“And that’s why you killed Bastet?”
Lilith sighed. “Oh, for pity’s sake, that heart didn’t belong to Bastet. It belonged to Anubis.”
Omar felt his own aching heart stop as the revelation shot through his veins like ice water. For an instant, he didn’t dare to hope that she was telling the truth. He couldn’t stand to think his little girl was still alive only to lose her again. “You can’t know that.”
“Of course I can. Osiris’s heart tarnished after all those centuries in his dank little tower, and it turned his skin green,” she said. “Don’t tell me it never occurred to you that the same thing had turned Anubis’s skin black?”
“Turned him black?” Omar frowned. “But… he was always very dark…”
“No, he was just like the rest of his family,” she said. “I met them not long after you made me a part of this little world of yours. Anubis went off on that sojourn of his, if you recall. He spent two hundred years in that desert monastery. Something about the heat and the sand must have altered his sun-steel heart, because he came back with midnight skin. The loveliest I’ve ever seen. Not that he could be tempted, but still, he was delicious to the eye.”
“So you saw…?”
“Yes, there were black stains in the crevices of the heart I burned.” She slurped from a goblet noisily. “I must say, for the man who invented the science of immortality, you seem to know almost nothing about it.”
Omar blinked and swallowed.
I think I saw the black stains. I think she’s telling the truth. Anubis, I’m so sorry. But… Bastet… still alive. My little one…
“I mean, what have you been doing with yourself all these years?” Lilith mused. “You talk about death and disaster, but weren’t you the one on the quest for ultimate knowledge? Was the questing so much fun that you simply forgot about the knowledge part?”
“I… was easily distracted.”
Lilith laughed. “Distracted? I could teach you a thing or two about distraction.”
“I’d prefer you didn’t.”
“Mm.” Lilith chewed on something, making many soft wet sucking sounds. “You know, I’m quite tempted to take you downstairs and torture you just a little with my friends and toys, but really, what would be the point? Either you’d enjoy it or you wouldn’t. And either way would be work for me, and that does not appeal. So I think I’ll retire by myself for a few hours while I ponder what to do with you. I hope the screams won’t bother you too much. Good night!”
Her laughter followed her out the door and down the passageway. Omar sighed.
Alone at last. And whole. And Bastet is alive.
He leaned his head up and looked at the servant woman. She was slumped against the wall, her eyes wide and glassy, her tentacles no longer twitching or curling.
Oh God…
Chapter 25
Asha woke to the gentle rocking sensation of someone shaking her shoulder and whispering her name. She opened her eyes and saw just a few paces away Wren spread-eagled on the floor, her red hair strewn over her blanket, drool glistening on her lip, a mongoose curled up on her belly, and a thin snore whistling through her nose. In the distant shadows, the bizarre figures of Isis and Horus hung from their chains, still and silent.
She turned and looked up into the wide, smiling eyes of a handsome young man.
“Sorry to wake you,” Gideon whispered. He nodded at the prisoners. “I see we have another friend here.”
Asha sat up and wrapped her warm wool blanket around her shoulders. “He came after sunset. I think he came looking for his mother. Wren and I captured him the same way we caught Isis. No trouble to speak of. We’re both fine.”
“Good, good.” Gideon sat down beside her on the cold dirt floor. “I wish I had such good news. I never found Horus myself. Just a smashed up street and a lot of scared people. It sounded like Anubis had been there too, but I never found him. Some of the witnesses said he was out in the fields to the east of the city, but by then it was already dark and I didn’t think I’d be able to find him, so I came back here.”
“What about Bastet? Did you see her?” Asha asked.
“No.” Gideon rubbed his lip with his thumb. “But as long as Isis and Horus are here, then she’s in no danger.”
Asha nodded.
Maybe.
“Would you mind staying here with Wren and watching our guests for a while?” she asked. “I’m going to take a look around for Bastet.”
“Are you sure?” Gideon smiled a little. “I mean, I know she looks like a little girl, but she’s four thousand years old and can’t be killed.”
“I know, but she can be hurt, in her own way.” Asha stood up. “And I need something to do.”
“Sure.” Gideon nodded and scooted back against one of the wooden crates to sit more comfortably. “Good luck out there.”
“Thanks.” Asha settled her blanket and her medicine bag on her shoulders, and headed out into the night.
It was very late or very early, and while dawn was still hours away Asha felt entirely rested and entirely awake as she walked alone through the empty, silent streets. She headed east, watching the sky for the first pale hints of a sunrise she had no real desire to see.
Let this night go on forever. Leave tomorrow beyond the veil. I don’t want to see what I’ll become when the new day begins. I was Asha of Kathmandu, a healer. I survived the doctors of Ming, and the Sons of Osiris, and even the golden dragon itself, only to be destroyed here, stamped out of existence by my own pride and impatience and stupidity.
People are still suffering and dying.
More may die today.
How many will die because of me?
She quickened her pace and hurried through the vacant market squares and the deserted avenues and the empty parks, always heading east, always watching the dark horizon for a glimmer of light. She found the street where the corners of the houses and the windows had been broken, where the rubble lay scattered in the road, where even at this hour there were candles flickering behind the glass and human shadows huddled in the corners, waiting for day.
With her dragon’s ear, Asha heard the souls of the families in the houses. Their souls hummed and sighed with fatigue and fear, but the emotions were all blunted and worn with time, fading away as the night wore on. And she knew that when the sun rose and the shadows vanished, the specter of whatever had frightened these people would vanish completely and life would resume again in all its color and strength. So she continued east, looking and listening for Bastet.
When the sky finally blushed in soft grays and yellows, Asha was striding down a dusty path with only a handful of small cottages dotting the roadside. On either side she saw young gardens full of tiny sprouts, brightly colored flowers, and delicate vine tendrils in rich beds of dark earth. There were long plowed fields as well and she wondered what would emerge from them over the summer and autumn months. Trees lined the road and the fields, rising high above the tall grasses. Huge sycamores cast long shadows over the land, shorter mulberries shushed and waved in the breeze, and rough-barked palms leaned here and there over the road bearing the buds of a fruit she had never seen before.
Asha’s golden ear listened to the soul-sounds of the land of Aegyptus for the first time since arriving in the
