Stealing Sacred Fire

by Constantine, Storm

  ‘I can’t bear it,’ Pharmaros said, as the boat moved swiftly back to the city. They stood on the deck in the dark, watching the water. ‘I don’t want to be here. I’m afraid.’

  Kashday kissed her and tried to comfort her. ‘It won’t be for long. It will soon be over. We have to stay; you know that.’

  ‘But where are the others?’ Pharmaros asked. ‘There must be others like us.’ She glanced at Kashday with cautious eyes. ‘Shemyaza. Where is he? Is he alive, do you think?’

  It was the first time either of them had spoken his name. Kashday had wondered in silence whether Shemyaza’s long exile was now over. If so, they could expect something momentous to occur. Shemyaza, in the past, had ever been associated with disruption. Kashday put his arm around Pharmaros. ‘My love, that ancient business… It was never ended. We might have lived and died a thousand times, but what happened so long ago has never been resolved. It has been hanging over us.’

  Pharmaros leaned her head against his shoulder. ‘Not more suffering. It isn’t fair. We are different people now. It might as well have not happened to us.’

  Kashday’s eyes were distant as he gazed into the water. ‘We let Shemyaza take responsibility for all our actions. Our punishments were mild in comparison to his.’

  Pharmaros shuddered. ‘Then, if he lives again, he will hate us now.’

  ‘Hush now.’ Kashday squeezed her shoulder. ‘I said that nothing bad will happen to us, and I meant it. We must have faith.’

  ‘I remember him,’ Pharmaros murmured. ‘Do you? When they made us watch his execution?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kashday answered grimly. ‘I remember.’ He did not want to talk about it; the memory was far from comfortable.

  ‘He had become a monster,’ Pharmaros said. ‘His face was that of a lunatic. I denied him. I hated him. I blamed him.’

  ‘Yes. Yes.’ Kashday pulled her closer. He closed his eyes. Her words were painful, yet he sensed he must let her purge herself.

  ‘We didn’t know what we were doing. We were so young, and he was so forceful. He made me think it was right to teach humanity and to take a human wife. I was filled with the zeal of youth, of rebellion. I had no idea how terrible the consequences would be.’

  ‘None of us did,’ Kashday said. ‘Not even Shemyaza himself.’

  Pharmaros shook her head. ‘No. He knew what he was doing. He manipulated us.’ She pulled away from Kashday’s arm. ‘Kash, I hope that what we have to do doesn’t involve him. I hope he’s still dead and stays dead. I don’t want to go through any of that again.’

  ‘Nor I.’ Kashday pulled her close again. ‘We must strengthen each other.’

  Back in Cairo, they resumed their cautious existence, although the strain was beginning to show upon Pharmaros’ face. Nearly every night, she dreamed of Shemyaza and woke up weeping. She became obsessed with the idea that he was about to walk back into their lives and bend their will to his.

  Kashday was mercifully free of this fear. He had an open mind about what might happen to them, and if that included Shemyaza, then so be it. He did not fear Shemyaza and never had. Pharmaros had been different. In the past, Shemyaza had always intimidated her and this still haunted her. Secretly, Kashday hoped that Shemyaza would appear, although he kept this to himself. His dreams concerned the more recent past. In one of them, he returned to his home in Little Moor, Long Eden, and there met a young woman in the garden. His daughter. Helen’s daughter. She was very beautiful; a fey and wistful girl. In his waking hours he could not stop thinking of her, because he knew that somewhere in the world she was alive. The Parzupheim had stolen her from him, by stealing his life. He believed that the dream of her was, in some way, real. He was sure that, once, his daughter had gone looking for him at Long Eden and had found only a ghost.

  As the days passed, Pharmaros incubated new fears. She became convinced that members of the Parzupheim were looking for them, perhaps to imprison them or worse. ‘Why did our memories return? Why were we driven to come here? We were supposed to stay ignorant and we didn’t. They’ll hunt us down now, won’t they?’

  Kashday had no answers, but he became infected by Pharmaros’ rising sense of paranoia. They were in Egypt for a reason, and because they did not yet know what it was, they were prey to the wildest ideas. They lived like exiled criminals; eyes over newspapers, ever alert.

  On the eve of Yule — a festival that seemed irrelevant in the hot land of Egypt — they went out for their habitual evening meal. They had not long returned from Sakkara and were still discussing the sights they had seen there. It seemed that while they’d been away even more people had flocked to Cairo in preparation for the coming millennium celebrations. This perpetual influx had created a further surge in political tensions. In the newspaper that day, they had read of terrorist threats to bomb the sphinx. Would that ever happen?

  Pharmaros stirred her coffee and said, ‘I know we’ve discussed this before, but we have to face facts. We can’t stay here for ever. We’ll soon run out of credit.’

  Kashday nodded. ‘I know, but something will happen by the end of the year.’

  ‘You’re sure of that, aren’t you?’

  He nodded.

  ‘But what will happen. We’ve found no other Grigori. Time is running out.’

  Kashday sighed. ‘I know, but the worst that can happen is the New Year will pass us by and I will have been wrong. Then we can go home.’ He grinned boyishly. ‘To have to find new jobs, no doubt.’

  Pharmaros would not join in with his humour and frowned at the table, painting patterns in the spilled coffee with her finger-tips.

  Kashday left her to her moody silence and stared through the window of the restaurant at the hectic crowds milling around in the street outside. He thought he heard the snap of gun-fire, a distant scream. ‘This place is madness.’

  ‘It will get worse by the new year.’

  He sighed through his nose. ‘Yes.’

  Taking a sip of coffee, Pharmaros peered at the passing crowds. ‘Everyone seems to be searching, searching. Everyone seems to be lost. It is Pandemonium. A true hell of lost souls.’

  Kashday nodded absently, wishing she wouldn’t be so relentlessly gloomy. Perhaps she was right and they should return home. Perhaps the reason for their being here had simply been to meet each other. Then, he saw a face in the crowd and his right hand made an abrupt, involuntary jerk against the table-cloth.

  ‘What is it?’ Pharmaros asked.

  He looked at her, winced inwardly at her obvious fear. It was so easily kindled. He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. A face…’ Then he was on his feet, throwing money onto the table cloth, far more than their meal was worth. It was the last of their cash. ‘Come on.’

  ‘Where?’ She was already following him, out into the steamy heat of the night, the amorphous press of hot bodies.

  Kashday reached for her hand, dragged her behind him. Babbling crowds parted before them; their bodies felt insubstantial. Ahead, Kashday caught sight of a blaze of red hair, a head that stuck out above the seethe of the surrounding crowd. A shock-wave passed through his body. Grigori! But more than that; a sense of familiarity.

  They emerged into a square, lined by awned shops, which even at this late hour were open for business. Kashday paused. He could see the red-haired man clearly now. He had stopped at one of the stalls and was talking to the merchant.

  ‘He’s Grigori,’ Pharmaros whispered. ‘I just know it. Shall we approach him?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps we should watch him for a while first.’

  The stranger seemed to hear their whispered conversation, for he froze and then turned towards them quickly. Pharmaros pressed herself against Kashday’s side. ‘He’s seen us!’

  The stranger’s expression was unreadable, but he was clearly waiting for them to make a move. Kashday drew in his breath. ‘Well, let’s get this over with.’ He began to walk towards the stranger.

  Pharmaros hissed, ‘No!’ but still fo
llowed him, taking hold of his arm.

  The red-haired Grigori had a flimsy, cheap necklace dangling from his fingers. The shop-keeper was attempting to grab his attention again, pawing his arm, gabbling in Egyptian. The Grigori stared at Kashday and Pharmaros and raised his eye-brows in enquiry. He appeared suave and haughty, although he was dressed casually in desert fatigues, his thick red hair spilling riotously over his shoulders. He would have stood out in any crowd.

  ‘Do I know you?’ he said.

  ‘I think you might,’ Kashday answered. He could not keep a certain tightness from his voice. He might be wrong about this person, embarrassingly wrong. ‘My name is Kashday Murkaster and this is Pharmaros.’

  The stranger looked them up and down. He smiled. ‘Kashday Murkaster,’ he said and dropped the necklace he was holding into the aggrieved shop-keeper’s hands. ‘I think I might know you, yes.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Pharmaros asked.

  ‘Salamiel,’ he answered. ‘Are you looking for me?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kashday said. He laughed in relief. ‘We are.’

  Salamiel took them to a nearby bar and insisted on buying them drinks. He seemed at ease and strangely casual about having encountered them. It was almost as if he’d expected to, but perhaps that should not really come as a surprise. The whole scenario felt peculiar to Kashday. They did know this man, but he was a stranger. There was none of the acute stab of recognition he’d felt when he’d met Pharmaros, simply a vague sense of familiarity.

  Pharmaros told Salamiel the story of how they’d come to be in Egypt. He listened patiently, swigging his beer. ‘Well, now you know why you were drawn here,’ he said, when she’d finished speaking.

  Pharmaros frowned. ‘No we don’t. We’ve only met you. Why are you here?’

  Salamiel sighed. ‘Well, we were looking for you, although we didn’t know it would be you, of course…’

  ‘We?’ said Pharmaros.

  ‘Yes. I have Gadreel and Daniel with me.’

  ‘Gadreel, yes,’ Kashday said. ‘I remember him, but who is Daniel?’

  Salamiel smiled. ‘The modern version of Gadreel is female.’ He gestured at Pharmaros. ‘Like you. Daniel, you might recall, is Shemyaza’s vizier.’

  ‘Shemyaza!’ Pharmaros murmured. Her face was set in a revealing expression.

  ‘That’s right. I’m afraid we have mislaid our esteemed leader. It’s a long story.’

  ‘I want to hear it!’ Pharmaros snapped.

  Salamiel stretched languidly. ‘Of course you do. Look, I think it’s only right that the others are here for this. We’re staying in a hotel near here. Let me call them. OK?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Kashday said.

  They watched Salamiel slink over the pay-phone. ‘Well,’ Kashday said.

  ‘He’s like Shemyaza,’ Pharmaros said. ‘He always was. The side-kick. The lackey. How can we trust him?’

  Kashday, who had always had a soft spot for Salamiel, and had once wished to be more like him, said, ‘Who did you want to find?’

  ‘Gadreel is all right,’ Pharmaros conceded. ‘But I would have preferred finding Penemue to Salamiel. And this Daniel, he was just Shemyaza’s glorified concubine. Why is he involved?’

  ‘These are Shemyaza’s closest confederates,’ Kashday said.

  ‘Yes. It’s as I feared. He’s come back to us.’

  Daniel and Gadreel were nothing like how Kashday or Pharmaros remembered them. Gadreel had been a quiet, sensitive man, but was now a strong, opinionated woman. Daniel, who had been hardly more than Shemyaza’s shadow, a thin fey youth, was now a pleasant and communicative individual. Despite her earlier misgivings, Pharmaros was quickly won over by Daniel’s charm. It was he who oiled the social wheel, effected the introductions and told the story of how he and his companions had ended up in Cairo. He was clearly in emotional turmoil over Shemyaza’s disappearance, but tried to make light of it. ‘He’ll show up, I’m sure. We just have to do what we can to be ready for him.’

  ‘These chambers,’ Pharmaros said. ‘Do you know where they are?’

  Daniel shrugged. ‘Well, I’ve visited the sphinx three times. I was pretty sure the entrance to the chambers must be concealed nearby, but so far I’ve found nothing. I’ve photographed the monument from every angle. I had a theory that the entrance would be between its paws, because then the Elders could have emerged from the chambers to greet the rising sun, due east. It’s very strange. I could feel the presence of the chambers all around me on the Giza plateau, but I’m beginning to think the entrance is somewhere else entirely.’

  ‘Away from Cairo?’ Kashday asked.

  Daniel shook his head. ‘No. I think it’s in the city. I’ve been picking up images of a Coptic church. Perhaps, because there are now five of us, we should meditate together and see what information comes out of it.’

  ‘We need to work on discovering the dedication of the church,’ Gadreel said. ‘That will save us the time of investigating every one in the city.’

  Daniel scraped his hair back from his face and sighed. ‘Of course, we’re limited in what we can do, because Shem isn’t here. He holds the key and is the key.’

  ‘You said there should be seven of us,’ Pharmaros said. ‘If Shemyaza is the sixth, who’s the seventh?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Daniel said. ‘We can only trust they’ll turn up over the next few days.’

  Kashday took Pharmaros’ hand. ‘Well, now we know why we’re here,’ he said. ‘Does it make you feel any better?’

  Pharmaros nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes. Opening the Chambers of Light is certainly something I can put my heart into.’ She smiled at Daniel. ‘I was afraid we’d have to repeat some terrible event from the past, be punished again.’

  ‘We have been punished,’ Gadreel said. ‘You’ve nothing to feel guilty about.’

  Pharmaros coloured slightly. ‘I don’t,’ she said, without conviction.

  They decided to conduct the meditation that night, at the hotel used by Daniel, Gadreel and Salamiel. There seemed no point in wasting time. On the short walk back, Salamiel fell into step beside Kashday and Pharmaros. ‘I know your daughter,’ he said.

  Kashday glanced at him in surprise. ‘My daughter?’

  ‘Yes. Her name is Lily. She is with a Grigori family now in Cornwall. I met her there. She used to ask me about you.’

  ‘Really? I have never met her.’

  ‘I know. She has a twin brother too. Owen. You should ask Daniel about him. They were very close friends.’

  Kashday paused for a moment, glanced at Pharmaros, then spoke. ‘What of their mother?’

  ‘Dead, I’m afraid,’ Salamiel said. ‘But you have a grand-daughter. Lily named her for her mother. Helen. You can look forward to meeting them when all this is over.’

  ‘Yes. That would be...’ Kashday shrugged helplessly. ‘I never thought I would.’

  ‘I believed I was the father of Lily’s child for a while,’ Salamiel said casually, ‘but when she was born, it was clear I wasn’t.’

  Kashday fell silent. Salamiel hadn’t changed.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Huntress

  Helen sat beside her mother on the plane. They had managed to get seats by a window, and Helen could look out at the clouds. Lily sat beside her, reading a magazine. Helen knew her mother had gone to a lot of trouble to get them on this flight, not least a protracted verbal attack upon Enniel to wear down his objections. Helen had heard one of the restrained arguments, which had taken place in the kitchen of the cottage, following a phone call by Lily to summon Enniel to their home to discuss ‘an urgent matter’.

  ‘You cannot take a child into that part of the world at present,’ Enniel had said. ‘Especially not one of our children. Where’s your sense, girl?’

  Helen, listening beside the door, had gone taut with anticipation, expecting that her mother would not react well to being called ‘girl’. For a moment, there had been silence. Then, Lily spoke, in a cool,
collected voice. ‘Enniel, I am more than capable of looking after myself and my daughter. You should know that. I’m not asking for money, but a little assistance, just so the journey will be safer. You know the Grigori families in Egypt. Please contact them for me.’

  Helen had smiled to herself, proud of her mother.

  Later, Enniel had spoken to Helen herself, asking why she wanted to go to Egypt so much. Helen had explained about the scarab, causing Enniel to frown.

  ‘Can’t you see that we are part of it,’ Lily had said, unable to keep out of the discussion.

  ‘Part of what?’ Enniel had enquired icily.

  ‘You know what. It began with the eclipse, when Daniel had that peculiar experience...’

  Enniel had glanced at her sharply. ‘We do not know where Daniel is,’ he’d said. ‘Neither he nor Shemyaza have deigned to contact me.’

  ‘I think we do know,’ Lily had answered softly. ‘But you have been told to keep out of it.’

  Enniel had finally agreed to help them, although he suggested that someone else, perhaps Lily’s brother Owen, should accompany them. Lily made it clear that she and her daughter wished to travel alone.

  Helen was aware of the fact that, quite often, her mother instinctively deferred to her. Sometimes, it felt as if Lily was the younger of the two. But this wasn’t the only reason Lily was so keen to support her daughter’s desire to travel to Egypt. Although she was quite used to getting her own way with people, Helen knew that the man named Shemyaza had a lot to do with Lily’s decision. Just the mention of his name made different colours shoot off from the aura of light around Lily’s body. Helen did not know that only very few people saw these colours naturally, and that for most it involved a lot of self-discipline and practice. The name Shemyaza affected Helen too. It was a golden word and made her think of the sun. It made her tingle. There was blue in the word too, possibly in the last two syllables. Helen knew instinctively that she was connected with this mysterious person in some way, not least because of the vision she’d had of a golden man walking towards her across the water. Helen had not told her mother about this. The intense feelings that Shemyaza conjured in Lily made Helen uncomfortable. Helen wanted to meet Shemyaza and knew that, eventually, she would. She had once asked her uncle Owen about him because she knew Owen had met him. The word had affected Owen’s aura too; it became muddy, shot with sparks of intense red. He would not speak to her. Owen was the only person Helen had any real trouble in controlling. She suspected, without knowing why, this too had something to do with the one they called Shemyaza. He affected everybody he met.