Scenting Hallowed Blood (51 page)

Whimpering, Lily dragged Owen
down the final stretch of the path to the beach. Here, she saw the
image of Ishtahar standing upon the sand, her veils blowing around
her. The sea was wild, the waves looked like screaming, foaming
horses with dead, black eyes. As the waves crested and broke up on
the shore, the sea beasts vanished, only for more to rear up behind
them. Lily knelt upon the sand, shuddering and gulping air. She
looked back at the cliff-face, and saw a host of stone faces
staring out at her. They stretched their jaws wide, splintering
stone, rolled their pebble eyes and uttered a lament of moans and
piteous chanting. The cliff itself seemed to be disintegrating.
Small land-slides of rock clattered down its face.

Lily squatted down and covered
Owen with her body. He was shivering violently, his jaws clenched.
She saw blood mixed with spittle on his lips. ‘Ishtahar,’ she
breathed. ‘Ishtahar. Help us.’

But the image of the blue woman
kept her distance, a blade of pale light upon the sand.

In the temple of High Crag, the
voices of the Parzupheim rang out, uttering incantations in lost
tongues. In the drawing-room, Aninka stood with her face pressed
against the panes of the French windows. The night called to her,
but she was too afraid to face it.

On the cliff above Meggie’s
house, the Pelleth swayed to the wind, singing a shrieking,
elemental song. Daniel stood straight, with his eyes squeezed shut,
seeking an image of his master in the hectic night.

At Pharos, Sofia rolled in her
bed of serpent blood, sending tendrils of her mind down to the lair
of the serpent, tongues sugared with sweet lies. She beheld the
image of Shemyaza feeling his way through the fire-shot darkness,
and reached out to him. ‘Scapegoat, sacrifice! You are the Dying
King, to die forever. Go to your death, boy-child. That is what
they want. Feed their lies. Or will you turn to me, the dark
serpent mother? Let me nurture your bitterness into an avenging
blade. Be not the goat but the war-bird. Turn upon them! Be fierce!
Be cruel! Unleash the serpent against them!’ She felt her thoughts
brush against the uncertainty in Shemyaza’s mind. He was a foolish
child, fretful and selfish. Part of his petulant, masculine soul
heard her words and listened intently.

Salamiel lay like a
five-pointed star upon the roof of his house, intoxicated by
trance. His eyes stared blindly at the boiling sky. He meditated
upon the light of truth. ‘Azazel, let your heart be true. Ahura
Mazda, absolve him of his sins. Let the radiance of the true
spiritual sun shine upon him in this hour of darkness. Azazel, look
to the light of truth! Bring us hope through the love you once gave
to the land. In Anu’s name, amen...’ His inner voice was nothing
more than a small, silvery thread of sound that snaked in vain
through the caverns of the underworld.

When Shemyaza entered the portal to the
underworld, he found that the floor sloped down immediately. The
cave within was lit by a dull orange radiance, which shone sickly
through a viscous steam that clung to his legs, but there was no
sign of the ball of light he’d perceived from outside. The incline
before him was so sharp, Shemyaza was forced to scramble down it on
his backside, using his hands and feet to steady his descent. It
was a slow process, for slippery fragments of sharp slate cut into
his fingers as they clawed for purchase. He knew that if he tried
to hurry, the shifting stone beneath him might give way entirely,
send him plummeting downwards. Eventually, he reached the bottom of
the slope, and here was able to walk upright. He found himself in a
wide tunnel, lined on either side by recesses in the rock. Within
each niche giant bones were resting, as if the labyrinth of tunnels
was no more than an ancient catacomb, where the dead contemplated
lightless eternity as they sifted away to dust. Then, beneath his
feet, the rock vibrated, as if a coiled, living thing had flexed
its scrolls of muscle far below. It reminded him that whatever this
place might be, it was far more than a mausoleum for the dead.

Shemyaza walked along the
winding tunnel for what seemed like many hours. Always the floor
sloped downwards and, with each step he took, the air became hotter
and more oppressive. To left and right, he saw the gaping mouths of
side tunnels leading off into darkness, but kept his feet upon the
straightest path. The bones of the giants lined the tunnel walls;
silent, sentinel, prehistoric. They lay amid their rotted finery,
the damp wink of jewels coruscating through their fibrous dust. It
looked as if thousands had been entombed there.

As Shemyaza walked, he thought
about how the parched bones around him had once thrilled with
vitality: the empty, cracked craniums had bloomed with thoughts,
desires, emotion. In the end, it had all fallen to powdery
nothingness. This, in all truth, was his own inevitable destiny.
But what punctuated the journey of his life could and
must
matter; he could effect changes. He could
be.
If he wanted
it badly enough.

Now, there were faint voices
hissing through the air around him. He heard snatches of
conversation, whispered words. His name. ‘Shem! Shem!’ Was that
Daniel calling to him? No, Daniel was lost to him. He had chosen to
abandon his vizier in favour of the sea-born boy. The spirits of
guilt and unease rose up within him upon dark, tattered wings. He
did not want to contemplate them, for he was afraid of the pain.
Summoning his will, he dismissed all thoughts of Daniel from his
mind.

Then, he heard a sibilant,
feminine murmur, close to his ear. It was impossible to decipher
the words exactly, but they seemed to coax him onwards to the
serpent. Shem could sense their purpose; it was to inflame his
outrage at the thought of others desiring him to be their
scapegoat. Were these the ashen sentiments of some long-dead female
giant, someone who understood about victimisation and who
sympathised with his plight? He reached out with his inner voice,
and asked the spirit to identify herself, speak to him plainly, but
even as he did this, he sensed her withdrawal. The whispers faded
from his mind, as if he’d passed through the substance of some
resentful ghost.

Moments later, a low, desperate
entreaty called to his pure heart, a prayer to the light of truth.
Fleetingly, Shemyaza thought of his lost brethren, the other
Watchers who’d shared his fate.
Salamiel? Is that you?
He
tried to visualise Salamiel’s face, but could not summon an image
to his mind’s eye. Even if Sofia had told the truth, and Salamiel
was near, Shemyaza knew he could not venture into this
territory.

These phantoms must all be in
his own mind, and for that reason Shemyaza dismissed them from his
consciousness. He must not listen to them. All that was real, all
that mattered, was that he was making the journey at last, but not
for the Parzupheim. He was making it for Tamara and Delmar, his
faithful servants, who waited beyond the portal for him, patient
and true. Tamara’s face bloomed before his inner eye. Had she not
guided and protected him?
But you are here, regardless,
a
quiet voice murmured.
Despite your misgivings.

Shemyaza shivered. He began to
feel afraid, and his awareness was projected outside his body,
looking into his brain, his heart. His fear was a swirling pit of
dull yellow light, shot with ribbons of red. The colours of
bitterness trailed through it, and the hues of shame and anger. He
saw himself as a warped gestalt of fear, hatred and pain, surely an
inappropriate manifestation to approach the serpent? Yet he could
neither halt his progress nor turn back. A heavy weariness
descended upon him. What must be must be. If he was to die, he
could do nothing to prevent it. If he was to unleash dark forces
upon the earth, it was the flower of his destiny. Others heaped him
with responsibility, but ultimately he was just a catalyst, a
tool.

The tunnel led through many
lofty caverns, each deeper than the one before: yawning chambers
rang with the echoes of ancient rites. Here, the dead giants were
fixed upright to the uneven walls, their friable skeletons held
together by fused armour. Rank upon rank, they disappeared into the
shadows of above; a slumbering army of kings. As he passed them,
Shemyaza imagined that a shred of awareness reached out to him from
each desiccated corpse.
Have you come to wake us? Have you come
to lead us to victory?

He directed no answer towards
them.

Eventually, the floor of the
wide tunnel began to slope upwards once more. Soon, the path was
too sheer to negotiate by feet alone, and he began to use his hands
to help him climb. The light became ruddier, and the hot air was
punctuated by inexplicable cold spots; columns of freezing,
spiralling aether. Passing through them, Shemyaza heard terrible
screams and could smell the meaty, metallic tang of blood. Above
him, the steep path led to a ledge, over which poured clouds of
billowing steam that smelled of ozone and salt. He pulled himself
up onto the path.

Before him, stood a male
figure, motionless and vigilant. The man was taller than Shemyaza
himself, and clad in a long dark robe. He was undoubtedly Grigori.
His head was entirely covered by a close fitting skull cap of
silver metal, and he carried a staff crowned by the sigil of a
Magian priest, the same double-serpent of Tamara’s talisman.
Shemyaza knew he was facing the guardian of this place, perhaps the
first of many.

Shemyaza rested his hands on
his knees, stooping forward to catch his breath. He sensed no
direct threat from the figure before him, but perhaps a slight air
of challenge. The stranger allowed him time to recompose himself
and then stepped towards him. Shemyaza looked up into the long,
ascetic face, the almond-shaped eyes of deepest blue. Plaited locks
of bone-white hair hung down from beneath the cap of silver, onto
the priest’s chest. His face seemed incredibly ancient, yet also
youthful. Humour shone from his eyes, as well as wry wisdom.
Shemyaza sensed he was looking upon the face of a Grigori who had
come to these shores long ago. The attenuated countenance before
him reflected how the giants would have appeared in those ancient
times.

‘You are a ghost, of course,’
he said, with some disdain. He did not believe that one of the
original giants could have survived this long.

The figure inclined his head.
‘I am the guardian of the serpent’s realm, left here by those who
laid the Shamir to rest. I have waited a long time for you.’

‘Are you real?’ Impulsively,
Shemyaza reached out to touch the guardian’s robes, and the man did
not flinch away. Shemyaza felt rough cloth between his fingers, and
a faint aroma of camphor and myrrh wafted out from the dark
folds.

The guardian’s lips stretched
into a crooked smile. ‘I have slept and dreamed the serpent’s
dreams. Time has passed above and below. I am aware of it, yet it
seems like the blink of a child’s eye; all beheld in wonder.’

‘Tell me your name,’ Shemyaza
said.

The priest bowed. ‘I am Ainzu,
keeper of the gate to every path.’

‘You know why I am here?’

Ainzu sighed theatrically, and
glanced upwards in an exaggerated manner. ‘Do not ask questions to
which you already know the answers!’ He turned round abruptly, in a
swirl of cloth, and began to stride quickly away along the
precarious ledge. Loose stones shifted and tumbled as his staff
smashed against the ground in time to his rapid steps.

‘Wait!’

The priest ignored the call.
Shemyaza was both confused and annoyed by Ainzu’s behaviour. Wasn’t
Ainzu’s function, as guardian of the underworld, to help and guide
him? Ainzu had already disappeared around a corner of the path,
although Shemyaza could still hear the thump of his staff against
the rock. He knew he had no choice but to follow. Clinging onto the
right hand wall as best he could, he hurried along the narrow
ledge. Small, smooth stones slipped from beneath his feet. He
stumbled, fell to his knees, grazed his palms on the rough rock as
he groped for handholds. One glance over the ledge was enough for
him to see that not even he could survive the fall into the abyss
that lay below. How could Ainzu make him take this risk? The priest
was obviously familiar with this domain. For Shemyaza, a stranger
to its dangerous paths, the threat of death lay in haste.

He rounded a corner of the path
and saw the dark, flapping robes of the priest up ahead, the silver
flash of the sigil on his staff. ‘Wait!’ Shemyaza called again, and
this time, Ainzu slowed his pace a little. Encouraged, Shemyaza
cried out, ‘Tell me what I have to do! That is your function, isn’t
it?’

Ainzu halted completely, and
after a moment of what seemed to be consideration, turned back to
face Shemyaza. His low chuckle resounded throughout the cavern.
‘Oh, no! That is
not
my function. You know already what you
have to do. My purpose is one and the same as that of the rocks
around you.’ He smashed his staff furiously against the rock, his
eyes flashing with crimson fire. ‘I can tell you what is within
your heart!’

Shemyaza felt his way forward,
until he was only feet away from the priest. ‘Tell me what I must
do now. My heart refuses to speak to me.’

Ainzu narrowed his eyes and,
after a few moments’ consideration, spoke. ‘Very well. Go in unto
the serpent. It rolls in its sleep and its skin is loose. Only when
the serpent sheds its skin can you look upon its face, for at that
time, it is blind. But remember, even in its blindness, it can
sense and taste your heart. What it finds there, it will swallow
and become. Are you brave enough to risk that? It can blink the
scales from its eyes very quickly.’