Lost (22 page)

I felt like I
was almost there, like I could almost see the point she was trying to
make, and then I realized that I'd let her leave the clearing without
the escort that I'd promised her. I hadn't thought much of her
concerns back in our rooms, but it wasn't the kind of thing that we
should be leaving to chance.

I took off at a
sprint, trying to catch up with her, and my attempts to reconcile
what she'd said with my view of the world were pushed to the back of
my mind.

Even at a
sprint I wasn't fast enough to catch her. By the time I made it back
to our rooms she'd already slipped behind the curtain to her bedroom.
The vines and leaves that made up the curtains were unusually good at
blocking sounds. I stood just a few feet from the curtain and
imagined that I could hear her heartbeat from inside her room, but
the truth was that I couldn't.

I couldn't
bring myself to go into her room and she was obviously not going to
come out. She might as well have been on a different continent.

After the
better part of five minutes I forced myself to turn around and go
into my room. I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep, but I dropped down
onto my bed regardless. I closed my eyes but the scenes from the
clearing kept playing through my mind.

I could see her
on the back of my eyelids, stretched out on the slab of rock taking
in the sun as though we were a couple of normal teenagers out at the
beach. The image changed and I could see her the way she'd looked the
first night we'd arrived at the enclave, pale skin showing above and
below the soft black material of her dress.

The images
started speeding up to the point where she seemed to run and
jump—like a character from one of the old stop-motion films. It
was as though my subconscious mind had been taking pictures of her at
random times for days now without my conscious mind being aware of
what was happening.

My left hand
was tingling from where she'd touched me earlier. It was intense
almost to the point of being uncomfortable, much like the actual
experience had been. It was as much a relief as it was a surprise
when I fell asleep a few minutes later.

Celeste was
still in her room when I woke the next morning. I was pretty sure she
wasn't asleep, but again I couldn't bring myself to break the silence
between us. My feelings, about Jess and Celeste both, were just too
confused for me to want to wade any deeper into that particular pool
than I had to right now.

I showered,
grabbed something to eat on the way and then left our rooms as fast
as possible so that Celeste wouldn't have to continue hiding in her
rooms.

Set found me
walking down the path towards the main lamia cavern and accompanied
me to the challenge ring without saying a word. Once we arrived, he
waited only long enough for me to shift forms and stretch before
beginning the training session.

We started out
with actual techniques again and I found myself learning a system of
fighting that seemed to favor short, raking slashes, knees, and
elbows, all of which were executed from extremely close range.

It was an
interesting style of combat, but partway through the session I
started wondering why anyone as large as Set would want to fight at
such close range and use striking surfaces that didn't allow him to
use the venom in his claws that was the lamias' single greatest
asset. The close-in blocks and attacks that I was learning were the
kind of techniques that a small person would use against a much
larger individual, but I couldn't think of any enemies other than the
werewolves who were significantly larger than a lamia consort.

Even werewolves
weren't that much larger than a lamia. Definitely not enough larger
to justify developing a completely different style of combat.

"Set, this
kind of fighting doesn't fit with what I would expect from your
people."

He looked at me
for several seconds before nodding in agreement. Once again, I got
the feeling that he was trying to translate difficult concepts into
English.

"You know
that we aren't from this place?"

I pursed my
lips. "There are legends among the people in South and Central
America that I believe were spawned by interactions with your people.
Is that what you mean?"

"You mean
the Aztec people?"

I nodded,
excited that we seemed to have found a common frame of reference, but
he just frowned.

"No, that
wasn't our enclave. Before we were here, near the territory of your
queen, we were somewhere else. With the…I think you call them
pharaohs?"

My eyes
practically bugged out of my head. "How did you move your entire
enclave? My understanding from Celeste, from my queen, is that you
arrived here on this continent before its discovery by the Old World.
How did you travel across the ocean when sailing technology was still
so primitive?"

"No, we
didn't move. The enclave remains in the same place, only the portals
move."

My mind was
spinning. It was the clearest proof yet that the enclave wasn't in
Louisiana. When they wanted to move away from Egypt they apparently
had just changed the position of the enclave as compared to what I
thought of as the real world.

"Okay, I
think I understand, not how that is possible, but the fact that you
did it. How does being in Egypt, being with the pharaohs, explain a
fighting system that is best suited for fighting someone much bigger
than you?"

"No.
Different move. Before we were here near your queen we were with the
pharaohs. Before we were with the pharaohs we were somewhere
else
."

Things that
historians had wondered about for centuries suddenly clicked into
place for me. The pyramids. The lamias were somehow responsible for
them. There had been pyramids in Egypt, but there had also been
pyramids in the Americas and in parts of Asia.

Various
historians had tried to prove a link between the different ancient
cultures that had built pyramids, but nobody had been able to come up
with a hypothesis that worked.

All of those
man-hours wasted. They'd never had any chance of figuring the link
out, not without being willing to believe in things like werewolves,
vampires and lamias. The sad thing was that we wolves could have put
the pieces together if we'd ever managed to expand beyond North
America.

We had such a
long life expectancy that we could have easily tied some of those
disparate threads together, but the jaguars had been solidly in
control of everything from current-day Mexico down, and Europe and
the rest of the Old World was such a vampire and werewolf cesspit
that nobody had gone over there and come back to report their
findings.

The lamias probably even explained the myths in Asia when it came to hydras and
dragons. The lamias had taught them how to construct pyramids and in
the process they'd spawned legends of giant, snake-like creatures
that served as sources of knowledge and enlightenment.

Set moved
impatiently and I realized that I'd spent too long lost in the
ramifications of what I thought he was telling me.

"Sorry.
Before you were with the pharaohs you were somewhere else. I think it
was probably Asia— Thailand or Cambodia? I don't remember
exactly where the pyramids over there are located."

Set looked even
more frustrated now. "No, that was another enclave. We were
somewhere different. Not Louisiana, not Egypt. Not here…"

He lapsed back
into his native tongue for several words before looking at me
expectantly. I had a feeling that we weren't going to make much
progress now, but I decided to try one last time.

"You
weren't here? In the enclave?"

"No.
Enclave came later."

"Where was
your enclave before this one?"

Set bent down
and drew a circle in the sand that I thought was supposed to
represent the Earth. Once I indicated that I understood, he wiped the
circle away with his foot.

"Not an
enclave. Home. Enclave came later."

I didn't think
he was telling me that his people were from outer space, but I was
drawing a blank on what else it could all mean.

"You came
from somewhere else."

"Yes, but
other things came here with us. Hunters. Much bigger than lamias,
very dangerous. We call them-it the Consumed."

It was hard,
but I temporarily put aside the question of where his people had come
from and focused on what he was telling me now.

"So this
is the style of fighting that you use when you are fighting the
Consumed?"

"Yes.
That."

It was
interesting that Set's language skills seemed to degenerate so much
when we got into more abstract questions. He obviously wasn't stupid,
the only logical explanation seemed to be that we were touching on
things that were important to him, things that he wasn't entirely
comfortable discussing.

"Are the
Consumed the reason that you left Egypt, Set?"

"Yes, and
no. There were complications. It was the order of the queen."

The things that
I was learning were incredible, but they wouldn't keep me alive in
the next challenge match, a match that was getting closer with each
second. Still, there was a part of me that couldn't bear to let such
an incredible source of information go.

"Set,
would it be possible for me to come here sometime later? After I've
left with my queen? I wouldn't be coming back to ask for an audience
with your queen, I'd be coming to talk to you."

Set looked at
me as though I'd lost my mind. "You have many strange ideas,
Isaac Nazir. Men do not visit another enclave without their queen.
Such a thing is without honor. How could you leave your queen without
assistance?"

I struggled for
a way to explain things in a way that matched up with Set's world
view. "My…queen may not be able to return. She has
commitments that may not allow her to visit again, but she does not
always need my help. What if I were to return with a different queen?
Possibly the tiny queen who accompanied me here with my queen and the
other sun person. Is there a way for me to return and not have to
face challengers?"

I was pretty
sure that the concept of changing queens, of shifting one's loyalty
between women would be anathema to Set, but I was hoping that I could
muddy the waters by throwing Kristin into the mix. Surely they
occasionally had new queens born in the enclave, and when that
happened it was only logical that some of the lamias from the
original enclave would be allowed to accompany the adolescent queen
when she left to set up a new enclave.

Set considered
my question for several long moments.

"I start
to wonder if some of my brethren might not be right. Our very
presence here exposes us to things that workers and consorts are not
meant to know. These are questions and ideas that are meant for
queens. I fear that our people will not recognize us when we return
home."

Fearing that
I'd inadvertently pushed too hard, I started to apologize, but Set
stopped me with a gesture.

"With
someone else it might be possible. It would be a question for my
queen, but it would not be possible for you to return, Isaac Nazir.
You stress the way of things too much."

"I'm sorry
that my questions are so disruptive, Set. I meant no harm by them. I
merely wish to learn more about your people."

"You
misunderstand me. Your questions and ideas are concerning, but they
are not the reason that you wouldn't be able to return. Your sun is
too bright and it grows brighter still."

"I don't
understand what you mean."

Set waved at
the cavern we were standing in. "It grows smaller with every
passing day. Surely you have noticed this."

I looked around
and realized for the first time that he was right. The change was
very small, but during my last fight there had been a ring of lamias
watching us that had been two deep in spots. Now there wasn't enough
space between the wall and the circle for two lamias to stand.

"How is
this possible?"

Set shrugged.
"It is the queen. She shapes the world stuff, but we consorts
and workers hide the enclave from the Consumed. Fewer workers mean
the enclave has to be smaller to hide it, but the presence of sun
people always makes it harder to hide."

"So shape
shifters create some kind of…beacon that lures the Consumed to
your home?"

"Yes, and
no. Sun people make hiding difficult. Lure the Consumed to enclave,
not home. You are special case, nearly ready to expand, bigger…lure."

I couldn't
decide if he was saying that my shifting shapes was what was causing
the problems or if he was trying to reference something else. I
started to ask another question, but Set waved me back into the
center of the circle.

Apparently he
was done answering questions.

Isaac Nazir
The Lamia Enclave

The next fight
was a real doozy. I was starting to suspect that Set waited for me to
heal from the last fight before throwing me back in the ring. If that
was the case, then the sheer amount of punishment I took training
with him bought me an extra day or so.

My next
opponent was another worker, roughly the same size as my previous
challenger, but faster on his feet than anyone I'd faced up to that
point. I tried every trick I knew and still thought several times
that I wasn't going to beat him.

Despite my best
efforts, I couldn't manage to control the tempo and terms of the
fight. He was just too good for that. He came in close and went to
town on me. He wasn't using the style of fighting that Set had been
teaching me though. It was more just the result of him being slightly
shorter than me. It was only natural for him to close and try to get
inside of my reach.