But it wasn’t difficult to imagine that if these unknown magicians could, they would probably attack Rakaten-te. The only real question was what form that attack would take.
Since the Chosen himself probably couldn’t predict that, all Kiron could do was be ready and try to react quickly, whatever happened.
“If you can try and find me two large flat stones that have never been carved or altered in any way—” the Chosen began.
Aket-ten had revived from her earlier confusion, and now wore a look of triumph. “I already have, Chosen,” she said. “A half dozen of them, in fact. I also have fuel for a fire that are sticks that were broken and not cut, and I have been harvesting such herbs as I can find in what is left of the gardens. I
think
I can collect water without using a container that was made by man—”
“That will not be needed. It is earth and fire that are the elements Seft’s priests use. I knew I had chosen wisely,” Rakaten-te said with satisfaction. “Well done, Aket-ten; please bring me two of those stones. Then the two of you do as you please until I summon you.”
None of this made any sense at all to Kiron, but he was fairly content to leave it at that. Why the Chosen would need unaltered stones, or sticks for a fire that had been broken and not cut, he could not imagine. Since Aket-ten was practically glowing after Rakaten-te’s praise, that was enough for him. And besides, he was starving.
“Is there any reason why we should not eat?” he asked hopefully. She shook her head. “It’s probably a good idea, and also not a bad idea to bring some oil for the lamps to the sanctuary,” she said. “If it’s a long night, we might need to refill them several times over.”
“Oh,
we
meaning me,” he said, with a good-natured grumble. “Since the oil jars weigh as much as a donkey—”
“As a donkey?” She raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“A
small
donkey. A foal.” He chuckled as she sighed with exasperation. “Nevertheless, I shall move one of them into the sanctuary, in obedience to your wishes.”
“You make me sound like a small-minded overseer,” she complained. “Isn’t it better to have the jar there if we need it?”
It seemed to him that this was unnecessarily cluttering up the sanctuary, but he didn’t say so. Instead he carefully wrestled and rolled the big jar to the room, leaving it just inside the door. Rakaten-te was chanting something and seemed deep in concentration. If he noticed Kiron, he said nothing and reacted not at all, which was exactly the way Kiron liked it. He was of two minds about the blind priest. On the one hand, Rakaten-te for himself was someone that Kiron was coming to like. He had a dry wit and sense of humor Kiron appreciated. He might not be telling them everything, but what priest ever did? There was a reason why the rites of the gods were called “Mysteries.”
On the other hand . . . Chosen of Seft. Seft the Prince of Lies, Seft the Treacherous. And the Chosen of Seft might have a plausible-sounding explanation for the story of Seft’s betrayal, but . . . that could be just as much a lie as anything else.
But Avatre liked him, and so did Re-eth-ke. Perhaps that was what he should go on. The dragons did not care about gods and their histories; they relied on their instincts. They had hated, loathed the Magi of Alta, one and all; every dragon in the compound would go mad whenever one was near. Avatre and Re-eth-ke not only tolerated Rakaten-te as a rider, but they would carefully, gently nudge him to solicit scratches.
He relaxed a little at that thought. If he could trust nothing else in the world, he knew he could trust Avatre as a guide.
Aket-ten came to stand beside him just as he came to that conclusion. She watched the Chosen chanting with a furrowed brow. “Not only do I not know what he is saying,” she confessed in a low voice, “I don’t even know what language it is in. It sounds like Tian, but . . . it isn’t, exactly.”
“Huh.” He became aware of a sense of . . . unease? Portent? Both really. A feeling of pressure in a way. Despite the fact that the sanctuary still held the heat of the day, he felt a chill and shivered.
But then he felt more than a chill, as Rakaten-te’s chanting increased in volume and intensity, and the Chosen of Seft raised the smaller of the two stones and smashed it down on the collection of beads.
Suddenly every hair on Kiron’s body threatened to stand on end. A strange, dry silence dropped over them all. Kiron could hear his own heart pounding in his ears. But then, he heard something else entirely.
Something that sounded like—rain? Or a shower of sand on a roof?
Movement on the floor by the door caught his eye. It looked as if the shadows there were moving. And that was where the sound was coming from, too . . . a strange, sharp, musty odor suddenly assailed his nose, and as his heartbeat quickened, he peered at the moving shadow, trying to make out what it was.
Wait. That was no shadow. That was—
A living carpet of black scorpions, moving slowly toward them.
Aket-ten gasped the same moment he realized what they were. She stood there, paralyzed with fear, her eyes blank and black with sheer terror.
The deadly creatures paused at the edge of the light, as if making up their minds whether to go on or not. Their eyes glittered in the lamplight like a myriad of tiny black gems, and the sound of their claws on the sandstone floor was exactly like the sound of a rain of pebbles on a roof. They stared at him, and he stared back.
“Kiron!” Rakaten-te’s voice cut across his paralysis. “Aket-ten! What do you see?”
“Scorpions,” Kiron said, as Aket-ten whimpered the same word. “There must be hundreds of them—”
The carpet of insects surged forward at that moment. Reflexively, Kiron grabbed the object nearest to him and hurled it at them.
It was a lamp.
It broke just in front of the scorpions, spilling its fuel all over the stone floor. The oil caught fire before the wick spluttered out—
And with a scuttling of claws, the scorpions got out of the way of the flames.
Fire!
Kiron ran for the jar of oil. Ruthlessly, he broke in the top and tilted it over. The oil spread toward the scorpions, forming a barrier between them and the venomous insects. Paying it no heed, the scorpions scuttled forward again, into the oil.
And Kiron threw another lamp into the middle of the pool of oil. Flames spread across the surface of the oil, catching some of the scorpions before they could escape.
Yes!
Shaking off her paralysis, Aket-ten ran out of the room and came back with unlit torches. He seized one from her, lit it, and began beating at the scorpions with it. The insects retreated, making an angry, dry clicking sound. Some of them tried to find a way around the burning barrier of oil; Aket-ten spotted them first and ran to intercept them with her torch. He gave her his and turned and sprinted for the overturned jar; there was still plenty of oil in it. He manhandled it into his arms, then staggered with it to Aket-ten’s side, sloshing the oil clumsily out to finish the barrier that accident had started.
Wave after wave of the black creatures surged toward them over the burning floor. Each time they met the wave with torches and more oil. Even as they tried to build a bridge across the burning oil out of their own bodies by smothering it, he and Aket-ten threw more oil on them and then set fire to them.
Kiron’s world narrowed to the oil jar, the torch in his hand, and the army of scorpions.
He fought them until his hands were burned and his body dripping sweat.
And then—suddenly—they were gone. The only trace of them was what was left of the ones that had burned.
Kiron let his knees go and sat down rather abruptly on the floor, with Aket-ten beside him.
“Well,” said the Chosen of Seft. “That was unexpected.”
SIXTEEN
A KET-TEN
jerked her head around to stare at the priest, suddenly filled with fury. “You
knew
something like that was going to happen!” she snarled. “You knew it and you didn’t warn us!” The heat of the dying flames was nothing to the heat of her anger. How dared he? Priest or no priest, how
dared
he?
“Aket-ten—” Kiron said, making a placating gesture. “I don’t—”
“I knew? Child, my life was as much in danger as yours. More.” The priest’s tone was mild, with no hint that he was affronted by her accusations. He made a little gesture at his bandaged eyes, as if to emphasize his point. “I could not even detect what had been sent against us with my magic, which requires preparation and spells. Had you not defended me, I would have been swarmed within moments. You, at least, could have run away.”
Shame overcame her. She bowed her head.
Of course. I’m being stupid. What was I thinking?
Rakaten-te could have been killed far more easily than she or Kiron.
“Now I will say that I guessed that breaking the spell so abruptly might draw unwanted attention,” the priest continued, sounding a little shamefaced. “But I honestly thought it would come in the form of magic sent against magic, directed at me, and not at all of us. I anticipated retaliation that was magical in nature rather than material. It was a clever strategy. And one I did not anticipate.” Now he sounded irritated. Aket-ten guessed that it was irritation at himself, and his next words confirmed that. “I am at fault there.”
“Well, now what do we do?” Aket-ten demanded, bringing her head up. This was not the time to indulge in recriminations, self or otherwise. “Whoever ‘they’ are, ‘they’ know we’ve uncovered them—”
“You two remain on watch for things I cannot deal with,” Rakaten-te said, firmly taking charge of the situation. Aket-ten bristled a little, then forced herself to back down. He
was
in charge. They were there as his hands and eyes, no more. She was spoiled, really, having a leader who simply didn’t act like one most of the time, and that even more so with her. Her nose twitched a little at the smell of hot stone and the odd scent of fried scorpion. She really needed to sweep those things out the door. The cats would probably love them.
She gritted her teeth and nodded acceptance. “Now that you can use magic, can’t you do something about helping us keep watch?” she asked instead. Surely there was something he could do! Neither she nor Kiron were in any shape to stand on watch all night. Her hands were already starting to hurt in the places where hot oil or torch fire had scorched them.
He shrugged. “Not until I use that same magic to speak with my own priests, and if possible, with the priests of other gods in Sanctuary. After that, we will see. Magic is like anything else. You spend it, and it is gone, nor can you do more until you have more of it.”
She sighed; she knew that of course, it was one of the fundamental tenets of magic. She had hoped he had reservoirs of power stored . . . but if he didn’t or if he had used them, then so be it. There was no arguing with that. As he turned his attention back to his simple tools and preparations, she turned to Kiron.
He was frowning, black brows furrowed together. “If he’s at this all night, we’ll be hard-pressed to stay awake, much less on guard,” he said quietly, echoing her thoughts exactly. “It’s all very well to tell us to guard him, but I was tired before this started, and now . . .” He let his voice trail off. He looked about as bad as she felt; his eyes were puffy and red, with dark shadows beneath them, he had soot smudges all over him, and the red of burn marks on his hands and arms. He did not look as if he would do well in another fight.
She chewed on her lower lip. What they needed was some help, something that would at least make a fuss if there was something dangerous about. A couple of geese would have been ideal, but of course, there was little water here and she doubted this town had seen a goose outside of wall paintings. If only they had a dog! But the dogs around here had gone thoroughly feral, and were not approaching humans. Even if they could catch one in the dark and tied it in here with them, it would spend all its time fighting the rope, or whining and making a fuss, and it would be hard to tell whether noises it was making were because of danger or because it wanted to get loose.
The dragons would be too sleepy to be of any use, and besides, they would never notice anything as small as a scorpion, not even a legion of them. Things that would kill a human, the dragons could often merely ignore. More scorpions, snakes, poisonous spiders—those were the things most likely to be thrown against them, by Aket-ten’s way of thinking.
She racked her brain for a way to guard against such things for as long as need be. What they needed were barriers across the two thresholds. The scorpions had come swarming in through the doorway that led to the open court in front of the temple. Closing the door wouldn’t help; there was more than enough of a gap under the door for them to squeeze in. Short of bricking up that gap, nothing was going to stop them. Stuffing cloth or straw under it wouldn’t hold them for long. The stones she had collected for Rakaten-te were too irregular to serve as a barrier. Was there any way they could use the oil to create a regular fire barrier?
Kiron was also frowning in thought. “Dishes of oil with wicks in them?” he said, sounding doubtful. “Set across each threshold? If we can find troughs, maybe . . . bread molds? Kneading troughs? I don’t know, maybe we can stack enough dishes to cover gaps?”
It was as good a thought as any. Better than the half-formed notions she’d had so far. The flames would keep the oil hot, and enough wicks would even heat the dishes until they burned at the touch. “We don’t really need to kill anything, just keep them back,” she agreed. “At least . . . I hope.”
They took a discarded torch, lit it, and went back to the stores together. They found a number of objects that looked as if they would work, and there were years worth of linen lamp wicks in bundles there. As she gathered them up, Kiron looked over an assortment of salves from the shelves, selecting some that appeared to be beneficial, as well as some flatbread and honey, and took them into their haven. While she was at it, Aket-ten got a broom. Before they did anything else, she wanted the charred remains of those scorpions out of the sanctuary.