The Vessel of Ra

by Catherine Schaff-Stump

  Sparks flew from Balthazar’s eyes, flames from his fingertips. “I thought so. Impure.” He grew taller, his skin’s redness deepening to lava, his eyes flickering hot orange and blue. Towering above Carlo and Drusus on a pillar of flame, he studied them like insects on a branch.

  “I trust neither of you. I cannot kill you, Drusus Claudian, but the desert might. You”—he pointed at Carlo—“must be Banished to the Abyss with your kind. I cannot help the part of you which is human. It must be sacrificed for the greater good. Any demon is too much demon.”

  “I won’t let you do it,” said Drusus.

  “Mighty warrior,” said Balthazar. “On your best day you could not save him from me, and that day is not this one.”

  Balthazar’s bulk filled the sky, the lower part of his body a cyclone of flame illuminating the crystal grains of the sand so they sparkled like glass beads. A fireball appeared in one palm, and Balthazar lobbed it toward them. Carlo shielded his face with his hands.

  The fire didn’t reach touch him. Drusus held it in a spinning ball of air, inches from them both. Drusus swayed like a cobra and Carlo braced his back.

  Balthazar shouted in frustration and veered the flame away. He would not kill a mortal soul and Drusus was in his way.

  Balthazar threw his head back. “You cannot save him! You—” His attention strayed above them. Night had come in earnest, but not in the normal way. Carlo glanced up. The sky was rimmed with white, as though the darkness had detached itself from reality. The night’s shape was human, giant. A hand shaped from stars and space reached down from the sky.

  Carlo’s breath caught. Was that the hand of God? Were his mother and the Church right about how the world worked after all? He closed his eyes. His mind needed to right itself.

  Balthazar snuffed out a new fireball by clapping his palms. Smoke spiraled up from his closed fist as he shook it at the arm. “You! You have no business interfering in this!” The efrit’s body glowed like a piece of coal in the grate.

  “Carlo,” croaked Drusus. “Help.” He staggered back into Carlo’s arms.

  “Listen!” Carlo’s voice was muffled by crackles from the flame around Balthazar’s body, absorbed by the sand, insignificant in the face of night made human above him. “Listen to me, Balthazar. Lucy is dead. Ra has Octavia. Ra is going to use the Solomon Scroll for his own reasons. The friend I cared about is gone, but I know she wouldn’t kill Octavia like you would. I promise you, if you stop Ra, and save Octavia for Lucy’s sake, you can do whatever you like with me and I won’t fight you at all.”

  A whispering of wind and a rustling of sand across stone held Balthazar rapt. “There is still Caius Klaereon,” Balthazar yelled at the sky. “The contract is honored by Neith and Caius. I command you back to your place.”

  The dark folded itself and became the night once again. The giant in the pillar disappeared as Balthazar shrank, once again as he was when he arrived. “Demon boy,” he said. “How did you come to be involved in this?”

  “I am responsible for Lucy. I failed her. I can only honor her last wishes, and I may not know her as well as Drusus does, but I know she would want us to help Octavia. We need you.”

  “All the most troublesome mortals talk about rescue and redemption. My life used to be much simpler a millennium or so ago.”

  “Was that God?” Carlo asked.

  “You are a blasphemous creature. No, it was not the One God. What do they call you, strange boy?”

  “Oh no,” said Carlo. “I know a name gives you power over me. My grandfather, he—”

  “I do not need your life’s history. I need your name. You have my word as a holy soldier I will do no harm to you with your name.”

  Yes, his word meant something to Balthazar. “My name is Carlo Borgia.”

  “Carlo. And you know who I am because Octavia’s husband told you. Does he live?”

  “I shouldn’t,” said Drusus. “I am responsible for Lucy’s death. I deserve to die. Paolo Borgia convinced me the Isis Scroll would free her and keep her safe. What a fool I was.”

  The desert air chilled. “Don’t blame yourself,” said Carlo. “Grandpa has a gift for lying. He’s always convincing people to perform tasks against their better judgment.”

  Drusus shook. “I meant to help her, and instead we helped Ra and harmed Octavia.”

  “There is no tie between either sister or her demon,” said Balthazar. “I grieve for Lucia Klaereon. We have been waiting for her, and she will never come.” Balthazar’s eyes flashed fire. “Ra did not return to the Abyss upon her death. There is now such a quagmire as I will have to wade in and settle things. What is this Isis Scroll?”

  “A way to separate a demon from a Binder without the Trial.” Drusus’ voice was barely audible.

  “I would know if such a thing existed. I would have been sent to destroy it.

  “That spear you have, Carlo Borgia. You used it to find me. It is the Spear of Longinus and such a holy relic could sever a Binding. You will give it me.”

  “Yes. Gladly.” Carlo’s head ached. “Can you help me with Drusus?”

  Balthazar’s body cooled. He waved a hand over Drusus, closing his eyes. “This one needs to see my lady Lailah.”

  “The woman in the sky?”

  “Not the woman in the sky. The angel.”

  “Angel?” said Carlo.

  “The feathers of a fallen angel,” said Balthazar, “used to Bind the demon in darkness.” Balthazar took Drusus from Carlo, and his aching arms were grateful. “There is much you must learn of the world and the variety in it. My lady will be most upset about Lucia’s death. She had pinned much hope on her.” Balthazar carried Drusus to the ramp leading under the temple, and Carlo felt the earth tremble with the efrit’s purposeful steps. “I will help you put right what has been wronged. You must wait here.”

  “No,” said Carlo. “He’s my patient. I’m not letting you take him away.”

  “You are unholy,” said Balthazar. “You cannot enter this place. I trust you. Now, you must trust me. Try to rest. We will be on our way to Octavia soon enough.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Underneath her was smooth stone. Her hands were crossed and bound with bandages over her chest, each holding a stick. Her eyes were covered with cloth strips. The darkness was inky and she guessed where she was. Beyond the blindfold was a dark that smacked of the shadows at Mistraldol. She was one solid lump, a gift wrapped in bandages.

  She did not know who she was. There was memory, pain and rending, tearing and piercing. She didn’t seem to care, like she was hearing about the pain, not remembering it. There were other memories, flashes of life, flashes of being reassembled with a painstaking precision. It made her tired just thinking about the eternity it took to find the pieces of her. She was a magic box, a jigsaw puzzle, and every piece had to fit just so. It had been odd how she had felt alive in every morsel of herself as they were pulled back together into one her. Most of her, she thought. Parts were missing, which nagged at her. She was trying to find a part in a favorite book and someone had ripped those pages out.

  From the darkness, a woman’s voice: “I have done more with less.”

  “This was not our plan.” The second voice was muffled, a man’s.

  She could hear the woman like a bell ringing. “This was not your plan. This is the best we could do. It is our best chance.”

  “No,” said yet another voice. “I see all contingencies. You guess as to how this will turn out.”

  The voices were with her in the room, but the voices were miles away. The bandages touched her, but she was apart from them. She knew it shouldn’t be like this. Things were muffled, second hand. It might be enough she was here, given a second chance, however it had happened.

  What was this second chance for? Was she alive?

  The aromatic bandages were stiff with herbs and perfumes. A knife tore through them, cutting them away, and they separated into a husk around her. She emerged from a cocoon
. Her vision cleared and a bronze knife, glinting in torchlight, hovered above her neck, slicing more rigid cloth away from her new self. Tiny charms rattled off the table to the stone floor.

  She lay on an altar in the middle of a room. On the ceiling above her floated a picture of a winged woman and a dark god. Isis and Osiris. The woman cutting her bandages was dressed in a gold-threaded sheath, her eyes lined with heavy kohl, the line slanting from the inside corner and tapering to an end at her temples. Her hair spilled down her back, cut straight at the sides and the bottom, straight across her forehead. Long, golden nails made her look feline. Light reflected off skin the color of fertile Nile soil.

  Underneath the bandages she wore no clothes, but she didn’t care. She dropped the sticks, a staff and flail, and pushed her way from the musky bandage shell.

  “Welcome,” said the woman. “You have journeyed far. I am Isis, your savior.”

  Modest, this Isis.

  She studied the self-proclaimed goddess. Some softer bandages dangled from her arms and shoulders. The room was stone, decorated with golden statues on pedestals and painted sandstone walls of half-animal, half-human figures. Near the table was an old man dressed in a more familiar style of clothing, pants and a shirt covered in muck. His name picked at the scab of her memory. She knew she should be furious with the old man, but there was no anger in her at all. Emptiness and questions, but not anger. Fear was gone too, even when she saw the bird’s talons in her mind. All factual, clinical, unfortunate, but she wasn’t afraid.

  The third voice belonged to a baboon as large as the man. Its tongue wagged in and out, making it look like a panting dog-monkey. Its fur was beaded and it wore an ornate collar decorated with beetles and letters. Hieroglyphs. She knew hieroglyphs. So then, this had been her burial chamber?

  Isis was silent, studying her. If her savior expected gratitude, she had none to give. She swung her legs over the side and they dangled far from the smooth floor. She was miniature. Maybe the woman had made her into a doll. She decided to stay put, to not to drop the long way onto the floor.

  “I want to stand,” she said. “Help me.”

  The baboon loped to her aid, grabbing her about her waist with soft paw pads, straightening enough to lift her to the ground. Bare feet were cold on the stone. Jewelry entwined her ankles and arms, all she wore besides the bandage fringe.

  “She is like a child of Ptah,” said the baboon. “Did you do it right?”

  “This is the way she is. You remember Bartholomew. She is his child.”

  The baboon barked. “Blood will tell in the end. She will be a brilliant magician.”

  “But not schooled in our arts,” said the woman. “Are you?”

  Painted on the table was her image. They were right. She was the size of a child. “Who are you?” she asked the gallant baboon.

  The baboon chattered. She guessed it might be laughing. “Thoth,” he said. “Does my name mean anything to you?”

  “Yes, but you don’t look like Thoth. He is an ibis.”

  “I chose this aspect for you. Do you like it?”

  “I don’t mind it.” She faced the tall woman. “And you are Isis?”

  Isis tilted her chin, a tiny acknowledgement.

  “And you?” She pointed to the old man.

  He bowed. “Your servant.”

  The memory scab once again wiggled. “What happened to you? Why is someone like you here? You’re dressed all wrong.”

  The man waved a hand. “Aren’t you curious? About who you are?”

  It was a logical question. She didn’t care who she was. No hopes, no dreams. Memories, which belonged to her, but didn’t seem like hers, like reading a journal someone else had written. “Should I be?”

  “You should,” he said. “You are Miss Lucia.”

  She shrugged. “Where is this?”

  “My temple,” said Isis. “In the place you call the Abyss.”

  “Where Lucifer’s angels fell. I thought the Abyss would have lakes of fire.” Ah. A memory. She was a library of facts, a chest of trivia.

  “It does,” said Isis. “We exiles have carved a reality for ourselves and keep it safe from the actual denizens of the Abyss outside our city. When Solomon branded us demons, he cast us down with them. You know we are not demons. You know what we are.”

  Gods. They were gods. Yes. Reading a scroll. She had been reading a scroll. “What happened to me?”

  “I have certain talents. I resurrected you from the dead.”

  Isis snapped her fingers, and a woman dressed in a cotton skirt stepped forward and placed a robe of red feathers over Lucia’s shoulders, covering the bandages. The robe was soft and warm against her naked skin. She nuzzled into it.

  “I was dead?” Lucia—no, Lucy, that was right—listened to the way the beads of her robe clicked together as she moved.

  “Now you are not.”

  “Why did you resurrect me?”

  “You might as well ask him.”

  Lucy followed Isis’s eyes to the old man. His struggles crossed his face, smoke and then clear vision and smoke again. Lucy frowned.

  “This is a cruel mockery of her, an echo. Not like her at all.” He pointed. “This is not Lucia Klaereon.”

  Isis spoke to the old man like he was a simple child, enunciating the sounds in each word. She indicated Lucia with her hands. “We did not find her ba. If you wish to resurrect the girl she was, find her ba. Otherwise, be content she is alive for what we need.”

  “What do you need from me?” Lucy almost had the old man’s name.

  “You are the most powerful Binder of your generation. You are the equal of the god Ra,” said Isis. “In your Trial, you could have bested him. I tricked Ra into choosing you because I knew you were his match.”

  “You… are responsible for Ra?” Lucy remembered Ra. There was no acid or terror in her stomach. Perhaps being killed cured you of fear.

  “Ra ripped her apart,” said Thoth. “How do you see her defeating him?”

  “She was held back,” said the old man. “Her father kept Binder magic from her because he wanted Octavia to be his heir.”

  “I interpreted the Isis Scroll. Your scroll. Why would you make a spell which would only free one demon?”

  “Do you know what you’ve done?” Isis glared at Paolo. “She died because of you.”

  Paolo shrugged.

  “You misled me.” Lucy considered the old man, his muck-covered clothes. “You wanted Ra for yourself, Paolo Borgia.”

  Paolo nodded. “I wanted Ra, but not for myself.”

  “Carlo was right. You are untrustworthy.” Memories were starting again, like a halting coach on a country road.

  “Lucia, the Isis Scroll is a lie. The Spear of Longinus freed you,” Paolo continued.

  “What he says is true,” Isis agreed. “Only I, the scroll’s creator, can use the Isis Scroll.”

  Thoth laughed, a sawing sound, breath in, breath out. “Isis never admits failure,” said Thoth. “Never, ever. Only Isis’s Binder can use the scroll. I wonder where you, Paolo Borgia, found the Spear of Longinus?”

  Isis stamped a foot. “This is serious, you damned monkey.” The goddess took a deep breath. “Lucia, we have a second chance. You could have used your mother’s magic to defeat Ra, even though you did not know the Binding ceremony. You still can, although how you control him will be very different from Binding him.”

  “I am free of Ra.” She watched the old man. Why would Paolo Borgia want Ra? “I do not want him back.”

  “Ra killed you,” said Isis. “I reassembled you, and you are mine now. Ra is our mutual enemy.”

  No one owned her. “I am not your servant.”

  “You want to help your sister?” asked Thoth.

  Octavia. Memories broke free, some she had done her best to hide. “You are right. I can’t let Ra have her.”

  Isis’s eyes were hungry and eager. Lucy could feel the anger radiating from the goddess. It didn’t touch he
r.

  “Ra’s goals are grander than your weak-willed sister,” Isis said. “He possessed her to gain Solomon’s Scroll. He wants to be king again. We would walk the Earth again, but Ra wants us to do his bidding, bend us to his will.”

  “The Klaereons believe,” said Thoth, “we deserve the fate of demons.”

  “I know you are not demons,” said Lucy. “I am a Klaereon.”

  “You are special,” said Paolo. “You believe demon Binding is corrupt.”

  “You must capture Ra and stop him. This is why I resurrected you.”

  Thoth bared sharp teeth. “Isis, you are still not telling her everything! Lucy, you are a vessel who could contain Ra, not just send him to the Abyss. Your mother’s magic makes you Ra’s prison. You must capture him.”

  “If I don’t?”

  “Before, when we walked the Earth, we lived in harmony with mankind.”

  Isis smiled. “Mankind knew their place.”

  Thoth frowned, if a creature like him could. “Ra will rule all of us and remake us in his image.”

  Lucy spoke. “Mr. Borgia, why did you do this to me?” If Paolo Borgia wanted Ra, did he know Ra would kill him, burn through his body in short order?

  “I want to protect my family.”

  Isis glanced at him sideways. “Too late for that. I command you to do your duty, Lucia, and capture Ra.”

  “People don’t call me Lucia. My name is Lucy. I am Lucy.”

  Thoth stepped toward her. “Let me take you to some place comfortable. There is no point in letting these two continue to make demands of you. You must decide, not them.”

  She wanted to like Thoth, and would have if she could have. “It would be foolish for Ra to let his enemies live, so I understand your interest in the matter. Especially you, Isis. The mythology I’ve read puts you and Ra at great odds.” Lucy brushed the soft feathers of her cloak. “I wouldn’t let you live, if I were Ra. I am inclined to save Octavia, and I am not inclined to let Ra have his own way. I will contain him, as you ask, for my own reasons.”