Scion of the Serpent Read online

Watching him.

  It could strike at any moment, crush him in its great jaws, swallow him whole.

  It did not.

  It watched him.

  The water was cold as he pushed himself upright. He reached into the water and grabbed the fading blue orb that was the Jewel of the Moon. As it touched the watery blood on his palm, it immediately flared to full brightness.

  He struggled to his feet.

  He wanted to lie down.

  He wanted to die.

  He wanted to offer himself to the great snake and have done with it.

  Instead he stepped toward the altar. One step.

  Then another.

  And another.

  Inch by painful inch, he advanced on the ancient stone slab.

  It was a simple thing, hardly more than a rectangle of stone, except for the inlaid gold symbol of a snake on its side. The symbol of Set.

  How ancient was it? Was this the first altar of Set? Was this the very place where the evil cult was born?

  Closer. He saw that there was something on the flat top of the altar, small and dark, like a piece of thin rope. He held out his palm, feeling the electric tingling. That was what he had come for. Closer. He held up the jewel to better see what it was.

  It moved, just a slight stirring.

  A snake. It was just another snake. It was tiny, darkly greenish, like tarnished brass. Such a tiny snake, even smaller than the blind, white serpents that Ramsa Aál had called the Fingers of Set. Yet his senses told him that it held great power.

  But how? It was just a little snake, all alone in a cave of its most gigantic brethren.

  It seemed harmless, stretched out there. It seemed asleep. He reached down toward it with his left hand.

  With blinding speed the tiny snake struck, fangs like fine needles sinking deep into the blue vein on the back of his wrist. He howled with pain as poison, like red-hot metal, was injected into his veins. He jerked his hand back, trying to shake off the snake, but it held fast.

  The body of the snake whipped around, circling his wrist, once, twice, three times. It pulled tight, the scales burning like hot metal where they touched his skin.

  The snake’s body became rigid, as though turning to iron, and it began to glow with red heat. Flames danced around the snake, emanating from his charred flesh.

  The coils seemed to tighten, the snake’s body sinking into his flesh like a hot coal into a bank of fresh snow. The pain was unbearable, his wrist searing away, poison burning its way up his arm as though seeking his heart. He dropped to his knees.

  Tighter! He could see the bones of his arm through the ring of charred flesh, the metallic coils of the tiny snake curling tightly around them. He cried out in agony.

  Then the glow around the snake began to fade. The flames vanished. Charred edges of flesh turned pink, then red, melting and flowing over snake and bone. Before his amazed eyes, his wrist began to heal itself, liquid flesh turning solid, skin stretching and knitting to cover the gaping wound.

  A gasp of relief escaped Anok’s lips. The agony faded.

  His arm was whole.

  But the snake was still there. He could feel its power burning within him. Mystic power, dark and potent. Power with the potential for . . . He wasn’t sure yet. And there was one other thing.

  The image of the snake was burned into his skin, like a tattoo, its head on top of his hand, its body coiled around his wrist, its tail trailing up his forearm. What did it mean?

  The great snake stared down on him, looking somehow satisfied.

  He staggered onward, past the altar. He had to find his way out of the maze. He struggled on down the tunnel, until he found snakes.

  Hundreds of snakes, coiled, heads raised respectfully, in two rows, forming a path into the tunnel. Cautiously, he stepped between them, expecting that, at any moment, they might attack.

  Still he could feel the little snake’s power burning within his veins. He felt his pains fade, his strength return. He strode forward, faster, more purposeful.

  As he passed them, the snakes bowed their heads. Servants of Set! Then what am I that they bow before me?

  Onward he marched, until ahead, in the blue glow of the jewel, he saw the arched shape of a large wooden door.

  As he passed them, the last of the snakes slithered away, fading back into the darkness.

  He walked up to the door, paused, then slammed his fist against the thick wood three times.

  There was a short delay. Then he heard the guardians fumbling with the bolt. With a creak and a parting of cobwebs, the ancient door opened. Torchlight glared through the opening, drowning out the soft light of the Jewel of the Moon.

  The guardians peered in at him, curious, and perhaps a little amazed.

  He stepped through the door, heard it swing shut behind him. “Is it dawn yet? I must speak with Ramsa Aál.”

  AS ANOK ENTERED the upper temple, he discovered that it was, indeed, dawn. Light the color of blood spilled through every window and door. If the mood the night before had been festive, now it could more accurately described as torpid.

  Refuse, human and otherwise, lay scattered about the ordinarily spotless floor. While before, the temple had hummed with activity, now it was nearly deserted, save for a few bedraggled servants and acolytes who, blood-spattered and weary, headed for their sleeping chambers. Only the guardians of Set remained alert, more so than usual, vigilant in the task of guarding the spent and vulnerable family of the temple.

  Anok was led up several flights of stairs to an area above the temple entrance, where the high-ranking priests kept their private chambers. Ramsa Aál’s chambers were near the middle, quite near to those of the temple’s High Priest, a position reflecting his growing power and status.

  Anok was ushered directly in, a runner having been sent ahead to announce his coming. He found the Priest of Acolytes sprawled in an armchair in front of a great expanse of windows looking out over the black walls of the inner city, to the Western Ocean beyond.

  The ocean was dark, rippled with wind-driven white-caps, but no wind reached them here, a fact that Anok could only account for through the use of magic. It struck him. Who would use sorcery, risk corruption, just for such a casual matter of comfort? He also found himself wondering how the spell was done.

  The temple faced the setting sun; therefore, the sky was deep indigo, almost black, against which the buildings of the city stood, pink in the first light of morning. The priest stared out at the horizon, his arm casually draped over the arm of his chair. He held a curved sacrificial knife, perhaps even the same one he had taken from Anok, now dripping with blood. On a small table next to him, a large incense burner emitted curls of smoke, and Anok recognized the pungent odor of black lotus power. He kept his distance and tried not to inhale the mystical and intoxicating fumes.

  Perhaps it was intoxication by the lotus that prevented the priest from noticing Anok’s arrival for a time. Finally, he glanced up with a start, as though Anok had suddenly materialized in the room with him. He blinked with surprise. “Anok Wati! Acolyte, you live!”

  “You act surprised, master. Indeed, for a time I had my own doubts, but Set has delivered me from the maze with his blessings.”

  Ramsa Aál pushed himself from his chair and walked, with just the slightest unsteadiness, over to Anok. He smiled and nodded. “Yes! I knew you would succeed. The High Priest and I had a wager. There will a ceremony of empowering in my name next full moon!”

  “How happy for you, master.” Anok was too weary to hide the sarcasm in his voice, but the priest either failed to notice or did not take offense.

  “You live!” Again, his amazement.

  “I live, master.”

  “And you have brought with you from the maze a gift of Set?”

  “I have.”

  “Let me see it!”

  Anok hesitated, then held forward his hand. “It is not something truly that can be shown.”

  Ramsa Aál’s eyes widened, and
he reached out to take Anok’s hand and examine it. He first looked at the back of his hand with the small serpent’s head, then pulled back the sleeve to see the coils circling it, the tail pointed back up the arm toward his heart.

  “The son of Set! I had hopes, but I never dreamed—” His fingers traced the outline of the snake. “This is a very powerful mark, acolyte, one never before granted in my lifetime.”

  “What does it mean?” Anok asked. Yet he already had a sense of it.

  “It means power. A direct connection to the power of Set.” He rubbed his wrist, as though some of the power might rub off onto him. “It is power—raw, ancient, and primal. Power that few mortals have ever wielded. But only if you can learn how to tap it, and only if you can survive standing so close to the fire.” He looked into Anok’s eyes. “I will help you, acolyte. If you are worthy, we will wield this power together!”

  Anok’s eye twitched at the last statement, but he said nothing aloud. I will wield this power myself, and I will strangle Set in his own coils!

  20

  INTERLUDE

  MORNING CAME, AND to Teferi, the Nest seemed like a tomb.

  It was the first Festival in living memory that he had spent alone. It was, he had to admit, by choice. The beautiful girl from the fruit vendor down the street, the one with the cinnamon-colored skin, big eyes, and full, tantalizing lips, had invited him to a small party with some of her friends. There had been, he was almost sure, more to the invitation that remained unspoken.

  Yet he had refused, told her he had other plans, when he had none. He was in no mood for partying with beautiful strangers, for smiling and laughing and pretending that all was right with the world, while blood was spilled right outside the bolted door.

  So he came back to the Nest at sunset, threw the bolt, and opened a cask of wine.

  He had hoped, perhaps, that Sheriti would come down the stairs and join him, but while he heard the sounds of passion and revelry from the brothel the night through, he remained alone. Indeed, he had not seen her for many days, since shortly after Anok had gone to the Temple of Set. Perhaps she had returned to the Temple of Scribes as Anok had hoped. Teferi hoped so as well.

  He had heard nothing from Anok, and his attempts at getting a message into the temple had been unsuccessful. When he finally bribed a temple servant and learned that Anok lived, that he had been accepted as a novice acolyte along side Dejal, Teferi did not know if he should celebrate or despair. His friend was both found and lost.

  He sat at the table, watching the morning sun turn from red to burning white as he finished the last of the wine. His thoughts turned to lands unseen by him, known only through stories passed down from generation to generation. He dreamed of vast plains of grass broken by stands of gigantic trees, where herds of great animals, like houses with legs, wandered and grazed.

  In his mind’s eye, he saw among these great beasts a band of hunters, tall, muscular, nearly naked, skin as dark as his own. The men, armed only with long spears and stone knives, stalked the great beasts with skill and confidence, mighty hunters who, with one kill, could feed their village for a week.

  This imagined land was fertile, vigorous with life, untouched with the corruption of magic or the twisted passions of so-called civilized men. How he longed to be there. How he longed to stand shoulder to shoulder with those hunters, knowing that he faced danger to feed his own.

  A dream. Only a dream. That land had long ago been corrupted by sorcery and greed, his perfect garden lost to him forever.

  And in his troubled world, he had found few things worth having, few treasures worth keeping, save friendship. So why, now, did it trouble him so?

  He knew Sheriti had been right. With friendship came responsibility. He was his brother’s guardian, his shepherd, his keeper. If Anok had wandered down the wrong path, had fallen into darkness, never more had he needed his brother Teferi. Anok was his responsibility and his burden. If he could, he would aid him in his quest. If he must, he would put him down like a mad dog. Only the future would tell.

  He was shaken from his malaise by a frantic pounding at the door. Teferi stared at the door without moving, wondering who it could be. Despite the promise Anok had extracted, he was concerned it might be Lord Wosret or one of his assassins. He did not trust the man, and was sure they had not heard the last of him.

  Again the pounding, followed by yelling. “Teferi! It’s Rami! I know you’re in there! Open the door!”

  His initial annoyance was washed away by something in the tone of Rami’s voice. The thief was desperate, and more than a little afraid.

  Teferi stood, walked over, and unbolted the door.

  Rami bounced in, his eyes wide, his face sweating. He grabbed Teferi by the arm and pulled. “Come with me!”

  “Where!”

  Rami’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. Finally, he said, “I can’t say. I won’t say. It’s too terrible. You have to see yourself!”

  Teferi was used to the little Shemite’s nervous temperament, his excitability, his tendency to exaggeration, all high on the traits that annoyed him about the man. Yet none of that explained his current behavior.

  “I’ll get my weapons.” He strapped on his sword and dagger. He considered his bow and quiver for a moment, then decided it was better to travel light.

  “Let’s go.”

  He followed Rami at a trot, his longer legs ensuring he had no trouble keeping up with the smaller man as they ran north from the brothel, winding through the narrow streets. As was usual the morning after Festival, it was quiet. Hungover shopkeepers unshuttered their stores late, and even the beggars, those who had survived the night, sat quietly in doorways watching passersby with haunted eyes.

  They did not go far, a few streets over, a short run north, before Rami stopped at the entrance to a narrow alley. He pointed, his hand shaking as he did so. “In there.”

  Teferi looked at him. “What?”

  Rami shook his head. “This is it. I brought you here for old time’s sake, but I wash my hands of this business. Some children found it, who knew the Ravens from the street. They saw me walking home from my party, and they told me. I told you.” He turned. “My part is done. This is too dangerous. I’m going into hiding. Don’t look for me.”

  Teferi looked after him. His palms sweating, his heart pounded with growing dread. He laughed nervously, telling himself how foolish he would feel later when this was nothing.

  He walked slowly into the alley, measuring each short step, like an old man. Step pause, step pause, step-pause.

  He smelled rotting garbage. Flies buzzed noisily from mounded piles of filth and rubbish. Then he saw a wall, spattered with blood, smeared with bloody handprints, recording some terrible struggle he could not imagine. Ahead, he saw something on one of the garbage piles, a rumpled something wrapped in white silk, soaked through with black blood.

  He took another step forward, his knees nearly buckling. His face froze as a mask of despair. He saw a shock of honey hair, a great, black fly perching on it, rubbing its front legs together, watching him with bulbous, green eyes.

  He ran forward, stumbling, falling on his knees in the rotting filth, sending swarms of flies scattering. He took her head in his arms, her skin cold and lifeless, and clutched it to his breast.

  “No!” He screamed up at the sky. “By all the gods, please, no!”

  21

  EXHAUSTED FROM HIS trial, Anok returned to his cell, falling immediately into a deep sleep full of disturbing dreams.

  He walked the halls of the Great Temple in golden daylight. The building was clean and pristine. The people, priests, acolytes, elders, followers, all seemed calm and happy, smiling and greeting each other as they passed.

  But from the ceiling, everywhere, the snakes hung, heads down, waiting. And as people would pass beneath, the snakes would fall, like descending arrows, the small ones filling their victims with poison, the large ones crushing them in their coils. Yet nobody seemed to see
but Anok. He tried to warn them, cried out, but no sound came from his lips, and the people only looked and smiled, oblivious to their fate.

  Then, suddenly, he was standing outside the Maze of Set. His father was there, alive and well. Like the others he seemed happy. He smiled at Anok as he took the bolt from the door and swung it open. “I’m going inside,” he said.

  Anok tried to plead with him, but his words came out as gibberish. He tried to go to his father and stop him, but his feet would not move. The image of the snake on the back of his hand came to life, rearing up, biting his hand again and again with its tiny, sharp teeth, filling him with its stinging venom.

  His father took a step toward the door.

  With all his might, Anok willed his voice to work. “Father!”

  His father stopped and turned back to him, a look of dawning recognition on his face. “Sekhemar?”

  Then the greatest son of Set, the mighty snake of the catacombs, struck him out of the darkness, its huge jaws clamping down on his father.

  He heard bones crunch. Hot blood spattered across his chest, and the snake pulled his father into the darkness, the door slamming shut behind them, the bar falling back into place.

  Suddenly Anok could move. He ran to the door, pulled at the bar, only to find it immovable. Behind the door, he could hear his father’s screams.

  He pounded on the door with his fists. “Father!” He pounded and pounded until his fists were bloody. Father!

  He awoke with a start, the sound of fists pounding on wood echoing in his ears. He did not realize the sound was real until the door smashed open, the latch hanging in splinters.

  A guardian stood there, looking somewhat sheepish. “Pardons, acolyte, but you did not answer, and I bring a summons from Lord Ramsa Aál. The matter is urgent.”

  He sat up in his sleeping bench and nodded. “Let me get a clean robe.”

  He dressed quickly and followed the guardians. He expected to be led to Ramsa Aál’s chambers, but they went instead through the main ceremonial chamber and into the priests’ gallery behind the chamber. He saw Ramsa Aál there surrounded by guardians, their weapons drawn against some unseen threat. The priest’s hood was thrown back, showing his white hair rumpled and uncombed, his eyes red-tinged and wild.