“There!” Meritaten cried out, pointing. “There he is!”
As the riders neared the spread-eagled body, a jackal standing over Kaibyn howled his anger at their intrusion and raced away, darting damning looks over his shoulders as he ran.
“Did it hurt him?” the youngest woman cried out.
Dakhla spared the girl a spiteful look before answering. “Nothing can hurt him, now, Teti.”
Omahru was the first to reach Kaibyn and he vaulted from his mount, his naked feet digging into the hot sand as he ran. He stopped, squatted down and reached out to touch the unmoving chest of the bound man.
“Well?” Auklet demanded as she shifted uncomfortably in her saddle. “Is he…?” She stopped as the dark man held up a restraining a hand.
Dakhla could feel her heart thudding in her chest as she waited. Beside her, her sister and the other women were gripping their mount’s reins as tightly as they had once held Kaibyn’s body to their own.
With his hand still on Kaibyn’s chest, Omahru turned and looked at his lady. He shook his head slowly.
“No!” Teti sobbed and she let go of her horse’s reins to bury her face in her hands. Without the firm command of its rider, the mare sidestepped away from the man on the ground and flung its head in fear.
“Teti!” Dahkla hissed. “Control yourself and your mount! You knew he would not be alive!”
“Omahru,” Auklet said firmly, drawing her servant’s attention to her. “You know what to do. We dare not be gone long; we will be missed, but we will return when the moon has risen high.”
The Osteran nodded. He went to his knees beside the dead man, took out his knife, slid the blade under the hemp and began to saw at the bond that held Kaibyn’s wrist.
Dahkla took one last look at Kaibyn’s still body. She looked at her mother-in-law and knew the High Priest’s days were numbered, as well. Turning her head, she caught Teti’s glazed eyes and wondered if the girl would have the courage to end her husband’s life. If not, Dahkla mentally shrugged there were others who would gladly spill the captain of the guard’s blood.
The Osteran barely took note of the women as they rode away. He was too busy cutting through the ropes binding the Rysalian’s ankles. When he was finished, he re-sheathed his dagger and cursed the fates that had brought him to this wicked land. Stooping over to run his calloused hands under the dead man’s knees and back, the dark man lifted his burden and stood, cradling Kaibyn’s body against his wide chest. The dark man carried the still one to his horse and draped him over the saddle, mounted behind Kaibyn’s limp body, then turned his horse toward the necropolis beyond the village.
* * * * *
When the moon was high overhead, the sound of approaching footsteps down the carved granite steps of the burial chamber brought Omahru slowly to his feet. He had been sitting by the body, keeping watch as he had been told to do, fearful of being so near the Rysalian demon, but determined to do his mistress’ bidding. He relaxed only when he recognized his mistress and her daughter-in-law.
Auklet studied his black face in the moonlight and smiled. “Were you afraid, Omahru?”
The Osteran firmly shook his head in denial and sniffed, displaying his disdain for such a question.
“We don’t have much time,” Dahkla stressed. “The sleeping potion I gave my husband will not last long.”
“I have no such worry,” Auklet snorted and the younger woman looked quizzically at her.
“Why not?” Dahkla asked.
Auklet’s grin was brutal. “I am a widow, now,” she replied.
Dahkla shook her head in mock sadness. “My condolences, lady.”
“Thank you,” Auklet said. “I shall grieve appropriately at a later date.” She grinned. “If I decide to grieve at all.”
Dahkla reached up to untie a satchel from the saddle of her horse. She carried it over to the place where Omahru had laid Kaibyn’s body and opened it.
“You know the ritual words, do you not?” Auklet asked her daughter-in-law.
“I know what I need to know to see this done,” the younger woman answered without looking up at Auklet.
“He is the most beautiful male I have ever seen,” Auklet sighed as she lowered herself gracefully beside the dead man. She reached out a gentle hand and caressed his cold cheek. “So very, very beautiful.”
“And he will remain so,” Dahkla stated.
For over two hours, the women worked their embalming magic on Kaibyn. Omahru helped them to wrap the corpse and then picked up the linen-encased body and laid it gently in the simple cedar coffin where the Rysalian would spend his next eternity.
“Sleep, my beautiful one,” Auklet sobbed.
Dahkla looked at the tightly wrapped body lying in front of her. Her guilt was a cruel master and it rode her mercilessly. She dared not tell Auklet what she knew. The old woman would interfere as surely as the Nile flowed with teeming life. Nothing would be gained and, considering the possible consequences, all would be lost should Auklet and the others ever find out.
“You should return to the palace, lady,” Dahkla said, looking up at the older woman. “I can finish here.”
“But you will need Omahru to help you close the lid of the coffin,” Auklet protested. She motioned her slave to do just that.
“No,” Dahkla insisted, putting out a hand to stop the Osteran. “That is no hard chore.”
“But you might get lost down here,” Auklet said, flinging an arm around the tomb in which they stood. “At least let Omahru stay to show you the way out, to re-seal the entry of the burial chamber.”
“I know the passageways, lady,” Dahkla replied. “I can re-seal the hidden entry with no trouble.”
“But, Dahkla…” Auklet began to protest, but the younger woman held up a hand.
“As his First, I, alone, must be the one to see him into the Dark World. I need to be alone with him for a moment, to bid him goodbye.”
Auklet hesitated, chewing on her lip. While it was true her daughter-in-law had been Kaibyn’s primary partner, there were others who had loved him. Others who had thought of the Rysalian as the ancient love-god instead of the demon he was.
“I can well understand your feelings of responsibility, but you should not be out here alone,” Auklet reminded the younger woman. “At least let Omahru stay until you have buried our beloved one.”
Dahkla shook her head. “What must be done must be done by my hand and my hand alone. What must be done now must not be witnessed by none other than the First.”
Auklet opened her mouth to protest once more, but Omahru gently placed his large hand around his mistress’ upper arm, gaining her immediate attention. When the older woman looked up into the midnight-black orbs of her slave, she could see his agreement with Dahkla. After a long moment of staring at the Rysalian, Auklet sighed heavily.
“All right, but I am not pleased,” she stated.
“I will not be long,” Dahkla promised.
Auklet sighed again then allowed her slave to lead her to the steps. She looked around her and there was a hitch in her voice as she spoke. “He will rest in such a lonely place.”
“We will know where he is,” Dahkla answered. “No one would look for him here.”
The oil lamp that Omahru held flickered with the wash of an unseen wind, casting Dahkla’s face and her mother-in-law’s keen eye into deep shadow. And it was a good thing that happened for the old harpy would have seen the terrible guilt in Dahkla’s face and all would have been lost.
“They must never find his body,” Auklet insisted as she turned away.
“They will not,” Dahkla swore.
A final sigh of hopelessness came from the Lady Auklet as she moved out of sight up the serpentine steps.
Dahkla hung her head.
“Forgive me, my beloved,” she whispered, placing her hand lightly on Kaibyn’s bound chest. Instantly, she jerked her hand back with a gasp and began to tremble violently.
Beneath the still
ness of that wide chest, there was once more a faint flutter of life, growing stronger with each shift of dark wind flowing over the demon’s body from the opened doorway. Had he been left to the night, to the high-riding moon and sweet desert winds, he would have risen on his own and come back to them. Nothing could have stopped him. That was the way of his kind for Kaibyn Zafeyr was a Nightwind, an ancient demon brought up from the muck of the Abyss to serve the Ones who had called him. A lonely woman’s tears, her desperation had brought him forth and it would be to her and her kin—for generations to come—to whom he would be bound by a blood oath neither could ever break. Had she allowed him free reign he would have grown harder and harder to control.
And that could not be allowed to happen.
A soft intake of breath came from the tightly bound head of the mummy and Dahkla panicked.
“No,” she hissed. “I will not permit it!”
Quickly, she grasped the lid of the coffin and slammed it shut, cutting off the increasing rhythm of breaths coming from the mummy.
“Shut out the Light, still the Wind,” she muttered the incantation as she sealed the lid of the coffin with special oil.
There was movement inside the coffin—a shifting and a faint cry, but Dahkla ignored it. She whispered her chant and smeared oil all around the edges of the cedar coffin.
Dahkla, she heard and flung her hands up to cover her ears. Dahkla, do not do this!
Lifting her own lantern from the ledge on which it sat, she held it high and hurried to the steps.
Dahkla, please!
Dahkla knew the voice was in her head, but it began to fade as she wound her way up out of the burial tomb. When she had re-sealed the doorway into the hidden chamber, she rushed outside, tripped and fell to the sand, scraping her knees.
Please, do not leave me here, she heard one final whimper of great sadness invade her mind.
“Be still, demon!” she hissed, swiping angrily at the tears which cascaded down her pale cheeks. “I will not listen to your deceitful voice again!”
Scrambling to her feet, the young woman ran for her horse, stumbling twice in her haste to flee this place of betrayal and going down to her knees in the sand.
Dahkla! You will regret this!
She reached her horse and pulled herself up into the saddle. Like the mad woman she had become, she spurred her horse and raced back to Marrupa.
Even later, as she lay beside her hated husband in the safety of the king’s palace, she could hear the feeble cry of her name that was fading with the coming of dawn.
Dahkla turned her face into her pillow and wept hysterically. When her husband woke and pulled her into his arms, she shuddered against him.
“What is it, sister?” he asked, smoothing the hair back from her damp forehead. “What troubles you so? A nightmare?”
How could she tell her husband that she had buried a man alive this night? How to tell him that she was one of the women the Rysalian demon had seduced? That it had been she who had enticed him to pleasure her and her alone? That the demon had felt the loneliness of the others and had given of himself to them, thus garnering Dakhla’s jealousy and revenge? Or that it had been she, not the queen, who had betrayed him to the king’s men?
She could not, Dahkla reminded herself. To do so would surely bring about her ruin.
“It was just a nightmare,” Ahkmed declared and patted his wife clumsily on her back. “A nightmare that is over now.”
Perhaps, Dahkla told herself. As long as Kaibyn’s body lay deep in his borrowed burial chamber and was never discovered by his Bloodkin.
Chapter Five
Jabali armed the sweat from his brow, squinted against the heat of the noonday sun and wondered if the day could get any hotter. He sighed as he took a water skin Tashobi extended toward him. “You are a fine assistant, ‘Shobi,” he said. “You anticipate what I need before I need it.”
Tashobi inclined his head. “It is my privilege to serve you, Master.” He looked about them. “There are many graves here. Do you know into which one they have hidden Lord Kaibyn?”
“There,” Jabali said, nudging his dripping chin toward an entranceway a few yards to their right. “He is aware. If you listen closely, you will hear his anger.”
Closing his eyes, the apprentice allowed his mind to venture into the necropolis until the faint words of he whom they sought could be heard cursing the women who had betrayed him.
“He is, indeed, very angry,” Tashobi commented.
“And rightfully so,” Jabali said.
“As angry as the Akkadian was.”
“True, but where one will demand the lives of his enemies, the other will want them to live to regret their foul deed,” Jabali replied, handing the water skin to the younger man. “Yet, we need them both for what must be done.”
Knowing it would do him no good to question the mysterious statement, Tashobi slung the water skin over the pommel of his saddle. “Should I wait here, Master?”
“Aye,” Jabali said tiredly. “I will free him from his burial place and bring him into the light.”
A ripple of fear went through Tashobi. “Will he be frightening to look upon?”
The young man’s teacher chuckled. “No, lad. He will be just as he appeared in life.”
Tashobi shrugged away his unease. He watched his Master walk slowly, painfully toward the entrance to the necropolis. He knew the old man would need a massage before turning in that night for the bones of a man in his tenth decade often pained him.
“Keep close watch,” Jabali said over his shoulder as he climbed the steps to Kaibyn’s burial chamber. “We want no Kebullians to impede our mission.”
Tashobi watched as his mentor stopped at the entrance of the necropolis to light a fat candle he had pulled from his satchel.
There was only a slight difference in temperatures as Jabali descended the steps into the burial chamber where Kaibyn lay…now quiet though his spirit was seething still with fury. The mage once more wiped the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his robe, finding it hard to breathe in the stifling heat. His joints ached as he walked and he longed for the warm waters of the bathing pool at the temple in Shalda.
There will be time for that when you free me!
Jabali winced, holding his candle higher to view the room around him. “Patience, Lord Kaibyn,” he said. “Patience.”
There was a muted growl that reverberated through the Mage’s head but no more shouted words.
The coffin containing Kaibyn’s body sat off to itself in the burial chamber, partially hidden behind other cheap coffins that held the remains of former servants. The lid was slick with the special oil the Lady Dakhla had spread on the rim and lock to prevent him from freeing himself.
Setting down his satchel, placing the candle on a ledge of rock, Jabali opened the satchel and removed a fleece cloth. He used the soft material to wipe away the oil. When there was hardly any residue left of the magic potion, he lifted the coffin’s lid, staggering as a strong wind blasted out of the box, extinguishing the candle.
“What took you so long, Mage?” Lord Kaibyn roared, his loud words echoing off the walls of the burial chamber.
Jabali closed the coffin after one look at the empty shrouds lying within its confines. Before he answered the demon lurking behind him, he bent over…grunting with the effort…and removed a vial of the same kind of oil the Lady Dakhla had used to seal Kaibyn in.
“There were others who needed our help, Lord Kaibyn,” Jabali explained as he smeared the oil on the coffin’s rim.
“And who is more important that I?”
The Mage dared not tell the demon that a simple Dabiyan warrior had been raised from death first. “Lord Riel Evann-Sin of Nonika, Your Grace,” he replied instead. “We found him lashed to the…”
“An Akkadian barbarian?” Kaibyn exploded, the fury of his shock making the walls of the necropolis tremble. “You think that jackal more important than I?”
Gathe
ring his courage, Jabali turned to face the demon. He lifted his head, allowing him to take in the face of the tall form in front of him. “No, Your Grace. He is not more important than you, but our freeing him had to be accomplished in order for him to help you.”
Kaibyn narrowed his eyes, the color of a winter sky. “Help me in what way, Mage?” Though the words were not as forceful or loud, they sounded like a warning to Jabali.
“There is great evil afoot, milord,” Jabali said, “and the Council of Elders dispatched me to come to your aid as well as one other whose life was terminated before the Gatherer sanctioned it.”
The Rysalian demon folded his arms and glared at the Mage. “What other foul fiend?”
Hearing Lord Kaibyn call another being a fiend might well have made Jabali laugh under safer circumstances, but while standing in the presence of an angry demon was not the time for levity.
“You are the strategist behind the coalition the Council bid me form. Lord Evann-Sin is the brawn—his sword hand will set things to right. The third arm of the Triad will be the eyes and ears.”
“What is this third lord’s name?” Kaibyn demanded. “Do I know him?”
Jabali swallowed hard before answering. “I think not, milord. He is but a simple peasant but one who will aid the project well.”
“A peasant?” Kaibyn sniffed. “What brand of peasant?”
“Rabin Jaspyre is a Dabiyan, milord,” Jabali said softly.
“A darkling?” Kaibyn gasped, and his image pulsed, shifted and sparked with myriad harsh lights that caused Jabali to throw up a hand to ward off the painful intrusion of the brightness. “I have no love for darklings! It was darklings that left me to die in the desert!”
“He is but a spy, milord,” Jabali said, trying to soothe the irate demon shimmering before him. “Would you lower yourself to such a task?”
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