Heart of the Gods

by Valerie Douglas

  Priceless…unique…and horrifying.

  Above the babble, above the shrieks and cries of the Djinn, Raissa shouted, “Tareq, think of good Djinn, think hard, ask for help and blow!!!”

  In her voice were tears, hope, and a prayer.

  For a moment Tareq stared at her in utter astonishment and then a glimmer of amusement. An odd anticipation and sense of joy filled him… Tears burned in his eyes.

  Just the thought…

  With a nod, he lifted the Horn to his lips…

  Ky stared at her, too, in shock…a sense of hope rising even as he smashed a kick into the face of an oncoming Djinn, backhanded another away.

  Smiling, Raissa drove the Djinn back, slashing and hacking with her swords.

  Something inside Tareq lightened. Hope blossomed.

  Raising the Horn to his lips, Tareq blew…

  Chapter Thirty Six

  The sound that pealed from the Horn was glorious. It was sweet, brilliant, as promising as the song of the first bird of spring, as stirring as the call of a trumpet, a paean to glory… It rang and echoed from the walls, reverberated, beautiful and vibrant, glorious… The sound shimmered in the air… Sound became light… It filled the chamber to echo in their bones…to shiver over the skin softly like a lover’s caress.

  Around them the Djinn cringed, quailed…

  There was an odd bright atonal wailing, the sound of a thousand voices raised, sweet and pure.

  Light exploded everywhere around them as the room was filled with warmth and brilliance.

  Bright Djinn… Some in the shape of tall men, others clouds of brilliance, warriors all in the defense of the light, of all of the Prophets, of all of people. They came bearing swords of light against those of the Dark.

  A circle of them surrounded Ky, Raissa, Abasi and his remaining man, facing outward as guardians to and for them, driving off the dark Djinn.

  Others surrounded Tareq with the Horn, Ryan and Komi, standing guard, tall and dazzlingly bright.

  Others still swept through the chamber in a glittering torrent down into the darkness below and out to the garden, figures of light so blindingly brilliant they could barely be seen.

  Where they passed, no dark Djinn remained, banished back to their own realm.

  In a matter of moments they were gone, all save the four who encircled them and those who at guard by Ryan, Komi and Tareq, who stood dumbfounded, the Horn of the Djinn still in his hand and only inches from his lips.

  Slowly it lowered.

  “I wasn’t certain I believed,” Tareq whispered, staring up at the figures around him.

  Letting out a sigh, Ky could sympathize, as he looked up in somewhat dazed astonishment.

  With a radiant smile, Raissa said, “It doesn’t matter. They believed in you.”

  The bright Djinn turned to face them, their faces glowing so brilliantly that all that could be seen of them was an impression of kind, if vaguely impersonal and curious, eyes.

  These Djinn examined them, each of them, and then they nodded.

  Warm light filled the room, coming from everywhere and nowhere, filling each of them with a sense of joy and wonder.

  One by one, each in their own way, the bright Djinn did reverence to those who had fought here in this place, servants of the light, too, as a greater radiance filled the chamber, growing brighter, blinding…

  The bright Djinn stepped back.

  A sound filled the room, huge, like great bells ringing, or horns calling, the songs of a thousand birds, the cry of a hawk flying wild and free, the rushing of the wind…of laughter…

  There was scent too, of fresh air laden with moisture, of green growing things and flowers, the soft scent of a child, of a lover’s skin, of all the things that mattered.

  Forms took shape in that light, light and darkness coalesced into the form of a man who held out his arm as a swirl of wind became a beautiful woman, who took the offered arm. A leaping lion become a lion-headed woman whose features became those of a stern-faced woman. A hawk on the wing became a hawk-headed man, whose features shifted as well, softening, becoming a handsome man with kind, gentle knowing eyes.

  Beloved eyes, beloved face.

  They reflected faces Raissa knew well.

  As did the part of Ky that was Khai as he looked back on memories almost forgotten.

  As before, Isis and Sekhmet appeared in the forms of the priestesses he’d known and Irisi had loved so well.

  The great God Osiris resembled Awan, his priest, who had loved Banafrit so well and grieved for her so deeply.

  Now they were reunited in the afterlife.

  With them was Horus, his calm face and sharp eyes those of the priest Kahotep, Irisi’s trusted friend and advisor.

  Raissa smiled to see him.

  His sharp eyes warmed as they always did to see her.

  Isis released Osiris’s arm so they could each reach for her, their hands touching for only a moment before they were replaced by those of another.

  There was laughter and tears among all of them.

  It was like coming home.

  “You did well, little one,” Isis said, her voice Banafrit’s but softer as she looked at all of them.

  Her eyes returned to Raissa’s and shadowed with sorrow.

  “To sacrifice your only chance at passage to the Afterlife…,” Isis said, and shook her head. “It seems poor thanks for your service to us.”

  She gestured and the air sparkled with glimmers of fire. They gathered and then shot off into the darkness below. She leaned forward and brushed a kiss over Raissa’s forehead in benediction to convey one last gift. Her eyes on Raissa’s, she pressed it into her hands.

  “With our thanks to our last best Servant of the Gods.”

  Straightening she turned to look at Ky and reached out a hand to him in thanks.

  How could he not take it, looking up into the dark eyes of the Goddess, her gaze full of warmth and love?

  So he did and a sense of that warmth rushed through him.

  She smiled and nodded.

  Her eyes went to each in warmth and satisfaction.

  “You chose well, Ky,” she said, nodding.

  The air filled with shimmering rainbow light, a light that grew steadily brighter.

  In the midst of that brilliance Ky thought he heard another voice, this one harsher but no less benevolent.

  A gentle growl carried on the wind.

  Sekhmet, conveying her last Gift to them, as well.

  The Djinn, too, the Bright Ones, did reverence, obeisance, one of their own taking their precious gift before it as they set their own to Guard.

  Below them the great iron doors swung closed with a clang.

  Sunlight and moonlight gathered, taking the Gods with it in a rush of wind that raced below.

  The world came back slowly, first in glimmers of touch, in the feel of the floor beneath their feet, a brush of air across their skin.

  Vision returned.

  The stone faces of the Gods looked down at them…light sparkled from every surface.

  Shakily everyone took a seat on the pedestal, everyone except Abasi, who wandered a little unsteadily toward the garden.

  “Are they gone?” Tareq asked, his voice sounding oddly strange even to his own ears.

  Nodding slowly, Ky said, “I think so…”

  “All gone?”

  Raissa shook her head. “The Gods? Yes. Their power here has waned, although some have returned to their service. The Djinn? Let me show you.”

  She stood up, brushed off her clothes and lifted an eyebrow in question.

  With a groan, grumbling, Ryan got to his feet. “All right, but let me know when this is really over, because when it is I’m falling down. Then I’m going to stay there for a week.”

  Ky glanced at Raissa with a smile. Some things didn’t change.

  Eyes twinkling, she smiled back.

  Somehow he wasn’t surprised when she led them down into the lower chamber. This ti
me the journey wasn’t fraught with dread and the air smelled sweet, clean. The walls didn’t glimmer, and sound didn’t echo.

  And stopped dead when he reached the bottom.

  As did the others.

  The great iron doors were closed, once again.

  At each side stood towering, massive figures that seemed poured from the glittering golden sandstone above. They were amorphous, vaguely man-shaped, each with the head of a jackal. Djinn, but bright ones, who served Anubis.

  In the center of the floor stood pedestals. On each was the figure of a lion, their names inscribed on each pillar. Emu and Kiwu.

  She grieved for her roly-poly lion, always begging for a belly rub. They had given her back, too. And Kiwu.

  Tears glimmered in her eyes.

  Raissa smiled, laying a hand over her heart in thanks.

  In wonder, Tareq stepped onto the black marble floor, his eyes going down to it, to the odd, vaguely man-like patterns within it.

  He approached the doors almost reverently, looked at the massive iron of them, at the unbroken bands of gold and silver that crossed it.

  And the seal, the great ruby once again in its niche.

  The Heart of the Gods.

  “It’s still here,” he said, looking at them in bewilderment, not daring to touch it, before turning his gaze back to study it. His fingers drifted just above it. “There’s barely a chip out of it.”

  He looked up at the massive doors then back at Raissa.

  “The Djinn are created of the Gods, or God, however you want to put it,” she said, softly. “They were given free will even as we were and that remains. The Gods don’t unmake what they have created and aren’t you glad of that? Some of them chose a darker path and they must pay for it. Those that did battle with their brothers and ‘died’ have been sent to be judged as are we all. The others made their choices and were rewarded or punished accordingly.”

  She nodded toward the doors then toward the figures that guarded it.

  “As were those that fought them. The good Djinn remain.”

  Curiously, Ky looked at her and asked, “The Horn. Why Tareq?”

  “Ah,” she said with a smile and looked at Tareq fondly. “First, because it had to be wielded by a true Egyptian. Both Irisi and Khai were foreigners. Kamenwati was a xenophobe, he hated us for that, hated that we had risen so high. So he made it a condition of the use of the Horn. And while he’s not the only true Egyptian here, unlike our friend Abasi…” She gave the man a wry smile. “He hasn’t become cynical. Tareq wanted to believe they were real, the Djinn, because if the bad were real…then the bright ones would be, too… Am I correct?”

  She looked toward Tareq with a brilliant smile.

  Tareq bowed his head to her, smiling in return. “You are, indeed. Thank you, then, for that. Now I more than simply believe…”

  “There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio,” Ky quoted, “than exist in your philosophy…”

  Contentedly, Tareq said, “Exactly so…the Bard understood quite well.”

  Ky’s own beliefs had expanded considerably also.

  “So, how then do we get out?” Abasi said, returning to join them. “We are still sealed in…”

  There would always be pragmatists as well and they were needed, too.

  Looking at Raissa, Tareq said, “And the Guardian is the Lock and the Key…”

  She grinned.

  “That’s the easy part,” Raissa said. “Let’s go back up to the main chamber.”

  Stretched out on the stone slab, Ryan pulled his hat down over his eyes and said, with a grin, “Let me know when the tour’s over.”

  “It’s over now,” she said and nudged him. “Move, that’s my spot.”

  “Hey!” he protested. “I was just getting comfortable.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Do you want out of here or not? And how soon?”

  “Oh, all right,” he grumbled, but got up.

  Raissa stretched out on the stone slab, fit herself into the hollow there.

  “Oh, she just wanted it for herself,” Ryan complained, crossing his arms and looking down at her.

  She gave him a look, shifted a little more and crossed her arms on her chest in the typical pose of the Egyptian dead.

  It was eerie to look her in that position and more than a little unsettling. It gave Ky a very bad moment. It was far too easy to see it as true. Several times in the past few days, hell, hours, they’d come far too close to the reality of it. The moment when the doors had begun to close, and he couldn’t reach her… When the Heart had shattered…and for a single second he’d thought she’d gone with it…

  “Raissa,” he said, his breath catching.

  Beneath her the altar shifted…

  There was a great deal of grinding, the sound of stone on stone…a great rumbling and then things began to move.

  Relief washed through him when she opened her eyes, winked at him.

  “Sorry, love,” she said, seeing the discomfort in his eyes and took his offered hand. “It was set to my weight. The good thing about being undead, your weight doesn’t fluctuate much.”

  Ky pulled her into his arms and held her briefly and tightly, his cheek against her hair, her body warm against his.

  Then, tired or not, he tossed her over his shoulder to her squeak of surprise.

  “Ky,” she protested.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said to the others, carrying her down the tunnel and out into the spreading sunshine as the slab above slid slowly away with a growl and grinding of stone. It slipped out over the precipice, teetered for a moment, and then fell, to shatter at the base of the Gilf Kebbir, leaving nothing behind but the blue sky above.

  Dust and grit fell, nearly blindingly, dancing on the breeze, sparkling in the sunlight like fairy dust.

  Somewhere nearby they heard the coughing roar of a lion.

  For a moment Ky simply stood there with his face raised to feel the warmth of the sun on his face until Raissa wiggled.

  “Boss,” Ryan’s voice said, softly.

  Ky opened his eyes and stared.

  The stele that had stood outside the entrance was shattered…the hollow interior empty.

  Liquid, sparkling in the sunlight, slowly seeped into the earth.

  Once he’d dreamed of setting the lovely priestess free…and now she was.

  Carefully Ky let Raissa slide off his shoulder, lowered her gently to her feet, looking down into her lovely face, into her beautiful blue eyes and searched inside himself for Khai.

  “They are us now,” Raissa said, softly, “a part of us as we are a part of them, save that now they are together again and at peace.”

  “And the rest?” he asked, curiously.

  There were parts of the… rest…he thought he might miss.

  Raissa looked up into his dark eyes, seeing the hints of gold in them when the light hit his eyes just right and she smiled.

  Sliding her arms up around his neck she breathed in the sweet scent of him as she came up on her toes to nuzzle his throat lightly, tasted his skin with a quick flick of her tongue, a purr starting in the back of her throat.

  Ky shivered a little. Her lips brushed his ear.

  “Get a room,” Ryan said, in feigned disgust.

  “Shut up Ryan,” they said, in virtual unison, grinning as they glanced at him.

  He grinned impudently back and flopped to the ground, pulling his hat over his eyes.

  “Whether the tour’s over or not, I am,” he said.

  Raissa grinned at him, turned back to Ky.

  “The Gods don’t take their gifts back,” she said, softly, “and I get the impression I might be needed again.”

  “Why?” he asked, frowning a little.

  She laid a hand against his face, traced the line of his jaw.

  “There’s always something. I’m still here,” she said, softly, with a sigh, her eyes on his. “I could still have left. The choice was given me but I had already made it.
”

  The truth of that punched into his heart.

  It was the question he never dared ask himself―what would happen at the end, when it was all over? When the Guardian had done her duty and her task was done? What would happen then? Would she be called to the afterlife?

  All the breath rushed out of him.

  She’d made her choice. Him. She’d chosen to stay.

  He looked down into her blue eyes, kissed her gently.

  “There is one change, though,” she said, softly and took his hand, pressed it against her throat.

  Her skin was warm, as soft as he remembered. Beneath his hand, there was movement. A very steady throbbing of a pulse, her pulse. The feel of her heart beating strong and steady against his palm.

  Something inside of him let go. Whole again. She was a real girl now. He laughed at the thought―stolen from Pinocchio―wrapped his arms around her hips and lifted her up into his arms. Bracing her hands on his shoulders, she smiled down at him.

  He frowned. “But…I thought…the Heart of the Gods…”

  She shrugged a little.

  “Oh, it’s still there…and it’s mine…just a detail, a little one.”

  “Are you sure nothing else has changed?”

  Raissa wriggled a little, wrapped her legs around his waist and leaned forward to whisper in his ear.

  “I’m very, very hungry and I want to eat you alive, make love to you until you’re half mad and suck on you until your toes curl…”

  A burst of heat shot through him as his body tightened.

  “Get some rest, folks,” Ky said, laughing, “an hour or two, or three… whenever… whatever…”

  “Boss,” Ryan said in acknowledgement.

  The hat never moved.

  “We’ll be back in a little bit,” Ky said, smiling.

  Nodding, Ryan said, and waved at them. “Sure you will.”

  “We’ll just set up camp,” Komi said, amused.

  Tareq just shook his head and chuckled.

  With a wave to them, Ky hefted Raissa a little more so she could wrap her legs around his waist more tightly, her mouth brushing hotly over his throat as he carried her out beyond the palm trees.

  “God, Raissa,” he said, “don’t do that now or I’ll drop you.”

  With a little growl of pleasure, she scraped her teeth over his throat teasingly, breathing in the sweet scent of him and he felt her hips rub against him as she wiggled in his grasp.