Nosferatu fell with her severed hand clutched in his, slamming into the sidewall of the tunnel, tumbling, sliding, the reality of what had just happened not sinking in until he hit the bottom of a cross tunnel.
“Come.” The same figure was urging him to move. Vampyr was next to the human, gesturing for Nosferatu to follow.
Nosferatu remained still, feeling the rapidly cooling flesh clutched in his hand, his mind replaying what had happened. He scrambled to his feet, looking up the passageway down which he had slid, reaching up with his free hand to grab hold of the lip and pull himself in.
“No,” the voice hissed. Vampyr reached up and grabbed Nosferatu around the waist, stopping him.
Then Nosferatu heard the clatter of metal on stone and knew the beast was coming down after them.
“This way,” the man urged, pulling at his arm along with Vampyr. Nosferatu followed them into a corridor half-filled with water.
* * *
Dawn found Nosferatu and Vampyr hidden on the Giza Plateau along with the strange man who had so far only identified himself as a Wedjat, whatever that was. The word meant “eye” in the ancient tongue. They were located to the south of the Black Sphinx depression, amid a pile of large granite blocks, each marked for placement in the construction of a temple dedicated to the worship of Isis. By climbing on top of several blocks and sliding into the hidden place between two of them, they were able to observe the depression in which the Black Sphinx sat. Throughout the night, criers had gone through the surrounding villages, ordering all to be present around the Sphinx at first light.
Nosferatu had Nekhbet’s severed hand, swathed in linen, in a small leather pouch tied off at his waist. In order to protect his eyes from the morning light, he had wrapped a length of cloth around his head, leaving only the slightest of slits through which to peer. He and Vampyr had spent the night with the Wedjat, huddled in a small hut along the banks of the river, near where they had exited from the Roads. The man had offered no reason for saving them and Nosferatu had not asked, his thoughts on Nekhbet and what the morning would bring.
As dawn approached, both Nosferatu and Vampyr found themselves forced to tear strips from their cloaks and wrap them around their faces, covering their sensitive skin and eyes to protect them from the rays of the sun.
The sun slowly rose over the horizon, revealing two six-foot-high X’s of wood that had been rigged by the priests on top of the head of the Black Sphinx. Behind them stood one of the black tubes, its front open. Surrounding the Black Sphinx along the top edge of the depression were thousands of Egyptians, all within hailing distance. The nearest were less than fifty feet in front of their concealed location, all staring in the same direction, into the depression.
Looking at the arrangement, Nosferatu didn’t want to make the effort to deduce what the setup on top of the Black Sphinx might mean. He’d experienced three hundred years of imprisonment and abuse by the Gods. He knew that day would bring worse.
Vampyr turned to the Wedjat. “You have told us you are a Wedjat, but little else. What is your name?”
“I am called Kajilil.” The Wedjat was a small man, with skin burned brown and leathery by the sun. He wore a gray cloak pulled tight around his body. Lines radiated in the skin around his eyes as if they had been shot like marbles into his head.
“What is a Wedjat?” Vampyr asked. “A Watcher.”
“And what is a Watcher?” Vampyr pressed.
Kajilil stroked his short beard as he considered the question. “We are an ancient order. Formed after the destruction of Atlantis. The first Watchers were ex-high priests of the Airlia who realized they had been betrayed. They vowed to monitor the two sides of the Airlia civil war.”
“Why did you save us?” Nosferatu asked.
“Because Donnchadh — the woman — interfered. I am trying to set things right, but I fear regardless of what we do, there will be change.”
“Who is she?”
“I do not know for sure. I have heard rumors. She, and her partner, the warrior, Gwalcmai, hate the Gods. Some say the two of them have walked the Earth since the time of Atlantis, subverting the Gods. That is difficult for me to believe, as they are human, or at least appear human, as do you. But some say they helped start the Great Civil War among the Gods that destroyed Atlantis.”
Kajilil smiled wryly. “Some say anything. That is why it is best just to watch and record.”
“But you saved us,” Nosferatu pressed. Vampyr was watching the Black Sphinx, searching for any sign of his sister, but also listening closely.
“To try to restore the balance, as I said,” Kajilil said. “She interfered and I have tried to set things right. Although”—he shrugged once more—“who knows what right is? I have often thought about that. What if her actions are what was supposed to happen? It has occurred to me at times that doing nothing, as my Watcher creed decrees, affects things as much as doing something. That is why I acted when I saw you enter the Roads.”
Nosferatu understood little of what the man was saying and he could tell that Vampyr didn’t either. The burning issue remained: What did the Airlia Gods have planned for those they had captured?
Kajilil reached into his robe and pulled out a short metal tube, which he raised to one eye and peered through.
“What is that?” Nosferatu asked.
“It is something that was taken from Atlantis,” Kajilil said. “Ship captains who sailed for the Airlia used them to see far over the water.” He offered the device to Nosferatu, who brought it up and peered through the layer of cloth covering his eye into the end of the tube. He was stunned suddenly to see everything much closer and pulled it away from his eye, blinking, reassured to find he was still at the same distance and had not been magically transported to the Black Sphinx. He tentatively raised the tube and looked through it once more. He could see the lips of the priests move as they prayed. “Men used this?” he asked Kajilil.
The Watcher nodded. “A gift from the Gods. In the old days when the Gods ruled openly.”
Nosferatu had more questions to ask but the stone door between the paws of the Black Sphinx slid open and a phalanx of priests appeared, the three bound prisoners in their midst. In the front were Chatha and Lilith chained together. And behind them was Nekhbet, wrapped in loops of metal. All three were being held up by priests, and through Kajilil’s device Nosferatu could see that they had been drained of their blood just short of death. Nekhbet’s severed wrist was bound in dirty linen.
Nosferatu began to rise, but Kajilil’s hand was on his arm, holding him down. “It is futile,” Kajilil said. “You would be cut down before you even got close.”
“What are they going to do?” Nosferatu demanded, as the priests and prisoners made their way up a hastily constructed wooden ramp to the top of the Black Sphinx.
“We must watch and see,” Kajilil said.
Vampyr demanded the looking device and Nosferatu reluctantly gave it to him, wincing at Vampyr’s curse when he saw his twin, Lilith, bound in chains and drained.
A hush rolled over the crowd as the four remaining Gods appeared. All the humans except the high priests and prisoners dropped to their knees, heads bowed. The Gods were wrapped in black robes with hoods drawn close around their faces. Nosferatu realized their garb was not to hide themselves, but as he and Vampyr had done, to protect the Gods’ eyes and skin from the sunlight. The Airlia slowly walked up the ramp to the top of the Sphinx, towering over the surrounding priests and guards.
One of the four stepped forward, turned to the high priest and nodded. The priest began to chant out in a loud voice that carried clearly to all in view.
“Behold the price of rebellion. Behold the price of betrayal. Behold the price of disobedience.”
The high priest paused as Chatha and Lilith were brought forward to the two wooden X’s. Their robes were ripped off, leaving their pale skin exposed. They were pressed spread-eagle to the wooden beams, blinking rapidly and painfully in the bright
morning light, heads turning to and fro as if in search of their immediate future. Priests went to work, dipping leather straps in buckets of water and wrapping them around the limbs, working from the hands and feet inward. Each strap was an inch wide and spaced about two inches apart, leaving pale white flesh exposed between. The priests slowly continued until the arms and legs were encased up to the armpits and groin in strips of wet leather.
When they were done, once more the high priest chanted. “Behold the price of rebellion. Behold the price of betrayal. Behold the price of disobedience.” Then there was silence.
“What are they doing?” Vampyr demanded.
“I do not know,” Kajilil said. He had taken the looking device back and was peering through it. “I have never seen this before.”
The sun was rising behind them and had just struck the top of the Sphinx and the captives. Nosferatu narrowed the open strip in the cloth around his head. He shifted his gaze from Chatha and Lilith to Nekhbet. He could see how close she was to death. They had drained her even after he had taken his fill the previous night. And she had lost much blood from her wrist.
A moan escaped Chatha’s lips, carrying through the dry air. At first Nosferatu could not tell what caused her to cry out in pain. He assumed it was the sun striking skin and eyes that had not known daylight in many, many years. He took the looking device from Kajilil and peered through it. He noticed that the fingers on Chatha’s right hand were twitching uncontrollably. She cried out once more. The other hand was also twitching. Then Nosferatu saw the devilment the Gods had concocted and he cursed them. The leather was drying, and in doing so, contracting, pressing into the flesh. The straps were drying in the order they had been put on, from the outer ends of the limbs inward. Cutting off circulation, and pressing into the skin.
Nosferatu realized it was also the most devious and terrible torture that could have been devised for the state the two half-breeds were in, the bands forcing what little blood they had left into the centers of their bodies and keeping them alive, stopping the flow to the limbs bit by bit, while cutting into the flesh with inexorable pain.
Both were crying out by then, the screams forced from them by the waves of pain reverberating through their bodies.
“We must do something,” Vampyr hissed.
Nosferatu agreed with the emotion but he knew Kajilil was right. “There is nothing we can do.”
“My sister,” Vampyr whispered in despair. “They will pay. The Gods and the humans. They will pay for this.”
Vampyr rose and began to run forward toward the Black Sphinx. Nosferatu leapt up and chased him down, covering the distance between them in an instant. He wrapped his arms around the younger Undead, dragging him to the ground. Vampyr thrashed to and fro in his grasp. The fight was over when Kajilil rapped a stone on the side of Vampyr’s head, knocking him unconscious. They dragged Vampyr back to their observation post. Nosferatu tied Vampyr’s hands behind his back and bound his legs tightly together, then returned his attention to the top of the Black Sphinx.
The high priest stepped between the two crosses, spreading his arms to encompass both. “Behold the price of rebellion. Behold the price of betrayal. Behold the price of disobedience.”
The torture went on to the point where even watching was practically unbearable. Both women’s bodies were vibrating so violently that the sound of their backs hitting the wood as they spasmed in pain was clearly audible despite the screams. The bones in their legs and arms snapped, the sounds echoing across the gathered crowd. The humans gathered round looked on with perverted fascination.
Chatha died first, at least an hour after the last bands cut off all blood flow to her crushed limbs. The sun was nearly vertical overhead, indicating she had lived for almost five hours under the torture. And Lilith was still alive, although her screams were more muted, her throat parched and worn from the effort.
What would they do to Nekhbet? Nosferatu wondered. There was not a third cross on the Sphinx’s head, only the empty black tube.
Lilith finally raised her head and blindly looked to the sky as she cried out, “My brother. Avenge me.” Then at last she died with a whimper.
At her voice Vampyr rose out of his unconscious stupor, eyes blinking, great pain etched on his face. “My sister.” Vampyr hunched over in pain for his twin, bound fists clenched as he felt her death to the core of his being.
One of the Gods gestured and the high priest went over and leaned close to the God, listening. Then the high priest went between the two bodies. “There are two others like these out there. Two who have betrayed the Gods. If they do not make themselves known, a worse fate will be their last companion’s fate throughout the ages.” At that, the high priest pointed at Nekhbet.
Two priests grabbed her arms and pulled her back, placing her inside the open black sarcophagus. A belt was placed around her waist and she was chained to the interior. One of the Gods went over to her, placing the bands with leads around her arms and legs. The God reached in and took the crown out of its slot, settling it on top of Nekhbet’s head. Peering through the cylinder, Nosferatu could see that there were also wires running from the crown back to the tube. Done, the God stepped away.
Over a hundred years. That was how long Nekhbet and Nosferatu had shared the same cell and fate. They had talked at every opportunity. At first of reality, but then they had begun inventing new worlds, imaginary places to which they could disappear together.
“She will suffer the living sleep,” the high priest called out. “Trapped in this, unable to die, unable to sleep, unable to move. Aware all the time. Unless you show yourself.”
Kajilil placed a hand on Nosferatu’s shoulder. “If you show yourself, both of you will suffer the same fate as your two comrades. And they will kill her too. She is only alive because you and your comrade are free.”
Nosferatu stared through the looking tube, focusing on Nekhbet’s face. He had been alone for a hundred years before they brought her in. What they were condemning her to was even more cruel than the past had been. They were keeping her alive to draw him in. He knew that and he knew it would work. But not then. And not on their terms.
Patience. It was the one thing that Gods had forced upon him.
Nekhbet turned her head slightly so that her eyes were dead on with his, as if she could know where he was and could see him. She smiled and shook her head ever so slightly.
The top of the tube was swung shut, enclosing Nekhbet. Nosferatu stared through the looking tube as the God went to the panel and long fingers tapped on it. Through his despair, Nosferatu tried to memorize the pattern.
Before returning to his place at the front, the high priest again went to one of the Gods and listened. “Hear this, traitors and murderers. You will be tracked down. And you will suffer an even more horrible fate.”
A phalanx of guards surrounded the tube, which remained on top of the Black Sphinx, a beacon to draw Nosferatu in. The high priests followed by the Gods, slowly walked down the ramp and into the darkness of the Roads of Rostau.
Vampyr twisted his head toward Nosferatu. “I will never forgive you for today.”
“You would be dead if you had gone down there,” Nosferatu argued. “I would rather have died trying to save her,” Vampyr said.
To that Nosferatu had no answer. For a long time they sat in the dark shadows, stunned and overwhelmed by what they had witnessed.
Kajilil’s voice broke the silence. “Perhaps, when things have changed, as they will with time, you may return. But for now, I think it is best that you both leave Egypt and go as far away as possible.” He took two large leather pouches that jingled slightly and handed one each to Nosferatu and Vampyr. “Take this gold. Go across the sands to the east until you reach the Red Sea. There you will be able to hire a boat to take you far away.”
“There is no ‘perhaps,’” Nosferatu said. “I will be back.”
“But not soon,” Kajilil said, the words both a statement and a warning. Nosf
eratu knew Kajilil’s words were true. It would be a long time before he could come back to claim Nekhbet.
“Can you get me into the Roads this evening?” “You cannot rescue her,” Kajilil said. “She will be guarded. You saw one of the creatures the Gods use to guard the Roads. There are others.”
“I know that,” Nosferatu said. “Can you get me back to the chamber in which I was held? It is empty now. The Gods will not expect me to return.” Kajilil frowned. “Why?”
“If I am to wait a long time, I need to do to myself as they have done to her. I will need my own black tube so I can use the deep sleep.”
“Mine too,” Vampyr said. “I will bide my time. But I swear revenge for my sister.” Vampyr stared at Nosferatu with half-lidded eyes, his lips still covered with the dried blood they had tasted on the Roads of Rostau.
Kajilil considered their request and nodded. “Tonight. Then you both must leave. They will be looking for you.”
Nosferatu’s eyes were on the Black Sphinx. “There will come a day when they will no longer rule.” He tapped his chest. “Then I will be back for my love.”
Vampyr glared down at the site of his sister’s death. “This is the Third Age. The Age of Man.” He tapped his chest. “Someday it will be our age. The Fourth Age. The time of the Undead.”
CHAPTER 2
The Red Sea: 8000 B.C.
The reed ship was at the mercy of the winds and Nosferatu could not help but give a cold smile as the sailors prayed out loud each morning to the Gods of Egypt to help them in their travels. He did not think the Airlia Gods would help, even if it were in their power to do so. However, most days the prayers seemed to work, as a steady wind blew from the north, pushing the forty-foot boat southward, the coast always visible to the right. In two days’ time they made it out of the Red Sea and into the Gulf of Aden. Another three days saw them round the horn of Somalia and sail into the Indian Ocean, still staying close to the coast of Africa.
Nosferatu spent his days inside the black tube that Kajilil had helped him steal from the Roads of Rostau. It was covered by a small thatch hut he had had the sailors construct in the middle of the boat. He had examined the crown but made no use of it. The same with the glowing panel of hexagonals. He had no clue what powered it, but there was writing in the Runic language of the Gods on each hex. When they had gone down into the tunnels, they’d found the three cells empty except for the tubes. Lifting one, they found the metal surprisingly light. Kajilil had given them gray cloaks that he said would hide them from the metal spider, but the creature had not appeared.
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