As Anne moved closer to the statue, her mind did the calculations. Just the jewels alone were enough to buy kingdoms several times over. The gold and the ivory were incalculable in value. She stood near the bone base and felt something crunch beneath her boots, buried under the dust and sand surrounding the base of the statue. Anne knelt and thrust her hand under the accumulation of time, and pulled up a hand full of small, perfect rubies, hundreds in just this handful. Anne laughed and let them fall between her fingers, like the sand. Rooting around in the sand, she found thousands of similar rubies, each roughly the size and shape of a pea; they seemed to cover much of the floor of the arena, under the dust and debris. They were exactly like the small ruby that was linked to the map in the box that had led her to Carcosa.
While there was an eerie feeling of life to the statue, Anne didn’t feel the mental presence that had led her here. She wished Raashida was with her now.
“Well, if you’re Lilith, how about giving a lass a hand then, eh?” Anne said to the giant golden figure bathed in moonlight. Her voice echoed across the empty arena, the ancient air disturbed by the sound. Nothing happened. Anne circled the statue, the dwindling torch in one hand and a handful of the tiny rubies in the other. Anne paused. She heard a very faint noise. It sounded like glass against glass, a tiny “tink” sound.
Anne moved toward the front of the statue and again stood close to the bone base. As she knelt, examining the large featureless wall at the foot of the statue, a tiny crimson bead fell, bounced off the base with a faint “click” and landed near Anne’s feet, among the other rubies, dust and sand. Anne looked up at the statue and dropped the rubies and the torch. She tucked her knife back in her boot, got a running start and then jumped. Her fingers hooked on the edge of the bone base, but began to slip; the surface was as smooth as polished marble. Her fingers found a small worn crack and she hung on as her feet sought traction. Anne managed to struggle to the top of the bone cube and reach the feet of the golden statue.
Looking out at the vast floor, she saw the moonlight catching flashes of the tiny rubies partly exposed under the sand and dust, all the way to the walls in every direction. The moon seemed brighter now, as if had become full in the span of minutes. She also thought she caught sight of several large circular patterns in the floor of the room, equidistantly spaced about the arena. Whatever the patterns were, she spotted a metallic shimmer off of them in the bright moonlight.
As she stood there, trying to figure out what the large circular divots might be, another tiny ruby dropped from above and bounced off the base to the floor of the arena. Anne rapped on the golden leg of the statue and it made a dull hollow sound. She looked up toward the face of the golden woman.
“What the hell are those?” she whispered to the statue. “Let’s see.”
Climbing the actual statue was much easier; there were hand and foot holds everywhere and all of them worth a king’s ransom. Anne was at the arms when she heard another “plink” below as yet another tiny ruby fell from above her, bounced and joined the others, some thirty feet below. Anne was fairly certain where the ruby had fallen from. She planted her boot in the swell of the statue’s breasts and climbed the final five feet until she was face to face with Lilith. A cold wind caressed Anne as she looked into the near-featureless face of the first woman. The gold of the face was polished to a near-mirror shine, and as Anne saw her own reflection in the face of the goddess, she recalled the vision of the hall of masks and the mirror. The black opals of the eyes gazed into Anne’s own, almost hypnotically. The crimson of the rubies at the center of the dark wells glowed with a secret power, a hidden knowledge she was trying to etch onto Anne’s very soul.
“You are as I was.” The voice was Anne’s own speaking inside her head, but the words seemed to come from somewhere outside of herself. “Let no one, no power, take you away from you.” A single dark red tear formed at the inner edge of the left eye of the statue. It was wet. It looked like a drop of blood. Anne watched as it grew fat, swelled, and fell from the goddess’s eye. By the time it hit the base of the statue, it was a tiny crimson ruby. It bounced off the base and joined the thousands—tens of thousands? million?—of others below, a sea of frozen tears. “You carry creation within you. You created the world, you can change it.”
Anne leaned in closer to the face, her face, her reflection.
“It was you,” Anne whispered. “You were the kite, you were the one speaking to Raashida and to me, in our dreams, our visions. It was you.” She saw the look of certainty in her own eyes, and she knew, no matter the cost, no matter the consequences, that she was doing this because she would regret it the rest of her life if she didn’t. A new tear welled at the goddess’s eye, and Anne kissed the statue, tasted the cold, smooth gold and the bright metallic bite of the single perfect drop of blood as it lost its tension against her tongue. It was burning her tongue like a hot ember of sensation—pleasure and pain, so close as to be the same thing. She felt it scald its way down her throat; she had swallowed a burning crimson star. The fire diffused at her core, sending searing light along every vein, every artery, every nerve. The fiery brilliance filled every crease in her brain. Millions of voices were all talking at once, so loud, so much to understand, to know, to be.
At the core of the radiant burning that was unmaking her, renewing her, Anne told herself, with immutable certainty, “Yes, you can do all this, you can be all this. You have it within, and no one can take it from you, no one but you.” The blood was a crimson thread burning through Anne. Her eyes saw each of the tiny beads of Lilith’s blood upon the floor of the arena, connected to the glowing ruby thread, a constellation in scarlet. She could sense Raashida far away, across space and worlds, searching for her, and another, older Raashida, talking with a handsome young man, suddenly feeling her regard across the ocean of time. She heard the voice calling again. The older woman’s voice calling for her help. The threads moved and tangled across the arena as Carcosa lurched and bucked like a clumsy, angry animal, shifting spaces and folding time. Anne reached out for the woman, took hold of her end of the red thread and pulled herself toward the presence calling out to her desperately, as reality shattered like mirrored glass the color of rose.
33
The Magician (Reversed)
Somewhere in the Sahara Desert, North Africa
July 21, 1871
Inna Barkov led her party through the silent skull-paved streets of Carcosa. In her hand, she carried her spear, a great shaft of darkly stained oak with a wide silver tip shaped like a stylized leaf. The spear was old and had been given to her by her mentor, Roksana, a Daughter of Lilith who had been a member of the ancient order of the Polinitzi, ancient female warriors of a fearsome reputation.
Her fellow Daughters, Itzel and Ya, followed her. Itzel, the lithe Guatemalan Daughter, carried her macuahuitl, an Aztec wooden club-sword lined with blades of razor-sharp obsidian. Itzel carried it casually over one shoulder, and Inna had to resist the urge to point out that the weapon was almost as big as she was. Ya carried no weapons, save a few narrow, shingle-like throwing blades for range, but the Chinese Daughter was imminently confident that her martial training was all she needed. Ya was an arrogant bitch, and part of Inna wished that she could put Ya’s ego to the test herself.
The two younger girls, Inna’s daughter, Lesya, and their captive, Constance Stapleton, followed close behind. Lesya was armed with the nosh, an ornate hunting knife, which Inna had given to her as a birthday present a few years back. Constance had no weapons, of course, but the girl had proven more than capable of defending herself over the past month with just her training. Inna was impressed by how the girl carried herself, especially knowing what was in store for her.
The sandstorm that hounded them for days had finally broken in the early evening and had uncovered much of the unearthly city for the pilgrims. Inna was unsure if the storm was finished with them, or if this was merely a lull. Itzel had said something about the earth not wa
nting Carcosa upon its surface. How she knew such things Inna did not wish to dwell upon. Itzel no longer carried her “pets” with her—the butterflies and hummingbirds she had trained and commanded using her weird talents. Neither creature would have survived the trek through the Sahara. Inna was thankful in a way. The little bruja unnerved her already without her command of the creatures, almost seeming to be able to listen to the thoughts of others. Itzel had begun feeling ill as soon as they had crested the dunes of the deep desert and seen the great luminous bone walls of the city glowing in the moonlight.
“This place is unstuck in time,” Itzel had said, wiping the vomit from her lips with the back of her hand. “It is an affront to the very space about it. So much death here, and there are … things trapped inside that must never get free.” They had approached the city like phantoms on the chill night wind, invisible, silent as they crept through the great jaw of a gate. Around the Daughters, temporal shades of past and future swirled, faded, distances melted and stretched. Only Constance seemed unaffected by the phenomena, though once she did speak to someone none of the others could see.
Inna led them toward the location Alexandria had told them was the place for the sacrifice. Alexandria had said that if one focused on specific landmarks, those would never change; even as the very universe seemed to slip and crumple about you, you could navigate the city of bone as long as you found a common anchor and held it in your mind. Alexandria had told them to focus on finding the tablets and that those would lead them to the Well of the Mother.
The trip across the upper Sahara had not been an easy one, even with their training. They had been dogged by the violent sandstorms, as if the desert itself were trying to stop them, and there had been a short, and brutal, encounter with Ottoman bandits after they had docked at Tripoli and gotten underway into the northern desert.
Their captive, Constance, had been cooperative and even helpful in a few spots, fighting alongside them against the bandits, and helping with all the day-to-day struggles to simply survive in this hellish landscape. Inna liked the girl, and that made her hate what was coming even more. Lesya and Constance had become nearly inseparable during the voyage from America to London and then on to Africa. Constance was a good girl, and a good friend to her daughter.
Inna had tried to figure if there was any other way out of this horrible mess, but she was no occultist, no expert on witchcraft or prophecy. She had always been content to let the Mother’s mysteries remain mysteries. You did not need to know how the sun or the moon rose to be in wonder of them. Alexandria’s explanation of the prophecy seemed to make perfect sense, but it made Inna’s soul sick.
The longer and further away from Alexandria’s reasoned arguments, the more the Russian began to doubt them. The narrow, spiraling staircase was made of giant teeth, filed and sanded smooth. It led down to a cavernous opening, the orbit of some giant skull, perhaps. The raging forces that tore apart cause and effect in this city seemed to give them a temporary reprieve as they reached the bottom of the stairs. There was desert sand everywhere, as the wasteland tried to reclaim its grip on this blasphemous place. The group silently entered the cave. There was a pile of stone tablets, most partly broken, others little more than piles of rubble. Inna recognized the landmark. All the tablets prominently displayed the looped cross, the ankh, like the tablet Alexandria had in the chapter house in London.
“This way,” Inna said, “it’s this way.” She looked at Constance and saw the fear flit behind the child’s eyes. Constance took a deep breath, and the terror was put away. They continued on. A few yards past the tablets was a rectangular pit that dropped into darkness. Inna halted and began to unpack her rope and climbing equipment. Ya prepared lanterns and oil. “Alexandria said it took her about fifty yards of rope to reach the bottom,” Ya said.
“And yet the one who has been here before, the one who wishes this done, remains behind,” Inna said, carefully arranging the coils of rope. Ya stopped her preparations and looked to the Russian.
“If you don’t have the stomach for what has to be done, I will attend to it,” Ya said. “We all have our roles to play in this war, and Alexandria’s is to plan and lead. She will follow after if we do not succeed.”
“That’s reassuring,” Inna said. “This is my command, my mission, and I will direct how it proceeds. Don’t forget that … sister.”
“Merely reminding you of your duty,” Ya said, and went back to her task, “… sister.”
Lesya and Constance worked together to put on and adjust the buckles and steel rings on their canvas rope harnesses.
“Are you all right?” Lesya asked. Constance nodded. “I won’t let them hurt you,” the young Russian said. “My mother will find another way.”
Constance started to say something, but stopped herself. Tears filled her eyes. “All the dreams lead to here,” she finally said. “This is the end, the last dream. Please, Lesya, be careful down there. Please. I’ll be all right. Just you be as careful as you can be.”
The descent in the dizzy darkness felt like it lasted for years, far longer than fifty yards of space. At the bottom they found themselves in a massive arena, walled in giant bones and open to the night sky, the floor of the room covered in sand and bone dust. At the center of the arena floor was a giant statue of gold, ivory and gems—a woman, her arms raised to the pregnant moon, whose light washed over the floor of the arena, giving everything a ghostly pall. The statue’s head was lowered, as if she were regarding, or mourning something. The shaft had dropped them near the covered edge of one of the massive bone walls, facing the statue. The rope remained, dangling and secure. As the last of the party, Itzel dropped to the sand.
“This place…” the tiny Daughter uttered “… the terrible things locked here, this is the cage that holds them.” Itzel crouched and pushed the sand and dust away, revealing shimmering tiny rubies, thousands of them, and as she dug beneath the gems, she came to a curve of silver, solid silver—the edges of a massive circular well cap, covered with tiny intricate etchings, spiraling inward to the center of the circle.
“It’s … it’s like the silver floor in the well room,” Constance said. The others looked puzzled.
“You’ve seen this before?” Ya asked.
“In Golgotha,” Constance said. “There was a room with a floor of solid silver and symbols like this all over it. It had a well in it. There was a … horrible thing … the first horrible thing … at the bottom of that well, trying to escape. My mother stopped it. She saved everyone.”
“Constance is correct,” Itzel said, her palm to the silver seal. “The things imprisoned under this must never be free. They are Typhon’s children, the ones born of his maker’s purest blood, and they know nothing of death or ending. They would kill … millions, drive millions more mad.” Itzel looked up at Constance with a look of child-like horror on her face. “They … know you’re here, Constance. They’re … glad you’re here. Something is wrong, my friends.”
“Yes,” Inna said. “Something must be wrong! We need to understand what’s going on. Alexandria said nothing about these creatures being locked away here!”
“We must get the ritual under way,” Ya said. “The sooner we renew the Grail and be gone from here, the better for all of us.”
“Except Constance,” Lesya said accusingly.
“Keep your child’s tongue under control, Inna,” Ya said. “Remember our goal, what’s at stake.”
The chamber rumbled, and Itzel gasped as if she had been stabbed. “The monsters, they are stirring, they sense us here and they are shaking the foundations of the city in their excitement to be free.”
Ya took Constance by the arm and began to lead her toward the statue. Inna took the Chinese Daughter’s wrist and stopped her. Ya released Constance. “Go over there with Lesya and Itzel,” she told the American girl. Ya’s cool gaze met Inna’s fierce blue eyes. “Remove your hand from me now, Barkov. Don’t you see what’s happening? This place is affectin
g you, it’s influencing Itzel. It’s trying to confuse us and keep us from what we have to do. I am not your enemy, but I will not allow anyone to stop me from renewing the Grail. Let … go.”
The foundation of the city trembled again. Itzel stood and shook off the repellent alien thoughts that had been leaking over into her own mind. “Inna, she may be correct,” Itzel said, trying to step between the two. “We can trust very little of our senses here. We must be away soon, or Carcosa will devour us.”
“I respect the girl too,” Ya said to Inna. “She sees her destiny, knows her duty and faces it with honor. I will do what has to be done, and I swear upon the spirit of my master, Ng Mui Si Tai, that the child shall know no pain.” Inna let go of Ya’s wrist and all three of the Daughters of Lilith turned to Constance.
“Come, child,” Ya said, even as the city shook again, “it is time.”
* * *
Carcosa was tearing at itself like a wild animal. The Earth was rejecting the City of Monsters’ very presence upon its surface. Maude and Amadia rushed through the winding tangle of narrow streets; they had managed to pick up the faint trail of the Daughter’s party, but had lost it when the world began to shift and flow like melting wax.
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