Eater of souls (25 page)

Eater of Souls lifted herself onto the obelisk. She crouched on her haunches and tasted the wind with her snout. The stench of the living was gone. Leaping across beams and then to the quay, she slithered back into the street shadows.

Time to find the evil one. This transgressor caused terrible hurt to the favored one by its very existence. This one sinned in a thousand ways. First, there was the sin of beauty; the outward visage flaunted its perfection before the favored one. Second came a rank so high that it brought unequaled magnificence and wealth and made the favored one seem a beggar. These transgressions paled beside the third—for the evil one possessed power, godlike authority, a majesty of ka that taunted the favored one into black misery.

All admired the evil one. The fiend walked a golden path surrounded by precious jewels, countless slaves, servants, admirers. Where the fiend went, awe, praise, and fascination followed. The creature existed in a silvery mist of splendor and eminence that was slowly poisoning the Favorite.

Eater of Souls paused in her journey into the city as the pain of the favored one reached her. She backed against a wall, scraping hide and fur. From her fanged jaws issued a rhythmic grunting that ended in a hollow moan. The emptiness and desolation enveloped her, deeper than the abyss of the netherworld, more horrible than Eater of Souls herself.

Then she snuffled into silence, listening to the west wind howl. A message from the pantheon soared on the scouring blast, entered her nostrils and curled its way to her heart. Now, at last, she understood the great quest that had drawn her to the land of the living. Above all, she must destroy the one who was a lethal Nile cataract, a granite barrier concealed in churning, frothy white water that reflected the brilliance of the sun. Because it captured the rewards, glory, and worship that belonged to the favored one, this creature was the most dangerous. Every moment it existed, the fiend ripped from the favored one's ka the treasure to which only the Chosen was entitled. Each robbery, each stolen bit of praise, pierced the Favorite like a javelin, and the emptiness swelled.

Terror lurked in this emptiness. Terror and perpetual agony. She had to destroy the cause of this desolation before it obliterated the favored one. As the desolation churned like a sea storm in her gut, Eater of Souls pointed her snout to the stars, howled, and bounded down the deserted street toward the place of the transgressor.

Meren still couldn't sleep. He dropped a pile of reports beside his chair, rose, and went to the table bearing Sit-Hathor's alabaster lamp. Beside it lay the tray holding the two feathers and the text about birds. The feathers were quite ordinary looking, neither longer than one-third the length from his fingertip to his elbow. To him they looked like those of a goose or swan.

He unfurled the bird papyrus. It was a long text with painted illustrations, their colors still bright. Although the papyrus had darkened, it was still strong. It had been written by a royal scribe, who stated that he was setting down the words of the overseer of pharaoh's bird keepers, Snefru, twelfth day of Inundation, Year One of Seqenenre Tao. Seqenenre Tao had ruled over two hundred years ago. He must have liked fowling.

"Now," he said to himself, "which birds have white feathers? Owls, but the white ones aren't long enough. Not ostrich feathers, although if this murderer truly does weigh the heart against the feather of truth… hmm, the feather of truth."

Meren set the bird papyrus down and placed polished stone weights on it to keep his place. He hurried to another of the great chests in which the documents and texts were kept. This one was set apart from the others and made of precious ebony inlaid with ivory. Scenes on its sides depicted the ruler of the netherworld, Osiris, and his companions, Anubis, Toth, and Horus, son of Osiris, and his wife Isis. Stopping beside the chest in which sacred writings were stored, Meren whispered a prayer of praise as he pulled out a thick roll. Opening the
Book of the Dead
, he began to skim the chapters of spells.

He skipped over the hymns to Osiris and Ra, the chapters devoted to restoring the dead, not letting one's soul be taken from him, the ones that opened the tomb and allowed the dead man to go out into the living world. More hymns, a spell for being changed into a falcon of gold.

"Here it is."

Meren held the papyrus closer to a lamp mounted on a column. This was a new copy of the
Book of the Dead
, and the papyrus from which it had been made was thin, yet strong, and of so fine a quality that his father had refused to let Meren touch it until he had completed his education as a scribe. The scene of the Hall of Judgment stood out in brilliant colors—red for men's skin, yellow for women, pure white clothing. Registers of sacred black hieroglyphs bordered a painting of a balance scale. Anubis knelt under one arm of the scale. In one pan lay the heart of the dead person. In the other, the Feather of Truth, its shape resembling that of an ostrich feather.

"But the killer hasn't used ostrich feathers." He started to roll up the papyrus, but his hands went still when he saw the beast crouching behind Toth, the recorder of verdicts in the Hall of Judgment. "Ammut, the Devouress."

A fantastic monster was Eater of Souls. She was composed of the three most deadly animals—the crocodile, in whose jaws so many Egyptians perished; the lion, whose claws ripped flesh as if it were melon pulp; the hippopotamus, giant terror of the waters, who could crush a victim flatter than a papyrus sheet with one stomp. This demon lurked by the balance scales, ready to devour all who were not judged true of voice.

Closing his eyes, Meren imagined Eater of Souls. Wet yellow teeth, stinking breath. He knew the pain of a lion's strike and still remembered the lacerations across his ribs. Faint, ragged white lines in his skin reminded him of the agony he felt when those claws ripped through his flesh. As they cut, his skin and muscle tugged. Then they were dragged along with the claw as it moved, making him feel as if he were being peeled.

The papyrus snapped closed. Meren blinked and looked down to find that he'd been rolling up the book while deep in the memory of the lion attack. He replaced the book and went back to the bird text. While he read, he muttered to himself.

"The evil one has no ostrich feathers. Too poor to get them, or too clever of heart to reveal that he has such a luxury? White-feathered birds, white feathers. Heron, egret." He'd seen egrets following a farmer's plow and eating insects turned out of the soil by the blade.

He moved a weight stone and revealed a drawing of the sacred ibis, beloved of Toth. The bird had a pure white body, black neck, bill, legs, and wing tips. Black and white; good and evil.

"An appropriate choice," Meren said.

There were more white birds. The spoonbill, which was used as a decoy in fowling, and the Egyptian vulture. This was a disgusting bird with a bare-skinned head and hooked bill. It lurked in rubbish piles and fed on the excrement dumped there.

Meren let the papyrus roll closed. This was a useless study. Egypt teemed with birds, especially when foreign places of the north turned cold. They flew to the land of the Nile seeking refuge, and anyone could collect feathers, anyone who could hunt or who could purchase a freshly killed fowl in a market.

Feathers were used to adorn dresses and to make fans, as stuffing for cushions to cover chairs and stools, as pallets and mattresses for beds. Birds of all kinds were kept in walled yards, pens, and cages, fattened, and then slaughtered. Birds inhabited the desert, the Nile, the swamps and marshes. The royal menagerie was full of birds, as were those of many nobles. All over the kingdom they were collected and sacrificed as offerings to the gods. Unfortunately, white-feathered birds were almost as numerous as flies.

"I'm becalmed, adrift without oarsmen or helmsman," Meren whispered to himself. He would ask Bener which of his own fowlers might be able to discern more about the feathers.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Meren listened to the wind. The severe blasts had died down for the moment. He rolled his shoulders. They ached, and he was weary of trying to make sense of crimes that appeared to have been done for no reason. Never had he been faced with evil devoid of purpose. Evil born of chaos lodged within a mortal—such a man was surely demented.

What kind of man chopped out the hearts of strangers? For the victims hadn't been of the same family, village, or city. And there couldn't be more than one criminal at work. That several could be responsible for such horror was surely unlikely. Apart from Mugallu, none of the dead ones had mortal enemies. According to what his charioteers and the watchman Min had been able to learn, each had been unremarkable, passing through life without either creating great disturbances or performing great accomplishments. These people weren't worth killing, so why do it?

Nothing he knew seemed to give a sign of who or what Eater of Souls was. Perhaps this was one of those instances where ordinary investigation wouldn't suffice. He always tried to use orderly reasoning in his inquiries, but if he was dealing with the anger of the gods, would orderly reasoning be of use?

He felt the rise of irritation. Confusion always sparked a fire in his chest and made him want to drive his fist through one of the mud-brick walls of his office. He had to get out of the house. On a table beside his chair lay his scribe's palette, a stack of blank papyri, and a box no one but he ever touched. It was of stained cedar and decorated with his name in gilded hieroglyphs. Snatching it up along with a lamp, Meren strode out of the room, downstairs, and out of the house.

The grounds were quiet except for an occasional whinny from the stables, lowing from the cattle pens, and the rustle of palm and sycamore leaves in the wind. The breeze whipped his long, transparent robe around his legs. He'd taken off his wig and much of the heavy jewelry with which his body servant, Zar, had burdened him that morning, but Zar had replaced them after Meren had bathed this evening. He'd been too preoccupied with the heart thefts to notice. When he had, he'd removed some.

His wig was somewhere in his office along with at least two electrum-and-amethyst armbands and three rings. He'd kept only his seal ring. He strode down a path lined with small pomegranate trees, a recent addition ordered by Isis and Bener, both of whom intended to learn the mysteries of making wine flavored with the fruit. Meren suspected they were interested only because they were learning from his childhood playmate, Lady Bentanta. His daughters liked Bentanta. They hinted that she would make an excellent wife. They didn't know Bentanta like he did.

Meren reached his private garden, where he dismissed the porter whose task it was to patrol this area of the estate. He didn't want the man walking in on him when he opened the gilded cedar box. Once inside the refuge, he placed the lamp and the box on a table beneath a wooden awning supported by four painted poles beside the largest reflection pool. Glancing around, he saw no one.

The garden was his attempt to capture the beauty and teeming life of the Nile and bring closure to his life. This way he could renew himself, drawing strength from pleasure in the water, the animals and plants. The moon sprayed silver light across the water. Undulating dark shapes were barely discernible in the depths, but he caught a glimpse of a talapia, a fish that hatched its eggs in its mouth, a symbol of rebirth.

A heron with a smooth, ornamental crest behind its head goggled at him from the water, then stalked away on its measuring-rod legs. Several Egyptian geese paddled by. The trees and pools in his garden, along with the reeds and lotus plants, were the haunt of pintails, rock pigeons, doves, and pied kingfishers.

Satisfied that he was alone, Meren lifted the hinged lid of the box. Within lay another hinged lid that swung open to reveal four paneled compartments. Each contained an orb that gave off a golden luster in the lamplight. Meren took three of them, two in one hand, one in the other. He tossed the single orb in the air and caught it, then repeated the action, establishing a steady cadence. Quickly he threw the second and third into the air so that they spun above his head.

Then, his juggling rhythm established, he walked slowly down the paved path that bordered the reflection pool. He moved toward the shorter end nearest the gate in the wall. The orbs made a satisfying pat as they hit his hands briefly before he tossed them again.
Pat pat pat, pat pat pat
.

A breeze arose suddenly, making the limbs of the sycamores and acacias scrape against each other, thousands of leaves breathing hissing murmurs. Swaying flowers and shrubs accompanied them with the whisper of their leaves and petals. Seeking to empty his heart of agitation, Meren continued to juggle while listening to the refrain.

At his feet dead grass blades and leaves danced as he reached the corner of the pool. Then he hesitated, juggling in place while he frowned. Catching the balls as they fell, he held them and listened. Beneath the gentle creaking of limbs and the mesmerizing strain of leaf and petal he had heard something else. Something faint, but as discordant as a snapped harp string. It hadn't been a bird. Holding still, Meren concentrated, keeping his breathing shallow to eliminate any distracting sound.

Still nothing. He turned, looking around the garden at the secluded arbors, the tree-shrouded pavilion, the small orchard filled with more pomegranate as well as persea and
nabk-berry
trees. He searched arbors heavy with grapevines, stands of palms, and smaller pools with their lotus and papyrus thickets, ducks, egrets, and geese.

"You fool," he whispered aloud. "You're imagining demons and spirits where there are only fish and birds."

He turned and flung the first golden ball in the air. Without warning the wind surged, sending a furious blast across the garden. With it soared the biting desert grit. The west wind howled through the desert escarpments, soared through steep valleys created by the stylized mountain ranges that were the pyramids and cemeteries of Memphis. And under the howl came a noise like an animal's grunt. Meren heard it, caught the orbs again, and turned to the west.