Scenting Hallowed Blood (52 page)

Shemyaza steadied himself
against the rock. He felt weak, as if the fumes within the cavern
had occluded his senses. ‘You said you could see what’s in my
heart, guardian. Tell me what you see.’

Ainzu grinned and cocked his
head to one side in appraisal. ‘Your heart is the pit of the apple,
that hangs as a burning, blue star in your breast. Humanity has
ached to bite into its shining flesh. Bite one side and you will
taste liberty and salvation, yet bite the other and your mouth will
fill with a bitter gall that will lead you straight to the high,
narrow halls of Gehenna.’ He extended his hands and gripped
Shemyaza’s shoulders, stared steadily into his eyes.

Shemyaza found Ainzu’s
penetrating gaze hard to hold. There was no doubt he could peer
right into Shemyaza’s heart, even his soul. ‘Yes, Gehenna’ Ainzu
murmured. ‘Taste it, angel king. It is the domain of shame, where
souls twist in frenzy between the despair of self-loathing, the
injustice of martyrdom and the rage of abandonment.’ He shook his
head sadly. ‘And which side of the fruit will the Shamir taste?
What harvest will you reap for humanity this time? Shemyaza, Tree
of Life, are you finally to be cut down now?’

Shemyaza knocked Ainzu’s hands
from his shoulders. ‘Stop this! Stop mocking me with words, priest!
You might as well just laugh in my face!’

Ainzu again shook his head,
still smiling, although his eyes were filled with sadness. ‘Ah, I
have long forgotten how to express mirth so freely, my child
king.’

Shemyaza laughed uneasily.
‘Your words are magic, priest. They have filled me with despair. Is
that what is to be?’

Ainzu said nothing.

‘Then shrive me!’ Shemyaza
cried. ‘Cleanse from me the bitterness that sours my taste of
life!’

Ainzu uttered a cold gust of
laughter. ‘Oh, you think I am worthy of extinguishing the firebrand
that is your shadow, and the shadow of humanity? That is
flattering.’

Shemyaza sighed, and pressed
his fingers against his eyes for a moment. ‘Ainzu, listen to me. I
am truly lost. I am here, yet unsure of what I must do, of what I
want to do. What guided me here?’

‘Faith guided you here,’ Ainzu
remarked.

Shemyaza shrugged. ‘But faith
in what?’

Ainzu was silent for a few
moments, as if listening to an inner adviser, then he said, ‘Didn’t
you see the light at the portal?’

Shemyaza nodded. ‘Yes.’ He
looked around himself. ‘But I don’t see it now.’

Ainzu shook his head. ‘Ah,
Shemyaza, you are as blind as the Shamir! Couldn’t you recognise
your own light? It is now back within the eye of the great serpent,
but it recognised you. You and the serpent are one, and that is
what guided you here.’

For a brief moment, Shemyaza
heard once again the fading tones of the Lament for Serapis echoing
around the cavern walls. A vision of Tamara’s face, slack with
desire, flashed before him. He shook his head wildly to dispel the
image. He felt sick.

‘See!’ hissed the priest.
‘Guides, all guides, many of them. How you listen to them...’

Shemyaza put his hands against
his eyes. ‘No! That was a lie!’

‘Oh, you can see it now, then?’
Ainzu’s voice was amused.

Shemyaza nodded. ‘Yes. I was
led here by the greed of an enchantress, beguiled into believing
love was my guide.’

‘Ah,’ Ainzu sighed
dramatically. ‘The boy king learns!’ He touched Shemyaza’s chest
with his staff, placed a brief sensation of burning within his
heart. ‘Oh, pay no heed to the manipulations of the woman. Whatever
illusions she spun for you, there is no doubt that love led you
here. Love and faith and knowledge. All one.’

Shemyaza frowned. ‘But I have
lost my love.’

Ainzu made a dismissive gesture
with one hand and turned away again, to disappear through a side
tunnel in the rock. His voice echoed out from it. ‘What is lost can
be found again. Come, it is near the time.’

Shemyaza followed the priest
into the darkness, unable to see him but guided by the click of
Ainzu’s staff against the stone floor.

Ainzu’s voice came from up
ahead. ‘Ah, what a black sun you are, angel king. The shadow of
your rays has shone upon humanity for the last two thousand years.
Will it shine for another millennium?’

Before Shemyaza could answer
him, they turned a corner in the tunnel, and blinding neon radiance
spilled over them. Shemyaza had to shield his eyes; he could just
make out the shadowy silhouette of the priest ahead.

‘Come,’ Ainzu said. ‘Waste no
more time.’ He led the way into a high, stone chamber, Shemyaza
trailing him cautiously. An unnatural purple glow, which emanated
from no visible source, illuminated the vault. The chamber’s
ceiling and walls were encrusted with points of quartz that
sparkled with reflected light, while in its centre a single
gigantic crystal grew up from the gem-littered floor. The whole
chamber smelled of cold, clear water, yet there was no water to be
seen.

Ainzu stalked into the chamber
and stood, dwarfed, beneath the towering crystal. He held out his
arms and cried, ‘Behold! The mirror, the gate and the heart.’ He
beckoned for Shemyaza to approach.

Shemyaza took slow steps
towards the priest. He sensed the immense power of the stone, the
power of its memories, and feared what it might reveal to him.

‘Look upon its surface,
Shemyaza, look deep within it, for the pattern of your destiny is
stored within this sacred stone. Look close, look backwards in time
— what do you see?’

‘I see nothing, transparent
quartz.’

‘You are not looking!’ Ainzu’s
staff thumped the ground, crushed fragile crystals to powder. ‘Look
again, and look properly. This is the first part of your journey,
the first steps on the path. You must take them.’

Shemyaza flicked him a hard
glance, then forced himself to stare into the stone. He was afraid
of what he would see.

At first the details of the
crystal remained clear before him — the imperfections in the
quartz, the warped outline of the chamber wall beyond. Then,
gradually, the centre of the crystal became milky, swirling like
liquid. As Shemyaza stared into the depths of the crystal, a shape
began to manifest within it, a stooped, shadowy shape.

‘You see?’ Ainzu whispered.

‘Yes. It is myself. I did not
expect otherwise.’ In the stone, Shemyaza saw himself as he’d
appeared in the time before the Flood; a tall, dour warrior,
commander of his Nefilim sons. He wore battered leather armour,
scored with the cuts of many blades. His bare legs were splashed
with blood, his sandals fastened with human gut. His hair was tied
up on his head, wound around gory bones. In his face, Shemyaza saw
the thirst for vengeance, the pain and bitterness that had filled
his soul with rage. This was his dark shadow, the monster from whom
Ishtahar had fled and had subsequently betrayed. Looking at his
horrifying countenance, bereft of all compassion, Shemyaza
understood why she had run. Uttering a cry of self-disgust, he
turned away from the apparition. ‘Send it away, priest!’

Again, Ainzu uttered a soft
laugh. ‘Oh, I can’t do that, angel king. This warrior is yours to
command, not mine. Perhaps you could send him in to the serpent for
you, for he is undoubtedly without fear.’

‘Where is my other self?’
Shemyaza demanded. ‘There has to be another side.’

‘Your other self flew from a
cliff,’ Ainzu replied dryly, ‘and I suspect he still lies wounded
beneath it.’

‘How can I reach him?’

Ainzu made an impatient sound.
‘Oh, use your will, Shemyaza. It is your greatest tool.’

Shemyaza forced himself to turn
back to the shimmering crystal and stare hard within it. He willed
the violent image of himself to fade, and gradually, it did so.

Another shadow began to take
form in the milky mist; a limping, halting shape, whose hands
reached out for the walls of the crystal as if it was blind.
Shemyaza uttered a single low moan. It was the image of his fall,
which he still could not face without pain, or being engulfed by
resentment. He did not want to look upon its ravaged face, its
beaten, naked body, stained with gold paint and blood. Both aspects
of himself were repugnant to him.

‘Handsome, isn’t he!’ Ainzu
remarked.

Shemyaza winced away from the
image, but not before its grief and agony spilled over into his own
heart. Tears filled his eyes, spilled down his face. He could feel
the pain of wounds from that time, both within and upon his body.
‘Ainzu, are these archetypes all that I am, all that I have ever
been?’

Ainzu’s voice was calm.
‘Sometimes, the image of another can reflect to us what we truly
are. Look, whose face is this appearing before us now, this most
earthly angel?’

‘No, I cannot look!’

‘You can and must. Conquer your
fear!’

Reluctantly, Shemyaza turned
back to the crystal. His vision was blurred with tears, and he
pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes to clear it. At
first, it seemed that he was looking at another image of himself,
lying sprawled out in the position of the five-pointed star, but
the hair of this figure was golden-red, and its staring eyes burned
deepest orange. Shemyaza took a step nearer the crystal.
‘Salamiel,’ he murmured. ‘My brother.’ He turned to Ainzu. ‘Where
is he?’

‘Closer to you than you have
realised,’ Ainzu answered.

Shemyaza glanced once again at
the motionless image. ‘I was told he was near.’ He screwed up his
face. ‘But, like me, he fell. He is a despised creature, no bright
angel.’

Ainzu shook his head. ‘No. The
fall from grace never touched his soul, for unlike you, he has
lived with the consequences of his actions — and yours — with grace
in his heart.’

Shemyaza smiled wearily. ‘Yes,
Salamiel was always full of grace...’

Ainzu gestured with his staff
impatiently. ‘But he
is
you, Shemyaza, as you can be him. He
is your brother. Even now, he aches to walk beside you.’

Shemyaza extended a hand
towards the crystal, but did not touch it. ‘I renounced my own
kind, priest, to propagate a new race that was a dark shadow of my
people.’

Ainzu nodded. ‘Yes, and as your
sons went forth, so evil was unleashed into the world.’

‘My brother is lost to me.’

Ainzu uttered a harsh laugh.
‘More self-pity? Listen to me. You were always Azazel to Salamiel,
just a scapegoat for all that happened. He has lived with the
reminder of that evil and ignorance for many thousands of years,
but it has not detracted from the true light of being for him. He
had hope, Shemyaza, always hope. And as I said, what was lost can
be found. Your brothers are not lost to you.’

Shemyaza glanced at the priest.
‘I thought that I heard him, his voice in prayer, but I dared not
believe.’

Again, Ainzu nodded. ‘You heard
him. Even though the dark shadow of another is cast upon him, he
prays for your absolution.’

Shemyaza narrowed his eyes.
‘The dark shadow of another?’ He thought immediately of Sofia, and
sensed a cold tongue of air reach out to touch his body, heard a
faint sibilance as of whispered profanities.

‘If you love him,’ Ainzu said,
‘then you can free him, as he prays to free you. But the time for
that has yet to come.’

Shemyaza sighed and smiled.
‘Love... oh to love again.’

Ainzu snorted through his nose
in scorn. ‘But you already do, angel king! Look now upon the
crystal, and a love that you already have.’

Shemyaza held the priest’s eyes
for a moment, then turned back to the stone. A perfect image of
Daniel filled the centre of the crystal, his face composed and
tranquil, his delicate lips drawn into a wise smile. The image was
so lovely it punched shards of pain through Shemyaza’s heart. He
wanted to look away, but could not. How could he have forgotten
this? ‘My beautiful one,’ he said. ‘Daniel. My eyes, my ears, my
tongue, my heart.’

‘Indeed, he is beautiful,’
Ainzu agreed. ‘Look well, for you look upon your own spirit. That
is what Daniel represents. Is he not a lamb to your lion? Have you
not lain down together?’

As Shemyaza stared at the
vision before him, he could see that Daniel was dressed as a
shaman, a bird shaman of ancient times. He wore a headdress of
feathers. It seemed as if the wind was on his face, blowing back
the waving plumes and the tendrils of tawny hair. He appeared to be
looking for someone, gazing straight ahead in trance. Now, his
features were troubled by an expression of worry and confusion.
Shemyaza wanted to call out to him, sure that Daniel was looking
for him, but he sensed that he was beyond the boy’s hearing. He
tore his gaze away. ‘Ainzu, my spirit is not beautiful. Lions
devour the sweetest of lambs, for that is their nature’

‘Indeed, you are the beast,’
Ainzu said. ‘And is not the beast
of
the earth? And is the
earth not beautiful?’

Shemyaza laughed coldly. ‘I
have rarely seen its beauty, priest. I’ve only felt the
all-consuming fire of its power. I do not have the heart to see
beauty.’

‘Wrong, Shemyaza. Look now, and
see the error of your words.’ Ainzu waved his staff in a slow yet
complicated gesture. The image of Daniel faded in a flare of soft,
white light, to be replaced by an incandescent glare of blue
radiance, which gradually grew in intensity, until it sharpened
into the form of a woman.

Shemyaza uttered her name as a
sigh. ‘Ishtahar!’ She hung before him within the facets of the
crystal, serene and vivid, her blue veils floating voluptuously
around her.

‘Yes,’ Ainzu said. ‘Your love.
A woman of the earth. Haven’t you ever wondered why you felt such
all-consuming passion for her?’

‘I never understood why,’
Shemyaza answered, ‘and I never will.’

‘Ishtahar is the mother of
humankind,’ Ainzu told him. ‘Your union with her was a union with
the earth, the mother of all living things. Your love changed the
evolution of life and initiated the great civilisations of
humankind. That love can provide the way for you to return to your
source.’ Ainzu paused for a moment. ‘The source of all things is
perfection, and your buried love for it is unparalleled. It is your
purpose for being.’