The Companion (45 page)

The first room came into view only slowly as her eyes adjusted to the gloom. Dust hung in rays of light emitted by the
open doors. Shadows loomed. Slowly they resolved themselves into giant statues guarding another door. The statues’ heads were ibis, their elaborate collars of gold and lapis lazuli dimmed by dust. Fantastic! How different from the empty rooms at Petra. Had those at Petra been looted?

Ian stood looking down at the floor. What? What was that thrumming in her feet? She wanted to leap back, but it would do no good. The temple itself seemed to throb. It . . . it felt like the rhythm of a . . . heartbeat, only faster.

Ian stared up at her. “The blood has changed him. He lives in our time.” Ian looked, well, excited. He held out his hand for her. “Come. Your part will soon be done.”

She hoped to God it would be done successfully. She had never felt so ignorant and so inconsequential in her life. It was only the dry warmth and the strength of Ian’s hand that kept her determination up. The clatter of their feet on the stones threw back echoes as they ran for the black opening of the passageway between its immense guardians.
Lord
, she thought,
how much gold and lapis went to make those immense collars?
The passageway led down.

“You will be able to find your way back easily,” Ian whispered as they slowed to a walk on the increasing grade. “The passage leads to only one place.”

Beth thought they would descend forever. She could smell a stronger version of Ian’s cinnamon and ambergris scent, stronger than the Countess’s delicate perfume. She knew what that meant. The throbbing heartbeat of the temple was getting stronger as well. After a time, she could also see a pulsing glow that matched the throbbing in the floor. Ian slowed further and pressed himself against one of the passage walls. She followed his lead as he edged into a room that took her breath away.

Light! It was filled with pulsing light in a hundred colors. Light streamed from a central swirling column and coruscated across ceiling and walls and a pool of water at its base. She gasped. “What is it?” The column appeared to be made entirely of gigantic jewels constantly laved by water from the fountain. They gleamed bright with every flash.

“I think it is his signal,” Ian said slowly. “To the ones who left him here.”

She approached, fascinated.

He jerked her back. “Don’t look at the individual jewels, Beth. They can drive you mad.”

She almost laughed at him. “I’m not that avaricious!”

“Asharti warned me,” he said simply.

She stared at him, suddenly serious. There were more things here than she could imagine, so why not jewels that could drive one mad? They circled the fountain warily and entered another downward passage.

“It’s not much farther now.” Ian had to raise his voice over the thrumming sound, which seemed to be all around them.

He was right. They came to another great set of doors. But these were closed by a rectangular tablet carved with small figures. Beth’s moment of truth had come. She squared her shoulders and marched forward into the dim light cast by two great emeralds the size of grapefruits winking in niches nearby.

The thrumming faded from her mind as her eyes raced across the tablature. Her fingers traced the carved stone as though they might see what her eyes could not. The writing was like the Egyptian symbol language unlocked twenty years ago by the Rosetta Stone, and yet not like. Her heart sank to her feet. She could not read it! Failure nipped at her heels and distracted her. She glanced to Ian and shook her head. He smiled, as though he had no doubt of her.

“Look again,” he whispered. The heartbeat of the temple receded. Oh, let him not believe in her so implicitly! Her heart seemed to have taken up permanent residence in her throat. She turned back to the stone tablet. Very well. Some symbols were the same. She recognized the symbol for life. What was this? Yes, ancient Arabic; no, Aramaic! Both! And Coptic. Yes, yes, yes! She had been expecting it to be only one language, but it was many. She began again, this time speaking slowly as she translated.

“ ‘The song swells across the world’ . . . no. Larger than the world. The universe?” She nodded to herself. “ ‘The
song swells across the universe. Blood calls to blood. Come for me! Is there no’ . . . atonement? Yes—‘atonement possible in the length of a life?’ ” She turned to Ian. “Then this part is set off, you see? Like a quotation. ‘That is not . . . dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.’ Then it ends with: ‘Forgive me.’ ”

She turned big eyes on Ian. “How unutterably sad! He has waited here for thousands of years! Do you think his fellows will ever come for him?”

“I do not care to be here when they do,” Ian said, his mouth grim.

“Perhaps they were benevolent rulers. Maybe they set us on the path to civilization.” Thousands of questions bubbled inside her. Behind this wall was one who could answer them all.

“And perhaps you have forgotten the slaves who must have given their miserable lives to build their pyramids and cut this city out of the stone?”

“Who says slaves built these?” she asked. “Maybe they built them themselves.”

They looked at each other, thinking about that. Ian came to himself first. “Slaves shed blood one way or another,” he growled. “Now, which symbols make the doors open?”

Beth felt as though she had been slapped. “I . . . I don’t know.” She looked again to the great tablet. Nothing leaped to mind. She touched each symbol in turn. Nothing happened. She touched every other symbol. Nothing. “Did you see what she touched?” She glanced to Ian and saw his face fall. So much for his blind confidence. Panic rose. She would fail him here. . . .

“I was kneeling behind her and not . . . not well.” Even in the green light cast by the emeralds she saw him flush with shame at admitting the extent of his slavery.

But his memory might be the only hope she had. “Think back,” she ordered, knowing it would cause him pain. “Can you remember even a single symbol?”

He shook his head in frustration.

“You remember the green light, don’t you?” She could not let it go.

He frowned in concentration. “Yes. The thrumming in the floor was slower then, before the blood. My feet were cut, so I was glad to kneel. I was weak, even though she hadn’t taken my blood for several days. She meant to offer me to the Old One.”

“Where were the other slaves?”

“Behind us, gibbering.” Ian’s eyes flickered over the lettering. “She turned to the tablet. She jerked my rope. My neck was raw. I crawled behind her.”

Beth wanted to take him in her arms and comfort him, but she could not. “And then . . .”

“She read the tablet. She touched various places on it. . . .”

“Any pattern you could see?”

“It seemed random.” He peered over her shoulder at the stone. “But . . .”

“But what?” Beth pushed down the frantic beat of her heart.

“I think she touched that symbol, that one there. I remember because the rope cut my neck when she had to reach for it.” He pointed to the symbol for blood.

“Do you remember any others?” she asked, a thrill coursing through her.

He shook his head, ashamed of his failure. “No.”

The end, then. She had failed. But no . . . wait! There must be some inner sense to the pattern chosen to open the door; a cryptogram within the words themselves. Her eyes darted over the symbols, seeing the words come alive now.

T
HE SONG SWELLS ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
. B
LOOD CALLS TO BLOOD
. C
OME FOR ME
! I
S THERE NO ATONEMENT POSSIBLE IN THE LENGTH OF A LIFE
?

F
ORGIVE ME
.

A flutter in her heart sped to her brain. What had the Countess said, like a mantra? Her hands moved over the symbols. Yes, it was here. She pushed at the first symbol.
The
. She could not reach the next. “There,” she commanded
Ian. “Touch the one you saw her touch. He reached up and pushed at it.
Blood
. She was sure of herself now.
Is. The. Life
.

The great doors swung open silently, one bearing the huge tablet with the hieroglyphs. Beyond was a black vortex of some swirling viscous substance, like a great unseeing eye ready to suck one into the unknown. She jerked back, aghast.

“Your part is played, Beth,” Ian whispered as he stared at the whirling current. He glanced at her and smiled in what he must think was reassurance. The smile was only a little crooked. “Wait for me at the main door to the temple. If I am not out in an hour, leave this place. You can make it to Haasi Fokra. Send word to my brother. He will come for you.”

She shook her head. Everything within her protested. “I will not leave you. . . .”

He took her hands. His grip was strong, full of life. He smiled at her, tenderly. “I am so sorry to have dragged you into this. But who else could have opened the doorway?” He squeezed her hands. “Now it is my time upon the stage.” He folded her in an embrace. His arms tightened around her as though it was their last contact. He was preparing to sacrifice himself.

This was the embrace she had longed for. Her thoughts raced. Once he had wanted to die. Now he was going into that vortex so desperate to live he would risk what lay beyond. He had purpose. He might have found enough of himself to love her. His embrace said he was willing to build the bridge between them. Why did it come only now, when it might be too late? She couldn’t lose him now. “I’m coming with you. I can help . . .” she whispered into his shoulder.

“Too dangerous,” he said. “I have seen what he can do. And now he has been roused by blood.” She started to protest. He held her away from him and touched her lips with two fingers to still her. “Remember, don’t look at the jewels in the signal, my love.” She saw the muscles in his jaw clench. “You are brave and resourceful. You can make it back.”

He pushed her up the ramp. How could she let him do this alone? She turned to see the vortex bow out at his touch, like bubbling pitch. He thrust himself into it and was swallowed. She ran to the black whorl and pushed at it. Her arm disappeared to the elbow and she leaned into it but couldn’t break through. It would not let her in! She threw herself at the center only to bounce back. She stood, appalled. Her chest heaved. Something meant to get Ian alone. There was nothing for it now but to obey him. She forced herself to turn and run up the ramp.

Twenty-one

Ian pushed into the black vortex of whirling viscous fluid, trying to focus on what must be done. He had no idea what might wait for him on the other side of the dark veil. What had been impossible and horrific might have become something even worse with the application of blood. He popped through the blackness and stumbled to the side of the entrance, senses reeling.

The echoing chamber he remembered was still dim and blue. It took a moment for the confusion of the vortex to abate enough for Ian to realize what he was seeing. The huge throne still stood at the far end of the room, but it was empty now. The smell of rotting flesh underlay the heavy cinnamon scent. A pile of putrid corpses lay against the far wall. Movement in the shadows caught his eye. A larger, more attenuated shadow shifted behind the throne.

The Old One paced relentlessly, his form impossibly tall, his steps agitated. Even as Ian watched, he stopped abruptly, turned, and peered at the vortex. He stalked forward into better light. Ian was shocked. His eyes, once so lazy, so eternal, now snapped around the room. His countenance was stretched and . . . raw-looking.

“Where are you, intruder?” he croaked in Arabic Ian could barely comprehend, and his voice was like a wound.

Ian took a breath. This was what he had hoped for. His heart beat in his throat. He knew what he would say. He had no idea if it would work. But there was hope.

“Old One!” he called in university Latin, standing, still, in what light there was from a thousand sapphires, glowing from within. “I have returned.”

The head, a parody of human, snapped around. The flat black eyes fixed on him. The Old One went still. “Ah. The one who knows suffering, yet chooses to live,” he answered in Latin. How did he know? When he was last here Ian had only wanted to die. Or did the Old One see somehow that Ian had now changed? “You have the Companion. I can smell it.”

“Yes. To my cost,” Ian admitted, hoarse.

“For that I admitted you. Why do you come to your death when you have stolen eternal life?”

Ian stepped forward as anger took him. “I did not want your parasite. I do not want your life.
She
infected me. Asharti.”

“Ah, the one who brings blood.” The eyes closed, the vibrations increased in intensity. The forehead creased. “She should not have shared the Companion.”

Ian’s certainty grew. “The blood is always a mixed blessing, is it not? Life and pain.”

“Yes.”

Ian could not help but notice that the Old One did not sit, still, upon his throne as he had the last time. Perhaps he could not. Perhaps all stillness had been lost to him. Ian had to take a chance now. He swallowed. All depended upon the next moments.

In the entrance hall, Beth paced under the immense guardian statues of Thoth in their jeweled collars. She could only imagine what might be going on below her, but her imagination was not lacking. Was Ian being torn limb from limb by the Old One? He needed the Old One’s blood to
match his strength with Asharti. How could the being whose likeness she had seen in a broken statue ever give Ian precedence over Asharti when Asharti brought the blood he craved?

Each moment was an agony of waiting. The Countess had told her to have courage in order to help Ian. But Ian wouldn’t let her help. She wanted to scream in frustration! A pulsing darkness whirled in the entrance. She froze. She knew what that was. A second pool began to coalesce behind it. The room was suffused by the scent of cinnamon and ambergris.

The first darkness dissipated and a beautiful woman stood there, black eyes, black hair, a perfect creamy complexion, and a perfect body, revealed by the gauzy fabric draped over her shoulder and caught with a golden girdle at her waist. In that belt, a curved sword swung, its hilt set with jewels. The swell of her breasts was capped by clearly visible nipples, and her long fingernails and shorter toenails were painted metallic gold. She was almost a deity. This woman could enslave men without using the compulsion of a vampire.