“What sort of creatures live down here?” Justine asked him in a ragged whisper.
“Live? You can hardly say anything lives this close to the Netherworld, dear child. Beings do occupy this region, but their existence is very different from yours.”
Something huge and hairy came bounding forward to press itself against Justine like an affectionate dog, but within the hair it had no bones, merely a jellylike form that molded itself disgustingly to her leg. She gave a gasp of horror and pulled away, almost breaking free of Lars Porsena’s grasp.
His fingers swiftly tightened again on her wrist. “You do not want to do that,” he cautioned her. “If you break contact with me I cannot keep your body alive, not down here. Look ahead and you will see light. We have almost reached our destination, dear child. Blessed art thou among women, for you are about to experience wonders.”
FORTY
Khebet sat beside the body of Horatius, trying not to look down at the emptied face.
J should have gone with him, thought the Aegyptian. Or I should go back to Rome. In fact, I should never have come to Rome.
Regrets were futile. He could not leave the comatose body. He could only sit and wait.
Daylight beyond the mouth of the cave, already partially blocked by shrubbery, gradually disappeared. The creatures of the night began to make their presence known. Owls hooted, predators emerged from their burrows and began to take prey. A tiny voice shrieked in pain.
Khebet sat cross-legged on the floor of the cave in the dark and waited. Thirst began to torment him. He found himself dreaming of golden barley beer with beads of moisture running down the side of the cup or crystal flagons of melon and pomegranate juice or a great pitcher of cool water from the well in the temple courtyard. And rain. Slanting silver rain replenishing the Nile, making all things green.
When he ran an exploratory tongue over his lips they were cracked and dry.
When this was over, he was going to return to his own land and immerse himself in the Great Mother of Rivers until her water soaked into every pore of his skin.
He had used water from the tiny stream that ran through the cave to make the potion he had given to Horatius, preparing the mixture in a naturally hollowed-out stone the size of an infant’s head. The water had seemed pure enough, though foul-smelling, but he was strangely unwilling to drink any of it himself. A priest of Anubis could surely overlook such a small inconvenience as a dry mouth.
The body he guarded was indifferent to discomfort. It merely waited.
Periodically Khebet put his fingertips against the broad, strong throat. The faintest sluggish pulse beat there, like a candle guttering just before it goes out. So far the ritual had worked, but Khebet knew full well the hardest part lay ahead, if Horatius returned at all.
He heard someone approaching. Rustling bushes betrayed the presence of several large bodies.
“Who is out there?” called Khebet. “I warn you, I am armed!” His hand dropped to the hilt of the small ceremonial knife he always carried tucked in his sash.
The rustling of the shrubbery ceased. Something was breathing out there, a stertorous breathing that did not sound quite human to the alarmed Aegyptian.
Khebet bent and fumbled on the floor of the cave, searching for the hollowed-out stone that had contained Horatius’s potion. Then he slipped his knife from his sash and held the blade between his teeth. Untying the sash, he knotted one end of it around the stone.
Now he had two weapons. Yet he had never been so afraid.
The four outside the cave conferred silently with one another. Those whom they sought had gone within; there was no doubt of it. They must follow. But there was an obstacle.
Their leader thrust his body through the shrubbery until he stood in the entrance to the caverns. At that moment there was a silken, whirring sound; then a missile struck him a painful blow on the side of the head.
He staggered backward out of the cave.
“Got one!” Khebet gasped around the knife he still held in his teeth. He could hear them milling around and was not comforted by the fact that they did not speak aloud. The sounds they did make were sufficiently alarming. To Khebet’s anxious ears it seemed as if something very heavy was being dragged through the undergrowth. And there was a curious dry sibilation like that of scaled bodies rubbing against one another.
Khebet was reminded of a nest of newly hatched snakes he had disturbed on the banks of the Nile in his boyhood, long before he learned serpents were sacred …
… and the glee he had taken in throwing brush down upon them and setting fire to the nest, watching the little snakes twist and writhe in agony.
No sooner had the image flashed through his mind than there was a concerted rush at the mouth of the cave. Flinging up his arms, Khebet spat out his knife so he could cry with all his might, “Great Anubis, empower me!”
A jackal howled.
Fire.
And the Little Ones burning.
The four had responded in fury to the picture in Khebet’s mind. Sacrilege! The dark goddess would never forgive them if they did not punish the perpetrator of such an obscene act. Gathering around their leader, they attacked the cave with every intention of slaughtering the person inside. Pythia was always pleased by sacrifice.
As they filled the entrance a wall of fire blossomed just in front of them.
So intense was the heat that Khebet staggered back, but he did not lower his arms. He had called the flame from the living rock through the power of Anubis. This was the most potent of magics. He had secretly believed himself incapable of such great work. Thankfully, he was wrong.
When he felt Horatius’s body against the back of his ankles, he shuffled his feet to push his friend farther from the flames. But Horatius was powerfully built, not easily pushed. Khebet would have to take hold of him with his hands and drag him, and that he dare not do. If he lowered his arms, the flames would die.
And so would he and Horatius.
The obedient flame roared upward to the ceiling of the cave and licked along it greedily, seeking out and feeding upon the tiny lichens that clung there. The fire-voice roared.
“Great Anubis, Jackal Lord, all praise to you from this your servant!” shouted Khebet to be heard above the fire.
Maintaining the wall of flame required a vast expenditure of physical energy. The Aegyptian could actually feel the heat being drawn from his body, even while it radiated back to scorch his face. He did not know how long he could continue to provide the barrier. His fingers were growing numb, pins and needles radiating down his arms, locking his wrists and elbows into knots of pain.
Then through a momentary break in the flames he caught a glimpse of the four hooded strangers. They lurked just inside the cave mouth, waiting, waiting. Only the fire could drive them away.
Khebet tried to summon courage. When he acted it was not bravery, however, but terror that impelled him. He would die unless he made himself move. He stepped forward toward the four, driving the wall of flame ahead of him into their faces.
There came a hiss of pain and the stink of scorched cloth.
When the fire bellied out to meet them they tried to hold their ground, but nothing living could resist flame. Tiny blue lights danced on their oiled skins and they retreated beyond the mouth of the cave and stood huddled together there, trying to decide what to do next.
Within the cave the Aegyptian desperately held up his tiring arms and wondered what to do. It was getting hard to breathe. The fire was using up the oxygen in the cave and drawing in replacement air from the lower caverns. Air that smelled of sulfur; noxious air that lay heavy in the lungs.
Khebet was wracked by such a fit of coughing he momentarily lowered his arms.
The flames dipped; the four beyond the cave mouth glided forward.
“Back!” screamed Khebet, recovering. His arms stretched high once more; the flames leaped higher.
The four stopped.
The man within the cave s
hivered violently in spite of the fire. “I do not want to die here, Lord Anubis,” Khebet said in a hoarse whisper. “Not here, so far from the valley of the Nile. This is not my place, and the cause in which I fight is not my cause. Have mercy on this your servant!”
FORTY-ONE
He was dead.
Yet not dead.
The boy within him knew he should be terrified. But since that dreadful day when he’d left personal fear behind, only insatiable curiosity remained, untempered by caution or experience.
He could still feel fear for others however.
Vesi had been the hub of his life. Although his body was entering manhood, the child inside was still far too young to imagine life without her. To restore her to himself he would undertake anything, even the ritual that made him dead and notdead. For a fearless child the prospect was a great adventure.
There had been a brief, unsettling moment after he emerged from his fleshly shell when he found himself staring down at his own body. Khebet was crouching over him with long fingers pressed to his throat. In his other hand the priest still held the drinking vessel he had fashioned of huge leaves, containing the dregs of narcotic poison.
The Aegyptian twisted around to look up with his third eye at Horatius’s ka. Khebet’s lips did not move, but the young man clearly heard the ancient language of the Black Land. “May the gods speed you on your mission.”
Horatius had then begun the journey from which no one ever returned.
The way to the Netherworld was far from straightforward. The caverns comprised a passageway disorientingly located between different planes of existence. To complicate matters, being a disembodied spirit did not allow Horatius the ease of movement he had expected. In order to make any progress he had to force his hia forward through sheer concentration. Although he had no physical body this required a tremendous amount of effort.
Water was both a conduit and a barrier between the worlds of the living and the dead. He followed the course of the river because Khebet had told him it was the surest guide to his destination, but whenever he drew too close he sensed he could not cross.
Down he went, and down, ever farther from light and sun.
Horatius was still aware of physical surroundings: the walls of the caverns, the increasing volume of the river, the sulfurous stench that wafted upward from the depths. But behind stone and earth and water he saw, as if in a clouded mirror, another world.
Otherworld.
And the deeper he went, the farther away from light and life, the clearer it became.
This was a place of spirits and shades, of the ephemeral and the immortal. The Otherworld was a realm of dreams and nightmares, yet in its own way more real than the world he had just left behind.
Here myriad intangible figures swirled and danced in complex patterns much older than man. With a sense of mounting amazement, Horatius realized that earthly life as he knew it was nothing more than the skin on the surface of a sea of incalculable depth. Within that sea were glowing multicolored constellations inhabited by multitudes of spirits. Some were gorgeous; some were shocking. All were occupied with pursuits far removed from the interests of humankind. Their existence underlaid and even collided with his, yet until that moment he had known nothing about them.
Horatius was swept by an almost irresistible desire to join their seductive dance. Without the burden of a human body he could spend an eternity exploring the wonders of the Otherworld. The adventurous small boy inside him was sorely tempted. It would be so easy to leave the river and wander off. But instinctively he knew that if he did so, he would never return to the body that awaited him or rescue his mother.
Abandon her now and she will be forever lost, said a familiar voice.
A face swam toward him out of the darkness. A narrow, aristocratic face with long-lidded eyes and a distinctive beard on its chin.
Horatius’s mouth worked, but no sound came out.
You have no need of a physical voice in this place. Think your words, imagine your phrases. This is the place of words made flesh.
“Who are you?” Horatius asked in his head.
“In human life I was Pepan, Lord of the Rasne. As I told you before, I was a friend of your grandmother and of your mother.”
“And you are with me now?” This business of talking in one’s head was intriguing.
“I have always been with you. No one walks alone. You have been reinforced more than most, however, and you will need still more help if you are to succeed in your mission. Come, we have not far to go.”
“Are we near the Netherworld, Pepan? I hope to catch up with my mother before they—whoever they are—take her across the Styx.”
“You cannot. You are at too much of a disadvantage here, neither totally alive nor truly dead. Be patient. Once you enter the Netherworld we will be able to give you appropriate armor and weapons. Then you can fight for your mother with some hope of winning.”
Horatius said stubbornly, “I don’t want to wait; I want to save her now!”
Pepan sighed. “You do not realize what you challenge. Right now Vesi is little more than an empty shell used by one of the Ais, a goddess who sometimes speaks through her defenseless mouth. She is also the captive of a siu, a demon of formidable powers. Few mortals have ever been more at the mercy of the Otherworld.”
“A goddess? A demon?” Horatius struggled to understand. “Why have they chosen my mother?”
“Who can explain the motives of such beings? They play elaborate games according to their own rules. No human can understand them. But we are not without powers of our own, that is what I am trying to tell you. Once you are across the Styx … see ahead, where the river narrows and then rushes downward through an opening like a gullet? At that point we make our crossing.”
“Will I be truly dead then?” It was a small boy’s question.
“Truly dead.”
“And dead forever?”
“Nothing is dead forever.”
Horatius could sense the increased momentum of forces rushing toward the narrow opening. The mouth of the tunnel was formed like a skull with jaws agape. Stalactites and stalagmites resembled jagged teeth. Turbulent rapids were created as black water boiled with the effort of trying to force too great a volume through the open jaws. Back through the tunnel came the deafening roar of a mighty waterfall beyond, a wailing as of a million souls in torment.
In spite of himself Horatius hesitated. “Do you mean we have to go through there?”
“That is the only way. Are you afraid?”
“I haven’t been afraid since Wulv and my grandmother were killed,” Horatius boasted. “I was told to walk away from my fear and I did. But … this is different.”
“Yes, this is different. Until you make your decision, the only help I can offer is to assure you that you are not alone.”
“My decision … are you suggesting … I could turn around and go back?”
“There is still time,” Pepan replied, “if that is what you want.”
“More than anything else—except to save my mother.”
“Your decision is already made then.”
Suddenly Horatius felt as if a great burden was lifted from him. How liberating it was to fix on one star and let all else follow! “Yes, my decision is made. I choose not to be afraid. And I never go back.”
“Good,” Pepan approved. “Now we have to get you across the Styx. Look closely. Just before the river plunges downward you will see a tiny pier and a boat. The boatman is called Charun. Once you pay your fare his boat will carry you through the rapids, into that tunnel, down the waterfall that lies beyond, and deposit you safely on the opposite shore.”
“Where will I be then?”
“In the Netherworld. And I will be there to help you.”
“How am I to pay Charun? I have nothing.”
Pepan laughed. “Usually a coin is placed in the mouth of a person at the time of their Dying in order to pay the boatman. Since you had no prop
er Dying, I will provide you with a coin. I am Lord of the Silver People after all. Otherwise you would have to tell Charun a secret; sometimes he will accept that as a fare.”
As they drew near the pier and the boat, Horatius saw Charun waiting for them, tapping his foot impatiently. The boatman had the appearance of a very old man with a morose visage, cavernous eye sockets, and overly developed arms and shoulders. In his right hand he held a heavy hammer. As they approached he raised his left arm, hand outstretched.
A shadowy arm reached past Horatius and dropped something shiny into the boatman’s open palm. Charun hefted the coin, judging its weight, then closed one eye and squinted at the silver through the other. At last he spat through a gap in his teeth and nodded. “This will do,” he said grudgingly. “Passage for one. Who stays?”
Neither. A second coin fell into his hand.
“Passage for two to the Netherworld.” Charun’s nostrils flared and he inclined his head toward Horatius. “Are you sure this one is dead? There is the stink of life about him.”
“He is ready for the Netherworld,” Pepan replied, not answering the question.
“Are you being met? If you set off on your own through the Netherworld, you’ll regret it. Satres rules there as god, but the only sure safety is with Veno, Protectress of the Dead. And you’ll need someone to guide you to her, you know.”
Pepan hesitated. “Our situation is different from most.”
Charun shrugged. “Not being met. The more fool you then. But come ahead; it’s nothing to me.”
For such a turbulent voyage the boat seemed very small and flimsy. Horatius and Pepan had no physical bodies to entrust to its care, but their spirits could not make the crossing unaided.
“Water is too powerful for a hia,” Pepan explained. “Water has life of its own and is holy. Our spirits must be carried across.”
They did not step into Charun’s boat; rather, it folded around them. Its sides were curiously spongy, giving Horatius the impression of a huge stomach. “We can’t see!” he protested.
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