The Venom of Luxur Page 9

  ANOK RETURNED TO his sleeping chamber and drew the curtains, trying to rest, but that didn’t last long. He lay awake, staring at the painted and plastered arch of the ceiling and snatching flies out of the air, crushing them dead and flicking them carelessly into the corner of the room.

  He tossed restlessly, thinking about all that had happened to him since leaving Khemi. Despite his recent vision of Parath, his mission seemed less clear than ever.

  He had set out to join the Cult of Set, to learn its secrets, and use those to strike at it from within. In the former he had been successful, in some ways beyond his wildest expectations. He was now on the path to become a priest of Set, to have some real power and autonomy. As he had learned, acolytes were often little more than servants and sorcerous foot soldiers who danced at the whims of the priests.

  As for secrets, there seemed to be no end of them, and if he seemed no closer to finding his father’s killer and unraveling the mysteries of his death, he found himself truly enjoying the acquisition of sorcerous secrets, the study of arcane objects and tomes, and he even hungered to delve into Kaman Awi’s “study of natural law.”

  Now, with the might of the Mark of Set, balanced against the control of the Band of Neska, he finally felt ready to apply some of the sorcerous knowledge he possessed.

  But with all this power and knowledge, he had little idea how to use it in service of his goals. With all his power, he could not last an hour, perhaps not even a handful of minutes, against the sorcerers and armies of Set. Ramsa Aál and Kaman Awi seemed to be planning something that would put all that power to shame, something that Sabé said could remake the world.

  But wasn’t that exactly what Anok wanted to do? Didn’t he want to wipe the foul Cult of Set out of existence, bring vengeance on those who had wronged him and those he cared for, free the people of Stygia from tyranny and wickedness?

  He sat up suddenly in his bed.

  That was it! It had been there all along. That was his mission! He was not to hinder Ramsa Aál in his plot to remake the world. He was to embrace his role as a new priest of Set and Ramsa Aál’s strong right hand. He was to aid the priest in every way possible.

  Then when the day came, he was to steal the dark priest’s plot and make it his own!

  7

  INSTEAD OF PROCEEDING directly to the garrison, Teferi and Barid turned west, into a neighborhood where many of Barid’s Vendhyan countrymen resided. It was a colorful place, every building, wall, and pillar elaborately decorated with brightly hued paint, turned wood, and carved stone. Arches and rounded forms predominated, and many buildings were topped with ornate columns and slender, needlelike towers.

  Everywhere there were carvings, paintings, and statues of strange beings who might have been Vendhyan gods or deities: women and men with many arms, a man with three heads, a hairy man who seemed part-ape, and a strange creature with the body of a man and the head of an elephant. Pungent and exotic cooking odors came from many shops and buildings, some so strong that they nearly made Teferi’s eyes water.

  He knew little about Vendhya, beyond that it was a large country far east across the arm of the Southern Sea. What he had heard of it sounded attractive—fertile, warm, a beautiful, ancient, and civilized land. Yet Barid and his clan seemed quite happy to have left it.

  Apparently, one’s lot in life there was largely decided by which caste one was born into, and Barid and his kin were at the very bottom of that society.

  Here in Kheshatta, Barid claimed, a man’s station was limited only by his boldness, intelligence, and enterprise. He made this corrupt and dangerous border city seem like a paradise.

  Perhaps, to Barid, it was.

  Barid drove them onto a side street, where they came on a large brickworks. Teferi saw storage sheds, piles of clay and sand, stacks of fuel, wooden troughs where mortar was mixed, wooden forms for the molding of bricks, and beehive-shaped kilns, all tended by industrious Vendhyans, mostly women and children. The few men either did the heaviest work, or seemed to be there just long enough only to load bricks onto stout cargo wagons or mules with baskets lashed across their back.

  A woman stepped away from poking at a kiln fire to greet Barid with a warm smile. Her face was almost as dark as a Kushite woman’s, but her features were narrow and delicate, and her eyes large and dark. She wore a red jewel somehow attached in the middle of her forehead. Though it was difficult to judge her age, something of her face spoke of wisdom and experience. “Barid, honored brother-of-my-husband, what brings you here today?”

  “Lovely Hema, I come to ask a favor. My brother still works for the priests of Set?”

  “He will finish within the week. But yes, he is there today, finishing a wall.”

  Barid looked slyly about. “I would wish to deliver a small quantity of materials to him, perhaps some brick, in my carriage. I would wish also to borrow clothing so that my friend and I could appear as masons in my brother’s company.”

  “You would be doing us a service. Mesha ran short of some special brick this morning, and I have not had workers free to deliver it. As for the clothing, that is nothing for our rich brother. We are ever in your debt.”

  Barid laughed. “Mesha finished repaying my loans years ago.”

  She bowed her head respectfully. “In spirit, we are in debt to you, dear brother. Always.”

  She turned and started yelling at the men working in the yard, instructing them to load a small pile of yellowish brick onto the back of Barid’s wagon. Barid in turn led Teferi to a shed where the workers’ clothing hung on wooden pegs along one wall.

  The clothing was uniform, and very drab by Vendhyan standards, loose pants, vests with pockets, a loose overshirt that could easily be removed in the heat, and a turbanlike headdress that Barid had to help Teferi put on.

  Barid looked disapprovingly at the pant legs, which ended at Teferi’s calf, and the sleeves, which didn’t reach nearly to his wrists. “These are the biggest here, but I’m afraid the Vendhyans are not such a large people.”

  Teferi looked down at himself. “If I am not too conspicuous, these will do.”

  Barid smiled sadly. “Trust me that I know matters of class. The guardians look down upon the non-Stygian laborers and craftsmen they hire as little better than draft animals. As with the lower classes in my country, such people are practically invisible to them. They will not notice you in their ranks. You will be beneath their notice.”

  Teferi nodded. “Normally, I would not consider that a good thing, but today, it suits me fine.”

  ANOK FNISHED DRESSING and placed the yoke of Set around his neck. He felt a curious sense of pride as he did so. For the first time, it seemed to mean something, to stand for the trials that he had survived and would yet survive.

  Not that he was proud to be a follower of Set. Of course not! But there was some satisfaction in his growing rank in the cult and the power and authority that would soon be his.

  He pushed back the curtain over his door, and was surprised to see Sabé sitting at a table in the parlor, playing a solitary game of spirit tiles, his fingers reading the carved inlays in the tiles arranged on the table. As Anok watched, he selected two tiles from the pattern and removed them to the “Realm Eternal” pile.

  “What are you still doing here? I thought you would have gone home.”

  Sabé turned in his direction, one gray eyebrow peeking up over the top of his blindfold. “Am I no longer welcome in your home?”

  Anok suddenly felt on the defensive. “No. I didn’t mean that. I just didn’t hear anyone out here. I thought everyone had left.”

  “Obviously not. I thought someone should stay to watch over you during your recovery.”

  You’re poorly qualified to watch over anyone! But he held his tongue. “I can care for myself. I am feeling much better.”

  “Clearly, since you are dressed to go out.”

  Anok looked again, to be sure the cloth over Sabé’s eyes was still firmly in place. “How di
d you know that?”

  “I could hear your sandals on the floor, and the sound of metal plates in your yoke rubbing together when you move. The hem of your temple robes also make a slight sound as you walk.”

  “Well then, yes, I’m dressed to go out.”

  “You are not well. You are recovering from an ordeal.”

  “I feel fine. Actually, I feel better than fine. I feel invigorated, as though I’ve taken a tonic.”

  “In a manner of speaking, you have. But it is not the sort of tonic that will bring you benefit.”

  Anok found himself becoming annoyed, and suddenly realized that he was hungry. He spotted a bowl of fruit, selected an orange-skinned custard-apple, and bit into it. Beneath the papery skin, the flesh was soft and sweet, a trickle of juice running down his chin.

  “And how do you know? As a boy, I was stung by scorpions so many times that I developed an immunity to the poison. Now, to be stung by a scorpion is little more than a call to alertness. When I went on my Usafiri into the desert, I had collapsed when a scorpion sting revived me. Without it, I might not have survived.”

  “This is different.”

  “This is different, how?”

  “The snake that bit you had been milked to thin its venom and dosed with herbs having mystic properties. What entered your veins was more potion than tonic, a potion concocted in the service of Set. This tradition started after my time with the cult, so I can say little about what it might do to you, but I doubt it can be good.”

  Anok laughed harshly. “You doubt? But you do not know. Perhaps these infusions of venom will offer me immunity not only to the serpent’s poison but also to the serpent’s influence.”

  He considered for a moment what that might mean. “Perhaps it will prevent the horrible transformation that has caused you to blind yourself. Perhaps what happened to you caused the tradition to begin. Had you considered that possibility?”

  He expected Sabé to argue the point, but instead, the old scholar seemed taken aback. “I cannot say that is not so. I have never heard of another priest transformed by corruption as my eyes were. Yet until you, I have never heard of another who is cursed with the Mark of Set. Even if the treatments do offer some protection from the physical transformation, they will do nothing to ease the spiritual corruption. That would not be in the interest of Set.”

  “Then it will still be better than nothing. I will take care of the rest myself.”

  “So you say. So tell me, where are you going in such a hurry?”

  “To the temple. Ramsa Aál may be back from the shrine, but if not, perhaps I can extract some information about his plans from Kaman Awi. I suspect he may know more about this part of it anyway. It concerns metal, and that is within the realm of his study of natural law.”

  “And if Ramsa Aál is back?”

  “Then it is well that I make an appearance as soon as possible so as not to show weakness.”

  Sabé turned back toward him, frowning. Though the old scholar could not see, Anok had the feeling of being stared at, of intense scrutiny.

  Finally, Sabé spoke. “To show him you have recovered from the venom ritual?”

  “Yes, I suppose.”

  “So that he can decide you are ready for another?”

  “If that is what must be done, I am prepared. I have endured it once. I have no doubt I will do better, now that I am properly prepared.”

  “You sound almost eager to repeat the ritual.”

  Anok started to deny it, then stopped and reconsidered. There was some truth to that. In surviving the ritual he felt a sense of accomplishment, of having proven himself. It was a challenge, and Anok had always enjoyed challenges. “I do what must be done. I have come so far; now I feel I am close to my goals. Is it unexpected that I should be anxious to speed the process along?”

  Sabé turned his head slightly and smiled, a rare, and, somehow frightening, thing. “You think you have mastered it, don’t you?”

  Anok frowned. “Mastered what?”

  “Sorcery and all that comes with it: corruption, madness. You think you have mastered it, and that you can act as you will without consequences. Well let me tell you, you have not!”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “But I do! I was just like you once.”

  Anok felt his face redden with anger. “How so? Did you have the Band of Neska to counter your Mark of Set? Did you take the rituals of venom to protect you from the influence of serpents? I tire of hearing how our paths are the same. They are far different. I travel a different road than you. I will not end up as you have!”

  He stomped past Sabé, picking up his satchel on the way out.

  As he walked out the door, he heard Sabé say, in a voice so low that perhaps he wasn’t intended to hear, “You travel a different road, and I’m afraid it ends in a place far worse than mine.”

  8

  BARID’S WAGON WAS made for city streets. Near the edge of the city, the road turned from cobblestone to hard-packed dirt, full of potholes and deep ruts. Teferi swore he could feel each of those potholes in his kidneys as they ran through them with bone-jarring regularity. A chilled wind blew in from the lakeshore to their right, bringing with it a stink of marsh-muck, rotting vegetation, and dead fish.

  Barid seemed to take it all in stride. “With the building of the forge, many heavy wagons have traveled this way of late, and the road is ill suited for such traffic. Fortunately, it is not much farther.”

  Teferi looked up the hillside to their right. The slope was steep, and outcroppings of crumbling yellow rock frequently showed through the dark tangle of brush and trees. Piles of stones, and even boulders, made of the same rock lay at the base of the hill and along both sides of the road, suggesting that falling rocks and small avalanches were common.

  Unlike the hills west of the city, these were ill suited for building, and therefore almost uninhabited. It was no wonder the powers that controlled the city had been willing to cede this place for the guardians’ garrison.

  They rounded a gentle turn that hugged the edge of the lake, and Teferi could see that the hillsides ahead fell back from the lake, creating a flat apron of land on which the stockade was built.

  The place looked even more austere close up. The square-topped towers and ramparts were almost totally lacking in decoration or ornament. It could have been a prison as easily as a fortress.

  This was not a place to be celebrated, or to draw attention to itself. It was a tangible sign that the Cult of Set’s rule over Kheshatta was tenuous at best.

  The towering fortifications were built right up to the lake’s edge, doubtless to defend against attack by water, but likely also to reduce the danger from falling rocks and boulders. The road curved sharply left, passing inland of the fortification. But as they rounded that bend, Teferi could see that it had been recently rerouted even closer to the slope, to allow for a small, walled compound to be built nestled against the much taller stone walls of the stockade.

  The smell of woodsmoke was strong. Beyond the wall he could see several small buildings, thatch-topped huts that might be living quarters for workers, fuel sheds, a small barn or warehouse. The tall tapering chimney of a forge belched clouds of gray smoke.

  They drove past the main gate of the stockade, and Barid waved at the gate guards as they passed. The men barely glanced at them.

  As they drove along the wall of the new compound, Teferi could see several places where it was incomplete, workers still placing bricks along the top. They pulled up to a smaller gate with a wooden arch, leading into the compound.

  A bored-looking guardian leaned against one side of the arch. He glanced up as they approached, stepped out in front of them, and held up his hand. He walked up to them, a suspicious look on his pockmarked face, scrutinizing the wagon. “This doesn’t look like a work wagon.”

  Barid smiled. “It is not—usually. My brother, Mesha tells me this job is behind schedule, and asks my help. My s
ervant”—he gestured at Teferi—“and I have brought brick for him, and will unload it for him as well, saving time for his more skilled men. I would not do it”—he looked around cautiously before continuing—“but I owe him money, and I dare not anger him. As you know, masons have strong arms, and hands hard as stone. He could snap me like a dry reed!”

  The guard walked around to the back of the wagon, peered under the leather tarp at the stack of bricks, and, after a moment’s thought, waved them through.

  Barid waved at one of the masons as they passed, and he waved back with a smile, apparently recognizing the carriage driver. Though the masons were all Vendhyan, the men working the forge were of other races, Shemites, and dark-skinned men who might have been from metal-rich Punt.

  As they rolled past, Teferi got a better look at the forge. The base of it was an arch of brick as tall as a man, half-buried in a tall mound of earth to keep in the heat. Even from this distance, Teferi could feel the heat of the burning coals inside, as a chain of men passed a stream of charcoal from an adjacent fuel shed.

  On the other side of the forge, but just as close, stood a locked shed. The walls were conspicuously sturdier than those of the other buildings, with a roof made of wood shingles rather than thatch. There could be little doubt that it protected something of value.

  It was, Teferi observed, more than large enough to hold the armor he had seen removed from the Tomb of the Lost King. They drove on, to a nearby gap in the wall, where three men busily placed mortar and brick.

  The oldest of the three men looked up as they approached, stopped his work, and came to meet them.

  He was younger than Barid, with more hair. Corded muscles rippled under the coppery-brown skin of his arms. In that, at least, Barid had not lied to the guard. Despite the differences, his close relation to Barid was obvious to anyone who looked at their faces. It had to be Barid’s brother.

  Mesha greeted Barid as he stepped down and began to speak to him in Vendhyan. He glanced suspiciously at Teferi and asked a question, likely wondering who this stranger was.