The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04

by Anna McIlwraith

  Telly stood and began to pace, ears twitching. “Before he left, Alexi said he’d learned nothing from the people gathered here, and he couldn’t contact the serpent priest mentally, either. He says magic and distance may be interfering. He’s reluctant to admit it, but I think there’s more to it than that. The serpent priesthood all share a formidable telepathic connection — if he can’t find or even sense his brother with a mental scan, something’s wrong.”

  “Is he dead?” Emma tried to feel hopeful — she didn’t know the serpent priest, shouldn’t care about him, and if he was lost to them, they could all just go home — but she just couldn’t do it. Not when she remembered Alexi’s fury when Nathifa had suggested they couldn’t save him.

  Telly shook his head, the gray flint of his eyes echoing her thoughts. “Not dead. Alexi and the rest of the brotherhood would know. Pity.” Apparently Telly shared none of Emma’s pangs of conscience.

  “What if…” Emma bit her tongue. It was probably a stupid idea, and even if it wasn’t, she would have to ask Alexi about it, so why bother the others? Telly arched a sandy brow at her and she switched topics.

  “When will Seshua get here?” She pitched her voice low.

  Telly’s face darkened. He looked out toward the village of tents, billowing in the hot midday wind, the sandstone colored palace rising above them all. In the daytime, smaller buildings were visible beyond the main structure. They all looked surreal, shimmering in the heat, their sides weather worn and ancient-looking.

  “Kal hasn’t sensed him yet,” Horne answered her. “Likely sometime tonight, maybe.” Emma narrowed her eyes at Horne but said nothing; if he wanted to tell little white lies to make her feel better, he was entitled to, but Emma didn’t have to buy them. She could tell Horne had no idea when Seshua would come. If he did at all.

  “They’re coming,” said Telly, moving to stand in front of Emma. A second later, Emma heard sounds of feet marching toward them, and a procession emerged from the outskirts of the tent village, heading through the lengthening grass toward their camp.

  Emma stood up, sensing Fern as he hurried around the side of the tent, maidens with him. She could see a familiar figure at the head of the procession — his half fall of inky black hair swung free, billowing out behind him like a banner in the wind.

  By the time Kahotep and his entourage reached the tent, Emma was surrounded on all sides by maidens and jaguar guards, with Fern at her back and Telly, alone, out front.

  Kahotep motioned for his guards to remain as he approached. “Caller of the blood,” he said, folding down to one knee with the grace of a dancer, head down. Telly regarded him with unreadable gray eyes.

  “She’ll go nowhere without our protection.” Telly crouched down, and Kahotep lifted his chin a fraction. His solid brown eyes went from Telly to Emma and back again.

  “I merely wish to show my kingdom to the chosen of our races. We shall do so on your terms.”

  Telly cocked his head thoughtfully, and Emma lost her patience.

  “Oh, come on.” She barged through the jaguar guards and slapped Andres’s hand away when he tried to grab her. “Leave me alone, Andres.” She turned her scowl from him to Kahotep, who was looking at her as though his eyebrows might try to crawl off his face and into his hair. “Haven’t we done this part already?” When he continued to stare at her as though she was crazy, she appealed to Telly.

  He straightened, eyes laughing at her. She stalked past him and stuck her hand out to Kahotep, who gingerly took it and stood.

  “Come on, Kahotep, let’s ditch these clowns.” He blinked at her, but started forward, catching the eye of one of the jackal guards at the head of the group. The man lifted a questioning eyebrow, amber eyes starkly outlined in kohl.

  “Go ahead of us, Tsekani. Emma’s people shall guard our rear.”

  Emma pressed her lips together to keep from laughing out loud as Fern made an immature mental wisecrack about guarding her rear. Kahotep’s brown eyes widened in concern, and she sobered.

  “We need to talk,” she said quietly, eyeing the guards ahead who were leading them away from the camp, up the gentle grassy incline and toward the sandier desert scrub that flanked the edges of the oasis.

  Kahotep squeezed her hand, glancing around. “Later.” He turned to her, the delicate bones of his face standing out starkly, dark natural circles ringing his kohl-lined eyes. “For now, let us get to know each other better, and then perhaps we can speak of more serious things.” His eyes were huge with what he was trying to tell her without words.

  “Okay.” Emma looked away from him, squinting into the distance; beyond the drier grasses and scrub of the oasis edges, all she could see was desert. “Where are you taking me?”

  He narrowed his eyes at her, and then snapped out something in the hard, strange Egyptian that the jackals used. Four of the guards looked up, and then broke off to one side of the group, extracting things from the leather packs they wore on their backs. Looked like fabric, lots of it, and stone weights.

  “We are going to visit the ancient temples of my people,” said Kahotep. “They are not much used this past century, but they are still beautiful. I would have you see some of the beauty of my kingdom, Emma, so that you may see it is worth saving.”

  “Kahotep…” God, this was going to be torture. She really needed to have that talk with him.

  The four guards who had broken away lifted their spears, and Emma swore she felt every single jaguar guard tense. Fern’s mind sprang into hers, by now it was reflex. But everyone relaxed when the jackal guards attached the huge section of linen to their spears, and, lifting it into the air, all moved into position so that most of the procession was shaded from the harsh sun.

  “That’s pretty nifty,” Emma said.

  “Nifty?” Kahotep frowned at her.

  “You know, nifty: neat, cool, snazzy, flashy, interesting, noteworthy…” She trailed off as he began to laugh; the sound was tentative, but as she turned a severe scowl on him, he got louder as though he couldn’t help it.

  “Yuck it up, buddy. I can’t believe how sheltered you are. How old are you, anyway?”

  His smile faded, but his chocolaty eyes still glittered, even in the shade of the linen cloth. “I am one hundred and twenty eight.”

  Emma bit her lip; she’d almost replied with, “So you’re just a baby”. Which made her basically nuts — when had she started thinking of the century mark as young for a shapechanger? Well, when she’d realized most of the heavyweights she’d met were over five times that age — and Telly was even older than that, but by how much, she just didn’t know.

  “How old were you when —” She caught herself before she said something stupid, and changed direction. “How long has Khai-Khaldun been king? Or Pharaoh, or whatever you guys call it. What do you call it anyway?”

  Kahotep smiled at her, but it didn’t reach his eyes — mention of Khai had leached all the humor out of them. He brushed her arm with his, the slight pressure indicating for her to move to their right, where true sand blended with coarse soil, and the ground became harder to walk on. On the horizon, to the right of the hazy shapes of the palace, Emma could see the vague outline of stone buildings crumbling into the vegetation that flanked them.

  “We call our ruler Pharaoh, but when we are speaking to foreigners or guests who do not know our language, we simply use the term king. For one, when I say the word ‘pharaoh’ to you, in your language, I say it with your inflection and pronunciation. In my own tongue it sounds very different. Also,” he continued, but his tone was a little cooler. “In our ancient language, the word pharaoh refers solely to the female ruler. The strain of ancient Egyptian spoken by the humans who settled along the Nile was different. It originated in the same place as our language, but we are different races, and not just because they are human and my people are not.” His eyes stared out ahead, scanning the scrubby desert, but Emma doubted he was seeing it. “The word ‘king’ refers informally to the
Pharaoh’s consort, her mate,” he continued. “The Egyptian jackals have always been governed by queens, and traditionally, leadership would pass through the female bloodline, irrespective of how close any member of that bloodline sat to the throne.”

  Emma could have quizzed him all day long on the subject — this was more than she’d ever learned about the jaguars, who all seemed to deem history unworthy of discussion — but she was also aware that he still hadn’t answered her first question.

  “So when Khai assumed the kingship, there were no living female relatives of the queen — the Pharaoh?”

  If Kahotep suspected her innocent tone, he gave no indication. “No,” he said sharply. “There were not. And Khai-Khaldun took the kingship one hundred and fifteen years ago.”

  Emma kept her face blank. Kahotep had been thirteen years old when his mother died — when his uncle killed her, after watching her waste away while her consort searched for a cure in unknown lands. That had to make for one fucked-up childhood.

  They walked the rest of the way in silence, broken only by the high, wailing cry of birds circling overhead. Kahotep seemed as he always did: either deeply troubled or totally implacable. Emma suspected that, given the way he was probably raised — by Khai, or his servants — Kahotep was always both deeply troubled and totally implacable.

  They neared the crumbling buildings — crumbling but not ruined — and Kahotep’s guards began to spread out. The stone temple loomed, much taller than it appeared from a distance, and dark green palm fronds were visible at its topmost edges, as though the pillared facade held a courtyard or small forest within its walls. Dry vines clung to the rough stone; their greener, leafier roots had overpowered the chunks of building that had fallen into the sand, so that the blocks of stone and pillar looked like great mossy oblongs.

  Kahotep said something to the guards, and they fell away, positioning themselves along the wide front of the temple. Kahotep looked down into Emma’s frowning face.

  “I do not intend to harm you, or frighten you if I can help it, and so my guards will stay here. Your people may come with us,” he said slowly, eyes intent on hers. “Unless some wish to remain here and rest. Surely not all are needed to guard you against me alone.”

  Emma stared up into his face and gave him her most vacant smile. Fern! He’s trying to tell me to leave some guards behind so we’re not followed. She realized she was telling the wrong person. Telly, she sent. I think some of the guards should stay. Kahotep wants to talk, and he doesn’t want his guards following and overhearing anything.

  Telly wasted no time with an answer. “Okay,” he barked, “Guillermo, Manny, Horne, you’re staying here. Mata and Rish, you too.” He stalked past each one of them, eyes a pale blue-gray, the threatening tilt of his chin telling them not to question him. Horne nodded sagely. Emma couldn’t tell what the jackal guards thought; their faces wore the bored blankness that bodyguards adopted in order to seem as though they weren’t watching your every move.

  With that comforting thought in mind, Emma went to the temple gates and ran her fingers over the rough stone — and snatched her hand back when a gecko shot out of the clustered vines and scurried up the wall to disappear into a crevice.

  Kahotep stepped up beside her, eyebrows raised.

  “I’m not squeamish about reptiles. It just startled me.”

  Kahotep nodded, smiling, and pushed the gate open. The stone slab groaned. Emma peeked over Kahotep’s shoulder and gasped as the garden came into view: a dark, bubbling pool surrounded by lush vegetation, shaded by towering palms with ferns and long vibrant grasses clustered at their rounded bases. White sand carved a snaking path through the rustling grass, leading to the far wall of the courtyard, where an archway cut out of the stone was flanked by two severe statues set in worn, weathered alcoves either side.

  Similar statues stood at angles throughout the garden, their stylized faces chipped, their bodies covered in vines and tufts of grass where the winds had deposited soil and seed enough over the years for it to take root. The yellowed stone faces were eerie, even in the warmth and brightness of the midday sun.

  Emma started forward. The statues looked like ancient Egyptian — human — handiwork, but they were different, more lifelike than much of the human Egyptian style of art and rendering, and Emma didn’t recognize any of the iconography. Not that she was an expert, but she had visited enough museums and been fascinated enough to know that what she was looking at now bore only a passing resemblance. One statue was a man with the head of a bird, but it wasn’t the ibis or the falcon, so it wasn’t Thoth or Horus. Another female statue was clearly feline, but looked more like a lioness than any catlike figure Emma had seen in Egyptian mythology. Briefly she wished she’d studied this stuff at college, but she’d always known what her calling was — except that it wasn’t anymore, was it?

  “Emma,” Kahotep spoke beside her and she yelped; she hadn’t heard him approach. He took a startled step away. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…You seemed so pleased,” he waved a hand to indicate the temple garden. “And then your face fell. Is something wrong?”

  She shook her head, wanting to laugh at him. Everything was wrong. “Nothing here — this place is great.” She stepped down onto the sandy path, and started following it to where it curved alongside the dark, bubbling pool. “I was just thinking about home. My job.” She looked back over her shoulder; Telly, Fern, Andres and Ichtaca were standing at the entrance, taking in the sight of the garden — and probably noting any vantage points, hiding places, or weak defensive spots — but Felani and Tarissa had ventured down and were avidly running their hands over statues and poking their noses into holes and alcoves in the walls.

  Watching them slip in and out between palms and ferns, beneath the deep shade of the trees, was a visceral reminder that the maidens really were ocelots, the small cats of the rainforest but in human shape. Their bronzed, smoky skin and copper hair was perfect camouflage in the shadows of the foliage and the dappled sunlight streaming down.

  Kahotep stopped beside her and crouched at the edge of the pool. “Your job?” He looked up at her.

  “Yeah, my job. Y’know, my human career? I do have one. They only found me six weeks ago.” Wow, she hadn’t meant to sound so bitter. Kahotep’s face smoothed out as though he were thinking the same thing and refraining with effort from saying it. She sighed and crouched down next to him.

  “I am — was — training to be a veterinary surgeon. You know, animal doctor?” He nodded, giving her a dry look from beneath his blackened lashes. “Sorry,” Emma mumbled. “You’re not stupid, I know.” She dipped a finger into the water and snatched it back in surprise. “It’s warm.”

  “Natural springs. They’re not part of the main underground channel that feeds the oasis. No doubt one of the main reasons our ancestors built the temple here; it is a unique place, blessed by the gods.” His dark eyes were far away, his face relaxed, forehead smooth — he really did believe in the gods. Emma found it disconcerting. She’d met a real god, and regularly hung out with somebody who was a kind of god himself, and even she had trouble with the idea of deities and divine forces watching and influencing human affairs from some invisible, alternate dimension — an alternate dimension that Emma had actually visited.

  And she had trouble with his faith?

  “What do you do, Kahotep? What does being a prince involve?”

  He looked up, turning the full force of his gaze on her, his huge almond shaped eyes going wide and contemplative. “I don’t believe anyone has ever asked me such a thing. Even —” He snapped his teeth shut, and started again. “Even those who I know as friends have known me so long that they would never think to ask.” He cocked his head and closed his eyes, leaving Emma free to stare at his incredible features just as much as she liked — which was more than she was willing to admit.

  Finally he spoke. “I tend my people. I ensure that our civilization functions. I talk to our priests, and I consult with our
artisans, and I see to the education and welfare of my subjects.” He opened his eyes and laughed at the expression on Emma’s face. “Oh yes, our society has all these things. It is small, compared to the grandeur of the past — twelve thousand years ago the jackal kingdom and its allies, the lions to the west and the hyenas to the south and the crocodile people from the banks of the Nile — our cities were at their zenith. But the sun must set, and the following night is long and dark.”

  Emma noted the bitter curve of his mouth, even as his eyes were all Zen. “This night’s just a lot longer and darker than it’s supposed to be, right?”

  One corner of that perfect, innocent mouth quirked up. “Yes,” he said. “Yes. But come,” he stood and held a hand out to her. She took it. “I have more to show you.”

  He led her to the archway with the two flanking statues, and the maidens moved in behind them. “Anubis and Isis,” he said. “The god of death and the goddess of life. The human Egyptians never truly understood the relationship between the gods.” He glanced at Emma, a good humored gleam in his eye. “You humans are always getting carried away with deity. So many names, different faces, a god for this and a god for that. Complicated stories, fabricated to give the people something to hold onto and tell their children and use to explain to their politicians why there needs to be a festival every other week.”

  Emma sensed Telly behind her before he spoke. “You seem to think you know a lot about the gods, Kahotep.”

  The prince turned, meeting Telly’s eyes calmly. “My mother and father were devout, and they came from families who did much to preserve the old mysteries. They taught me not to get caught up in the fancies of priests and trends in worship. They taught me to speak to the gods directly and learn from their teachings, if I could.”

  Telly’s eyes flashed and he crossed his arms over his chest, but Emma recognized the look on his face — he was having some serious thoughts, and trying to disguise them by looking as though he thought Kahotep was an idiot.