Heart of the Gods (41 page)

Her heart wrenched as she remembered.

Saini. Who had sought redemption so desperately that he’d volunteered to blow the Horn.

It must be nearby…

Another splatter of fire against the wall reflected from something only a little distance away.

Raissa drove off another of the Djinn as Abasi grunted with effort behind her.

Quickly she gathered up what was there…conjured a sling to hold it…

The light grew dimmer…

“Guardian!” Abasi called in alarm.

Turning, she looked back in horror.

The great iron doors were closing.

“NO!”

If they closed, they would be trapped in here in the dark with the Djinn, not even able to see well enough to fight them even with her vision, and that wouldn’t save Abasi and his few remaining men.

Or herself, trapped with the Djinn.

She had the Horn…and couldn’t use it.

Kamenwati took swift advantage of Ky’s distraction as Ky saw some of the Djinn leave off feasting on the dead to leap to the doors, throwing their strength against the massive things. He barely twisted aside in time to evade Kamenwati’s thrust but he did, bringing his sword around to slash at the Djinn and drive it back.

Desperate now and determined, Ky drove the ancient Egyptian back, hammered blow after blow against him, looking for an advantage, an opening.

He had to find one or Raissa might be trapped in there with only Abasi and his men.

And the Djinn.

In the dark.

The Djinn would tear her to pieces unless he could reach her in time. He fought to get closer to the doors.

Raissa remembered too well what had happened when she as Irisi had blown the Horn at the end of the battle. It had dispersed the Djinn across Egypt, across the world where they’d regrouped, continuing their predations but so scattered Khai had struggled to find a way to combat them.

That wouldn’t help.

There was a chance, she had an idea but she wasn’t the one to do it. She couldn’t do it. Only one person in the Tomb might be able to, if she could reach him in time…

Gathering every scrap of magic she could, she called up the wind, a great burst of it.

“Run,” she shouted…and sent another burst of wind slamming ahead of them, clearing the space between them and the doors, scattering the Djinn, smashing some of them against the iron, halting the progress for only a moment. And draining nearly the last fragments of magic available to her…

The three of them ran for it, racing across the slick and slimy floor toward the narrowing wedge of light.

Inexorably, the doors closed, picking up speed.

It would be close… Raissa dove for the opening, rolled over onto her back to keep the Horn safe and take the fall across her shoulders…slid…

In despair Ky saw more of the Djinn pile against the doors, their renewed strength speeding their progress.

There was a burst of dust and the doors halted for a moment.

Others of the Djinn had joined Kamenwati.

One of them leaped at him and he dodged it, gave it a kick and a shove in Kamenwati’s direction.

They were coming…

Seeing the distraction in Kamenwati’s eyes, Ky knew he planned something, that something was about to happen…and it wouldn’t be good.

There was a flash of bright hair as Raissa dove between the closing doors, rolled onto her back with the Horn clasped to her chest.

Kamenwati spun, leaped, lashed down with his sword at her vulnerable throat as her eyes widened and she threw her left arm up to shield herself.

His blade skittered over hers, the shielding sword.

Then Ky was there, his sword thrust between Raissa and Kamenwati’s blade, only inches above her throat.

Both hands on the hilt, Ky twisted it viciously upwards, driving Kamenwati’s up and away, and pushed, throwing Kamenwati backward and off-balance, staggering away from Raissa.

“Go,” Ky shouted, “whatever it is you have planned, do it…”

With a desperate look at him, Raissa scrambled to her feet, Abasi and his other man at her side as Ky spun his blade and sliced it backhanded, cutting Kamenwati’s throat in one swift movement.

The man’s hands went to the blood that gushed there as he began to topple… His eyes were stunned, shocked…

With a flash of an admiring grin, Raissa turned and ran for the tunnel above, cutting through and trying to drive back the Djinn.

“Hurry,” she called, “we don’t have much time....”

Ky ran at her side. “Why?”

“With Kamenwati dying, whatever ties binding the Djinn to the Horn will fade. That some of them answered at all is proof he still had some control over them, if not all of them. Once he dies, that control will fade and the Djinn will go mad. We’ll be trapped in here with them. I can’t blow the Horn and risk either dispersing them all over the world or summoning those that didn’t answer the last time, the ones Abasi and his people have been fighting all these years.”

She slapped back one of the emaciated Djinn, cut the head off another.

“How well can you throw?” she asked, glancing at him as they rounded the corner to the upper tomb.

It was as if the Djinn sensed what was coming or what they were planning, doing, or the control over them was indeed shattering but they were massing, coordinating… It was becoming harder and harder to fight through them, past them. Both of them were simply hacking and chopping, trying to drive them back, to get past them.

A little startled and slightly amused by the change in subject, he said, “Well enough. I played both soccer and American football.”

Raissa unwrapped the Horn from the sling around her neck…

It was an oddly ugly and oddly beautiful thing, strangely repellent, in the shape of a ram’s horn. The dark jewels on it glittered muddily with reddish depths not just in the blood rubies but in the jet and darker gems. The copper chasing had tarnished and turned an ugly mottled and pitted green over the years.

“You need to throw it to Tareq,” she said.

Slashing at Djinn, he stared at her.

“Why Tareq?”

Raissa looked at him…and smiled.

“Trust me and hope I’m right…”

They burst into the main chamber, not so brilliant now with more than half the torches gone and the gold scattered underneath the feet of the Djinn who had no use for it, a number of which were trying to find a way to reach Tareq, Ryan and Komi in their corner behind Isis. The Djinn did have a use for them.

All of them looked somewhat shell-shocked.

The statue of the Goddess looked down, her face still.

“Boss,” Ryan called, desperately, his tone of his voice sickly relieved to see them.

He and Komi resolutely fired into the faces of the Djinn to drive the crowding creatures back as Tareq, with a borrowed sword, hacked at the clawing hands and reaching claws.

Watching the Djinn was horribly like watching a cat trying to snag something just out of reach.

They were focused, undaunted.

His horror evident, Tareq pressed back into the corner, a sword in hand, facing the Djinn.

“Tareq!” Ky shouted.

The fear had been there in all of them that he and Raissa might not return, that they might be trapped here with the Djinn. Until the lights went out, until there was no hope. Until one of them tired. Fear had nearly overwhelmed all of them, it was in Ryan’s voice, in Tareq’s eyes, they’d been holding panic at bay by sheer force of will.

And hope.

It was with immense relief that Tareq heard Ky’s voice and turned to see him, Raissa, Abasi and one of Abasi’s men emerge from below, all of them the worse for wear, all still battling the Djinn.

With amazement, though, he saw Ky toss his sword aside to heft something in his hands, turning it just a little to fit, to hold properly and then throw it…

“Catch,” Ky shouted, over the hisses, wails and growls of the avid Djinn.

The thing sailed in a nearly perfect spiral above the heads of the Djinn, glittering dully in the thin lamplight.

Automatically Tareq reached for it, nearly fumbling it as it struck his hands, bobbling it a little…only to stare in shock and surprise at the Horn of the Djinn.

Priceless…unique…and horrifying.

Above the babble, above the shrieks and cries of the Djinn, Raissa shouted, “Tareq, think of good Djinn, think hard, ask for help and blow!!!”

In her voice were tears, hope, and a prayer.

For a moment Tareq stared at her in utter astonishment and then a glimmer of amusement. An odd anticipation and sense of joy filled him… Tears burned in his eyes.

Just the thought…

With a nod, he lifted the Horn to his lips…

Ky stared at her, too, in shock…a sense of hope rising even as he smashed a kick into the face of an oncoming Djinn, backhanded another away.

Smiling, Raissa drove the Djinn back, slashing and hacking with her swords.

Something inside Tareq lightened. Hope blossomed.

Raising the Horn to his lips, Tareq blew…

Chapter Thirty Six

The sound that pealed from the Horn was glorious. It was sweet, brilliant, as promising as the song of the first bird of spring, as stirring as the call of a trumpet, a paean to glory… It rang and echoed from the walls, reverberated, beautiful and vibrant, glorious… The sound shimmered in the air… Sound became light… It filled the chamber to echo in their bones…to shiver over the skin softly like a lover’s caress.

Around them the Djinn cringed, quailed…

There was an odd bright atonal wailing, the sound of a thousand voices raised, sweet and pure.

Light exploded everywhere around them as the room was filled with warmth and brilliance.

Bright Djinn… Some in the shape of tall men, others clouds of brilliance, warriors all in the defense of the light, of all of the Prophets, of all of people. They came bearing swords of light against those of the Dark.

A circle of them surrounded Ky, Raissa, Abasi and his remaining man, facing outward as guardians to and for them, driving off the dark Djinn.

Others surrounded Tareq with the Horn, Ryan and Komi, standing guard, tall and dazzlingly bright.

Others still swept through the chamber in a glittering torrent down into the darkness below and out to the garden, figures of light so blindingly brilliant they could barely be seen.

Where they passed, no dark Djinn remained, banished back to their own realm.

In a matter of moments they were gone, all save the four who encircled them and those who at guard by Ryan, Komi and Tareq, who stood dumbfounded, the Horn of the Djinn still in his hand and only inches from his lips.

Slowly it lowered.

“I wasn’t certain I believed,” Tareq whispered, staring up at the figures around him.

Letting out a sigh, Ky could sympathize, as he looked up in somewhat dazed astonishment.

With a radiant smile, Raissa said, “It doesn’t matter. They believed in you.”

The bright Djinn turned to face them, their faces glowing so brilliantly that all that could be seen of them was an impression of kind, if vaguely impersonal and curious, eyes.

These Djinn examined them, each of them, and then they nodded.

Warm light filled the room, coming from everywhere and nowhere, filling each of them with a sense of joy and wonder.

One by one, each in their own way, the bright Djinn did reverence to those who had fought here in this place, servants of the light, too, as a greater radiance filled the chamber, growing brighter, blinding…

The bright Djinn stepped back.

A sound filled the room, huge, like great bells ringing, or horns calling, the songs of a thousand birds, the cry of a hawk flying wild and free, the rushing of the wind…of laughter…

There was scent too, of fresh air laden with moisture, of green growing things and flowers, the soft scent of a child, of a lover’s skin, of all the things that mattered.

Forms took shape in that light, light and darkness coalesced into the form of a man who held out his arm as a swirl of wind became a beautiful woman, who took the offered arm. A leaping lion become a lion-headed woman whose features became those of a stern-faced woman. A hawk on the wing became a hawk-headed man, whose features shifted as well, softening, becoming a handsome man with kind, gentle knowing eyes.

Beloved eyes, beloved face.

They reflected faces Raissa knew well.

As did the part of Ky that was Khai as he looked back on memories almost forgotten.

As before, Isis and Sekhmet appeared in the forms of the priestesses he’d known and Irisi had loved so well.

The great God Osiris resembled Awan, his priest, who had loved Banafrit so well and grieved for her so deeply.

Now they were reunited in the afterlife.

With them was Horus, his calm face and sharp eyes those of the priest Kahotep, Irisi’s trusted friend and advisor.

Raissa smiled to see him.

His sharp eyes warmed as they always did to see her.

Isis released Osiris’s arm so they could each reach for her, their hands touching for only a moment before they were replaced by those of another.

There was laughter and tears among all of them.

It was like coming home.

“You did well, little one,” Isis said, her voice Banafrit’s but softer as she looked at all of them.

Her eyes returned to Raissa’s and shadowed with sorrow.

“To sacrifice your only chance at passage to the Afterlife…,” Isis said, and shook her head. “It seems poor thanks for your service to us.”

She gestured and the air sparkled with glimmers of fire. They gathered and then shot off into the darkness below. She leaned forward and brushed a kiss over Raissa’s forehead in benediction to convey one last gift. Her eyes on Raissa’s, she pressed it into her hands.

“With our thanks to our last best Servant of the Gods.”

Straightening she turned to look at Ky and reached out a hand to him in thanks.

How could he not take it, looking up into the dark eyes of the Goddess, her gaze full of warmth and love?

So he did and a sense of that warmth rushed through him.