by Sarah Rayne
‘One of the legends tells how after the Decalogue was created it was carried forth from the darkness of hell’s nether-world, and sent spinning through the cold wastes of time until it came to rest in a mystical kingdom in a remote part of the world.’ She glanced at him and the urchin grin lit her face. ‘It has a good sound, that?’
‘Very.’ The grin was that of a pleased child, saying, aren’t I telling you a good story! but the words themselves were astonishingly evocative: Lewis’s mind had received a vivid darting image of dark storm-torn mansions through which faceless creatures stalked and held dreadful courts. Because we are approaching something that really was forged in hell’s dark satanic halls? I don’t believe any of it. No? Then why are you down here in the first place?
‘The words are written in one of our chronicles, and I liked them myself,’ said Touaris, brushing cobwebs off her arms. If you were about to seduce someone you did not want to do so with bits of cobweb draped all over you. ‘The chronicle tells how the Stones dragged with them an immense dust-cloud that had gathered as they spun through the dark silent skies beyond the world,’ she said. ‘As they plunged to earth the ancient dust shrouded half the land and blinded those who tried to look at it.’ She sent him another of the half-mischievous, half-enigmatic glances. ‘Your Christian Bible refers to it,’ said Touaris. ‘Although not quite in the same words.’
‘The dense darkness that fell over the land? The Ten Plagues of Egypt?’ Lewis forced lightness into his voice, because he was damned if he was going to show any sense of awe.
‘I think it was called that,’ agreed Touaris, in the deliberately offhand voice of one who is enjoying herself immensely but determined not to show it. ‘Does that disturb you, Lewis?’
‘Not in the least,’ said Lewis untruthfully. ‘Are we there?’ For Touaris had stopped before an iron grille: thick black bars had been driven into the rock floor and they stretched up and up until they vanished in the shadowy roof.
‘Yes, we are there. But we cannot get any farther than this, because the gates are locked.’
‘You have no keys?’
‘No.’ Touaris considered briefly whether it might be possible to steal the keys and take Lewis into the inner chamber. No, it would be impossible. She said, ‘There are seven sets of keys which have to be used in strict sequence, and each key is with one of the elders. Kaspar holds the first.’
‘He would,’ said Lewis drily.
Touaris grinned and said, ‘If we go right up to the gates and set your torch down and light several more candles, I think we shall see very well indeed.’
As they lit the candles, Lewis felt his heart pounding with anticipation. In a moment I shall see it: I shall see the legend-drenched Stone Tablets of the ancient fable. Forged by the devil in furious response to God’s bequest of the Ten Commandments to Moses, cast down to earth countless centuries ago – carried forth from the darkness of hell’s nether-world . . .? Do I believe that? No, of course I don’t. But I think I believe the rest of it: how they were originally in the possession of the pharaohs, and how they were stolen by the rebellious worshippers of the divine cat goddess and smuggled into Tashkara.
As he set down the last candle, embedding it in its own small circle of dripping wax, his mind received a vivid glancing impression of a vast exodus: many, many people travelling slowly across arid deserts under fiercely hot skies – the exiled heretic worshippers of Touaris driven out of Egypt, the jeers and the curses of Amenemhat’s people echoing about their ears.
For ever damned . . . For ever cast out . . .
The cries were so clear that Lewis glanced over his shoulder towards the tunnel, thinking that after all they had been followed. But there was no one and there was nothing, and the silence and the dust were undisturbed. The Decalogue lay in its secret stronghold, exactly as it had lain for centuries.
But it will not for long stay undisturbed, for tonight fifty of our youngest, strongest men will plunder the Pharaoh’s most guarded apartments . . . We shall cheat the High Priests, for when the skies have fallen to their darkest hour, we shall carry the Stones of Vengeance out of Amenemhat’s palace while sleep is upon him and the harlot who denounced us is at his side . . .
For the harlot and the High Priests feared Touaris, and they spied on us . . . And tomorrow, when the sun is at its highest point, they will slay us for practising the Forbidden Religion . . . They will slay us one by one, using the punishment of the Stones, reading aloud the ancient and terrible vengeance to be inflicted on those who defy their laws . . . The only way to save our people and to hand on the true beliefs, is to flee . . .
So we have bribed the guards who stand outside the miserable prison where we are incarcerated, and while Amenemhat’s city sleeps, we shall escape . . . And we shall have our own revenge, for when we go, the Stones of Vengeance will go with us . . .
Lewis gasped and put out a hand to the rock wall to stop himself from falling, and at his side, Touaris said softly, ‘I think you are hearing the echoes, Lewis.’
‘I – am?’ Lewis straightened up. ‘How do you know?’
‘Because I hear them sometimes as well. It is something that happens,’ said Touaris pragmatically. She set down her own candle and indicated the black bars. ‘Now here is what you wished to see,’ she said, and Lewis turned slowly round. A great stillness fell on him and for several moments he could not speak.
Ever since he had come across that tantalisingly brief reference in Patrick’s journal, he had visualised the Decalogue as a beautiful golden thing: each tablet perhaps adorned with symbols and incantations, all of them alive and alight with vibrant thrumming potency. The reality was so different as to strike disappointment through him.
The Stone Tablets were plain circular wedges of thick rough stone, each one about six feet from rim to rim, and some three feet thick. They rested against the far wall in upright positions, and as the torchlight and the flickering flame of Touaris’s candle fell across them, it was almost as if they were huge lidless eyes endlessly staring out of the deep blue shadows.
The carved symbols Lewis had visualised were there, but they were like no symbols he had ever seen and they were not recognisable as any language or any form of writing he had ever encountered. I’m disappointed, he thought. Is this all they are?
But as he stared at the massive Stones, the disappointment began to fade and an immense awe took hold of his mind.
The Stones were plain; they were very nearly ugly. They’re like giants’ chariot wheels, thought Lewis. But they’re the most breathtaking things I have ever seen. Ogres’ millwheels . . . Sent spinning through the cold wastes of time until they came to rest in a mystical kingdom. . . I was wrong to be disappointed: they’re awe-inspiring and soul-subduing. They’re awe-ful in the real sense of the word.
The engraved symbols must be so immeasurably old that their origins would be buried in the world’s genesis. It would be impossible to decipher them, and it would be absurd even to try. But I wonder if I can possibly copy them? he thought.
He had reached this point in his thoughts when Touaris came to stand by him, and said in a voice like melted honey, ‘And now, Lewis, don’t you think I deserve a small reward for having brought you down here?’
Touaris had been growing more interested in the English traveller, and as they opened the trap door, the thought had just nudged her mind that it would be the most amazing experience ever to seduce him actually in the Decalogue Chamber itself. Delighted shock rose up at once because the Decalogue was the most absolutely sacred thing of all; Kaspar and the boring old elders spoke of it with hushed reverence.
The trouble was that once a thought had entered your mind you could not unthink it. You could banish it – she did try to banish it – but you could not pretend it had not been there. That being so, it would not hurt at least just to take a look at the idea. Touaris took a look and found it hugely alluring and probably the most original experience she would ever have.
It would not really be so very dangerous. No one ever came here, and even if anyone did skulk down the stair, there would be plenty of warning, because nobody could descend to the Decalogue Chamber – even skulkingly – without making some noise. And if Kaspar and the elders came they would huffily stomp their way down, and there would be plenty of time to uncouple and scramble into clothes, although it would be a pity if the uncoupling had to happen precipitately.
They had lowered the trap door in the Death Temple before they began to descend the stair, which made it even safer. It made it seem as if they were shut away together. A delicious spiral of anticipation began to uncoil, and when she said to Lewis, ‘Don’t you think I deserve a small reward,’ her voice was so laden with purring promise that there was absolutely no mistaking her intention.
Lewis did not mistake it. He had been aware, since approximately ten minutes after their meeting in the Death Temple that this was a lady hellbent on seduction, and it had not been a question of whether he wanted to respond, but of how safe responding would be. I’m about to screw a sacred goddess, he thought, in fascinated amusement. Am I? God, yes, I think I am.
When Touaris issued her velvet-voiced suggestion, he did not hesitate. He pulled her into his arms and brought his mouth down on hers.
What surprised Touaris was the soaring sweetness and the strong gentle authority in Lewis Chance’s love-making. What had been intended as a quick adventure – well, all right, a quick adventure in a forbidden place! – started to unfurl into something much deeper and much closer and something that fastened about her mind and fired it to violent longing at the same time that it was firing her body.
She had thought she knew quite a bit about making love – not everything, but quite a bit. But this was nothing like those snatched lusts on the mountainside, this was worlds and years away from all of the brief tomorrow-forgotten encounters. This was real and solid and warm. The thought: how on earth am I ever going to want anyone else after this? slid treacherously into her mind.
Lewis’s hands moved over her, leaving tiny trickles of scorching desire everywhere they touched, and Touaris arched her back in purest delight. There was no undressing – no time! she thought, tumbling deeper and deeper into the dizzying delight – but there was sudden surprised gratitude because this one did not fumble: there were no awkward gropings and fingerings, and no laboured chancy culmination as there had sometimes been on dark mountainsides, or standing up against the city walls. Touaris had more than once found herself on the receiving end of premature ejaculation – which was complimentary but messy – or incomplete arousal – which was insulting. And both were embarrassing.
Lewis succumbed to neither of these insulting or messy embarrassments. When she reached down to enclose him with her hand he gave a deep groan of longing that sent white-hot desire slicing through her. But although he was more strongly aroused than she had ever known any man to be he was unexpectedly gentle, and as his hands caressed her breasts and moved between her thighs Touaris thought that she might easily faint from longing.
The gentleness vanished when he thrust into her and she caught his passion at once: a sweeping joy closing about them in the candlelit cavern. Touaris pulled his head down, kissing his mouth – oh yes, sweet! – and felt his hands cup her face as if he wanted to drink her all in, and as if he wanted to learn her and absorb her through the pores of his skin so that he would never forget her.
There was an explosion of emotion and delight, unlooked for, astonishing; he tightened his hold and she knew he had shared it. In the dying candle flame she saw his eyes darken as if he had found something he had been searching for over many years, and he pulled her against him, clinging to her with painful intensity.
As if he would never let her go.
Chapter Twenty-five
The pounding of feet overhead jerked them both abruptly out of a drowsy half-sleep, and the sudden opening of the trap door rasped against senses still drifting in a hazy half-world between sleep and awareness.
Lewis sprang up at once, dragging at his clothes, but Touaris was still dazed and half-bewitched and she was slower. She stood up, the pale lidless eyes of the Decalogue behind her, the black bars of the cage framing her body. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were slumberous and her hair was tumbled, and even at such a moment, with most of his attention focused on the people plunging down the stair, Lewis had time to register how blazingly beautiful she looked. Incandescent. Don’t think about it now. Concentrate on what’s about to happen.
When Kaspar and six of his people entered the cavern, Touaris was still pulling ineffectually at her gown, but even without that Lewis thought there could be absolutely no doubt about what had taken place between them.
There on the floor, in the dust of God-knows how many centuries, and in the shadow of something ancient and implacable and vaguely menacing . . . I’ve screwed these people’s divine goddess, he thought, and then in the same instant, but that wasn’t screwing, that was making love. Whatever name it’s given, I think there’s about to be a reckoning.
Kaspar regarded Touaris for a long moment, but when he finally spoke to her, he spoke in what Lewis assumed to be their own tongue. The words and the cadences bore no resemblance to any language he had ever heard, but the cold contempt in Kaspar’s voice did not need interpretation.
Touaris heard Kaspar out with sudden regal courtesy, and then looked across at Lewis. He saw at once that the imperiousness was a perilously thin veneer, and that behind her eyes was a very deep fear. ‘Kaspar says we have defiled the Sacred Place of my ancestors,’ she said.
‘How predictable of him.’ Lewis managed to inject a note of cold arrogance into his tone. ‘Well, so what?’ he said.
Kaspar looked at him with angry dislike. ‘You have offended on three counts, Mr Chance,’ he said. ‘You have intruded into the forbidden city of Tashkara, which means you have committed the offence we call overlooking. That we might have forgiven, but you have also committed an offence that has only once before been known here.’
He paused, and Lewis, dredging up every ounce of courage he possessed, said coolly, ‘How annoying that I wasn’t the first. What is the offence?’
‘The defilement of the goddess,’ said Kaspar, and his eyes narrowed with glittering hatred. ‘And for that you will receive one of the most extreme of all our punishments.’
Lewis leaned back against the wall and folded his arms. ‘Do go on,’ he said. ‘You have such interesting customs here, although on second thoughts, archaic might be a better description. You referred to three offences: what’s the third?’
‘Blasphemy,’ said Kaspar. ‘The deceit you practised in the stone palace.’
‘The Traveller from the West,’ said Lewis, regarding Kaspar with cynical amusement. ‘The prophecy of the one who would save Tashkara from a great catastrophe. I thought it was rather good, myself, and I certainly wouldn’t have used the word blasphemy. But perhaps you don’t see it from the same viewpoint. You weren’t really naïve enough to believe it, were you? Ah, I see you were. How astonishing.’
Kaspar said, ‘For blasphemy there is also a punishment.’
Lewis regarded him thoughtfully. ‘You know, one of your weaknesses, Kaspar, is your complete absence of any sense of humour,’ he said. ‘Still, I expect you’ve got any number of barbaric punishments lined up for intruders and blasphemers and – what was the other one? – oh yes, defilers. Don’t let me interrupt you.’ And now shut up, said his mind. Don’t taunt the creature further by suggesting half a dozen possible tortures, because you’ll end up hoist with your own petard! It would be Kaspar’s idea of a very neat vengeance to use your own ideas against you.
Kaspar turned to the men standing with him and there was a brief consultation in the Tashkaran language. Lewis watched Touaris’s expression, trying to guess at what was being said from her reactions, but could not. She was pale and her eyes were huge dark circles in her little white face, but she was composed.
; Then Kaspar nodded, as if confirming some agreement, and turned back to Lewis. ‘You will be imprisoned here for one month,’ he said. ‘At the end of that time, you will be brought to the Hall of Judgement at the centre of the city, where you will be tried and sentenced.’ His eyes flickered to the silent stones, and Lewis felt fear crawl across his skin. Ten punishments for ten offences. And every one of them certainly terrible. I wish I’d been able to decipher the hieroglyphs on the Tablets. No I don’t, I’d rather not know. Does Touaris know? Yes, of course she does. He looked at her again, and saw that she appeared to be listening to the interchange with detached interest. He was suddenly immensely grateful to her for maintaining the cool arrogance; he wondered if any of the liberated Chelsea females he knew would have behaved so well or whether they would have crumpled into hysterics by now.
He said, ‘Why the delay? Or is that another part of the punishment?’ and for the first time Kaspar smiled.
‘Now you are the one who is being naïve,’ he said. ‘And for an English traveller and a gentleman of the liberated 1970s that is as astonishing to me as my belief in prophecies was to you.’ He paused, and Lewis thought: get on with it, you bastard!
‘There is surely,’ said Kaspar, ‘the possibility that a child has been conceived.’ He paused and as Lewis stared at him, he said softly, ‘Well, Mr Chance? I am right?’
Lewis, his mind in tumult, thought, what the hell do I say? Could he be right? Yes, of course he could, you fool, you forgot about all the restraints or, if you’re honest, by the time you reached that point you didn’t want to remember them. And you certainly didn’t come down here with your wallet stuffed with contraceptives! My God, if it has happened I’ll have turned their odd remote world upside down, and they’ll probably rend me limb from limb! But I’ll be bloody unlucky if it’s happened on a one-off! he thought. And then, with a small secret spiral of delight – yes, but what a one-off it was!
