AS ANOK MOVED through the darkness, he could smell the dank water of the canals and night-blooming flowers in the temple gardens. The stars were bright. There was no moon, and the air was filled with the songs of countless frogs, which doubtless thrived in the canals and ditches and in the reed marshes that lined many areas of the river nearby.
Many lights were burning in the windows of Ramsa Aál’s villa, and Anok approached carefully. He was perhaps fifty paces away when he spotted the first guardian standing watch outside. There would likely be more.
Reluctantly, he called on magic, the Walk of Shadows spell, to hide himself from the guards. It was unlikely to fool Ramsa Aál himself, or any priest of Set, but it should be sufficient to pass by any guardians if he was careful.
He cautiously moved around the back of the house, peering inside various windows. He only saw rich furnishings worthy of a palace, a few guards, and household servants going out their tasks. Finally, on a back corner, he spotted a shuttered window with light coming through the cracks.
As he approached and touched the shutters, he found them barred shut from the outside, a hopeful sign. He leaned close and peered through the crack.
Inside was a small room with a plain bed, a wooden chair, and a basin. Paniwi sat on the bed dressed in a simple white dress of silk. Her priestess robes hung on a hook on the door, cleaned and mended. Perhaps it was necessary to Ramsa Aál’s spell that she wear them.
She looked sad, but unharmed. He studied her face, finding things that reminded him of his father, even of his own reflection. It was so strange, so sad, to have found each other this way.
I will find a way to fix this, sister. I will free you and make good my father’s last wish.
He heard a door slam in the room above him and flattened himself against the wall. The window above was open, and he heard footsteps and a chair being moved.
Then he heard a voice, instantly known to him, one that sent a chill through his bones. Thoth-Amon!
“I am unhappy about this, priest. There can be no greater heresy against our god Set than what you plan, to steal his cult and his followers for your purposes.”
“As you have done yourself, though more by cleverness than magic,” the voice or Ramsa Aál answered. “You call on Set for power, as I do, but you serve him only as it serves your own interests. And what has it brought you? Dominion over a dry and fading land whose empire is long gone, whose time is long past? If we succeed, and now, how can we not, the world shall be at our feet. The followers of all gods shall be bound to follow our made-god, and in turn, he shall answer to us. Those few who do not follow some god of our thrall shall be crushed, or their priests brought and bound to the thrall of our god.”
“I agreed to this mad plan only because if it fails, Set’s wrath shall fall on you, and your minions, not I. Though I remain near, I will not be in attendance at your profane ceremony. Only if it succeeds will I come forth and take my rightful place on the throne of our new cult.”
“It will succeed, my master.”
“So you should hope, priest, as it is your life and soul that will be forfeit if it fails. Yet to even make the attempt, you still need the third Scale of Set. Where is it? You said you knew where it was!”
“The young heretic priest has it, of that I am confident.”
“Your pet, Anok? I am unhappy about him. I should have killed him when I had the chance. He has so far been too effective in resisting the seductions of our cult. He never should have been allowed to come so far. Torture him, take the Scale, and be done with it.”
“The three Scales must be kept apart until the critical moment. If I even knew exactly where all three were, it would attract the attention of dark and powerful forces, not to mention Parath himself. He hungers for the Scales, and for now, that is the only true power we hold over him. As for the heretic, fear not. Many, even I once, have joined the cult with other aims. But ultimately, all succumb to the sweet song of power. When the time comes, he will provide it to us and do so willingly, that he may share in its power.”
“Then let him believe it shall be so. I don’t care. But he is not to be trusted. When you have the last Scale, kill him at once.”
24
ANOK SLEPT LITTLE that night.
Fearing detection by Thoth-Amon, he had left Ramsa Aál’s villa soon after overhearing their conversation and without having talked to his sister. He would have liked to offer her at least some few words of reassurance that he would protect her, but the risk was too great.
Perhaps it was just as well, for the promise would likely have sounded as hollow to her as it did to him. He truly did not know what would happen or if any of them would survive.
In the morning, servants arrived at the villa to clean, make the beds, and prepare a lavish morning meal of fried river fish, elaborately seasoned rice dishes, fruit, and some strange meat that none of them immediately recognized. Anok watched the servants go about their business. They were efficient, unobtrusive, and strangely silent.
Smelling the food, he realized that he was very hungry, and the prospect of such a simple thing as sitting down to a meal with his friends offered him some small measure of cheer.
After filling his plate with more familiar items, Anok considered the bowl of fried meat. He removed a piece and sniffed it. The aroma was spicy and pleasing. He took a cautious bite, and satisfied, took a larger one. The finger-sized fried pieces looked vaguely like some kind of fowl, and tasted that way, as well. But the pieces were neither precisely legs nor wings.
The mystery was solved when Sabé picked up a piece and tasted it. He smiled in recognition as he chewed. “Ah! It has been far too long since I had frog legs!”
Teferi, who had been taking a cautious bite from one of the pieces, loudly spat it out on the table. “Frog!”
Fallon shrugged, sniffed a piece, tasted it, and added several more to her plate.
Anok laughed at Teferi. “Brother, in Odji, I often enough saw you eat rat when there was naught else to be had.”
He looked indignant. “That was rat. Frogs are unclean!”
Despite his taunts, Anok passed on the frog legs, settling for a large slab of fish and a mound of aromatic rice filled with vegetables and spiced with jasmine.
As they were finishing the meal, a servant arrived and handed Anok a small scroll wrapped with ribbon. Inside was a note in Ramsa Aál’s hand.
The servant was already turning to leave as Anok bid him wait. “Did Ramsa Aál give this to you personally?”
The servant only nodded.
“Is he still at the temple?”
The servant shook his head.
“Where did he go?”
The servant only frowned at him strangely.
“Speak, man? Even if you were instructed not to share such information, you can tell me that!”
The man’s frown deepened.
Anok was suddenly aware that several other of the servants had stopped in their tasks and were staring at him as well.
The man opened his mouth and pointed.
He had no tongue. He made a little exhalation of air that could be barely called a noise, and Anok immediately knew it was more than that. The man’s throat had been mutilated to preclude his speaking at all.
He looked around at the other servants, and knew it must be true of all of them.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I did not know.”
The four companions sat in silence as the table was cleared, and the servants disappeared as quickly and quietly as they had come.
“This,” said Teferi, “is a terrible place. It does not look like a terrible place, and that merely makes it more terrible.”
Anok looked again at the note. “I do not think we will be here long. I am to go to the Great Pyramid of Set tonight to attend an important ceremony.”
“He does not have the third Scale,” said Fallon. “This cannot be the spell that you all fear.”
Sabé nodded thoughtfully. “But this is
not a simple spell they plan to cast, and if this is as other plans conceived by Kaman Awi Urshé, it may be a plan of several steps. Tonight’s could be the first.”
“Well,” said Anok, “I have the day then. I was unable to speak with my sister last night, but from what I overheard, Ramsa Aál has left to make preparations for the ceremony. If this first step does not involve the priests of other gods, then my sister may still be at his villa, and I may be able to contrive to speak with her now. There are things I must know, answers only she can give me.”
Rather than proceeding directly to Ramsa Aál’s villa, he strolled casually past the stockade. If the prisoners were gone, then likely his sister had been taken as well. He was relieved to see the little building still fully occupied.
The prisoners watched him through the barred windows and doors of the little brick building, as did a bored guard, who bowed his head in salute as Anok passed. Anok tried not to look overly interested in the prisoners, but it was hard not to stare at the ragged lot. He wished that he could talk to them, ask them if they knew why they were here, but he dared not. If there were answers, he supposed, he would have to get them from his sister.
As Anok rounded the corner of the building, he found himself looking into the face of Dao-Shuang, the Jade Spider master, who stared at him through a barred window.
As their eyes met, something happened. Anok found himself elsewhere, the hall of a great temple built in the Khitan style, with walls painted in red, white, and gold, and columns and beams covered with polished black lacquer.
Dao-Shuang was there as well, not as the miserable prisoner he had just seen, but strong, well, and dressed in his ceremonial finery, shimmering yellow silk robes embroidered with strange symbols, belted at the waist, and so long that they hid his feet and nearly brushed the floor. The long sleeves of the robes flared at the end, and long tails hung below each wrist. A small, round cap of the same shimmering silk perched on top of his head.
The sensation was familiar, and Anok realized it reminded him of when Thoth-Amon had engaged him in a War of Souls. Instantly, he was on alert for attack.
Dao-Shuang, or his avatar, held up a hand. “Have no fear, Anok Wati. This is no attack. They think me helpless, but though I am weak from their binding spells, there are still resources I can command.”
“Do you know why they have brought you here?”
“I have had flashes of terrible foresight, of things that may yet come. I know that my cult is in grave danger, and it is beyond my power to help my people. All of the future hinges on you, and it is from the future I bring you this warning: To serve all gods, you must serve none.”
The temple vanished, and Anok found himself again in the temple compound, looking at the stockade. Dao-Shuang looked at him, bowed his head, closing his eyes slowly as he did so, then looked at him once more and turned away, vanishing back into the prison.
A guardian stared at him curiously, and Anok continued on his way, lest he generate more suspicion. He circled the gardens as though out for a brisk stroll and headed back toward Ramsa Aál’s villa.
Once again, he called on the Walk of Shadows spell and strolled past the house guards, who never even glanced in his direction. He walked up to the front of the house as though he had business there, stood looking in the open door for a moment, then walked along the front, peering in windows.
He saw servants, but no sign of Ramsa Aál himself. Satisfied that the priest was not at home, Anok found the shuttered window and carefully removed the bar holding it shut.
His sister was stretched out on the bed as he opened the shutters.
She sat up suddenly, and he signaled for her silence, climbing though the window and closing the shutters after him.
She sat on the edge of the bed and looked at him suspiciously.
He ignored her and focused his mind on the Walk of Shadow, extending the spell to her in such a way as to hide their speech from any potential listeners. He grunted at the effort. If the Walk of Shadows was a great expenditure of magic for little result, this spell was now far more than twice as hard.
He felt the influence of the Mark of Set, and his left hand clenched briefly without his volition. He ignored it and turned his attention to Paniwi.
“We may now talk undisturbed by your guards.”
She glared at him. “Why did you come, priest?”
He felt suddenly self-conscious about his scarlet robes. “Despite what you have seen, I am still no true servant of Set.”
“Do you serve Ibis then? Whom do you serve? Who is your god?”
He looked at her blankly. “Truly, I do not know. I thought I knew, thought I knew the god of my father, but now I find it is all a castle of lies. I need you to help me find who I am.”
Her face softened, though suspicion remained. “Do you know so little of your own history? Did our father tell you nothing?”
He sighed. “Our father was killed when I was but a boy. I was cast out into the streets, fearful of his killers. I was forced to learn how to care for myself, even to trade the name of my birth for one I made up for myself.”
He hesitated. It was surprisingly difficult to speak of these things. “My father revealed little of his true self to me. I thought him a simple merchant. I knew nothing of the Scale of Set, or of you. It was only in the last moments of his life that he gave me the medallion, and told me to seek you.”
“So you have nothing from our father?”
“He was good to me. He passed me some of his wisdom, shared with me some of his strength, and taught me to fight well enough to survive. But of his greater secrets, nothing. I wonder now if he simply wanted to avoid burdening me with them, and if he had lived, if he would have, soon after, shared them with me as a mark of my manhood. But these answers, I will never know.”
She frowned, mulling his words. “I will tell you what I know. We share a father, but as you may have guessed, not a mother.
“I was born in Nemedia, and my mother died in childbirth. When I was a baby, he gave me over to the temple of Ibis, to be raised as a priestess. But he did not forget me. Several times he came to visit me.
“On one of those visits, he told me that he had been forced to marry another woman, but that his heart still belonged to my mother, and my mother alone. Still later, he told me of you. Though there was no love for your mother, he loved you as his son and told me I should care for you as my brother.”
“How did you take this news?”
She did not look at him. “I was angry. I felt betrayed. It was an honor to serve Ibis, but that my father had left me, and raised a stranger as his child—”
“My mother was Stygian, and her marriage to my father was one of convenience. He did not love her, until the end, when she died to protect me. I barely remember her. Only my father, and my father’s house, until even those were taken from me.”
“Then our lives have both been sad.”
“Do you resent me still?”
She shook her head. “You are all I have left of my father. How can I?”
“And you are all I have left of mine. If only this could be our primary concern.”
“But we have other duties, other promises,” she said, “that come even before blood.”
“That is why I am here. Your mission, your purpose, is clear. Mine is not. I must know, what god did our father serve?”
Her mouth opened and just hung there. She laughed. “You need ask?”
“I was told he served a lost god of Stygia called Parath.”
She laughed again. “Who told you that? I have never heard of such a god. Your father served Ibis! He gave his life to Ibis. He gave his children to Ibis. What greater love can there be? He was the Keeper of the Golden Scale, as his father had been, and his father before him, and as you would have been, had fate not taken you down this strange path.”
He shook his head in confusion. “You mean, my father wanted me to take the Scale to you, only so that you could return it to me as my legacy?
”
She shrugged. “That may have been his intent. He knew if you came to me with the Scale, I would have taken both you and it to safety. I would have explained to you your legacy as Keeper of the Golden Scale, and you would have continued down that path.”
“But now you wish to take the Scale I carry for yourself?”
She sighed. “Things are less clear now, Anok. You have placed your Golden Scale in great danger of falling to our enemies, and you have delivered my Scale to them already.” She was slow to continue. “After everything that has happened, I am not sure if you can be trusted with the Scale any longer.”
Anger flared, and he felt the Mark of Set respond to it. With some difficulty, he centered himself, using the Band of Neska, and pushed the anger back into some dark corner of his mind. “I cannot see that anyone can be trusted with these Golden Scales. Why should I trust the temple of Ibis with one, much less two?”
Paniwi nodded. “Not even the temple of Ibis should have the third. Let Set keep it. It is as safe here as anywhere.
“Of all the gods that men worship, Ibis knows that power is not constant or permanent. The face of Ibis must fade to darkness before he can grace us with his glorious golden light, and even this will pass. Ibis can be trusted with two Scales, because he will not seek the third, and even those have always been kept far apart, one at a Temple of Ibis, and the other in secret by the Keeper.”
“Then why are they in Stygia?”
“When I was still a small girl, agents of Set began to seek the Scales. They came very close to stealing the one in our temple, and the high priestess had a vision that the one place the followers of Set would not look for the Scales was in their own accursed land. One was taken to our secret temple there, which had remained safe for many generations, and I traveled with it. Our father took the second to Khemi, to the very heart of their cult.”
“That,” said Anok sarcastically, “did not work as well as your priestess predicted.”
“Perhaps we do not understand the true meaning of the vision. Perhaps this was all meant to be.”
The Venom of Luxur Page 21