And another. And another.
The arms began to appear, with the lean but sculpted muscles he’d seen on the statues of gods, the forms of bodies made from the most perfect molds, untouched by time and worry. The skin over those muscles, now that he saw more of it, was the color of the Egyptian sands. Every movement the bodies made was smoothly elegant, a graceful dance that strangely reminded Thrasyllus of the movement of deadly cobras being charmed from baskets. Then, one by one, three hauntingly beautiful faces of what looked like two men and one woman were rising from the pit. Their eyes were black on black, gleaming like polished gems of obsidian. They were entirely hairless, and as they began to climb out onto the floor of the ruined temple he could see that they were naked but for the smears of the black-ash char of the pit. They were so perfect, so extraordinarily beautiful, that he could not look away. Yet at the same time his heart quaked at the sight of such unnatural perfection. And something inside of him—something so deep that he might have called it his soul—screamed with paralyzed terror.
For a fleeting moment, the thought came to the scholar’s mind that he wished he still had the knife he had plunged into Seker’s back outside Alexandria, and it nearly made him laugh despite his terror.
He was a coward. He’d known it back in Alexandria. He’d known it when he’d taken Seker’s life, crying and shaking as he drove the blade home. He’d known it nearly every day since. And no weapon in his hand would change his cowardice in this moment, when all he could do was stand, still as the broken statues around them, and do nothing but bear mute witness to the rise of these beings.
Not that a blade could be of great use against such creatures as these. They were beings of the underworld, he was certain. Spawn of the utmost dark of creation.
Demons, Thrasyllus thought, the word coming to him out of the recesses of his mind. That’s what they were.
In a sudden kick of bravery he managed to shout the word to Selene as a warning, but his eyes never left the mesmerizing creatures.
Juba had summoned demons. And the three of them, in their horrifying beauty, had turned and were beginning to reach back down into the fiery depths of the pit.
They were reaching down for others.
29
THE BITTER END
ELEPHANTINE, 25 BCE
Lucius Vorenus was out of time. He’d fought hard and bravely, but he had little left to give. And for every Kushite who fell it seemed two more took his place. There was nothing he could do now but stagger backward, fending off strikes, parrying and dodging as best he could while the Nubians pressed their attack.
He heard Pullo yelling, but in the tumult he could not hear what his old friend was saying. Not that Vorenus could do anything to help, no matter what the cry. He couldn’t spare the chance to even turn and look. The attackers were becoming more coordinated as they pressed their numerical advantage.
Just let me go first, he prayed. I can’t bear to lose him once more.
The Nubian to his left came at him high and hard, and Vorenus got his gladius up just in time to block the blow. The shock of it rattled through his bones, grinding his teeth.
The attacker to his right was jabbing at him, too, aiming for his exposed lower back.
His sword was still up for the first blow, so all he could do was twist away, buckling his knees as he tried to pivot away from the worst of the strike.
It worked. The blade missed him entirely.
In his younger years Vorenus knew he might have been able to catch himself from this position, tensing his muscles and then reversing his body’s direction. He might have exploded out of his twisted crouch and run the long, wet curve of his sword’s edge across the front of his attackers, carving a red line in space as he pressed into the attack.
But now, instead, his hip and knee gave way and he fell awkwardly onto his back. The thump of the ground coughed out of his lungs the little air he had left, and all he could do was just stare up into the sky above. It was brightening, he thought. The sun would rise soon. And there was a hole in the thick bank of fog, a ragged tear that had been ripped through the veil that had covered the island this night. Through it Vorenus could see a single star. It was a light of hope, he felt. Not for him, but for the fact that there was something far beyond the suffering of this world.
With or without them, the sun would rise again. And it would little note the horrors its rays shone upon.
He blinked, and at last he gasped the air back into his chest and could breathe again.
Too late.
One of the Kushites was looming up above him. His sword was poised like a spike.
Their eyes met, and Vorenus saw that he would find no pity in them.
Then, he saw in those same eyes a reflection of an unnatural green light, like a streaking sheet of ethereal flame. The man froze as he looked up. His eyes widened. What he saw struck him with terror.
Vorenus felt the world lift beneath his back, and he knew then the fear in the man’s eyes: it was the fear of the power of God.
Once, when he was a young man, Vorenus had floated in the waves of the sea. Still at night sometimes he could close his eyes and remember the motion of the water beneath and around him, the waves moving like a living thing. The memory of it had etched into his bones, soaked into his blood. Unmoving in his bed, his body could still feel that rolling rise beneath his back, pushing him toward the heavens before passing and letting him back down with a sigh.
This time, it was the earth itself rolling beneath him, and the instant after he saw the light in the Nubian’s eyes and felt the rising of the earthen swell, Vorenus heard the ground break. Stones, tensed by the wave that kept lifting and lifting, shattered in a crack that sounded as if the very bones of the earth were being broken. Splinters of rock and clodded dirt hurtled through the air like a storm come from the underworld.
Vorenus spread his arms and legs as the force pushed up beneath him, as if fearful that the power below might finally break free of the confines of the shattering rock and fling him upward. The Nubian above him screamed and pitched over backward as the ground trembled higher and higher into the air.
It was unnatural. It was terrifying.
And Vorenus knew he had to get away from it. Whatever was happening, whatever was about to happen, he simply needed to get away.
Instinctively he began to kick away from the Nubians who’d been attacking him and who were all upon the ground now, screaming in terror. He flipped over onto his stomach as he did so, the better to crawl and scramble away.
But when he turned, he simply froze.
“My God,” he whispered.
Not five feet from him, the floor of the temple ended in a jagged torn ledge, like the frayed edge of a ripped scroll. The walls of the temple to his left and right ended in similar tatters of stone. It was as if a great, unseen knife had cut the temple in half and was lifting this end of it into the sky, offering it to the heavens.
It was impossible, Vorenus thought. Impossible.
In the same instant, as if it recognized the same truth of its impossibility, the power that was thrusting it all upward let go. Everything hung, floating in the lightening fog—Vorenus, the floor of the broken temple beneath him, the snapped halves of the walls to either side of him—and then, with a roaring exhalation, it all fell back toward the shattered earth.
Vorenus didn’t have time to imagine what destruction awaited them upon impact. But he knew enough to know that to stay was to die. So he shoved himself toward the edge as it fell. And when he saw the earth-bound half of the temple seeming to rise up to meet him as the sinking mass continued its ever-speeding descent, he leapt from the edge, screaming as he reached out, his limbs flailing in the air.
In his mind, he’d imagined that he’d make it to the other floor. Perhaps he’d land awkwardly and twist an ankle, but he’d make it.
Instead, the ragged edge of the temple’s broken but otherwise unmoved paving stones hit him in the chest as he fell into t
hem.
His hands scrambled for purchase, but already his impact against the edge of the rocks had him bouncing away. The last of the rock slipped away from his grip. From below and behind him he heard a crushing, sliding destruction, and he began to fall down into it.
Just as he was about to curse the gods he didn’t believe in one last time, just as the floor slipped out of his sight and he started the fall into the chaos of crashing earth below him, a hand reached out and grabbed his forearm.
His shoulder pulled, stretched. The hand slipped along the scars that Vorenus still carried from the battle of Actium, but it stopped at his wrist at the same moment his own fingers wrapped around his savior. That arm was scarred, too, and when he looked up, dangling by one arm off what had become a cliff, he wasn’t shocked by the face he saw. No matter the scars, no matter the years, it was the face of the only person he could say he’d truly loved.
“Got you,” Pullo said, smiling down at him through the strain, squinting as a cloud of dust rolled up and over them from below.
Vorenus had dropped his gladius—he couldn’t remember when—and so he swung his free hand up to grab hold of his old friend’s wrist. “Not a good day to die,” he panted.
“Not yet,” Pullo said, beginning to pull with what Vorenus imagined must be the last of his herculean strength.
Vorenus held tight to his friend’s grip, helping as best he could by kicking his way up off the shattered earth, until he joined Pullo on the floor of the temple. Clouds of dust continued to billow up behind them.
He was only beginning to gulp air into his lungs when he looked up and saw, illumined in the growing light, the Ark of the Covenant. The canvas he’d thrown over it had been pulled away, and there was the shine of blood upon the glorious angels atop it.
Pullo and Vorenus got to their feet, helping each other balance in their exhaustion. The world had grown strangely silent but for the still-resounding crash of falling rocks somewhere down below them. The battle seemed to be over. Most of the Nubians had fallen away, and the sounds of war with them.
The two old friends staggered forward, shoulder to shoulder. They saw Madhukar, a dead Kushite atop him. And then, stepping around the Ark, they saw Caesarion.
A long mark of smeared blood showed how the young man they’d known since he was a child had slid down the side of the Ark. He was seated now beside Hannah, his hand in hers, his head resting upon her shoulder.
“Caesarion!” Vorenus gasped. He fell down before the would-be pharaoh, to examine his wound.
The young man didn’t move. His eyes were open, but they focused on nothing. What they saw beyond this world, Vorenus did not know.
“He’s holding something.” Pullo’s voice was barely a whisper.
Vorenus looked down and saw that Caesarion had in his hand a bloody Nubian dagger. His fingers were loose upon the grip, and when Vorenus reached for it he was able to slip it out with ease.
“Oh, gods,” Pullo said.
Still holding the dagger, Vorenus turned toward his old friend, then followed his wide-eyed gaze back to Hannah, to her belly, to the movement beneath her bloodstained clothes. He swallowed hard. He took a deep breath, took one last look at their perfect faces, and then readied the blade in his hand.
* * *
When it was done, Vorenus staggered backward from the scene. His eyes welled with the tears he’d kept at bay; he looked up at the heavens, begging for forgiveness, praying he’d done the right thing.
The babe in his arms cried. And though his heart was breaking and his own agonized weeping would not cease, Vorenus thought that its cries of life were the most extraordinary sound he had ever heard. For a long time it seemed there was nothing else in the world but this precious, perfect thing.
Then dimly, like a whisper at the edge of his mind, he became aware of another sound. Steady, like waves on a far shore growing closer.
He cuddled the still-bloody infant girl against his chest. He blinked up.
The light of dawn had come upon Elephantine, dissipating shadows. The fog was lifting. No one still fought in the broken courtyard, which ended in a gash across the landscape. He could see that the entire upper tip of the island had dropped away into rubble and ruin, and in the distance he could see now the waters of the Nile, flowing steady and unconcerned for the lives and the deaths of man.
Some of the Nubians had survived, but they had dropped their weapons. They had fallen to their knees. Their voices were low, murmuring. Vorenus looked up in wonder. Though he did not know the language that they spoke, he knew their intent, clear enough.
They had fallen to their knees in reverence.
They were worshipping the bloodied Ark.
30
THE GATE CLOSED
CARTHAGE, 25 BCE
Isidora lurched into view. Selene had not seen her, but somehow she, too, had been crawling forward to her left. The young girl was close enough now that she scrambled forward, pulling her weak leg behind her, and dove into Juba.
For the space of heartbeats they wrestled, screaming. Energy erupted around them in flares of chaos. Then, with a final burst of light, Isidora was rolling past him, rolling away from him, and she had both the Lance and the Trident in her hands.
The traces of power that had been feeding the pit disappeared as quickly as a candle snuffed by a cup. The glowing red from its depths flashed hot once, and then went dark.
The three demons—Thrasyllus had shouted the word, and she was sure that’s what they were—who had come up from the pit began to scream in a pure fury that Selene knew she would never forget. Whatever they were, they struggled to reach down into the terrible void of the pit. A noise of horrific, unearthly agony welled up from below them. Selene looked over and saw that Thrasyllus had collapsed, fighting to cover his ears from the piercing wails.
But far, far worse was the too-human shrieking of Isidora, who writhed as storms of angry flames began to erupt from her body, breaking her apart as the uncontrolled power of the two Shards in her hands burned her alive.
Just as Thrasyllus had been, Selene was paralyzed at first. It was too much to comprehend, and in the vacuum of that understanding she simply froze up and stared at her dying friend. But when Isidora stopped screaming, when she ceased her torturous spasms, the wall of fear in Selene’s heart finally broke.
Selene rushed forward, sliding in beside her husband on the dusty stone floor. Juba was shaking, as if he were having a seizure. His eyes were wide and bloodshot. In his hands he still held the Palladium close to the Aegis. Energy continued to cascade off him, forming a thrashing cloud that once more spun around the temple, whipping leaves and branches from the trees, and sparking with spirals of lightning. It was weaker now, though whether it was losing power or storing it up she did not know.
But she knew its potential. She knew its danger. When she had used the Shard in Cantabria she had felt the yawning darkness threaten to overwhelm her. She had contested it. She had controlled it.
And if she was going to save Juba’s life, she would need to do it again.
Pulling what deep breath she could from the tortured air, ready for the worst, Selene grabbed hold of the Palladium.
What rose up against her was not the wave of power that she had felt before. It was a deep emptiness, an aching hollow of the power that had been, a feeble echo of what had surged about them less than a minute earlier. Whatever Juba had done, wherever these creatures had come from—and she was certain she knew—the gate he had opened had sapped the Palladium’s power.
It was spent, but as she held it, joined to her husband through it, she felt its power slowly rising once more. And she realized—in each beat of his Aegis-sustained heart, in each pulse of her own—the trickling rejuvenation that was giving the Shard new life was them. It was using them. The Shard was them. All the Shards were. They were born of God’s powers, the same powers that He’d forsaken in giving true freedom, true life, to His creation. The Shards needed the spark of lif
e to be used. They fed on it. They consumed it.
If it wasn’t for the life-sustaining power of the Aegis keeping him alive, Juba would almost certainly be dead.
With a grunt, Selene wrested the Palladium from her husband’s tensed hands. She enfolded it within her dress. What was left of the storm swirling around the temple of Ba’al Hammon dissipated and hushed away with a sigh. Juba groaned and slid back toward the earth as if falling into dreams.
Selene rolled around to crouch behind her husband, trying to pull him upright. He was so much bigger than her, so much heavier. And he was unconscious. Only the ragged rise and fall of his chest showed that her love still had life. She managed to get him into a sitting position, but she could do little more. Looking up, she saw that the three demons had stopped reaching back down into the pit. They were still kneeling beside it, but they were all looking back toward her. The horrible wailing had ceased. Their black eyes were dead, like black beads of glass.
“Thrasyllus!” she yelled toward the stricken scholar. “Help me!”
The scholar was still curled up on the ground. He had uncovered his ears when the noise stopped, but he was staring at the demons with wide, paralyzed eyes.
Selene tugged at Juba, moving him inches away from the danger. “Come on,” she urged him. “Wake up, my love. Please.”
One of the demons, the first one who had risen from the pit, stood. She felt its stare piercing her flesh and bones, gauging her, studying her.
Selene tugged again, and this time Juba’s weight shifted and he collapsed over onto his side again. “Oh, God. Move. Please.”
The demon opened its mouth. Its teeth were perfectly formed, white, but the color of dried bones. Like so much else about the creatures, they were still wrong, still not quite human. The demon spoke, and the words moved in a wave like music, like an elegant song. Its voice swelled through the air, riding its own wind, touching and caressing the stones and the trees and the earth. It was, Selene thought, perhaps the most beautiful sound she had ever heard, the most beautiful sound she ever could hear. She did not know the demon’s words, but she knew its meaning. As if it spoke to her very soul, she knew what it was saying.
The Gates of Hell Page 30