Heretic of Set

by J. Steven York

  He spent hours each evening with scrolls spread on the desk, as he took notes or copied mystic symbols on sheets of papyrus for later reference or study.

  Study of ancient scrolls and texts was part of his training as an acolyte, but he had his own agenda as well.

  First, he was looking for references to Parath, the self-professed lost god of Stygia. In that he had been less than successful. He had found not a single reference to Parath in any of the texts.

  He was uncertain what to make of that. It could mean that Parath had deceived him, but it could also be confirmation of the god’s story. Parath claimed that he had been trapped in the body of one of Set’s great serpents, and that Ibis had led him into the desert and exiled him there for all time. A god without followers is no god at all, and there can be no followers, no cult, for a forgotten god.

  His other purpose, more recent, but even more urgent, was to learn about the mark of power that had been joined to his wrist during his trial in the Maze of Set. There, he had found only scattered references, and they did little but confirm what he had already been told by Ramsa Aál.

  The texts said that the mark, which had appeared to Anok in the form of a tiny snake known as the son of Set, could only bond with those of rare potential, and that it conferred on them almost limitless power. The snake had wrapped itself around his arm, and burned its way into the flesh, appearing now as nothing but an elaborate tattoo of a snake. The head of the snake lay across the back of his hand, and the body coiled three times around his wrist. The tail pointed back up his forearm, toward his heart.

  As far as he could determine, the mark had not been conferred on a mortal for at least five hundred years. Yet for a mark that supposedly granted such power, little was written of its bearers. Anok had a grim suspicion why.

  Sorcery always extracted a price of those who wielded it. Sorcerers inevitably became corrupted by their power, and great magic often eroded even a man’s sanity. Many of the most powerful sorcerers were said to be mad, or at least subject to episodes of madness after casting their spells.

  One reason powerful sorcerers, such as the priests of Set, sought followers and acolytes was to have them do most of the spell casting, thus saving the master from his own power. Only when there was no other choice, and his greater power was required, would the master act directly.

  Anok had no desire to experience this, and he suspected the Mark of Set was as much a curse as a gift. When he had first called upon its power in the stronghold of the White Scorpions, it had sent him into such a bloodlust that he had very nearly killed his friend Teferi and himself. Only Teferi, his courage and friendship, had pulled Anok back from the brink.

  He had no desire to repeat the experience, and yet Ramsa Aál kept expecting him to use the power. If his master wished to corrupt him, he suspected it was only so that he could use Anok as a weapon.

  Like an arrow, he was being carefully prepared for battle. But once fired at Ramsa Aál’s enemies, he was expendable and disposable.

  He pulled back the sleeve of his robe to examine the mark. It continuously troubled him, itching and burning. The skin around the mark remained red and inflamed, and there were times when it made even sleeping difficult. It was as though the mark itself wished its power to be used, and even more so than Ramsa Aál, it would not be denied.

  Frustrated with his lack of progress and the nagging influence of the mark, he stood rapidly, knocking the bench over as he did, and nearly spilling his inkpot. If he had to use magic, he would use it in his own way and for his own purposes.

  He went to the cupboard, and extracted his notes, a stack of sheets now almost too thick to wrap his hand around. He put them on the table and began to flip through them. He had, in the writings of an ancient Shemite mage, seen reference to a spell called the Walk of Shadows.

  He found the page. On it, he had traced a symbol, somehow key to the spell, much like the old-Stygian hieroglyph for “seeing,” a stylized eye with a long, curling, lash. The Walk of Shadows was not an invisibility spell, but it supposedly granted the user the ability to travel unnoticed by the unaware. Hopefully, that would be enough for his purposes.

  He held out his left hand and, focusing on the power of the Mark of Set, traced the symbol in the air before him. He felt a warm tingling run out through the mark and up his fingertips. The air seemed to ripple and bend where his fingertips traced.

  As the power flowed through him, he immediately felt better, stronger. The itching and burning around the mark lessened, and he felt strangely invincible.

  He tried to shake off the feeling, lest it make him reckless. The spell would not protect him from his own clumsiness. One trip, one dropped object, and he could be revealed to anyone nearby.

  He opened the door and stepped into the narrow corridor outside. A broad-shouldered guardian of Set stood at the end of the corridor, leaning on his spear and half-dozing. He would make an effective test of the spell.

  Anok moved toward him, walking carefully and silently. The guardian blinked sleepily, but managed to keep his eyes open and dully looking straight ahead. In fact, he was looking directly at Anok, but Anok could see no sign that the man was focused on him. His eyes did not move as Anok moved, and indeed, seemed to be locked on some fixed point behind him, perhaps one of the oil lamps that illuminated the walls.

  Anok was close enough to study the man closely now. His skin tone was dusky, not unlike Anok’s own, but his blue-black beard suggested he carried Shemite blood as well as Stygian. His face was wide, and his cheekbones high and angular. He wore a bowl-shaped helmet with guards that jutted down over the ears, but what Anok could see of the man’s scalp suggested he shaved his head, or perhaps was naturally bald.

  Anok was only a few arm’s lengths away from the man, and it seemed he was unseen.

  The sensation was both intoxicating and disconcerting. Anok found himself tempted to wave, or dance a little jig, and yet he knew that such attention-getting moves might well shatter the spell. Yet it was also disturbing not to be seen, as though through his lack of visibility he had ceased to exist. Part of Anok wished for even the slightest acknowledgment of his existence to make him feel real again.

  It was in the middle of that thought, that the guardian began to move. He walked rapidly and purposefully toward Anok, and for a moment he thought the guardian had seen him.

  Yet the focus of the man’s gaze still seemed to go right through him. Paralyzed by confusion, he almost let the man run head-on into him, but at the last moment, he stood aside and pressed himself tightly against the cool stone wall.

  The guardian brushed past him, so close he could feel the breeze as he moved, yet he never actually touched Anok, which was probably fortunate. Anok watched the guardian walk as far as the door to Anok’s cell and stop.

  Again, he wondered if he’d somehow been discovered. But the guardian wasn’t interested in his door, but rather the oil lamp on the wall next to it. The lamp sputtered and flickered. The guardian studied it for a moment, before pulling his dagger from his belt and using the point to draw out a bit more of the wick.

  The lamp was restored to its proper brightness. The guardian smiled and proceeded on down the corridor, turning left at the end of the hall and vanishing from sight.

  Anok looked at his hand, half-expecting to see nothing. The spell worked, almost better than he could have hoped. He was free to wander the temple, and he had a good idea where he was going.

  He wound his way out of the novice’s living area, toward the front of the temple. He passed the guards along the corridor undetected, then climbed the stairs to the main level of the temple. Near the front of the temple, he climbed a pair of staircases, a curved one near the front corner of the building, then a straight one up from the mezzanine to the area where the priests’ private chambers were located.

  He avoided the chambers themselves, suspecting they would be equipped with magical wards or traps against which his simple deception spell would be ineffect
ive. Instead, he went to a closet at the end of the hall, where certain magical objects used in the training of acolytes were kept.

  Nothing kept here was of great value or significant power. Such objects were kept by the priests themselves, or returned to the vaults in the subbasements of the temple each night. These were lesser items, which he suspected were not as carefully protected.

  As he expected, the closet was locked, but he was prepared for that. Upon returning to the temple from his mission of revenge against Lord Wosret, he had smuggled in a few small items, including a set of picklocks.

  He removed the small kit, tied in a roll of oilcloth, from under his robe and unwrapped it. He selected a pair of thin brass tools and knelt in front of the door. Though his skills were rusty, it took him only a minute or so until the lock clicked open.

  He smiled. Sometimes the old ways are the best.

  It was dark inside the closet, so he reached into his pocket and removed a smooth, translucent crystal sized to fit in his palm. Using the point of one of the picklocks, he pricked a fingertip and squeezed out a tiny drop of blood, which he touched to the crystal. At once it began to glow with a soft, blue light rather like the light of the moon.

  Using the light of the crystal, he carefully examined the contents of the closet. The shelves were cluttered with various items, sacrificial knives, bottles of magic powders and potions, minor spell books, shrunken heads, several human bones, and other oddities.

  He ignored them all. His interest was in a shelf of crystal balls. He bypassed the larger ones, intended to be used on a table, and examined only the smaller ones, sized so that a sorcerer could keep it on his person and comfortably hold it in his hand.

  Even those, however, were not what he was looking for. At the end of the shelf he found a number of oblong wooden boxes, covered with ornate carvings. He selected one and lifted the lid. Inside there was not one crystal, but three, a large one in the middle, about twice the size of a man’s fist, and two smaller companions, each the size of a plum.

  The larger crystal had many uses, the most common one being to invoke a vision spell, to observe persons or events at a distance. But the smaller crystals had a special function. They could be used by the holder to communicate with the sorcerer in possession of the large crystal, even over great distances.

  Such crystals were often used by priests to communicate with their agents and underlings over distance, be they acolytes or guardians of Set. Their function had been demonstrated to the novices only a week earlier, and Anok had coveted a set ever since.

  Anok didn’t have underlings, but he did have his friend Teferi, who acted as his surrogate outside the temple walls. They had devised a system to bribe guards, but there were many difficulties, not the least of which being that Teferi was almost totally illiterate. They could sometimes communicate simple concepts using the few symbols and hieroglyphs that Teferi was familiar with, but for anything more complex, Teferi had to take the additional step of hiring a scribe. This was both expensive and risky, as some scribes were also followers of Set.

  He slipped the box into a hidden pocket inside his robe, quietly closed the closet, and put the Jewel of the Moon away. Then he retraced his steps through the temple.

  Once again, he was able to walk right past all the guards he encountered without them giving him a glance, and he was feeling quite smug about it by the time he rounded the last corner to reach the his cell.

  He was but a few feet from the door, when the air in front of him seemed to twist and shimmer. He blinked, and Ramsa Aál appeared from nowhere. He leaned his back against Anok’s door, his arms crossed over his broad chest. He smiled slightly, but the expression was as cold as one of Set’s serpents.

  “Anok Wati,” he said. “I see you’ve been out for a stroll.” He put out his hand. “Now, why don’t you show me what you’ve brought back?”

  3

  ANOK STARED AT the priest leaning casually against his door. “Ramsa Aál, master, I . . .” He found himself at a loss for words.

  Ramsa Aál bobbed his hand urgently. “Let me see.”

  Anok saw no other choice. He had been caught. He reached into his robe and extracted the box.

  Ramsa Aál took it in one hand and removed the lid with the other. He regarded the crystals inside for a moment. “Good choice,” he said. “A good compromise between size and portability.”

  He lifted the larger crystal and held it up to the lamp light. “Nice clarity. No flaws. The companion crystals of voice and vision are a bonus.” He put the crystal back in the box and replaced the lid, handing it back to Anok.

  “It would be wise, acolyte, to remember that any spell that you can use, so can another sorcerer, especially one more skilled than yourself. And as you desire your own crystal ball, you should know that one can just as easily be used to follow your activities as well.”

  “You used a crystal ball to discover that I’d left my cell.” He considered with some alarm what that might mean. “Have you been watching me all along?”

  Ramsa Aál put back his head and laughed. “Acolyte, I have more important matters to concern me than watching you day and night. I have set magical snares along the exits from the acolytes’ quarters. By leaving under the influence of your cloaking spell, you triggered one of these snares, alerting me. Only then did I go to my crystal ball and use a vision spell to see what you were doing.”

  He bowed his head. “I’m sorry, master.” The priest didn’t seem angry, but Anok had once seen him kill a sacrificial victim with a smile on his lips. Ramsa Aál’s mood and intent were maddeningly difficult to read.

  “Don’t be. You were quite clever, actually, and used great initiative. Of course, if you’d tried to raid one of the vaults, or the treasure troves, or even my private chambers, you’d likely be dead by now. But you merely went looking for humble sorcerer’s tools to add to your kit. You could have merely asked, but”—he smiled slightly—“where’s the fun in that?”

  The door next to Anok’s swung open, and a groggy and confused Dejal peered out. He looked at Ramsa Aál, seeming not to even notice Anok. “Master, is there a problem?”

  “None, novice. Anok is merely undergoing some special sorcerous training.”

  Dejal blinked, seeming finally to notice Anok. “I wish to learn too, master.”

  The priest sighed. “Then you would do well to spend more time on your studies and less on trying to curry favor with the priests.”

  Dejal looked hurt. “I only wish to please, master.”

  “That you do. You did bring us a golden Scale of Set.” His fingers brushed the front of his robe over his breastbone.

  The gesture was familiar to Anok, as he had often done the same when wearing his father’s medallion with the Scale of Set hidden inside. Anok noticed for the first time the glint of a heavy gold chain worn around the priest’s neck, vanishing beneath the folds of fabric. Does he wear the Scale of Set there? Or even two of the three Scales?

  Ramsa Aál continued addressing Dejal. “And your father has just made another sizable tribute to the cult. I doubt even his coffers will last long at this rate.” Ramsa Aál raised an eyebrow knowingly. “I hear rumors he had a small fortune in blood emeralds stolen from him not long ago.”

  Anok tried not to let his reaction show. Dejal had secretly given those gems to the Ravens in return for securing the Scale. Anok had wondered how Dejal had gotten them. Stolen from his father? Then perhaps, things were not as good between them as Dejal let on. His anger with the man was not gone, merely buried.

  As is mine with Dejal. For the merest moment, Anok cracked open the dark box where the glowing embers of rage always dwelled. For that moment he felt them, almost savored them.

  The old and familiar grief over his father’s death, his murder before young Anok’s eyes, and the fresh and agonizing hurt of Sheriti’s murder.

  But only a moment, and, lest it overwhelm him, he snapped the lid shut on that dark place, back to where it could sit a
nd fester until the day when he brought them all down.

  Far from being unsettled by the mention, Dejal seemed to compose himself. He smiled crookedly. “A setback, master, nothing more. A business deal gone sour, as they sometimes do. My mother’s family, left without an heir, turned the business to my father, but it is not in his blood. Rest assured, when it is my turn, I shall do far better and enrich both myself and the cult.”

  And there, Anok saw an inkling of Dejal’s plan. The Cult of Set was the main center of power in Stygia, true, but there were others, namely the hereditary wealth of the old families and the modern wealth of commerce and trade.

  The cult had its way of serving each. They all depended on the cult’s guardians, coastal navy, and slave armies to defend Stygia’s borders against the constant threat of invasion, and to keep the caravan roads and sea-lanes open despite the threat of bandits and pirates. The guardians kept the mongrel hordes of the underclass in control as well. Important, as they outnumbered full-blooded Stygians by twenty to one.

  The cult in turn depended on the taxes and tribute provided by the wealthy, but the alliance was always an uneasy one. If Dejal could obtain some measure of status in the inner circles of the cult, then take charge of his father’s business holdings, he could become a formidable power. By bridging the two worlds, he stood to gain status he could obtain in neither alone.

  I taught you something after all, “brother.” It was just the sort of ideal compromise Anok had become known for arranging on the streets of Odji. But now that I know your plan, what to do?

  What he wanted to do, of course, was to crush Dejal’s plan, to ruin his former friend’s fragile aspirations in the cult, and step on his face as he himself climbed to power. But for now, that could not be. Dejal might have his uses, and there would be time for vengeance later.