Scion of the Serpent Read online

  “This is my one piece of leverage against the cult. I believe they want this very badly, and if Parath is right, it’s a key to great power for them. It’s possible I can use it against them, or maybe at the right time, I’ll have to offer it to them to strike a bargain. But if the latter happens, I intend to be sure that they never are never allowed to have all three Scales.”

  Teferi looked skeptical. “If you choose not to withhold this Scale, then you may have no choice in the matter. They already have at least one. The Ravens provided it to them, by way of Dejal. For all you know, they already have the second one as well.”

  “I hope not. I’ll deal with that when the time comes, if it ever does. I would prefer to learn to use the Scale as a weapon against them. Perhaps there is a way I can obtain the other two Scales and take their power for myself.”

  Teferi shuddered. “I do not approve of this, Anok. These Scales of Set are very bad magic, I fear. Powerful, yes, but with great power comes great corruption. This thing calls to your Stygian blood.”

  “Then all the more reason I should entrust it to you rather than keeping it myself. Your untainted Kushite blood will protect you from its influence, and in the presence of priests having full Stygian blood, it may be impossible to hide anyway.”

  Teferi was eventually won over and agreed to care for the objects so long as they could remain hidden. He wasn’t really happy until they were back in their dark hiding place, and the chipped stone returned to its niche.

  They finished their business by noon, and Anok found himself left with an awkward interval. He knew they shouldn’t go to the inner city until late in the afternoon and that he couldn’t enter the temple until after dark, and even with his disguise he didn’t dare spend time wandering the streets of Odji, where he might be recognized.

  After some uncomfortable silences, he and Teferi began to talk of old times, sharing stories that each of them knew by heart. They talked of Ravens long dead or departed, even of happier times when Dejal still called himself their brother, and they his. In time, they found themselves laughing themselves to tears.

  But all the while, Anok was watching the shafts of light from the windows crawl across the floor and up the far wall. “It’s time,” he said.

  Teferi’s laughter faded, his mood turned somber. He nodded. They gathered their belongings and left, as though headed for a funeral.

  TEFERI STAYED WITH him almost until nightfall, and had to rush to get back to the gates in time. If he arrived too late, even if he made it there without being arrested by the guardians of Set, there would be uncomfortable questions. Perhaps someone would ask about his companion in the strange dress of a desert nomad and what exactly had happened to him?

  But he trusted that his friend would not let him down. That was the least of his worries. He found a hiding place on the other side of the plaza from his previous visit, closer to his exit point. He waited for total darkness, but no longer. He wanted to be safely inside the air shafts as soon as he could. It would be a long night.

  While there were frequent patrols by guardians around the building, they all carried oil lamps, which made them easy to avoid in the darkness. He waited until the first patrol of the evening had rounded the far corner of the building, then made his way quietly across the plaza.

  He was seeking a small statue, located beneath the air shaft from which he’d earlier exited the temple. Just below the opening, there was a small ledge where he’d hidden a coil of rope and his bag of burglar tools. He quickly found the statue. Looking up, he could not see the ledge though he knew it was there.

  The problem was that the rope he needed to climb was coiled forty feet over his head. He’d prepared for that however. Carefully, he waved his hands between the statue and the wall, until he felt a gentle bushing, like a spider’s web. It was a single strand of Stygian silk, fine almost to the point of invisibility in daylight, and incredibly strong—strong enough to pull down the end of the coiled rope far above him.

  He took one last look around for guards, then slowly tugged until he heard the rope tumble down. He gave it a quick jerk to be sure that it was still secured at the top as he’d left it, and he rapidly began to climb. Very quickly he was at the top. He rolled over the lip of the overhang and lay on his back as he pulled up the rope and its attached strand of silk, with any luck leaving no clue to his passage.

  Just in time as it turned out. A pair of guards rounded the front of the building. He watched them cautiously over the edge of the overhang until their light finally vanished at the back of the building.

  He’d left the metal grate over the air shaft barely latched, and he had only to jiggle the grate slightly to pull it free. He tensed as the hinge squeaked some, but after several minutes of maintaining a tense silence, he decided none of the guards had heard it.

  I always forget something. A better thief would have a vial of whale oil ready to quiet the rusty hinge. He’d been lucky.

  He climbed inside and, after some deliberation, left the grate open rather than risk making more noise. If his business there was successful, it wouldn’t matter. Otherwise, he’d likely either be gone by dawn, dead or captured. And once he escaped, it was unlikely he’d ever return there again. If he made things more difficult for the next temple raider, what of it? Of course, the next temple raider would still have to deal with the snakes.

  With much greater confidence, as he was retracing his steps, he made his way deep enough into the tunnel to light a candle. As he did, there was a flicker of movement down where the roughly finished stone of tunnel wall met the dusty floor, a tiny white head appeared along with a curl of pallid body, gleaming in the candlelight. Blind eyes looked toward him, black tongue tasting his smell.

  Anok felt a twinge of fear, but also of eagerness, as one felt when standing on the tall rocks south of the city, anticipating the long dive into the ocean waves. He felt the odd tingling over his heart, and now more clearly out through his arms, to his hands.

  More heads appeared, from cracks in the wall, from out of the gloom, a few snakes slithering fully out into the open. He looked to the closest of those, knelt, and held out his open hand. “Come,” he said.

  The snake’s tongue flicked.

  “Come!”

  The snake slithered forward a body length, its narrow body almost swimming through the dust, then stopped.

  “Come!”

  The snake advanced, the forward part of its body high, its head darting toward Anok’s exposed hand.

  He braced for the pain of the bite.

  It did not come. The snake slithered its body across his palm, cool and smooth, its head diving low. The body arced under his arm, then wound itself around his wrist, firmly, but tightly. Almost with—affection.

  He smiled, reached down, and stroked the head, smaller than a fingertip. The black tongue, moist and leathery, stroked his skin. Then he lowered his hand close to the floor. “Back,” he said.

  The snake calmly slithered off his arm and away across the floor.

  “Back,” he said more loudly. One by one, the snakes began to vanish back into their hiding places, until there was again at least the impression that he was alone in the cave, save for a small house scorpion, previously unnoticed, crawling across the floor toward him.

  A lone snake head, along with a hand’s length of body, shot from a crack in the wall, snatched the scorpion in its mouth, and dragged it—legs, claws, and stinging tail waving helplessly—back into the darkness.

  Anok found himself rocking unsteadily on his feet. His head buzzed as though from strong drink, and his senses seemed detached and oddly out of sorts. His hand and arm tingled where the snake had touched him, as did his chest. He felt flushed and warm, despite the evening chill. He felt—good! Powerful!

  Was this what it was like to become a sorcerer? If so, then it might not be as bad as he imagined.

  He advanced, turning at the branch and passing the bones of the thief. He felt compelled to whisper a greetin
g as he passed, to quiet any spirits that might be lurking about. Then he crossed the bat corridor where he’d initially entered, and he moved into a passage he’d not yet explored.

  As expected, the floor slanted down and ended abruptly in a large vertical shaft, far wider than he could reach across, and so deep that the candle’s feeble light was swallowed in the gloom below. Air flowed upward, judging from its coolness possibly from some subterranean source. He had found his connection to the catacombs beneath the temple.

  What the map hadn’t told him was how he would get down. He was removing the coil of rope from his satchel when he noticed a small stone ledge extending from the wall to his right, and then below it, another one, and another. They projected just far enough to provide purchase for a hand or foot, and were wide enough to stand on with two feet. They formed a ladder of sorts and extended out of sight down into the dark.

  He repacked the rope and carefully stepped out onto the nearest of the ledges. It held his weight, so he hooked the candleholder over his thumb, swung himself out into the shaft, and began to climb downward.

  He counted the steps, trying to estimate the distance he had traveled. After sixty steps, he presumed himself to be at about ground level, but still the shaft plunged down into darkness. After another twenty steps, he spotted another side passage, similar to the one through which he’d entered the larger shaft.

  He glanced downward and could see something that suggested the bottom of the shaft was below. It was lighter than the stone, and he held the glare of the candle away from his eyes, straining for a better look. The bottom of the shaft was just visible, and he thought for a moment that it was covered with sand, its surface somehow irregular with pits and lines.

  Then his vision adjusted again, and he saw that the pit was filled to an even layer with human bones. Dozens, hundreds of scattered and cleaned skeletons, disassociated skulls staring up at him with empty sockets. There was no sense that they lay in a single layer upon a floor. Instead, he had the impression that the shaft extended down, and the bones filled it to some undetermined depth.

  So startled was he, that he jerked the candle, sending a cascade of wax down his hand. He hissed in pain, shaking the stinging crust of hardening wax from his skin. He shifted the candle to a more secure grip and was so distracted that he didn’t see the dark shape moving smoothly across the bones below him.

  Instead, he first became aware of the sound, like the grinding of huge teeth. It took him a moment to realize what he was hearing was something of great weight moving across the compacted bones, grinding one against another as it passed.

  He looked down to see a black S shape covering much of the floor below, having emerged from some unseen side passage, he imagined. Before he could understand what he was looking at, or even react, the head of the great snake reared up with both great speed and infinite smoothness, like the rising of an ocean swell. With no effort at all, the huge head was at eye level with him, close enough he could have reached out to touch the broad snout, contemplating him with copper-colored eyes the size of melons.

  There was no time to reach for his sword, no time to duck to safety. Before he could move, he’d be no more than a mouthful for the great serpent.

  He remained motionless.

  As did the snake, bigger than any Anok had seen, at least twice as big as any of the sacred sons of Set that ranged the streets of the city to feed. It studied him with cold, merciless intelligence.

  The tongue slid out, as long as his arm, as thick as his wrist, black, shiny, forked, it slid across his arm, leaving a sticky film, and he couldn’t help but shudder.

  Then the wide, lipless, slit of a mouth parted, wider and wider, revealing the black tongue, the puffy white interior of the mouth, the countless knife-sharp teeth the size of spearpoints.

  Wider, until he could imagine his entire body being drawn down that terrible gullet.

  Wider, until he was sure he was doomed.

  The snake hissed, a long, high sound like wind escaping from a cave. He could feel its breath on his face, and the sound chilled him to his bones.

  The coppery eyes glittered in the candlelight, regarding him with an evil intelligence.

  Then the mouth closed and, with the same liquid grace, the head lowered. The great snake swiftly curled back upon itself, and with the rattling of countless bones, vanished into some hidden recess in the wall.

  He hung there for a while, afraid to shift his grip, lest his weak knees and numbed fingers send him tumbling down into the pit, until strength returned to his limbs. He took one more step down and carefully swung himself into a side shaft, taking comfort that it was far too narrow to admit the great snake’s head.

  Once safely inside, he took a moment to catch his breath and collect himself. No magics had repelled the monster, nor was he sure even the most powerful wizard could. He had been caught, studied, judged, and spared, for reasons he could not imagine. This place, he was reminded again, was not a house of man. It belonged to Set, and all those who came here and lived did so at his whim.

  He lit another candle, replacing the shrinking stub in the holder, and as he did, examined his surroundings. The shaft was nearly identical in size and layout to the horizontal shafts in the upper temple, but the stone here was far older and of a darker color than that of the building above.

  There were more skeletons, so that he was nearly always in sight of at least one. Some were fresh enough that they still had tatters of clothing left, but none had flesh. They were all polished and picked clean, which made him wonder if the snakes were that thorough, or if other unpleasant scavengers hid in the cracks of the temple, perhaps also serving as food for the white snakes.

  The light of his candle fell upon carvings in the walls. Not the clean and ornate carvings of artisans but the kind of crude graffiti scratched into the stone by bored workers or resentful slaves. While he could imagine the purpose of it, the symbols were unlike anything he had ever, seen on any temple wall or ancient scroll. The catacombs might date back to the very dawn of time, when legendary giants ruled the land and supposedly kept Lemurians, the fabled ancestors of modern Stygians, as their slaves.

  Or perhaps they were older than that, some civilization forgotten and lost to the dust of time. It seemed that such was the way of Stygia, one city built on the ruins of another, layer upon layer, like an onion, back to the beginning of the world.

  Finally, he reached another shaft leading down and could see light below. The map told him that it was a large room of unknown function, which in turn would connect him to the acolyte living areas.

  Better prepared this time, he removed a stout piece of wood that he’d tied alongside one of his swords. He tied the rope to the middle of it, then placed it across the opening. He could see little of the room below, so he put his head down into the opening and listened carefully for any sign of occupation. Hearing nothing, he tossed down the rope, lowered himself into the opening, and shinnied along the rope and through the room’s painted arched ceiling.

  The room was perhaps three times as tall as a man stood, half that distance wide, and three or four times that long. It seemed almost a hallway, though in the darkness at one end he could make out what seemed to be an altar, and at the other end was an open door. On the wall next to the door was a single oil lamp, the room’s only illumination.

  Perhaps the room was a shrine, though not of the sort common to Set. Another of the old gods? It was strange that even if, as it seemed was the case, the Great Temple was built on the foundations of older temples to other gods, all traces of those gods would not have been obliterated or modified to serve Set.

  Perhaps the priests of Set were not so faithful to their evil god as it seemed. Perhaps they kept congress with other, older gods, as another path to power.

  The walls were lined, with carved columns or statues, dimly seen in the darkness, stretching from floor almost to ceiling and spaced an arm’s width apart. He held up the candle and suddenly jumped back,
convinced he’d been horribly wrong about his being alone.

  From the top of the nearest “column” a metal helmet, horned and ornately carved, looked down at him, narrow eye slits giving the faceplate a sinister appearance. He had already thrown down his bag and drawn his swords when he realized that the wearer of the helmet was long dead, a skeletal giant dressed in helmet and plate armor, a sword as long as Anok was tall hanging from its belt. Or perhaps it wasn’t a skeleton at all but the work of some macabre sculptor. In the dim light of the chamber it was impossible to be sure.

  He heard footsteps—of mercifully human proportions—and slipped between two of the skeletal figures, his back against the cold wall, swords at ready. His ears told him there were two people in sandals walking toward the room. He heard male voices conversing calmly in whispers.

  There was a moment of panic when he realized that his bag was still sitting on the tiled floor in plain sight, but it was too late to go back for it.

  The sound of footsteps reached the door of the chamber and passed by without breaking step. He waited until the footsteps faded in the distance before sheathing one of his swords and emerging from his hiding place.

  As he recovered his bag, he noticed the floor was clean-swept and free of dust. The room was used, or at least cared for. Once again he was in the world of men, where the greatest dangers walked on two legs. His task was complicated in that, since, he hoped to find favor in the House of Set, he didn’t want to have to kill or even wound, anyone he encountered. Stealth was his friend, and violence a last resort.

  The map, which he’d memorized, indicated that ahead lay a rectangle of corridor lined with sleeping and study chambers used by the novice acolytes and high-ranking temple servants. He peered cautiously into the corridor, checking in both directions.

  The corridor was narrow, illuminated by oil lamps set in wall sconces. The roof here was arched, though much lower than the shrine. It was covered with paintings of unreadable hieroglyphs and pictographs of strange animals and forgotten gods. He was relieved to discover that the side chambers were equipped with wooden doors, mostly closed, making it easier to slip past the sleeping acolytes. Finding the corridor empty, he slipped out of the shrine.