Eater of souls (28 page)

"No, Father."

She said nothing more, and he knew better than to press her. Leading her to the reflection pool, he knelt and stuck his arm in the water.

She sat beside him. "Was that… ? Who was— what… ?" Bener caught her lower lip between her teeth.

"That, my dear, foolish daughter, was Eater of Souls."

"It was the Devouress."

"It was what people are calling Eater of Souls."

Meren scooped water into his hand and allowed it to trickle over the cuts on his arm.

"A demon," Bener repeated in a harsh voice. Her fists were clenched, and they pressed into her stomach.

"Perhaps." Meren looked up to find her staring at him. "Perhaps it was a demon."

"What else could it be?"

"I don't know."

"How could you not know?" Bener's voice rose and carried over the water. "It attacked you! I saw the—the head, the long snout. Even in the dark I saw the claws. I thought I was going to perish of terror."

Meren rounded on her. "But you didn't. You threw rocks."

"It was going to kill you!"

"Next time run for help," he snapped.

Half closing her eyes, Bener said carefully, "If I'd run for help, you might have been killed." She glanced at the cuts on his arm.

"I'd rather risk death than see you in danger."

"But, Father, I feel the same way."

Startled, Meren was about to retort when Bener's courageous air vanished and she burst into tears. She threw herself into his arms. He held her tightly, having learned in the raising of three daughters that this wasn't the time to attempt comfort by spouting reason and wisdom. Then, as suddenly as the tears appeared, they ebbed. Bener lifted her head to glower at him.

"I saved your life."

"You're a brave young woman," he replied. He was too exhausted to quarrel, his ka filled with trepidation and disquiet.

Bener gave him a suspicious look, but he only smiled at her. "Your maid will be waiting for you. Go to your chamber and try to sleep. The hunt for this creature may take the rest of the night."

"Can you hunt a demon?"

"I don't know."

"But you don't think it was Eater of Souls, or you wouldn't have sent men after it."

"Bener, I tell you I don't know!" Even to him his voice sounded rough, like split wood. He stood with her. "Forgive me. I'm weary."

"Aren't you frightened of the—the—"

"Go to bed, daughter. We'll talk upon the morrow."

He watched her leave and wished suddenly that the gods hadn't given her so much cleverness and bravery. The garden gate shut. He had a little time now, with no one to see. Dropping to his knees, he sank back on his heels. He cupped his hands, dipped them into the water, and splashed his face. Then he stuck his injured arm into the water again. The coolness eased the sting of the cuts. But it didn't stop the trembling. He made a fist and stared at the liquid blackness.

Someone had lit the lamps that rested in tall stands around the pool. He could see his fist, a distorted stump beneath the surface. Cursing, he swept his arm up and sent a spray of water into his face. The shock against his skin didn't help.

When the thing had attacked and he saw it for the first time, the sight had caused a brief moment of terror so extreme that he'd felt a jagged bolt of pain reverberate through his body, and he'd torn his attention from the terror and pain just as he did in battle. But now he was paying the price. Every muscle, from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, ached. The bones in his arms and legs had become hot, formless sand. The voice of his heart pounded in his ears.

Changing his position, he drew his knees to his chest, rested his arms on them, and lowered his head. "What was it? A good question. What was it? Unfortunately, I don't know."

The attack had happened too quickly. He'd been startled, and there had been no time to think, no opportunity to get a good look at the—thing. All he remembered were flashes in which a yellow eye, a long, fanged snout, or slashing claws dominated. A half-hysterical chuckle erupted from his chest. The mighty warrior, Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh, had been struck helpless, blind, and deaf at last.

Hearing his own laughter, he clamped down on it. Allowing it free rein would invite a loss of control he couldn't afford. He must harness himself before Kysen or the searchers returned. Lifting his head, he bent his neck back and exposed his face to the breeze.

Face what's really bothering you. Face it now, before the fear grows.

His dread arose from a suspicion that Eater of Souls had been sent by the gods to avenge the murder of a man who had been a living god—Akhenaten. For years he'd lived with the knowledge that Akhenaten had been murdered. Over a decade had passed, but he still suffered from the burden of the sin. He had allowed Ay to send him away, knowing that when he returned, pharaoh would be dead. No word had been said to lead him to believe that this was so, but words hadn't been necessary.

And in all the years since then, he'd tried to justify his sin by helping to restore divine order to Egypt. The work of undoing Akhenaten's ravages had been difficult. It would take many more years. Yet still he felt the weight of sin within his ka. And now Eater of Souls had come.

He'd refused to believe it. He knew men's hearts. The heart of a man was capable of conceiving a plan in which killings were disguised as judgments from the gods. He had trusted in this possibility. All the while, hovering like a vulture, suspicion waited. Suspicion that nothing could assuage the wrath of the gods at the murder of one who had been born of a god and a queen.

He had always expected retribution. He had feared that, in the Hall of Judgment, his heart would crash to the ground when weighed on the scales against the feather of truth. Had the gods judged him already for his role in a pharaoh's death?

Eater of Souls had come to destroy him. His only hope lay in the failure of the demon. But surely an instrument of the gods wouldn't fail to destroy its quarry. Did this failure signal that the creature wasn't of the netherworld? Or was Eater of Souls playing with him?

He should examine what he knew instead of indulging in fearful speculation. What did he know? The creature had extraordinary strength. He was no longer certain that he'd fallen from the pavilion during the attack. Perhaps it had picked him up and thrown him. He hadn't been able to escape it, for Eater of Souls had the speed of
Wings of Horus
and more skill than the most skilled of warriors. That ax, it had nearly crushed his skull.

But he had touched Eater of Souls. He'd smelled it, heard it. He had touched skin, the skin of a living man— or woman. He'd smelled mortal flesh and perfume oil amid other, stranger smells. And those howls and grunts. Those could have come from a real throat. But he'd also seen a yellow eye, a golden-brown mane. And he'd felt his flesh being slashed by knifelike claws.

Its size. It had been big. Taller than he was. Meren remembered having to look up at it, but then, he'd been on the ground most of the time. Still, the creature hadn't been so large that it couldn't have been a tall man, or a very tall woman. But it had moved so quickly, and with such strength…

He started when the garden gate opened. Kysen shut the door with deliberation and came to stand beside him. They both contemplated the reflection pool. There was a plop in the water that made Meren jump again. As the toad began to croak, Kysen turned to him.

"It seems we both have much to report."

Meren smiled ruefully. "It is as the old writings say. I will show you the land in calamity. Great ones are overthrown. The land is destroyed and the river of Egypt flows not."

"Surely it's not so evil."

"That depends, Ky, upon whether the gods have lost patience with us or not."

A foreigner entering the city of Memphis on this morning would ask if this was indeed the fabled capital of the Egyptian empire. Streets normally teeming with pedestrians and herds of donkeys, goats, and sheep bore only light traffic. Vendors at the city markets who usually argued with customers at the top of their voices used subdued tones. Most of the citizens had vanished, leaving behind deserted houses, half-empty temples and palaces.

A curious visitor who searched for them would find that the crowds had left the noisy domain of the living for that shadow city of Memphis, the vast stone city of the dead. Here, on the desert borders, balancing between the world of mortals and gods, people had clambered over crumbling mortuary chapels and scrambled between statues of dead kings and queens to reach the step pyramid.

Thousands stood shoulder to shoulder, bent back their necks, and shielded their eyes against the morning sun to catch a glimpse of the unparalleled sight. At the top of the pyramid, Nebkheprure Tutankhamun, the living Horus, son of Amun, Egypt's intermediary between men and the gods, was performing sacred rites of magic to banish evil from the city and protect his people. Pharaoh had already summoned the high priests of several gods whose magic and power were fabled—Isis, Selkhet, Ptah, Toth, and Amun, the king of the gods. Even now priests performed rites of banishing in the dark shrines of the city's temples.

The royal bodyguard lined the edge of the summit of the step pyramid, their spear tips gleaming in the sun. Within this protective wall stood the king, his most trusted courtiers and relatives, the high priests, and Meren. He hadn't wanted to come. His men were still searching the city for Eater of Souls. He should be doing the same, but pharaoh had insisted he be present, saying that after the attack Meren needed magical protection.

So here he was, standing in the middle of a square ring of royal guards. Inside this formation whirled dozens of priestesses. They danced and plied sistrums and ivory clappers. The noise and stamping of the dance drove off evil spirits, but it also made Meren's head ache. He watched the women move in a line, stamping to the beat of drums, their robes heavy with beads that clattered, their arms raised high as they directed the cacophony up and across the necropolis to the city.

These weren't ordinary priestesses and singers of the temple. Each was a noblewoman or princess and the divine adoratrice of a temple. And one of them was Ankhesenamun, the Great Royal Wife. It was she who led the dancers, assuring the attention of the gods by her presence. At her side danced Princess Tio. Meren was certain neither would have participated in any ceremony that might benefit him, had they a choice. Ankhesenamun whirled past him. Each time she came near, he glimpsed the loathing in her slanting, date-shaped eyes.

She was the kind of woman who could enter a room and turn a man's mouth into a desert, but she was also the kind of woman who hated learning new things. What she knew already, she considered as sacred as the hieroglyphs on the walls of a temple. And she didn't change, no matter what new knowledge was presented to her. It was this aspect of her nature that worried Meren.

Ankhesenamun might be courting her royal spouse in search of reconciliation, but she hadn't changed her nature. She passed by him again, and he lifted a brow. She stumbled a bit, glared, and moved her lips in a wordless curse. Even the curse of Eater of Souls brought some blessings. Meren had to look away quickly, or he would have committed a terrible breach of etiquette and smirked at the Great Royal Wife.

A few yards away, Tutankhamun stood surrounded by high priests. He was clad in white linen, the color of ritual purity and sanctity. He wore a gold-and-silver headcloth, necklaces, bracelets, belt, and uraeus diadem, all of gold. The flesh of a god was gold, the color of imperishable eternity and the sun. The bones of the gods were silver, the color of the moon. Moving slowly under the weight of his magnificent raiment, pharaoh recited incantations before a statuette of Eater of Souls.

Meren eyed the figure, trying once again to envision what had attacked him two nights ago. He still couldn't say what it was. When pharaoh had been told of the incident, he'd demanded an answer. Was it demon or man? And Meren hadn't been able to give him a reply.

The frantic search had expanded in a circle with the house at its center. It had led to the discovery of several wandering dogs and a nobleman's son who had passed out in the street from drink, but nothing else. Pharaoh had summoned priests who deluged Meren with questions and offered learned opinions.

That's when the worst of the trouble began. The high priest of Amun, Parenefer, had arrived from Thebes. Still feeding himself on hatred born of Akhenaten's persecution, Parenefer seemed much too pleased to be able to claim that Eater of Souls came to avenge the wrongs done to the old gods. The high priest of Isis, a cheerful young man who had recently taken his father's place in the office, had disagreed.

"If Eater of Souls could be brought because of those wrongs, she would have appeared many years ago. My divinations proclaim this evil originates within the living. An evildoer seeks to hide beneath the guise of a demon."

"No, no-no-no-no!" The high priest of Selkhet—a fierce and temperamental goddess—was excitable. "Possession, that's what it is. An evil spirit has possessed someone and causes the sick one to do these things without knowing it. I have consulted the sacred writings as well as divinations and oracles."

Meren had listened to all of them. That was the trouble. The priests couldn't agree. Without their guidance, he was left to struggle alone. And still he wasn't certain whether the thing that had attacked him had been someone in a disguise or a demon.

Would a demon have been frightened away by Bener's screams? The high priests and their most learned magician-priests differed in their opinions on this matter as well. When he'd touched the creature, Meren had felt hide as well as flesh. The flesh told him that he faced a man, possessed or not. But the hide, rough yet pliable—had it been the skin of a demon?

His heart was full of conflict. And contending with Isis hadn't helped. Yesterday he'd stopped her from leaving to take up residence with Lord Reshep, who was still a guest at Prince Djoser's villa near the palace. He didn't even want to remember the quarrel that had ensued. Isis had accused him of caring only for his own interests. She'd said he thought her negligible of wit. He'd protested that he thought her quite clever but young and foolish.