And then the sphinx fell and shattered to a million pieces on the floor.
Billy the Kid bent and carefully plucked the two leaf-shaped blades from the shards of glass on the ground. He spun them on his fingers and stuck them back in his belt. He turned and winked at Mars, Odin and Hel. “Some things you just don’t forget.” He grinned.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
The flat-topped stepped pyramid was enormous.
It sat in the precise center of the island of Danu Talis, surrounded by a vast golden plane, which was in turn encircled by a ring of water. Canals radiated from the circle like spokes on a wheel.
“The Pyramid of the Sun,” Osiris said. “The heart of Danu Talis.” He banked the vimana so the twins could look out over the extraordinary building.
Josh tried to gauge its size. “What is it—ten blocks, twelve?”
“Remember when we took you to see the Great Pyramid at Giza?” Isis asked.
The twins nodded.
Isis turned to look out the vimana’s porthole, admiring the massive structure. “That is a puny seven hundred and fifty-six feet long. The Pyramid of the Sun is ten times that length.”
Josh frowned, trying to do the calculation, converting feet into miles. “Nearly one and a half miles,” Sophie said with a smile, putting him out of his misery.
“And it rises almost a mile high,” Isis continued.
“Who built it?” Josh asked. “You?”
“No,” Osiris said. “Those who came before us, the Great Elders, raised the island from the seabed and created the first pyramid. The original was bigger. Much of the rest of the island is of our creation, though.”
Sophie, who was sitting behind Osiris, leaned forward. “So just how old are you, really?”
“That’s hard to tell,” Osiris said. “We have wandered the Shadowrealms for thousands of years; time flows differently here. We’ve lived here for millennia and of course, we spent fifteen years on earth, raising you.”
“So when you said you were going off on digs, you were really slipping off to some Shadowrealm?” Josh asked.
“Sometimes,” Isis said. “Not always. Sometimes we really did go on digs. History is our passion.”
“And Aunt Agnes—Tsagaglalal—you knew who she was?” Sophie asked.
Josh looked at his sister. “Aunt Agnes?” he mouthed.
The couple’s laughs were identical. “Of course we knew,” Isis said. “Did you think we would abandon you to some perfect stranger? We’ve always been aware of She Who Watches. She moves in and out of human history, but only as a neutral observer. She never takes sides. When she offered to care for you, we were quite surprised. And she was the perfect choice: neither Elder nor Next Generation. And not really humani, either.”
“Aunt Agnes?” Josh mouthed again, looking at Sophie.
She shook her head at her twin. “Later,” she mouthed.
The vimana curled away from the pyramid, banked sharply and flew low over an enormous blocky building that lay in the shadow of the pyramid. The roof was laid out in a spectacular garden with seven distinct circles, each one bright with flowers. At the edge of the roof, vines and trailing roses flowed over the walls. “The ziggurat is the Palace of the Sun, home of the rulers of Danu Talis,” Isis said. “And beginning today, your home.”
“I hope we have gardeners,” Josh muttered.
“Josh, you will have everything,” Isis said sincerely. “On this island, you will both be the absolute rulers. The humani will worship you as gods.” She swiveled around in her seat to look at the twins. “You have been Awakened; you have a hint of the extent of your powers. Those powers will expand in the months to come. We will find the finest teachers to train you.” She smiled and her black tongue wriggled like a worm in her mouth. “Soon you will be able to create your own Shadowrealms. Think of that: you could make a world and populate it with anything you desire.”
Josh grinned. “That’d be cool. I’m having no snakes in my worlds.”
“Once you become the rulers of Danu Talis, you can have anything—everything—you want,” Osiris added.
“You’ve never really explained what we have to do to become rulers,” Sophie said hesitantly.
Isis swiveled in her seat. “Why, you do nothing. We will simply present you as the Gold and Silver.”
“And we do nothing?” Sophie persisted. It just didn’t sound right.
“Nothing,” Isis said, turning away.
The twins glanced at one another. Neither believed her.
“The assembled Elders will know you to be the true rulers of the island,” Osiris said. “For the last few millennia, a single family has ruled Danu Talis, but it was not always thus. In the beginning, even before it was first raised from the sea, the Elders, and the Great Elders too, were ruled by Gold and Silver—individuals with extraordinary auras.”
“Individuals?” Sophie said, looking quickly at her brother, wondering if he realized the implications of what their father—Osiris, she corrected herself—was saying. “Not twins?”
“Usually individuals,” Osiris said. “And rarely, very, very rarely, twins. In the entire history of the island, there has only been a handful of Gold and Silver twins. Their powers were almost beyond comprehension. It is said that the original twins created the first Shadowrealms, that they could move through time itself. There’s even a story,” he laughed, “that this world is a Shadowrealm created by them. But Gold and Silver twins have always been the true rulers of the island.”
“So you see,” Isis said, “the Elders of Danu Talis will have to accept you as their rulers.”
Sophie sat back in the chair. “There has to be someone who will object.”
“Of course,” Isis said very softly, “and we will deal with those objections when the time comes.” Although her voice was just as light and unemotional as it had been since they’d arrived, there was a clear threat in her words.
“Is it normal for so many people to be out in the streets?” Josh asked. He was leaning to his right, looking over the side of the craft to the city and canals below.
Sophie saw Isis and Osiris glance at one another, but they said nothing. She looked across Danu Talis. Plumes of smoke spiraled up in the still evening air and her pulse quickened. “Look! There are fires! It looks like burning buildings.”
“There is some unrest,” Osiris snapped, voice rising in outrage. Then he took a deep shuddering breath and continued in a more even tone. “There is a little civil unrest. In every city, in every time, there will always be the discontented.”
“They too will be dealt with,” Isis said flatly. “But not today and not tonight. This is a time for celebration!”
The vimana swung around and dipped toward the pyramid, its circular shadow skimming across the canals and golden streets.
Sophie noticed that all the canals leading to the pyramid were guarded by anpu. There were crowds of white-robed humans on the opposite side of the water. They seemed to be shouting and waving their fists, and Sophie thought she saw fruit and other missiles sailing over the canals and into the massed ranks of the anpu.
“I thought we’d be landing on top of the pyramid,” Josh said.
“Not landing on it, landing in front. It’s hollow,” Isis said. “We’re going into it.”
Osiris tipped the nose of the craft and a huge golden square in front of the pyramid came into view. As they moved closer, the twins could see that the square was crowded with people and carriages. Half a dozen vimana, in various states of disrepair, were scattered about. They sat alongside carriages and wagons, none of which were pulled by horses. The area swarmed with dog-, jackal-, bull- and pig-headed warriors, all dressed in full armor. There were a few cat warriors, but they kept apart from the others—especially the dog soldiers.
“They’re expecting trouble,” Sophie said.
“Oh, it’s purely ceremonial,” Isis said quickly. “This is a rare occasion: I don’t remember the last time all the Elders gat
hered in council.” She swiveled in her chair again, and Josh was suddenly reminded of endless summer road trips across America, with his father driving and his mother turning to give them instructions or point out some local landmark, or more often just to separate a fight. “This is probably the last time we’re going to see all the Elders of Danu Talis gathered in one place. The Change has taken many of them and made them …” She paused, hunting for the word.
“Hideous,” Sophie said.
“Hideous,” Isis agreed.
“But you haven’t Changed,” Josh said. “Have you?”
“No, we haven’t,” Isis said with a tight-lipped smile.
“Though not all changes are external,” Sophie murmured.
The craft dropped alarmingly, then rocked to a gentle halt on the square before the towering pyramid. Anpu in black and red ceramic armor fell into a formation of two lines outside the craft. “Now, just say nothing and do as you’re told,” Isis said firmly.
Josh dipped his head to hide a smile. It was just like a Sunday road trip.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Niten stood over the fallen Prometheus.
More spears appeared out of the fog, but the Japanese immortal was fast, and he had trained against swords and arrows in his youth, learning to chop them out of the air. It was a useful skill for a warrior, and in his youth he’d done it blindfolded, listening to the faint keen as the blade came nearer. He used the same trick now, standing with his head bent, his left side—his good ear—turned to the fog. He could hear the faintest whistle of the spearhead, the hiss of parting air, even the slight creaking as the wooden spear shaft flexed. The hardest part was knowing when to move. Too soon and he’d miss the spear, too late and the blade would have already struck him.
Two spears, each sounding slightly different, curled out of the fog.
Niten relaxed, eyes half closed, tracing the path of the spears by sound. Then he moved. The Spartoi club in his left hand knocked one spear aside; the wakizashi in his right sliced the second in two. The ground before him was littered with broken and shattered lengths of wood.
Niten caught glimpses of Spartoi as vague shapes in the gloom, but none approached. He hoped they hadn’t managed to find a way around the barrier of cars, but he knew he couldn’t move from his present position to investigate.
Long and bitter experience had taught the Swordsman to focus exclusively on the battle. A moment’s distraction could prove fatal. A warrior needed to be single-minded. He wasted no time thinking about the Flamels, wondering how they were faring: they were beyond his help.
A trio of barbed spears whistled out of the night, trailing tendrils of fog like smoke. He smashed one aside and sliced the other in two, but the third caught him high on the left shoulder, piercing his flesh and numbing his entire arm. The club fell from his fingers and rattled to the ground.
Niten grimaced in pain and then allowed a little of his royal blue aura to wrap around his arm, sealing the wound. But he could feel himself age as he healed, could feel the heaviness in his legs, the tightness in his lungs, and he knew it would take time for feeling to return to his arm. He would have to finish this battle one-handed.
Still facing out into the night, he crouched beside Prometheus and put a finger on the side of his neck, feeling for a pulse. There was none, but he felt the Elder stir under him. “You’re alive,” Niten said, relieved.
“Did you think I was sleeping?” Prometheus grumbled. He dug his heels in and pushed himself up into a sitting position. “Takes more than a little spear to kill me.”
“For the record: it was two spears, and they were not little. How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve just been stabbed by two spears.” The front of Prometheus’s armor had been staved in, marred by two holes. He pressed both hands to his chest and his entire body glowed red. The smell of anise briefly covered the odors of salt and meat.
Metal scraped in the fog, the sound high-pitched and grating.
The Elder visibly aged before the Japanese immortal’s eyes as he healed, his hair turning snow-white, lines etching into his forehead, deep grooves forming alongside his nose and at the corners of his mouth.
Out in the night, glass cracked and the bridge vibrated as more metal clanged.
Niten held out his hand and helped the Elder to his feet. Prometheus rubbed his hand over his armor, repairing the holes, filling out the metal. “I doubt I can do that again. What about you?” he asked, squinting at Niten.
“I have a little aura left. Not much. Perhaps enough for one more healing if the wound is not too bad.”
“At least your hair has not turned gray.”
“Oh, I think mine will be black till the day I die. And by the way, your hair is not gray anymore,” Niten said. “It’s white.”
“I’ve always been fond of red.”
Metal screamed again.
Niten reached out to rest his hand against the nearest car. It was vibrating. “They’re pulling the barricade apart,” he said.
“That’s what I would do.” Prometheus nodded. “I wonder if they will fight or bypass us and swarm into the city?”
“They’ll fight,” Niten said confidently. “We have offended them.”
“Offended them—how?”
“By not dying quickly. These are professional warriors; I have fought their like all my life. They believe they are invincible. It makes them arrogant, and stupid, too. And I have found that stupid people make mistakes. A sensible commander would leave a few here to engage us and move the rest of his forces into the city. But pride will keep them here. Now they have to kill us. And there will be great honor given to the one who brings us down.” He stopped. “Why are you smiling, Elder?”
“I’ll wager that somewhere out in the fog is a Spartoi commander telling his Drakon troops almost exactly the same thing.”
“He would be mistaken,” Niten said. “We are far more deadly than the Spartoi.”
Prometheus’s smile turned rueful. “I’m not sure I agree.”
“Oh, but we are. We have a reason to be here. We have a cause. In my experience, a warrior with a cause is the most dangerous soldier of all. We must make a choice now. We can stand here and fight …”
“… or we can take the fight to them.” The Elder looked up into the sky, trying to gauge the time, but the stars were invisible behind the fog. “I only regret that we didn’t manage to delay them longer.”
“They are still here, aren’t they? Every moment we keep them from the city is a victory for us. If we stand here, they will pull the barricades apart and flank us. But if we move now, we have the element of surprise on our side: in their arrogance, they would never believe we might attack,” Niten said. Pins and needles tingled in the fingertips of his left hand and he shook it to get the circulation going again.
“Agreed: we’ll attack. But we have to stick together,” Prometheus said quickly. “If we separate, they will easily overwhelm us. We’ll try and cut right through them to the other side of the bridge. That will make them turn away from the city. We’ll see if we can hold them till the dawn.”
Niten flashed a bright smile in the gloom as they began to walk the length of the bridge.
“You seem cheerful for a man heading for sure and certain doom,” Prometheus remarked.
“The last few years have been uneventful,” the Swordsman admitted. “Boring, even. Aoife’s reputation was so fearsome that no one dared challenge her. Most sensible people simply avoided us. Even when we went into the deadliest Shadowrealms we were usually left alone.”
“What did you do to pass the time?”
“I spent a lot of time painting a houseboat in Sausalito.”
“What color?”
“Green, always green. I could never find just the right green, though. Apparently there are more than forty shades of green.”
“Green’s a good color,” Prometheus said, his broadsword resting lightly on his right shoulder. “Don’t get me wrong: I like r
ed. But I’ve always been partial to green.”
They walked on in silence, watching shapes flicker and move through the fog around them.
“Have you any regrets?” Prometheus suddenly asked.
Niten smiled shyly and a touch of color bloomed on his cheeks.
“You’re blushing,” Prometheus said, astonished.
“One regret. One regret only. I am sorry Aoife is not with us now. How she would have relished this battle.”
Prometheus nodded in agreement. “And she’d have defeated the Spartoi too.”
“They would have run from her,” Niten agreed. “I should have asked her to marry me.”
Prometheus looked at him. “You loved her?”
“Yes,” he said simply. “Over the centuries I came to love her.”
“Did you ever tell her?”
Niten shook his head. “No. I came close on a couple of occasions, but somehow, at the very last moment, my nerve always failed me.”
Prometheus sighed. “So you didn’t do it. In my experience, we only ever regret the things we have not done.”
Niten nodded. “You know that I have faced and fought centuries of monsters, both human and inhuman, and there is no one alive who could call me a coward. But I was afraid to ask Aoife to marry me.” The immortal looked over at the Elder. “What would I have done if she’d said no? Could we have remained together as friends if she’d rejected me?”
“You should have asked her,” Prometheus said.
Niten’s shoulders fell. “I know.”
“Do you think she loved you?” Prometheus pressed.
“It was hard to say with Aoife.”
“And yet she stayed with you for how long?”
“About four hundred years.”
“I’d say she loved you,” the Elder said confidently.