Heretic of Set

by J. Steven York

  Ramsa Aál seemed to consider Dejal’s words for a time. “How,” he asked, “will you gain control of your father’s wealth? Perhaps wait for him to grow old and die? To my eyes, he seems . . . distressingly healthy.”

  Dejal’s smile grew slightly. “When I am ready, master, I will persuade him to cede power to me—by whatever means necessary.”

  Again, the priest considered, then nodded slowly. “I was impressed tonight with your friend Anok’s initiative. I see now that you also have initiative, perhaps more than I gave you credit for.”

  “Then I can stay for the lesson, master?”

  “The lesson is done, but you may stay. I was about to deliver some news to Anok. I had intended to give it to him on the morrow, but since we are here—”

  “Yes, master?”

  “Tell me, Anok, have you traveled beyond the city?”

  Anok’s mind raced. He didn’t want to offer any clue to Ramsa Aál about his Usafiri, the spiritual journey into the desert that had put him on his path to destroy Set. Yet there seemed little reason to be directly untruthful. “I have made the journey down the coast a ways, to some of the villages and towns there, and a bit into the desert, to the edge of the Sea of Sand.”

  Ramsa waved his hand. “That’s nothing. A sorcerer’s power grows with knowledge and experience. You’ve effectively lived your whole life within this city. It is time for you to see more, learn more. In one week’s time, I am sending you to Kheshatta to study in the city of sorcerers. There, you will encounter many forms of magic from across the known world. You will learn that there is much to our cult beyond what you have seen here at the temple. And if you are very lucky, you may have an audience with Lord-master Thoth-Amon, Lord of the Black Ring, High Priest of the Cult of Set.”

  Anok had heard of Thoth-Amon, of course. Who had not heard of the mightiest wizard in Stygia? His name was spoken in fear throughout the civilized world. It was rumored that only Conan, the mighty barbarian-king of Aquilonia, had stood against the wizard and lived to tell the tale. “I thought his palace was in Luxur, master?”

  “Good, you’ve been paying attention. You would do well to learn as much as you can of our great lord-master. But to answer your question, yes, his main palace is there. But our lord-master has ever suffered from wanderlust, and his stays in Luxur are infrequent and usually short. He often travels within Stygia and beyond. He has an apartment in the black tower of the temple, though he has not visited here in many years, a keep at the foot of the Mountains of Fire, and a great palace in Kheshatta as well. I have it on good authority that he will soon come again to Kheshatta.”

  “But I’m only a humble acolyte, master. Why would Thoth-Amon take audience with me?”

  He smiled. “Because of the mark you carry on your wrist, Anok Wati. Oh, yes, he has heard of it, and while others in the cult may doubt its importance, such things never escape the attention of our lord-master. It is not for this that he returns to our shores, but I doubt he will let it escape his attention.”

  Dejal again leaned into the conversation. “Will I go to Kheshatta as well, master?”

  “Perhaps, but not yet. If you truly wish to serve, then there is another duty I may have for you, one closer to the temple but no less important. If you think you are equal to the task—”

  “Yes, master. Of course!”

  “Good, we will speak of it later.” He turned back to Anok. “You will leave in a week’s time. I will arrange for you to travel by caravan across the Sea of Sand. There is no temple such as this at Kheshatta, so you will be provided coin to secure your own place of lodging.”

  Anok was delighted with this news. His plans against Set had thus far been hampered by his living at the temple, with little freedom and constant scrutiny.

  Ramsa Aál continued, “Kheshatta is also a very dangerous city for such as we. I will assign you an officer of the guardians as a bodyguard.”

  In an instant, Anok’s hopes for freedom faded. Then he had an idea. “Master, if it could be permitted, I would prefer to bring the Kushite servant Teferi as my bodyguard.”

  At the mention of Teferi’s name, Dejal shot Anok a sharp glance. The three had known each other since boyhood, and he was more than aware that Teferi was no man’s servant. He suspected Anok was engaged in deception, but he showed no more than interest, saying nothing.

  Anok continued his plea. “He may be stupid,” another untruth, as Dejal well knew, “but he is fearless and skilled with a blade. He would work for a few slips of silver, far less, I’m certain, than you pay your officers.” When Teferi had burst into the temple recently to deliver news of Sheriti’s death, he had nearly been killed by the guardians of the temple. In order to save him, Anok had been forced to mis lead Ramsa Aál about his friend’s intelligence and their relationship. Perhaps he could now use that to his advantage.

  Ramsa Aál frowned. “The Kush? Is he still alive?”

  “He was wounded during my battle with the White Scorpions, but I hear he is nearly recovered.”

  Ramsa Aál sniffed in contempt. “Very well, if you can have him for two pieces of silver per day. I’ll pay no more for the services of a savage.”

  Anok hid his anger at hearing this abuse of his friend. Like many Stygian nobles, Ramsa Aál held all non-Stygians in contempt, but especially the dark men from the lands south of their borders. Let his hatred blind him, then, if it serves my needs.

  “As for you, you shall not want in your travels. I will be generous.” He glanced aside at Dejal, as though to make sure he was listening. “It seems that in the past few days, all of the surviving gang lords of Odji have arrived at the temple bearing tribute, a prince’s ransom in total. They have all seen the smoking hole that was the stronghold of the White Scorpions, and they have all heard that it was a follower of Set responsible for the deed.”

  Anok blinked in surprise. “I had no idea, master.”

  “Who knew your little adventure of revenge would turn out so valuable to the cult? More than you know, for their gold may soon be spent, but their fear”—his lips formed a twisted smile—“will serve us for years!”

  4

  AWAY FROM THE temple and outside the walls of the inner city for the first time in weeks, Anok felt free. It was a sunny day, cooled by a steady breeze off the harbor below. The fresh salt air kept the smoke from stoves, kilns, and forges from pooling over Odji and diluted the cloud of human and animal stink that usually hung over the place.

  He’d never realized just how foul that smell was until he’d spent time in the inner city, with its garbage-free alleys, lack of food animals, and dung collectors cleaning the streets after the horses and donkeys. How had he lived in this place all these years and never really smelled it?

  Yet he was glad to be back wandering the narrow streets of the slums. He smiled, pushing back the hood of his robe, and he hardly noticed the angry, fearful, stares of strangers, or the way people steered clear of his acolyte’s robe. They were responding to the robe, he told himself, and knew nothing about the man within.

  His destination was the Green Lotus Tavern, an inn located in his old neighborhood, where Teferi had been living these last few months. Though he’d spent some time recovering from his wounds in a back room at the brothel, he was reportedly back at the Green Lotus.

  The streets were busy, full of shoppers, merchants, tradesmen, and livestock, all jostling for a place on the street. These were the lower classes, most descended of slave stock. Most had dark skin, brown or black, though almost any race and creed of the known world could be found here in some number.

  He saw several familiar faces but no close friends, and nobody seemed to recognize him in his temple garb.

  He was recognized at least once though. As he climbed up the stairs on the potters’ street, past shop windows filled with stacked pots, cups, plates, and cookware, he spotted two hulking, blue-bearded Shemites, whom Anok recognized as enforcers for Lord Nakhti’s River Rat gang.

  The men wore
heavy broadswords and carried bows and quivers of arrows slung over their backs. They walked as though they owned the streets, and with the White Scorpions gone, they probably did.

  But when the men saw Anok, they stopped and pointed. He saw them lean in and whisper to each other as they watched him. Then they turned and hurried away in the other direction, doubling their pace to get away from him.

  Anok smiled. They fear me. Good. If he had succeeded, even for a while, in throwing the street gangs of Odji into fear and uncertainty, then he had done the people there a service. It was a small thing, but perhaps something to be proud of.

  Anok rounded a corner and found himself looking at the entrance to the Nest, the converted stables under the Paradise that had been for many years his home. It was a sliver of daylight basement under one side of the two-story building, with tiny, high windows and a single wooden door near the back corner of the basement.

  The main entrance to the brothel was around the corner and up the hill from where he stood. Even from here, he caught a hint of exotic perfume on the breeze. He knew that on a day like this, colorful silk awnings would be blowing in the breeze, and naked whores would lounge in almost every window, beckoning passersby.

  But from down here on the side street, the building looked plain, almost utilitarian. Weeds had grown up around the door to the Nest, and the door looked dusty and disused. The sight of it filled him with a profound sense of sadness. Sheriti was dead, and with her all that he had once held dear in life.

  The Ravens were no more. His friendship with Dejal had turned rancid, like old milk. Only Teferi remained to give him any true connection with that part of his life.

  He walked up to the door, his fingers tracing around the doorframe, finding the hidden catches that would unlock the door. For a moment he considered going inside, but there was nothing for him there but ghosts and lost yesterdays.

  He turned his back on the brothel and walked around the corner. Just up the hill he could see the Green Lotus, with its elaborate green flower, carved from wood, hanging over the door.

  He walked up and glanced through the open shutters in front. Business was slow. Several men sat at scattered tables, drinking, eating, and ignoring each other.

  Anok slipped into the tavern. The barkeep was unknown to him, a short man, brown-skinned, with a round, hairless head that somehow reminded him of a coconut. Anok strode purposefully up to the bar. “I seek Teferi, a tall Kushite. I hear he has a room here.”

  The barkeep eyed him warily, but after a moment’s consideration, nodded. “Up the stairs, at the end of the hall on the right.”

  He climbed the narrow, rickety stairs in the back of the room, not much more than a ladder really. The corridor wasn’t much wider, lit by only a tall, narrow window at the end. Most of the doors along it were open and dark. One on the left was closed, and judging from the moaning and thrashing inside, was well occupied at the moment. The only other closed door, as promised, was on the right at the end. A tray with an empty tankard and a bowl showing traces of some kind of stew sat just outside.

  He tapped on the wood, and the whole door rattled.

  “Who’s there,” yelled a deep voice from inside, “friend or dead man?”

  Despite himself, Anok managed a little grin. Despite his injuries and their shared grief over Sheriti’s death, his old friend had lost none of his spirit.

  “A little of both,” he answered.

  There was a moment’s hesitation, then a shout: “Anok Wati! About time you came to see me! Get in here!

  The door was unlocked, and Anok pushed it open. He found Teferi stretched out on a sleeping bench, dressed in simple loincloth. Even sitting up with his back against the wall, Teferi’s feet hung off the end, and Anok couldn’t imagine how the big man managed to sleep there.

  He looked a little thinner than the last time Anok had seen him, though not unhealthily so. Teferi had always carried a few stone of extra weight. Now he looked lean and even more dangerous, if that was possible. The only thing distracting from that impression was a linen dressing tied around the middle of his chest. Anok was relieved to note that it appeared clean and unbloodied, on the outside at least.

  There were few furnishings in the room, a table, a small bench, a few storage baskets. If anything it was even smaller and more austere than his cell back at the temple. But at least this one had a small window looking out over the street, and fresh air, or as fresh as air got in Odji, anyway. Anok pulled the bench over next to the bed and sat down. “How are you feeling.”

  Teferi glanced down at the bandage. “Oh, this? I hardly need it anymore. The wound oozes sometimes, but I’ll probably take this off for good in a day or two. The women at the Paradise cared for me well.”

  Women? The word was somehow surprising. Anok, in all his years, had never heard them called anything but whores. The word was so ingrained into Stygian culture that he’d always spoken it without thinking. Yet they were women, too. One of them had been Sheriti’s mother, had shown him kindness, and for years provided him a place to live.

  Teferi saw the look on his face. “For years I’ve known the keepers of the Paradise, without really knowing them. They are good women, Anok, on whom life has forced hardship and difficult choices. I should have treated them better.”

  Anok smiled sadly. There was a soft side to Teferi’s warrior heart that he admired, even if he questioned its utility in this hard world in which they lived. “Perhaps I should have as well, old friend, but I fear I’ll not again have the chance. I’m to travel to Kheshatta to continue my studies of sorcery.”

  Teferi’s eyes widened, and he pushed into a fully upright sitting position. Anok saw him flinch just a little as he moved the wrong way. His wound still troubled him, at least a little. Anok felt guilty for that, though he knew that without his magic, Teferi would be dead.

  Anok had—somehow, he still wasn’t sure how—transformed a sword into water even as it was piercing Teferi’s chest. I should have been faster. But that was self-deception, and he knew it. Teferi shouldn’t have been there at all. They’d invaded the White Scorpion gang’s lair, killed them all. Anok had killed their leader, Lord Wosret, himself, all in vengeance for the murder of Sheriti.

  But while there had been much innocent blood on Wosret’s hands, they’d been wrong about his killing Sheriti. It had been Dejal who murdered her. He’d as much as admitted it to Anok.

  And poor Sheriti. In his mind, he’d come up with a thousand ways he could have prevented her death, come to her rescue, seen Dejal’s intentions and killed him first. Be thankful, Teferi. Your wounds will heal. Mine never will.

  Yet here he was, about to ask Teferi to follow him into danger again. Here he was, maintaining the fiction that Sheriti’s death had been avenged, while her killer still walked free and unmolested, all because it served Anok’s purposes.

  He realized that Teferi was staring at him. “Kheshatta? From the look on your face, you treat it like some sort of death sentence.”

  “No, it’s just that—I was hoping you’d agree to come with me.”

  Teferi smiled. “You don’t even have to ask. Of course I’ll come with you. It will be an adventure!”

  “Don’t be so quick to decide. It’s the kind of adventure where people can end up dead.”

  “Fah! I fear boredom more than death, and I’ve spent too many days trapped in little rooms like this feeling miserable. When do we leave?”

  “A week. You’ll be paid, though not enough. Ramsa Aál wanted to assign me a guardian as protection on my journey. I told him I wanted you instead.”

  “He agreed?”

  “Reluctantly. You’ll be paid two pieces of silver a day.”

  Teferi chuckled. “A princely sum. I’ll be able to eat poorly at least three times a week.”

  “We still have some money of our own left, and it sounds like I’ll be more generously provided for. What’s mine is yours. You know that.”

  “Well,” he said, grinning,
“if you didn’t give it to me, I’d just steal it anyway.”

  He grinned back. “You’re an honest man, Teferi. You wouldn’t take a bent copper from a stranger. It’s your friends that need to watch out.”

  Anok glanced down and noticed an object sitting on the edge of the bed that he hadn’t seen before. He frowned and pointed. “What’s this?”

  Teferi glanced down. “A scroll,” he said.

  “I’ve seen one before,” he said sarcastically. “What is it?”

  Teferi shrugged. “I don’t have the first idea. I bought it from a man down in the tavern for five silvers. I’ve been trying to make sense of it.”

  He laughed in surprise. “Teferi! You’ve been trying to read? I tried to teach you once. That lasted—what—a week?”

  “Two, but only because you insisted. I never saw the use in it.”

  “And now?”

  His expression turned somber. “Sheriti saw value in it when I couldn’t. She’s gone. Maybe it’s time I gave it another try. Will you help?”

  “Of course I will! I’m proud of you, old friend.” He reached for the scroll and unrolled it. “Let’s see what you’ve got here.”

  He looked at the crumbling parchment and frowned. “Teferi, this is some merchant’s inventory ledger, and I’ll bet it’s a hundred years old if it’s a day!”

  Teferi frowned. “Well, I guess I got took then. If I’d known how to read, that wouldn’t have happened I guess.”

  “We’ll go to the Great Marketplace later, and I’ll find you something more appropriate. We’ll need provisions anyway, and desert clothing. And if we don’t find him today, I have something I need you to give to Rami.”

  Teferi frowned. “That little weasel? Why him?”

  “Because we’re leaving, but Dejal is staying here. Ramsa Aál has some mysterious mission for him, and I want Rami to keep an eye on him for us.”

  “We’ll have to pay him, you know. He does little or nothing for friendship and loyalty. Why we ever let him call himself a Raven—”