Queen of Ashes (5 page)

Chapter Six

ATOP THE CLIFFS overlooking the Nile, Laila stands on a platform holding an unlit torch. Far below, moonlight ripples on the churning waters of the gorge. Hundreds of people surround her, eager for the spectacle they know is coming, all of them holding unlit torches. Beside her stands Riel, powerful even in his silence, but alert, too, clearly wondering what she is going to show him.

Laila removes one of her long, golden, tube-shaped earrings and blows into it. There is no sound that she can hear. But something can hear it, something that is always hovering nearby. Her breath in the tube is a clarion call to one of the wildest, most powerful and magical creatures on earth.

She waits, hearing the rushing Nile water below and the soft murmurs of the other spectators. Finally, the horizon begins to lighten in the east, across the Nile.

Riel frowns. “Dawn won't be for another six hours...”

“Wait and see.”

The golden glow comes closer as the spectators murmur and point. She casts a quick glance at Riel and sees, to her intense pleasure, the wonder on his face as he makes out a huge bird with golden and scarlet plumes and flames shooting out all around it, flying closer.

“A phoenix,” he says softly.

She turns to him, satisfied by the look of awe and wonder on his handsome face.

“We call it the Bennu,” she says. “It never dies, though it is reborn. Historically, every five hundred years the sun god kissed it and it exploded in flame. Then it was reborn a mere chick, in its own ashes.”

“How did you ever find one to come when you called?” he asks, clearly impressed.

“The first prince of Sharuna, eight generations ago,” she explains, “found it in the desert, newly formed and weak in a heap of ash. He was the first person this new version of the Bennu saw and impressed himself on its spirit as a parent. My ancestor fed and raised him. This Bennu's life cycle is much different from any other phoenix. Every time a new ruler of Sharuna takes the throne, he comes to the coronation, bursts into flame and emerges from the ashes as a hatchling again so the new ruler can impress himself—or herself—on him. Still, they are wild creatures, the Bennu, and this one will only allow the ruler of Sharuna to call him once a year. If I call him more often than that, he will not come, or if he does, he will be so enraged he will burn us all to ashes.”

The glowing bird wheels over them, a stream of fire shooting from its mouth, as the people cheer and yell. Now Laila has to focus and be prepared, just as her father taught her. Calling the bird was easy. It's much harder to control it. She has always felt, in these moments controlling the wild creature, that he obeys resentfully, and that one year he might not obey at all.

Slowly, Laila unwinds a red leather ribbon and unfurls it into the night air. The Bennu arcs toward it and hovers in front of her. Laila snaps the ribbon from side to side. With powerful flaming wings, the creature flies in wide circles over the crowd, who praises it and cheers.

Laila flicks the ribbon at her torch and Riel's. The bird swoops down in front of them, shooting streams of fire from its beak, and immediately the resin-soaked torches burst into flame. Laila snaps her whip toward the crowd, and the creature flies over it, its trail of fire lighting up all the torches held high but not singeing a hair on anyone's head.

Laila curls the ribbon into a figure eight and the phoenix rises high and arcs down, creating a figure eight of fire, which lingers a moment before dying out. She continues whipping the ribbon into different shapes, feeling the mystical fusion of commanding and obeying between her and the bird.

What she is doing is not magic, but it requires immense finesse, timing and concentration. She must never take her eyes off the creature, and it never takes its eyes off the whip as she snaps and curls it. At her instruction, the phoenix creates a giant ankh in the sky and then a fiery pyramid. She ventures a quick, sidelong glance at Riel, who is smiling broadly.

Finally, Laila raises both arms, one holding her torch, the other the red ribbon, and shouts, “Bennu, Child of the Sun God, Lord of the Air, Benefactor of Sharuna, I thank you for coming when I called. Go now, and return when I call you after a year has passed.”

The bird, flapping huge fiery wings, hovers in front of her, its yellow beak parted as if it would speak. Then it turns and dives into the deep cleft between the cliffs, following the river south. The crowds cheer loudly, pointing at the diminishing light until it disappears.

Face flushed, Laila turns to Riel. “Will you tell me now I have no power?” she asks.

Laughter rumbles from deep inside him as his eyes crinkle in merriment.

“Why do you laugh at me?” she hisses angrily, her flush turning from one of excitement to one of prickling embarrassment.

“Because that is no power, my sweet. That is a clever sorcerer's trick you inherited from your ancestors. Don't you see,” he says, looking down at her with amusement, “that no mortal has true power, not even Pharaoh sitting in his great palace in Memphis with armies of thousands at his command? He, too, will sicken and die like the poorest beggar. What kind of power is that? But your innocence, your naïveté, are truly refreshing. I see why my brother is in love with you.”

“He doesn't love me,” she almost spits, thinking of the hours she waited for him at the temple while he was drinking in a tavern. “He hates me.”

“Sometimes it's the same thing,” he says, brushing a stray lock of golden hair from his face and staring down into the chasm that is the Nile. “And I think he both loves and hates you. After all, you look exactly like her.”

“Who?” she asks abruptly.

“His first love. Cassandra. But she was nothing compared to you. My brother wouldn't even know how to begin to love you.”

“And you would?” she demands.

“I know your kind, Laila,” Riel says. “It is as clear as the sun at noon that you enjoy wielding power and magic. The only man you'll ever respect is a man who can break you.”

And then he turns, descends the platform stairs and joins the throngs returning to the city.

What does he mean,
break her
? Break her spirit? Break her pride? Break her heart?

“My lady?” Wazba calls up to her. Laila looks down and sees Brehan pushing his way against the departing crowds toward her. She groans.

“Very well,” she calls down to Wazba, who, seeing a commotion a ways off in the crowd, wades toward it.

Brehan climbs the platform, his face hard. “I saw what you did,” he says through gritted teeth, clenching his hand hard around her wrist.

“What do you mean?” she asks. “Let go of me. How dare you—”

“You called the Bennu to impress my brother, didn't you? Riel said something to make you show off.”

“You're just jealous that I have an immortal bird,” she replies, wrenching her wrist from his grasp and rubbing it.

“The Bennu is not truly immortal, Laila,” he scoffs. “I think I could kill it easily enough.”

“I'd like to see you try,” she snaps. “Now leave me alone and mind your own business. I told you we would communicate in writing.”

“This
is
my business, Laila,” he says. “You have put these people's well-being in my hands. The past week, while you were off swimming at the oasis, I learned that there was illness in the quarry workers' homes—fever, vomiting and diarrhea. I visited them, examined them. It is serious. They all drink from the same well, Laila. And now it is spreading not just through the wells, but from person to person. Laila, it is plague.”

Laila feels the breath go out of her. No, it can't be.

Brehan continues. “You could have called the phoenix to fly close to all the wells and water channels, purifying them with his flames to slow down the spread of the disease. But you used it for a useless spectacle, for your pride, and now you won't be able to call him for another year.”

Laila is horrified. It
was
pride that made her call the Bennu. She just wanted to show off to the taunting Riel. But she isn't about to let Brehan see her regret. And he didn't tell her anything about it.

“Why didn't you let me know this?” she asks. “I returned this morning. You had all day to warn me.”

“I sent you a message to cancel this event, that I needed to talk to you urgently. Didn't you get it?”

Laila cringes. She was so busy planning the Bennu spectacle she left a heap of messages unopened on her desk.

“Why can't you just heal the plague victims?” she asks angrily. “You healed my injured foot that first night. Surely it would be easier for you to get rid of a fever and stomachache than regenerate torn muscle and flesh.”

“I cannot heal illness, Laila,” he says, “or believe me, I would be working full-time in a temple of healing.” His eyes narrow as he continues. “And don't you dare try to blame this on me. You are a foolish, selfish show-off! Proud and vain. Trying to impress my brother when I warned you not to trust him.”

She turns on him. “You trusted Riel enough to tell him you were in a tavern the night you jilted me, getting drunk and whoring because you decided you didn't want to marry me.”

That stops him in his tracks. He blinks in confusion. “What? I never told him that. I haven't even seen him since the night he attacked me at the Temple of Horus.”

“Do I look stupid to you? Don't tell me such lies.”

“My brother is the liar, Laila.”

“Funny, isn't it, that he says you're the liar?” She's practically ready to spit nails at him.

“You know what?” he says, stepping so close his nose is almost against hers. “None of that even matters anymore. What matters is that you who pretend to care so much for your people will be personally responsible for the death of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of them.”

Laila opens her mouth to fling a stinging response, but Wazba stomps up the platform half carrying an old quarry worker with a bad burn on his thin brown shoulder. An old woman, perhaps his wife, comes with him.

“What happened?” Laila says. It is a nasty wound, red and bubbling. The man's face is a wrinkled grimace of pain.

“When the Bennu lit his torch, my lady,” the old woman says, “my husband dropped it. It hit his shoulder and hot resin got stuck on his flesh.”

Brehan moves toward the man. “No,” Laila says, stepping in front of him. She will not allow him to make himself even more important by healing this man. “Fetch little Sabu. He must be here somewhere.”

“Oh, my lady,” the old woman says in a quavering voice. “Haven't you heard? Sabu's mother found him this morning dead in his bed, his neck snapped.”

“Snapped?” she asks, stunned. “How can... Why would...?”

She looks at Brehan, whose mouth has dropped open. He looks as if he will say something, but the old man groans. Casting an inquiring look at Laila, Brehan puts his hands gently on the man's shoulder. Golden light radiates from his hands, and Laila feels its healing warmth.

Abruptly, she turns to go, her mind a whirlwind of questions.

* * *

She turns on her right side. It's no more comfortable than her left. Perhaps she could sleep better if she were cooler. She throws the sheet off. Now the night breeze whispering through the wide-open windows is too cold. She pulls the sheet back up.

When she closes her eyes she sees the old woman saying,
Sabu's mother found him this morning dead in his bed, his neck snapped
. Her little healer, with the bright brown eyes and toothy smile, dead. She sees Brehan's face looking at her with bitter disapproval, despising her for her stupid spectacle of pride. She hears him say the word
plague
again and again. Then she sees Riel, turning his head in that haughty manner, taunting her over and over with
The only man you'll ever respect is a man who can break you
.

What is that supposed to mean? Since she can't sleep, she might as well go and ask him. She pulls on a linen sheath by the light of the moon and slips out of her room, startling the guards.

“Princess, do you need—” one of them says.

“Remain at your post. I will be back soon,” she says airily.

She makes her way down a moon-dappled corridor, past richly painted walls of gods and pharaohs and down the winding staircase to the throne room. In the garden, moonlight reflects off the long pool and coats the palm leaves with silver. She looks up at Riel's room in the guest wing, where she housed him as far away from Brehan as possible. A lamp glows there, and she sees the silhouette of a man pass the window.

Laila pads onto the portico and soundlessly enters the hall. Her bare feet are quiet on the cool, curving stone steps. Upstairs she hesitates in front of his door. What is she doing here? This is nonsense. He'll just make fun of her, make her feel like a fool. She turns to go.

The door opens and Riel stands there, holding a lamp.

“Ah, Princess, what can I do for you?” he asks, his voice a low purr.

She turns to face him. She can hardly run away now or he would have every reason to laugh at her. Squaring her shoulders, she asks, “I'd like to know what you meant when you said the only man I could ever respect is one who could break me.”

His mouth twitches up at one corner into an ironic smile. She feels his warm breath on her face. She takes in his high cheekbones, the straight nose, the strong jaw. Mostly she feels his green gaze burning into her.

“Come in,” he murmurs. She steps inside, feeling awkward, and asks herself for the second time in twenty seconds what she is doing here.

He sets his lamp down and pours her wine. She takes a long gulp and stands holding the cup in front of her, like a warrior holding a shield.

“Well?” she asks. “Are you going to answer my question?”

He removes the cup from her hands and sets it down. “Of course,” he says smoothly. “What I meant is that you are a ruler. All men bow down to you. Doesn't it get boring?”