The Tekhen Of Anuket Part 15

Before they could open the great portal, both hallways below the great statue of Set spewed forth black-robed monk-soldiers. Jade and Phoenix spun to face their enemy, weapons drawn but hopelessly outnumbered.

"This is not good," Phoenix tried to keep his voice steady.

Jade glanced to her right and, bizarrely, smiled. "I thought this might happen. It's under control. We just need to hold them off for about ten seconds. Don't get separated because things are going to get very, very hot."

"What?" He didn't have time for anything more. The first monks were on him.

He had barely parried one blow, blocked a second and twisted aside a third when Jade yelled at him. She grabbed him by the back of the shirt and dragged him to the floor with unexpected strength.

The strange hissing noise from beside the doors grew louder. He glanced up, expecting a sword thrust from all sides, but the priests of Set seemed to be bouncing off an invisible bubble over his head. Beside him, Jade sat up, her eyes closed, ignoring the frustrated hordes of monks slashing at her shield, but wincing at every strike. Phoenix looked from her to them, bewildered.

"Exactly how is this helping us to open the door?" He asked acerbically. A monk swung a vicious stroke at the shield. His curved sword rebounded at an angle, accidentally impaling the surprised priest standing next to him. The urge to poke tongues at their helpless attackers was almost irresistible.

"Heron installed two of his steam aeolipile machines here as automatic door-openers here," Jade said in a strained voice. "He told me now to make the steam pressure build up to dangerous levels. They are going to blow any second."

Phoenix gaped at her. "Seriously?"

"No," she flashed him an annoyed look, "I'm just sitting here for the fun of it, waiting to die again. Get your head down so I can make the shield smaller. I can't hold it much longer against the iron in their swords."

The hissing noise grew louder still. Now there was also an ominous, metallic groaning and several monks began to cast worried looks that direction. Jade slipped an arm through Phoenix's and drew him closer.

"I'll have to strengthen the shield. Hang on."

CHAPTER TWENTY.

The groaning escalated to an earsplitting whine. There was an almighty tearing explosion as metal burst asunder and threw lethal shards in all directions. One of the main doors twisted and buckled as its hinges tore from the wall. Hot water and steam cascaded onto the floor and broke against their shield in a hissing wave. Scalding globs of copper and water showered down from above. Monks screamed and fell, burnt by water and pierced by shrapnel. Jade watched in sickened horror as men fell and died around them.

Hot copper speared into her shield. Some bounced off, but the spell was weakening so some shards simply slowed and hung suspended in air. Her concentration faltered as her strength slipped away. The shield began to thin.

A second explosion rent the air, this time from behind the other door. Hinges broke away from the stone wall. The door teetered and fell outward, squashing three guards and making a rampway down the stairs to the feet of the astonished rioters outside.

More metal and super-heated water shot toward Jade and Phoenix where they crouched on the floor. Jade gasped as the impact shook her shield, body and mind. In sheer desperation, she sought for more strength from somewhere anywhere. Suddenly, power seemed to flow in through her hands. Reflexively, she tightened her grip on Phoenix and drew, from him and his sword, the power she needed to sustain the spell. His energy tasted a hot red-gold. The shield became near-visible as a purple-blue heat-shimmer in the air.

Finally, the explosions stopped and the steam dissipated toward the high ceiling. A moment of stunned silence followed - until the crowd outside realised they were not about to be set upon by hundreds of warrior-priests. Most of the monks had run or were dead in the foyer, fallen at the feet of their G.o.d in a puddle of cooling water.

With a ma.s.s yell of triumphant anger, a great tide of people brandishing swords and torches, swept up the stairs and into the foyer. They splashed through the water and split like a river at the feet of Set. Half went up one corridor and half the other, just like they had somehow planned it that way.

Relieved, Jade dropped the shield and staggered to her feet. Phoenix joined her, standing back in awe to watch the bloodthirsty mob pa.s.s. He held Blodbal. There was an worrying expression of fierce delight on his face.

Two figures detached themselves from the torrent of people and stopped next to them. She smiled wearily at Marcus and Heron. They weren't wearing priest robes, which was probably a good thing at the moment. The old man grinned back like a mischievous schoolboy.

Marcus simply nodded at the broken doors, "Dramatic, but effective."

"And you," Phoenix indicated the rioters. "You must have the gift of the gab to get so many here so fast. Where're your robes?"

Marcus shrugged. "Their hatreds run deep. We decided it would be more effective to be Romans against Set, rather than priests. Less chance of being killed by our own mob. Shall we see about saving Brynn and destroying the obelisk?"

"Maybe you should wait here, Heron," Jade laid an anxious hand on the old man's thin arm. "You've done more than enough."

The inventor shook his head. "No, young lady, I don't think I have. Besides, I haven't had this much excitement in years. I've already thought of at least five new inventions: something for magnifying the voice; a quick-fire device for lighting torches faster..."

She put her hand over his mouth. "Later. Let's go help Brynn."

He nodded, his faded blue eyes turning serious.

Phoenix pointed down the corridor next to Set's left foot. "If this place is laid out like the one in Memphis, the prison cells should be down that way."

"What if he's already been taken to the sacrifice chamber?" Jade asked.

"We have to start somewhere," his expression turned grim. "I don't think we should split up; not when we're this close to finishing it."

She agreed and they raced after the last stragglers from Marcus' crowd. As they ran down the seemingly-endless stone corridors, Jade couldn't escape the feeling that this had all been a little too easy.

There were skirmishes going on everywhere. Deftly, the small group skirted those they could and ended those they couldn't. It looked very much like the rioters were winning. The floor was littered with bodies of the Priests of Set. Hopefully they would even stay dead. It took only a few minutes to reach the cells; and an even shorter time to discover that they were empty. Brynn was not there. Exchanging a despairing look with Phoenix, Jade spun on her heel and led her companions back to the foyer. They dodged into the second corridor, running as fast as they could over the body-strewn stone floor.

The corridor ended suddenly, opening out onto a balcony that ran the length of a vast, stone chamber below. Long stairs descended to the floor on the left and right. Carried to the stone railing by their momentum, the four piled up against it and stared down into a chaotic scene below.

Most of the remaining priests must have been here when the rioters broke in. A pitched battle was taking place at the base of both staircases as monks fought to protect their High Priest. Screams and the clashing of metal echoed around the enormous chamber. Swords flashed and the dark-clad monks fell beneath the crowd's fury. The smell of hot blood and vomit drifted up. Jade covered her mouth and closed her eyes, unable to watch the carnage.

She opened them when Phoenix nudged her with an elbow. At the far end of the dark, vaulted room burned an enormous furnace. The great hall suffocated in its heat. In front of it was a large, stone altar. The High Priest of Set stood at one end with his back to the furnace. Smoky torchlight glinted off his golden mask. Around him were eight blood-masked priests of the Inner Circle. They ignored the fighting. With bowed heads and linked hands, they circled the altar and chanted.

Jade gasped and grabbed at Phoenix's arm. There on the altar, wearing only a loincloth, lay Brynn. His eyes were closed, his pale skin blotched with bruises and dirt, his hands and feet bound. He looked tiny, young and helpless.

They watched in horror as the High Priest raised his hands over his head. A curved knife blade gleamed. Jade sought desperately for a spell strong enough to be useful at such a distance, against such magic. The High Priest looked up and, for an instant, Jade was sure she detected a satisfied smile behind that expressionless golden mask. Marcus s.n.a.t.c.hed an arrow from the quiver across his back and laid it on his bowstring. Before he could loose it, the knife flashed down and plunged into Brynn's thin, white chest.

Jade screamed her throat raw. She fell to her knees as the Binding spell that linked her to Brynn broke and pain exploded in her heart and left hand. Beside her, Phoenix gasped and clutched at his own chest. Marcus staggered, grabbing at the railing as the pain struck him, too. His bow and unspent arrow clattered uselessly to the ground. Heron crouched beside them, anxious and bewildered.

It took just a few seconds for the red mist of pain to clear, but it seemed like an eternity. When it was gone, Jade felt empty and lost. Brynn was dead. There was a gap in the Binding that had held them together. She could feel it in every cell of her body. The vine she had Bound them with snaked out of her hand and fell, lifeless, to the ground. Numbly, she gathered it up, stared at it, then shoved it into her shirt. Brynn was dead. It didn't seem possible. She struggled to her feet and looked down again at the circle of Priests around his lifeless little body. Most had left to join the melee. Only the High Priest remained.

Phoenix pulled himself up beside her, his face set like stone. His eyes blazed with the fire of revenge, fed by Blodbal's magic. Jade found she had no desire to stop him. Her heart cried out for vengeance, too. Silently, she drew Marcus and Heron a few steps backward as Phoenix moved down the stairs. He never took his eyes off the High Priest. He glided through the crowd below and the rioters seemed to know instinctively he was trouble. A path cleared as he stalked toward the altar.

Up on the balcony, Marcus drew his bow once more, aiming at the gold-masked priest.

Jade put out a hand to stop him."It won't work. I can see a shield spell around him. Phoenix might be able to breach it with Blodbal, but a normal arrow would just bounce off."

"But Brynn..." Marcus began to protest, his dark eyes troubled. "We can't just leave him there."

"We won't," Jade a.s.sured him. She felt strangely calm as though she were watching all this on TV and not living it at all. Brynn's death didn't seem real. Her head was perfectly clear and she knew exactly what had to be done next. Grief would have to come later. "Let Phoenix deal with the priest for now. I don't think anyone will be able to come near him and live at the moment. Blodbal has him. I'll get Brynn's...body. Your job is to destroy the Tekhen of Set and release Anuket, remember? If we don't, then Brynn's death was for nothing."

Marcus gazed at her for a moment, then nodded. He slung his bow back over his shoulder. "Give me the Hammer."

Jade reached into her shirt for the Bag, but Heron seized her arm. She turned impatiently. The old man pointed at the altar in wordless dismay. The High Priest gathered up Brynn's limp body and carried it toward the ma.s.sive furnace that stood at the end of the hall. He was obviously intending to burn it. The Ceremony of Burning, Heron had called it.

"You must not let him burn the body," Heron cried. "We have to stop him!"

Jade glanced down at the crowd, but Phoenix was still too far away and beset by at least five priests. Although he didn't look to be in any danger, there was still no way he would get there before the act was done.

It was vitally important that Brynn's body be kept intact. She had no way of bringing him back to life, but something deep in her heart told her that this part of the Priests' ceremony must not be completed. If it was, Brynn's spirit would be forever condemned to an agonising afterlife. No matter what was true in her world, in this one, the afterlife was probably real.

How could she possibly stop it? None of her spells were strong enough to penetrate the Priests' shield. She couldn't fly and had no power over the stone and fire of the furnace. So what did?

Water.

She needed water to put the fire out. Where from? Where had she seen water recently? A niggling memory teased her as the Priest stepped ever closer to the glowing furnace door.

Then it came to her. With a cry, she turned and sprinted along the balcony. Marcus and Heron hurried after her. Luckily, there were no priests on this level so she ran full-tilt, without interruption, toward the far end of the room. Skidding to a halt, she saw what she'd been hoping to see. Almost directly beneath this end balcony was a short, wide chimney. The heat here was unbearable. Even the floor beneath their feet radiated an uncomfortable warmth. Jade could only just make out the rest of the room through the heat-haze rising from the chimney.

As the others caught up, she s.n.a.t.c.hed at her shirt. She yanked the Hyllion Bagia free and pulled open the wide black mouth. Leaning as far out as she could over the bal.u.s.trade, she turned the Bag upside down and put the tips of her fingers inside its maw.

"Water!" she yelled, blinking against the searing heat and smoke. Nothing happened. Jade almost cried in despair as the High Priest took the last two steps to the furnace and reached for the door. What had she said? Something about the water being warm? Something that had let water enter the Bag.

"Seawater!" she screamed.

From the depths of the bag burst a torrent of water. It shot out, pouring into the chimney as though a dam had broken. There was a shocking, explosive hiss from inside the stone structure. Steam and ash began to gush from every opening. Jade closed her eyes and cast her own shield spell to stop herself from being scalded. She didn't want to move while water still gushed from the Bag. If the fire died completely out, there was no way the ceremony could be completed.

There was an ominous cracking sound from below. She opened her eyes. The High Priest began backing away from the furnace, calling out furious instructions to his henchmen. She saw, with satisfaction, that he still held Brynn in his arms. The Priests' shield spell should protect his small body from what was about to happen next.

At last, the Bag seemed to be empty. Jade drew back, tucking it inside her shirt. She glanced at Heron and Marcus, who were staring at her in amazement. There was another loud crack from the furnace.

"Now would be a really good time to run away," she advised.

The three reached the other end and were racing down the stairs when the furnace finally exploded. Cold seawater, sucked into the Bag during her swim in the harbour, combined with the superheated blocks, causing the stones to fracture into hundreds of lethal pieces. Jade threw up a shield to protect them as they ran. Shards of stone ricocheted away.

Any remaining monks were cut down by flying stone. Only the High Priest remained standing, untouched in his bubble of magic.

Phoenix, now within three paces of the High Priest, came through unscathed unwittingly protected by the monk. He stepped closer as the High Priest turned to face him with Brynn's body still hanging limply in his arms. Well, now was the time to test Blodbal's magical strength. Would it penetrate a shield?

He drew his mouth into a wide, unpleasant grin and advanced another step. The High Priest moved back, seeming confused by this insane tactic. Obviously most people were so frightened of his powers and henchmen that he was rarely tested. Phoenix intended to change that. He raised Blodbal.

"You killed my friend," he growled, fighting an internal battle against the sword even as he spoke. He had to think, not just give in to the desire for revenge. The sword wanted him to bathe in blood; to slaughter without thought. If he did, he would be just as bad as the priests of Set, Zhudai and all the other evil forces in this realm.

The priest glanced at the body in his arms and back up at Phoenix. Then he threw Brynn at his enemy. Taken by surprise, Phoenix barely had time to catch the boy before he hit the floor. He staggered under the weight, lowering the body awkwardly to the ground.

With an unintelligible shout, the High Priest pointed at several of his fallen soldier-monks. Phoenix groaned. He knew what came next. Sure enough, a flash of red-purple shot from the High Priest's fingertips, split and earthed itself in the still bodies of five dead monks. They stirred. Like string puppets they slowly, jerkily stood up and drew their weapons. Milky-eyed and expressionless, they advanced on Phoenix.

"Dammit," He glanced down at Brynn's body. He couldn't let the High Priest near it and he couldn't let him get away, either. The five monks formed an undead wall between where he stood and where the High Priest watched with an irritating air of smugness.

There wasn't even any point in re-killing the monks, as the Priest would just bring more and more back to life until Phoenix got tired or made a fatal mistake. No, the only way to finish this was to end it at the source. He gauged the distance to the High Priest. He would only get one chance at this. If he failed, he would fall beneath the swords of the undead. Even if he succeeded, he couldn't guarantee that the undead monks would be stopped. It was a big risk.

Seeing him hesitate, the High Priest laughed aloud and cast his spell again. Half a dozen more priests clambered to their feet and shuffled forward. With a dismissive gesture of his hand, the golden-masked priest turned and began to walk away, leaving his minions to deal with his enemy. It was now or never.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

Phoenix changed his grip on Blodbal and hefted it to his shoulder. Taking careful aim, he threw the blade like a spear, putting all his character's improbably high strength behind it. The sword sailed through the air, straight between the undead priests. Being dead, none of them had quick enough reactions to catch it or step in front of it this time. It flew unerringly toward its target. Its magic field sliced neatly through the Priests' shield without even a purple-blue flicker.

Perhaps sensing a disturbance in his shield, the High Priest of Set spun around just in time for Blodbal to embed itself up to the hilt in his chest.

For a moment, the man stared blankly at Phoenix through the eyeslits of his golden mask. Then he looked down at his own body and saw the sword. He coughed once before his legs crumpled and he collapsed to the ground without a sound. The gold mask fell away from his face, revealing a very ordinary-looking, bald-headed older man. His dark eyes stared up at the ceiling. Blood dribbled out of his mouth.

Their power gone, the animated dead dropped to the ground in pathetic little heaps of black cloth, their weapons clattering on the stone floor.

Relieved, Phoenix walked up and nudged the body of the High Priest with his toe before withdrawing Blodbal and wiping the blade on the monk's black robe. He picked up the mask and turned it over. Just like the furniture in the vizier's stolen treasury, it was fake: gilded wood. Disgusted, he tossed it down.

Looking around, Phoenix discovered the room had emptied. The rioters seemed to have decided two explosions in one riot were more than they had bargained for and ran away. Dead bodies of priests littered the floor, along with great chunks of stone. He had no idea why the furnace had blown, but he was pretty sure Jade must have had something to do with it. Or maybe Heron.

Speaking of which.....

There was no sign of his companions in the room or up on the balcony. A moment's thought told him they had probably gone to try and destroy the tekhen of Set, as they were supposed to. He decided the obelisk would most likely be somewhere outside the west wall of this room.

A woman screamed. It was not a yell of triumph, but a shriek of fear. It was Jade's voice. Clutching his sword, Phoenix's first instinct was to rush to the rescue. His second was to sneak. He ignored Blodbal's urgings and went with his second. A few swift steps brought him to a shadowed exit in the west wall. Crouching down, he peered around the corner then drew quickly back. What he saw made him glad he'd ignored his sword.

The small garden courtyard outside was dominated by the towering obelisk of Set. It also swarmed with Roman soldiers. At the base of the obelisk, Marcus, Jade and Heron were all being held prisoner. Phoenix peeked again, confirming his worst fears.

Not far from his friends, looking faintly pleased with himself, stood their worst enemy: Zhudai. On a bench nearby reclined a fat Roman wearing a stained, purple-edged toga. He appeared discontented. A soldier approached him and bowed, addressing him as 'my lord Priscus'. Phoenix grimaced. What the heck was the Proconsul of Egypt doing here in the middle of the night?

He sighed and leaned against the wall with his head thrown back. Now he somehow had to rescue the others, as well as get that stupid obelisk knocked down. When would this end? Take one badguy down and two more popped up to replace him.

That gave him an idea. He hurried back to where the High Priest lay. With quick glances at the door, he stripped the priest of his robe and s.n.a.t.c.hed up the discarded golden mask. Donning the robe, he tied the mask strings and pulled the cowl up to hide his hair. Hopefully they wouldn't notice the b.l.o.o.d.y slice in the cloth. Blodbal went up one long sleeve.

He began to pace toward the door, trying to look appropriately solemn and evil. Eight Roman soldiers appeared. They stopped, apparently aghast at the carnage. Noticing Phoenix, they hurried forward.

"My lord," the lead soldier said, "the Proconsul and his advisors await you outside. We have captured the intruders."

He bowed and hoped his wild heartbeat wasn't as loud as it sounded. He was about to deliberately walk into the hands of his arch enemies.

In the courtyard, his courage almost failed him. There were even more soldiers now. Then sight of his friends standing helpless in the hands of the Romans renewed his determination. If he could get close enough to Jade, he might be able to make this work after all.

The soldier led him up to Priscus, who raised a weary eyebrow at him. Phoenix bowed deeply but said nothing, hoping that the High Priest was normally as silent as they'd seen him. Priscus didn't seem bothered. He waved a fat hand at the prisoners.

"We caught your intruders for you, Anhotep. I am so sorry we couldn't get here earlier, though. The streets were awash with dirty rioters. They seemed to be quite annoyed with you. I'm sorry we couldn't save more of your followers. You have lost quite a few, haven't you?"