He smiled, as if she had made a jest. “The gods are nearer than you think. I…” He paused, lifting his head, and Rhenna followed his gaze to the broken gates. A shadowy group of figures climbed over the splintered wood, thirty or more men and women in robes and kilts and jewelry dull with blood and dirt. As they came closer to the fire, Rhenna recognized the woman who led them.
“Nyx,” she said. She found that she still had enough feeling left to rejoice at the woman’s survival. “Your lady is alive, Khaleme.”
They stood and waited while the group approached. Nyx’s teeth flashed in a smile as she caught sight of Rhenna; she hurried forward and clasped Rhenna in a hard embrace.
“My friend,” she said. “Praise the gods that you are well.”
A bald man came up beside her. “My lady,” Dakka said, bowing to Rhenna. His eyes searched the darkness beyond the fire. “The holy Bearer…”
“He is gone.” Rhenna drew back and wrapped her arms around her chest. “Sutekh was too strong for him, and he met an old enemy. They fought, and the earth—” Her throat strangled the words.
“The earth swallowed them,” Khaleme said.
Nyx closed her eyes. “Aset, protect him. Asar, preserve his soul.”
Dakka murmured a prayer in his own tongue. “Like Asar, he will rise again.”
Rhenna rejected the hope that so easily betrayed her. She kicked the sack with the scrolls, and Dakka’s gaze tracked her movement. “The healer saved the sacred scriptures,” he said.
Rhenna picked up the sack and held it out to him. “Take it.”
He stepped back. “You still have need of them, Bearer. I will translate—”
“Of what use are they now that the Hammer is lost to us?”
The priest exchanged glances with Nyx and sighed. “My lady, your quest is not ended. The other Weapons must be found before evil takes them. We—I and my brothers of the Archives—have saved some of the ancient texts, and we will recreate many more when New Meroe is restored.”
“All who still live will be ready to fight when the Weapons are reunited,” Nyx said.
Rhenna met Nyx’s gaze. “You know that your king is dead.”
“The people will need a new ruler,” Dakka said. “Lady Netiquert has agreed to become our kandake, our queen.”
“Twice before our people have left their homes to make new lives in other lands,” Nyx said. “We will do so again. The knowledge we have preserved must not die.”
Rhenna looked away from the fire. Frightened people were creeping near, straining to hear their leader’s words. “Where will you go?” she asked.
“West. West to the country of my mother.”
“A long journey.”
“Not so long as yours.” Nyx looked toward the South and the rolling hills. “The villages and farms outside the city still stand. Once you have learned your destination, we will assemble the supplies you need and send men for your protection.”
“I want no more blood on my hands,” Rhenna said. “Tahvo and I will go alone.”
“I will go with you,” Khaleme said.
“I’ve seen too many men die for our cause,” Rhenna protested.
“But I am no man.” Khaleme laughed, leaped in the air and came down again on four paws, shaking his sleek-coated body in a canine dance.
“Eshu!” Nyx exclaimed.
Rhenna stared into the beast’s glittering eyes. “You were Khaleme?”
The dog sat on its haunches and grinned. “I found a man dying in the great swamp. Now he lives in me, and I in him.”
“You deceived us,” Rhenna said. “We have no use for trickster gods on our journey.”
Eshu snarled and pawed the ground, digging furrows with his claws. “When will you learn respect, mortal? I saved your silly scrolls when your healer’s enemy would have stolen them. I stopped you from flinging your life away.”
“And why did you follow us? Why would you help us now, when you were so indifferent before?”
“Because you have proven your worthiness.” He scratched behind his ear. “Olorun sent me to test you, to discover whether the òrìshà of the forest people should enter the battle between your Stone God and the peoples of the North.”
“And you’ve decided in our favor.”
He snapped at an insect circling the fire. “It may be, with my help, that you will succeed in your quest.”
“Do not dismiss his aid,” Tahvo said. She walked into the firelight, making her way with care. Her eyes were once again unbroken silver. “The spirits of the forest wish us well.”
Rhenna took Tahvo’s arm. “Dakka’s magic?”
“It is gone.” She turned her head toward Nyx and the priest. “My thanks for all you have done.”
“Can you restore her sight?” Rhenna asked Dakka.
“Such is beyond my power,” Dakka said with regret.
“Eshu—”
“She chose this affliction,” the dog said. “I cannot take it away.”
“Do not grieve for me,” Tahvo said. She knelt and felt for the scrolls. “Will you read the prophecies, Dakka?”
“Yes.” He sat cross-legged before the fire. One by one the city’s refugees—men and women, courtiers and warriors and servants—joined him. Nyx bowed to Eshu, went to Rhenna and looped a beaded leather cord around her neck.
“This belonged to my father,” she said. “I have carried it all my life, but I betrayed the true Bearer. I am no longer fit to wear it.” She smiled sadly. “You are bound to Cian, my friend, my sister. You will see him again.”
At the end of the cord hung a tiny black panther.
Karchedon
The exile’s ship had sailed. Not one of the emperor’s Companions had gone to the harbor to witness young Alexandros’s punishment or bid him farewell…not even Lady Danae, who shared his disgrace but not his fate.
Baalshillek descended from the citadel wall, sweeping his robes behind him. Nikodemos’s soldiers moved swiftly out of his path. Perhaps, he thought, they had begun to realize that a new era was dawning—that there was no certainty, no safety, outside the Stone God’s favor. One who had so lately been raised up was cast down, sent to the farthest and most barbaric corner of the empire, and he would not live long enough to benefit from the emperor’s inevitable forgiveness.
Today the gods of the Stone were restless. They, too, sensed the change. Ag, ancient god of fire, rattled about in Baalshillek’s head like some great clawed beast testing the bars of its cage. The other Exalted roared and wailed.
Baalshillek ignored them and strode into the Temple. He entered the door under the altar, and hurried down the narrow steps to the underground halls and chambers known only to the priesthood and its Stonebound servants.
The entrance to the brood chamber was crowded with priests. They bowed and retreated as Baalshillek approached, but none withdrew. They had heard the rumors. The first of the perfect Children was about to be born into the world.
Baalshillek had known this birth would be different, from the moment he had seen the rich, red light suffusing the woman’s distended belly. He had commanded the alpha priest who oversaw the brood females to take special care with this one, and the man had done his duty. Now the time had come.
Only the overseer and a few attendants stood at the couch where the female lay. She breathed steadily and slowly, held in the state between waking and sleeping that kept the mothers quiescent throughout their period of incubation. But her belly had begun to contract, and soon not even the power of the Stone could maintain her dormancy.
Baalshillek stood at the woman’s feet, waiting for the sign. The luminescence radiating from her womb began to pulse. Her breathing stopped and resumed, much more rapid than before. Distended flesh rippled. Suddenly the woman’s eyes flew open, and she screamed.
The attendants gripped her ankles as she convulsed. A stream of blood issued from her body. She choked, foam bubbling from her lips. Her head beat against the frame of the couch. Then her offs
pring’s head appeared, bathed in blood and light. The female gave one last, great heave and lay still.
Baalshillek was there to catch the child as it emerged. He held it aloft, glorying in its perfection. Perfect body, made to bear a god, strong enough to survive the crippling influence of an Exalted. Perfect features. Perfect emptiness. For this child had no soul. It was a vessel waiting to be filled.
The babe did not cry. It breathed, filling its chest with life-giving air. It opened its eyes. Baalshillek smiled and gave the infant to the attendants, who bathed its flawless skin and wrapped it in cloth to keep it warm.
The overseer moved to the head of the couch and lifted the woman’s eyelids.
“She is dead,” he said.
Baalshillek nodded, stepping clear of the blood that still gushed from her body. It was as he had expected. Her offspring had drawn her essence into itself, leaving none to sustain her life. The female had fulfilled her purpose.
She was only the first.
“Arrange for a dozen wet-nurses,” Baalshillek said to the overseer. “Select the healthiest you can find in the city. The child will drain each woman quickly, and it must not go lacking.”
“As you say, my lord.”
Baalshillek left the man to his work, passed through the cluster of curious priests and continued on to the sanctum. He dismissed the priests ministering to the Stone and faced the brilliant red sphere set in the marble altar.
“Soon,” he whispered. “Soon, Ag, you will have full life again.”
The god roared his joy, his divine emotion seething in Baalshillek’s bones with shattering force. The other Exalted snapped and snarled like dogs fighting over a morsel of rotted flesh.
Baalshillek turned to the long stone box that stood at the rear of the sanctum, running his hands over the engraved lid. He could feel the Hyperborean magic that imbued the device…alien magic Talos had summoned and shaped in exchange for the ease of his foolish mortal heart. Magic that would raise a Child of the Stone to full growth in a matter of months instead of years.
Eight Exalted. Eight perfect Children. And by the time each mount was ready to assume its rider, Baalshillek would have the means of controlling the most powerful beings the world had ever known.
It was a ship of death. The death of hope, of dreams, of ambition. The end of a life Quintus had hardly begun to imagine.
He stood on the deck of the biremis, listening to the steady beat of the oars against the water. The first shock was long past; even when the grim, silent guards had taken him to the ship, waiting like a harbinger of disaster in the predawn darkness, he had not begged for explanations. In his heart he had already known.
Alexandros, son of Arrhidaeos, was no more. Quintus Horatius Corvinus might never have existed. The man who watched the waves of Ta Thalassa had neither name nor future. And yet he survived.
The night was still, almost windless, and only a single guard shared Quintus’s vigil. Perhaps he was meant to prevent the exile from leaping over the rail into the dark sea, putting a swift end to his shame. But Quintus had no intention of easing the High Priest’s path to ultimate power.
I am not done, Baalshillek. When I return, I’ll have both Danae and the throne, and then…
A mooncast shadow stretched across the deck, and Quintus spun to face the intruder. The man fell back a step, glanced about him and pushed the hood away from his face.
“Hylas!” Quintus said.
The courtier pressed his finger to his lips. “Caution, my lord. I bribed the ship’s captain well, but even so…”
“What are you doing here?”
Hylas cleared his throat and stared out at the water. “I could not let you go alone, my lord.”
“You’re mad.” Quintus clenched his good hand on the rail and cursed the courtier’s unwanted devotion. “They’re sending me to the ends of the earth, Hylas, a land ruled only by barbarians—”
“Who will need the civilizing influence of a man of my exceptional talents. I even possess a few you have not yet seen.” Hylas brushed at a nonexistent blemish on his expensive himation. “In any case, my lord, I could not return to the exceedingly dull life I endured before you came to Karchedon.”
Quintus gave a brief laugh and shook his head. “Your quest for diversion will be your death, Hylas.”
Hylas straightened, his face set in lines of sober dignity. “Then I will make it a worthy death, my lord. Worthy of you.”
“Gods.” Quintus pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m no longer anyone’s lord, Hylas. Call me Quintus.”
“As you wish…Quintus.”
“How is Danae?”
The courtier squirmed and bit his lip. “She is unharmed. Doubtless Nikodemos will forgive her—in time….”
“I was a fool, Hylas. I risked everything just to be with her.”
“I believe she also had some part in the decision.”
“But she is a woman, driven by women’s passions.” He slammed his fist on the rail. “I will go back for her—”
“No.” Hylas wrapped his arms around his chest and looked away. “She arranged for the soldiers to find you, Quintus. It was her intention all along.”
Quintus felt the blood drain from his face. “What are you saying?”
“I have…contacts among the Palace Guard. Danae intended for you to be caught.”
“Why?”
“My contact did not know. But I cannot believe…Lady Danae would never wish you harm. She must have had good reason….”
Quintus heard no more of Hylas’s labored explanations. He sat down on the deck, convinced that his legs would give out and shame him still further.
Hylas crouched and hesitantly touched his hand. “Do not despair, my friend. You are not alone. Another has come to bear you company.”
Quintus lifted his head, bracing himself for another dose of misfortune. “Who?”
Hylas whistled softly, and his signal was returned from somewhere across the ship. After a moment another dark-clad figure crept across the deck, moving with the watchful care of a fugitive. She lifted the cowl from her face.
“Briga,” Quintus said, beyond incredulity. “Did you bring her?” he demanded of Hylas.
“I found her already at the wharf when I was prepared to embark,” he said. “A most resourceful child. She escaped the Palace and would certainly have been caught. I feared that she might fall into Baalshillek’s hands again, so I simply bribed the captain and guards for both of us.” He stretched his mouth in an uneasy smile. “She is a very stubborn female.”
Briga thrust out her lower lip and faced Quintus unflinchingly. “I will not be left behind,” she said. “I heard what Danae did. I know the High Priest will take me if I stay.”
That was a very real danger now that Danae could no longer be counted on to protect the girl. Quintus got to his feet and looked past them to the indifferent guard and the sleepy sailors manning the limp sails. “If Baalshillek has sent men to kill me…”
“Then you will have two to defend you.” Hylas drew his knife, and Briga presented her open palm. Fire danced on her work-stained skin. “They will not make such an attempt on the ship. The emperor’s men will see that we have enough provisions to survive once we make landfall. After that…we must be ready.”
Ready to fight off the High Priest’s assassins. Ready to tangle with barbarians who had no reason to love the folk of Hellas, Karchedon or Tiberia: a girl, a catamite and a crippled rebel whose power was useless against ordinary mortals.
Perhaps this was fate, the work of gods Quintus had never believed in. If so, struggling against it was useless. If not, the strange twist of events was more than he had the means to resist.
The first light of dawn crested the horizon behind them. Ahead lay the Gates of Herakles and the dangerous voyage up the coast of Iberia, into the unknown.
“Go below,” Quintus said, “before the guards decide we’re hatching a conspiracy between us.”
“Will you be all rig
ht?” Hylas asked. Briga regarded her would-be savior with trusting blue eyes.
He met their stares with stern authority. “From now on, you’ll obey me without question. Agreed?”
“As long as you don’t tell us to go back,” Briga said.
He cuffed the side of her head and turned the light blow into a caress. “That is no longer within my hands,” he said. “If you have any gods who have escaped the Stone, I suggest you pray to them now.”
Hylas retreated with a bow, towing a reluctant Briga by one thin arm. Quintus was alone again. But the night and the voyage had changed. Betrayal and loyalty stood on his shoulders, whispering taunts and promises.
Danae was dead to him now. He could cast off the burden of fear for her future. But he had more than himself to keep alive. One day he would go back to Karchedon with Hylas and Briga. He would return victorious and ready to challenge the might of the empire, or he would not return at all.
The battle was far from over.
Author Note
Hammer of the Earth deals with many cultures in the continent of Africa around 290 B.C.E., when little was known about the vast expanse of wilderness south of what is now called the Sahara Desert. In fact, the ancient Greeks simply referred to Africa as Libya, which was their name for the northernmost portion occupied by subjects of Carthage (Katchedon) and the tribes known as Numidians or Berbers.
Before the coming of the Arabs in the seventh century C.E., the Berbers—more properly known as the Imazighen—traded and fought with Egypt, Carthage and Rome. Their culture goes back at least 4,000 years, and they speak their own unique language. Today they are found in North Africa from Morocco’s West coast to the oasis of Siwa in Egypt and into the mid-Sahara. The Tuareg are close relatives.
Though I have borrowed a variation on the Imazighen name, my depiction of the desert tribes is entirely fictional. I have incorporated the Berbers’ traditional expertise with horses, and the dress and weapons ascribed to them by Greek and Roman contemporaries. Dromedary camels didn’t become important domestic animals in North Africa until the Arab conquests.
The Speaking Stones in Hammer of the Earth are based on real rock paintings at Tassili-n-Ajjer in Algeria. Some of the paintings date back to 4,500 B.C.E., and depict animals such as giraffes, hippopotami and extinct giant buffalo that roamed the area before the encroachment of the desert.
Hammer of the Earth Page 43