Ballad of Blood

by Amy Sumida

  “I've never heard that,” Gage said with shock.

  Shani went to a shelf and pulled down an old leather book. She flipped through the pages and then held it out to Gage. “Can you read this?”

  Gage gaped at the book as he took it. “Yes; I can. This is Drantu; our ancient language.”

  “And ours,” Shani said.

  Gage skimmed the page and then looked up at her in shock. “Cousins?”

  “Cousins,” she confirmed.

  “I can't wait to tell my father,” Gage exclaimed as he handed the book back. “He's going to molt!”

  Shani laughed. “It's one of those things that has been forgotten in the drama of our diverging paths. The Griffins went to Torr-Chathair, and the Sphinx stayed on Earth and adopted tribes of humans to pass our knowledge to. My people chose the Egyptians, and our other tribe chose the Greek.”

  “That's why there are two types of very different Sphinx,” Gage murmured. “I've always wondered how one race could produce such different people.”

  “The regions and humans we chose to settle with had an effect on us.” She nodded.

  “Fascinating,” Declan murmured. “An unknown facet of Griffins and Sphinx has been revealed.”

  “I'm honored to welcome you and your friends to Egypt, Cousin,” Shani said to Gage.

  “Thank you.” Gage bowed to her. “And thank you for your assistance.”

  “I've only begun to help,” she said. “Now that I know a griffin is involved, I can trust that your group is honorable.”

  “Do you know Isis?” Declan asked. “You're connected through the Egyptians.”

  “Yes; I know her,” Shani said with a frown. “But the Sphinx and the Egyptian Gods are from different realms, and we merely tolerate each other. The Sphinx wanted to teach the Egyptians, but the Gods wanted to use them. They demanded sacrifices and worship in exchange for their aid. The Gods made the Egyptians into slaves; building massive monuments to their glory.”

  “But what about the stone Sphinx?” Torin asked. “Was that not constructed for your people?”

  “That's not a sphinx.” Shani chuckled.

  “Excuse me?” I blinked at her.

  “During our long acquaintance with the Egyptian Gods, there have been many... pranks that we've played on each other,” Shani said with a twinkle in her eye. “We could not war; it would hurt the Egyptian humans too much. So, we found other ways to vent our frustration.”

  “And the Great Sphinx of Giza was one of them?” Torin asked with a lifted, ebony brow.

  “If you look at the body of that stone monstrosity, you'll see that it doesn't appear to be a lion at all,” Shani pointed out. “Lions have a curve to their backs and a large chest with a mane. That thing does not. What it has is a straight back; like that of a canine.”

  “But the head is indisputably human,” Declan pointed out.

  “Yes.” Shani giggled. “But that is not the original head. We thought it was very obvious after we carved Anubis' head into Adeben's. You can clearly see that the head is the wrong size for that body. But after a few hundred years, people forgot that it was a statue of Anubis that had been defaced and assumed it had always been like that.”

  “Wait.” I held up my hands. “Who is Adeben?”

  “One of us,” Shani said. “We made him look like a pharaoh, but that is technically a sphinx head. So, that much is true.”

  “But it was originally Anubis?” Declan asked.

  “Of course,” she huffed. “He's the Guardian of the Dead. Who else would they place before the burial chambers? It wouldn't be a riddle-asker, I'll tell you that.”

  “The monuments upset you, so you claimed one for your own,” Declan said with approval.

  “And created one of the biggest mysteries in the world,” Shani said proudly. “It may not have been our purpose, but it was a welcome—and most appropriate—result.”

  “I'm not going to lie; my mind is a little blown right now,” I said.

  “So, to play a joke on the Egyptian Gods, the Sphinx carved the head of Anubis' statue into the image of a sphinx and made him look like a sphinx?” Torin seemed just as thrown as I was; he had to go over it once more.

  “Yes,” Shani said.

  “And for all this time, humans have believed the joke,” Gage concluded.

  “Yes.” Shani beamed at him.

  “That's fucking brilliant!” Gage hooted. “The most successful practical joke ever.”

  “Thank you very much.” Shani bowed.

  “Is everything all right in there?” Banning's voice came through the door.

  I went over and opened it, but then stood in the doorway to declare, “Banning, the Great Sphinx of Giza is actually a dog!”

  “What the hell did I miss?” Banning gaped at me.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Shani made a few calls, and soon there was a pride of Sphinx standing in her living room, along with our entire group which we brought over from the crime scene. The other sphinx were all as sturdy-looking as Shani, but there was a definite scholarly air about them. And they all were delighted to meet their long-lost cousin.

  Gage had to shake a lot of hands and answer a lot of questions before we could get back to the business of saving the Blooders. But once we did, the Sphinx were focused and determined.

  “The Aaruns have gone too far this time,” Ahti—one of the male sphinx—said. “To decimate an entire race—even one with such violent tendencies—is reprehensible.”

  “The Aaruns?” I asked.

  “The Egyptian Gods are from the Realm of Duat,” Shani explained. “Their home planet is Aaru.”

  “We don't know if all of them are behind this,” Mehi—a female sphinx—said. “We can only verify Isis' involvement. The rest of them may be innocent; at least of this.”

  “If the Blooders hadn't desecrated Isis' temple, none of this would have happened,” Kema—another female sphinx—shook her head sadly.

  “Desecrated?” Banning asked. “What happened at the temple?”

  “A couple of blooders from the Cairo Gura cornered some tourists in the Temple of Isis at Philae,” Shani said. “They drank from the humans on sacred ground.” She rolled her eyes. “Isis is very particular about her temples.”

  “Did they kill the tourists?” I asked.

  “No; just took a drink and released them with that donation-high,” Soter—a sphinx man—said. “But that didn't matter to Isis. In fact, I think she would have been all right with it if the blooders had killed the humans and then dedicated the sacrifice to her. At least then, she would have had her share of the blood.”

  “So, she wasn't mad about the spilling of blood, only that it wasn't spilled for her,” Banning concluded.

  “Exactly.” Soter nodded. “The Aaruns are arrogant assholes.”

  “Evidently.” I grimaced. “And this may be about more than the Blooders. I had a run-in with Osiris.”

  They all perked up.

  “What happened?” Ata asked eagerly.

  “Let's just say that we had a difference of opinion, and I changed his mind,” I said.

  “You forced your will upon a god?” Shani asked with wide eyes. Then she looked at Gage. “You did well with your choice of mate.”

  “Yes; I know,” Gage said proudly.

  “Will Osiris even remember that we were there?” Torin asked me.

  “I don't know.” I shrugged. “I wasn't even sure how long the spell would last with a god.”

  “We?” Bennu asked. “You were there as well, King Torin?”

  “I was,” Torin admitted. “And it was a harder fight than I would have expected.”

  The Sphinx muttered among themselves worriedly. The words; Shining Ones, power, and magic popped out at me, but I couldn't follow all the conversations.

  “What are they upset about?” Declan asked Shani.

  “There have been rumors about the Egyptian Gods magnifying their power through dark means,” she whispered
as if speaking it louder would give it too much power.

  “What kind of means?” I asked.

  “Blood, of course,” a sphinx named Ramses stepped forward.

  “Not again,” Torin huffed.

  “It's said that they bathe themselves in blood and magic,” Ramses went on. “The more powerful the victim, the more powerful the magic. But that is only a rumor.”

  “Until a Shining One king told us that he nearly lost a fight to Osiris,” Soter added. “The Shining Ones are the most powerful race we know of, and we know all of them. You should have easily won a fight with a god.”

  “I had to expel a lot of power to remove Elaria from an illusion Osiris cast upon her,” Torin explained. “I assumed that was the reason he nearly got the better of me.”

  “If yours were the only evidence, then I would agree with you,” Ramses said. “But in light of the recent attacks on Blooders, I am inclined to doubt.”

  “There have been no traces left at any of the crime scenes,” I said. “The only clues we've received have been from witnesses. Then there is the amount of Nachzehrer that have been created, and the rapid succession of attacks to consider. Isis must be very powerful if she's doing this alone.”

  “We highly doubt that she's alone,” a female sphinx named Renpa said. “Isis is an alpha goddess; minor gods will do her bidding. If she saw this as a way to avenge Osiris and rid the world of a race she considers parasitic, she could easily convince her minions to help her.”

  “Great,” Banning huffed. “We may have multiple psychopathic gods to deal with.”

  “I need something belonging to Isis to track her with,” I said. “I've never met the woman, so I don't even have an image of her to focus on.”

  “I believe we can help you with that,” Ramses said smugly.

  Chapter Eighteen

  A fleet of vans showed up with even more sphinx driving them, and we were taken out of the city, to Giza.

  I've seen a lot of impressive things in my life; a lot of magical things. So, maybe I'm jaded. But, frankly, the Pyramids didn't impress me. If you believe that they were constructed by men alone, they're impressive. But when you know about the Beneath, you also know that humans built the pyramids with Beneather assistance, and that makes it less impressive. Plus, it was fucking hot, at night, and so dry that every particle of moisture seemed to be sucked out of my skin to quench the desert's thirst. Also, the Pyramids aren't pretty. They're literally a pile of large rocks. The stone Sphinx that wasn't a sphinx was more artistically satisfying than the Pyramids.

  What was impressive was the way we just rolled past the security guards and right up to the Pyramid of Khufu—the biggest rock pile of the bunch. We got out of the van—and its lovely air-conditioning—into the oppressive night, and stared up at the monuments together.

  “They're rather ugly, aren't they?” Vena—one of my female Kyanite knights—whispered.

  “You read my mind,” I whispered back.

  “They weren't built to be pretty,” Ramses said. “This way. You may leave your entourage; we'll need stealth more than strength.”

  Most of the Sphinx remained outside with our people. Gio came along with my consorts and I as we followed Ramses and Shani into the Great Pyramid. Instead of taking the path up, which led to two finished chambers, we were led down toward the unfinished chamber below. Modern stairs and handrails had been added, but there was a weight to the air that felt ancient. I frowned as we descended; something was bothering me. I'd never been to Giza before—just never felt the urge—but now that I was within a pyramid, I realized what had drawn so many here to gawk. There was magic inside it.

  Not our kind of magic, Kyanite noted disdainfully. These stones aren't sentient; they have no life beyond what was forced into them. They are merely tools.

  “Tools for what?” I asked aloud without thinking.

  Ramses stopped and turned to stare at me in surprise. “For transport. How did you know the pyramid was a device?”

  “I didn't,” I said. “I was speaking to my jewel, and he pointed it out. I can feel the magic, but that's all.”

  “Your jewel?” Ramses cocked his head. “You're a spellsinger; what do jewels have to do with you?”

  “Long story.” I waved it away. “I'm also a Shining One queen. But what do you mean by; the Pyramid is used for transport?”

  “I'll show you,” he said. “We're nearly there.”

  We stepped down into a chamber with low ceilings, an out-of-place metal fence, and a bunch of partially-carved stones. The fence was set around a shaft that went straight down, and there was another hole in a wall that was covered by a grating, but no other way out of the chamber. It made me feel claustrophobic.

  “The upper chambers were created as a distraction,” Ramses said. “This is the true purpose of the Pyramid.”

  “I'm sorry to say; I'm waiting to be impressed,” Gage grumbled.

  “You and me both, honey,” I commiserated.

  “Hey, at least we found you a pit,” Banning pointed out.

  Ramses and Shani laughed at us. Then Shani climbed up into the unfinished portion of the room; where a trench had been carved between two shelves of rock. There were odd, rounded portions of stone that stuck up from the shelves as if they wanted to be columns but were too short and sad for such a grand role. She went to one of those and laid her hands on it.

  With a grating sound, the nubby top started to glow. Then Shani twisted a bowl-shaped portion, and it lifted to reveal a gold panel. She pressed some buttons on the panel, and light burst up from the shaft in the center of the room. Those of us who weren't a sphinx, stepped back in shock while Ramses and Shani had another good laugh.

  “It's an astral tunnel to the Realm of Duat,” Ramses explained. “The shaft connects this pyramid to its twin on Aaru.” Then he frowned at Banning and Gio. “Now that I think of it, you blooders may want to stay behind; I don't know what the hour is there. I know you ghearas have a tolerance to sunlight, but I can't guarantee how long we'll be there either. ”

  Banning stared at me, and we exchanged a wary look before he finally nodded to Ramses. We didn't want the fact that Banning and his blooders were now immune to the sun to get out. It was bad enough that Sorin knew; we didn't want to tell the Sphinx as well. Luckily, it didn't appear that Sorin had shared the information with Gio; the other blooder just stepped back with Banning.

  “It takes a leap of faith,” Ramses said as he climbed over the metal fence.

  Ramses jumped into the glowing shaft and disappeared.

  “Go ahead,” Shani said. “I'll go last to make sure we all get through.”

  “Looks fun.” Gage leapt over the rail and into the shaft with one movement.

  “Gage!” I shouted in surprise, but it was too late. I looked at the other men. “I guess we're going.”

  “It's only a wormhole, Ellie,” Declan said gently as he squeezed my hand. “No big deal. It's just like traveling with a stone.”

  Declan swung a leg over the fence and then strode casually out over the light in the shaft. He was gone in an instant.

  “Do you want to go together?” Torin asked.

  I just nodded.

  Torin climbed over the fence and then helped me scale it. He took my hand, but when he looked over at me, he must have seen how nervous I was. He eased his hand out of mine to slide it around my waist instead. Torin lifted me off my feet and lowered his head to mine.

  “Just keep your eyes on me, little bird,” he said and then moved us off the ledge.

  The light surrounded us, but in a few seconds it was gone, and we were standing on a tiled landing. I looked around us at a room far more luxurious than the one we'd left. The ceiling was much higher, and the walls were covered in bright paintings; depicting life in a lush world of emerald forests and sapphire lakes. There was nothing Egyptian about the artwork. In fact, they were almost photographic in their realism.

  A set of snow-white stairs led up and out of
the chamber. Shani stepped past Torin and I, to where Ramses waited on the bottom step. She looked back at us and smiled.

  “Welcome to Aaru.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “This is not at all what I was expecting,” I said as I stood on the steps of an ivory pyramid set in the center of a flower garden that looked as if it should have been on the grounds of Versailles.

  “Why did they even bother with Earth?” Gage asked. “This is amazing.”

  “Like most of the Beneath races, the Aarun explored other planets simply because they could,” Ramses said. “They found a vulnerable race on Earth—one still in its early stages of development—and decided to see if they could leave their mark. Also, several other alien races had begun to make Earth their home, and it was becoming a sort of intergalactic hub; which compelled the Aarun to find a foothold on the planet before there was none to be had.”

  “But they never stopped living on their own world,” Shani said as she waved her hand forward. “And they're arrogant enough to assume that only their own kind could make it through their portal. Look; no guards posted.”

  “Sloppy and stupid,” Gage noted with disapproval.

  “I've been here loads of times,” Shani said. “They don't even realize I'm not an Aarun. Come on; just look confident; act as if you belong. They won't give us a second look.”

  Shani strode down the steps, and we followed. I cast some dubious looks at my men. Shani appeared distinctly Egyptian; as did the Egyptian Gods. My consorts and I did not. I couldn't see how we could fit in. But she didn't look worried, nor did Ramses.

  “Isis lives near the Pearl Pyramid.” Shani nodded back at the pale structure behind us. “Most of the Egyptian Gods do.”

  “They didn't want a far commute,” Gage concluded.

  “Exactly.” Shani trailed her hand over the velvet petals of pastel-hued flowers. “So, we can walk to her house; no problem.”

  “You're taking us to Isis' home?” I asked as I stumbled over the white gravel.