The slaves behind him sobbed or gasped. Asharti and Fedeyah had gone perfectly still. “The Temple of Waiting,” Asharti whispered, her anticipation palpable. “I triumph or die here.”
“Goddess,” Fedeyah muttered, staring at the blackness through the doorway. “You need not take this risk. What more do you need? You are so far above mere mortals you may do what you will.” His voice was bold with his fear for her.
She turned toward Fedeyah slowly and her eyes glowed, not with red but with a single-minded avarice. “Humans do not matter, except as they slake my thirst, acolyte. It is our kind who must be brought to heel.” Her voice rose, a violation of the silent temple looming before them, thrown back by the stone walls of the ravine. “They have exiled me? Their souls are small for all their age. Rubius, Sincai, Khalenberg, even Beatrix Lisse—they dare to question how I live? They have been no better than I. I like killing. I like making others do my will. Why should I have to rule in secret, behind some puny human man without the will, without any of the knowledge, I have? Napoléon was the last straw.” Her voice was running faster now. Ian could hardly follow her Arabic. “They said I endangered their society—that humans would hunt them if I was not more discreet. What does that matter, Fedeyah? Are we not more powerful by a hundred times than mere humans? Let the battle rage! I will own this world and humans will be the cattle they were meant to be.” She ran out of breath and stood, looking up at the man who loved her in spite of what she was.
Slowly she turned her head to the open doorway. “Fools! They exiled me to the one place where I can acquire the strength to best them all. They will regret their treachery.” This last was hissed almost under her breath.
Fedeyah bowed his head. Ian knew he would never challenge Asharti. Not only because he loved her but also because he had not her force of soul. Asharti would not have allowed him to serve her if his spirit was as great as hers. Fedeyah probably knew that.
Asharti stalked toward the massive stone facade, jerking Ian up to lurch behind her. “Bring the slaves.” Ian did not want to go through that door. The feeling grew more pronounced with every step. But up the shallow stairs he stumbled. The feel of something so strange it could not be named seeped out from that pitch-black maw. Behind him, Fedeyah mustered the keepers and slaves. It would take red eyes to compel them into this unknown.
At the edge of the portal, Asharti paused and scraped one of her long nails against a flint. A fountain of sparks caught the wick of her lamp. The smell of burning oil mixed with the smell of Asharti’s perfume, magnified, wafted from the dark temple. The scent got into Ian’s brain along with the pain and exhaustion and muddled his thoughts.
As they passed the threshold, the lamp cast incredible shadows onto a chamber of great height. Two immense statues with ibis heads and dog bodies still covered with flakes of their gilt and lapis lazuli crust framed another doorway. Beyond, the floor could be seen to ramp distinctly downward. The slaves and keepers were absolutely silent in the face of those impressive guardians. These statues had watched for untold years. The lamps cast a multiplicity of cross-shadows that danced across the stone figures and were swallowed in the doorway.
Asharti turned, with an enigmatic smile. “Can you feel him?”
Ian stared at her in stupefaction. What did she mean? Then he felt it, a slight throb, as though the stone of the temple lived. He had mistaken it for his own body protesting against the cuts on his swollen feet. A murmur went up from the slaves. But what did she mean, “him”?
Asharti darted forward between the two great guardians and into the downward passage. Ian stumbled after her. The smell of dust and time was overcome by that of cinnamon and ambergris as they descended. The scent wasn’t quite Asharti’s. There was a burnt smell to the cinnamon as well. The slaves shuffled behind them, driven forward by the whips. The walls revealed by their lamps were covered with strange symbols. Some bore a resemblance to the strange figured writing of Egypt. He thought he recognized some Arabic symbols as well, but they flicked past too quickly to be sure.
Downward and ever down, with no branching corridors and no possibility of hiding, all the while the smell and the slow throb in the stone became more pronounced. Asharti never hesitated. Ian could feel that her emotions were strung bow-tight. At last the corridor leveled off and opened again into a larger room filled with the sound of water flowing. In the center, a green pool was lined with ornate blue and gold tiles. Out of the fountain rose a spiral column, tapered at the tip, which pulsed with dim light in a dozen colors in time to the throb in the stone. Asharti stopped, Ian just behind her. Her lamp played upon the pillar. It was covered in a million facets, winking through the water that cascaded down its sides.
Dully, Ian realized he was seeing an untold fortune in jewels twisted into some coherent heap that seemed to live. The green were emeralds as big as your thumb; the red were rubies; the blue, sapphires. The diamonds were so brilliant they cast erratic stars over the walls and ceiling when the lamplight struck them through the trickling water. The light reflected on the pool and Ian could see that jewels had showered into the water and lay winking beneath the surface. The drivers darted forward, laughing, the harsh echoes of their triumph a sin against the weight of silent stone above. They did not seem to mind the fact that the pillar was pulsing in some silent song of light beyond human comprehension. They capered about the fountain as they plucked blood-red rubies and winking great emeralds from the pool.
Fedeyah glanced around him, fearful. Ian felt the throb beneath his feet grow more pronounced. The water in the pool shuddered. Something was waking here. Or perhaps the temple itself was waking in reaction to this sacrilege.
Asharti barked, “Enough. The scintillation of those stones will drive you mad.”
“But, Excellent One,” a camel driver laughed, “we have found the treasure!”
Asharti smiled. “Do not look too long into their facets. There is greater treasure yet.”
“Greater? What could be greater?” they murmured. “Allah be praised.”
“We will come back through this chamber and you may take whatever you can carry.” Ian could feel that she was lying or telling some half truth. But the drivers could not.
“Let us be after the greater treasure!” one exclaimed, and it was only with difficulty that they let Asharti lead the way, Ian in her wake. They hurried their frightened slaves along.
Down again through the mountain of stone they went. Its weight was suffocating. The air, suffused with burnt cinnamon, was cooler now, so that he shivered, whether from the cold or from the sense of impending evil, he could not tell.
Then the passage came to an abrupt end, the way ahead blocked by a blank stone wall, broken only by a square stone bearing undecipherable carved figures. The slave drivers wailed their disappointment. The tablet was lit in a green glow by two massive emeralds in niches on either side. Asharti raised her lamp, examining the writing. She exchanged glances with Fedeyah. Then her delicate long-nailed hands darted over the surface of the lettering, touching what looked like random symbols. One she could not reach easily. She stretched up to push the symbol with her right hand, pulling Ian’s rope leash tight around his lacerated neck.
Asharti touched one final symbol and stood back. The wall of stone swung open.
A black, whirling abyss loomed beyond. The throb grew insistent enough to echo in Ian’s chest, like a heartbeat answering his own. Something so unknown as to be evil whirled there, and behind the blackness was the thing that throbbed. A slave behind him shrieked: a wail that rose up the scale and then descended into insane sobs. Ian glanced back to see a tight mass of heaving human flesh.
Asharti passed through the doorway and into darkness as if she pressed through some invisible curtain, dragging Ian with her. He dreaded pushing through that barrier as he had never dreaded anything in his life. Something almost alive, half whirring air, half viscous liquid, bulged around him as she pulled him through. He popped into still air beyond and
darkness their lamps did not penetrate. Ian trembled in the close, old air. The audible throbbing pervaded all, and heavy scent hung in the silent blackness. Ian could feel Asharti’s electric energy, attuned to what he did not know. Behind him, the other slaves popped through, sobbing and wailing, a violation of the ancient stillness. Fedeyah came through last, herding the others ahead of him.
Independent of their lamps, the ambient light in the chamber slowly rose, blue from a thousand glowing sapphires. It was not the large chamber he expected. Nor was it dusty. In the slowly growing light he saw rich carpets and vibrant wall hangings stitched with scenes of figures not quite men hunting a large beast like an elephant, only with long hair and tusks that curved in giant swirls. The figure they saw hunched in a throne chair at the far end of the room, perhaps ten feet tall, wasn’t human, either.
Ian gasped even as he heard the general intake of breath around him.
The being in front of him was rail-thin and too tall: seven feet, or eight. It was dressed in a close-fitting black garment. Man or woman, it was hard to tell. Its head was bent, its hands laid along the arms of the great throne. But what hands! The fingers were thin, each joint standing out clear, dead white and too long, with no sign of nails. At first, all he could see of the figure itself was that it was bald. Its pate was shining white, as though no hair had ever been. Slowly, it raised its head. Ian felt the stone walls recede as his stomach dropped. The unhuman nature of its countenance washed over him. The eyes were large and oval, dead black as human eyes can never be. The nose was so small as to be almost invisible, the mouth a mere slit, the chin pointed, all under a dome of forehead that dwarfed the other features.
Behind him, he heard some kind of scuffle. He tore his stare from the figure and glanced behind him. One of the slaves had broken away and tried to dash back through the doorway. He bounced back as though there were a thick oak door across the portal, though Ian could see the passage beyond the blackness. Several slaves whimpered. Someone had closed the door.
Ian turned back toward the being. Asharti stepped forward to stand in front of it. Ian prayed she wouldn’t take him with her, but she had firm hold of the rope and he staggered forward against his will. The revulsion he suddenly felt for the throbbing and the overwhelming aroma of the place made his stomach rebel.
“Ancient One,” Asharti said in a voice that banged against the walls and was returned. “I have sought you for years.” She spoke in Arabic.
The being said nothing. Its flat black eyes surveyed the intruders as from a great distance, slowly moving from one side of the room to the other.
Asharti waited, then repeated her address in French. Still the not-human did not respond. The great almond eyes came back to rest on her.
“You . . . have . . . the . . . bloooooood compaaaaanion,” it said, so slowly it was difficult to understand it. It spoke Latin.
“Yes,” Asharti said, relieved, in Latin. “I have the blood companion.”
“From . . . my . . . fountain?” Ian strained to piece together the sense of that immensely slow and sonorous voice.
“Yes. The fountain we call The Source. In the Carpathian Mountains.”
It blinked once and its head moved from side to side very slowly. “Why . . . do you . . . torture . . . me . . . with blood?”
“I have brought a gift of blood to He Who Waits.”
The tiny nostrils flared. The narrow chest sucked in breath. “Bloooood.” The voice sped up a trifle. “So looong since I had blood . . .”
Asharti motioned to Fedeyah. “Bring a slave.”
Fedeyah took the nearest slave in an iron grip and dragged him forward, struggling.
“I want no blood,” the being said without conviction. His eyes were fixed on the slave.
“Open him,” Asharti hissed.
Fedeyah drew a pointed fingernail across the slave’s carotid artery. A spurt of blood spattered the Arab’s face. The Ancient One’s gaze fixed itself on the gushing wound. The black eyes went burgundy red. Fedeyah brought the spurting, grunting slave forward, pushed the wailing man down, and then backed away to stand beside Asharti.
The Ancient One’s burgundy gaze shone down upon the slave, who crawled, bleeding, to his feet. With infinite slowness, the right, impossibly attenuated hand left the arm of the throne and drew the whimpering slave up by his neck, nearer to the tiny slit of a mouth.
Ian watched in horror. Without warning, the Old One’s mouth opened to reveal fanged canines, like Asharti’s, only sharper, longer needles, like a cat’s. The creature broke the slave’s neck and held the artery in his throat to that tiny mouth. Three immense sucking sounds and an animal growl, and the slave was dry, his flesh collapsing around bones and muscle.
The Ancient One tossed the body into the corner of the room and raised his eyes to Asharti. Ian shuddered. Several slaves screamed. The eyes had come alive. They flickered with an animation not there before the blood. They were old, impossibly old. They had known places and experiences no human ever had. Was this evil? Surely, if ever evil there was. The Ancient One raised his hand and beckoned with a long bony finger. Fedeyah brought another slave. This time the Ancient One did not wait for Fedeyah to open the carotid but took the screaming slave, buried fangs in his throat, and sucked. It was over in seconds.
Ian found himself trembling. The thrumming in the stone at their feet had grown more rapid. The finger beckoned. Again Fedeyah grabbed a slave and offered him. Again the man was slashed and drained. Ian could practically feel those needle teeth in his own throat, sharper than Asharti’s, death quicker. He had longed for death, and this was certainly quick. Yet he wanted nothing more than to escape this den of horror. He stared wildly around, knowing the entrance had been sealed behind them. Slaves clung to one another, their wails echoing around the chamber. The throbbing in the stone floor notched up another point.
Then the slaves went silent. The Ancient One had fixed them with his glowing red-black eyes. He turned to Asharti. “Why do you come here, with this blood?” The voice was nearly normally paced, though it was much too sonorous to issue from such a narrow chest.
“A gift,” Asharti said, “for one who has waited a long time for his kind to return and take him to his homeland.” She, too, trembled.
“I can take this blood without your consent.” The voice was devoid of emotion.
“And you can kill me. But then who will bring you more?” Asharti was using all her power just to answer those glowing, inhuman eyes. Some little part of Ian reveled in the fact that she had to fight to keep her will her own.
“You cannot leave this place,” Asharti gasped, her breasts heaving. “What if you were not here when your fellows returned?”
The Ancient One considered this from whatever remote place he dwelt.
“But I will bring you blood to sate your Companion,” Asharti promised.
“What do you want in return?” The red-black eyes flared, and the Ancient One waited.
“I want your blood,” Asharti said, under the influence of those eyes. “I will supply you with an endless stream of offerings, if you will but give me a drop of yours.”
The eyes examined Asharti. “You over-reach.”
“A single gulp each time I bring you blood to slake the thirst of deprivation.”
Again no expression crossed the strange face, no emotion.
“As a mark of my intentions I bring you these score of slaves, full of blood, and I bring my own favorite, in return for your blood tonight.” Asharti gestured to Ian.
The eyes wandered over Ian’s body and came to rest on his face. Ian felt cold strike to his marrow. The gaze moved on, dismissing.
“Bring them. I will consider.”
The keepers brought the slaves up one by one, and one by one they were drained and cast aside. The horror went on and on, slaves shrieking, the Old One growling as he sucked at them. The throbbing in Ian’s chest had not so much disappeared as it had been transformed into a vibration just at the edges
of his comprehension. It became a hum of energy, instead of the slow throb of a heartbeat. It was a more pronounced version of the vibrating energy that surrounded Asharti and, in lesser form, Fedeyah.
At the last there were only the two keepers, Fedeyah, Asharti, and Ian.
“I am still thirsty,” the Old One rumbled. “Such a long fast.” He looked at the keepers. Asharti shrugged. The keepers walked forward, under the compulsion of the Old One’s eyes, and soon they were cast, drained, upon the heap. That left three.
“Now, Ancient One, for my share,” Asharti whispered. “A drop of your blood, and I give you my favorite. I have starved myself that he might please you. His will is strong. His abasement to you will be satisfying. Drain him now, or keep him to sip at your leisure. In a month’s time, I will bring you another score of spurting veins, and you will grant me your blood again.”
The small head cocked. “You are more ambitious than others of this world.”
Asharti nodded, unapologetic.
The Old One contemplated. “Who knows what is good? Perhaps it was written thus. I have drunk. I will need more.” Then he used one of his needle canines to open his forefinger. He held it down and beckoned to Asharti. She knelt at his feet and opened her mouth. A single drop oozed from his finger. She focused on it with such a single purpose, time seemed to stop.
The drop fell. She caught it eagerly, swallowed. “More,” she breathed.
“One drop is enough. Unless you relish pain, or even death.”
“Very well.” She wore a triumphant expression. “A bargain. You will not be sorry.”
“Already I grieve.”
“Slave!” Asharti jerked Ian’s rope, her eyes glowing. “Kneel and offer yourself. This one’s will is very strong, Ancient One. Consider enjoying him slowly for maximum satisfaction.”
Ian walked forward under the compulsion of her eyes, all thought of escape gone. He knelt. He could not help himself but stared up at the inhuman countenance. The creature’s gaze bored through him, as flat black as the garment the Old One wore. Yet something sparked behind those ancient eyes. Were they really so emotionless? Ian saw regret swimming in them; loss, yearning. The Old One had been separated from his kind for centuries, millennia even. Could he yet hope? Almost, no, and yet he waited. . . . He exuded the same breath of despair that had dogged Ian’s steps across the desert. How did one hope when it was folly to continue and hope should long since have vanished? One hand snaked out to cup the nape of Ian’s neck. Ian could feel the compulsion to tilt his head back and bare his throat, and yet he held the Old One’s gaze for another moment, a final act of rebellion against inevitability.
Susan Squires - [Companion Vampires 0] Page 18
