He lay his head back down on the table and heaved a long, deep sigh. He was still a prisoner, still chained to a table, still able to see the sickly woman with the writhing tentacles, still feeling the shackles digging into his body, and yet… the veil of the nightmare had lifted.
I’m still myself. Still human. Still a man. I’m not some creature, not a slave. I am Omar Bakhoum, and Bashir, and Grigori, and all the others right back to Thoth. I am alive, and I am sane, and this insanity needs to end.
He opened his eyes and looked at the beautiful young woman staring down at him. He said, “Much better, thank you. Now if you could do something about these chains, I’d be quite appreciative.”
She smiled. “Probably not appreciative enough.” Lilith straightened up and headed back toward her chair.
“So what now?” he asked. “Games? Feasts? Orgies?”
“Certainly,” she said in all sincerity. “For me, yes. But for you? No. You’re too valuable to me, like Horus and the others. You can serve me as few others can. I’ll have to think awhile about how best to use you.”
“If immortals are so valuable to you, why don’t you just make more?”
“Ah! Now there is an intelligent question,” she said. By the sounds she made, Omar guessed that she was settling back into her cushioned throne and picking at her grapes. She continued, “And the answer is… it’s not worth the effort.” She laughed.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, drawing out a living soul, trapping it in the hot sun-steel, forging and sealing the pendant, all while keeping the person alive? Well, just talking about it is exhausting. It’s a complicated and delicate procedure, and one that I’ve only attempted once,” Lilith said. “And then what would I have? Another you? Another me? Another Horus or Gideon? That’s dangerous, too dangerous for my blood. I thought you would have realized by now that I’m not very ambitious. Remind me, please, which one of us built two temples to greed and power? Oh yes, that was you, not me.”
Omar grimaced.
“I’ve built a temple to pleasure. My pleasure. My fantasies, my joys. And while I have toyed with the notion of making this circle of one into a circle of many, I don’t really want to bother.” She laughed. “Can you imagine me ending up like Osiris and Isis? Not exactly the romantic future I aspire to. So no, I don’t make others immortal. It would only complicate things, and I like things simple.”
“And that’s why you killed Bastet?”
Lilith sighed. “Oh, for pity’s sake, that heart didn’t belong to Bastet. It belonged to Anubis.”
Omar felt his own aching heart stop as the revelation shot through his veins like ice water. For an instant, he didn’t dare to hope that she was telling the truth. He couldn’t stand to think his little girl was still alive only to lose her again. “You can’t know that.”
“Of course I can. Osiris’s heart tarnished after all those centuries in his dank little tower, and it turned his skin green,” she said. “Don’t tell me it never occurred to you that the same thing had turned Anubis’s skin black?”
“Turned him black?” Omar frowned. “But… he was always very dark…”
“No, he was just like the rest of his family,” she said. “I met them not long after you made me a part of this little world of yours. Anubis went off on that sojourn of his, if you recall. He spent two hundred years in that desert monastery. Something about the heat and the sand must have altered his sun-steel heart, because he came back with midnight skin. The loveliest I’ve ever seen. Not that he could be tempted, but still, he was delicious to the eye.”
“So you saw…?”
“Yes, there were black stains in the crevices of the heart I burned.” She slurped from a goblet noisily. “I must say, for the man who invented the science of immortality, you seem to know almost nothing about it.”
Omar blinked and swallowed.
I think I saw the black stains. I think she’s telling the truth. Anubis, I’m so sorry. But… Bastet… still alive. My little one…
“I mean, what have you been doing with yourself all these years?” Lilith mused. “You talk about death and disaster, but weren’t you the one on the quest for ultimate knowledge? Was the questing so much fun that you simply forgot about the knowledge part?”
“I… was easily distracted.”
Lilith laughed. “Distracted? I could teach you a thing or two about distraction.”
“I’d prefer you didn’t.”
“Mm.” Lilith chewed on something, making many soft wet sucking sounds. “You know, I’m quite tempted to take you downstairs and torture you just a little with my friends and toys, but really, what would be the point? Either you’d enjoy it or you wouldn’t. And either way would be work for me, and that does not appeal. So I think I’ll retire by myself for a few hours while I ponder what to do with you. I hope the screams won’t bother you too much. Good night!”
Her laughter followed her out the door and down the passageway. Omar sighed.
Alone at last. And whole. And Bastet is alive.
He leaned his head up and looked at the servant woman. She was slumped against the wall, her eyes wide and glassy, her tentacles no longer twitching or curling.
Oh God…
Chapter 25
Asha woke to the gentle rocking sensation of someone shaking her shoulder and whispering her name. She opened her eyes and saw just a few paces away Wren spread-eagled on the floor, her red hair strewn over her blanket, drool glistening on her lip, a mongoose curled up on her belly, and a thin snore whistling through her nose. In the distant shadows, the bizarre figures of Isis and Horus hung from their chains, still and silent.
She turned and looked up into the wide, smiling eyes of a handsome young man.
“Sorry to wake you,” Gideon whispered. He nodded at the prisoners. “I see we have another friend here.”
Asha sat up and wrapped her warm wool blanket around her shoulders. “He came after sunset. I think he came looking for his mother. Wren and I captured him the same way we caught Isis. No trouble to speak of. We’re both fine.”
“Good, good.” Gideon sat down beside her on the cold dirt floor. “I wish I had such good news. I never found Horus myself. Just a smashed up street and a lot of scared people. It sounded like Anubis had been there too, but I never found him. Some of the witnesses said he was out in the fields to the east of the city, but by then it was already dark and I didn’t think I’d be able to find him, so I came back here.”
“What about Bastet? Did you see her?” Asha asked.
“No.” Gideon rubbed his lip with his thumb. “But as long as Isis and Horus are here, then she’s in no danger.”
Asha nodded.
Maybe.
“Would you mind staying here with Wren and watching our guests for a while?” she asked. “I’m going to take a look around for Bastet.”
“Are you sure?” Gideon smiled a little. “I mean, I know she looks like a little girl, but she’s four thousand years old and can’t be killed.”
“I know, but she can be hurt, in her own way.” Asha stood up. “And I need something to do.”
“Sure.” Gideon nodded and scooted back against one of the wooden crates to sit more comfortably. “Good luck out there.”
“Thanks.” Asha settled her blanket and her medicine bag on her shoulders, and headed out into the night.
It was very late or very early, and while dawn was still hours away Asha felt entirely rested and entirely awake as she walked alone through the empty, silent streets. She headed east, watching the sky for the first pale hints of a sunrise she had no real desire to see.
Let this night go on forever. Leave tomorrow beyond the veil. I don’t want to see what I’ll become when the new day begins. I was Asha of Kathmandu, a healer. I survived the doctors of Ming, and the Sons of Osiris, and even the golden dragon itself, only to be destroyed here, stamped out of existence by my own pride and impatience and stupidity.