Servant of the Gods (28 page)

For Irisi, it was a sign.

Khai.

Her heart leaped.

Smiling, curling her hand around the small circle of metal, Irisi said, “Is there anything else?”

The architect shook his head. “No, that was all.”

It was a long way to have come for such a simple question.

Khai awaited, though. She wouldn’t keep him waiting long.

Again, she thanked the man, pressing a gold coin into his palm with a smile, closing her hands around his. “You’ve given me a wonderful place to begin my last journey.”

Ashai watched her go.

She was so graceful and lovely…and he vowed to make her final resting place a temple to such a kind spirit.

Kamenwati stared into the polished metal mirror, turning this way and that, searching for signs he might have missed of the change within him. A change greater even than that of the marid Djinn who shared his body.

Evidence of that one lay in the crushed gold cup on the floor by his bedside, a testament to strength he hadn’t meant to exert.

To his relief there was no sign of his travails on his features. Oh, his face appeared a little thinner, finer, but that was easy enough to explain, a result of his recent illness.

Harder to explain was the body of the slave in the corner.

Kamenwati had come out of his delirium ravenous and had grabbed the first thing he saw, the slave tasked to keep his body clean during his illness. Fortunately, it had only been a slave and not a servant or he might have had a mass exodus on his hands, which would have been difficult to explain.

That, though, was Marid behavior.

Drinking a cup of wine proved he could at least still drink wine and not just blood, but his exhilaration had almost undone him as his hand clenched around the soft metal of the cup. He would have to learn to control that.

At least he was better, though.

He might be able to use his new-found strength, too, to bind the other Djinn to him, to his half-Djinn self, now completely assimilated.

He had unfinished business.

Picking up the dead slave by his clothing, Kamenwati stepped out of his rooms.

No servants or slaves were about where he could see them, which was as it should be.

They would watch his shadow from doorways, though. But only his shadow.

Not that it mattered. He was master here.

He carried the body down to the lowest floors and tossed it beneath the hanging Djinn.

After so long suspended, they were starved. They went mad in an instant, snarling and biting, writhing in their bonds.

Leaving them to continue to do so with a meal a few tantalizing inches away, he lit the lamp beside Books both sacred and forbidden, he then opened them to the pages he wanted. This was dark magic so he needed to adjust some of the spells within them for his own use, for the way he needed to use them. He wrote notes swiftly, changing the hieroglyphs in his copies to the ones he wanted. When he was satisfied with what he’d written he gathered the materials he needed – a sharp knife, another gold cup, a censer to burn the herbs – aconite and belladonna, among others – a cup of natron and salt-laced water.

When he was ready, he went outside to look at the aspects of moon and the stars for verification.

Darkness greeted him, the moonless sky empty of all but the stars. It was a better time than he’d chosen before, with a new moon and the stars in more auspicious locations. He calculated the various positions.

Satisfied, he gave instructions to his majordomo to keep the servants in their rooms and all the slaves but his chosen ones in their quarters. Those chosen ones were to be brought to him.

The majordomo stared at the suspended Djinn as he obeyed, his eyes wide and horrified as he led the shackled slaves into the room.

Kamenwati reminded himself to have the man’s tongue cut out, and soon.

Like the majordomo, the slaves stared in abject terror.

With a gesture Kamenwati indicated the slaves should be chained to the walls to await his desires.

Only the last two struggled, one attempting to flee.

His face paling, the majordomo caught the man, knowing full well by Kamenwati’s glare that had the slave escaped it would have been the majordomo who would have stood in the slave’s place.

When that was done Kamenwati sent the majordomo away as well.

Lighting the herbs, he let the smoke rise until it filled the room. The slaves closest to the brazier swayed as it overwhelmed them.

With no more thought than he’d give to slaughtering one of his cattle he slit the throat of a slave and fed his blood to the starving Djinn as he chanted a spell. It was enough to satisfy the blood thirst of the Djinn until the spell took effect, making them momentarily grateful to him, binding them to him and to human blood. The next slave screamed and fought his bonds as Kamenwati wrestled him onto the altar.

Kamenwati cut that one’s living heart from his chest as he chanted from the Books while offering the shuddering heart to the great God Set.

Positioning the ram’s horn beneath them, he set the Djinn where he wanted. Then he slit their throats as well, one at a time, chanting as their thick ichor drained from them and into the mouth of the copper-wrapped, jewel-encrusted horn propped below them. The thick fluid filled it, soaked into the bone, turned the white substance of the horn a deep, dark red as it absorbed the viscous liquid.

Never once did Kamenwati’s voice falter or cease. He chanted steadily the sound rising in volume, louder, deeper, until it filled the room…

He knew the penalty for failure.

The time for waiting was over. It was almost done. He would wear the King’s crown and soon.

Lifting the Horn to his lips, he blew the first summons.

Cuddled in Khai’s arms Irisi felt a shiver of dark magic slither over her skin, waking her instantly. She sat up. The sense of threat sent shivers down her spine, as she knew it did for every other priest or priestess with even a hint of magic. All of them would be instinctively looking around for the source even as she did.

Khai looked at her in the dark. “What’s wrong?”

A breath Irisi hadn’t known she’d been holding escaped her.

“I don’t know. Someone was practicing dark magic,” she said, shaking her head, her voice breathless. “A great deal of it. It was so strong, Khai.”

Nor could her assumed memories recall anything like it.

Khai heard a touch of fear and concern in her voice. This was indomitable Irisi. Little frightened her.

Pulling her into his arms, Khai was startled to find she was shivering. He knew Irisi too well. This was more than a mere bad dream. He held her close.

“To what purpose?” he asked.

Shaking her head, she said, “I don’t know.”

Irisi looked up into his dark eyes. “I’ve never felt anything like it.”

Lifting her hand to his lips, Khai pressed his mouth to her palm in comfort.

Irisi’s heart warmed, easing a little, and she smiled.

The night was otherwise quiet. Whatever it was had passed as swiftly as it had come.

“Do you mind?” she asked, looking up at him.

Khai smiled and shook his head as he lay on his back, curling one arm around her.

Irisi stretched out against him.

She wrapped an arm around his waist and laid her head on his chest to listen to his heartbeat while he stroked her hair. More than anything else, that soothed her on the nights when the dreams shook her as they did increasingly of late, although she couldn’t remember them when she woke.

Neither they nor the other priests and priestesses ignored the clear portents.

It touched Khai immeasurably that she took comfort that way, from his presence beside her.

“Is there anything I can do?” he asked quietly.

She shook her head, helplessly. “I don’t even know what it was.”

“Is it something we have to worry about?”

Laughing lightly and wryly, keeping her concern at bay, Irisi said, “Quite probably.”

“Kamenwati?”

Frowning, biting her lip, Irisi shrugged helplessly. “Again, probably. Few practice dark magic. And it was so strong…”

She let out a breath.

“You’re worried,” he said.

She let out a breath. “Yes.”

“Perhaps I can take your mind off it,” he said, with a smile, rolling over to put her on her back beneath him, as he brushed a kiss across her lips.

His hips moved against her. She could feel him harden against her.

Cupping her breast, he brushed his thumb across her nipple.

His eyes watching her, he bent his head to nibble.

Warmth, excitement and love moved through her.

“Perhaps,” she confessed, as a finger slipped inside her and she gasped.

She’d missed that, his touch, while he’d been gone.

His thumb caressed her as his mouth closed over the tip of her breast to suck and nibble. Assaulted on all sides by pleasure, Irisi still could not resist adding more, stroking one hand through his hair, the other across his back, for the sheer delight in touching him.

Then she stopped thinking of anything except Khai as pleasure built within her, writhing as he tormented her sweetly.

Khai sighed.

This was one of the many things he loved about her, her total abandonment to his touch, giving herself to him so freely and completely. He loved to watch her lovely body twist and turn, writhe and tremble, while color washed through her fair skin until her skin blushed like a rose.

Irisi looked up into deep brown eyes with their flecks of warm gold.

Khai smiled and watched her gaze blur as she tipped over into ecstasy, her body arching beneath his, vibrating as she buried her face against his shoulder to muffle the soft cry of pleasure that escaped her.

Then he was inside her, even as the contractions within her faded, feeling her pulse around him.

Slowly, deliberately, he stroked into her.

Irisi moaned softly at the feel of him within her. She opened, lifted her hips to take him deeper, to feel all of him inside her, all the way.

Here was only another reason Khai loved her, this pleasure she took in the feel of him within her. Each time she smiled with delight as she did now, her eyes widening, and then sighed with pure pleasure, gratified him.

He loved that smile.

Though some might think that this was for her, it wasn’t. It was for him.

Khai had no fear for her, she would come as often as he wished, relishing the feel of him inside her as much as he enjoyed being there. She was so hot, so wet, so tight, he pleasured himself with her as her body closed around him, another soft cry whispering from her as she tightened.

Pleasure rushed through him as he spilled into her, gloriously. His Priestess, and he worshiped her.

Watching Khai leave in the pre-dawn light, cursing Kamenwati for the necessity of it, Irisi felt a small twinge of…something.

With a frown, she sighed and awoke a sleepy messenger.

Her uneasiness had returned.

“Run to the priests and priestesses of all the temples,” she said. “Ask those Highest to join me after their morning rituals.”

The girl nodded, jumping to her feet to race out the door.

Irisi smiled at such energy and eagerness.

Awan was the first to arrive, looking grayer and thinner than he had only a few short months earlier. In the first few days she’d depended on him greatly for advice but as she’d grown more confident she leaned on him less. As time passed he was also allowing his chosen successor to take on more and more of the duties of Osiris’s High Priest. Watching him fade, Irisi grieved for him, knowing he slipped away from her, from them, going to join his beloved Banafrit bare finger-lengths at a time.

For now, though, she moved to give him greeting, hugging him as warmly as he did her.

Gently, Awan kissed her on the forehead.

“From the first,” he said, “I’ve always considered you another daughter and been grateful that the Gods blessed me with another.”

The words startled her.

“Awan,” she said softly, her heart twisting.

He patted her cheek. “Have no fear yet, my dear one, I will not leave you until there is someone in my place to advise you as well as I would. Ramses is not yet there.”

In a way, Irisi felt guilty for keeping him from Banafrit – and Banafrit from Awan – but Irisi herself and Egypt still needed him. The counsel he offered her was priceless.