The beautiful pink creature held out her hand and spoke with a perfectly lovely voice.
“So, can I have the present for my mistress? It was very nice of you to get it for her.” She tilted her head slightly and smiled lovingly at him with the most luminous green eyes he had ever seen. Her pink skin was flawless and her body was attractive in all the ways one might want. Thin strips of fabric stretched tightly across her breasts and were tied behind her neck. A flap of the same cloth hung from the front of her black leather belt and managed to cover her intimate area, though the slightest breeze would no doubt reveal all, as she did not seem to be wearing anything else. D’Molay had seen many beautiful women in his time, but none had had this sort of effect on him before.
He was almost dumbstruck by her presence as he held out his hand and gave the small box to her. He could deny her nothing - he would do anything for her. “H-here you go.”
“Oh thanks! She’s been looking for this for a long time. I know she’ll like it.” The pink girl gave D’Molay a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. Then she withdrew and went back to Sekhmet. “Here it is, just like you always wanted.” the demoness said gleefully.
As she walked away, D’Molay felt an aching need in his heart for her to return to his side. His body shivered and he felt sad and almost desperate to go to her and declare his love. I’ve fallen in love with her at first sight, he suddenly realized. But the feeling faded as she returned to Sekhmet and no longer paid him any attention.
“It’s like a spell - she makes you fall in love with her,” he inadvertently said aloud, more to himself then anyone in the chamber.
Sekhmet spoke in answer to his utterance. “That is her power, though it is not something she has any control over. It does have its uses, as you’ve just experienced.” Sekhmet glanced over at her pink, winged companion as they exchanged smiles at some unspoken joke.
The demoness looked apologetically at D’Molay. “Sorry. It kinda happens all the time. I can’t make it stop. People just end up liking me a lot.” She looked around the floor. “Now where did that kitty go?” The demoness wandered towards the darkened corner of the room on a quest for her pet.
Sekhmet opened the box, and lifted out a gem. She held it up to the torch light and looked intently at it. It was the size of a radish, cut with many facets that caught in the light, a smoky amber color that matched Sekhmet’s fur. ‘“Yes . . . this is it . . . I remember it well.” Her voice rang with an air of reminiscence as a slightly melancholy smile passed across her feline visage. As she suddenly seemed to recall that D’Molay was still in the room, her face became a passive mask again. She put the gem back in the box and rose to her feet.
As she stood there, D’Molay mentally estimated her height. Seven, eight feet perhaps? The way the light reflected off her she appeared to be covered in a dusting of felt. He deduced that she must have a coat of very fine fur, as on the head of a cat, only in this case covering her entire body. Sekhmet stretched a little and then walked over to him.
“I wish to give you a token of my gratitude for your efforts today,” she said as she handed him a small bag about the size of her hand. “You do not know it, but that gem was very special to me. It belonged to a loved one, now long gone.”
He waved his hands at her. “That’s not necessary Sekhmet. I have already been paid by -”
She interrupted. “I do not care that someone has paid you, I wish to reward you myself.” She took his hand, put the bag in it, and closed his fist over it. She looked him in the eye to show that “no” was not an answer. She turned, walking away. “And know this, D’Molay, if you ever need a favor, call upon me,” she said, looking over her shoulder at him as her tail swished back and forth. “You risked your life to get me this gem. I shall not forget that.”
D’Molay was somewhat dumbstruck, both by her offer of a favor and the lithe and cat-like way she walked across the room. “L-Lady Sekhmet, I - thank you.” He bowed to the goddess, deciding there was no point in arguing with a favor she obviously wanted him to have.
“I bid you a safe journey. No doubt our paths will cross again, D’Molay.” Sekhmet picked up the box with the gem and started to walk toward her pink companion and the kitten she had just found.
The sweet voice of the demoness rang out from the back of the room as D’Molay left the chamber. “Come visit us again sometime, okay? Bye!”
He bowed again as he started to back out of the large room, “Thank you Sekhmet, I was glad to be of service. Good tidings to you,” he said and walked out of the door.
Looking back into the chamber, D’Molay mused that the gods are often unpredictable, sometimes gracious, sometimes difficult. Today, Sekhmet earned a place on the gracious list. He turned to face the long polished stone hallway and the waiting escort. As he was guided back to the main entrance of the pyramid by a young scribe, his thoughts returned to how his day had begun. He wondered how Aavi was getting on with the Oracle, and hoped she would find her answers at Buddha’s Retreat.
Sekhmet
Digital Alteration of Spring Breeze (William Bougereau, 1895).
* * *
“Found prize for Sul-giiiii! Found prize for Sul-giiiii!” Mordecai sang to himself as he flew through the night, carrying Aavi in his talons. The large bat-like creature flew across the great lake and back into the City toward the Slavers’ Temple of Lamasthu. Mordecai was vouchsafed by that goddess, and could enter the City without scrutiny as long as his path did not deviate from this approved route.
Aavi hung motionless and unaware. Only hours before she had wished she could fly over the lake like a bird. Now she had, without even knowing it. It had taken Aavi a long time to cross the lake by boat, but by air, Mordecai covered the distance in less than a half an hour.
Mordecai descended skillfully between the tall spires of various temples and buildings in the city. Though it was dark, some structures glowed by the magic of the gods. Other looming edifices were lit by lights in the windows and flames at the tops of towers. Mordecai was careful to avoid singeing his delivery as he flew between the fires. Finally he dipped, banked, and glided onto the balcony of a tower hewn of dark green stone. He carefully placed Aavi on the tiled floor of an elegant room. After stretching, he again seized the limp girl and dragged her over to an iron cage in the corner. Mordecai awkwardly stuffed her inside and locked the cage door. He looked at his catch for the first time in the light.
“Yes! The High Sulgi will like,” he crooned, shuffling out of the room to find his master.
Chapter 7 - The Altar of Prometheus
The newest acolyte assigned to the altar of Prometheus stifled a cough. The priest in charge of his training ignored his muffled choking and continued to stir the banked embers of the offering fire. Fresh flames shot upward, feeding on the dry bark of logs resting upon the stone dais, raising a dark gray flume. Axion watched the smoke ascend, its progress drawing his eyes away from his teacher, Kinothos.
Kinothos gave the altar fire a few more jabs with an iron poker as he continued the lesson. “And so mankind took the fire that Prometheus had stolen and -”
A heavy hand buffeted Axion’s ear as Kinothos noticed the dark-haired child’s attention had wandered. Axion yelped and bowed his head penitently to the priest, whispering an apology.
“Do you know this story so well that you need not listen?” Kinothos asked. “What does this scene represent?” The priest thrust the hot poker within inches of Axion’s nose so that the boy could not possibly miss the scene inscribed on the shaft. Axion managed not to flinch, but his eyes had to squint to bring the symbols on the tool into focus.
“Prometheus captured by Titans and taken to the rock?” Axion answered tentatively.
“And which Titans took him there?” The priest smiled smugly as the boy bit his lip, unable to supply the names. “As I thought. Now listen.”
Kinothos continued to tell the story of Prometheus, inserting the occasional threat of setting a liver-eating vulture upon
Axion just to make sure the boy took his training seriously. The dark, sacred buzzards perched in the tall trees around the grove helped punctuate his warnings, although there was no chance of Kinothos actually commanding them to feast on a defenseless boy. While such things might go on in other temples, this altar celebrated life, not death. The story of Prometheus’s gift of fire to man was one of hope and progress, despite man’s eventual use of the boon to burn and destroy. But that aspect of the story was too complex for initiates. Today Kinothos concentrated on drumming just the basic facts about Prometheus into Axion’s head, which would give the boy something to think about besides leaving his old life behind to serve here.
Kinothos knew it was hard to adjust to service in the godly realms and truly did have empathy for Axion’s situation. He too had felt fear and wonder when he first came to serve the gods. Sometimes he imagined what his family thought had happened to him that day he was snatched from the fields and taken through the secret ways to Olympus. Although he’d been sad and frightened at first, he soon came to realize that serving Prometheus was a safer life than eking out an existence in the war-torn plains where he’d been born. In time, Axion would reach the same conclusion. After two weeks here in the grove, the boy was already settling in. Kinothos had faith he would prove to be an acceptable servant of the altar.
“And so, in honor of Prometheus, we keep fires burning at all times, and carry lit torches wherever we go. You must revere the flames, and use them only for good. Do you understand, Axion?”
Axion nodded, a bit relieved to hear that the Prometheans’ obsession with fire did not extend to burning themselves with it. He couldn’t help but be nervous around all the hot pits and pokers. At least the hide and leather clothing the priests had given him to wear was not likely to burn if touched by a stray flame.
“Good. Then take this torch and stand sentry at our southern gate. You know the words of welcome,” Kinothos instructed.
Axion repeated the special phrase and the priest, satisfied, handed him the fresh brand he had lit from the altar fire. Smiling, Axion stepped quickly across the grove toward his assigned position. He loved sentry duty. He could stare at anything he liked without having his attention torn away by some lesson. As he crossed the compound, he noticed that the priests and the other initiates were gathering for the evening prayers. This made him even happier with his assignment. He didn’t like standing in a big crowd, suffering the heat of all the fires and smelling the sweat of everyone around him.
Reaching his post, he happily hopped up onto a large, flat rock. Axion looked to the right, down a slope into a valley, then to the left, up the side of a wooded hill. Seeing no beings in either direction, he gazed down the long path straight before him, hopeful that something interesting would come his way. After waiting for many minutes, he spied two centaurs arriving to cut branches for their bows from trees far down the road. His delight in watching them ended as he heard the screams.
Axion’s heart leapt in his chest as the most horrible sounds he’d ever heard grew louder. He stumbled from his rock, almost dropping his small torch. Tightening his grip on it, he ran back toward the grove. He froze, terrified, when he saw Kinothos and two other priests trampled by a multi-legged monster with a keening boy impaled between its jaws. A cry of horror escaped Axion’s lips as the creature snapped down and flicked its head to the side. Pieces of the other boy dropped forgotten among the other Prometheans who were attempting to stop the monster with a ring of torches. It plowed through them, snapping off heads with impossibly fast bites and breaking bodies with almost graceful kicks of its many legs. The creature glanced toward Axion, pinning the boy with a look communicating that there would be no escape.
At the largest of the altar fires, the oldest priest stood resolutely in defense. The beast pounced and shoved the man into the flames. Drawn to linger by the howls of the burning man, the creature casually rolled over both him and the fire, like a giant dog playing in the wet morning grass. The sacred flames were quenched by the creature’s impermeable hide and the stench of its burning hair was added to the miasma of blood and bowels and smoke. Axion fell to his knees, his torch forgotten now. Whimpering, frantically crawling away, he froze as the beast’s shadow fell over him. He heard the buzzards flapping and cawing, descending to share the feast.
* * *
“Look at them run,” Eros remarked. The orchard on the hill where he and Zephyrus had paused to rest in their hunt for Venus’ transgressor gave them a prime view of a well-traveled dirt road. Two centaurs were racing down it at top speed.
Zephyrus spit out a chunk of golden apple core. “I bet two tankards on the black one.”
“Wager taken.” Eros wondered why the centaurs were running. He knew Zephyrus didn’t. Most events were just random amusements to the winds, who believed themselves far removed from happenings on the ground below. But Eros considered things, and focused his attention on the horse-men to see what he could learn. “I sense no lust here. There’s no delectable virgin luring them to stampede.” He cocked his head, sifting through his impressions of the area. He ignored Zeph’s enthusiastic cheering as the black centaur surged ahead of his companion at a bend in the road. Eros looked to the horizon. “Can’t be fire. There’s no smoke.”
Zephyrus shrugged, looking forward to collecting his winnings. “That’s two you owe -”
“The sacred fires are out,” Eros interjected in alarm as he realized there should have been smoke. He sped down the hillside, his figure blurring to a smear of prismatic light darting from point to point as he exerted his supernatural speed.
“Welcher!”
Zephyrus roared after him, the limbs of the apple trees whipping from the force of his stormy passage, fruit raining from branches to roll downhill in a bouncing avalanche. A more powerful god than he, Eros was not one easily caught in such a race. However, Zephyrus thought fortune was with him when Eros suddenly stopped under an ornate iron gateway tipped with stylized flames. “A shrine? Fair enough. They should have some beer,” Zephyrus said as he caught up with him.
“It . . . was a shrine.” Eros put his hand on Zephyrus’s shoulder to keep his oblivious friend from stumbling into the disaster. Ahead of them, a jerking black mass covered the ground. A bloodied, featherless head poked out of it, turning an eye toward them as it tilted back to swallow a viscous tidbit.
“Vultures! What are they . . . “
“The priests,” Eros answered as the horror of the scene dawned on Zephyrus. Eros looked down and saw a small severed hand lying pale in the dirt. “The acolytes.”
A furious expression sprang across the wind’s visage. “Damned birds!”
Eros, irritated with his companion, gave him a slight shove back. “Don’t blame the vultures. This is their sacred grove. They’re cleansing it the only way they can.”
Leaving Zephyrus behind, Eros moved through the iron gate, stepping carefully around the feeding flock. As he made his way toward the central altar, he checked any points of possible shelter for survivors. The stone chambers once home to the priests had been tumbled from their foundations. Once-towering stacks of firewood lay scattered into random, teetering piles. Pausing by the shrine’s well, Eros called hopefully down into its dark depths, but not so much as a frog responded to his voice.
“Eros, here!”
Eros turned to find Zephyrus pointing to a line of damaged saplings and trampled brush. Red streaks of human blood painted their trunks and leaves. “The beast! I’m after it!”
“Wait.” Eros spun quickly and moved to intercept Zephyrus before he plunged headlong down the trail. “There is no one but us to report this desecration. You know the new laws. We have to go before the Council as witnesses.”
“Damn the laws, and damn Prometheus for going into hiding.” Zephyrus ran a hand through his disarranged hair, keeping his eyes trained on Eros’s face so he wouldn’t have to see the gore near his feet as he recalled the rules. When the realms declared peace and came toge
ther to create the City, laws were established to allow order to prevail. One of those decrees ruled that in the event a deity could not personally appear to avenge his followers, the first gods on the scene were bound to bring the matter before the Council. If Zephyrus and Eros ignored the edict, they would bear nearly as much responsibility for the massacre as whatever had caused it. “We’d better go.”
“And quickly,” Eros agreed. He’d be happy to buy Zephyrus those two mugs of ale he’d lost on the bet. He planned to drink at least twice that many himself to blur the memory of what they’d seen.
Chapter 8 - Namtar the Slaver God
“I don’t know. He seems a bit scrawny to me,” said Namtar, the High Sulgi in the employ of Lamasthu at the Slavers’ Temple. “What do you expect me to pay?” He feigned disinterest in the young Egyptian he was being offered, wondering if his act was fooling Ptahetep. Ptahetep was a dark-skinned man with many short braids that came to just below the bottom of his ears. He wore a gold headband with the symbol of his god, Set, in the center. A thin, white linen robe and a gold belt detailed with hieroglyphs covered his body.
“You know the value of such a young slave. He has many years of good use ahead of him and he’s in fine shape,” Ptahetep said with confidence, familiar with Namtar’s tactics. “You will pay two hundred and twenty-four gold.” Ptahetep held his ground, looking the hawk-headed Namtar right in his large, round, black eyes and ignoring the implied threat of his sharp, yellow beak.
Namtar needed no shirt, for his torso was covered with brown feathers. A gem-studded sash that crossed his chest and attached to a similar belt displayed his rank and rights as High Sulgi. The High Sulgi’s duty was to obtain the best servants for the use of the gods, all for the glory and honor of Lamasthu. In practice, this meant that Namtar was in charge of kidnapping anyone or anything that was not already bound to a god and then selling them to the highest bidders. Most of the profits kept the slave trade going. Lamasthu was given twenty-four percent of the gross, which she used for other even less savory endeavors.
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