Stealing Sacred Fire (34 page)

Pharmaros held out her hands
and lifted him from the floor. They stood facing one another, of a
similar height, eye to eye. ‘Who are you?’ she asked.

‘Kashday,’ he replied. ‘Kashday
Murkaster. ’

They embraced for a moment, the
room stilled around them. Then Pharmaros lifted the drapes. ‘It’s
been so long,’ she said, ‘this punishment.’

Daniel and the
others waited two days in the Valley of Stones. By the end of this
time, the Yarasadi were getting impatient and wanted to return
home. Gadreel said she felt they should still wait, but Daniel
could tell she was no longer as sure about this as she had
been.

‘Oh, for Anu’s sake, let’s go
back to Qimir’s camp,’ Salamiel said. ‘It’s obvious Shem isn’t
coming back here. What good is it doing hanging around? Our
supplies are running low. Remember we have to feed ourselves on the
journey back.’

‘We can’t just leave him!’
Daniel said. He’d already made some short forays into the
surrounding mountains, but had been unable to pick up any sign of
Shem, physical or psychic. He’d also meditated for hours, trying to
contact Ishtahar, hoping she could give him information, but she
either wouldn’t or couldn’t co-operate. Daniel had never felt so
alone. He couldn’t dispel the feeling that Shem was now far away,
but still felt it would be a betrayal if they returned to Qimir
without definite proof that Shem had gone elsewhere. There was
still a chance he might be meditating somewhere up in the
mountains.

Gadreel ran her fingers through
her hair. ‘One more night,’ she said. ‘That’s all. This afternoon,
we’ll have another thorough search and if nothing’s found, or Shem
hasn’t turned up by tomorrow morning, we’ll leave.’

Daniel uttered a suppressed cry
of outrage and turned away from her.

‘Salamiel is right,’ Gadreel
said softly. ‘We can’t wait here for ever, Daniel.’

‘Then what do we do?’ he
snapped. ‘Without Shem we have no purpose, no idea what to do. We
are the limbs; he is the brain. Do we return to Qimir and forget
all about the key and the Chambers, and the other avatars who must
be waiting for us somewhere?’

Gadreel sighed. ‘I understand
your anxieties, but I still think we should go back, not least
because of what Salamiel has pointed out about our supplies. At
Qimir’s settlement we could apply ourselves to working psychically
to trace Shem. We could work intensively on what to do next.’

‘We have no key,’ Daniel said.
‘No master and no key. No knowledge.’

‘We have no choice!’ Gadreel
said sharply. ‘We can’t stay here until we starve. And don’t think
of waiting here alone. I’ll tie you up and drag you away kicking
and screaming before I’ll allow that!’

That night, Daniel lay in his
blanket, listening to the comforting sounds of horses around him,
and the snores and breathing of his companions. This is my last
chance, he thought. Ishtahar, come to me. Advise me as you always
have.

His mind was totally blank.
There was no buzz of psychic contact, just deadness, and the soft
cacophony of mundane thoughts. ‘Damn it!’ Daniel said softly and
sat up abruptly. Why was his ability so unreliable? He remembered
how, when he’d first worked with Shem, he’d had psychic information
tumbling out of his mind whenever it was needed. Now, it was such
hard work, for so little reward. Maybe he was too old, too closed
off. But he was Grigori now, no longer human. Perhaps that meant
whatever blocks he was experiencing were self-created.

Daniel felt an urge to walk
around and got to his feet. Creeping away from his companions, he
ventured beyond the circle that Gadreel had drawn with the sword,
and which they still kept intact, punctuated by the bowls of
flowers and water.

‘Come to me,’ Daniel murmured.
‘I’m waiting. Come.’

He sat down on the cold stones.
The circle, with its smouldering fire, seemed miles away. Wind
fretted his hair, reached into his clothes with icy claws. He
shivered. ‘Ishtahar! Come to me!’

There was no sign of the blue
glow which presaged Ishtahar’s presence, either in reality or in
his mind. Daniel concentrated harder, bellowed her name with his
inner voice, willed her to manifest.

After a few moments, he opened
his eyes. He felt dizzy, sick with the effort. Nothing, still
nothing. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes,
uttered a groan of defeat. ‘Where are you, you bitch?’ He knew that
in insulting his goddess, he was castigating himself, and yet the
suspicion lurked within him that now he was Grigori, Ishtahar would
no longer have dealings with him. He had become the person with
whom she’d once had to compete for Shemyaza’s affections.

A rattle of stones alerted him and he
dropped his hands from his eyes. For a moment, all he could see was
sparkling stars of light, then his vision cleared. A serpent was
undulating over the stones towards him. It was as thin as a whip
and even in the meagre light of the distant fire, its scales
glinted and glistered with a gold-shot blue radiance, as if it were
made of lapis lazuli. Its eyes were sapphires, each reflecting a
single, purple spark.

Daniel stared at the creature,
hardly daring to believe it might have come in answer to his
summons. ‘Ishtahar?’ His voice was a whisper.

The serpent reared up and hung
before him, its blue-black tongue flickering in and out of its
lipless mouth. ‘Ah, Daniel, you chide me so sorely,’ it said.

Daniel’s shoulders slumped in
relief. ‘You came. Thank God!’

‘Thank who?’ lisped the
serpent. ‘You should thank me, and me only.’

Daniel detected a new tone to
Ishtahar’s remarks, a sharpness that had not been there before.
‘Then I thank you, Ishtahar. My sore words are inspired by
desperate need.’

The serpent undulated before
him; a private dance. ‘Ssso, you are Grigori now, my Daniel. You
have regained what the years have taken from you, while I still
languish in my grief.’

‘We both deserve respite,’
Daniel said carefully. ‘Yours will come.’

The serpent dipped and swayed
before him. ‘Yet even in your elevated condition, you still need me
— as I have ever been needed by men!’

‘You sound bitter,’ Daniel
said. ‘You never were before.’

The serpent emitted a sound
like a sigh. ‘It is my curse to be a goddess to others,’ it said,
‘yet who will be a god for me? Must I wait for an eternity to live
again?’

Daniel thought about this, and saw how
he could, in some ways, be seen as instrumental in this continuing
torment. ‘You are a goddess because you allow it. People petition
you, and you hear, you respond. Surely only you have the power to
end the curse?’

The serpent contemplated him
silently for a moment. ‘Daniel, I am a forgotten goddess. My
shrines are ruins, visited only by lizards and birds. Only you call
to me now and hold me to the form I am.’

‘I do not wish to cause you
suffering,’ Daniel said. ‘You came to me as an advisor. It was you,
not I, who initiated our contact.’

The serpent lunged forward, but
Daniel did not flinch. ‘It was love that drew me to you,’ the
serpent lisped. ‘Love for a man, your master. You do not need me
now, yet you bind me to the earth.’

‘I do need you,’ Daniel said
softly. ‘And I will always be grateful for what you have done for
me. But I don’t want to bind you.’

Purple sparks flared in the
serpent’s eyes. ‘You are releasing me, Daniel, from our
confederacy?’

‘If you want me to, yes. If my
word alone will provide that release.’

The serpent swayed a little.
‘Then I accept that release with gratitude. You may ask me one last
question.’

Daniel considered for a while,
knowing that the way he worded this question was extremely
important. Ultimately, he opted for simplicity. ‘How can I regain
my inner sight?’

The serpent did not hesitate.
‘You have never lost it. Your dilemma is that you do not trust
yourself, which is why you stare into darkness. You have been so
close to the answer, walked the ground where it lay absorbed by the
stones, yet did not recognise it. You can hear the things that even
Shemyaza did not hear. The answer the key gave to him.’

‘I can’t hear it. I have tried
— walked these mountain paths. They are silent.’

The serpent expelled a short
hiss. ‘Oh, Daniel, Daniel. Look within. Must I hold your hand at
every turn? You are more now than I was in life. You have reclaimed
your angel blood. Listen to its music.’

Daniel closed his eyes and
summoned a quiet within him. Have faith, he told himself. He
listened to the beat of his own blood and it resolved into the
sound of feet trudging a stony path. An image bloomed in his mind:
Shem climbing and climbing. He could feel all that Shem felt as he
walked towards the site of vanished Kharsag. He saw the devastation
that Shem had seen and then, almost in slow motion, relived Shem’s
communication with the crystal. When the time of Shem’s capture
came, he was aware of the sound of the guns, but in his head,
louder than any metallic threat were the words, ‘Go to the old
kingdom. Carry me to the Chambers. In Khem.’ The words Shem did not
hear.

Daniel opened his eyes with a
gasp. ‘Egypt!’

‘Yesss!’ hissed the serpent.
‘Shem has gone to Babylon, but you, my Daniel, must lead your
companions back to Egypt.’

‘Back to Egypt? We have not yet
been there.’

‘It is the place of beginning,
but not your beginning.’

‘But where in Egypt? What must
we do there? Will Shem join us?’

‘Remember, Daniel, you are of
the Lion,’ answered the serpent. ‘Seek the lion of the desert who
guards Orion.’ It began to retreat, back into the darkness.

‘Wait!’ Daniel said. ‘You must
answer me, Ishtahar. It is not enough just to tell me we have to go
to Egypt. I need more! Stay! I command you!’

The serpent uttered a long,
soft hiss. ‘You released me, Daniel. You are on your own now.’
Presently, it disappeared into the shadows. Daniel uttered an
anguished cry and jumped to his feet.

‘Daniel!’ Gadreel’s voice.

He turned and saw her
approaching him from the circle. It was nearly dawn. He could see
that Gadreel’s eyes looked sleepy. ‘What are you doing out here?’
she asked, rubbing her face and yawning.

‘Trying to get answers,’ he
said.

‘And did you succeed?’

He shrugged. ‘We have to go to
Egypt.’

‘What? Why?’

‘Ishtahar came to me. That’s
the only information I could get.’

‘But where in Egypt?’

‘She told me to seek the lion
of the desert who guards Orion. I can only hope that was a
reference to the sphinx.’

Gadreel reached out and
squeezed Daniel’s shoulder. ‘Good, good. This is what we need.’

‘But it’s hardly enough.’

‘No, it’s more than enough.
Much more than we had before tonight. We know now what to do. I’ll
wake Salamiel and tell him. The others might as well go back to
Qimir’s camp.’

‘It’s so far, Gadreel. We can’t
ride there.’

‘It’s not that far to the
nearest town, despite how desolate and lonely it feels up here.
We’ll get transport. You and Salamiel still have money, don’t
you?’

‘Yes, but…’

‘No buts. That’s all we need.
Our final destiny has been revealed to us. We have only to follow
it.’

Far away, in Cornwall, Helen
Winter woke up in her narrow bed. Blinking from sleep, it seemed to
her as if a shower of blue sparks were falling down onto her,
disappearing as they touched the quilt that covered her body. She
could not move at all, but sensed that the sparks were pouring out
of her scarab beetle Met-Met’s jar. At the same time, she was
gripped by a strange sensation. It was similar, in some respects,
to when she fell over and the air was knocked from her lungs, but
this feeling was a reverse of being winded. Something was gusting
into her with the same sudden impact. Helen was not afraid. She was
used to seeing and feeling strange things.

Released from her paralysis,
she gulped for breath and sat up in the bed. Should she call for
her mother? Not yet. The sparks and the peculiar sensations had
gone now. She hopped out of bed and went to the window, where the
curtains hung open.

Outside, the garden had
disappeared. The cottage was surrounded by the sea, and now rose up
from its own small island. Helen saw a shining figure walking
towards her across the dark waves. It was a golden-haired man,
dressed in a white robe. He seemed to be walking fast, but he came
no closer to the island. His arms were held out to her, yet he
could not reach her. ‘Do not worry,’ Helen said to him, touching
the glass of her window with small fingers. ‘Your love has brought
me back. I am coming to you.’

She drew the curtains across
the window and went back to bed.

Melandra
Maynard was beginning to get impatient. She had been kept waiting
for a couple of weeks now, and had still not spoken with the king.
The old woman, Tiy, kept Melandra close to her and questioned her
often. She appeared to be intensely curious about Melandra’s life
and history. Melandra had been selective about the facts she
released, but Tiy had a knack for extracting data. Almost without
realising what she was doing, Melandra found herself describing her
insular childhood. When she looked back into her memories, all that
she could remember was winter — bare trees, cold weather — and
never any summers. There had been summers while she’d been at the
school, so where had the memories gone?

‘You were a lonely child,’ Tiy
pronounced, ‘and you are a lonely woman.’

‘No,’ said Melandra, frowning.
But I am, she thought.

Tiy shook her head at the
description of Melandra’s secluded school and its dusty teachers.
‘Such creatures have never grown up to be women,’ she said. ‘They
should not be entrusted with the mind of a child.’