Ramsa Aál smiled as he stepped onto one of the chariots. “They are here to be seen. Our master is contriving every excuse to send them out across the city on errands. They serve notice to all who see them that the Lord of the Black Ring, the High Priest of Set, the mightiest of all sorcerers, Thoth-Amon, has returned to Kheshatta, that his magics are unmatched, and all must yield before him.”
This, Anok realized, was a parade, a show of power for all who saw them pass on the streets.
Anok wondered what abominable hell-pit these creatures had been summoned from, and what unspeakable power it had taken to bring them here. Suddenly his elemental magic seemed poor indeed. How could he hope to best a man who wielded such power? How could he even hope to hide his secrets in the presence of such a wizard? If the demon-stallions were intended to cause fear in Thoth-Amon’s enemies, Anok had to conclude that in his case, it was working quite well.
He walked forward and climbed onto the other chariot next to the helmeted driver, who looked rigidly ahead. The driver behind them yelled to signal his readiness. The driver of Anok’s chariot shook the reins, and the great beasts threw back their heads to make a noise. Not a whinny, but something more like a scream.
They began to trot, their cloven hooves striking sparks on the cobblestones as they pulled the chariots rapidly around the front of the building and out the front gate. They turned onto the street beyond the temple, and immediately every passerby stopped to stare and watch the chariots pass. Those in the street shrunk back, some women and children even running in terror as the frightful procession passed.
They traveled north for a time, passing within a few blocks of Anok’s villa and Sabé’s house, then turned east onto a wide boulevard leading down to the lake’s edge. Down its length, Anok could see the causeway, stretching out into the green water, and the rocky island on which Thoth-Amon’s palace perched.
The demon-horses began to gallop, leaving a fading trail of fire behind their hooves as they ran.
Anok held tightly to the ornately carved and gilded railing across the front of the chariot as they rumbled and bounced down the street. Wide-eyed people scattered out of their way, horses, mules, and camels bolted as they passed, and still the chariots moved ever faster.
Anok again considered the medallion around his neck and its hidden contents. A spell of deception would only draw attention to it. The cold iron of the medallion provided some measure of disguise, but he doubted that would fool such a great wizard as Thoth-Amon. There had to be something he could do.
He thought of the leeching effect of the waters of Orkideh, and it caused him to remember a spell in one of the old texts, a spell of transference. Its purpose was to drain all the power from a mystical object and temporarily transfer it to sorcerer’s body. Without its magic, the Scale of Set was nothing but a decorative lump of gold.
Of course, the magic would be just as detectable in Anok, perhaps even more so. But his body was already infected by the Mark of Set, and since the magic of the Scale also had its origins in Set, perhaps one would serve to disguise the other.
They were getting quite close to the causeway, and it was the only idea Anok had. He recalled the words of the spell, written in a nearly forgotten language from before the time of man. Anok had memorized the words, without actually knowing their meaning. That was known only to Sabé.
He whispered quietly, “Komoal, anek-et, presoss, tukwillan, martay-et, sotow-et-ek—”
With his inner senses, he could hear a whistling sound, like wind blowing through a narrow cave, and felt the magic of the Scale diffuse through his body like warm water, making his skin tingle and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
He felt a strange sensation in the Mark of Set, as though it were being rejoined to something from which it had been sundered before the beginning of time. It was strangely intoxicating—and enlightening.
The Scale of Set’s power had never seemed proportional to the importance the cult attributed to it. Now, for the first time, he had a sense that there was far more to it than a simple toy to command snakes.
Now he understood why the priest desired to have all three Scales.
Suddenly he desired them for himself.
So intoxicated was he by the thought that he barely noticed as the chariot again turned onto the narrow stone causeway out across the lake.
The dark clouds continued to roll in, almost touched by the highest tower of Thoth-Amon’s dark citadel, and a cold wind whipped across the lake, raising waves tipped with white froth.
Halfway across the causeway the chariot slowed to a halt for no apparent reason. The air in front of them seemed to turn momentarily to fog, then instantly back to clarity, revealing an open wooden drawbridge operated by a guard-house on the far side.
Anok blinked in surprise, realizing the bridge and guard-house had been protected by a cloaking spell of great power and subtlety. Any attackers rushing toward Thoth-Amon’s lair would have plunged headlong into the deep, dark waters between.
As Anok looked down, a great catfish large enough to swallow a man broke the surface, rolled, and regarded them hungrily with a dead, milky eye. He shuddered as the great body slid past, slime-covered and gray-green, at least fifteen paces long, then vanished with a flick of its man-high tail.
An arc of spray flew through the air and struck Anok in the face, making him start like a man awakened from a dream. He shook his head, trying to clear it, as, with clanking chains, the bridge creaked down. The end of it landed on the pier in front of them with a thud.
The chariots charged forward, rumbling across the bridge and onto the stone cobbles on the far side. Even as the second chariot was clearing the bridge, the guardians began to winch it open again, groaning with effort as they turned the great wooden wheel that wound the chain.
Anok looked up at the looming black towers of Thoth-Amon’s keep with growing dread. He was trapped now, on the wizard’s island keep, and it was very likely that he would never leave. He felt certain Thoth-Amon would immediately see through his deceptions. When that happened, he would be tortured to death, slowly, as only a black sorcerer could.
21
TEFERI CARRIED THE stack of slate tablets from Sabé’s storage room and placed them carefully on the heavy wooden table. The ancient tomes were fragile and easily broken. A few were already repaired in places using a sticky black mortar that Teferi could not identify.
He glanced down at the one on top, puzzling at the row of large characters across the top. One by one he parsed them out, and it was with a mix of pride and concern when he realized it read, “Beware, he who reads this cursed text.”
Sabé walked up next to him and ran his fingers over the same line. “Did you know you make a little sound when you are unhappy, my friend? It is a low rumble, deep in your throat, that few would notice.”
Teferi glanced at him in surprise. The old scholar’s perception continued to amaze him. Who else could hear a frown?
“Is it this text that concerns you? You need not worry. Some souls are drawn to magic, and some are anathema to it. You are one of the latter. You could read aloud the darkest texts till the end of your life and not raise enough magic to turn over a grain of sand.”
“Should I take that as an unkindness?”
“You should take that as a compliment, my friend. But that it were true for me as well. All my life my mind, with its thirst for knowledge, and my soul, with its thirst for power, battled for supremacy. That war, I fear, will end only in my grave.”
“May it be, then, a war without end.”
Sabé smiled sadly. “I know you mean well, Teferi, but I am very old and very tired. Perhaps that is why I have finally shared my knowledge with you and Anok. In the twilight of my days, I grow trusting, or perhaps just eager to unload my burdens.”
The clouds that had covered the sky all morning parted for just a moment, and shafts of light shone down through the high windows at the front of the room. With surprise, Teferi noted the angle of them.
It was far later than he had realized. “Where is Anok? He should be here by now.”
Sabé frowned. “Anok? This is his day at the temple. I assume Fallon is with him.”
“Fallon was off drinking last night and never came home. This is my fault. I was so eager to come here and study that I forgot the day.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Sabé, “he is waiting for you at your villa.”
“I think not. He would have come and gotten me. More likely he has gone off on his own.”
Sabé held up his hands and waved his fingers, then stuck out his tongue as though tasting the air. He immediately frowned. “I feel something is wrong,” he said grimly. “Go quickly.”
Teferi took his sword off a peg in the wall and headed for the door. He muttered, “I am a poor friend, indeed.”
Though he didn’t expect to find Anok there, Teferi made his way back to the villa, just in case. He found Fallon in the front room, facedown and snoring on a couch.
He poked her shoulder and she groaned and flailed for the sword lying on the floor at her side. She still had not found it when she looked up, bleary-eyed, and recognized Teferi. “There is an old saying,” she said. “Let sleeping Cimmerians lie.”
“Wake up, you drunkard!” He regretted his words even as he spoke them. Escorting Anok had been his responsibility, not hers. “Anok has gone off to the temple alone.”
She plopped her face back down on the couch. “Anok can take care of himself.”
“Perhaps, but the streets of this city are fraught with unknown dangers. It is our charge to look out for him.” He hesitated, then continued. “Sabé thinks there may be danger.”
The mention of Sabé’s name seemed to goad her into motion. She groaned and pushed herself up off the cushions, her long, dark hair falling over her eyes. Teferi studied her with disapproval. This situation wasn’t her fault, but it didn’t excuse her recent behavior. Where had the proud Cimmerian warrior gone?
She sat on the edge of the couch for a moment, then snatched up her sword. “You are right. I have found too much comfort in spirits of late. I gave my word that I would protect Anok in his journeys, and that is my bond.”
They stepped out into the street just as the rain began to fall again, hard and warm, and they were quickly soaked. Fallon looked especially miserable. Teferi glanced down at her. “What is wrong with you lately?”
She did not meet his eyes, and simply scowled. “There can be no excuse. I am troubled by demons of my own, Teferi. I proclaim proudly my Cimmerian birth, but ever I run farther from its dark woods and somber hills. Where will I run next? Into the Eastern Ocean? Off the edge of the world itself? Or merely into the bottom of a jug? I do not know.”
He wanted to chastise her, yet her words cut too close to his heart. He had lived his whole life in exile from the land of his forefathers. Even now, its cursed border lay only a day’s march to the south, yet he did not go there.
Could not.
Would not.
So they trudged on in silence and did not speak of it again.
They had traveled only a few blocks when Teferi spotted Barid’s carriage driving by and flagged him down. The little Vendhyan hunched on the driver’s bench under an oilskin cloak that protected him from the rain.
“We’re going to the Temple of Set to look for our friend Anok. He slipped out this morning without escort, and we’re concerned for his safety.”
Barid frowned. “Well you should be. My brother saw him not an hour ago, on a golden chariot pulled by unnatural steeds, crossing the causeway to the palace of Thoth-Amon!”
Teferi groaned, and Fallon met his eyes with a look of alarm. Teferi looked away, casting his gaze up toward the gray sky, drops of rain running down his cheeks. “Anok, we have failed you.”
22
ANOK AND RAMSA Aál were led by a pair of guardians through a great entry hall lined with cabinets full of ancient relics: small statuary, tablets, jewelry, pots painted with tableaus of forgotten gods, colorful crystals, and the mounted bones of strange and horrible creatures.
All were protected behind doors framed around glass; clear, nearly free of ripples, in itself worth a king’s ransom. There was more glass than Anok had seen in a lifetime, all in this one room.
There were large statues as well, the largest ones sitting directly on the polished marble of the floor, others raised on ornate marble pillars. None represented the human form.
There, carved in marble, granite, and even silver were the forms of unnatural creatures, winged demons, horn-headed fiends, monstrous elementals, many-legged dragons, and faceless ghouls.
Amid the cabinets and statues, grim-faced guardians stood at uneasy attention, clearly as worried about the objects they guarded as any interlopers.
Yet though this collection would humble any of the museums Anok had seen in kheshatta, he sensed that it represented only a hint of the dark-master’s magical stores, only those items too trifling in their power to be worth Thoth-Amon’s immediate protection.
They proceeded deeper into the bowels of the palace, along dark corridors draped with heavy tapestries that swallowed every footstep, until they reached the circular foundation of the great central tower, where they proceeded up the largest spiral staircase Anok had ever seen, wide enough for six men standing shoulder to shoulder.
Anok looked up. High above, he could see a semicircular landing in the gloom. Through the open center of the shaft hung a heavy chain, and iron chandeliers hung with oil lamps were strung every thirty feet or so, like beads on a necklace.
With each marble step his dread increased. Each step took him farther from even the slimmest chance of safety or escape.
The climb seemed subjectively to take hours, but at last they reached the landing and took a final flight of stairs up through the chamber’s ceiling.
Into the private hall of Thoth-Amon.
The tower flared out at the top, so the diameter of its chambers was at least thirty feet wider than the shaft through which they had ascended. The hall ran east to west, from one side of the tower to the other, curved at each end, where one could look out through white pillars at the lake and the lands beyond.
To the east, one could see the whole expanse of the city, the wall to the south, and the hills where the palaces and plantation of the other wizards and poisoners perched.
Doubtless, Thoth-Amon liked to be able to keep an eye on his subjects, and his enemies, at all times. The sides of the chamber were straight, with many heavy doors leading to smaller side rooms.
One door in particular was as heavy as a palace gate, bolted with iron bars and chains. A tiny peephole at eye level was covered by a locked and hinged iron cover.
Anok did not care to learn what demonic horror the Lord of the Black Ring might keep imprisoned there.
They proceeded to the eastern end of the room, where they stepped out onto a wide balcony that lay beyond the pillars. The balcony was unprotected by an overhang, but the stone there was dry, and the wind that churned the lake below into whitecaps could not be felt. It was the same sort of spell that had protected Ramsa Aál’s chamber windows back in Khemi, but on a much grander scale.
The guardians retreated back inside, leaving Anok and Ramsa Aál alone on the balcony. They waited silently for several minutes.
“I do not see our master,” said Anok, trying not to let his voice sound hopeful. “Perhaps he is engaged in other, more pressing business, and will not see us today.”
“I am never seen,” said a deep voice, so close behind Anok that it made him jump, “unless I wish to be seen.”
Anok spun to face the voice, even as Ramsa Aál calmly turned and bowed his head, left hand held under his forehead.
Anok had been trained in the protocol for meeting the highest of high priests, but in the moment, it was forgotten. He stared blankly at the imposing figure of Thoth-Amon.
He had somehow expected a small, old, wizened figure of a man. But Thoth-Amon was tall, towering over Ano
k, nearly as tall as Teferi, and broader of shoulder. As he stepped toward them, he carried himself gracefully, having neither the swagger of a warrior, nor the hesitant gait of an old man.
He wore long, flowing robes of red and black, elaborately embroidered with gold thread, and on his seemingly hairless skull, he wore a skullcap of mirror-polished metal. His face was angular and deeply chiseled, his nose long and hooked, his skin dark and gray, like cold ash from a fireplace. A pointed goatee framed his lipless mouth, and eyes like black marbles glinted from deep and shadowed sockets.
He smiled, and it was a terrible thing.
Suddenly, Anok remembered himself, bowing his head in salute to the High Priest of Set.
“Rise,” he said. “Stand and face me, my servants.” His voice was deep and resonant, but there was a hissing undertone that reminded Anok of a serpent. Thoth-Amon turned his attention first to Ramsa Aál.
“It has been long since we last spoke face-to-face, my pupil. We have matters to discuss, but”—he glanced at Anok, as though that should have some hidden meaning—“detail can wait for its due time. Now, I need only that things go as they should.”
Ramsa Aál looked around nervously. “Can I speak freely here, master?”
“This place is warded well with the darkest spells of power. None may hear our words—no wizard, no demon, no god.”
Ramsa Aál nodded. “Then all goes as planned, master. Protected by my magics, my underlings have recovered the old bones from the desert at great peril, assembled them, and brought them here. Set does not even suspect that his old rival is missing.”
Anok listened intently, trying to keep his face emotionless. Ramsa Aál and Thoth-Amon conspired against their own god? How could that be?
Thoth-Amon arched a narrow eyebrow. “You presume to be privy to the knowledge of gods?”
Ramsa Aál smiled. “I still live, do I not?”
Thoth-Amon grinned. “That you do, and it is true, surely Set would not suffer such a heretic to live. That is why you must bear the weight of this plan alone. Even our conversation here puts me at risk. If you succeed, you will hand all your stolen power to me, and I will share it with you. But if you fail, you and you alone shall suffer Set’s wrath. Is that understood?”
Heretic of Set Page 21
