“Then am I immortal?”
Donnchadh shook her head. “No. But if you continue to drink human blood to feed the alien part of your blood — and don’t get drained of any more of what you have — you can live a very, very long time. You can also go into the tube and use the deep sleep to let time pass without aging. I have seen it before. Where I came from. They did the same to my people.”
“Where are you from?” Nosferatu asked.
“You would not understand.” Donnchadh pointed to the end of the short corridor. “You can go to the right and get out a secret door near the Nile. The ceremony will start shortly in the Sphinx pit. Wait until the Gods who will oversee the ceremony appear, then follow them down the main Road of Rostau.”
“But—” Nosferatu clearly wanted to know more but Donnchadh left, following right behind Gwalcmai.
He glanced over his shoulder. “They will not be able to get into the Hall of Records.”
“Most likely not, since they do not have the key,” Donnchadh agreed.
“Then what purpose did freeing them serve?”
“It will cause trouble for the Airlia here.”
Gwalcmai wasn’t convinced. “We shall see.”
Donnchadh glanced over her shoulder at Gwalcmai. “Because of my sister.”
Gwalcmai frowned. “You never told me you had a sister.”
“Because she was dead to us the day she was taken by the Airlia to be used by the Airlia. As the mothers of those we just freed were used.”
“Did she have”—Gwalcmai searched for the word—“offspring?”
“Yes.”
Gwalcmai knew the fate of such humans and their offspring on their world — they had died when the Airlia main base had been destroyed. He switched the subject abruptly. “We were followed through the tunnels, you know that, right?”
“The machine?”
“No,” Gwalcmai said. “A human. The Wedjat. He is not as stupid as he appeared. He did his job — he watched.”
Donnchadh nodded. “Good. Then we will use him also.”
Donnchadh shoved open the door and walked into the Watcher’s small hut, Gwalcmai right behind her. The man leapt to his feet, a dagger in his hand, his family cowering behind him.
“Tell them to leave,” Donnchadh ordered in the ancient tongue. She pulled out her golden medallion and showed it to him.
The Watcher’s eyes widened at both the language and the emblem. He lowered the dagger and quickly barked commands at his family. They scurried out of the hut, disappearing into the darkness.
“There has been no one here since—” the Watcher began, but Donnchadh raised her hand, cutting him off.
“There is something you must do.”
Fools,” Gwalcmai hissed as the chant of the priests echoed off the stone wall below them.
“We serve for the promise of eternal life from the Grail. We serve for the promise of the great truth. We serve as our fathers have served, our fathers’ fathers, and through the ages from the first days of the rule of the God who brought us up out of the darkness. We serve because in serving there is the greater good for all.”
Donnchadh tapped Gwalcmai on the arm and pointed. “There.”
Six dark forms were hidden among a pile of building stone, also watching the priests prostrated before the paws of the Black Sphinx.
“So they didn’t run,” Gwalcmai said.
“Vengeance is powerful,” Donnchadh said. “And the lure of the Grail—”
Gwalcmai stiffened as two tall, thin figures appeared in the open door in the pedestal beneath the paws. One raised its right hand, six fingers splayed open. Donnchadh stared at the Airlia for several moments, then noticed someone moving to their right, in the shadows. She tapped Gwalcmai’s shoulder and pointed. “The Watcher.”
The priests got to their feet and left, going to the nearby temple to continue praying. The two Airlia disappeared into the black hole beneath the chest of the Sphinx. Soon all that was left in the open before the Sphinx was a lone high priest. As the imprinted man turned toward the door, the six half-breeds that Donnchadh had freed sprinted across the open space and attacked him.
“They’re actually doing it,” Gwalcmai whispered. He had expressed doubts to Donnchadh that the half-breeds would go back into the Roads, suggesting instead that they would simply take this opportunity to run away.
“Their vengeance overpowers all else,” Donnchadh said.
The six disappeared into the darkness, leaving the body of the high priest behind. After them went the Watcher, acting on Donnchadh’s orders.
Only two made it,” Gwalcmai said several hours later. “More than I expected,” Donnchadh said. They could see the Watcher along with two of the half-breeds, hidden along the edge of the depression.
“What are they waiting for?” Gwalcmai wanted to know. “The same thing we are. Reaction to whatever they managed to do in the Roads.”
All night long they had heard priests going throughout the surrounding area, ordering all to come to the Sphinx at first light, indicating that the Undead they had unleashed had achieved something in the warren of tunnels beneath them. As soon as it was light enough to see, Donnchadh knew what was coming — on top of the head of the Black Sphinx were two wooden Xs; behind them was a deep sleep tube.
“We should leave,” Gwalcmai said, as soon as he saw the Xs.
Donnchadh couldn’t respond. Her body had gone numb and her eyes were fixed on the objects on top of the Sphinx head. There were thousands of people gathered in the depression in front of the Sphinx, standing in absolute silence.
The door between the paws of the Sphinx opened and a group of high priests appeared, escorting three bound prisoners — half of those that Donnchadh and Gwalcmai had freed the previous night. All three were extremely pale and Donnchadh assumed they had been drained of their blood just short of the point of death. One of them — the one that had slept in the same chamber with Nosferatu — was also missing her right hand, the stump covered in a dirty linen bandage. They were moved up a ramp to the top of the Sphinx.
Then four Airlia appeared. The gathered humans dropped to their knees and bowed their heads, causing Gwalcmai to growl in disgust. The Airlia wore hooded black robes. They slowly walked up the ramp to the top of the Sphinx. Donnchadh could sense Gwalcmai’s tensing — he was, after all, a God-killer.
A high priest stepped forward and cried out to the huddled masses: “Behold the price of rebellion. Behold the price of betrayal. Behold the price of disobedience.”
Two of the prisoners were placed against the Xs, their arms and legs splayed against the wood. Their dirty robes were torn off, exposing their pale skin to the rays of the sun. High priests secured them to the wood using strips of leather that they first dipped in buckets of water. They worked from the tips of the extremities inward. Each strip of leather was an inch wide and they were spaced two inches apart.
The priests did this until both captives were secured up to their groins and armpits. When done, the high priest once more chanted: “Behold the price of rebellion. Behold the price of betrayal. Behold the price of disobedience.”
Gwalcmai grabbed Donnchadh’s shoulder. “We should leave. We do not need to see this. We’ve—” He stopped before completing the sentence.
“We’ve seen this before,” Donnchadh finished it for him.
One of the prisoners cried out in pain. Donnchadh closed her eyes, but that couldn’t stop the mental image of her father, tied to a similar cross, one made of black metal, with leather straps around his limbs. It was a horrible way to die as the slowly drying bands constricted, forcing blood from the extremities into the core of the body, allowing the victim to live a long time, while experiencing excruciating pain. Both prisoners were now screaming in agony.