by Tanya Huff
So I hold the advantage of sight. For all the good it will do.
Tawfik smelled of excitement, not fear, and his heart beat only a fraction faster than human norm. The movement of his blood called to the Hunger even as the weight of his life overwhelmed any desire Henry had to feed. Henry could smell the fear on himself and his own heart, while still ponderously slow by mortal measuring, beat faster and harder than it had in years.
Tawfik spoke first, his voice sounding mildly amused. “You have a hundred questions, why not begin?”
Why not? But where? Perhaps with the question he himself had answered. “What are you?”
“I am the last remaining priest of the god Akhekh.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Do you mean how do I come to be here, in this century, in this place? Or do you mean what am I doing now I am here?”
“Both.”
Tawfik shifted on the bench. “Well, that is, as they say, a long story and as you have only until dawn . . .” He saw no reason to lie to the Nightwalker about how and what he was and, although he would chose his words carefully, he was also willing to speak of his plans. After all, he wanted to win young Richmond’s trust.
Fortunately, Dr. Rax provided him with a twentieth century framework to hang his story on.
“I was born about 3250 BC, in Upper Egypt just before Meri-nar, who had been King of Lower Egypt, created one empire that stretched the length of the Nile. I was, at the time of the conquest, a high-ranking priest of Set—not the Set that common history remembers, he was then a benevolent god, unfortunately on the losing side. After the conquest, Horus the elder, the highest of the gods of Lower Egypt, cast Set down and declared him unclean. Set, still very powerful, merely worked his way into the new pantheon.” Tawfik’s tone grew slightly dry. “Egyptian gods were, if nothing else, flexible.
“I, as a ranking priest, had been cast down with my god, stripped and scourged and thrown out of my temple. Only mortal and already middle-aged, I hadn’t the luxury of concerning myself with Set’s long-term plans. I wanted immediate revenge and I was willing to do . . .” He paused and Henry saw him frown as he remembered. “I was willing to do anything to regain the power and prestige I had lost.
“To me came Akhekh, a minor and dark deity, who in the confusion of the heavens had managed to get hold of more power than usual. ‘Swear to me,’ said Akhekh, ‘dedicate your life to my service, and I will give you the time you need for your revenge. I will make you more powerful than you have ever been. Become my priest and I will give you the power to destroy the ka of your enemies. You will feed on their souls and with such nourishment live forever.’”
Tawfik turned to face Henry and smiled tightly. “Now do not for a moment think that Akhekh made this offer out of regard for me. The gods exist only as long as belief exists. A change in those who believe, means a change in the gods. When no one believes any longer, the gods lose definition, their sense of self if you will, and are absorbed back into the whole.” He caught a powerful negative flare from the Nightwalker’s ka and inclined his head politely toward the other man. “You wanted to say . . . ?”
Henry hadn’t intended to say anything, but he found that when challenged he couldn’t hold back. I will not be like Peter and deny my lord. “There is only one God.”
“Richmond, please.” Tawfik didn’t bother to keep the amusement out of his voice. “You, at least, should know better. Perhaps there may someday be only one god, when all people dream and desire alike, and there are certainly less gods now than there were before I was entombed. But one god? No. I can . . . introduce you to my god, if you wish.”
The night seemed to grow a little darker.
“No.” Henry ground the word through clenched teeth.
Tawfik shrugged. “As you wish. Now then, where was I? Oh, yes. Of course, I accepted Akhekh’s offer; that it came from a dark god meant little to me under the circumstances. I discovered that not only could I extend my life and power my magics with the life remaining in the ka I absorbed, but I also gained the life knowledge that ka held. An invaluable resource for those necessary moves between cultures that occur over a long, a very long life.”
“So when you killed Dr. Rax . . .”
“I absorbed the power of his remaining life and came to know everything he knew. The younger the life the less knowledge but the greater potential for power.”
“Then the infant you killed earlier today . . . ”
That jerked Tawfik out of his relaxed posture. “How did you know?” he demanded and knew the answer before the question had quite left his mouth. The young man who had been watching, fully aware of what had occurred—the young man who had fled in terror—must have fled to the protection of the Nightwalker. He had heard they sometimes gathered mortals about them, a ready food source when hunting became unsure. So, another pawn has entered the game. Tawfik let nothing but the question show on his face or in his voice. If the Nightwalker thought he had forgotten the young man, his protection would be less extreme and easier to circumvent.
Henry heard Tawfik’s heart speed up, but the wizard-priest made no mention of Tony. Perhaps Tony had been wrong and he hadn’t been spotted. Given Tony’s terror, that seemed unlikely. Perhaps Tawfik played a deeper game and had no wish to tip his hand. Tawfik no doubt had his own reasons for denying a witness; Henry’s were simple, he would not betray a friend. He let the beast show in his voice as he repeated, “You’ve been hunting in my territory.”
Tawfik recognized the threat, and countered with one of his own, playing on the Nightwalker’s barely controlled fear of him. “As you were about to observe, the infant I killed earlier today made me very powerful.” Stalemate again. “Now then, if I may continue with my history . . . ?”
“Go on.”
“Thank you.” Akhekh’s offer had come with a condition; he could not devour the ka of one already sworn. For the first hundred years after the conquest, while the pantheon settled, the unsworn were easy to find and he had risen in power—which he discovered he desired much more than revenge—and the cult of Akhekh had grown strong. But the more stable and prosperous Egypt was, the more the people were content with their gods and the fewer unattached ka were available, so his power and Akhekh’s—waxed and waned in counterpoint to Egypt’s. This age had a decadence he recognized and had every intention of exploiting—they were ripe for rituals Akhekh had to offer. Tawfik saw no reason to mention any of that to the Nightwalker.
“Because of me, my lord, in spite of his relatively subordinate position in the pantheon, was never absorbed into the greater gods like so many of the lesser deities had been and so in every age, in a thousand places along the Nile, I raised a temple to Akhekh.” Occasionally, he was the only worshiper, but no need to mention that either. “Now and then, other priests objected to my having stepped out of the cycle of life, but the centuries had made me a skilled wizard—And had taught me when to cut my losses and leave town.—so they could not take me down. As I only destroyed those who had no allegiance to a god, the other gods refused to get involved.”
“But you were taken down, in the end.”
“Yes. Well, I made a slight error in judgment. It could have happened to anyone.” In the darkness, Tawfik smiled. “Shall I tell you what it was? It is completely irrelevant to this time and place so even if you wished to, you couldn’t use it against me. During what you now call the Eighteenth Dynasty, although things were extremely prosperous for Egypt, most nobles had very large families which meant that a number of the younger nobility had nothing to do. In such a social climate, the temple of Akhekh grew and flourished. My lord had more sworn acolytes than at any time since the conquest. Unfortunately, although I didn’t see it as unfortunate at the time, two of the Pharoah’s younger sons joined our number. This finally attracted the attention of the greater gods.”
He paused, sighed, and shook his head. When he began to speak again, his voice had lost its lecturing tone and had become
only the voice of a man sharing painful memories.
“The sons of the Pharoah were the sons of Osiris reborn and Osiris would not have them corrupted by what he termed an abomination. So Thoth, god of wisdom, came to one of his priests in a dream and told them how I might be overcome. My protections were shattered and once again I was dragged from my temple. The first time, I was left alive because my life had no meaning. This time, they were afraid to kill me because my life had gone on for so long. Even the gods were wary of what might happen should my ka be released into Akhekh’s keeping with so many acolytes still performing the rituals. I was not to be slain, I was to be entombed alive. All this I was told as the priests of Thoth prepared me for burial.
“Three thousand years later, my prison was brought here to this city and I was freed.”
“And you destroyed the man who gave you your freedom.”
“Destroying him gave me my freedom. I needed his knowledge.”
“And the other. The custodian.”
“I needed his life. I had been entombed for three thousand years, Nightwalker. I had to feed. Would you have done any differently?”
Henry remembered the three days he had spent beneath the earth, hunger clawing at him until hunger became all he was. “No,” he admitted, as much to himself as to Tawfik, “I would have fed. But,” he shook free of the memory, “I would not have killed those others, not the children.”
Tawfik shrugged. “I needed their power.”
“So you took their lives.”
“Yes.” He shifted on the bench, linking his fingers together and leaning his forearms across his thighs. “I told you all this, Nightwalker, so you would learn you cannot stop me. You are no wizard. Thoth and Osiris are long dead and cannot help you. Your god does not interfere.”
First the stick. “If you oppose me, I will be forced to destroy you.”
And then the carrot. “As I see it, you have two choices; live and let live, as I am willing to do with you, or join me.”
“Join you.” Henry was not quite in control of the repetition.
“Yes. We have much in common, you and I.”
“We have nothing in common.”
Tawfik lifted his brows. “Of course we don’t.” The sarcasm had a razor edge. “This city has many more immortal beings.”
“You murder the innocent.”
“And you have never killed to survive?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“Killed for power?”
“Not the innocent.”
“And who declared them guilty?”
“They did, by their own actions.”
“And who appointed you as judge and jury and executioner? Have I not as much right to appoint myself to the position as you did?”
“I have never destroyed the innocent!” Henry held tightly to that while the sun grew brighter behind his eyes.
“There are no innocents. Or do you deny your church’s position on original sin?”
“You argue like a Jesuit!”
“Thank you. I am as immortal as you are, Richmond. I will never grow old, I will never die, I will never leave you. Not even another Nightwalker can promise you that.”
Vampires were solitary hunters. Humans were pack animals. In order to survive in a human world, the vampire could not surrender all humanity—those who did were quickly destroyed by the terror they evoked—and this double nature found itself constantly at war with itself. But to find a companion, one who would neither cause instinctive bloody battles over territory nor die just when he had become an intrinsic part of life. . . .
“No!” Henry leapt to his feet and flung himself forward into the darkness, trying to outdistance the sun. Halfway across the park, he managed to stop himself and, fingers dug deep into the living bark of a tree, old and gnarled and half his age, he fought back.
“I have lived, knowing I was immortal, for thousands of years.” Tawfik continued to speak, sure that the Nightwalker could hear him. He watched the reaction of the other’s ka and chose his words accordingly. “I am perhaps the only man you will ever meet who can understand you, who can know what you go through. Who can accept you entirely for what you are. I, too, have seen the ones I love grow old and die.”
Listening, in spite of himself, Henry saw the years take Vicki from him as the years had taken the others.
“I am asking you to stand by my side, Nightwalker. A man should not go alone through the centuries; neither of us need ever stand alone again. You need not go blindly forward. I have lived the years you will live, I can be there to guide you.” Tawfik couldn’t quite hide the gasp as the Nightwalker was suddenly, silently, beside him again.
“You never told me what you plan to do now.” The answer wasn’t as important as shutting off the words, banishing the specter of isolation they invoked. He couldn’t just walk away, so he had to change the subject.
“I plan to build a temple, as I have always done when I start a new life, and I will gather acolytes to serve my god. This is my only concern at this time, Nightwalker, for the acolytes should be sworn as soon as possible—a god deserves worshipers, rituals, all the little things that make being a deity worthwhile.”
“Then why try to control the police and the justice system?”
“New religions are often prosecuted. I have a way to prevent that and so I do. With no need to hide, I will shout AKHEKH from the top of the highest mountain. And once the temple is large enough to provide me with the power I need, your innocents will be safe.” Tawfik stood and held out his hand. “You live like a mortal, searching for immediate solutions, immediate answers. Why not plan for eternity? Why not plan with me?” He now had enough of a key to the Nightwalker’s ka that if Richmond would just voluntarily reach out and take his hand, that act of trust would plant hooks that the younger man would never shake loose. In time those hooks would pull him closer and, in time, he would feed.
Scent and sound told Henry that Tawfik had not lied once since he began to speak.
Henry felt young, confused, afraid. For the seventeen years he had lived as a mortal he had fought to gain his father’s love and approval. Tawfik—older, wiser, incontestably in control—made him feel the way his father had. Four hundred and fifty years hunting the night alone should have erased the bastard who only wanted to belong. It hadn’t. He didn’t know what to think. He stared down at the offered hand and wondered how it would feel to be able to plan for more than just a part of one mortal lifetime. To be part of a greater whole. But if Tawfik hadn’t lied . . .
“Your god is a dark god. I want no part of him.”
“You need have nothing to do with my god. Akhekh asks nothing of you. I ask for your companionship. Your friendship.”
“You are more dangerous than your god!” On the last word, Henry launched himself forward. Red lines flared and he found himself flat on his back two meters away.
Tawfik let his hand drop slowly to his side. “Foolish child,” he said softly. “I will not destroy you now as I could, nor will I take back the offer. If you grow tired of an eternity alone, come to the comer where we met tonight and I will find you.” He felt the Nightwalker’s gaze on him as he turned and walked away, not entirely displeased with the evening’s work. The surface of the other’s ka boiled with emotions too tangled for even millennia of experience to sort out but all of them, eventually, came back to him.
The evening mass was nearly over when Henry slipped into the church and settled into one of the empty pews at the back. Confused and frightened, he had come to the one place that had, through all the years and all the changes, stayed the same. Well, almost the same. He still missed the cadences, the grandeur of the Latin and occasionally murmured his responses in the language of the past.
The Inquisition had driven him from the church for a time but needing, at the very least, the continuity of worship, he had returned. Sometimes he saw the church as an immortal being in its own right, living much as he did during carefully prescribed hours, survivin
g on the blood of the mortals who surrounded it. And often the blood was less than metaphorical, for more had been shed in the name of a god of love . . .
He stood with the rest, hands lightly holding the warm wood of the pew in front of him.
Over the centuries there had been compromises, of course. The church declared he had no soul. He disagreed. He had seen men and women without souls—for a soul can be given up to despair or hatred or rage—but did not count himself among them. Confession had been a trial in the beginning, until he realized that the sins the priests would understand, gluttony, anger, lust, sloth applied as much to him as to mortals and that the specific actions were unimportant. He did the penance prescribed. He came away feeling part of a greater whole.
Except that he could not, since his change, take communion.
So once again I am set to one side, different. from the closest thing to community, I have known.
He found it interesting that Tawfik—the only other immortal being he had met since Christina and he had parted—came complete with a god of his own. Perhaps immortals needed that kind of continuity outside themselves. He found himself thinking of discussing the theory with Tawfik and thrust the thought away.
The pew back groaned under his grip and he hurriedly forced his hands to relax.
If not for the promises he had made to Tony, he would have run before he had the chance to be tempted. And if not for Vicki, the temptation would not have been so great. Vicki offered him friendship, perhaps even love, although she seemed to be frightened of what that implied, but her mortality sounded in the song of her blood and every beat of her heart took her one heartbeat closer to death. In time, in a very short time relative to the time he had already lived, she would be gone and soon after her, Tony, and then the loneliness would return.
Tawfik promised an end to the loneliness, a place to belong for longer than the length of a mortal life.
Why not plan for eternity?
The sun blazed up behind his eyes. It seemed he could no longer be completely unaware of Tawfik’s existence.