Heretic of Set

by J. Steven York

  Teferi, though he spent time in the taverns himself, had become fast friends with Sabé. Though there remained a strained formality between Sabé and Anok, no such barrier existed between the old scholar and the Kushite giant. Teferi was happy to spend his days running errands and assisting Sabé.

  Perhaps most annoying to Anok were Teferi’s long-delayed reading lessons. While Anok studied the ancient texts, struggling to extract from them some crumbs of power, Sabé patiently instructed Teferi in reading not only Stygian and Aquilonian, but the barest beginnings of the ancient languages on his tablets, a secret he had shared with no man, not even Anok.

  So even as he was surrounded by others, Anok found himself increasingly alone with his own thoughts, and he found them poor company. The Mark of Set filled his dreams with disturbing visions of blood, sacrifice, and death; and as time passed, those images crept even into his waking thoughts unless he was eternally vigilant.

  He shared his growing dread with no one and still kept his communication with Rami a secret. The dread it only added to the festering resentment he felt toward those around him.

  Only occasionally did he have a moment of clarity, when he realized that his friends were ever true, and it was he who had parted from them, headed down some dark path from which there might be no return.

  Once a week he returned to the temple to take his gold and consult with Kaman Awi. He saw the High Priest’s true nature now, the corruption that rotted his soul. Despite his bumbling and cordial manner, the priest was utterly ruthless in his pursuit of power and knowledge. One had only to listen to the screams coming from the surgeons’ chambers to be sure of that.

  Two weeks passed before he was able to contact Rami again. Each night since awakening from his fever, in the privacy of his chambers, he took out the crystal and called to Rami, but there was no answer. He had begun to think that he had rescued the little thief from the temple’s flesh-eating guardians only to have him fall into the hands of its human protectors. If so, without his intervention, Rami would be long dead.

  So it came as a shock when, one night, Rami’s face finally appeared in the depths of the crystal ball.

  “Rami! Where have you been?”

  “Forgiveness, Anok. After escaping those devil-snakes in the temple, I had a case of the shakes that wouldn’t go away. So I went on a four-day bender, crawling through every pub between the harbor’s edge and the walls of the inner city. And then—” Rami hesitated, his expression pained.

  Anok frowned. “What happened, Rami?”

  Rami swallowed. “I—lost the crystal. That is, it wasn’t really lost. I just couldn’t find it.”

  Anok groaned. “You lost the crystal of vision?”

  “I couldn’t find it. I retraced all my steps of course. But there were a lot of steps, and given that most of them were taverns and brothels, I couldn’t help but avail myself a little along the way. Eventually I found the crystal in the headdress of a whore near the Great Marketplace whom I had spent a very pleasant evening with the week before.”

  “I’m sure she was very special, Rami.” His voice dripped with sarcasm.

  “It was very memorable,” Rami said earnestly. Then his expression turned to confusion. “If only I could remember it.” He shrugged, as though the whole business were nothing. “In any case, I didn’t stop watching Dejal for you, though I’ve kept my distance from the temple.”

  That, at least, was good news. “What word of him, then? Are you watching him now?”

  “I would be, but he’s gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “Four days ago they brought a special wagon to the temple, one with many wheels, pulled by four horses, made to carry something long and narrow. It entered the temple, and emerged later with a large bundle on top, long and thicker than a man’s body, but tapered like—”

  “A giant snake!” They’ve reassembled the bones of Parath!

  “Like a snake. Exactly.”

  “You say they’ve taken it somewhere?”

  “They formed a caravan, this wagon, many camels, Dejal, that priest Ramsa Aál, and a bunch of his lackeys, and headed west on the road toward Kheshatta, toward you. That’s why I was trying so hard to contact you. The wagon will slow them down, but they could be there within a few days, I imagine.”

  Anok blinked in surprise. Ramsa Aál and Dejal were coming to Kheshatta, and they were bringing Parath with them! What could it possibly mean?

  DESPERATE FOR INFORMATION, Anok planned his regular second-day trip to the temple in hopes of meeting with Kaman Awi, not avoiding him as usual. Clearly, the High Priest and his strange scholars of natural law were part of Ramsa Aál’s plan, though Anok could not divine exactly how.

  He awoke earlier than usual, but to his annoyance Teferi was again up already and missing, presumably gone to Sabé’s house. It seemed he could hardly wait for dawn to begin his studies with the blind scholar.

  Fallon’s room was empty, and though it was difficult to tell, as she never made her bed, Anok suspected it was unslept in.

  He stuffed a bag with bread and dates to eat on the way, then headed out the door. Halfway down the walk, he met Fallon, who staggered into him, singing some song, off-key and in Cimmerian. She draped her arms around his neck and hung on him, her breath strong with drink. She grinned. “Anok! What are you doing here?”

  He frowned at her. “I live here.”

  She looked around. “So do I!”

  “Where have you been all night?”

  She looked surprised. “Where I am every night! Out getting information!”

  “Is that what they call it now?”

  She pouted at him. “No! No! I talk to people! I know things!”

  “What things?”

  She frowned. “Well, just tonight I heard two important things! Two!” She hung limply onto his neck, and her eyes seemed to glaze over.

  “Fallon?”

  She started, blinking at him. “Anok! Wati!” She giggled. “Wati, Wati, Wati!”

  “You said you knew important things.”

  She held up three fingers in front of his face. “Two important things!” Her eyes glazed over again.

  “Fallon! What things?”

  She frowned, trying to remember. “This thing. I heard. It could be important!” She frowned, struggling. Then she grinned. “Spiders are poison!” She giggled and slumped into him. “You feel nice,” she murmured.

  “That was very useful, Fallon. And what was the other very important thing you had to tell me?”

  She looked up at him, serious. “Wait. I remember this one. Somebody is here.”

  “Who is here?”

  She looked at him seriously, then cracked into giggles. “Somebody!” She continued giggling.

  “I have to go to the temple.”

  She blinked, her expression turning serious. She pushed herself away from him, swaying unsteadily. “Wait! I’ll go with you!” She pointed at the front door of the villa. “Let me get my sword.”

  He frowned. “You’re wearing it, Fallon.”

  She looked surprised, then glanced down at her sword belt in shock. “Where did that come from?” She looked up at him and started laughing again. She staggered back against him and began clumsily groping him. “Stay here!” She laughed. “I am so drunk!”

  He pushed her away. “Go fall down, Fallon.” He walked toward the street.

  She watched him go, a look of confusion on her face. Then she nodded and pointed at the house. “I’m going to go fall down.” Then, as though noticing it for the first time, “I am so drunk!”

  As he walked away, he wondered, in those last words had he heard a tinge of sadness in her voice?

  His mood had improved little by the time he reached the Temple of Set, wet and chilled. Menmaat, the guardian officer he’d met upon first arriving at the temple was there. He greeted Anok pleasantly, but Anok responded only with a glaring glance and a grunt.

  “Anok!”

  He looked up at the
sound of his name and blinked in surprise. He had been hoping to meet Kaman Awi. He hadn’t expected the High Priest to be waiting outside the temple for him.

  The priest stood in front of a line of five golden chariots pulled by white Stygian warhorses, fierce, proud beasts freshly groomed. Elaborate banners of Set flew from staffs on each chariot, and each was driven by a guardian officer in light ceremonial armor and colorful dress silks.

  Foot soldiers in similar dress stood at attention near the chariots, and a number of acolytes and priests stood waiting as well, all dressed in robes of finest silk.

  Anok approached Kaman Awi, bowing as he came close. “You summoned me, master?”

  “Yes, yes! Stop bowing! Let me look at you.” He took a step back, and looked Anok up and down. “You’re a mess!” He turned and looked at the waiting acolytes. “You!” He pointed at a surprised young novice. “You look the right size. Give him your robe!”

  The novice looked shocked and just stood there.

  Kaman Awi grabbed an ornate wood-and-metal staff from where it leaned against the chariot. He pushed a catch in the middle, and a golden ball on the end of a metal rod emerged from the end with a snap. In one quick motion, he touched the ball against the back of novice’s exposed hand.

  There was a crack, a flash of blue, and the novice yelped and jumped back, shaking his hand.

  Kaman Awi grinned broadly. “Listen when I talk to you, novice!” He leaned close to Anok, and said in a whisper,

  “I’ve been working with my lightning jars. Do you like my toy?”

  Anok watched as the novice frantically yanked off his immaculate outer robe and handed it to Anok. Anok removed his yoke and shoulder bag and changed robes, handing his dirty one to the novice. He felt somehow conspicuous displaying the scabbards on his back, normally hidden by the robe, but by now most at the temple were used to the eccentricity.

  Kaman Awi looked disdainfully at the novice. “You look terrible! You stay here.”

  The confused novice turned and skulked through the arched doorway back into the temple.

  “Pardon, Master Kaman Awi, who are we going to see?”

  He glanced back at Anok and arched an eyebrow. “What makes you think you’re going to see anyone?”

  He gestured at the line of chariots. “I could also ask if there is to be a parade.”

  Kaman Awi grinned but said nothing.

  “Clearly the intent of all this is to impress. You are concerned about my appearance, so obviously I am to impress as well. The middle chariot has a lockbox chained to the floor, a sign that we carry something of value. The guardians, then, serve a triple function, to impress, to protect us, and to protect whatever is in that box. I assume, then, that we are not simply out to impress the people of Kheshatta with our finery. We bring something of value to someone we hope to impress, perhaps in hope of gaining favor, or perhaps with the intent to buy or trade for something, also of value.”

  Kaman Awi smiled broadly. “Excellent! Deduction and reasoning. I like to see that in my acolytes!”

  Anok shrugged. “It seems obvious enough to me.”

  “You’d be surprised how many novices we see here who would fail that simple test. They seek power like a moth seeks flame, and all movement, all thought, lies along that single line.”

  Anok considered his words carefully. “Don’t you seek power as well?”

  “We all seek power, Anok Wati. We are all but moths before its flame. But the secret is to fly close without getting burned, and that path never lies along a straight line. That way offers only two possibilities, to move ever away from power or straight into the heart of destruction. To see and simply move is the way of a fool. To think one’s way before taking a step, that is the path of power.”

  “I will keep that in mind,” said Anok.

  “See that you do. Get in the chariot.” Unthinkingly, he tapped Anok on the shoulder with his staff.

  Anok jumped, but nothing happened.

  Kaman Awi smiled sheepishly. “I’m sorry. After each sting, it must be reloaded by a device hidden in the chariot floor, which in turn is supplied by the motion of the turning axle.”

  Anok climbed carefully into the chariot next to Kaman Wati. A pair of soldiers squeezed in next to them, but Anok tried to keep his distance from the lightning staff. He watched as the priest pulled a lever on the side of the staff, retracting the ball and rod back into their hidden recess, then pushed the base of the staff into a nook in the floor where it stood on its own. As it locked into place, he heard a small snap, and smelled burning air.

  Kaman Awi noticed his attention appreciatively. “Only a toy, right now, but imagine the city wall with a hundred of these, each a hundred times bigger, a thousand times more powerful! Imagine if the Cult of Set could rain lightning down at will on bandits and raiders! Our power over Kheshatta would again be absolute, as it rightly should be, as it was in days of old. Can you imagine it, young acolyte, what it would be like to rain down lightning on your enemies?”

  Anok said nothing, but he did not have to imagine it. He remembered his first, great spell and the smoking ruin that had been the lair of the White Scorpion gang in Khemi. That spell had nearly killed him, though, nearly driven him mad. Sorcery had its price, and perhaps that was all that saved the world from being reduced to such ruin.

  Kaman Awi planned to loose such power with the flick of a catch, to loose lightning as casually as a man might set in flight an arrow. What then would save man from his own madness? How then would the world survive? He shuddered. There were greater evils still than spells of power and ancient gods.

  The High Priest made a hand signal, and the chariots rumbled into motion, around the temple forecourt, through the gates, and out into the streets of the city.

  As they passed, people turned to look, some with wonder, some with fear, and some with anger. Sometimes things were thrown at them, rotten food, rocks, things less pleasant scooped from the street, but each time the projectile would stop short of the chariots and bounce back, as though off an invisible wall.

  “A simple spell,” explained Kaman Awi, “performed by the acolytes in the front and rear chariots. These are not our true enemies. The rabble in Kheshatta chose up sides, like spectators choosing a favorite camel in a race. None of our true enemies would dare attack us so directly for so little reason. They know the reprisal would be great.”

  “Why do we have so many enemies here? Does not all of Stygia belong to Set?”

  Kaman Awi chuckled. “That is part of why I have brought you, Anok, the other being that I would have your power at my side. It is time you learned how things work in Kheshatta, and this errand will be a good lesson.”

  They rolled north through the streets, toward the looming mountainsides, covered in forest. “This place is a cross-roads, Anok, of many caravan roads rich with trade. It is lush and fertile for the growth of the poisoners’ plants, and the deserts surrounding this place are rich with ancient temples and ruins, where objects of power can be found. The hills themselves have veins of metals—brass, copper, iron—from which weapons can be made. And the place itself is rich in potential for sorcery. Things can be done here that can be done nowhere else. Things can be undone here that can be undone nowhere else.”

  “So everyone wants this place?”

  “Every cult, every faction, every army, every nation, and since all covet it, none can truly have it. Though it lies just within the borders of Stygia, it is barely Stygian at all. But neither is it Kushite, or Shemite, or Keshan. We share it, as we guard it from each other.” He gestured toward the mountainsides. “Today, we go to strike a deal with another of those factions, the poisoners.”

  The city houses were beginning to thin, giving way to walled estates surrounded by trees. The air was damp and cool, filled with the smell of water and exotic plants. Rivulets flowed along channels on either side of the now-winding road, and often they crossed small bridges over larger streams. Birds called from the greenery, and
insects buzzed past, occasionally bouncing off the procession’s magical canopy.

  “I’ve heard much of the poisoners,” said Anok, “yet I feel I know almost nothing.”

  Kaman Awi snorted disdainfully. “The Lord Poisoner we go to meet, Sattar, is typical of their type. He is hereditary owner of his plantation and defends it by force and coercion. He is a thug and a fool, who values gold over true power.”

  “But you said the poisoners had knowledge that you desired for your temple.”

  “Those that tend the special plants, who mix the sacred herbs and brew their potions, those we value, but they are little more than livestock to the likes of Sattar, to be used and killed at his convenience and pleasure.”

  Like your acolytes and followers? But Anok held his tongue, thinking only that anyone who tried to deny ultimate power to the Cult of Set could not be entirely bad.

  The trees became thicker, and the road switched back and forth as it climbed the increasingly steep mountainside. They passed trains of pack mules, some bearing bundles of dried plants, others sealed pots and bottles, all accompanied by armed and armored guards on horseback.

  At last they came upon a high wall of native stone and traveled along it a way until reaching a heavy iron gate watched by many armed men. The guards swung the gates open for the chariots and waved them through.

  In the distance through the trees, Anok could see a great palace jutting out of a cliff. Doubtless it offered spectacular views of the city and lake below. One could probably even see across the border into Kush from here, perhaps offering early warning of bandits or raiders.

  Something buzzed past Anok, an angry insect perhaps.

  Insect?

  He grabbed Kaman Awi’s sleeve, but the warning came too late. The driver of the chariot slumped over, as well as the guardians who flanked them. Without the pull on the reins, the horses slowed to a halt.