The Companion (23 page)

So Ian, with a rope about his raw neck held by Asharti, stumbled just behind Fedeyah into the black crevice, its edges smoothed by water. The camel drivers seemed relieved to be abandoned outside the maze with their animals, their lanterns almost proof against their fear. The remaining party included the score or so of ragged slaves bought in Grizim, joined together with ropes at the ankles, and two keepers to tend them. Asharti saw clearly in the dark, as Ian knew too well, and Fedeyah must be the same. Still they carried lanterns, unlit now, against some future need. Above Ian the stars disappeared except for a narrow strip directly overhead. Beneath their feet the sand was deep. Pebble scree occasionally fanned out beneath a crack in the walls made by dripping water on some softer layer of sandstone. At least they were out of the wind. The rock echoed back every exhortation of the slave keepers to their charges, every crack of the whip, along with the scrabble of small falling stones. It was not long until the keepers were oppressed into silence. Even Asharti and Fedeyah only whispered
.

Ian’s eyes grew used to the dimness. A strange feeling of distance had been growing in him. He was not meant to return from this journey, any more than the slaves behind him. His end might indeed be grisly. But at least it was an end. Pain-filled or horrific, he would welcome it. In the darkness a stairway cut into the stone loomed to his left. It wound upward into a hole made by rushing water in the stone above. The stairs were very steep, each step higher than a man could easily take. Were those stairs meant for humans?

His mind began to skitter over the possibilities for his death. He might be a human sacrifice to some bloodthirsty God. He had heard of special tables in far-off South American jungles with gutters carved for draining blood. Rumor had it that the priest could keep his victim alive for a very long time. Or he might be torn limb from limb by some beast. Of course, it did not have to be a beast in the traditional sense. Asharti had torn that camel driver apart with no more than a casual use of her enormous strength. Perhaps she would kill Ian herself
.

But no, she had said he was to be part of her gift. That was even more ominous. Actually, she had not said he would die. What if some monster as great as or greater than she was kept him for its own use? Ian’s heart beat faster. He had thought he was beyond fear. He was wrong
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After much twisting and turning, the ravine was marked by two huge pillars on either side, carved out of the stone itself, rising into the night like an entrance
.

“Kivala,” Asharti proclaimed. Ian staggered after her as she hurried forward on light feet in her eagerness to reach whatever horror lay ahead. What could drive her to search the deserts for . . . ? How long had it been? Two years, perhaps, or a lifetime?

Signs of civilization increased. Ornately carved entrances to what looked like tombs were carved into the rock. Stairways branched off the wide sand trail. At last the ravine opened into an immense square. A hideous cry echoed across the night. The gaggle of slaves collapsed, gibbering. Even Asharti and Fedeyah stopped. The howl slid into the hooting laugh of a hyena
.

Asharti and Fedeyah relaxed, though the slaves still sobbed and gasped. The moon, invisible in the ravine, now shone a cold light over the broad swath of stone ahead. Ian surveyed the pillars fallen in a circle, the empty, stepped seating of an amphitheater, and ruined statues, all made of striated red stone. The very air was dead. The hyena must be waiting for one of their party to turn into carrion, for there was no other life here
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Asharti jerked his rope as she started off across the square. The hemp rasped against the raw skin at his neck and he tottered forward, his bare feet cut by shards of stone. Whatever they were looking for, Asharti and Fedeyah did not think it was to be found in this empty square. Eager whispering on Asharti’s part, wary pointing by Fedeyah, and they headed across the square for another opening in the rock that loomed on all sides. Ian was forced into a ragged trot. The repeated cracking of the whip signaled the other slaves to scramble ahead as well
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Into the darkness they plunged, the sand a relief after the littered stone floor of the square. Ian’s breath scratched harshly in his throat. His small store of strength was fast coming to an end. Sweat dripped into his eyes. His vision narrowed to the cloak swirling in front of him, muddy red in the darkness, and the flash of her sandals. His awareness shrank to the heave of his lungs, the pain in his feet, the rasp of hemp at his neck
.

Around one last curve, he stumbled to his hands and knees even as she cried out in something like ecstasy, “There!”

She stood, Fedeyah with her, apparently awestruck. Ian raised his head, gasping, and saw something close to a miracle cut into the wall of the ravine. A temple, hundreds of feet high, its multitude of balconies and pediments intricately carved with winged beasts and skulls, symbols, and gargoyles. Pillars stretched into the darkness. Shallow steps led into a dark maw. The sandstone swirled in red and gold and the whole seemed both anchored inexorably in the rock and alive with movement
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The slaves behind him sobbed or gasped. Asharti and Fedeyah had gone perfectly still. “The Temple of Waiting,” Asharti whispered, her anticipation palpable. “I triumph or die here.”

“Goddess,” Fedeyah muttered, staring at the blackness through the doorway. “You need not take this risk. What more do you need? You are so far above mere mortals you may do what you will.” His voice was bold with his fear for her
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She turned toward Fedeyah slowly and her eyes glowed, not with red but with a single-minded avarice. “Humans do not matter, except as they slake my thirst, acolyte. It is our kind who must be brought to heel.” Her voice rose, a violation of the silent temple looming before them, thrown back by the stone walls of the ravine. “They have
exiled
me? Their souls are small for all their age. Rubius, Sincai, Khalenberg, even Beatrix Lisse—they dare to question how I live? They have been no better than I. I
like
killing. I like making others do my will. Why should I have to rule in secret, behind some puny human man without the will, without any of the knowledge, I have? Napoléon was the last straw.” Her voice was running faster now. Ian could hardly follow her Arabic. “They said I endangered their society—that humans would hunt them if I was not more discreet. What does that matter, Fedeyah? Are we not more powerful by a hundred times than mere humans? Let the battle rage! I will own this world and humans will be the cattle they were meant to be.” She ran out of breath and stood, looking up at the man who loved her in spite of what she was
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Slowly she turned her head to the open doorway. “Fools! They exiled me to the one place where I can acquire the strength to best them all. They will regret their treachery.” This last was hissed almost under her breath
.

Fedeyah bowed his head. Ian knew he would never challenge Asharti. Not only because he loved her but also because he had not her force of soul. Asharti would not have allowed him to serve her if his spirit was as great as hers. Fedeyah probably knew that
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Asharti stalked toward the massive stone facade, jerking Ian up to lurch behind her. “Bring the slaves.” Ian did not want to go through that door. The feeling grew more pronounced with every step. But up the shallow stairs he stumbled. The feel of something so strange it could not be named seeped out from that pitch-black maw. Behind him, Fedeyah mustered the keepers and slaves. It would take red eyes to compel them into this unknown
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At the edge of the portal, Asharti paused and scraped one of her long nails against a flint. A fountain of sparks caught the wick of her lamp. The smell of burning oil mixed with the smell of Asharti’s perfume, magnified, wafted from the dark temple. The scent got into Ian’s brain along with the pain and exhaustion and muddled his thoughts
.

As they passed the threshold, the lamp cast incredible shadows onto a chamber of great height. Two immense statues with ibis heads and dog bodies still covered with flakes of their gilt and lapis lazuli crust framed another doorway. Beyond, the floor could be seen to ramp distinctly downward. The slaves and keepers were absolutely silent in the face of those impressive guardians. These statues had watched for untold years. The lamps cast a multiplicity of cross-shadows that danced across the stone figures and were swallowed in the doorway
.

Asharti turned, with an enigmatic smile. “Can you feel him?”

Ian stared at her in stupefaction. What did she mean? Then he felt it, a slight throb, as though the stone of the temple lived. He had mistaken it for his own body protesting against the cuts on his swollen feet. A murmur went up from the slaves. But what did she mean, “him”?

Asharti darted forward between the two great guardians and into the downward passage. Ian stumbled after her. The smell of dust and time was overcome by that of cinnamon and ambergris as they descended. The scent wasn’t quite Asharti’s. There was a burnt smell to the cinnamon as well. The slaves shuffled behind them, driven forward by the whips. The walls revealed by their lamps were covered with strange symbols. Some bore a resemblance to the strange figured writing of Egypt. He thought he recognized some Arabic symbols as well, but they flicked past too quickly to be sure
.

Downward and ever down, with no branching corridors and no possibility of hiding, all the while the smell and the slow throb in the stone became more pronounced. Asharti never hesitated. Ian could feel that her emotions were strung bow-tight. At last the corridor leveled off and opened again into a larger room filled with the sound of water flowing. In the center, a green pool was lined with ornate blue and gold tiles. Out of the fountain rose a spiral column, tapered at the tip, which pulsed with dim light in a dozen colors in time to the throb in the stone. Asharti stopped, Ian just behind her. Her lamp played upon the pillar. It was covered in a million facets, winking through the water that cascaded down its sides
.

Dully, Ian realized he was seeing an untold fortune in jewels twisted into some coherent heap that seemed to live. The green were emeralds as big as your thumb; the red were rubies; the blue, sapphires. The diamonds were so brilliant they cast erratic stars over the walls and ceiling when the lamplight struck them through the trickling water. The light reflected on the pool and Ian could see that jewels had showered into the water and lay winking beneath the surface. The drivers darted forward, laughing, the harsh echoes of their triumph a sin against the weight of silent stone above. They did not seem to mind the fact that the pillar was pulsing in some silent song of light beyond human comprehension. They capered about the fountain as they plucked blood-red rubies and winking great emeralds from the pool
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Fedeyah glanced around him, fearful. Ian felt the throb beneath his feet grow more pronounced. The water in the pool shuddered. Something was waking here. Or perhaps the temple itself was waking in reaction to this sacrilege
.

Asharti barked, “Enough. The scintillation of those stones will drive you mad.”

“But, Excellent One,” a camel driver laughed, “we have found the treasure!”

Asharti smiled. “Do not look too long into their facets. There is greater treasure yet.”

“Greater? What could be greater?” they murmured. “Allah be praised.”

“We will come back through this chamber and you may take whatever you can carry.” Ian could feel that she was lying or telling some half truth. But the drivers could not
.

“Let us be after the greater treasure!” one exclaimed, and it was only with difficulty that they let Asharti lead the way, Ian in her wake. They hurried their frightened slaves along
.

Down again through the mountain of stone they went. Its weight was suffocating. The air, suffused with burnt cinnamon, was cooler now, so that he shivered, whether from the cold or from the sense of impending evil, he could not tell
.

Then the passage came to an abrupt end, the way ahead blocked by a blank stone wall, broken only by a square stone bearing undecipherable carved figures. The slave drivers wailed their disappointment. The tablet was lit in a green glow by two massive emeralds in niches on either side. Asharti raised her lamp, examining the writing. She exchanged glances with Fedeyah. Then her delicate long-nailed hands darted over the surface of the lettering, touching what looked like random symbols. One she could not reach easily. She stretched up to push the symbol with her right hand, pulling Ian’s rope leash tight around his lacerated neck
.

Asharti touched one final symbol and stood back. The wall of stone swung open
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A black, whirling abyss loomed beyond. The throb grew insistent enough to echo in Ian’s chest, like a heartbeat answering his own. Something so unknown as to be evil whirled there, and behind the blackness was the thing that throbbed. A slave behind him shrieked: a wail that rose up the scale and then descended into insane sobs. Ian glanced back to see a tight mass of heaving human flesh
.

Asharti passed through the doorway and into darkness as if she pressed through some invisible curtain, dragging Ian with her. He dreaded pushing through that barrier as he had never dreaded anything in his life. Something almost alive, half whirring air, half viscous liquid, bulged around him as she pulled him through. He popped into still air beyond and darkness their lamps did not penetrate. Ian trembled in the close, old air. The audible throbbing pervaded all, and heavy scent hung in the silent blackness. Ian could feel Asharti’s electric energy, attuned to what he did not know. Behind him, the other slaves popped through, sobbing and wailing, a violation of the ancient stillness. Fedeyah came through last, herding the others ahead of him
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