Servant of the Gods

by Valerie Douglas

  That, though, was Marid behavior.

  Drinking a cup of wine proved he could at least still drink wine and not just blood, but his exhilaration had almost undone him as his hand clenched around the soft metal of the cup. He would have to learn to control that.

  At least he was better, though.

  He might be able to use his new-found strength, too, to bind the other Djinn to him, to his half-Djinn self, now completely assimilated.

  He had unfinished business.

  Picking up the dead slave by his clothing, Kamenwati stepped out of his rooms.

  No servants or slaves were about where he could see them, which was as it should be.

  They would watch his shadow from doorways, though. But only his shadow.

  Not that it mattered. He was master here.

  He carried the body down to the lowest floors and tossed it beneath the hanging Djinn.

  After so long suspended, they were starved. They went mad in an instant, snarling and biting, writhing in their bonds.

  Leaving them to continue to do so with a meal a few tantalizing inches away, he lit the lamp beside Books both sacred and forbidden, he then opened them to the pages he wanted. This was dark magic so he needed to adjust some of the spells within them for his own use, for the way he needed to use them. He wrote notes swiftly, changing the hieroglyphs in his copies to the ones he wanted. When he was satisfied with what he’d written he gathered the materials he needed – a sharp knife, another gold cup, a censer to burn the herbs – aconite and belladonna, among others – a cup of natron and salt-laced water.

  When he was ready, he went outside to look at the aspects of moon and the stars for verification.

  Darkness greeted him, the moonless sky empty of all but the stars. It was a better time than he’d chosen before, with a new moon and the stars in more auspicious locations. He calculated the various positions.

  Satisfied, he gave instructions to his majordomo to keep the servants in their rooms and all the slaves but his chosen ones in their quarters. Those chosen ones were to be brought to him.

  The majordomo stared at the suspended Djinn as he obeyed, his eyes wide and horrified as he led the shackled slaves into the room.

  Kamenwati reminded himself to have the man’s tongue cut out, and soon.

  Like the majordomo, the slaves stared in abject terror.

  With a gesture Kamenwati indicated the slaves should be chained to the walls to await his desires.

  Only the last two struggled, one attempting to flee.

  His face paling, the majordomo caught the man, knowing full well by Kamenwati’s glare that had the slave escaped it would have been the majordomo who would have stood in the slave’s place.

  When that was done Kamenwati sent the majordomo away as well.

  Lighting the herbs, he let the smoke rise until it filled the room. The slaves closest to the brazier swayed as it overwhelmed them.

  With no more thought than he’d give to slaughtering one of his cattle he slit the throat of a slave and fed his blood to the starving Djinn as he chanted a spell. It was enough to satisfy the blood thirst of the Djinn until the spell took effect, making them momentarily grateful to him, binding them to him and to human blood. The next slave screamed and fought his bonds as Kamenwati wrestled him onto the altar.

  Kamenwati cut that one’s living heart from his chest as he chanted from the Books while offering the shuddering heart to the great God Set.

  Positioning the ram’s horn beneath them, he set the Djinn where he wanted. Then he slit their throats as well, one at a time, chanting as their thick ichor drained from them and into the mouth of the copper-wrapped, jewel-encrusted horn propped below them. The thick fluid filled it, soaked into the bone, turned the white substance of the horn a deep, dark red as it absorbed the viscous liquid.

  Never once did Kamenwati’s voice falter or cease. He chanted steadily the sound rising in volume, louder, deeper, until it filled the room…

  He knew the penalty for failure.

  The time for waiting was over. It was almost done. He would wear the King’s crown and soon.

  Lifting the Horn to his lips, he blew the first summons.

  Cuddled in Khai’s arms Irisi felt a shiver of dark magic slither over her skin, waking her instantly. She sat up. The sense of threat sent shivers down her spine, as she knew it did for every other priest or priestess with even a hint of magic. All of them would be instinctively looking around for the source even as she did.

  Khai looked at her in the dark. “What’s wrong?”

  A breath Irisi hadn’t known she’d been holding escaped her.

  “I don’t know. Someone was practicing dark magic,” she said, shaking her head, her voice breathless. “A great deal of it. It was so strong, Khai.”

  Nor could her assumed memories recall anything like it.

  Khai heard a touch of fear and concern in her voice. This was indomitable Irisi. Little frightened her.

  Pulling her into his arms, Khai was startled to find she was shivering. He knew Irisi too well. This was more than a mere bad dream. He held her close.

  “To what purpose?” he asked.

  Shaking her head, she said, “I don’t know.”

  Irisi looked up into his dark eyes. “I’ve never felt anything like it.”

  Lifting her hand to his lips, Khai pressed his mouth to her palm in comfort.

  Irisi’s heart warmed, easing a little, and she smiled.

  The night was otherwise quiet. Whatever it was had passed as swiftly as it had come.

  “Do you mind?” she asked, looking up at him.

  Khai smiled and shook his head as he lay on his back, curling one arm around her.

  Irisi stretched out against him.

  She wrapped an arm around his waist and laid her head on his chest to listen to his heartbeat while he stroked her hair. More than anything else, that soothed her on the nights when the dreams shook her as they did increasingly of late, although she couldn’t remember them when she woke.

  Neither they nor the other priests and priestesses ignored the clear portents.

  It touched Khai immeasurably that she took comfort that way, from his presence beside her.

  “Is there anything I can do?” he asked quietly.

  She shook her head, helplessly. “I don’t even know what it was.”

  “Is it something we have to worry about?”

  Laughing lightly and wryly, keeping her concern at bay, Irisi said, “Quite probably.”

  “Kamenwati?”

  Frowning, biting her lip, Irisi shrugged helplessly. “Again, probably. Few practice dark magic. And it was so strong…”

  She let out a breath.

  “You’re worried,” he said.

  She let out a breath. “Yes.”

  “Perhaps I can take your mind off it,” he said, with a smile, rolling over to put her on her back beneath him, as he brushed a kiss across her lips.

  His hips moved against her. She could feel him harden against her.

  Cupping her breast, he brushed his thumb across her nipple.

  His eyes watching her, he bent his head to nibble.

  Warmth, excitement and love moved through her.

  “Perhaps,” she confessed, as a finger slipped inside her and she gasped.

  She’d missed that, his touch, while he’d been gone.

  His thumb caressed her as his mouth closed over the tip of her breast to suck and nibble. Assaulted on all sides by pleasure, Irisi still could not resist adding more, stroking one hand through his hair, the other across his back, for the sheer delight in touching him.

  Then she stopped thinking of anything except Khai as pleasure built within her, writhing as he tormented her sweetly.

  Khai sighed.

  This was one of the many things he loved about her, her total abandonment to his touch, giving herself to him so freely and completely. He loved to watch her lovely body twist and turn, writhe and tremble, while color washed t
hrough her fair skin until her skin blushed like a rose.

  Irisi looked up into deep brown eyes with their flecks of warm gold.

  Khai smiled and watched her gaze blur as she tipped over into ecstasy, her body arching beneath his, vibrating as she buried her face against his shoulder to muffle the soft cry of pleasure that escaped her.

  Then he was inside her, even as the contractions within her faded, feeling her pulse around him.

  Slowly, deliberately, he stroked into her.

  Irisi moaned softly at the feel of him within her. She opened, lifted her hips to take him deeper, to feel all of him inside her, all the way.

  Here was only another reason Khai loved her, this pleasure she took in the feel of him within her. Each time she smiled with delight as she did now, her eyes widening, and then sighed with pure pleasure, gratified him.

  He loved that smile.

  Though some might think that this was for her, it wasn’t. It was for him.

  Khai had no fear for her, she would come as often as he wished, relishing the feel of him inside her as much as he enjoyed being there. She was so hot, so wet, so tight, he pleasured himself with her as her body closed around him, another soft cry whispering from her as she tightened.

  Pleasure rushed through him as he spilled into her, gloriously. His Priestess, and he worshiped her.

  Watching Khai leave in the pre-dawn light, cursing Kamenwati for the necessity of it, Irisi felt a small twinge of…something.

  With a frown, she sighed and awoke a sleepy messenger.

  Her uneasiness had returned.

  “Run to the priests and priestesses of all the temples,” she said. “Ask those Highest to join me after their morning rituals.”

  The girl nodded, jumping to her feet to race out the door.

  Irisi smiled at such energy and eagerness.

  Awan was the first to arrive, looking grayer and thinner than he had only a few short months earlier. In the first few days she’d depended on him greatly for advice but as she’d grown more confident she leaned on him less. As time passed he was also allowing his chosen successor to take on more and more of the duties of Osiris’s High Priest. Watching him fade, Irisi grieved for him, knowing he slipped away from her, from them, going to join his beloved Banafrit bare finger-lengths at a time.

  For now, though, she moved to give him greeting, hugging him as warmly as he did her.

  Gently, Awan kissed her on the forehead.

  “From the first,” he said, “I’ve always considered you another daughter and been grateful that the Gods blessed me with another.”

  The words startled her.

  “Awan,” she said softly, her heart twisting.

  He patted her cheek. “Have no fear yet, my dear one, I will not leave you until there is someone in my place to advise you as well as I would. Ramses is not yet there.”

  In a way, Irisi felt guilty for keeping him from Banafrit – and Banafrit from Awan – but Irisi herself and Egypt still needed him. The counsel he offered her was priceless.

  Giving her a look, he said, “I would guess this is about what we felt last night.”

  “Have you ever sensed anything like that?”

  Shaking his head, he said, “No. Dark magic, thankfully, only attracts a terrible few. Sadly, many of them are dangerous, and some are quite mad. They usually bring their own doom upon themselves.”

  Hearing what was said as he joined them, Kahotep added, “I can’t disagree with Awan.”

  Kahotep looked at Irisi, the same thought in all their minds as the others arrived one by one.

  The only dark wizard they knew of was rumored to be the Grand Vizier Kamenwati – who, although he’d fallen out of favor with the King of late – still possessed a certain amount of power, owed to him by those who’d sought favor from him in the past and profited from it.

  Those ties were likely to be more than just monetary, or physical, they could very well also be magical.

  As they talked, more of the others arrived.

  “Did anyone else get any sense of what its purpose was?” Irisi asked.

  Several heads shook.

  “What does it mean?” Nafre asked, her soft brown eyes worried.

  “I don’t know either,” Irisi answered, “but it can’t bode well.”

  She paced. It seemed she’d picked up that habit from Khai and suddenly she missed him with an intensity that shook her, even though they’d been parted for only a short time.

  If it weren’t for Kamenwati she could see him openly, they could marry, have children…and part of her yearned for that.

  She’d held the King’s son Menes several times, one of the few people Paniwi trusted and allowed to do so. Irisi delighted in playing with him, in listening to the child’s happy chortles. He was a healthy baby.

  Khai was willing to risk being more open but she wasn’t. Not yet. They’d been discreet. So far as they knew, Kamenwati wasn’t aware of their relationship. It was Khai’s life at stake, but it was her choice to take that chance. Not for all the world was she willing to do it. To lose him and all possibility of a future together was more of a risk than she wanted to take. She loved him too much. Even if all they could manage sometimes was a simple kiss.

  Blowing out a breath, she said, “All we can do then is wait.” Remembering the days before they’d lost Banafrit, she added, “Just in case, though, lay in extra stores and check the ones you have to be sure we have enough in case of need.”

  She didn’t know what impulse made her say it…

  Kamenwati’s majordomo was waiting when he awoke the morning after the ritual, prostrated on the floor beside Kamenwati’s bed awaiting his instructions. Kamenwati left him there for a time, taking the moments to break his fast first. As instructed a female slave awaited him along with his usual hearty repast. He was ravenous, almost ravenous enough to feed from his majordomo, but he controlled it. That wouldn’t do. It was reassuring to know as he ate of the more common but fine foodstuffs provided him that, if they weren’t as satisfying to his Marid-self, they still were very much so to his human self.

  Reaching out, he drew the slave to him.

  Informed of his needs, she turned her head and let him to her do as he would, although she didn’t know the full extent of his requirements.

  He pleasured himself of her and then fed deeply, sucking her dry no matter how hard she fought him. Both satisfied and finished, he let her body fall, knowing his majordomo would take care of the refuse.

  Wiping his hands, he gestured to his man finally.

  “There’s much I missed during the days I was ill,” Kamenwati stated, his speech giving the majordomo the right to respond.

  The man couldn’t do so unless Kamenwati spoke to him.

  Bowing his head respectfully as he rose to his feet, the majordomo said, “Indeed, my lord. What is it you wish to know?”

  “The King?”

  “Still lives, as do Paniwi and the child. An attempt to slip an asp into the child’s garden met with failure.”

  “The man who attempted it?”

  Bowing, the majordomo said, “He paid the price for his failure.”

  Kamenwati waved him to continue as he cut a piece of fruit.

  “The King sent to ask if you were recovering and to say he was praying to Sekhmet and Isis for your recovery.”

  The Goddesses of healing and magic.

  With a smile meant only for himself, Kamenwati wondered if Narmer would have done so if he’d known what it was that had rendered him ill, and what he intended to do with the results. It was amusing to speculate.

  “And my estates?”

  “Do well as always, my Lord,” the majordomo said, and then added as an aside. “Also, the little priest sought you while you were…ill. He was turned away.”

  The little priest from Isis’s temple, where Kamenwati’s escaped slave stood as High Priestess.

  Even the thought was enough to spark rage.

  Anger burned. The knife
slipped and cut the base of his thumb, the pain sharp and bitter. Blood oozed thick and dark from the small wound.

  Let them call her High Priestess. To Kamenwati she was a slave, his slave, and his property. His. One day he would have her in his hands again and she would pay for a long time, until her suffering gave him no more satisfaction, and then he would sacrifice her to Set, alive, cutting her living heart from her breast. As Isis’s priestess, her death at his hands would give both he and Set a great deal of power and Set some redress for Isis’s interference in the matter of Osiris.

  The little priest had wanted speech with him. Kamenwati considered it. It was unusual. The man feared him.

  Straightening, Kamenwati narrowed his eyes. “He wasn’t due.”

  What did the little priest want or know? He’d thought to be Isis’s High Priest until Banafrit had chosen the slave.

  Did Kamenwati now have something to punish her with?

  With a shake of his head, the majordomo kept his face impassive as he confirmed that fact. “No, my lord, he wasn’t.”

  “Why then the visit?” Kamenwati asked as much of the air as anyone.

  Knowing this the majordomo remained silent, having no answer.

  “It’s been some time since I’ve been to visit the King,” Kamenwati said. “There are affairs I must attend to. Send someone to this priest. I want to know what it was he wanted to tell me so much that he came on a day he wasn’t expected.”

  The little priest wasn’t so bold as to have presumed, so he must have thought it important enough at the time.

  What had been so vital the little priest was willing to risk Kamenwati’s wrath to speak of it?

  Did the man finally have the means for Kamenwati’s revenge?

  Suddenly it mattered very much to him to know what it was the little priest thought he should know.

  Not that he would show any sign of it. That wouldn’t do at all.

  A few hours at the palace should suffice, a brief visit to his cousin to assure him that his Grand Vizier was well enough, ready to resume his duties and to see what had passed at the palace in his absence.

  Changes were coming, although they didn’t know it.