by Leena Maria
And she came just like Hades, appearing out of nowhere. Ambrogio could see her form in the silver glow of the blood on the ground. Her yellow gaze met the torso lying on the ground, and then turned to the shaking Ambrogio.
"You did this?"
"I did, oh mighty Artemis."
"Why?"
Ambrogio was not prepared to answer this. He had only been told to give the body as a gift to Artemis, and he had not thought about it any further.
"Someone told you I hunt for these?"
"Yes, my goddess," Ambrogio stammered.
She laughed.
"I can imagine who this someone was. Trying to win my favour back..."
She left it at that and Ambrogio was glad she did not press the subject.
"I am glad. You have repaid well your debt of the kithara. We shall discuss the forever in my service later."
Artemis bent down and dipped her fingers into the silvery blood. She smeared it in her fingers. It shone beautifully in the increasing morning light of the eastern sky. She laughed at the sight. And then she raised her other hand, where she held what looked like a small silver bow and slashed the air with it. A gap appeared, behind which was grey mist. She stepped into it, turned around, and the cut in the air vanished.
Ambrogio stared in disbelief. Artemis had a weapon that could slice through the air itself.
"Master..." a hoarse whisper behind him made him swirl around.
It was his shadow.
"We can return now," the shadow bowed, "the girl came and found your letter and read it."
"What... How did she react?" Ambrogio almost grabbed the shoulders of the shadowy form, but could not make himself do it. It looked too much like a demon of his childhood nightmares.
"She looked around, searching for you. I did not show myself but observed her from the misty place."
Misty place... That had to be the reality behind the human world, behind which the afterworld and the abode of Hades were situated.
"Yes? And then?"
"She folded the letter, hid the bundle she was carrying under an opening on a rock by the roadside and continued towards the temple."
The shining rim of the sun's disk appeared on the eastern edge of the sky. Ambrogio felt the pain on his face increasing. The shadow grabbed his arm and pulled him into the mist. They did not move as easily as Hades had. There was an unpleasant feeling of being stuck into a sticky substance that did not allow Ambrogio to move. But the shadow pulled and pulled, and the resistance eased slowly. Then the mist cleared, and Ambrogio could move again. A landscape appeared, and soon they were walking towards the city of Hades, across the rolling hills, that appeared almost solid and real. There was an occasional thinning here and there where the grey mist showed through, but the shadow did not seem to find these alarming and kept walking, leading Ambrogio ahead.
The sun had bruised his skin into a dull grey color, but his exposure to its light had been so fleeting, his skin soon began to return to normal.
Hades kept his word. Ambrogio got the palace for himself, and rested there every day, waiting for nightfall in the world of humans, while staying in the eternal scattered light of the afterworld. He never managed to work out where the light came from. It could not be the sun, because it did not harm his skin.
He learned to know some of the people in the eternal city. They were ordinary human beings, but every single one possessed some skill Hades found useful. Someone was an expert in poisons. Another was a skilled armourer. Yet another a talented thief. And there were hundreds more. They all had some mission given to them by Hades, and they did it gladly, in exchange for a chance to live in a place where they were not touched by time. They called the place the City of Immortals and considered themselves above ordinary mortals.
He met the oldest citizen of the city during his stay. He came from Egypt, and his name was Thutmose. He had been a sculptor and an artist at the royal Egyptian court in the distant past. He practiced his skill still, creating the most beautiful statues out of the material of this strange world. Ambrogio often sat at his studio, and observed him working, scooping the ground and forming his art from it.
The strange statues of the king and queen of his own past at first came out beautifully, but after a while their features changed. It was as if they were made of wax that had its own will. Nothing could stay the way they had been created.
"Does this not bother you? That your work changes?" Ambrogio asked once, when he sat with a goblet of wine, watching how the sculptor worked.
"No, it is quite fascinating," Thutmose commented, "I have noticed that this material responds to the way I feel. If I am angry, the statues become distorted into an unpleasant form. If I am in a good mood, the change can be sometimes quite beautiful."
Today Thutmose had been in a good mood. The male statue he had made distorted itself into a laughing dwarf. The men chuckled at the sight, sitting amicably side by side, enjoying the good wine.
Thutmose's paintings, however, remained the way he had painted them. The reason was obviously the fact that he used real paint and brushes, and real papyrus to paint on. These were the materials of the human world, already solid. Ambrogio admired the way he painted beautiful women out of memory. They had elongated necks and long skulls with no hair, but they were beautiful. None as beautiful as Selene, though.
Every night Ambrogio went to the human world, every time to a different location, and using the calling device lured yet another silver winged one to him. He became very skilled at killing them before they realized what was happening. They all had the same kind, concerned look on their faces when they approached him and then the expression of utter surprise when he killed them.
And they all sang, beautifully, when they died. Ambrogio began to call this music the song of a dying swan. He bent closer to see how they made the eerie sound, but it did not seem to come from their throats. It came from their whole body.
Every night he wrote a note to Hades with the silver blood as proof of yet another kill, and after that, every night he wrote a note to his beloved Selene. He began to write poems to her and his shadow told him that she read every one of them.
All in all Ambrogio killed forty-four of the swans, as he now called them. He gave them to Artemis, and she was satisfied. She always came when he sang her name; and she always expressed her joy at the sight of the corpses.
And then the unthinkable happened. The last of the silver winged ones approached, and he shot the arrow- and missed. The creature vanished in an instant, and he knew he had lost the last of the swans for good.
He stood there, on the mountainside, with his bow, without arrows. Hades had not appeared in a long time, and had not given him more arrows. And he had promised that after forty-five nights he could come and take Selene to a safe place where Apollo would not find them.
He sat down on the ground and cried. Surely now, when he could no longer send letters to Selene, she would think he had abandoned her, and would not wait for him any longer. He could not use any other blood for the letters. He was certain she would not believe they were from him, if they were not written in silver blood. And Hades would not let him return to the afterworld with Selene, because he had missed the last swan.
"What's wrong?" a familiar voice asked.
Artemis had appeared. She was carrying her magical weapon in her hand, and behind her was a slit in the air. Ambrogio knew now was his only chance to ever get Selene to himself. He had decided to try this tonight anyway, and now his mind quickly changed the plan from trying to grab Artemis's weapon.
"Oh mighty Artemis... I have run out of my magical arrows... I still have one swan to kill and nothing to do it with. I see you have a mighty weapon in your hands. Could I ask to borrow it so I could kill the last remaining silver swan?"
There was silence. The longer it stretched, the more certain Ambrogio became he had been too impudent and the goddess would punish him for talking to her so disrespectfully.
To his surprise
the goddess answered:
"I don't see why not. But I will stay with you and see how you lure them to you. It will be a great joy to me when I see the last descendant of the Shadow who created the silver ones disappear."
Ambrogio had no idea who or what this shadow, this ancestor, might have been.
For the first time Artemis now spread her wings. Ambrogio had suspected she had wings, but she had never shown them. They were not half as impressive as those of Hades, and they had a greyish hue. Still, their veins pulsed with vibrant red, and the light that emanated from them was red too. Despite being smaller in size, they were mighty and their hum revealed she had great power in them.
In the reddish glow of the wings he saw her extending her hand towards him, holding the strange small bow-like weapon. He bowed respectfully and took the weapon, trying to hold it as Artemis had.
"I would not recommend pointing the blades towards yourself," Artemis said in an amused voice, "you will only split yourself into two."
Ambrogio observed the strange weapon. It consisted of two metal pieces. One was straight, woven out of three thin, intertwining bars of some silvery substance, like a woman's plait. It shone like silver, but was much lighter. In the middle the metal bars looped away from each other, leaving enough space for Ambrogio to slid his fingers through, making it possible for him squeeze the weapon into a tight grip.
The other piece was of thick flat metal, and curved like the crescent moon. It curved away from the keeper's hand, and on its outward curving side it had what looked a lot like the arrow tips Ambrogio had used on his magical arrows. They were tube-like, translucent, and narrowed into needle sharp tips. It was as if he was holding the jaw and teeth of some magical creature. The weapon felt hot in his hands and he could feel a slight tremor in the blade, as though it was alive. His arrow tips had never felt this... alive. He looked at them closer, and they had a slightly different color from the arrow tips. These were of pale red color, though totally transparent. Like glass.
Artemis vanished somewhere in the background and Ambrogio made his move. Having observed Artemis for forty-four nights he knew what to do. He raised his hand and quickly slid through the air. An opening appeared like cutting through flesh. He ran forward, and into the opening. In his haste he did not think of calling for his shadow to help.
He did not have a chance. Two grey and red wings curled from behind and enveloped him, yanking him back to the world. When they touched his skin they burned him so badly that he had to scream. He dropped the weapon and fell to his knees at the feet of the furious goddess, on top of the bow. He could feel it snap under his weight. A pale hand snatched it away from under his legs.
"Tell me one good excuse why I should not kill you right now, thief, " her voice hissed above his head.
"Selene!" Ambrogio's voice broke in tears, "I will lose Selene if I don't bring your weapon!"
That took her by surprise.
"Why would you lose Selene if you don't steal my weapon?" she asked.
"Apollo cursed me so I could never walk under the sun again. Selene and I were to leave together to live as husband and wife... How could I take her anywhere if I cannot be touched by the sun? Then Hades came and said he would give us a safe place to live in, away from the sun, if I gave him your silver bow... I had no choice but to obey..."
Ambrogio did not dare to lift his head. He saw three fallen blades from Artemis's weapon on the ground, under his knees.
Artemis pulled him up on his feet.
"So, I see the one who asked you to do this was after my weapon, and not trying to win my love back. All the worse for him..."
Artemis looked at him in the eye. Then she pulled something from a pouch hanging on her neck. It was a little bottle, made of precious glass. And it had silver blood in it.
"What if I give you this blood to write a letter to Hades and to your girl? And you shall then be the servant you promised to be for ever."
"I would be forever grateful..." Ambrogio whispered, "but why would you do this? Why not kill me now?"
"I need faithful servants also. Hades would have given you immortality in his city, where the sun would never touch you. I can give you immortality in this world, and heal the curse of Apollo, so the sun will not harm you. There will be no need for you to hide in the mist at the edge of the world. You can be together with your girl. But there is a price to pay."
Ambrogio felt hope rising.
"Anything, my beautiful goddess, anything! I shall worship you forever!"
"Indeed you shall. As a result of your promise, you will be eternally young, but you will not be like normal people any longer. You will become the best hunter and no prey will be able to escape you, because you will outrun them all. And you shall hunt for me and kill whom I ask you to kill. For food you will drink the blood of the animals you catch, because no other food will ever be accepted by your body. It will be like intoxicating wine to you. And you will need lots of it."
"I can accept that, goddess," Ambrogio was eager to accept the terms.
"But this is not all. You shall have your Selene, but not in the way mortal men would want. You cannot touch her, you cannot kiss her, you cannot make love to her. Because if you do, your changed body will be the death of her. You will give her an illness that will turn her into a shadow. Your sweat or saliva will do the same to her as Apollo's spit did to you. If you two can live together on these terms, I will help you."
Ambrogio fell silent.
"I shall have to tell her this," he said, "and if she agrees, I am happy to accept."
The goddess smiled and gave the bottle to him.
"Here, then. This blood is from last night, so it should still be fresh enough to write with."
Very carefully Ambrogio opened the bottle and dipped the quill into the liquid. He then wrote to Hades "I have killed the last swan". And then another note to Selene, in which he told he had met a goddess, and explained the terms of Artemis to her, following the dictation of the goddess: "If you agree to do this, come to the Kirrha docks by the sea. I shall wait for you there."
Artemis stepped back.
"Your shadow will come soon. I shall have to kill it so it won't reveal our plan to Hades."
And sure enough the shadow came. It looked around suspiciously.
"Where, oh Master, is the body?"
"It is behind that bush," Ambrogio waved in the direction where Artemis had disappeared.
The shadow did not have time to realize what was happening. Artemis hit it on the neck with her weapon, and the shadow disintegrated in front of Ambrogio. He felt an unpleasant snap as if something had hit him in his pancreas.
"There. Now we shall leave your final note to Selene."
The goddess slashed the air, and taking Ambrogio's hand pulled him into the grey mist.
The slash closed and all was quiet. Then, from the darkest shadow a figure stepped out. His eyes glowed faintly blue in the darkness, when he bent to look at the note written by Ambrogio. His finger traced the silvery writing and an angry hum filled the air around him.
Then he noticed something on the ground. He very carefully picked up the three transparent tubes that had fallen from the weapon from the ground, and vanished.
After a while another dark form materialized from the pre-dawn darkness. A hand picked the note from the ground. A low chuckle was heard, and then the figure was gone.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
73. The Team
If I had thought we would just take off and head for Amarna, I was very much mistaken. Instead of leaving we were effectively sent to school.
"You need to know as much as possible, before embarking on your journey. You need to know the history, the language, and the cultural background of the times," Lilith began. "You're going to stand out from the crowd, and you will not learn everything in time, so you will need to act as foreigners coming on a visit to the royal city."
We were sitting in a classroom, with our pens, papers and laptops at the r
eady.
"We have chosen your team carefully," Lilith said. "Firstly, of course, there are the Nephilim. Daniel, Elijah and Dana. You're going to be foreign royalty from a faraway country in the north. And you're bringing with you something that's greatly coveted by Egyptian nobility."
Lilith opened a box on the teacher's table. It contained unformed lumps and also beads in warm golden, orange and yellow colours.
"Amber. Reggie will tell you more in a while."
"Then we shall have Layla, of course," Lilith pointed at Grandma. "She is well tanned, and of the right height to fit right in. Short hair isn't a problem - the Egyptians often cut their hair short or shaved it off for hygienic reasons. She is to be your servant. We want to have a good Hunter keeping an eye on any threats coming your way."
Grandma smiled across at me and I suddenly had a flashback of the day she had picked me up on the road. It was so clear and yet it seemed to be light years away now.
"Diana too. She has African ancestry, which was usual in ancient Egypt, as it was and is an African country. The Egyptians never considered skin color as anything of real importance, that is an unfortunate later invention. Ancient Egyptians were of every color and some came from far away lands - they were still all Egyptian - that's what counted. You were a dweller in the valley of the Nile, the major power in the ancient world for millennia. Diana will take the role of a worshipper of Hathor who has taken up a position in your retinue after the closure of many temples as the worship of the Aten came to prominence. Having a temple worker on the team means that we can get to places that ordinary people can't - such as into the inner sanctum of the gods and goddesses. It also means that you may have access to the secret conversations and thoughts of the elite and find out what is happening behind the scenes. So, you'll need to intensify your language skills, as will the rest of the team."
Diana looked both thrilled and slightly overcome at the thought of the responsibility of the role.