Servant of the Gods

by Valerie Douglas

  Watching from the field, drawing his people into the main body of the army to bolster those still fighting and save what he might, with his heart in his throat Khai saw Irisi’s brilliant head disappear among the darkness that was the Djinn. Only Kahotep could be seen still mounted, hacking furiously around him, trying to reach her.

  The Djinn closed tightly around the band of men.

  Turning in his saddle, Khai shouted orders, calling up another wedge, fury and grief driving him.

  As one, Khai’s soldiers fell in around Irisi, and one by one they fell away from around her, too.

  She spun and fought, going berserk as she had all those years ago. It was part of who and what she was.

  A sword slashed her arm, but she didn’t feel the pain.

  Emu came out of seeming nowhere to take the arm of the ghul that had done it at the shoulder.

  A sila turned to smoke but the man it tried to possess fought it, driving his sword into his own belly to stop it. She took the man’s head so he wouldn’t suffer. Anguish twisted her heart, but her eyes were fixed on Kamenwati’s chariot as they fought ever closer.

  Another sila swarmed her. Choking, she drove it off with a flash of light, a burst of magic from Kahotep helping.

  Claws raked her shoulder, but the one that wounded her was gone as a soldier ran it through even as he fell to it.

  It was all horror – the changing shapes and forms of the Djinn, watching some of them feed on the fallen while some of their victims rose as ghul themselves.

  She closed her mind to it, fought her way forward…

  Suddenly there was space in front of her…and Kamenwati.

  The Grand Vizier turned, clearly stunned to see her emerge from the mass of Djinn.

  His face darkened with fury and his eyes glowed like embers as rage lit them.

  A Marid Djinn leaped at her in response to Kamenwati’s gesture.

  Diving and rolling to escape it, Irisi saw Kiwu pounce on the Marid and get flung away even as Irisi herself spun away from Kamenwati’s furious attack, his sword hammering down at her. Kahotep dove from his chariot at Kamenwati. His weight drove Kamenwati back a step, throwing Kamenwati off balance, before Kamenwati took him by the throat and tossed him back into the heaving mass of Djinn.

  A dozen of them turned and descended on Kahotep.

  In a flash Kiwu spun and leaped after the priest to help as Irisi scrambled to her feet, her sword braced to catch Kamenwati’s next attack even as she turned, spun and shifted to drive a kick into the face of an oncoming ghul.

  “Don’t kill her,” Kamenwati growled at the surrounding Djinn. “I want her alive.”

  It was clear Kamenwati had forgotten who she’d once been.

  He glared at her as he battered at her with his sword, his dark eyes glowing red even in the brightest sunlight.

  “But you’ll wish you had died, for a very long time,” Kamenwati said, his words a promise. “I’ll make you beg for death.”

  Each blow made her hands sting, go numb. He was stronger and faster than she’d expected. She didn’t so much parry the blows as deflect them, turn them, her very life dependent on her speed and agility. She spun, fought and turned the attacks on her.

  Cold fear swept through her but she put it aside…there was no time for it. There was only fighting and surviving.

  The Djinn circled, closed around her…

  If they wouldn’t kill her, she had the advantage. She needed to reach Kamenwati’s chariot. They had a chance if she was quick enough.

  Then someone else was there to buy her time…

  Khai with the remnants of his own wedge around and behind him, his people spreading out to drive back the Djinn.

  There was blood on his face, more on his arms and body.

  Almost all his men were gone but Khai drove himself on…

  Until he saw a flash of golden hair swirling in the sunlight and the darkness that had closed over his mind lifted…

  Irisi…

  Her eyes met his…

  And attacking her, Kamenwati.

  Over the clamor of battle Khai heard Kamenwati’s words…

  Sensing the danger behind him, Kamenwati looked at Irisi, smiled and said, “Watch him die.”

  He turned as quick as a snake…

  Irisi’s heart went cold.

  A Marid Djinn leaped for Khai even as Kamenwati reached for power and threw it at him.

  Khai felt a small jolt go through him as the amulet on his chest turned hot… Irisi’s charm…

  A golden blur, Nebi hit the Marid before its claws touched Khai and Khai cut down the next.

  The spell Kamenwati had cast was turned away, striking one of the ghul… Shock was clear on Kamenwati’s face.

  He was distracted.

  Irisi dove toward Kamenwati’s chariot and the Horn, closed her fingers around it. A hand caught her ankle and jerked her out onto the blood-soaked ground. Wrenching herself around onto her back she looked up into Kamenwati’s face, thrusting her left hand sword up to shield herself from the blow… Her arm went numb from the force even as Khai grabbed Kamenwati’s shoulder to yank him back…

  Kamenwati spun then drove his blade toward Khai’s stomach…

  Fear punched through her.

  Blocking the thrust, Khai locked swords with the man, trying to push the Vizier’s sword away…

  The shocking strength of him nearly caught Khai off guard. His sword reverberated with the force of the blow. How had Irisi taken it?

  Bracing himself, he put both hands to the hilt to take the next.

  Furious, hate peeling his lips back from his teeth, Kamenwati hammered at him as the Djinn closed behind and him, his men falling one by one.

  Spinning, Khai turned from an ifrit’s attack, driving another Djinn off with a kick even as he eeled away from Kamenwati’s thrust.

  Khai.

  Terror for him, for all of them, ran through Irisi.

  A Djinn leaped for her.

  Raising the Horn to her lips, Irisi blew…

  It raised a thin, eerie, gut-wrenching wail, the sound piercing… So close it made her ears ache, set her teeth and her bones painfully on edge, a horrible screeching.

  The sound drew Kamenwati’s attention… His body locked as one half of him warred with the other…

  Khai hit him hard across the jaw with an elbow, following it with his left clenched around the hilt of his sword. The finger guard caught Kamenwati hard in the face and the Grand Vizier went down.

  As if from out of nowhere there rose a great and terrible wind, howling, blinding, the sand in it thick. That wind scoured the battlefield, and when it passed the Djinn were gone.

  All of them.

  The battlefield was empty.

  For a breathless moment everything went still, even the breeze.

  Khai turned.

  Dropping the Horn, Irisi scrambled to her feet. She ran toward him.

  For a time Khai had thought she was dead…

  Irisi.

  Catching her up in his arms, he buried his face in her brilliant sun-warmed hair, oblivious to the blood and gore on her, as she clung to him in return.

  “Khai,” she whispered.

  Drawing his head back, Khai touched her face. “I thought you were dead...”

  She touched his face, her hands shaking, and he saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes.

  “And I was afraid you very nearly were…”

  He pulled her close, his hand buried in her hair, his face in the curve of her throat.

  Alive…She was alive.

  He could breathe again.

  Chapter Thirty

  Voices rose and fell but there was no common consensus, only more argument and debate among the King’s ministers, advisors, the priests and the priestesses. No unanimity, except that everything they should do they couldn’t, or shouldn’t, do.

  Narmer listened, watching them, his chin propped on his hand.

  “Destroy it,” one of his ministers advi
sed. “Destroy the Horn and it’ll be done.”

  Kahotep shook his head. “We can’t. It may be our only means of controlling the Djinn if they mass again.”

  “Control them?” another minister said, his tone incredulous. “They’re raiding across Egypt. How are we controlling them?”

  “Use the Horn to call them,” another said, “and then kill them.”

  Glancing at the King as he paced, Khai shook his head, “We can’t. More than half the army was lost in this last battle with the Djinn. Even with conscription and hired mercenaries, there aren’t enough trained men to kill them all. We’d be slaughtered.”

  “Even with the Horn to call them,” Awan pointed out, “I doubt very much it can hold them while we kill them indiscriminately. Look what happened after Irisi blew it…they were momentarily frozen, and then they disappeared back to their own realm. Only to return, as we’ve since seen.”

  Nafre added quietly. “It would be murder as well, to kill them out of hand. They are a race unto their own. As we all know, the Djinn have free will as do we, save for the call of the Horn. How would we know which ones rightly deserve punishment and which do not? They were compelled by the Horn. There are good Djinn as well as bad. Which does the Horn call?”

  “And if we don’t kill them all,” Djeserit said, “we’ll have created an even more implacable enemy by slaughtering those who do answer. One filled with righteous anger at being so slaughtered. Now they only wish to feed… What would they’d be like if they were used so?”

  Djeserit understood that better than most of those here, sharing the same hunger. Save that when she fed, the souls would still pass through the underworld to the afterlife, where the Djinn consumed them.

  “That’s an enemy you don’t want to create,” she warned. “Give them reason to hate us and they will, even as men do. That will make their current raids look as nothing.”

  With a sigh, Khai nodded. “Even if we had the men, the army cannot be everywhere, as much as we wish we could. We either kill them all, or risk creating an enemy even more merciless. Striking everywhere, anywhere, randomly, as they do now, but not yet in numbers. They remember, and they’re clearly learning. What will we do then?”

  “What of Kamenwati, too?” another voice asked. “He should be punished for what he’s done.”

  They knew now Kamenwati had been behind the assassination attempt as well as creating the Horn. His servants had been more than glad to speak. A search of his manor had found his writings, his defilements of the Book of the Dead and the Book of Life, and his own grimoire.

  The penalty for such crimes was swift and sure – death.

  Something within Narmer went still.

  Part of him still remembered the cousin he’d grown up with, never knowing of the envy Kamenwati had harbored in his breast. Had it been his own blindness, or had Kamenwati concealed his hatred and envy that well? He didn’t know, but a part of him missed the man he’d thought he’d known, even as he remembered seeing that one’s true face.

  At the moment he knew Kamenwati awaited the outcome of this meeting, sitting shackled in a cell below them, blindfolded and warded with spells.

  Irisi took a breath and then let it out, glancing at Khai. “He should be but we dare not. We don’t know how closely tied he is to the Horn.”

  Questioning eyes turned to her.

  She looked back at all those assembled there.

  “We know he allowed himself to be possessed by Djinn,” she said, in response. “How much that aided his control of them we don’t know, but it must have. If we execute him as we must by law, we diminish what little control we might have over the Djinn if we were to use the Horn. We might use the Horn to summon the Djinn but then have no control over them once they appear.”

  “Nor,” Awan added carefully, his heart aching, “can we leave the Horn where any can reach it, where an enterprising thief might gain possession of it, or another like Kamenwati who seeks power. It’s far too dangerous. We can’t just store it or set it aside on a shelf.”

  He rose to his feet, slowly, feeling every inch of his age.

  Everyone in the room sat up at that.

  Khai met each and every eye there. “Awan is correct. We can’t leave the Horn unprotected or where there will be the temptation to use it by those who don’t understand the danger. Or even those who think they do.”

  Even the idea of the Horn worried him. The temptation for some would be great. Even those with the best of intentions.

  He looked to his King.

  Narmer met his eyes.

  Both understood the danger, Khai knew, they’d discussed it.

  A time would inevitably come when they might face an enemy they couldn’t easily defeat. The temptation would be there to use the Horn…but to what result?

  Perhaps they might summon the Djinn, let them ravage and destroy…

  How then would they put the Djinn back in the bottle?

  “Can anyone here tell me they can be sure that the one that uses it can control the Djinn once they appear?” Khai asked.

  Kahotep shook his head, as did Djeserit, Awan, even Nafre.

  “All we can be sure of is that the Horn summons them,” Irisi said. “I’m not even sure that when I blew it that was what sent them away. It called something…”

  “So,” one of the ministers said, his exasperation evident, “what then do we do? Just let them run loose? Let them continue their raids?”

  Khai shook his head and looked to his King. “No.”

  He looked to Irisi. She nodded her encouragement. She and he had talked of this at length while curled in bed together.

  “My lord King,” he said, quietly, “I very much fear these raids are just preparation. The dark Djinn are learning. Once they were content only to lure the unwary, to prey on travelers, but that time is past. They’ve discovered what it is to work together to gain what they want… We can’t un-teach them the lesson Kamenwati taught them. They learned it too well.”

  The tales from Aswan and the lands around it had been terrible.

  Now new tales were being told.

  Narmer inclined his head in agreement. He’d been concerned about that as well, as he’d told Khai in their private conversations.

  “Kamenwati unleashed a force upon us that cannot be reckoned with easily,” Khai said.

  “And yet we must,” Awan said quietly. “Or it will only fester and grow as do the wounds the ghul inflict on their victims.”

  Who then turned into ghul, to ravage their families and friends.

  Narmer looked at Awan, his oldest advisor, save for Kahotep.

  “What do you suggest?” Narmer asked.

  Taking a breath, Awan said, “We must seal the Horn away where none can reach it and with it the Djinn who would answer to it or else watch their power grow until we can no longer contain it.”

  In this Khai was with Awan, as was Irisi, he knew. They’d spoken of it long into the night. The scattered Djinn were regrouping into small bands now. It was only a matter of time before they grew larger.

  Khai looked to the King.

  “That’s been my fear as well,” Khai said, in support of Awan. “As the Djinn learn, so they also learn how to fight us. In time, we won’t be able to defeat them, not as they are. With their greater strength, their ability to shift form, in time they’ll learn to overcome us. They very nearly did, but then they had Kamenwati to direct them. Now they’re learning to lead themselves.”

  None of them had forgotten. The wounded from the battle were still being tended.

  Awan nodded. “The Horn must be rendered as safe as can be against those who would seek to use or misuse its power, for now and for the future…”

  His voice trailed off.

  Narmer frowned, gesturing at Awan to continue.

  Carefully, Awan built his argument, as much as he hated it, but the conclusion was and had been inevitable.

  “Then there is Kamenwati himself. So long as he lives, he’
s tied to the Horn. If he dies, though, whatever control we may have through him to the Horn dies with him. So, too, however, he should be punished for what he’s done…”

  His heart burned at the memory.

  They’d found the priest Saini. The man had told them of Kamenwati’s boast that he’d summoned the Djinn that killed Banafrit. Awan’s beloved wife.

  “His attempts on the life of the King, the Queen-consort, and the King’s son,” Awan continued.

  Heads nodded.

  “Even the Grand Vizier cannot escape the laws of Egypt,” someone intoned.

  Narmer nodded as well.

  Whatever they’d been to each other once Narmer dared not leave Kamenwati live after what he’d done, as much as it pained him.

  His mouth tightened but he waved at Awan to continue.

  Awan folded his hands and looked around at the assembled gathering.

  “Yet, if we kill him as prescribed by law,” Awan said, “we very well may lose control of the Horn. He made it and he’s clearly tied to it.”

  What had been found at Kamenwati’s estate had horrified all who’d seen it. As with many who possessed power and money, his sense of entitlement had been obvious throughout, but his callous disregard for the lives in his care had been appalling.

  But what had been done below floors…

  They were even now trying to reconstruct what he’d done, and then burning his notes so no other could reconstruct them. Knowledge was precious, but not this knowledge.

  Heads nodded.

  “So the Horn must be protected as well,” Awan said, his heart aching, knowing what had to be, what must be, done, “so that it can’t be misused. We know even the tombs of the dead aren’t safe from bandits and thieves. So we must set the power of the Gods to protect them.”

  There were murmurs of assent from around the room.

  “A guardian must be set against even that,” he said. “To be sure the Djinn will never be set free to prey on mankind again.”

  Reluctantly, Kahotep nodded and added. “And no simple Guardian either. Swords alone will not suffice…”

  One of the advisors said, “Men can and have been bribed. This guardian must be unassailable.”