Heretic of Set

by J. Steven York

  But that did not mean it was impossible.

  The mark itched on his wrist, reminding him that he had at his disposal more power than most sorcerers could dream of.

  “Anok!” Rami was practically sobbing. “I don’t want to die!”

  He knew too well, now, what the price of using that power could be. Yet unless he chose to act, Rami was doomed. The little thief had never been the truest of friends, but he had been an ally for many years. He did not deserve the fate he now faced. He wouldn’t be facing it at all, were he not acting on Anok’s instructions.

  “Anok!”

  “Rami, you must not panic. I want you to hold out the crystal toward the approaching snakes as soon as you can see them. Hold it out toward them, and do not move! Do you understand me?”

  “I’m afraid!”

  “Do what I tell you, Rami! Do what I tell you! It’s your only chance to survive!”

  “Yes. Yes. I’ll do what you say.”

  “Are they close?”

  “I can hear them, in the darkness. Very close!”

  “Hold out the crystal!”

  The image moved, then he could see little in the smooth surface but darkness.

  But he could hear.

  The dry, papery movement of countless scaly bodies, rubbing against each other and the ancient stone.

  He could hear Rami, blubbering in fear, the image shaking with his hand.

  Then he saw—something—a paleness in the dark.

  A wave that came out of the darkness, a wave of moving white, countless squirming snakes, hungry for flesh.

  Rami whimpered.

  Anok clutched the medallion containing the Scale of Set, focusing on its power to command serpents, drawing upon it, letting it pass through himself, through the Mark of Set, and out through the crystal.

  Nothing happened.

  The snakes came ever closer.

  He clutched the crystal tightly in his left hand, as though trying to crush it, focusing on the Mark of Set, letting its power flow.

  The mark began to burn, but he ignored the pain.

  The crystal began to glow more brightly in his hand, until the room became bright as daylight.

  He could hear the Scale of Set ringing through his mystic senses. His arm trembled with strain as he held out the crystal.

  More power!

  He bit into his lower lip until he could taste his own coppery blood.

  The ringing of the Scale screamed in his ears.

  “Anok!”

  His whole body shook with strain, his muscles knotted. He could feel power running from the medallion in his right hand, through his body, and through his right hand into the crystal.

  It seemed as though he could feel every pace, every foot of distance between him and Rami, every mountain, every bush, every grain of sand. So far!

  Still he strained, eyes clenched closed. He saw stars, flashes under his eyelids.

  Even though it seemed hopeless, he fought on. Not since he had brought down lightning to destroy the lair of the White Scorpions had he tried so hard, and yet it didn’t seem to be enough.

  “Anok! Anok!”

  Rami’s voice seemed small, and far away.

  “Anok, they’ve stopped!”

  Anok opened his eyes.

  His body seemed to unclench. He could feel the power flowing freely through him, like a rushing stream in its rocky course. He could feel the Mark of Set tingling. It almost seemed happy to have its power unleashed.

  He felt drunk, giddy. He was sending his magic half a country away! What other sorcerer could do such a thing?

  “Anok! What do I do now?”

  He thrilled to the wonder of it. Magic at a distance!” “Anok! What do I do?”

  His voice came out in a growl. “Die for all I care!”

  No! That wasn’t what he wanted! He had done this thing for a reason!

  “Move, if you value your life! Get yourself out of the temple while you still can!”

  “They’re still all around me!”

  “Do what I tell you!”

  Suddenly he sounded as afraid of Anok as he was of the snakes. “If you say so.” There was a pause. “They’re falling back in front of me! As I move toward them, them move away!”

  “Of course they do. They fear my power!”

  “Anok are you okay? You don’t sound so good.”

  “I have never been better! Don’t you feel the power in your hand? Power I have sent you! You are a fortunate individual, to serve me, Rami!”

  “About this ‘serving’ business . . .”

  Anok had a sudden moment of clarity and realized that these last few minutes, it had been the Mark of Set talking as much as he. “Rami, move faster! You have to get out of there fast. I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up!”

  “Anok? Is that you, old friend, old buddy?”

  Sweat trickled down his forehead into his eyes. “Hurry!”

  “I’m going as fast as I can!”

  Anok found his heart pounding, and he gasped for breath. He had to keep the snakes at bay until Rami was safely out of the air shafts. “How much farther?”

  “Not far. I don’t see them in front of me anymore. I think they went into a side passage, but they’re still behind me!”

  “Hurry!” His head pounded with pain, and it was suddenly hard to breathe.

  “I’m at the entrance! But I’ll have to put the crystal in my pocket to grab the rope!”

  “Then,” said Anok, gasping, “I suggest you grab the rope first, put it in your pocket, then jump before they can get you!”

  “Yes. Yes. I can do that.”

  The image shook, then suddenly shifted and went dark.

  Rami leapt, but suddenly Anok was the one in free fall.

  When Rami put the crystal in his pocket, it was as though the circuit had been broken.

  The flow of power through Anok’s body seemed suddenly to snap and reverse.

  His body convulsed as the crystal went dark.

  He fell forward, facefirst into his bed, unable to move, somehow oddly detached from his body.

  He seemed to drift, up and away.

  Dimly, he could hear Rami’s voice. “Anok! Are you still there! Anok!”

  But he was too far away to answer, and too numb to care. He watched his body from a distance, as his spirit seemed to drift away with the winds.

  RAMI SLID DOWN the rope and landed lightly on all fours. He could barely see in the darkness, but he knew that only meant he could barely be seen by anyone else. His heart pounded as he listened for the snakes, but they seemed to have stayed within the confines of the air vent. Anok had known all about the snakes. Why hadn’t he warned him?

  Of course, he’d told Rami to stay away from the temple, but when he’d heard that Anok had penetrated into its deepest heart—all that treasure—how could he have thought Rami would not try to sneak in? Seriously!

  Rami froze as he heard distant voices toward the front of the building. Guardians!

  Keeping low, he ran away from the building, the soft leather slippers on his feet muffling his footsteps. He was fifty paces away from the building when he realized that the rope was still hanging there. If the guards didn’t find it beforehand, it would surely be spotted at dawn.

  Bel’s elbows, what had he been thinking? They’d be looking for him, and he didn’t dare try to leave the inner city until daylight.

  He sighed and kept running. Nothing to be done about it now. He left the plaza, turning onto a side street, then ducked into the nearest alley, following a route he’d carefully mapped that afternoon. He turned left into another alley, right into yet another, and promptly tripped over a rat.

  The rat squealed and scuttled away. Rami fell and rolled, quickly jumping to his feet, but making too much noise in the process.

  He ran some more, nearly crashed into a dead end.

  I missed a turn!

  He doubled back, eyes straining into the darkness, tracing the w
alls with his fingers, counting windows and doors. He found the right passage and ducked in, following a faint smell of rotting fruit and fish heads.

  At the end of the passage he found his destination, a half-empty woodshed behind a food shop, most of its contents stacked toward the front. He carefully climbed over the piled wood and dropped into a recess on the back side.

  A cat hissed at him, before running away. Rami crouched in the darkness and listened for pursuers.

  He listened for a long time.

  Finally, satisfied he was safe for the moment, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out through his lips. He thought of those white snakes squirming toward him, like a wave of death riding up the beach.

  Suddenly he felt weak and wobbly, his heart hammering, panting for breath. It suddenly struck him how close he’d been to death. Only a miracle had saved him. A miracle named Anok.

  He thought of the crystal in his pocket. Anok would want to know he was alive. If he could send magic through the crystal, maybe he could send some kind of spell of concealment, keep him safe until Rami could escape the inner city.

  Rami reached into his pocket, finding the cool, smooth, crystal. To his surprise, the crystal was dark. He rubbed it with his sleeve. “Anok,” he said to it. “Anok, are you there?”

  There was no answer. “Anok!”

  Nothing.

  Perhaps he’d stepped away for a moment.

  Rami slid down to sit in the cold, packed dirt of the woodshed floor. He carefully balanced the crystal on a piece of firewood projecting in front of him.

  He sat there, waiting for the crystal to light, for Anok’s voice to speak to him.

  At some point he started to doze.

  He was still waiting when the first red light of dawn found the woodshed door.

  16

  ANOK STOOD IN the Sea of Sand like a statue, blowing sand drifting around his feet and legs. He stood unmoving, looking at the distant horizon, for what seemed like a thousand years.

  Then there was a rustling, the dry, hollow sound of bone bumping against bone, and Parath slithered into his view. The dead skeleton seemed animated by fire, its empty ribs filled with flame that flowed up through its neck, and out its gaping mouth and the empty sockets of its eyes.

  The snake crawled around him, the forward part of its body held up so that its skull was far higher than Anok’s head. It seemed to be inspecting him.

  Anok felt nervous, fearful, but he did not move. He was a statue, as immobile as Parath had once been.

  Finally, Parath spoke. “You have gained power, Anok Wati. You have stolen Set’s power, as I was sure you would. Yet you resist it. Why?”

  He did not speak. He was a statue.

  “If you are to use it in my service, you must make it part of you! You must embrace it! Why do you fight? Why do you resist? Why do you use your power only in service to your so-called friends? Why not use it in service to yourself?”

  The skeletal snake crawled closer, its coils leaving curved tracks in the blowing sand. It lowered its head, until Anok looked directly into its open mouth and the flaming pits of its eyes.

  “Do not deny you thirst for power! Do not deny that it excites you, that you glory in it! All men share this thirst! All men can be corrupted, even the most virtuous! Do not fear it! Power has chosen you! Make it yours!”

  Parath seemed to fade into the blowing sand, and Anok stood there another hundred years, till the blowing sand crawled up his body and at last covered his eyes, plunging him into darkness.

  THE DARKNESS TOOK some kind of form, some substance, and he was suddenly aware of it covering his face and mouth like a shroud. He felt a sudden panic and realized with some relief that the power of movement had returned to him.

  He thrashed wildly, and cried out, trying to tear away the cocoon that trapped him.

  There was light, and strong hands pushed him back into something soft.

  “Teferi,” said Fallon’s voice, “I think the fever has broken.”

  He gasped for breath, reached out, and clutched her forearm so hard that she flinched. “How long?”

  She looked down at him with a mixture of concern and surprise. “Four days and nights since the fever took you.” She licked her lips. She looked tired, as though she hadn’t slept in a long time. “The healers could not tell us what was wrong with you. We feared you might die.”

  Teferi entered the room, flashing Fallon a look of disapproval as he did. “She feared for you. I knew it was just a fever, no more.”

  His claim rang hollow, and Anok suspected that Teferi was only trying to protect him from the truth. He had nearly died, or so it had seemed to them.

  Yet even as he thought it, he knew it wasn’t true. There had never been any danger to his body. The Mark of Set would heal him from any sickness. Even now he could feel its power flowing up his arm. His deathlike sleep had been one of fatigue from the great magic required to save Rami, a time of recovery and restoration.

  He blinked. If they only thought he’d suffered a fever, then they couldn’t know that he’d talked to Rami, or what he’d done. After a moment’s consideration, he decided to keep it that way.

  What purpose could be served by sharing the information with them? Teferi would only worry, as he did about anything magical, and Anok didn’t know what it all meant. Why had Ramsa Aál send Dejal to bring the bones of Parath in from the desert, and had Parath truly appeared to him in his dream?

  Perhaps it was just that, a dream. Or perhaps, he thought grimly, it was the first crack in his sanity, the first sign that sorcery was leading him to madness.

  He sat up, feeling rested, strong, and ravenously hungry. He didn’t feel any less sane, or any more corrupt, though he wasn’t sure he’d know if he were. Still, he’d had far worse hangovers. This isn’t so bad. Perhaps I shouldn’t fear great magic if I can recover so easily.

  He stood, found his clothes, and started dressing.

  Teferi watched him with alarm. “You should go back to bed! You were near death just hours ago!”

  Anok glanced at him and grinned. “I thought you said I was fine, that only Fallon was concerned for my life?”

  Teferi frowned. “Perhaps I was less than truthful. You should rest!”

  Anok continued dressing, noticing that Fallon had been watching him appreciatively. He caught her gaze and smiled.

  She looked—not embarrassed, Anok wasn’t sure if her barbarian nature was capable of it—but as though she’d been caught picking fruit from the king’s tree. But after a moment, she slyly smiled back. “I think he is truly feeling better, Teferi. Perhaps you should trust him in this.”

  Teferi sighed. “Fine then. Do you feel strong enough to go to a tavern for a meal? I can send for Barid’s carriage.”

  He shook his head. “It isn’t far. I can walk.”

  Teferi frowned, but said nothing.

  “Teferi, truly you are the mother I never had.”

  Fallon laughed, and Teferi seethed at the jape.

  Anok did not care.

  ANOK ALSO WITHHELD the truth about his mysterious “fever” from Sabé, but the old scholar seemed skeptical about the story as he told it on his next visit. “I am glad to have you well again, though the nature of your illness still puzzles me.”

  Anok continued to be evasive. “Perhaps some bad stew was my undoing, or some sickness picked up in the street. I have heard that strange sicknesses travel here from the East, along the caravan road.”

  He nodded. “This is true, though the suddenness of your recovery is unusual in either case. Are you sure magic did not play some role in your return to strength?”

  Anok shrugged, then remembered that the old man would have no way of sensing the gesture. “Who knows? My use of magic in the past has sometimes been unconscious and instinctive. Perhaps in my fever, I may have unknowingly caused some healing spell. In fact, that must be it. How else can my recovery be explained?”

  Sabé still sounded unconvince
d. “How indeed?”

  He let the matter pass, and got back to the business at hand, carefully laying out a series of tablets on the table before him. “In that spirit, perhaps it is time that you learned those rituals of recovery and restoration that we discussed.” He ran his fingers over the top of one of the tablets. “According to the writings of the ancient Atlantean sorcerer Neska, a sorcerer can cleanse themselves of corruption by—”

  “Perhaps,” interrupted Anok, “we could save that for another day. Right now, I am more interested in great spells of power, spells that can be used to battle a sorcerous foe. It is said that you know spells lost to time, that no sorcerer will expect, and few can resist.”

  Sabé frowned. “That was not our plan. You should learn the rituals of restoration first.”

  Anok laughed. “It isn’t as though I plan to use the spells. At least, not yet, and not ever except in the most dire of circumstances.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Sabé, I’m paying you to help me learn to fight the forces of Set. I would get to that business first!”

  Sabé took a deep breath and let it out through his nose. After a moment, he began to stack the tablets he’d just spread on the table and replaced them with the contents of another stack. “Very well then. If you insist, let us consider the writings of Marti, hermit of Vendhyan . . .”

  Feeling satisfied that he was in control of the situation, Anok couldn’t help but smile, and was glad the old scholar could not see.

  17

  LIFE IN KHESHATTA fell into a kind of routine, one that left Anok increasingly isolated from his friends. Most mornings he rose early, ate a hasty breakfast, and made his way to Sabé’s house, usually with either Fallon or Teferi as escort.

  There, he would begin his tutelage in the arcane and ancient spells to which only Sabé was privy. Though Teferi would often remain through much of the day, Fallon was quick to leave once her escort duties were done.

  Though Anok found himself wishing to spend more time with her, her restless barbarian blood bid her to wander. She spent her time exploring the streets and taverns of the wizard’s city, tantalizing adventures for which Anok had no time. More than once she returned bloodied and bruised, always with a cruel grin of victory on her face.