Heretic of Set

by J. Steven York

  “No.”

  “They walked to the altar together.” She smiled, pleased with her joke, then the smile faded as she looked as his face. “You don’t understand, do you? Poor Anok. You never did.” She seemed to melt into the sunlight, until only the sunlight was left.

  The door opened, and a Kush boy of perhaps nine years led Sabé inside. The old man slipped him a coin, and the boy quickly vanished.

  Teferi started to take him by the arm. “He’s here. I’ll show you.”

  Sabé shrugged off his hands. “No need! I am blind, but I can feel the heat of him, sense the stench of dark magic. He is like a beacon to me.” He stepped over and sat down next to Anok, putting his hand on his forehead. The old fingers were leathery and cool. “Does he speak?”

  Teferi nodded. “He speaks to people long dead.”

  “That is very bad. The madness is deep upon him. He has used a very dark spell, drawn power from the unspeakable black pits of ancient gods.”

  He frowned, and shifted his hand on Anok’s forehead. “There is something familiar here, though I have never detected it like this before. Something that has hidden itself from me. But I cannot say what it is.” His forehead wrinkled above the cloth covering his eyes. “Something is happening. I think a spell is ending!”

  Anok could feel it, too.

  The power of the Scale of Set, which he had transferred to his body, began to flow back to its golden home, and as it did, it took something with it. The madness flowed from his body, like venom sucked from a wound.

  He looked at the old man. “Sabé? What has happened?”

  “But that I understood it myself. You have used great magic, young Anok, and brought madness on yourself. Why the madness is so great I cannot—” Then a realization seemed to hit him.

  He grabbed at Anok’s left arm, shuddering as he touched the mark around his wrist. His expression turned to rage. “The Mark of Set! Why did you not tell me this?”

  Anok did not like his tone. “I am entitled to my secrets. How did I know I could trust you?”

  “I, who have entrusted you and your friends with my own long-hidden secrets? How could you keep this from me?”

  “What difference would it have made had you known?”

  “Well, I never would have tempted you with the ancient texts of power. Never would I have taught you spells like the one you used! The Mark of Set craves such power, feeds upon it. It must ever be denied, lest it consume your soul! A normal sorcerer might use such a spell and recover from the madness or corruption it brings. But one who bears the mark—” He shook his head sadly.

  Anok could not accept what he was saying. He pushed himself up off the couch so quickly that Sabé scrambled off his seat and jumped backward. “What do you know of it anyway? What can you possibly know of the Mark of Set?”

  Sabé’s face reddened. “What can I know?” He yanked back the tight cuff of his sleeve to show the skin, smooth and pink as a child’s, and there, a mark identical to Anok’s own.

  Anok shook his head. “That can’t be. The texts say that the Mark has not been granted for five hundred years!”

  “The texts do not lie. Surely you have seen how the power of the mark can restore the flesh. For five hundred years it has kept death from my door, until even the Cult of Set had forgotten my name. Long I have resisted that cold embrace, hoping I might yet be free of this curse before going to my funeral pyre.”

  “But you knew all these magics as well. You have read every text I read and a thousand more. How is it that you have resisted their temptation? Why are you not corrupt or mad?”

  Sabé’s mouth twisted in emotion, his lips struggling to form words through his anger. Finally, he said, “You fool! I’ve made my mistakes! I’ve paid the price! You think me an old, blind man.” He reached for the knot binding the cloth around his eyes. “Well, in a sense I am blind, but not for lack of eyes to see!”

  He yanked away the cloth.

  Fallon gasped.

  Teferi’s mouth opened in a silent, “Oh!”

  There, hidden by the cloth, the wrinkled skin around his eyes became puckered and crusted over with shining, green, scales. And, surrounded by those scales, were the eyes, large, round, and yellow, the pupils vertical black slits.

  Anok knew them well. He had seen eyes like them before, on the great temple snakes of Set.

  “This is the price I paid for my dalliances with great magic! To have the cold, inhuman eyes of a serpent of Set! To see in human flesh only something warm to be slaughtered and consumed. Eyes that paint each image only in shades of evil, eyes that corrupt the mind and the soul!” With each word, his voice changed, becoming darker, more sinister.

  Suddenly, Sabé threw up his hands and turned away from them, struggling to regain control as he tied the cloth back into place.

  When it was done, he slumped down onto a chair, his head hung low, not facing them, panting to catch his breath. “Now,” he said finally, “you see. My last secret is yours as well. You see why I have helped you, young Anok, in your schemes against the Cult of Set. But it is I who am the fool. Blind, I could not see the mark that would destroy you.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Anok. “I didn’t understand.”

  “I need not your pity. What I have done, I have done to myself. Let it not be your fate, though I am not sure how we can spare you.”

  “But the madness is past! And I swear, I will never use great magic again!”

  Sabé turned their way, his expression contemptuous. “Do not make promises you cannot keep. And as for the madness, do not think you are free. I do not understand how you are free of it even now.”

  Anok quickly explained his ruse in taking the magic of the Scale into himself and how it had drawn the madness from him.

  Sabé shook his head. “A Scale of Set? How many more secrets do you have?”

  “A few,” said Anok.

  Sabé sighed. “This is but a respite. The madness will return. You have, at best, days.”

  “Then I will repeat the spell and use the Scale to cleanse myself.”

  “And each time you do, the Mark of Set will draw more power from the Scale, growing stronger until its corruption consumes you as it nearly did me. That is no answer.”

  “I am doomed then?”

  Sabé’s mouth twitched. “There may be one other hope. For all my years I have searched the ancient secrets for some answer to my own plight. In those years, I have found but one thing of promise. It was too late to help me, but it may offer you some small hope.”

  Teferi stepped forward excitedly. “What is it then? Tell us!”

  Sabé frowned. “There will be great peril.”

  Fallon grinned. “Peril again. There is always peril in a fighter’s path. How else will they gain glory? How else will their stories be worth telling?”

  “Perhaps there was never hope for me, Anok. But I had not friends such as these in my time of need.”

  Anok met the eyes of each of his friends in turn, exchanging a silent acknowledgment. Then his attention went back to Sabé. “Then what is this hope of which you speak?”

  Sabé opened his mouth, then stopped. “We are being watched,” he said. Then, raising his voice, “Show yourself!”

  A curtain parted, and Dejal stepped into the room. “Forgive me, but is there room for one more old friend on your quest?”

  Anok’s eyes widened. Dejal. The betrayer. The murderer! What is he doing here?

  As if in answer, Dejal touched the crystal ball at the top of his magical staff. “I touched you with this as you left the temple, so as to establish a connection. That, plus our long association, allowed me to follow you even into Thoth-Amon’s lair and observe your ordeal. I could not hear you there for his spells of concealment, but I could still see.”

  “You spied on me!”

  “I was concerned for your welfare. I have heard tales of those who have had audience with the Lord of the Black Ring in his chambers. Some never return, and few ret
urn unchanged, as I see it is with you.”

  He was in no mood for false pleasantries. “You care for none but yourself.”

  Dejal smiled slightly. “There is some truth, that I value my interests over all. But my interests are intertwined with those of others as well. Especially yours, brother.

  “Much of my rise in the cult has been through my association with you. I admit, I have little of my own to offer. My father is rich, but not as rich as many, and I am but a poor magician, leaning on my staff of magical trinkets in more ways than one. If you are not loyal to Set, what of it? That is not my concern. But so long as Thoth-Amon and Ramsa Aál remain convinced you may be of some eventual use to them, it will serve me as well.”

  Anok sneered. “And if I crush your precious cult, what then?”

  Dejal laughed. “You may entertain such delusions. I do not share them. In that sense, you are a problem that will, sooner or later, solve itself. I need only stand back and watch. In fact, I suspect that without my aid, your grand schemes will end here and now.”

  Teferi looked at Dejal, a frown on his face. “Though it pains me to admit it, Anok, he may be right. We may have need of a wizard, and for you to use more magic is only to speed your downfall. He will serve us, as long as it serves his own interests as well.”

  Anok grimaced. Dejal might indeed be useful, but Anok was just as sure he couldn’t be trusted, and he couldn’t tell Teferi why. So long he had kept the truth of Sheriti’s murder from his friend. The secret had festered, and to tell it now might lose him his ally just when he was needed most.

  “Very well. Let us hear the task Sabé has set out for us, then we will decide if we need your aid.”

  Sabé looked unhappy. “I do not like this. This one cannot be trusted.”

  Anok nodded grimly. “I know that too well. But he already knows too much, so we have little choice but to keep him close to us.”

  Sabé sighed. “Very well.” He paused and gathered his thoughts. “For countless years I have seen scattered references in the texts to an ancient sorcerer named Neska. Most texts suggested that he was Atlantean, though I suspect that may merely have been a land where he dwelled. Truthfully, he may not even have been fully human. But the texts said he worked great and powerful magics, and that he was a wise, good, and just man.”

  “From what we know,” said Teferi, “that is a contradiction.”

  “Indeed,” said Sabé, “and so I searched for more.

  “I found that he had escaped Atlantis when it sank and come to the land that would later be known as Stygia; but all accounts said his power was greatly diminished. I later learned it was because a pillar had fallen on his left arm as that ancient land sank, and he was forced to cut his limb off with his own sword in order to escape.”

  Teferi grimaced, but said nothing.

  “Still, it is said that he sent many Atlanteans to a place of safety, built a city in Stygia, and watched over it until his death. The people built a pyramid in his honor and buried him there. But he could not save them from the unknown horrors that would later sweep over Stygia. The city was abandoned and lost to the sands.”

  Anok saw something crawling up the wall. A solitary scorpion. He looked away, shook his head, and it was gone. “This is interesting, but I don’t see how that helps me.”

  “Patience. I said he used magic without corruption or madness, and I eventually learned how. It is said that he forged two bracelets that would counteract the ill effects of sorcery and allow it to be used for good. One was lost with his hand, but the other was buried with him.”

  “Then that bracelet could cure me, free me to use the Mark of Set to punish those who deserve it?” He glanced up and saw Dejal watching him.

  “With only one bracelet, and with your spirit already infected by dark magic, I do not think so. But it could provide a firmament, an anchor, so that a strong man could pull himself back from madness and corruption. Even with the bracelet, it will not be easy.”

  Anok paced. “What choice do I have. How do we find this tomb?”

  “I suspect it is not far over the mountains into the desert. Sorcerers come here because this is a natural place of power, and so it was then. Many have searched the sand and found nothing. But I have found an ancient spell of guidance that will guide one to the tomb.”

  “Then tell it to me, and we will be off.”

  Sabé remained silent for a time. “I fear it is too soon for you to do magic. You will only hasten the return of the madness.”

  Dejal smiled. “So, it seems that you do have need of a sorcerer, brother.”

  “And the temple . . .” said Sabé. “It will not be unguarded. Who knows what great Neska may have left to guard his tomb?”

  “This,” said Fallon, drawing her sword and holding it out, “would be the part of this that involves peril.”

  Teferi hesitated only a moment before drawing his sword and laying his blade across hers. “We are together in this, then.”

  Anok looked at them. “Be sure you know where this road leads. These are not bandits or pirates or guardians we will face. This temple is doubtless guarded by supernatural creatures. In my time with the cult, I have read of things, even seen things. There are creatures more unnatural, foul, and terrible that you can imagine.”

  “I can imagine a great deal,” said Teferi. “Let us have at them.”

  Yet Anok suspected they really didn’t know, didn’t understand.

  Nobody did, until they first looked into the dark abyss with their own eyes.

  24

  THEY LEFT KHESHATTA before dawn the next morning.

  The poisoners and great sorcerers who kept their estates and plantations in the hills north of Kheshatta jealously guarded their privacy, and so the four travelers, Anok, Teferi, Fallon, and Dejal, steered their mounts carefully up the well-marked caravan road into the low mountain pass.

  They rode camels, three hired for the trip, and Fallon’s white camel Fenola. The beasts looked singularly out of place as they wound their way up through the lush hills. But as they moved away from the city basin, the terrain began to dry out, the flora consisting mainly scrubby brown grass, leafy flowering cactus, and an unfamiliar brush with waxy, bluish leaves and bright green berries.

  As they crested the pass, they had a clear look at the land beyond, red-rock badlands, bone-dry riverbeds, and shifting dunes of sand that threatened to swallow it all.

  Perhaps one day they would.

  They were careful to follow the established road as it wandered down the steep and treacherous hillsides amid loose and fallen rock.

  It was difficult. The road was not much traveled. The large caravans used the narrow pass to the west, where Anok had entered the city, then circled north from there. It cost them half a day’s travel, but the going was easier on both the riders and the camels.

  Anok didn’t have half a day to spare. He could hear the imagined voices always, like a ringing in his ear, and the little scorpions were always at the edge of his vision. He might have been amused by their antics if he hadn’t known the encroaching madness they represented.

  He saw his father and Sheriti occasionally, too, though usually at a distance, and they did not talk to him. They passed his mother, sitting on a rock next to the road at one point. He called to her, and the others looked at him strangely before he realized she wasn’t there.

  He saw others long dead as well. Hericus, the chief servant in his father’s house. Asrad, the long-dead Raven, who rode next to them on a spectral camel for a while before waving to Anok and going his own way.

  He saw people he’d killed: pirates, bandits, Lord Wosret and the White Scorpions. Except this time they really were scorpions: human heads on pale, low-slung bodies, running alongside the little caravan on many-jointed legs, waving their pincers and stinging tails at Anok until the trail narrowed, and they were left behind.

  When at last they reached the flats at the base of the hill, Dejal moved to the front of the procession.
It was time to leave the more traveled road and follow Sabé’s locator spell.

  Dejal held up his staff before him, the crystal ball and various magical trinkets glinting in the sun, and chanted the ancient incantation Sabé had provided.

  A beam of light shone from the crystal at the top of the staff and began to sweep around the horizon. It spun a full circle, then stopped, pointing to the northeast before fading away. They turned their camels to the right and headed in that direction.

  Every half hour or so, Dejal would repeat the spell, and they would adjust their direction as necessary. They left all signs of roads or trails behind, winding their way among boulders and dried patches of brush.

  They saw not the slightest sign of human habitation, and Teferi soon became impatient. “How will we know when we’re close? This doesn’t look like the ruins of an ancient city. It doesn’t look like anything.”

  “As we get close,” said Dejal, “the beam of light should shine downward.”

  Teferi seemed skeptical, but he was generally untrusting of magic. “Why couldn’t Sabé have just had a map? This still doesn’t look like anything.”

  “If it were easy to find,” said Anok, “someone would have discovered it long before now.”

  “Let us hope that someone already hasn’t found it,” said Dejal. “I’ve read of Neska’s tomb in my studies as well. If I have, countless others have as well.”

  “Knowing of Neska,” said Anok, “is not the same as knowing where his tomb is located. Sabé put together the pieces of this locator spell from a dozen different tablets that it took him hundreds of years to collect. I am hopeful that we will be the first.”

  They had to be, he glumly reflected, or he was doomed to madness.

  It was midafternoon before they noticed a change in the beam’s angle. They were entering another area partially covered with dunes, and with each mile there was more sand and less rock. The camels, seemingly happy at the change after a morning of difficult, and often unfamiliar, terrain, actually began to pick up speed.