And then she heard the crash of glass shattering. It wasn’t the single sharp sound of a goblet hitting the ground. It was the ongoing screech and clatter of an enormous window, or a whole building of windows, all falling to the ground in a great flood of breaking, cracking, bursting, tinkling, and crunching.
“That way!” Gideon pointed and they all ran out of the intersection, shoving people and zebras and camels aside as they raced toward the shattering sounds, toward the looming facade of an ancient Mazdan Temple.
The building dominated the street, from its high walls capped in ornate geometric, angular ironworks to the soaring, slender white towers in each corner of the grounds, to the enormous golden dome of the central temple itself. Everything about the place was huge, and even though time had faded the paint and chipped away at the gold leaf and cracked the walls, the inner gardens were immaculately maintained and the walkways were carefully swept, and the brightly colored flags flapped smartly in the cool breeze.
But as Asha entered the gates and looked up at the temple, she saw the gaping holes of the windows, most with a few sharp teeth of glass still clinging to the edges of the frames. A window exploded outward on her left as a chair flew out through it, spraying the glass shards across the garden. Then the armored body of a soldier burst from a window on the right, high above the ground, and collapsed into splinters when it struck the earth below.
“I think this is the place,” Wren said.
Bastet emerged from a cloud of aether just in front of them, her hands up to stop them from going in, and she said, “It’s Isis. She’s completely out of control. I tried to talk to her, but…”
“I know. It’s all right,” Asha said. “We’ll handle it from here.”
“Please don’t hurt her!” Bastet grabbed Asha’s hand. “She doesn’t know what she’s doing. This isn’t her. Please!”
Asha knelt down and pushed a lock of the girl’s black hair behind her ear. “I will do everything I can to save your aunt. I know this isn’t her fault. I know she’s a victim too. But you must understand that I may have to hurt her in order to stop her.”
“I know.” Bastet swallowed and nodded. “Go. Hurry.”
Asha led Gideon and Wren down the path to the front doors of the temple as another chair crashed through a window on the far side of the building.
“And Gideon!” Bastet called from the gates. “Please be careful!”
“I will!” the soldier called back with a grin. But when he turned back to Asha he wasn’t grinning. He looked at her with an ashen, resigned expression, and he said, “If we can’t save her, I’ll do it. I already killed Set. It’s better if the burden is mine to bear, all of it. They’re my family too, in a way.”
Asha opened the doors. “No one else is dying today.” And she went inside.
The temple floor was a tile mosaic, bordered in geometric patterns of repeating and interlocking squares and triangles that flowed elegantly around the room, and around the base of the pillars, and across the center of the floor. The tiles shone with candlelight, illuminating the bright whites and dark golds, and bloody reds and vibrant greens, making the floor come alive in the evening shadows. But scattered over that floor were hundreds of long wooden splinters and torn carpets and the sharp, bright pebbled remains of the shattered windows.
Asha slipped her bag off her shoulder and set it down just inside the door, and then moved deeper into the temple. She could hear Isis huffing, snorting, and moaning softly. Hoofs clomped and clattered on the tiled floor. And every few moments something wooden scraped across the floor, or cracked under some great weight, or smashed through a window.
Gideon moved gracefully into the inner prayer chamber, the vast hall that made up most of the temple beneath its great dome, and he crept softly in a sideways fashion, his hands held low so that he might release his seireiken at a moment’s notice. Wren tiptoed along behind him, her arms crossed over her belly to hold her jangling silver bracelets silent.
Asha strode past them both, her sandals slapping loudly on the tiles, and grinding sharply on the broken glass. “Isis! Come out here! Isis!”
She saw the look of surprise on Gideon’s face, but said nothing to him.
A deep bellowing cry answered her from the back of the temple, and Isis stepped out from behind a marble pillar into the light of the candles. The immortal’s hoofs stomped like stone weights slamming into a muddy field, and her bovine legs pumped and moved like steam-driven pistons on a Mazigh engine, but above the waist she was a woman. Still soft flesh, still a slender waist and arms and neck. There was something smooth and willowy about her human body compared to the unnatural stampeding power of her transformed legs. Her stained and ripped dress still covered her from the shoulders to below her knees, though it was torn from the waist down to let her monstrous legs move about freely.
“Isis?” Asha stood in the center of the huge, echoing chamber, surrounded by debris, holding out her empty hands. “Can you understand me? My name is Asha. I’m a friend. I’m a healer. I’ve come to help you. Can you understand me, Isis?”
The immortal woman grimaced and stomped a bit farther around the pillar, and kicked a half-broken chair across the room into a brazier of several dozen candles, knocking them to the floor and dousing half of them. Isis placed her hand on the pillar, and moaned. Her face was half hidden by her stringy black hair, which fell neatly to her jaw line in dirty locks, and her white pupil-less eyes stared out through those locks at Asha. Atop her head rose the horns, two great curving steer horns raised like deadly dancers, petrified back to back, waiting for some otherworldly music to bring them to life.
“Isis?” Asha took a few steps toward her. “Isis, I know you’re tired. I know you’re in pain. I can see it. I can hear it. Look at me, I’m like you.” She pulled the hair back to reveal her right ear, the ear that burned with the dragon’s venom, the ear covered in golden scales.
Isis said nothing. Slowly, she moved to place her back against the pillar and she reached up with both hands to touch the curving marble, tilting her face up toward the high golden dome of the temple, her horns tapping gently on the pillar behind her.
“What do you see, Isis?” Asha glanced up. “The ceiling, the sky? Tell me what you need, if you can. I want to help you and your son. I’m going to heal you and free you from Lilith.”
Hearing that name, Isis snapped her eyes down to glare at Asha, and the steer-woman screamed a deep bellowing scream as though a thousand mother beasts were all crying out together for their lost children, screaming in pain and rage. Isis crouched upon her massive hoofed legs, and she leapt at Asha.
In the brief span of time between when Isis jumped and when she reached Asha, the healer raised her hands and thought of all the innocent children, all the families, all the young lovers who might die that night if this creature escaped into the city again. Her arms tightened and burned as her skin swelled and hardened into golden scales, transforming her into pillar of bronze in the center of the temple. Isis came crashing down upon her, and Asha grabbed the dark iron hoofs out of the air and slammed the woman down to the floor.
“Stay down, Isis!”
But the immortal kicked and flailed her powerful legs, and shot free of Asha’s grip, sending her hurtling across the floor and into the base of a pillar. Asha fell back in the opposite direction, though she hardly felt the fall through her dragon armor. She scrambled back to her feet and dashed toward the fallen Isis, hoping to tackle her and hold her down before she could rise again.
A blast of cold air struck Asha in the side and sent her stumbling across the room, but she kept her footing and turned to see Wren striding out into the grand prayer chamber. The pale northern girl with her flaming red hair held both of her arms out, one hand pointed at Asha and the other pointed at Isis.