TEN
Everyone knew that it was the three thousand, two hundred and eleventh year of Maatkare Hatshepsu’s reign because most countries had adopted Egypt’s count of years as a common reference. Even Yue, whose dragons had Answered as long ago as Egypt’s gods, still found it handy when dealing with other realms. Eluned was less certain exactly how long it was since Egypt’s Pharaoh had become stone, but could always rely on her brother’s memory.
“One million, five hundred and one thousand little sphinxes?” Griff said, as they followed Dem Makepeace back into the Hall.
“Shabti are usually shaped like people,” Dem Makepeace said, pausing before the open doors leading into the grove. “Not that I’ve heard of any recent attacks by miniature stone armies.”
“Better as spies,” Eleri said, and they all looked out into the grove. The hall felt very large and empty and exposed with the inner doors wide open and the trees full of shadows—and folies. Somehow, Eluned could not find the thought of them reassuring.
“There are advantages to the guardians of this place knowing you three properly,” Dem Makepeace said, perhaps catching their hesitation. “Unless you consider yourself an enemy of Cernunnos, there’s no particular danger, though you will not stray from my side, nor will you tell anyone what you witness or have discussed this night.”
“No,” Eluned agreed, echoing Eleri and Griff. Too much was bound up with their investigation to risk blabbing.
“No,” Aunt Arianne said, a beat later. She was frowning.
Dem Makepeace stepped beneath the trees, and Eluned didn’t allow herself to hang back, trailing him to the gate. It seemed to float at the end of the path, golden coils and silver fruit glimmering in pitch. Could the quick polish it had received that afternoon have made even that dusky red metal so reflective? Could star and distant gas light reach so far?
The key was a metal circle Eluned hadn’t even noticed Dem Makepeace carrying. She only caught the movement as he pushed it into the space between the twin amasens’ jaws, turning it easily. After a click the gate swung inward, and a cool breeze swept past them, setting all the leaves of the usually sheltered trees whispering, and bringing a crisp hint of pine with a darker note of loam.
Eluned shivered, took a deep breath, and found herself more excited than afraid. It did not make sense, for that breeze to stream from one end of this high walled space. And it was not sensible for her to eagerly follow the vampire who had nearly killed her aunt. Yet she did, impatient when he paused to close the gate behind them.
The trees here crowded close, making it necessary to weave and duck beneath low-hanging branches. Eluned kept a sharp eye on Dem Makepeace’s white tunic, vivid through the gloom. Though it no longer stood out so clearly, and the trees…
“How?”
“Different time of day?”
Dem Makepeace glanced up at a sky the bleached and fading blue it had been before dinner. Ahead a trace of a stone path cut through widely-spaced trees and the tumbled remnants of ancient buildings. Birds called, the evening chorus in full throat to emphasise the quiet they’d left.
“Days in the Great Forest run long,” Dem Makepeace said. “The nights can last for years, if you’ve offended.”
Aunt Arianne, contemplating a vine-decked coil of stone almost her own height, shifted shielding leaves to reveal the carved head of another amasen, only a few flecks of faded gilding remaining on the horns.
“When you spoke of Cernunnos responding to petitioners for the key, you meant directly, didn’t you? Cernunnos. Responding.”
“Of course.”
“How disconcerting.” For once Aunt Arianne sounded as if she meant it. She looked like she was thinking hard.
“What are, what were all these buildings for?” Griff asked, as upright and alert as a pointer hound that had sighted its quarry. Impressive that he did not race off to explore among the tumbled drystone walls, but perhaps the squirrels leaping from pillar to pillar, or the sheer volume of the birdsong held him at bay.
“Hurlstone,” the vampire replied. “Village and temple. Before London.”
Not fully understanding, knowing only that her throat was full and tight, Eluned took two steps off the remnant path, then managed to stop herself, obedient to her agreement to stay close. But it made her ache to do it.
“Who’s that?” Griff asked sharply, looking past Eluned, and she turned, searching.
Beyond a knee-high wall and a stream framed by willow and drooping spruce, a girl stood shoulders back, face raised, arms hanging loose. Twilight was not a good time to pray, but so long as there was light in the sky you could hope to catch Sulis’ ear.
Instead of answering, Dem Makepeace changed direction, stepping over the wall and then crossing the stream on a tumble of stones that had once been a pillar.
“He serious?” Eleri murmured, as they followed. “Don’t just go meet Cernunnos.”
The gods—the grander ones like Cernunnos—rarely came to the living world. Their presence was too great a strain. But humans did not simply go visiting the Otherworlds either, except of course when their souls went to the gods who held their allegiance.
Eluned, unspeakably excited by something that should make her flinch, couldn’t make her voice work, but Griff muttered: “Don’t just walk out of London either. I think that must be a statue.”
He was right. Even when Dem Makepeace stopped right in front of her, the girl didn’t move, and now that Eluned could see her feet it was obvious: she stood held in place by a little pile of stones, grass growing thickly through it.
Aunt Arianne, voice muted, said: “The one who made you?”
“Good guess,” Dem Makepeace said, not looking back at them. With great ceremony he knelt, settled down to rest on his heels, and then put both hands to his chest and bowed, so low he was folded down completely.
Caught between shock and fascination, Eluned stared from him to a statue that seemed embarrassingly naked now that she knew that this had been a real person. A vampire in rept. The stone was a waxy pale grey, and the books said it would feel like hard soap beneath the fingers. Despite standing outside exposed, no details were eroded, and Eluned could clearly make out the edges of fingernails, of eyelids. No hair, because that was the one part of a vampire that was not preserved, but if she were taller and had brown frizz to tease into three triangles, she’d look a lot like Melly Ktai.
“Why isn’t she wrapped up?” Griff asked, curious. “And underneath a pyramid?”
Dem Makepeace stood, fortunately showing no hint of offence.
“Bindings aren’t necessary. They’re a carry-over of the preservations performed on those not stone. And she preferred the sight of an eternal sky to whatever assistance her ba might gain using a pyramid to gain strength before moving on.”
Egyptians had three lives. The first much the same as everyone else, and then a second where their bodies were maintained like houses, something to rest in after nights outside the world as invisible bird-people called ba. That was the complete opposite of Prytennia, where everything was done to ensure that your body didn’t tie you in place. But then, while Prytennians wanted to quickly move on to Annwn to be judged fit for a happy new life among Arawn’s islands, Egyptians needed to grow in strength as ba, because the journey to their Otherworld was very dangerous. And some, the strongest among them, might choose to fly not to their Field of Rushes, but outside the worlds altogether, transcending mortality to become stars.