The Serpent Waits

by Bill Hiatt

  “Say it is,” said Stan. “None of you can use the staff. That takes a pharaoh or someone appointed to a religious office by a pharaoh.”

  “With all the strange things that have happened to us in the last few years, Stan, I’m surprised you have so little imagination. You think Apepi is the only pharaoh in the three thousand years when pharaohs ruled to become immortal? And then there’s reincarnation. You think Amy is the only one who has an ancient Egyptian with the right qualifications inside her?”

  “You know as well as I do that we have no way of finding people like that,” said Tal wearily.

  “The protection spell—” began Viviane.

  “Hafez’s seer can find things in parallel universes if she holds the staff,” said Magnus rapidly and loudly. “Who’s to say a seer couldn’t use the staff to find people who could wield it? Your…our mother is a very perceptive seer. We don’t even have to go hunting for one like Hafez did.”

  “We have no safe way of awakening those past lives in whoever we find. This also you know.”

  “All I’m saying is we should try.” Magnus’s voice was still loud, but his tone sounded almost like pleading. “We’ve solved tough problems before. We’ve done things everyone would have said were impossible. Hell, it’s impossible for me and Michael to have souls—yet we do.”

  “Put that way, it might be worth studying the subject,” said Tal. “Here’s the thing, though—the staff can do a lot more than open doorways to parallel universes. In the wrong hands, it could be used for great evil. Maybe another Apepi will come along and break the barriers between planes of existence. No, even if we could use the staff for what you want to do, the risk is too great. We need to find a secure spot, like the vault of the Order of Ladies of the Lake, and lock it away there.”

  “It isn’t because you’re worried about another Apepi. It’s because you don’t trust me.” Magnus’s expression was hauntingly similar to Other Khalid’s while Hafez’s lack of love was being rubbed in his face.

  “You trust everyone else in the group. Everyone but me. You still think of me as Dark Me. You did even before our recent brain scrambles. Deny it all you want, but in your eyes, I’ll never be good enough. We’re closer than brothers, but I’ll never even be your friend, not really. And everybody else is just the same. I’m surprised Other Khalid is the first one who spat in my face. Everybody else wants to.”

  “We fight, Magnus. Brothers fight, too. Teams fight among themselves. Everybody disagrees with me at one time or another—but you don’t see that. You only notice when people disagree with you.

  “And what about my parents…our parents. You know how they feel about you.”

  “They’ve always been good to me.” The words came out much more slowly, as if Magnus were having trouble saying them. “But they’re the only ones who don’t treat me like someone they tolerate because they have to.”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, but we need to protect Other Tal and Other Eva so we can move on to…well, to whatever we’re going to do next,” said Viviane.

  “It seems pretty clear Hafez isn’t coming for them,” said Tal. “However, we’re right here, and better safe than sorry. “Once we take care of that, we can get back to Ceridwen’s and work out how to hunt down Hafez.”

  “You do the spell,” said Magnus, shoving the lyre at Tal. “The way I feel right now might…taint the magic.”

  Tal took the lyre without comment and began to strum it. He also sang while the couple kissed as if it were about to become illegal. Tal wove protection around them as he had the others, layer after layer, drawing on us as needed.

  His voice was the sound of love—love of Eva, even one from a different world. Love of his own counterpart for Eva’s sake. Love of the joy they shared.

  Joy that he would never know. Like Magnus, he didn’t want to taint the magic, but I caught a few notes of sadness in the exuberant melody. He swished the magic around to keep them as far away from the happy couple as possible.

  “That should do the trick,” said Viviane awkwardly. Anyone with even the faintest sensitivity to magic would have no doubt how Tal really felt. Even hearing the music might have been enough.

  Viviane had been wrong. Everything Amenirdis’s spell had stirred up was not dead and in the past.

  Tal didn’t move an inch.

  “Let’s…let’s go back to Ceridwen’s,” said Stan.

  “Yeah,” said Tal. His eyes were still fixed on Eva, but we rose sluggishly into the air and moved toward Awen.

  The sky was brighter now, but I hardly noticed the difference. Would my life change as dramatically as Tal’s had? Would I be as miserable as he seemed to be? With Amenirdis suppressed, could I just walk away and go back to being who I was?

  I had no lack of questions. What I didn’t have were answers.

  “Why are we floating back like this?” asked Michael. “We could open a portal, right?”

  Tal set us down on the closest street. “Sorry, I’m a little preoccupied.” With a flick of his right hand, he opened a portal, and we stepped through, first to sunny Annwn, then to an oddly dark room in Awen. The spell allowing me to see in the dark seemed to have dissipated earlier.

  Something was moving in the darkness.

  Ambush

  “What’s—” began Stan.

  Power flared all around us as if we had walked into the middle of a magic bonfire. I had to close my eyes against the brightness even though it wasn’t physical.

  Tal whipped what magical protection he could around us as the power became more physical.

  We were surrounded by flames, but they weren’t just ordinary fire. Something overwhelming was at their core, something primal.

  “A little gift from the fire lake of Am-He, devourer of millions,” said a voice from somewhere on the other side of the fire.

  It was Hafez’s voice. How could he possibly have penetrated Awen’s security again?

  Tal drew his sword, which immediately burst into flames. Fighting fire with fire wouldn’t have been my first choice, but as he slashed the flaming blade through the wall of fire, Am-He’s blaze tore. On each side of the tear, it rippled. Through the rent, Tal cracked his own fire like a whip in the general direction of Hafez. From the sounds I could make out over all the crackling, the pharaoh stumbled backward to avoid the unexpected stroke.

  A blur fast-as-the-wind jumped through the raging inferno and slamming into Tal with enough force to knock him off his feet.

  “Ha!” yelled Other Khalid, no longer handcuffed. Unaffected by fire, he tried to wrestle the sword away from Tal.

  Magnus’s hands frantically plucked at the lyre. He aimed a blast of power at the fire that confined us and another right at Other Khalid, who dodged it.

  Tal broke away from Other Khalid—and froze. He wasn’t used to fighting with human-looking teenagers, particularly one wearing the face of a friend. One of Khalid’s arrows struck Other Khalid in the left arm. The quadruple burst of magic didn’t do much damage—none of it was designed to affect djinn—but the arrow went in deep. Blood spurted. Other Khalid yelped and raced back through the fire.

  David emerged from Stan lunged forward, slicing the glowing whiteness of his blade through the fire. “I fear not the power of false gods!” His approach was as effective as Tal’s, but the gap he made resealed before he could leap through.

  “We’ve got to take the fight to Hafez,” said Michael.

  Khalid was in the air. “Grab my feet,” he yelled as he positioned himself. Michael got a good grip, and Khalid twisted around until Michael was at about ceiling level with him. Then he flew Michael over the fire.

  I could hear the twang of Khalid’s bowstring as he fired at Hafez. Michael hit the ground with a thud, followed by running footsteps.

  Magnus, Tal, David, and Viviane all attacked the flames at the same time. The might of the lyre and the two swords was enough to force the fiery barrier down, at least for a minute. Water from the Lake reduced to stea
m its efforts to rise again. They charged, and I stumbled after them, feeling useless.

  Hafez, protected again by the power of Wedjat, laughed at Michael’s punches, which bounced off the magic surrounding him. Khalid’s arrows might have done more damage, but Hafez was adroit at using the staff to knock them off course.

  As the staff swung, I tried to get a good look. It wasn’t at full power yet, but I was surprised at how far it had come. Jimmie had said something about Hafez using the ghosts at Summerland as a power source. Maybe he had others, and, like Amenirdis, he had figured out how to recharge the staff. It might have enough juice to defeat Tal and the others if they weren’t careful.

  Was Amenirdis creeping back in? I didn’t feel her presence. Now I could interpret the staff’s condition myself—another sign of my irrevocable slide into magic.

  What had happened to the curse of Morfran? Hafez looked perfectly normal, not the blend of hairiness and ugliness that Morfran had been.

  Partially hidden behind him was a dark and furry orb, constantly in motion, surrounded by immense power that made me think of a blending of the magics of Isis and Thoth, the two greatest spellcasters among the Egyptian gods. Hafez hadn’t broken the curse—but he had contained it, much as Viviane, Carla, and Ceridwen had managed earlier.

  “Feel the power of the Lake!” yelled Viviane, hurling a steady stream of water at Hafez’s shield. The spray looked like that of a garden hose, but it packed enough punch, even through Hafez’s protection, to knock him backward. Tal sprayed fire at the same time. Magnus wrapped Hafez in a harsh melody that tore at his shielding. Khalid kept up the barrage of arrows. David advanced, sword raised. Michael did his best to keep Hafez from regaining his balance. He had punched the pharaoh so much his fists were bleeding, but he kept up the attack.

  I had been so focused on Hafez it took me a while to realize that power was building on our right. Looking over, I saw an enormous cauldron, seeming as out-of-place as the Egyptian artifacts at the Summerland house. No fire was beneath it, but the liquid within was boiling—and glowing. Instinctively, I knew the magic was not Egyptian. It felt to me more Celtic, like the power of Tal and Viviane.

  Other Khalid had just thrust his wounded arm into it. The liquid reddened with his blood, but only momentarily. The glow flashed up his arm, and when he pulled it out, there was no trace of the wound.

  The cauldron was not the only magic on that side of the room, however. From the shadows emerged a white falcon bigger than a man. It flew at Hafez’s attackers, claws extended, beak wide open.

  Tal saw it in time to turn and spray it with fire. The creature shrieked, spun around, and dove into the cauldron with a loud splash. While Tal was focused on the cauldron, Other Khalid charged him again.

  Hafez struck Michael with the staff hard enough to crack his skull. The teenager fell with a disturbing thud. Only the memory of how fast he healed kept me from running to his side.

  Varying his Wedjat protection, Hafez summoned an enormous cobra which spat fire at his enemies. The strategy was shortlived—David took the serpent’s head off in one stroke.

  The falcon rose like a phoenix from the cauldron, its burns healed, every feather in place. It flew at Tal, already occupied with fending off Other Khalid without hurting him too badly.

  Everyone else was still focused on Hafez. Tal was so focused on Other Khalid that he didn’t look as if he could react to the falcon fast enough. I had to do something, but what?

  The sword. I had Gordy’s sword. I wasn’t trained in swordplay, but I knew it projected a fear effect. I drew it and raised it as high as I could, just as Gordy had told me to do. The magic rippled out in translucent, dark yellow waves toward the falcon. Though obviously supernatural, the bird felt the power of the sword. Instead of digging into Tal with its claws, it hesitated. That gave Tal time to wrap Other Khalid in a spell to immobilize him and spray more fire in the falcon’s direction. Slowed by fear, the creature ended up extra crispy before it could plunge into the cauldron again.

  “Thanks!” Tal yelled over his shoulder as he turned toward Hafez.

  I did the same, hoping the fear effect would do some good against Hafez. He was too well protected. The yellow waves split and flowed to either side of him.

  Thinking of swords made me think of Shar’s. That was one blade Hafez couldn’t ignore, and it was nearby, presumably still in Morfran’s room. Maybe I could also find the other guys and wake them up—though how they could have slept through a battle raging yards away from them was beyond me.

  Hafez, struggling to defend against the combined attack of Magnus, Tal, Viviane, Khalid, and David, had no attention to spare for me. I doubted he even noticed me leave the room.

  The guest rooms were in a long hallway just off the sitting room. I bet Morfran and Nancy would have taken the first room they could find. I knocked but got no response. I opened the door and peeked in.

  Even in the semidarkness, I could see enough to tell that Morfran and Nancy were sleeping in each other’s arms. Getting to know each other had evidently been as fast a process as Morfran had hoped. I didn’t have time to wait, but at least the sheets covered enough of them for me to feel comfortable walking in.

  “Guys, we’re under attack!” I didn’t quite yell to avoid having Hafez hear me, but I was loud enough that Mofran and Nancy should have awakened. Neither did. Their breathing remained slow and regular. I might as well have been a thousand miles away.

  I tried yelling. Nothing. I tried turning on the lights. Nothing. I tried shaking them. Nothing.

  I didn’t have to be a magic expert to realize they were under a sleep spell. The magic felt as Celtic as the cauldron to me.

  I could imagine Ceridwen putting the others under a sleep spell to help them recuperate, but would she have done the same with the two lovers? And why make the spell so strong they wouldn’t awaken in an emergency?

  Come to think of it, where was Ceridwen? Could someone have circumvented the house’s magical defenses fast enough to catch her off-guard?

  As usual, I had no answers, but I still had my goal—find the sword. That at least was easy. It was lying on the floor on Morfran’s side of the bed, its emerald glow unmistakable.

  I picked it up and touched Morfran’s arm with it. His eyes flew open.

  “What’s happening?” he asked groggily.

  “We’re under attack,” I said, lifting the blade off his arm. The moment I did so, he was asleep again.

  I rested it on his arm, and he was alert again. “Morfran, you’re under a sleep spell that Shar’s sword can render inactive but not break. I’m assuming everyone who didn’t come with us is in the same shape. Hafez is trying to overcome Tal and the others.”

  Morfran looked at Nancy and tried to wake her up.

  “We must break this spell,” he said, having a hard time looking away from her. “But it sounds as if we must stop Hafez first.”

  I handed him the sword, and he started to get out bed, revealing his muscular chest and somewhat more before remembering he was naked. Despite myself, I gasped.

  “My apologies,” he said. “However, the moment calls for haste. Since I can’t put the sword down, I’ll need your help getting my armor on.”

  I had a hard time keeping my mind on the job, but Morfran was right, so I did the best I could. The moment his armor was decently fastened, he charged out the door. I followed as fast as I could, drawing Gordy’s sword.

  The battle was still raging. Even without reinforcements, Tal’s people were still standing, despite how close to exhaustion they were. If anything, Hafez was having a harder time. I sensed the staff, probably not fully recharged to begin with, was running low on power again. They were putting up far more of a fight than he had bargained for.

  Morfran’s battle cry shook the room. Raising the sword and bathing himself in its emerald glow, he charged Hafez.

  Where was Other Khalid? I couldn’t see him, so Hafez must have freed him from Tal’s spell at some point,
or maybe he wriggled free himself. That meant—

  Morfran staggered to one side as Other Khalid, who must have been hiding invisibly nearby, struck him.

  There should have no contest. Other Khalid, though athletic, was scrawny in comparison to Morfran. The teenager was fast, however, and he stabbed Morfran in the hand with a dagger. If it had any magic, it would not affect Morfran, but the physical blow, combined with Morfran’s surprise, slowed him enough for Khalid to get in a second shot. He plunged the dagger into Morfran’s neck just above the line of his armor.

  Morfran’s natural reflex was to reach upward and stop the gushing blood with his hand. He didn’t do that, but his grip on the sword loosened enough for Khalid to knock it out of his hand. The moment he was no longer touching it, he slumped to the floor, asleep.

  “No!” yelled Ceridwen, who seemed to emerge from the gloom somewhere behind the cauldron. I had no idea where she’d been, but at least she was here now, ready to help us.

  “You weren’t supposed to wound him if he showed up.” Ceridwen slapped Other Khalid. “Get him over to the cauldron and heal that wound.”

  Ceridwen had betrayed us—but why? I was missing something. I knew I was, but my shocked mind was moving sluggishly. I just stood there like an idiot, mouth hanging open.

  Other Khalid scowled but grabbed Morfran under the arms and started dragging him toward the cauldron, leaving a blood trail.

  Ceridwen looked at me with eyes cold as the Arctic. “As for you, it’s time to go to sleep like the others.”

  Tal had said I had a little magic, but if so, I didn’t know how to use it. Power was already swirling around Ceridwen’s right hand. In seconds, I’d be unconscious. Hafez was keeping the others too busy to intervene.

  I dropped low, hoping the spell might miss me, and raised Gordy’s sword. Ceridwen winced, but her spell power kept accumulating. Either she was strong-willed or warded against that kind of effect.