Heart of the Gods

by Valerie Douglas

Kamenwati could not get the Heart. Nor could the Djinn.

  If he did…if they did.

  Raissa closed her eyes, pain pierced her. And grief.

  She turned to look at Ky, traced his strong handsome features with her gaze. There was a good chance she might not see them again, might not know him again.

  There was really no choice.

  She thought of Ryan, of Komi, Tareq above. Abasi’s men around them.

  Turning to Ky, she said, evenly, steadily, “Shoot the Heart, Ky… Whatever else, Kamenwati mustn’t get it. Or the Djinn.”

  It was part of the Key to opening the Tomb once again. He would figure it out if he thought about it. She knew that.

  Ky looked at her…at Raissa.

  The Heart, its rapid beat casting a lurid glare over the walls, throbbed, a match for his own.

  Her blue eyes were so clear, level on his…so sure. There was a deep and abiding grief in them, though, a sorrow too deep for words, for speech.

  Suddenly he knew, he knew for certain what the Heart was. He could see it in his Raissa’s eyes.

  And if he did? If he shot it? Would she die if he did as she asked?

  Her lovely blue eyes looked back at him evenly, steadily.

  Even she didn’t know but she was afraid.

  Ky did know one thing. All hope of an afterlife for her would be gone… If you believed in such things as she did, as her people had, then there would be no journey for her…no life after this one. She would never see Khai again…or be reunited with any of those she’d loved then…Banafrit...Kahotep…her friends in that past life. The life she’d known. He’d heard the fondness in her voice when she spoke of them.

  This time she might die, be gone forever.

  Raissa saw it, the knowledge of it in his eyes and her heart broke even as it swelled with love for him.

  Below the light that coursed from the Heart grew more brilliant, pulsed faster, more strongly…

  Raissa looked into his dark eyes, into the face she loved so well.

  She tilted her head and smiled.

  Her blue eyes, too bright, were fixed on his.

  “I don’t want to go there without you,” Raissa said. “In the end, though, it doesn’t matter. You have to do it or I’ll never truly be free…”

  His dream come true, to set the priestess free…but not this way…never this way. It was too cruel for both of them.

  “And if you die?”

  “And if I die?” she asked, softly, to his unasked question. “You will, surely. What is an afterlife without you in it?”

  Ky looked at her and his own heart went still as he saw the truth of her words in her gaze. Reaching out, he touched her smooth cheek.

  She closed her eyes for a moment.

  “It doesn’t matter. It can’t matter. We can’t set them free, loose them on an unprepared world.”

  From behind the iron doors below, a thin, attenuated clawed hand reached, tangled with the clothing of one of the men trying to open the doors, dragged him within.

  He didn’t fit the narrow slit that had been opened but it didn’t matter, screaming, he went anyway. Bones shattered like gunshots, limbs bent as limbs were not meant to as he was dragged inside the Tomb.

  More reached, claws raking…glimmers of faces peered out…man-like and not, the skin little more than tanned flesh, the eyes rolling in hollowed sockets…

  In horror, the man who held the Heart turned…stunned.

  So did Ky.

  It was just the beginning. It was enough.

  As she said, it couldn’t matter.

  Looking into Raissa’s eyes, Ky nodded, bowed his head for just a moment before he set the gun to his shoulder, shifted a little to let it settle, took a breath and let it out slowly, slowly… Sighted down the rifle. Remembered his training.

  The Heart was there, in the center of the scope, the light of it pulsing, beating too fast.

  She was afraid and then the rhythm of it settled, evened, as she let out a sigh.

  As big as a man’s fist, it pulsed redly. It wasn’t even a challenging shot.

  Raissa…

  Closing his eyes for only a moment, Ky gathered his strength.

  He let out the last of his breath and pulled the trigger…

  The bullet struck the Heart cleanly and clearly and the great ruby shattered into a million glittering shards of scarlet light with a sound like a shriek of agony. That sound echoed through the chamber as the light splintered. Rays of it sprayed across the chamber like arterial blood as Raissa echoed its pain, her scream piercing as her knees buckled.

  He caught her as she fell.

  Raissa crumpled into Ky’s arms, the pain shocking. Her knees buckled as agony sent an immense tide of weakness through her.

  “Raissa,” Ky said, his own heart wrenching.

  Involuntarily, he looked down at the Chamber below.

  Kamenwati spun at the sound of her cry as it echoed through the Chamber, looked up to see them there, his face a mask of fury and hate.

  He threw out a hand, chanting.

  Instinctively, Ky curled around Raissa protectively, sheltered her in his arms.

  Something grotesque and horrible splashed impotently against something Ky couldn’t see. The amulet on his chest suddenly went hot as Raissa jerked in his arms, crying out…

  Her eyelids fluttered.

  Below to his horror, unnaturally shaped limbs reached out from the gap between the iron doors, pressed them backwards…forced them open…a little more open. Just enough.

  The first nightmare vision squeezed past.

  It was something like smoke that drifted over the bodies of the dead and dying…and rejoiced to find a host. Others came behind it and fell on the dead to feed. The ghul feasted on dying and dead flesh. Screams tore through the air.

  It was a nightmare and real, far too real.

  One of the men below cried out in revulsion, in horror, and a dozen lambent eyes fixed on him.

  Helplessly, he wept, backing away as they turned to him. On him…

  He turned his gun toward his own head.

  The dying rose…

  Seeing it, the man wailed in disbelief.

  They closed on him, battened on him, drained him dry in seconds as he shrieked, then tossed the empty husk aside.

  Even Hassan’s men shuddered at what emerged from behind the iron doors.

  Ky shook his head in revulsion. His mind tried to find a way to describe what he saw…and couldn’t, truly… It was horror, the stuff of nightmares…

  Where once they’d worn something close to the form of man, these now seemed attenuated, refined to their most basic nature, nearly skeletal. The ghul shifted from man-shape to hyena randomly, uncontrollably. Ky’s eyes, his mind, revolted at what they saw. The sila were smoke, save where they found the dying and then those jerked, shuddering helplessly with the invasion as the sila fed on their dying spirits, and rose to walk again. The marid were blackened, shriveled down to walking towers of coals, ashen, yet still compelling, their eyes avid…

  It was hideous, terrible.

  Ky snatched Raissa around the waist, swept her up in his arms, signaled the men back. He didn’t need to tell them to go quietly. They couldn’t fight what lay below in the narrow confines of the tunnel. Not as they were, not with Raissa down. Nor could they save those below.

  They retreated rapidly up the ramp, turned as they reached the landing where Kamenwati’s sarcophagus had waited when an oddly warm silver glow ahead of them brought them all around from watching their retreat.

  Now what…? was Ky’s only despairing thought.

  A figure, luminous with argent light, stepped out of the tunnel to the outside her shimmering hair like a rippling river of moonlight over her back and shoulders. Her sweet smile was lovely, warm and kind and her kohl-rimmed eyes were as brilliant and blue as a summer sky. Her face was intimately familiar… Two swords were visible behind her shoulders, the leather harness for them crossed her chest, outli
ned her breasts beneath the thin fabric.

  Her smiled brightened as she neared.

  Ky knew her.

  Irisi.

  She was dressed in a simple linen gown, the white fabric falling nearly to her feet…so beautiful, so like Raissa…

  Who turned, looked up…at herself…

  To Raissa’s shock, though, there was more.

  A warm gilded radiance filled the tunnel.

  Argent Irisi turned, her lips parted in wonder…breathlessly…hope in her eyes as another figure approached.

  Khai stepped out of the tunnel, tall, his body powerful. Thick dark hair fell in gleaming waves over his strong shoulders. He wore a nothing but a simple pleated Egyptian kilt. His neatly trimmed beard framed his square jaw and his full mouth, his eyes were dark with gold glimmering in their depths.

  Those eyes searched for Irisi.

  It was impossible for Ky to deny the resemblance, it was like looking into a mirror. As looking into Irisi’s face was like looking at Raissa’s…like and unlike… The same, yet not. Halves of the same whole. Each complete, mirrors of the other.

  Khai’s searching eyes found Irisi.

  She was so beautiful.

  Ky’s breath caught to look at them.

  Silvery tears sparkled on her cheeks as she looked longingly at the man she’d loved for so long.

  Millennia.

  Khai.

  Her deep love was evident in her eyes, in her face, as she ran across the chamber to fling herself into his arms with a silent cry. Her ephemeral arms twined around Khai’s neck, fingers sinking into his hair as she buried her face against his throat. He who had once been Khai pulled her close… held her tightly, his cheek against her hair.

  They all felt emotion surge through them.

  For three thousand years there had been only honor and duty and the memory of him to sustain her. And his to sustain him.

  Joy and sorrow were palpable.

  After so long…

  His Irisi, his life, his love, his heart, but his. Khai’s arms enclosed her…he remembered.

  She’d been alone so long while he’d slept.

  He brushed the hair back from her face with both hands in wonder and joy, and in sorrow for her long time alone.

  Looking up into his beloved face, Irisi could only cup his cheek, brush back his thick dark hair to look into his dark eyes and then his full mouth settled on hers for the first time in millennia.

  The kiss was brief, so brief, as it had to be… As it always was, for them there was no time, never enough time…and the Djinn were free.

  Duty and honor called.

  Even as Irisi was drawn toward Raissa, to her other self, one hand reaching back toward Khai for one last time…their fingers touched…slipped apart…

  It was as it must be…and then they would be together again, different and yet the same.

  All Ky and Hassan’s men could do was watch in astonishment, in awe.

  The shock of the coming together shook them as Raissa and Irisi became one, whole once more.

  Raissa/Irisi looked at Ky, her own beloved Ky, knowing the decision he faced.

  Her heart ached for him.

  Ky

  Who looked at Khai.

  The General. The man who shared his name. The man he’d wanted to grow up to be. A part of him had always wondered if could do him proper honor, if he was good enough to stand before him, beside her.

  The reflection of himself.

  Every man wants to be a hero in his own life. Few had to look that hero in the eye. What happens though when you meet yours?

  Ky looked at the ghost of the man he’d admired for so long. Who was a part of himself in some strange way. It was more than a little odd to look at himself in the flesh…and yet not…

  It wasn’t him, they were different. And they were the same.

  The spirit of his long ago ancestor looked back and smiled with pride, with satisfaction.

  You have nothing to aspire to, I couldn’t be prouder.

  Ky looked at him, and understood. Khai was so much like himself… He was himself, in another time… What he would have been, had been, then, in that time.

  Softly, Raissa said, “Ky, you don’t have to accept him. We’ll manage. You have that right. It is for this the Gods give us free will. But Khai can give you skills you’ll need if you would fight those below.”

  For all his training and skill, even with the strength of her blood in him, swords were far better at killing Djinn than guns and Khai had fought Djinn, killed them.

  Ky didn’t have that.

  Khai did. His bone and muscle memory held that, too.

  If Ky turned him away it was very likely he would die. Forever.

  Raissa couldn’t bear it but she dared not influence his decision, his answer… It had to be his choice…his and his alone.

  Ky looked to the other half of himself.

  Not to anything that had been missing but simply to who he would have been in another time, another place… He understood that now.

  There was nothing to be jealous of, except himself. Because Khai was himself…a reflection, a part of the same soul, complete in and of themselves… Ba and Ka, heart and soul, they were the same, just in different times.

  The one who had been Khai looked at him and nodded… Waited, understanding… He would have fought this battle himself if it were him, unknowing if he were giving up self, his identity.

  In that moment, Ky knew they were nothing more than facets of the same man, their souls the same, shared but complete. He was himself and he was Khai as well and he accepted that.

  Raissa held out a hand to him, to Ky…

  Their hands met and he knew he would be his true self to her, always, she loved him for all his sides. She anchored him there, his flesh and bone.

  She touched the amulet that rested warmly beneath his shirt against his chest. Over his heart.

  Looking up at him, she said, “He left this for you.”

  Ky understood.

  It was enough.

  Ky turned to his doppelganger. He couldn’t survive, nor would she, unless he and Khai became one… He understood that.

  There was a moment when it was Irisi who rose, not Raissa, and Khai that met her. It was their arms that closed around each other, their mouths that met in a kiss. If only for a moment. The last kiss they would ever share as they had been…

  Became the first kiss Ky and Raissa shared, complete…

  Ky looked down at Raissa, brushed her hair back from her face as she looked up at him.

  Everything he needed was in her eyes.

  They could both still die and he knew it, but this, for the moment, was enough.

  Chapter Thirty Five

  With a smile Raissa gestured, conjured up Khai’s sword, scabbard and all, and offered it to him on her outstretched palms, her blue eyes steady on his. He looked at her, sighed and chuckled wryly. Then he nodded and drew the sword from its scabbard, spun the blade around his hand.

  It felt good, natural.

  Raissa looked at him and smiled. “Now you’re just showing off.”

  He smiled, caught her around the waist with his free hand to pull her close.

  Below they heard Kamenwati shout, “The one who imprisoned you awaits you above.”

  Raissa sighed. “Oh, thank you, Kamenwati, for that.”

  They’d run out of time.

  Glancing down toward the Tomb, Ky shook his head and smiled.

  He looked at her.

  She looked back at him steadily, almost wryly.

  “It’s time,” Ky said, “to finish this.”

  She nodded. “Agreed.”

  None of her spells would help them here, fire was useless against fire elementals and the same with wind in such a confined space.

  All that remained to her were her swords as the ancient prophecy had foretold.

  That and the gifts of the Gods. Raissa prayed to them.

  Suddenly a thought occurred. P
erhaps there was a way to end this once and for all after all. She took a breath.

  “Ky…I think I know a way to defeat them. It won’t be easy…”

  There was something in the look in her eyes, the tone of her voice, a breath of hope. It was all he needed.

  He looked at her, smiled. “There’s a surprise. You lead, I’ll follow.”

  A glance at the remainder of Abasi’s men was all it took. Abasi nodded and his people set themselves around them.

  Together Ky and Raissa turned, side by side, Raissa reaching for her swords, drawing them.

  “One of us has to reach the Horn,” she said. “Don’t worry about killing them we just have to get to the Horn.”

  Ky nodded, looked at her and smiled.

  With a howl, the Djinn raced up the ramp from the lower tunnel.

  Not all were concerned with revenge, some simply sought freedom, food, sustenance, ravaging through the chamber. Some simply tried to push past, to escape, to find sustenance, sometimes to the detriment of those who fought.

  One of the Marid went through like a linebacker, bulling his way past the others, practically shoving one of his fellows into Ky’s sword.

  Some of them had quite obviously forgotten what it was to fight altogether.

  Those who had fed, who had regained some sense of themselves, didn’t.

  Ky, Raissa and Abasi’s men met them with a crash of steel as the Djinn howled their fury.

  Although they didn’t have an army around them, this time the Djinn didn’t face just Ky and Raissa but Khai and the Guardian, enhanced by Sekhmet’s gift.

  Hassan’s men fought hard and well, their instincts and skills honed by generations of training and years of experience. These were not simple soldiers untrained in fighting Djinn as had been true with the army of Egypt.

  Nor did Ky’s other training go entirely to waste as he drove one of the marid off with a solid straight side kick to the chest that sent the rabid thing staggering back.

  It was ugly, though, and horrifying. It offended some deep, ancient part of him, his soul shuddered at the thought of the things.

  Watching a ghul shift into something that was neither hyena nor man but some hideous amalgamation of both with crushing jaws and tearing teeth made some part of him recoil in revulsion. To see one of Zimmer’s mercenaries, clearly dead, reanimated by the sila that possessed him, was hideous. Even as attenuated as they were, though, they were shockingly strong.