24 Bones (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-one

T
he Shemsu Seth completed their march in silence, the slap of rifles and machine guns slung across backs keeping cadence with the clump of sandaled feet on rock.

The soldiers followed Sam into the desert, but their expressions were too grim, they marched too close, and they were too silent. When they had heard Sam’s orders, they looked from one to the other.
No one would be killed and a man was to be captured alive
. The Shemsu Seth would obey, but when they shed this duty, Sam would pay.

Trand had handpicked the men that formed Sam’s guard. He had also made a request, drawing her aside before she left the underworld.

“There will be a man, Samiya, a small man. He can wield the Void like a Shemsu Seth.” Trand clutched his injured shoulder. “Bring him back for me. Do your mentor this favor?”

Trand had never asked for anything, and the sheen of light in Trand’s milky eyes had made Sam shiver. She had agreed. To take a captive was a good compromise. Much blood had been spilled already, and she knew of whom he spoke, remembered the power of the Void that shrouded him. Her intent was to retrieve the vertebrae and tablet without further killing. The balance trembled; she sensed its unsteady whirls. If she could keep Trand happy with a toy, she would. And the exchange would help her retain her status within the temple. The man had injured Trand. The balance would accept Trand’s retribution, and Sam’s conscience would be clear. Besides, if Trand didn’t kill him first, maybe she could convince the man to join her as an apprentice. Given enough time, anything was possible; she most of all knew that.

When they neared the deir’s rock ridge, Sam pulled her crossbow from her back and turned to her men. In the light of the gibbous moon, their skin glowed yellow. Sam signaled for silence, though it wasn’t needed.

Past midnight. Only forty-eight hours until her mother’s sacrifice. Sam’s stomach cramped. If she was to return by the full moon, they needed to attack. Worse still was the sense that it didn’t matter, that in his insanity Pharaoh had made his decision. Her mother was just a long lever and Sam a very small rock. The party halted. Sam stood on a ridge overlooking the bowl that held the monastery.

A companion leaned upon the wall near the gate. Their assault against the Temple of Seth had tapped their powers. No other companion graced the walls, but Trand had taught Sam never to assume. Her group of six was outnumbered, the enemy fortified and armed. Security at the train terminals had been tight and she was glad that the caches of weapons prepared for the attacks on the deirs had remained partially stocked.

Sam reached out with her senses. She ran her fingers along the Void like she touched the keys of a piano, but repressed her urge to play. The companion was awake but not reaching to the Fullness. As Sam watched, another brown-robed man broke from the far end of the ridge marking the ascetics’ caves. He stumbled toward the deir. The guard opened the monastery doors and helped him to cover the remaining distance. They passed through into the courtyard, and Sam signaled the Shemsu Seth closer. The troop picked their way down the ridge and gripped their guns tightly as they ran toward the unguarded gate.

David
tottered, dizzy with thirst, poison, and power.

Connected.
He wanted to test it, but knew he wasn’t in any condition to control the roiling mass. He feared the entangled fate suffered by the companions who had died in the temple. He would wait for Pharaoh. David’s heart pulsed in his cheek, and he rubbed at the right side of his chest to slow its beat.

The deir had been little more than a mile, but in his delirium, his staggering had doubled the distance.

“David.” David turned to Shen and raised his heavy head from where it stared at his feet. He flung his arm around the falconer’s neck. Shen dragged him through the gates and together they lurched into the deir’s courtyard and kitchen.

“Water,” David rasped, his free arm pointing erratically to the pitchers that lined the kitchen shelves. Shen turned to fetch water, leaving David to slump into a chair.

David guzzled from the urn.

“Careful, you’ll be sick if you take too much at once,” the falconer warned.

“Where’s the Osiris?” David asked between swigs.

“Take some bread as well, but slowly.” Shen handed him a round of bread.

“The spine … have you the translation?”

“Yes, it is in the temple.”

Fluid flowed into David’s muscles and blood. The water stilled a headache, and he stood without Shen’s aid. “Thank you, Shen, please return to your post.” He wished to search out Pharaoh’s prize.

A flash of annoyance crossed Shen’s face, but his compassion returned. “I see you’ve been stung. Let me help you to a cell where you can rest.” David took another long draw on the flagon. “Did you touch it, David? Did you sense the Fullness?” Shen asked.

David nodded and Shen’s wrinkles radiated from his eyes and mouth like porcupine quills. Suddenly the smile faded, and he placed a cautionary hand on David’s shoulder, cupping his ear with the other. David opened his mouth to speak, but Shen tightened his grip.

Shen walked to the kitchen entrance and peered through a crack in the door. He rushed back. Stripping two daggers from a loop at his waist, he handed one to David.

“Shemsu Seth,” he hissed.

Shen pulled on David’s elbow and ushered him to the rear of the kitchen.

They wound through a passage into the temple. At first, David wondered why Shen didn’t raise the alarm, but soon it was clear that Shen meant to protect the deir’s pieces of the Osiris, and David’s heart beat faster.

Sam
met no resistance. She gathered the Shemsu Hor like a penitentiary guard collected prisoners. Cell to cell, she pulled the companions from their stone berths and shoved them into the yard. The comatose she ordered slung over shoulders of Shemsu Seth. In fifteen minutes, seven companions stood in or were sprawled across the yard beneath the relief of Horus slaying Seth.

One Shemsu Seth had yet to return; the man sent to fetch the gate guard and the injured man. There could be no escape; the soldier stationed at the ridge ensured that.

She strode to the first man in line. The man leaned against the wall and breathed hoarsely. Her black ankh blade dimpled the robe over his heart.

“Who is high priest?” Sam demanded.

Askari grunted, his eyes flint, but their bags and his pallor betraying his fatigue.

“High Priest Abd-al-Aziz,” Sam greeted, knife swinging to Askari.

“High Priest Abd-al-Osiris,” he corrected, stepping forward to lean against the tip of Sam’s knife.

She smiled. “Soon there will not be much left to lord over.”

The first arrow struck the companion on Sam’s right. The broad head slid through ribs, split the heart, and pierced the rock behind. He hung against the wall like a robe on a peg. A second later, the companion to her left died, the arrow buried to its fletching. Askari cried out and clutched his head.

Sam’s face reddened, and she turned. Her mind searched each soldier, probing for the killer. But instead of the restrained fury of a Shemsu Seth, an unruly chaos swirled. A man who sheltered in the threshold of the temple drew another arrow to his ear. He released the bowstring. The arrow sped toward Akskari’s chest. In an instant, Sam grounded herself with her wire, drew Void and knocked the arrow spinning beyond the wall of the deir. Askari screeched and knelt in the dust.

Void gripped the man who nocked yet another arrow. Sam tossed a mental lifeline to the man. The other Shemsu Seth simply stood and stared, waiting for orders.

The line tugged. Sam’s mind bobbed, and then the man swam against its tow. Sam reeled him back while she walked closer. He struggled, trapped, unable to fire his weapon. Sam’s jaw dropped. The moon cast a milky finish to the range of welts that sprang from his face where the sun and scorpion had stung. But beneath the mask of swelling, she recognized David Nidaal from Coptic Cairo.

Sam grabbed the bow and severed what remained of the man’s connection to the Void. David dropped to his knees and clutched his robe. His eyes rolled into the back of his head.

Sam signaled two Shemsu Seth to drag David to the other captives and then continued into the temple proper to search for her soldier. Inside, two men, one a groaning companion whose head bled and the second a Shemsu Seth with a blade buried in his chest, sprawled across the threshold to a side chamber. In the darkness, Sam could discern the missing panels and the racked sundiscs. She strode back to the line of companions. Five lived, one injured, and David rested prostrate beyond. Two dead companions balanced the dead Shemsu Seth.

“Where is the spine? Tell me before you are the last Shemsu Hor.” Sam addressed Askari. Askari’s eyes flicked through the gate and to the desert beyond.

“I have the spine,” David gasped. Sam swung her dagger toward David and lunged to where he lay. His chin lifted with the ankh’s tip. Swollen flesh closed one eye. She stared into his ruined face.

“You will regret this, David. We are all connected,” Askari said, but his tone lacked conviction.

“I am connected,” David mocked. “I understand perfectly.”

“You don’t use the Fullness, David. You draw from chaos, from Void,” Askari explained.

“Enough. Where?” Sam pushed.

David swallowed, the knifepoint cut into his adam’s apple as it rose and then fell. From out of the neck of his robe, he pulled a golden rod. Its diameter varied from an inch to three inches to hold curved vertebrae. Along its surface, raised hieroglyphs caught the setting moon’s light. Notches above and below indicated where the other pieces of the Osiris would fit.

“I present it to you. I wish to be accepted as a member,” David said and passed the rod to Sam’s proffered hand.

“We have a special membership initiation for traitors,” Sam replied. She grasped the rod and stood. She turned away and then whirled, kicking him in the stomach so that he curled in pain. A Shemsu Seth touched Sam’s wrist as she readied for a second strike.

“He has proven himself.” The Shemsu Seth pointed to the companion still hanging from the wall by David’s arrow.

David raised his arm and stared at the protective Shemsu Seth. “I know more. I can translate the tablet.” He crawled to Sam’s feet.

“The man. Where is the watcher who can touch Void?” Sam demanded of him.

“I will show you, just don’t kill me,” David replied. “I will.”

Askari hissed as if punched in the gut.

Faris
opened his eyes. A mantle of energy hung about his shoulders and at the centre of his forehead. He swiped at it with the back of his hand. The desert was still. No sand abraded the rock with its stinging whispers. The wind did not yet blow.

He leaned out from under the rim of rock where he sheltered. Dawn broke with brilliant promise. His thirst told him that more than a night had passed, but his mind was clear.

He pictured himself standing before Askari. Today, he would explain what he had learned of the Fullness. He would defend his accessing the Void in order to save the members of the deir and claim his place as a dark companion. He exhaled a shuddering breath. It would not be so easy to confront Askari, but if the Shemsu Seth valued control of Void, then surely the companions should too. If not, he would have to consider other options.

Sand dribbled on the nape of his neck. He turned.

Sandaled feet ranked along the ridge. A gun clicked. Faris understood: the safety was removed.