that extinguished the fire of Tal’s sword.
How long he could keep that up—or suppress Magnus’s musical ability—wasn’t clear. He was expending power at a frantic rate, and the staff seemed nearly empty again. However, the good guys were looking exhausted as well. Their lack of sleep showed in their red eyes and slower-than-normal movements. Michael’s trembling immobility suggested they were drawing on him as hard as they could, but even his fast regeneration wasn’t enough to keep them fighting at peak efficiency.
Could I find Shar and wake him with the sword? No doubt—but I didn’t have the time to do that. The battle could be decided in the next couple of minutes.
I rushed at Hafez, sword raised. He didn’t bother looking in my direction. Instead, he drew from the staff the power of Satet, she who shoots down the pharaoh’s enemies, and a shower of arrows sprayed in all directions. Tal and his friends deflected some by magic and dodged others, but at least one wounded each of them.
“Drop the sword, or I will hit them with another barrage. They will not survive.”
I hesitated. I’d made some tough choices in my life, but I wasn’t prepared for this kind of decision.
“Attack him!” said Tal. I did not have to be as expert as Amenirdis to see that his magic was fading. The others were in no better shape. Michael had managed to pull the arrow out, and his wound had already closed, but he had no magic to begin with, and the others had drawn on him enough to keep him from charging Hafez. Viviane, though skilled in healing, wasn’t having any luck stopping her own bleeding. Khalid had dropped his own bow and was futilely trying to pull the arrow out of his shoulder. David was trying to create a makeshift bandage to slow his bleeding, but his fingers were clumsy with pain and fatigue. Magnus had dropped the now-useless lyre and was trying to cast a spell on Hafez, but the magic twisted and fizzled. He could no longer concentrate well enough to push it toward its intended target.
Could I toss the sword to someone like Tal? I was not familiar enough with it to throw accurately. I’d be more likely to give Tal another wound than anything else.
A giant cat sprang from behind the cauldron and hissed at me. It was about the size of a horse.
“The Cath Palug killed a hundred and eighty men when Sir Kay tried to hunt it long ago,” said Ceridwen as she stepped out of the shadows. “And yes, I summoned it by magic, but that fancy sword will not protect you against the creature’s physical attack. You’d have to be able to kill it, and I see the truth in your eyes—you are no swordswoman.”
Even without the Cath Palug ready to shred me with its claws and teeth, I couldn’t have reached Hafez fast enough to keep him from spraying another round of arrows. The risk was too great.
“Hafez, I’ll cooperate with you—but only if you don’t harm the others and send them back to their own world.”
“No.” Tal’s protest must have been intended as a shout, but it was much closer to a whisper. I was amazed I heard it at all. It didn’t matter, anyway.
“Drop the sword, and kick it toward Ceridwen,” commanded Hafez. I couldn’t kick it very far across the carpet, but he nodded in satisfaction. Raising the staff, he called upon the power of Apep. Snakes appeared and bound Tal and the others in their coils.
The Cath Palug’s eyes turned away from me. It was fascinated by the snakes rising from nowhere. Was it distracted enough for me to risk another grab at the sword?
Other Khalid was too fast for me. He dashed over, grabbed the sword, and started back toward the shadowy area behind the cauldron. There was no way I could cover that much ground.
However, Other Khalid’s rapid movements alarmed the Cath Palug, who swung a claw in his direction. The half djinn moved fast enough to blur. He dodged that razor-sharp claw easily enough, but he dropped the sword in the process—not that it made a difference. It was out of reach and practically right next to the monstrous cat.
Other Khalid made a grab for the sword and managed to touch the hilt. The blade blurred the way the teenager was blurring, but even at that speed, he couldn’t manage to pick it up before the horrendous feline swung again, and he had to abandon it.
I turned my attention back to Hafez. “You promised—”
“If you think back, I didn’t promise anything. Still, I have no reason to kill them if you cooperate.”
The snakes gripped their captives tightly, but they made no attempt to squeeze the life out of them or to strike.
“They’re bleeding, though,” I said. “Some of them are seriously wounded.”
“All the more reason for you to give me what I want quickly. Once I have what I need, Ceridwen will use her cauldron to heal them.”
“What is it you want of me?”
“You know that already. I want you to do what you were born to do.”
Twists and Turns
“I can’t become Amenirdis again, if that’s what you want,” I said. “Arianrhod put a spell on me that blocks her, and I don’t control the magic.”
Hafez sneered at me. “Do you think I don’t know that? I’ve been watching very carefully. Even when you were in Annwn, I was able to see what you were up to. I also know that Arianrhod gave Taliesin the ability to make the spell active or passive. You may not be able to release Amenirdis, but he can.”
“I…won’t,” said Tal. His voice was a raspy whisper, but the look in his eyes was hard as steel.
Hafez chuckled. “I have researched all of you well, and my seer filled in what details I could not easily observe. I knew you would refuse, Taliesin. Magnus, on the other hand, will do what I require.”
“I can’t,” said Magnus.
“You can, and you know it,” said Hafez. “Most magic cannot distinguish between you and Taliesin.”
“Maybe—but I’ll never do it.”
Hafez smiled, but it was the smile of a predator ready to chomp into his prey. “You have long felt that Taliesin’s group does not trust you, have you not? Scowl all you want—you know I speak the truth. You do not belong with them. My seer can find a world that will give you what you most desire, and I can send you there.”
The group had been heavily concealed when Magnus brought up using the staff to find other Evas. How did he know? Still, he was right. Even a newcomer like me had picked up on the fact that Magnus was often the odd man out even before I’d exposed all their deepest secrets.
“Sorry, but your price is too high,” said Magnus. “With the memories of all Tal’s past lives sloshing around in my head, I probably know more about ma
gic in general than you do. But even you should know that disrupting the barriers keeping different planes of existence apart will have catastrophic consequences. Your plan is a one-way trip to the disruption of many universes, perhaps all of them.”
“I thought you might object,” said Hafez. “I’m content to release only the Apep of this world. Even if the effect is as bad as you think—and it isn’t—the chaos will be confined to this universe. You can go somewhere else. Your ‘friends’ can return home.”
“When you put it that way—hell, no!” said Magnus. Hafez recoiled as if he’d been slapped. Like an actor doing live theater when someone else goes completely off-script, for a moment, he didn’t seem to know what to do.
Magnus sneered at him. “You couldn’t possibly know enough about parallel universes to be sure that the disruption of one wouldn’t have an effect on many others.”
“Why not just lift the spell yourself?” asked Ceridwen. “Arianrhod would have made it hard to break from inside so Amenirdis couldn’t escape, but there’s no reason to think you couldn’t break it from outside. Have you not the magic of all the Egyptian gods at your disposal?”
Hafez eyed the staff. “Even its power is not infinite. I had to expend much in our recent battles.”
“Then allow it to recharge. Surely, Apep can wait until this evening or tomorrow to be released.”
“That is not for you to decide!” snapped Hafez. “Besides…” His voice trailed off as he looked at his snake-entwined adversaries.
Hafez’s expression chilled me. Those cold, unyielding eyes betrayed no trace of compassion. He would get what he wanted—even if he had to kill everyone else in the process.
Shar’s sword was still too far away to grab easily, but Hafez and Ceridwen were both focused elsewhere. I dove for it.
The Cath Palug, however, was watching me. As I sailed toward the sword, its claws raked across my back, breaking my momentum and sending me sprawling on the floor.
“She must not die!” yelled Hafez.
“Give me some credit,” said Ceridwen. “I have summoned the Cath Palug. I have ordered it not to end Amy’s life. She is wounded, but not killed. Water from my cauldron will heal her. Khalid, bring some water for Amy’s back.”
The cat’s claws had left deep gouges. I could feel blood gushing from at least two of them, trickling from the rest. I had little choice but to wait for Other Khalid to come and apply the water.
The sword was still close, but I was never going to reach it now.
When the water dribbled over me, the bleeding stopped, and the wounds closed. There was no residual pain. It was as if the cat’s claws had never touched me.
I pulled myself off the floor. “My friends need healing, too.”
“They can wait until one of them agrees to help. Either Tal or Magnus could give me what I want. If they would rather see one or more of their companions bleed out, so be it.”
“And if they are first to die?” asked Ceridwen.
“It is not your place to question me,” said Hafez. I had thought Magnus’s scowl was creepy, but Hafez’s was ten times worse.
Of course, Hafez didn’t want anybody healed. Wounded, maybe bleeding out, his captives were weak. Healed, they might pose more of a problem. Those snakes didn’t look as impressive to me as some of Hafez’s earlier manifestations—more evidence of low power.
The problem was that I had no way to exploit his weakness. He was good enough using the staff as a weapon that I’d have no chance unarmed, nor even with a sword. Shar’s would disrupt his magic, but he wouldn’t need magic against me, and Cath Palug stood in the way.
What I needed was magic of my own. I didn’t know how to use the little that I had.
I needed Amenirdis.
I felt nothing but hatred for her and shame for the part I had played in her previous betrayal of my friends. Letting her out again was risking the same outcome—or worse. But what choice was there? Hafez had won unless I could do catch him by surprise. And Amenirdis had regretted what she’d done. I was sure of that.
Maybe I could use Amenirdis to defeat Hafez without her getting hold of the staff again. Maybe I was just kidding myself. Some hope was better than none.
At some point, my psychic connection to Tal and the others had dissipated. Yeah, the same connection Amenirdis would have given anything to break had died of its own accord. Was there any remnant of it? I felt around in my head. I could see magic. I could sense it. Maybe I could reconnect from whatever residual tie remained. Amenirdis had done such a thing before, and Tal had said I had magic.
The one good thing about our current situation is that nothing I could do would make it worse.
I felt something in my mind that seemed not to belong. It could be a tiny echo from the network. I reached for it as hard as I could.
My concentration broke when a ray like moonlight struck me. I stared at Hafez, his piercing eyes gleaming silver in the light of his spell, his mouth twisted in another scowl. He was taking Ceridwen’s advice after all. Arianrhod was associated with the moon as well as with reincarnation. Hafez was attempting to use the magic of Egyptian moon gods, first Khonsu and then Thoth, to break the spell. He might have succeeded if he’d tried that at full power, but as it was, the door behind which Amenirdis was sealed shook slightly but didn’t open.
A reasonable person would have stopped at that point, but Hafez was looking more and more frantic as the power of the staff ebbed. Instead of trying to conserve what was left, he kept on lashing Arianrhod's spell with moonbeams. The glow silvered his whole face now, making him look inhuman, but I could still see his expression. It was that of a man teetering on the edge of reason, ready at any moment to fall into the abyss of madness.
The extra magic in my mind did make the anomaly I was seeing clearer. I concentrated on it, and I could hear a little of the mental conversation among Tal and his friends.
I almost called out to Tal. At the last second, I hesitated. He wouldn’t do what I wanted, at least not right away. The next few moments might be all we had.
“Magnus?”
“Amy? I can just barely hear you.” His thoughts sounded like a staticky phone connection in which the person on the other end was whispering, but that was better than nothing.
“I have a plan, but I’m afraid Tal won’t agree to it. I need you to release Amenirdis, but don’t tell Hafez you’re doing it.”
“Insane much? Even if Hafez is right, and the spell will see me as Tal, Amenirdis is just as much of a threat to us as Hafez is—maybe more.”
His tired face twisted in disgust, but I couldn’t take no for an answer.
“She’s seen more of Hafez now. That may have changed her outlook. And seeing the havoc her spell produced definitely had an impact. I know that for sure. I felt her regret.
“Anyway, what other option do you have? Hafez is going to kill all of you soon. He’ll kill me, too, as soon as he gets what he wants. That’s if the disruption of the whole universe doesn’t kill me first.”
“Are you sure? Letting Amenirdis out is a bigger risk to you than it is to any of the rest of us.” For a moment, Magnus’s thoughts felt like Tal’s. Warmed by his concern, I wondered if they were really more alike than either of them was willing to admit.
“Yes.”
“Brace yourself.”
The door holding back Amenirdis from the rest of my mind flew open, and the god’s wife of Amun ripped control away from me before I had a chance to have the conversation I’d visualized with her.
I should have known. Now I’d screwed up everything again.
The Universe at Stake
Amy kept trying to shout at me, but I buried her as deeply as I could. If I were to have any chance of defeating Hafez, I needed to be free of distractions.
She spoke the truth about my regret. Never again would I harm her strange companions in such a way. She was also correct in thinking I could never ally with Hafez.
However, I had pondered my
situation from the moment Tal locked me away. He was wrong about the effect freeing Amun would have. Of that I was sure. I had to find some way to free my god. I would find a better way this time, one that did not make me feel as low as Hafez.
He was distracted by his former captive—a good thing for me. Had he still been trying to break the spell that held me prisoner, he could not have helped noticing my reemergence. His lack of attention gave me a moment to evaluate the situation.
He had nearly drained the staff again. He still had some of the power he would naturally have possessed as a pharaoh. I couldn’t be sure how much that was. Pharaohs always gained some magic from their most significant patron gods, but that did not prevent them from learning other kinds. No one would have had the time to learn as broad a range as the staff held, but Apepi’s life had been longer than most.
The ones imprisoned in snake coils were still held, and their blood still fell, drop by drop, into the carpeting. I would get neither help nor hindrance from them. That was just as well—they were unreliable allies at best, enemies at worst. They may have forgiven Amy, but I doubted they would ever forgive me.
Hafez would probably never be weaker than now. I used a burst of Ra’s sunlight to blind him, Ceridwen, and her giant cat. Before any of them could recover, I threw myself at Hafez and pulled the staff from his hands. I wrapped him in Amun’s wind, confusing him and keeping him pinned against the wall.
The Khalid of this world charged at me with a dagger, so I blinded him as well, hitting Ceridwen and the cat with another burst in the process. The boy kept coming, agile despite his blindness, but I dodged his misaimed charge.
The advantage of surprise would not last me much longer. I targeted Hafez with the staff and stripped away what was left of his Wadjet protection.
Holding the staff enabled me to gauge how much power it had much more accurately. If I added what power it had left to mine, I could fry Hafez with wrathful sunlight.
His eyes widened as he read my intent. With a great heave, he pulled himself away from the wall and grabbed the boy, holding Other Khalid between him and me like a shield.