by Rain Oxford
“Because he doesn’t fear me,” I answered.
“I don’t think you should fight him.”
“We have to get home, and I would rather side with the gods who want everyone to live than with the half-god who wants to kill his own father.”
“I remember you wanting to kill your biological father yesterday.”
“I don’t know that he took advantage of Talot. It could be that Isis took liberties with my mother’s body.” I stood up, only half finished with scrubbing the chalk off the floor. “But I do know someone wronged her and I know how to find out who.”
“Who? I mean how?”
“Find me a goddess summoning spell, and I’ll---”
“Already done,” he interrupted.
“What?”
“I already wrote that one down.” He flipped through a few pages before handing the book to me.
Calling a god – (If you have a true name, you can force them to come to you. Without it, you can only ask that they do.) You will need five offerings that please the senses. First, draw the summoning circle. Second, place the offerings at the points of the star. Last, while sitting in the circle, recite the following incantation:
O Isis, Beautiful in All Thy Names,
I call Thee with the breath of my body,
I call Thee with the beat of my heart,
I call Thee with the pulse of my life,
I call Thee with the words of my mouth,
I call Thee with the thoughts of my mind.
I call Thee Power and Life and Creation.
I call Thee, Isis, Isis, Isis!
“I wrote Isis as the name to make it clear, since we have only talked to her so far, but you could substitute another god’s name,” Luca explained.
“It’s a little… ritualistic, but this looks doable.”
Luca snickered. “So does Isis.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Please,” he scoffed. “Everyone has a type, but she is everyone’s type.”
“The goddesses and their vessels are not on the market, for either of us. Especially not the one who may or may not have inhabited my mother.”
His face fell. “Speaking of which… I learned a little more about how gods procreate with mortals.”
“Good.”
He flinched. “Not quite. See, when a god is in their vessel, it is truly their body. That means---”
“If Isis was in Talot when she became pregnant, then Isis is actually my mother.”
“Right. It would have been her egg, her DNA, and her power that created you. Talot would have just been a surrogate.”
So, either my mother is a goddess who abandoned me or a woman with a child’s mind who was raped. And to add insult to injury, my father is either a priest who failed at protecting her or a priest who raped her.
Fucking great.
“I really need to talk to Isis now.”
* * *
Luca and I went to one of the private storage rooms and gathered together the offerings we needed. To please the sight, Luca found a two-foot-by-three-foot canvas painting of a flower garden. I didn’t know why it was hidden away like it was, because it was expert-quality. I found a box of incense sticks and picked one that smelled like cherry blossoms, but Luca insisted that Isis preferred myrrh and I deferred to his knowledge of Egyptian mythology. Taste was more difficult. I wanted to use coffee and Luca said I was insane. So, we bet on it. Next, we found some blue silk cloth for touch. After spending half an hour scouring the metal crates and shelves for any kind of instrument, we gave up and returned to our room, where I got out my cellphone.
Before turning on the phone, I drew the magic circle with chalk.
“It’s too bad my battery’s dead,” Luca bitched. “Your music sucks.”
“Why is your battery dead?” I asked, scrolling through my playlists.
“I was playing it while working.”
“I bet you were showing off to the apprentices.”
“Well, duh. I couldn’t let you have all the fun. No, not that!” he said when the phone started playing Stephen Halpern.
“You want to complain about my music? Really? I suggest you let it go.”
He blushed furiously. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Shut up and say your lines.”
I rolled my eyes and placed the offerings randomly at the points of the star. Then I sat in the middle and recited the incantation. When I was done, we lapsed into an awkward silence for nearly a minute.
Then, with a flash of light, Isis appeared. “You should not call on a goddess so frivolously, she said patiently.
Luca handed me a five without a word, because the coffee obviously worked.
“Should I be calling you ‘Mother’ instead?” I asked, ignoring him even while I slipped the five into my pocket.
Her face fell, as if she had terrible news. “I am not your mother. I was not with Talot when she conceived you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”
“It was hardly the time for such a conversation.”
“Who is my father?”
“He has been punished for taking the innocence of my vessel. She would not tell me who it was, but I already knew.”
“And when you took over her body, did she fight you?”
“Once she became pregnant, I could not control her. I was instantly trapped inside my vessel. For six months, I had to watch from inside her mind as she learned what her fate was. I felt her fear when the prophecy about you was made. I felt you growing inside her as if you were in me. It was the most difficult thing I had ever experienced. I have had children of my own, but never like that. By the time she released me, I thought I would never be back to myself again. The Land of the Gods, however, has an effect on us. The longer we are with our own kind, the less we can be with mortals.”
“Strangely, I don’t feel sorry for you.”
“You will be more sympathetic when you have children of your own.”
“If I die fighting your bully, I’ll never know.”
“If I thought the Painter would kill you, I would never have asked you to recover the Book of Names.” She vanished with another bright flash of light.
“Sucks that she’s not your mom,” Luca said sarcastically. “Ice queen anyone?”
I saw his point, but the fact that Isis wasn’t my mother meant that my father had taken advantage of a woman who probably didn’t know the meaning of “no.”
* * *
Predictably, I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to go and check out the prophecy wall again. I should have woken Luca to serve as a lookout, but he looked way too peaceful and he had been working too hard.
I grabbed the lamp and key to the priests’ gate, turned up the sconces so Luca would have enough light, and found my way to the tunnels easily. There were fewer priests roaming the halls than usual, but a number of them were gone or dead, so that was to be expected. I reached the wall and studied the image of my biological mother for an hour.
Eventually, my legs and back were burning, so I stood and stretched. I started to reach for the lamp when I heard a door creak open. As quietly as I could, I ducked between the bookshelves. “Kerar,” I whispered. The flame of my lamp died. An instant later, three priests walked in. Whisperer was carrying a lantern while Listener and Reader followed.
“The Painter attacked the temple of Bast at sundown. He has so far attacked every kingdom, a few of them twice,” Whisperer said as they went to the door with a tree engraved on it.
“Why does he keep attacking the High Kingdom?” Reader asked. All three of them pulled keys from chains around their necks and stuck them in the lock. The sound of metal moving in the old wood echoed.
“Obviously because we’re the strongest.”
“Are you sure it’s not because of Nathan?”
“As long as he distracts the Painter until we can get enough power to kill him, I don’t care.”
They walked through the door and I crept
towards it, barely catching it in time to stop it from closing. It was just wide enough that I could peek through.
I gagged. There were charred bones littering the floor. In the center of the room was a pit that glowed red with fire. When I stood tall to see into it, I spotted more bones and some kind of black glass stones. All of the bones were small.
“What about that girl that we tried to bring in the other day?”
“I went back for her today, but the Painter had taken her that morning.”
Reader sighed with frustration. “Her energy would have helped us a lot. She was exceptionally powerful.”
“It doesn’t matter. There are plenty of girls who come into their power every year and half the boys aren’t worthy of their trials. As long as none of the commoners get suspicious, our supply will never run dry.”
“It’s not just the commoners, though. I liked Trickster.”
“Then you shouldn’t have let him find out about us,” Whisperer hissed angrily.
“You could have made him join us willingly. You didn’t want to share the power.”
Whisperer smacked Reader. “Of course not!”
I couldn’t see any of their expressions, but Reader didn’t fight back. Whisperer had a good hundred pounds on the literate priest.
“Caretaker will join us soon,” Whisperer continued calmly. “Watcher would have if the Painter hadn’t killed him. We’re still going to have to kill Keeper, though.”
“He and Nathan would already be dead had they been where they were supposed to be.”
“Nathan would be out of our hair if there wasn’t a guard in his chamber every night. We will just have to be more patient. The next time the Painter attacks, we’ll be ready and he will take the blame for killing Nathan and anyone else who doesn’t join us. Kerar.”
The fire pit was doused. I raced to the exit as quietly as I could, shut the door softly, and ran to my room. Just to be sure Luca and I couldn’t get a midnight visitor, I shoved the writing desk in front of the door. Only then did I remember that I had left the lamp.
“What’s going on?” Luca asked, rubbing his eyes just like he had when he was five.
“I’ll explain tomorrow. Go back to sleep. We have a long day ahead of us.”
He did. Sleep did not find me so easily. I stared at the ceiling for a good six hours, trying to figure out what to do. It sounded like Keeper was on the up-and-up, but it could have been that he just wanted the power to himself and Whisperer didn’t like that.
No. The only person I can trust is my brother.
Chapter 13
I woke to the sound of the bells, having missed breakfast. That was the least of my problems, though. Luca had moved the table without waking me. Had I been thinking clearly, I would have written a letter telling Luca to stay in the room.
The halls were empty because the apprentices were where they belonged. When I opened the door to the apprentice’s study and found it empty, I was reminded that Luca was never where he belonged.
“Why aren’t you in the courtyard?” Traveler asked, strolling leisurely down the hall. There was no suspicion in his voice.
Does he know children are being killed instead of exiled? “I’m looking for my brother.”
“I saw him at breakfast. He seemed to be in a hurry. I hope you are taking your lessons seriously.”
“I am.” I didn’t stick around to prove it. Whether Traveler was in on it or not, I needed to find and warn my brother. The priests’ study was on the other side of the temple. As I passed the courtyard, the door opened.
“Why are you late?” Keeper asked.
“I need to find Luca.”
“You need to be more dedicated to your studies.”
I ignored him and continued down the hallway. With a sigh, he followed me, his pace a lot faster than I’d expected from such an old man. He didn’t hesitate to unlock the gate to the restricted hall and he didn’t say a word about Luca snooping around. By the time we made it to the study, I knew something was wrong.
The study was empty. “Where else would he be?” I asked myself aloud.
“The prophecy chamber?” Keeper offered.
I didn’t bother to ask how he knew we had been there. We went to the prophecy chamber and found a lit lamp on the floor beside the depiction of my mother. The door to the bone room was wide open.
“Fuck. Luca is in trouble.”
“So are we,” Keeper said. I turned to face him and saw Reader standing behind him.
“Get down,” Reader demanded.
“You know I have bad knees,” Keeper argued.
“You will have a slit neck if you don’t!”
Slowly, Keeper knelt, and I saw that he had a dagger pressed to Keeper’s spine. “Why are you doing this?” Keeper asked.
“I’m tired of serving the gods. They don’t do anything for us that we couldn’t do ourselves with enough power.”
“Where is Luca?” I asked.
“He wouldn’t keep his nose out of our business,” Reader said.
“Where is he?”
“You’ll never find him.”
I sensed movement behind me and started to turn, when I felt a burning pain in my back, followed by a sudden pressure that threw me forward. The last thing I saw before I passed out was Listener with his staff aimed at me.
* * *
The sound of whispering and a fire crackling told me I was in trouble. I opened my eyes and stared directly into the flames of the pit. My first reaction was to get back, but my arms and legs were bound and there was someone behind me, stopping me.
“Be still,” Reader said.
Across the pit from me was Keeper, unconscious, and Whisperer, whispering into his ear. “What is he doing?”
“Don’t worry about what he’s doing. Worry about what we’re going to do to you.”
“If you’re going to kill me, you might as well tell me.”
“We’re not going to kill you.”
“Oh. That’s nice. Can you let me go, then? My arm’s falling asleep.”
“You are going to die, but not by our hands.”
“You’re going to make Keeper kill me? Wouldn’t it be easier to not do that?”
“If he kills you, he will be under our power permanently.”
“You mean Whisperer’s power.”
“It’s mine as well. We want the same thing.”
“How do you know Whisperer isn’t controlling you and making you think you want to kill children?”
“He’s not.”
I wouldn’t push. Seeds of doubt grew faster than bamboo and had a tendency to run wild in the same way. Pushing would just make him defend his actions harder and resist my suggestion. Instead, I asked, “Does Keeper know you’ve been killing children instead of exiling them?”
“No. We’ve planted the idea in his head, but he hasn’t taken to it. He will after this.”
“I can tell why you need his help. He can detect magic from children, take them, and kill them all on his own. Just out of curiosity, if I killed Whisperer, could you get his power?”
Reader hesitated before saying, “You can’t kill Whisperer. You’re not that strong.”
“Maybe not without a staff.”
Whisperer finally stood. Without another word, they both left.
I concentrated on getting free of my restraints. It was only my ankles and wrists that were bound, so I was able to roll over, get to my knees, and scoot my way across the room. My intention had been to find a sharp bone, but instead I discovered that they hadn’t checked me for weapons or taken my dagger. It was a dumb move on their part. I grabbed the dagger and quickly freed my ankles. My boots protected me from nicking any major arteries. Cutting my wrists free, however, was more difficult and resulted in a fair amount of blood loss. By the time I’d managed it, Keeper was coming awake.
I buried the dagger in the sand by the door before he could focus. “What happened?” he asked.
“Reader and Whisperer l
ocked us up. They’ve been killing children instead of exiling them. Listener is in on it, too.”
Keeper shook his head. “They wouldn’t betray the gods.”
I tried to get the door open, but it was locked. “Is there any way out of this room?”
“I don’t know where we are.”
“In one of the rooms off of the prophecy chamber. The one with the tree.”
“It’s an old safe room. There is only one way in or out and that’s with a key.” Keeper got to his feet slowly and picked up the largest bone in his reach.
“What are you doing?” I asked as he advanced.
“I’m sorry. I have to.” He had the same glassy look in his eyes as Meto had.
“You don’t have to do anything.” I dodged when he swung the bone at my head. He wasn’t fast, but he was faster than a man his age should have been. “We’re on the same side.”
“You think you’re better than us. You want to change how we’ve lived for thousands of years.”
“I don’t want you to exile children, but---”
“You have no say in what is right or wrong.”
“Your people do, and I bet if you ask them, they wouldn’t want you to take away your children, especially if they knew you were slaughtering them.”
“We’re not slaughtering them. We’re freeing them from this life.”
I was too slow to dodge him this time and took the blow to my shoulder. I shook off the pain. “Have you ever killed anyone before?”
“No.”
“There is nothing freeing about it. It’s the most permanent thing you can ever do. It’s not just that person you’re killing, either; it’s the future children they would have had, and the descendants of those children. You’re destroying every good thing they could do.”
“You just don’t understand.”
He was slowing, although his tone was as strong as ever. That told me that he was weakening because of his age, but not fighting Whisperer’s control over him. Without knowing what Whisperer told him, I didn’t know how to snap him out of it. This time, when he swung the bone down on my head with both of his hands, I stepped forward and punched him in the face. He collapsed to his knees in pain.
