Selene gasped as the lines shot across the ground and under her, but they left her unharmed. A moment later they were passing under Thrasyllus, too, an eerie line of ghost fire that whispered in an ancient tongue but touched him not.
It wasn’t looking to harm them, Thrasyllus realized. It was searching for something. “Selene,” he finally managed to say, overcoming his cowardice and fear. “I think—”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the dancing, darting lines find the edge of the black pit of Ba’al Hammon and then plunge into it like little rivers of phantom flame. Beneath them the glyphs and patterns dissolved, as if the power was flowing away, draining into that shadowed place of sacrifice that was soon glowing with a fierce light the molten color of fresh blood.
Juba groaned again, a long and agonized sound.
There was a snuffling from the pit, like that of a trapped beast scenting at the open door of its cage. And then a hand appeared at the lip of the stone. Long fingers with nails sharp as claws. The skin was crimson as it arose in the glow of the red light from the pit’s depths, then pale and bloodless as it came over the edge and stretched out upon the surface of the rock. It seemed almost to caress that hard surface, and then the knuckles strained as it pressed down, beginning to leverage up the body that lay beneath it. Another hand arose and gripped the stone.
And another. And another.
The arms began to appear, with the lean but sculpted muscles he’d seen on the statues of gods, the forms of bodies made from the most perfect molds, untouched by time and worry. The skin over those muscles, now that he saw more of it, was the color of the Egyptian sands. Every movement the bodies made was smoothly elegant, a graceful dance that strangely reminded Thrasyllus of the movement of deadly cobras being charmed from baskets. Then, one by one, three hauntingly beautiful faces of what looked like two men and one woman were rising from the pit. Their eyes were black on black, gleaming like polished gems of obsidian. They were entirely hairless, and as they began to climb out onto the floor of the ruined temple he could see that they were naked but for the smears of the black-ash char of the pit. They were so perfect, so extraordinarily beautiful, that he could not look away. Yet at the same time his heart quaked at the sight of such unnatural perfection. And something inside of him—something so deep that he might have called it his soul—screamed with paralyzed terror.
For a fleeting moment, the thought came to the scholar’s mind that he wished he still had the knife he had plunged into Seker’s back outside Alexandria, and it nearly made him laugh despite his terror.
He was a coward. He’d known it back in Alexandria. He’d known it when he’d taken Seker’s life, crying and shaking as he drove the blade home. He’d known it nearly every day since. And no weapon in his hand would change his cowardice in this moment, when all he could do was stand, still as the broken statues around them, and do nothing but bear mute witness to the rise of these beings.
Not that a blade could be of great use against such creatures as these. They were beings of the underworld, he was certain. Spawn of the utmost dark of creation.
Demons, Thrasyllus thought, the word coming to him out of the recesses of his mind. That’s what they were.
In a sudden kick of bravery he managed to shout the word to Selene as a warning, but his eyes never left the mesmerizing creatures.
Juba had summoned demons. And the three of them, in their horrifying beauty, had turned and were beginning to reach back down into the fiery depths of the pit.
They were reaching down for others.
29
THE BITTER END
ELEPHANTINE, 25 BCE
Lucius Vorenus was out of time. He’d fought hard and bravely, but he had little left to give. And for every Kushite who fell it seemed two more took his place. There was nothing he could do now but stagger backward, fending off strikes, parrying and dodging as best he could while the Nubians pressed their attack.
He heard Pullo yelling, but in the tumult he could not hear what his old friend was saying. Not that Vorenus could do anything to help, no matter what the cry. He couldn’t spare the chance to even turn and look. The attackers were becoming more coordinated as they pressed their numerical advantage.
Just let me go first, he prayed. I can’t bear to lose him once more.
The Nubian to his left came at him high and hard, and Vorenus got his gladius up just in time to block the blow. The shock of it rattled through his bones, grinding his teeth.
The attacker to his right was jabbing at him, too, aiming for his exposed lower back.
His sword was still up for the first blow, so all he could do was twist away, buckling his knees as he tried to pivot away from the worst of the strike.
It worked. The blade missed him entirely.
In his younger years Vorenus knew he might have been able to catch himself from this position, tensing his muscles and then reversing his body’s direction. He might have exploded out of his twisted crouch and run the long, wet curve of his sword’s edge across the front of his attackers, carving a red line in space as he pressed into the attack.
But now, instead, his hip and knee gave way and he fell awkwardly onto his back. The thump of the ground coughed out of his lungs the little air he had left, and all he could do was just stare up into the sky above. It was brightening, he thought. The sun would rise soon. And there was a hole in the thick bank of fog, a ragged tear that had been ripped through the veil that had covered the island this night. Through it Vorenus could see a single star. It was a light of hope, he felt. Not for him, but for the fact that there was something far beyond the suffering of this world.
With or without them, the sun would rise again. And it would little note the horrors its rays shone upon.
He blinked, and at last he gasped the air back into his chest and could breathe again.
Too late.
One of the Kushites was looming up above him. His sword was poised like a spike.
Their eyes met, and Vorenus saw that he would find no pity in them.
Then, he saw in those same eyes a reflection of an unnatural green light, like a streaking sheet of ethereal flame. The man froze as he looked up. His eyes widened. What he saw struck him with terror.
Vorenus felt the world lift beneath his back, and he knew then the fear in the man’s eyes: it was the fear of the power of God.
Once, when he was a young man, Vorenus had floated in the waves of the sea. Still at night sometimes he could close his eyes and remember the motion of the water beneath and around him, the waves moving like a living thing. The memory of it had etched into his bones, soaked into his blood. Unmoving in his bed, his body could still feel that rolling rise beneath his back, pushing him toward the heavens before passing and letting him back down with a sigh.
This time, it was the earth itself rolling beneath him, and the instant after he saw the light in the Nubian’s eyes and felt the rising of the earthen swell, Vorenus heard the ground break. Stones, tensed by the wave that kept lifting and lifting, shattered in a crack that sounded as if the very bones of the earth were being broken. Splinters of rock and clodded dirt hurtled through the air like a storm come from the underworld.
Vorenus spread his arms and legs as the force pushed up beneath him, as if fearful that the power below might finally break free of the confines of the shattering rock and fling him upward. The Nubian above him screamed and pitched over backward as the ground trembled higher and higher into the air.
It was unnatural. It was terrifying.
And Vorenus knew he had to get away from it. Whatever was happening, whatever was about to happen, he simply needed to get away.
Instinctively he began to kick away from the Nubians who’d been attacking him and who were all upon the ground now, screaming in terror. He flipped over onto his stomach as he did so, the better to crawl and scramble away.