Scenting Hallowed Blood (41 page)

Their thought contact was like
the brush of feathers. She still loved him, though she thought he’d
betrayed her. She’d known he’d returned to Kharsag, yet he’d sent
her no word, not of comfort or friendship. In turn, he still partly
blamed her for what had happened to him. She had seduced him in the
corn, changed his life and his destiny, doomed him, but looking at
her now, he realised he still loved her, and her beauty was an ache
in his mind and heart. She was no longer a lissom maid, but a woman
of grace and power. In that moment of brief contact, their contract
was made. It was inevitable.

Their meetings were more
clandestine than ever before. Shemyaza raged against this. He had
known many women during his sojourn in the desert and resented
having to creep down the mountains like a crafty lizard to take his
pleasure. Ishtahar was frightened of the power of his feelings, his
bitterness and frustration. He seemed both more and less human to
her now. The shining prince she had loved amid the corn had
hardened into a relentless idol of bronze.

Covertly, he made contact once
again with the tribespeople of the desert wilderness, who still
worshipped him as a god. He incited them to war against the gentle
lowland folk, crowning his monstrous sons with iron and blood. They
were known and feared as the Nephilim, the hybrid sons of angels,
ferocious and heartless warriors who destroyed the farms, the
temples, the astronomical observatories and the sacred gardens.
They raped women and devoured children. They bathed themselves in
human blood.

Eventually, Anu’s viziers
realised who was behind the depredations and Shemyaza had to take
sanctuary in a mountain fortress, which he charged his sons to
build for him. Fearing for Ishtahar’s safety, Shemyaza had the
Nephilim enter her father’s house at night, kill her brothers, and
bring her to him. In his sanctuary, they would be safe. Djinn
guarded the narrow, treacherous paths that led to the fortress, and
Nephilim hid among the rocks, ready to stone and impale any
interlopers.

But Ishtahar was horrified by
what Shemyaza had become and what he planned for their people. She
knew that the Elders beyond the stars, with whom she had always
communed, abhorred her involvement in Shemyaza’s schemes. She could
no longer reach them in her mind. For the space of a moon, she
fought her conscience, then, beneath the cloak of a moonless night,
managed to flee the fortress.

For many days, Ishtahar
struggled across the cruel mountains. Swooning, she staggered into
Kharsag, and there redeemed herself in the eyes of the Elders by
betraying Shemyaza’s whereabouts to Anu. Her heart was torn by love
and bitter disappointment. The Seraphim took her back to the house
of her father, and here she was shut into a room, from which all
light was barred.

Alone, by the feeble flame of a
tiny lamp, she wept for her beloved. How could their passion have
become so warped, so blighted? Her family scorned her, and called
her a murderess. It was no longer safe for her to leave the
house.

As Ishtahar wept, so the sky
rained tears. Her grief mirrored Anu’s anger. He sought to purge
the land of evil, and had the angels point the sonic instruments,
which they used in their agriculture and to control the weather,
towards the sky. The sun was hidden behind a shroud of rumbling
clouds and the crops sickened in the fields. The rain fell and
fell, until the land was flooded, and the Nephilim armies who
foraged there were washed away.

The lowlands lay under water
for the span of two moons. In his fury, Anu destroyed not only the
lands below, but the settlement of his own people. The fabulous
terraces of Kharsag were scourged by the torrents of a fierce
deluge. The black domes of glass, the spreading fields of fecund
crops, the glittering waterfalls, and shady arbours, were blanketed
in mud. In the lowlands, many perished, but for the patriarch Noah
and his family, whom Anu elected to spare. Through them, he planned
to restart his experiments with cultivation, once the flood had
passed.

Shemyaza and his monstrous
generals were routed by Anu’s warriors. The fallen renegade was
taken alive and dragged, bound, to Kharsag, which lay in ruins.
Ishtahar also survived the wars and the flood and was once again
taken prisoner by the Anannage. Wary of her power, they
interrogated her, and punished her, by forcing her to watch
Shemyaza’s execution. After that, they incarcerated her in a
temple, where she spent the rest of her life lamenting and uttering
dire prophecies. Sometimes, when the moon was dark and caustic rain
fell from the sky, bringing echoes of the flood, she would be let
out upon the roof of the temple, where she would hold out her arms
to the hidden stars, and the place where the soul of her lover hung
for eternity; Orion, Shemyaza’s celestial dungeon.

Shemyaza hung in the clouds,
watching this final chapter of his tragic history. He saw Ishtahar,
a gaunt, middle-aged woman, with streaks of grey in her flowing
hair, hold out her arms to him, but she could not see him, nor hear
him call her name. The rain soaked his wings until they were too
heavy to hold him aloft and he fell, roaring, into a roiling
torrent that carried him out to sea. For millennia he was tossed by
crashing waves until he beheld ahead of him a wondrous sight. He
saw a coastline, and its colours were red, gold and green. The
slick cliff-face looked like a great serpent hugging the land.
Here, Shemyaza shot out of the waves and flexed his wings. Reborn,
he burst up into the sky like a comet and hung over the undulating
cliffs. As he flew towards them, he saw the shape of a great lion
looking out to sea, a natural simulacrum in the rock. Drawn to
this, he landed between the lion’s paws. The image of the sphinx
was an ancient memory of his people, rooted in the time even before
Kharsag. His ancestors had originated in the place of the sphinx.
As he gazed at the lion’s face, its eyes glowed a dull red. Its
voice boomed out. ‘Have you come to sing the lament for Serapis?’
Between its paws, an enormous gateway materialised, causing the
rock to crack and groan. Its pillars were scored with arcane
carvings: hieroglyphs older than the most ancient of the pharaohs,
a code of triangles, circles, curling lines and dots.

Shemyaza could not sing the
lament. He was still too full of bitterness and anger, incapable of
grief or passion.

The lion guardian uttered a
low, rumbling growl that sounded as if the rocks of the earth were
clashing together far underground. ‘I see into your soul, Shemyaza.
Your heart is touched with the blackness of frost. You cannot enter
the gate.’

‘Can I not?’ Shemyaza did not
care about the gateway, or the underworld he knew lay behind it,
but he resented the critical tone of the guardian’s words. He
thought he would use the force of his anger to blast the gate
apart. He would go down into the underworld, take the serpent by
the throat, and throttle the life from it, awake or asleep. Leaning
forward, he placed a hand upon one of the stone pillars.

The guardian roared in rage and
its eyes spat bolts of crimson flame. Shemyaza was thrown backwards
by the blast, back into the sea. He uttered a final cry of rage and
hatred, before the waves closed over him.

‘
Wake, Shining One.
Awake!’

Shemyaza opened his eyes. He
was lying flat on his back on the cold, hard sand of Mermaid’s
Cove. His clothes were soaked through and covered in seaweed and
fetid scum. Above him the sky was steely grey with a sullen dawn.
Sea birds circled and screamed. A woman was leaning over him,
swathed in a dark cloak with a hood. Her fair hair hung forward in
ragged curls. She placed a soft hand upon his shoulder.

‘Fear not, Holy One,’ she said.
‘For I am here.’

Daniel awoke and knew that Shem had
gone. A corrupt sweetness lined the back of his throat, a taste of
nightmare. In his dreams, he had flown above the world, his
shoulder blades adorned with powerful wings. The freedom of flight
had been exhilarating, but then someone had soared up behind him
and cut off his wings with enormous shears. He’d fallen to earth,
showered in his own blood. Now, he sat up abruptly in the bed and
found himself alone. There was a space in his reality that Shemyaza
had once filled, more than a simple absence from the room.

He got out of bed and dressed
himself hurriedly. He would have to check the house and garden
before raising an alarm, but in his heart he knew he would find
nothing.

Daniel rebuked himself as he
hastened along the silent corridors of High Crag. He should have
taken Sofia’s advice last night and been gentle with Shem, let him
settle into his new role. Instead, he had carped and nagged and
bullied. Shem had been angry and confused. He must have lain awake
thinking about the argument. Now, he had walked out.

Could Shem have gone to
Salamiel? Perhaps Sofia had been lying in wait, aware of the
quarrel, pushing it along with her will and her desire.

He went to the drawing-room,
where French windows led to the garden. The colour of the light
outside looked unreal; greenish purple. Steeling himself, Daniel
forced himself to open the windows and step beyond them. The dawn
was attempting to fist its way through the dull, oppressive sky.
The air felt strange against Daniel’s skin, alive with unseen
presences. He sensed that Shem had recently come this way. It was
even possible he’d decided to go down to the beach. Had he chosen
to fulfil his destiny after all? Perhaps, resolved, he had walked
along the shore to the lion guardian of the underworld. And maybe
the gate had opened to him, and he had been swallowed by the land.
Daniel shivered. As Shem’s vizier and psychic earthing rod, he
should have been with him. As it was, a senseless quarrel might
have propelled Shem alone, in a rage, into danger.

Daniel was drawn to approach
the cliff edge and walked down the sloping lawn and through the
rustling, glistening rhododendrons. As he emerged onto the mossy
path beyond, he saw a tall figure limned against the metallic sky.
It had to be Shem. Daniel paused, horrified. Shem was leaning
forward, almost as if he was contemplating throwing himself over
the edge. Daniel knew he must not cry out or dash forward. He must
approach cautiously and, when he was within Shem’s earshot, utter a
few soothing words. The wind made eerie noises, like distant
screams or the cry of birds. Overhead, the clouds boiled as if
electrified by an exotic storm. Daniel saw Shem raise his arms to
the sky. A piercing, hideous shriek echoed out. Daniel
instinctively crouched down and put his hands over his ears. The
air was full of invisible wings; beating, clattering, whispering.
When Daniel dared to look up, it seemed as if Shem himself was
winged, poised to take flight. Before Daniel could move or utter a
sound, Shem let himself drop forward, arms still outflung, and fell
from the edge of the cliff.

Panic stricken, Daniel ran
towards the wall and clambered over its shifting stones. He threw
himself down on his belly and peered down the side of the cliff,
sure he would see Shem’s smashed body lying on the beach below. But
Shem had vanished. The sand below was sepulchrally white, and
empty.

Daniel rested his cheek upon
the sandy turf and expelled a groaning sigh. Shem had taken flight.
And Daniel could not follow him.

At first, Daniel wasn’t sure
that Enniel believed him when he related what he’d seen in the
garden. It was only when Sofia entered his study and seemed
confident of Daniel’s story that he started to look worried.

‘We must send people down to
the cove,’ Enniel said. ‘There’s a chance Shemyaza will turn up
there.’

Sofia shrugged. ‘It’s out of
our hands now, Enniel. Why worry? What’s started is started.
There’s nothing we can do.’

‘And what exactly has started?’
Enniel snapped.

‘I think you know,’ Sofia
replied. ‘He has chosen to enter the underworld.’

‘But that’s ridiculous!’ Enniel
blustered. ‘He’s had no preparation. He’s not ready.’

‘He’s as ready as he’ll ever
be, I’m sure,’ Sofia said.

‘If he approaches the serpent
now, he will most likely be destroyed.’

Sofia laughed coldly. ‘Oh,
Enniel, face reality. Shemyaza is no ordinary being. What would
burn you or I might simply be the heat of a lover’s body to
him.’

Daniel was unnerved by Sofia’s
apparent lack of concern. He had a nagging feeling she knew exactly
where Shem was, and that it wasn’t in the underworld. He wanted to
speak to her alone. Sofia, perhaps sensing this, made it clear she
had no desire for private conversation. When Daniel asked her
outright if they could talk, she spoke of having things to do.

‘Then I shall speak in front of
Enniel,’ he said.

‘Speak about what?’ Enniel
asked.

Sofia gave Daniel a hard look.
‘Yes, my dear. About what? Shem’s safety, or even that of your
friends?’

‘Which friends?’ Enniel
demanded, but Daniel understood her meaning.

‘Shemyaza is not where you
think he is,’ Sofia said coldly. ‘Of that I can assure you in all
sincerity.’

‘I’d like to know what you’re
talking about,’ Enniel said.

Sofia expelled another light,
tinkling laugh. ‘Well, I suppose I’d have to tell you sooner or
later.’ She fixed Daniel with an appraising stare. ‘The fact is, I
have the Winter twins in safe keeping. Daniel obviously thinks I’ve
spirited Shemyaza away to increase my collection. This is far from
the case. It is my opinion that Shemyaza has taken matters into his
own hands and has decided to act independently of any of us.’

Daniel was confused by her
frankness. She had not mentioned Salamiel but did not seem worried
that Daniel might. What if he recounted to Enniel all that she had
said to Shem and himself in the garden the day before? He couldn’t
understand the woman. She twisted and turned like an eel.