The Serpent Waits

by Bill Hiatt

  Umbra rolled across the floor in the same direction Lucas was going. Michael was trying something similar with a charging crouch. He suffered a flesh wound in his left hand but just kept coming.

  The security men aimed lower, and both scored hits on Alex’s hands, causing him to drop his curved blade and stagger.

  Lucas’s sweeping kick caught one of the security men in the chest. Surprised, he dropped the gun, and his body slammed against the wall. A punch to the face knocked him out.

  Umbra dug her dagger into the other’s leg. He tried to shoot down at her, but she knocked the gun out of his hand and stabbed him again, this time in the arm. Lucas jumped in that direction and knocked out her opponent.

  The one Khalid had wounded in the hand was trying to pick up his gun with his left. Michael stomped on the hand, then hit the security man with a knockout punch.

  I tried to stand, but the smell of blood made me tremble. I knew it well enough to know that there was far, far too much of it in the air.

  “Help!” yelled Jimmie. “Eva’s in bad shape.” Viviane raced in his direction.

  “From what I can tell, so is Gordy,” said Tal, clutching his own wounded hand. “The bullet might have hit a major artery—one of the carotid, maybe.” Gordy didn’t say anything, but Carla, stumbling over other fallen party members, still got to him quickly and bent over him to assess the damage.

  Tal rose unsteadily to his feet and tried to move toward Gordy.

  “Concentrate on yourself,” said Viviane without looking up. “You can’t heal someone else properly if you’re in too much pain.”

  “I’ve stopped the bleeding and numbed the pain,” said Tal, but his movements were draggy, and his face was pale.

  Michael, Khalid, Stan, Shar, and Umbra moved among the others. None of them were healers, but all of them evidently had enough first aid training to be of some use. I wished I had some, but a god’s wife of Amun was not expected to be a battlefield medic.

  Lucas moved to join them, but Magnus stopped him. “I’m running low on juice—and on people I can safely draw on.” I hadn’t noticed, but his light was dimmer. Hafez’s darkness continued its relentless pressure to extinguish it.

  Though space was limited, Lucas managed a little dance movement. His eyes took on their familiar glazed look, and power poured from him and into Magnus. The light brightened again.

  “Reports,” said Tal, his voice sounding more like a plea than an order.

  “Hanging in,” said Magnus. He looked almost as pale as Tal.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this. Eva’s bullet must have deflected off a bone and worked its way into her upper chest,” said Viviane. “It missed any major organs. “There’s a lot of damage, though. I’ve stopped the bleeding. I can heal her well—but not quickly.”

  “Same with Gordy,” said Carla. “The bullet nicked the left carotid and did a lot of other damage. This isn’t something I can fix fast.”

  Shar stood up and looked around the room. “I think everyone else’s bleeding is under control. The people who got hit in the hand may need bone and muscle work.”

  “Yeah, we’re OK for now, though,” said Alex, his voice barely above a whisper.

  Tal moved among them, numbing the pain and checking to make sure the bleeding really had been stopped. His hands were trembling.

  Wanting to do something to help, I walked over to Magnus. “Feel free to draw on me as much as you can,” I said.

  “Me too,” said Michael.

  “Didn’t you get a flesh wound?” asked Magnus.

  “You know me—it healed already.”

  “Good. I should have enough power for a little longer.”

  That didn’t sound like long enough to address the seriously wounded, but there was no point in making my doubts public.

  I felt weaker as Magnus pulled power from me, but managed to sit in the nearest chair.

  The group was holding together remarkably well, but trapped in a hostile environment, with numerous wounded members to attend to and a diminishing supply of magic, would their efforts be enough?

  If only I could still use the staff! I walked over and picked it up. Magnus, preoccupied with fending off the shadow assassins, didn’t even notice.

  It was still dead wood in my hands. Not even the slightest flicker of power appeared in response to my touch.

  Aside from Hafez, who else was left who could use it? Magnus had been stripped of the priesthood I bestowed on him. David had been banished. Who else was there?

  “Khalid, can you come over here? I just had an idea.”

  Khalid looked around. All the wounded seemed to be stable, so he walked over. “What’s up?”

  “I want you to try holding the staff and see what happens.”

  “I’m no pharaoh or priest,” said Khalid. “At least, I don’t think I am. Maybe in a previous life—but mine aren’t active, so it wouldn’t do any good.”

  “No, but Other Khalid used the false staff. I know that doesn’t necessarily mean he can use the real one, but if Hafez wanted a convincing copy, he would have made it as like the original as he could.”

  “I guess that’s logical, but that’s Other—oh, you think the staff might not be able to tell the difference? Give it to me, and let’s see.”

  Khalid took the staff, but it did not acknowledge him.

  “I have to take a break,” said Tal, plopping down near us.

  “You should have healed yourself first,” said Viviane, her eyes still riveted to Eva.

  Maybe Tal would have an idea. I explained the test I had just done. “What do you think? Why didn’t it work?”

  “Biologically, the two Khalids are identical, but I bet the staff isn’t keyed to specific people. It’s geared to the holding of offices our Khalid doesn’t have. Wait, though—that means being a pharaoh, priest, or god’s wife must leave some kind of magical signature, some way for the staff to discern the difference between Khalid and Other Khalid.”

  “Why not bring Other Khalid here?” asked Michael.

  “It’s bad enough we’re trapped here,” said Tal. “I don’t want to risk getting him caught in the same trap, particularly if we aren’t sure he can help. Amenirdis, you may have given me an idea, though. If we could tell what that magical signature was, we might be able to replicate it. That could be enough to fool the staff, like using someone else’s fingerprint could fool a fingerprint scanner.”

  I shook my head. “I never heard of such a magical signature to identify a priest or other official of a god.”

  “There may be an easy way to tell for sure. You inducted Magnus into the priesthood, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. I used a ritual I had seen performed many times.”

  “Involving magic?”

  “Invoking the power of the god, Amun in this case. But yes, I suppose you could say I was using his magic.”

  “Tal, doesn’t that disprove your theory?” asked Stan. “Amenirdis, wouldn’t you know what the magic was doing if you were the one using it?”

  “The ritual was ancient even in my day. I had seen the way the magic flowed when high priests inducted new priests. I copied what they had done.”

  “Just as priests tried to copy some features of the staff of Moses—without fully understanding them,” said Tal.

  “I understood I was inducting a priest. I understood I was giving him the ability to perform sacred tasks. But…now that I think of it, I let the magic flow without trying to keep track of every little thing it did.”

  “May I look at that memory?” asked Tal. I had still not gotten used to opening my mind in that way, but I had to help if I could. I nodded, and I felt the now familiar tingle as Tal gently probed for the memory he wanted.

  “The ritual does mark the recipient magically,” said Tal. “I can feel it in your memory, but only because I’m looking for it specifically. That’s why you didn’t notice it in the first place.”

  “I only wish that helped,” I said. “I fear
ed I couldn’t get the ritual to work, even as a god’s wife. Now that I have that office no longer, that particular magic will no longer work for me.”

  Tal nodded. “I felt that as well. The magic is definitely role-based, not something Magnus or I could learn just from your memory, or even by seeing it done. Only someone upon whom the ritual had been performed and in whom the magic was still active could perform it.”

  “So we’re basically back to square one,” mumbled Magnus. Every time I looked at him, he appeared to be a little paler, a little weaker, even though Lucas continued to feed him power through dance.

  “Maybe not. What did Amun do when he revoked Amenirdis’s status as a god’s wife? What did Hafez do when he revoked your priesthood? If the revocation involved removing the magic, then we’re stuck. But if it just rendered the magic inactive, then there’s still hope.

  “Removal makes more sense,” said Stan.

  “That depends on your point of view. There is precedent for the idea of a priestly induction or ordination marking a person permanently. Catholics have long believed that ordination leaves an indelible spiritual character upon the recipient—”

  “Spare us the history lesson and get to the practical part—now,” said Magnus. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t feel much when Hafez revoked my priesthood. It didn’t feel like a spell breaking or being lifted.”

  “I’m not sure what I felt when Amun took away my title,” I said. “I was so confused at that point—”

  Tal put up a hand. “You don’t have to relive that. There’s an easy way to check. If the magic is still present but dormant, I might be able to identify it because it would exist in both you and Magnus. And if that’s the case…” Tal’s voice trailed off, and he looked much paler.

  “Are you up to this?” asked Khalid. “You don’t look good.”

  “I…I have to be up to it, don’t I?” asked Tal. “Anyway, it’s a simple scan, low power. I think I have it in me. All I need to do is see if Amenirdis and Magnus have any inexplicable magic similarities.”

  Tal closed his eyes, and his face became expressionless. Between that and his pallor, it would have been easy to mistake him for dead. Only the slight tingle his scan made me feel indicated he was still alive.

  His eyes flew open so suddenly I jumped. “There is something. An identical bit of inactive magic on each of you. I can’t think of any reason for it unless it’s the remnant of your previous status. Amenirdis, what do you think?”

  An image of what Tal had seen flashed through my mind.

  “I’m not sure. We were not so analytical about magic in my day. It appears to be Egyptian, but that’s all I can tell you.”

  “Magnus?”

  “All my knowledge of Egyptian magic comes from her, remember? If she isn’t sure, I can’t be, either.”

  Tal turned back to me. “If I’m reading its structure correctly, it won’t take very much to activate it and see what happens.”

  “Wait!” I said. “The longing to be a god’s wife again will always be in my heart somewhere, but it was Amun himself who took that from me. Being a god’s wife would mean little if I defied the wishes of my god. You need to use Magnus for this experiment.”

  “I’m game,” said Magnus. “Especially if it gets us out of here faster.”

  Tal pressed his right hand against Magnus’s forehead. A tiny amount of energy sparked from him to Magnus. The change in Magnus was unmistakable.

  He was a priest of Amun again. I could sense it as clearly as when I first inducted him.

  “Do you have enough strength to keep up the light with the lyre while I get ready to use the staff?” asked Magnus.

  “I’ll manage,” said Tal. He took the lyre as Magnus took the staff. His fingers looked stiff as he played, but the light didn’t dim too much.

  I felt the staff respond to Magnus as he raised it. Tal’s idea had seemed too simple to be true, but it had worked. With that much strength on our side, how could Hafez hope to beat us?

  I got the answer to that question when Tal’s hands jerked on the lyre, then stiffened into claws as he crumpled.

  “Magical poison on the bullets!” yelled Viviane. The wounded convulsed and then lay still. They weren’t dead as far as I could tell, but the poison gripped them strongly enough to keep them unconscious.

  Magnus drew sunlight from the staff just in time to save us from another shadow assassin attack, but he looked around frantically. “What’s happening?”

  Viviane and Carla both fell over. Whatever vile enchantment had coated the bullets must have infected them as well.

  Khalid, Stan, Shar, and Umbra fell next, and Michael shook convulsively. “It’s…it’s trying to grab me, but it wasn’t crafted to overcome someone who regenerates as fast as I do. I can feel it, though. It’s powerful stuff.

  “Even the first aid providers—” I began.

  “Anyone who touched blood,” said Magnus. “The poison is in the blood.”

  With most of the group unconscious and Michael barely able to move, only four of us remained to resist Hafez: Magnus; Jimmie, who had held Eva’s hand but didn’t try to stop her bleeding because Viviane had arrived so fast; Lucas, still in the grip of his dance trance; and me.

  “It’s not like our healers to miss something like that,” said Magnus. His tone wasn’t very emotional, but I could see fear in his eyes. “The spell must have been dormant at first. Viviane and Carla both had to deal with life-threatening conditions, and Tal was wounded himself. I guess that’s why…”

  I waited for Magnus to finish, but he wasn’t going to. He was too busy trying to figure out what to do.

  He looked at me his expression grim but less fearful “Can the staff sustain two spells at once? I think I could cure this infection, but if I don’t keep the light going, the shadow assassins will be all over us.”

  “From what I’ve seen, it can do two spells, but it can’t sustain both for very long,” I said. “How fast can you help the others?”

  “You tell me,” he said. “Let me show you what I’m seeing.”

  A ghastly image formed in my mind. Everyone who had been poisoned had snakes of magic twining around every muscle, every nerve. They wouldn’t die unless the snakes decided to strike, a bit like the spell in Other Tal’s head, but its victims were completely divorced from movement or even consciousness.

  “It’s all Apep’s magic as far as I can tell, but it’s complex and has spread far into its victims. There are gods that could be invoked to beat it, but it will take time.”

  “Can you take the lyre, then?” he asked. “We need someone to keep the light going.”

  “I can try, but I am no musician.”

  Magnus frowned. “It won’t work then. To get magic from it, one needs to have both magical and musical ability.”

  Jimmie raced over, pale and shaking. “Do something!”

  “What do you think we’re trying to do, genius? Haven’t you been paying attention?”

  “I was trying to revive Eva, but I had no luck.”

  “It figures—wait, did you get any blood on you?”

  “A little, but—”

  “Jimmie, I mean this in the nicest possible way, but why aren’t you poisoned? The spell seems to jump to anyone who had contact with any of the victim’s blood.”

  Jimmie looked at his hands as if he had never seen them before. “I…I…yeah, there’s a little spot here on my finger.”

  “Keep it away from me!” said Magnus as Jimmie poked it in his direction. “Amenirdis, any thoughts? If we knew why the spell skipped Jimmie, we might have another way to break it.”

  I invoked Amun’s influence over hidden things. “Though he lives, yet he has the mark of death upon him. That must have confused the spell.”

  “Mark of death,” said Magnus. “Can you replicate that? Graft it on to everyone here?”

  “I wish I could, but I have no understanding of how to do it.”

  “I don’t, either, and it wo
uld take a lot of time to figure out. Jimmie, how about you?”

  “You know I don’t have any magic,” said Jimmie. “Well, wait, I can talk to the dead, and this house is chock-full of them, remember? Prisoners of Amen Hafez. I think he uses them as a power source.”

  “Commune with them and see if they can break free,” said Magnus. “Maybe they can spread the mark of death without my having to stop generating light.”

  Jimmie closed his eyes, and I could feel him open himself to the dead. The mark of death glowed darkly within him.

  His eyes opened slowly. “It’s like before. Whatever Hafez has done to them keeps them from interacting much. I get the sense they’d help if they could, but they just can’t.”

  I had no skill in communing with the dead, but I tried to sense the force that Jimmie was feeling. “I’m not familiar with this power. It’s not Apep’s, so I think Hafez must have used the staff to construct it. What is done by the staff can also be undone by it.”

  Magnus frowned. “But if we made it as strong and complex as some of his other long-term magic, it will take some time. I won’t be able to do that and sustain the light.”

  Jimmie ran his hand nervously through his hair. “Maybe you don’t need to sustain the light. You know how our protections at home and on Awen here include a spell that keeps out shadow assassins. Could you cast that while keeping enough focus on the staff to sustain the light against Hafez’s magic?”

  Magnus eyed the staff. “That may not be a terrible suggestion—for once in your life. It’ll be tricky, though. The spell that blocks shadow assassins doesn’t take long, but it requires precision. I hate to have to do it while running other magic—against opposition at that.

  “Still, I guess it’s the only choice we have right now. Jimmie, get your sword out and be ready in case the light fails before the blocking spell is complete. Amenirdis, ready yourself to give us a burst of Ra’s sunlight. I know you can’t resist the light dampening effect in this room for long, but I’ll route some of the power Lucas is generating your way.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” I said. I called sunlight to the edge of being and held it there, ready to burst forth at a second’s notice. I felt the extra power like what Amy would call a burst of adrenaline, thought it was magical, not physical. Jimmie raised his sword.