The Stone Light (9 page)

She was beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful woman that he’d ever seen—and as the messenger boy of Umberto, who wove magic fabrics for Venice’s noblewomen, he’d encountered many a beauty. She had smooth, raven-black hair, so long that the ends disappeared behind the edge of the sandstone vessel. Her slender body was clothed in skintight material, napped like fine fur and of the same yellow as the curtains. Large, hazelnut brown eyes inspected him. Her lips were full and dark red, although he was certain that she wore no makeup. The skin of her face and her left hand, resting on the edge of the basin, were dark, not black like one of the Moors, of whom there were several in Venice, but tanned dark by the sun.

And then, in a flash, he knew.

She was an Egyptian.

He knew it with absolute certainty, before she directed another word to him or could introduce herself. The leader of the rebellion against the Egyptians was an
Egyptian.

“Have no fear,” she said, when she noticed that he recoiled a step. “You are in safety. No one here will do anything bad to you.” A spark of regret burned in her eyes as she took her right arm out of the water and laid it in front of her on the stone rim. Neither hand nor arm was wet. There was no trace of water beading on her skin or on the strange material of her clothing.

“Who are you?” He had the feeling he was stammering terribly. He had every reason to.

“Lalapeya,” said the woman. “I don’t believe you know the language from which this name comes.”

“Egyptian?” He felt brave, downright daring, when he said this one word.

Her laugh was very clear, almost melodic. “Egyptian? Oh no, absolutely not. This name was already old when the first pharaohs mounted their golden thrones many thousands of years ago.”

And with that she came out from behind the basin in a strange, flowing movement that disconcerted Serafin and confused him—until he saw her legs.

She had four of them.

The legs of a lioness. The
lower body
of a lioness.

Serafin started back so violently that he got tangled up in one of the silken curtains, lost his balance, and fell over backward, pulling a torrent of yellow silk with him.

When he had finally freed himself, she was standing directly in front of him. If he stretched out an arm, he could touch one of her paws, the soft yellow fur that covered her and that he’d just taken for a tight-fitting dress.

“You-You are…”

“Certainly not a mermaid.”

“A sphinx!” escaped him. “A sphinx of the Pharaoh!”

“The last part is not true. I have not met the Pharaoh, ever, and I regret it most deeply that some of my people serve him.”

Serafin tried to get to his feet, but he only partially succeeded, and when he again pulled back from her, one foot dragged the pulled-down curtain with him, two, three paces away.

The lion paws carried the sphinx after him in an elegant motion. “Please, Serafin. I’ve shown you so that you know whom you’re dealing with. But it wasn’t urgently necessary.”

“What—What do you mean?”

She smiled, and it made her look so pretty that it almost pained him to see the animal part of her body at the same time. “What do I mean? Oh, Serafin!
This,
of course.”

At the sound of the words, her image blurred before his eyes. At first Serafin thought that the sand was billowing up from the ground, but then he realized that it was more than that.

She wasn’t only blurred in his perception—her entire body seemed to dissolve for one second and reconstitute itself, not a flowing transition but an explosion-like whirl, as she dispersed in a cloud of tiny little parts, then in the same breath put herself back together as something new. Something different.

Her face and the slender upper body remained unchanged, but now they no longer grew out of the body of a lion but continued naturally into narrow hips and long, brown legs. The legs of a woman.

Her fur had vanished. Without replacement.

“Allow me?” Naked, she bent over, fished up the curtain at Serafin’s feet, and with a lightning twirl, covered her nakedness. The yellow settled around her figure like a dress; no one would have guessed that the stuff had just been hanging from the ceiling as a curtain; on her it looked as natural and perfectly fitting as the most expensive fabric from Umberto’s workshop.

Serafin had tried to turn his eyes away, but she left him no time for that. Instead, the image of her completed body kept shining before his eyes as if it had burned into his retina. Like light spots after one has looked at the sun for too long.

“Serafin?”

“Uhh … yes?”

“Is this better?”

He looked down her, down to her narrow feet, which stood half covered in soft sand. “It doesn’t change anything,” he said, having to force out every word. “You’re a sphinx, no matter what shape you assume.”

“Of course. But now you don’t need to be afraid of my claws anymore.” Pure roguishness gleamed in her eyes.

He made a great effort to ignore her scornful undertone. “What are you doing here?”

“I lead the counterattack.”

“Against the Pharaoh?” He laughed and hoped that it sounded as humorless as it was meant to. “With a few children?”

She rubbed her right foot over her left; he almost believed she felt the embarrassment she intended to convey. Only almost. “Are
you
a child, Serafin?” The way she raised her eyes was a bit too coquettish to be accidental.

“You know exactly what I mean.”

“And you know, I think, what
I
mean.” All at once her tone became sharper, the emphasis harder. “Dario and the others might be just fifteen, sixteen, or seventeen years old”—with which she indirectly confirmed what he already suspected: that there were no grown-ups among the rebels—“but they are skillful and quick. And the Pharaoh will underestimate them. That is perhaps our strongest weapon: Amenophis’s vanity.”

“You said that you don’t know him.”

“Not in his current form. But I know how he was earlier, in his first life.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Far more than three thousand years.”

“You are
three thousand
years old?”

She laughed again, but only briefly. “A few thousand more or less.”

Serafin pressed his lips together and said nothing more.

Lalapeya continued: “Amenophis’s vanity and arrogance are the reason I’ve only chosen boys like you. Do you think I’d have found no men larger and stronger than anyone here in this house? But it would have been pointless. The Egyptians will put every grown man under arrest today and deport them afterward. A handful of children, on the other hand … Now, I think the Pharaoh will first grapple with the more important things. What color to make his suite here in Venice, for example. At least that is what the earlier Amenophis would have done.”

“You really intend to fight the Egyptians with Dario and the others?” She might be right in what she said, but nonetheless he believed she was making it too simple.

“I am no warrior.”

Yes, he thought, that’s obvious, or is it? Then he remembered her razor-sharp lion’s claws and shuddered.

“But,” she went on, “we have no choice. We must fight, for that is the only language Amenophis understands.”

“If only a fraction of what they say about the Empire is true, the Pharaoh can snuff out Venice in a few minutes. What are a few rebels supposed to do to him?”

“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear about the power of the Egyptians. Some of it is true—but some also depends on skillfully spread rumors and on the power of illusion. The priests of Horus are masters of deception.”

“It’s hopeless in spite of all that. I’ve seen the mummy soldiers. I’ve seen how they fight.”

The sphinx nodded. “And how they die.”

“Through luck, nothing else.”

Lalapeya expelled a great sigh. “No one here is thinking of going against the mummy soldiers in the field. At least not the way you imagine it.”

“What, then?”

“First I must know if you’ll help us.” She took a step toward him, on the soft feet of a dancer. It was impossible to resist her charm.

“Why me?”

“Why you?” She smiled again, and her voice sounded a little gentler. “I think you underestimate what a reputation you have. A master of the Thieves’ Guild at thirteen, the youngest Venice has ever seen. No one can climb up a housefront faster or more skillfully. No one can slip past any guard more quickly. And no one is braver when it comes to carrying out a task at which all before him have failed.”

Lalapeya’s words made him uncomfortable. She didn’t need to flatter him, and that meant that she was appealing to his honor. Her words also came very close to the truth. And yet all that lay an eternity ago, in another life.

“I was thirteen then,” he said. “And today—” He paused. “And today,” he went on, “I’m no longer what you said. I left the Guild. I no longer steal. I’m an apprentice to the master weaver Umberto, that’s all.”

“Nevertheless, you stole the Flowing Queen from the Egyptians.”

He stared at her, wide-eyed. “You know about that?”

“Of course.” But she didn’t provide an explanation, and that made him suspicious again. When she noticed, she quickly added, “You and the girl, Merle.”

“What do you know about Merle?”

Lalapeya hesitated. “She has left Venice.”

“On a stone lion, yes, I know,” he said impatiently. “But where is she now? Is she all right?”

“Nothing has happened to her,” said the sphinx. “More than that I don’t know.”

He had the strong feeling that she was lying, and he made every effort to let her feel it. At the same time, he could see that her decision was firm and she wouldn’t tell him more. Not at the moment. If he were to remain for a while, however, he might succeed in getting more out of her, about Merle and the Queen and—

He winced when he realized that he’d fallen into her trap. He’d swallowed the bait.

“I’ll help you,” he said, “if you tell me more about Merle.”

Lalapeya seemed to weigh the offer. “I’d prefer that you did it because you agreed to the necessity.”

He shook his head. “Only for Merle.”

The sphinx’s eyes, her brown, profound eyes, moved over his face, checking to see if he spoke the truth. He was nervous, although he knew that she’d find nothing different; he meant every word just as he’d spoken it. For Merle he’d even go to Egypt, if he had to, and thumb his nose at the Pharaoh. And perhaps break his skull on the best mummy soldier of all. But after all, it was the attempt that counted. Somehow.

“Are you in love with Merle?” asked Lalapeya after a while.

“That’s none of your business.” The words were already out before he realized what he was saying. “And anyway it has nothing to do with this,” he added hastily.

“You needn’t be ashamed of it.”

He was about to reply but then swallowed the answer and asked instead, “Do you know Merle?”

“Perhaps.”

“Oh, come on—what kind of an answer is
that?”

“The truth. I’m not sure if I know her.” Her eyes showed a flash of shock when she realized that possibly
she’d betrayed too much. With noticeable control, she said, “I’m not accustomed to being interrogated.” But her smile showed that she wasn’t angry with him.

Serafin freed himself from her look and walked a few steps back and forth, as if he were weighing whether he really wanted to remain here any longer. His decision had already been made long before. Where could he have gone? Umberto’s weaving workshop stood empty, the master had fled God knew where. Serafin had long ago turned his back on his former friends from the Thieves’ Guild. And back to Arcimboldo, Eft, and Junipa? Something told him that maybe this would be the right way. But could he somehow protect Junipa from Lord Light better if he joined the sphinx and her odd crew?

Finally he came to a stop. “You must tell me what you have in mind.”

“We will not make war on the Egyptians. That would in fact be presumptuous and suicidal. The war will be directed against Amenophis himself.”

“Against the Pharaoh?”

When she nodded, the strange desert light flickered over her black hair like tiny flames.

“You want to kill
him?”
asked Serafin, aghast. “An assassination?”

“That would be one way. But it wouldn’t be enough. Amenophis isn’t an independent ruler. Also, he’s ruled by
those who have called him back to life. At the moment, anyway.”

“By the priests?”

“By the priests of Horus, yes. For centuries they had lost their meaning, had shrunk to a secret cult long forgotten by almost everyone. Until they awakened the Pharaoh in the pyramid of Amun-Ka-Re to new life. With that they gave new strength to a weak, vegetating country. A new leader. A new identity. That and their magic were the two means with which they created the Empire. They’re the ones who pull the strings, not Amenophis.”

“But that makes everything even more hopeless.”

“Where the Pharaoh is, there also are the heads of the priesthood, above all Seth, his vizier and grand master of the Horus cult.”

“In all seriousness, you intend for us to go to Heliopolis, into the city of the Pharaoh, and there …
eliminate …
not only him but also his vizier and perhaps a whole legion of his priests?” He emphasized the word
eliminate
as if it were the idea of a small child, for that was how sensible he thought this whole crazy idea was.

“Not to Heliopolis,” said the sphinx very quietly. “Amenophis and Seth will soon be here. Here in Venice. And if I’m not deceived in everything, they will establish their quarters in the Doge’s Palace.”

Serafin gasped. “The Pharaoh is coming here?”

“Certainly. He won’t miss the moment of his greatest
triumph. This is not only a victory over a single city—it is a victory over the Flowing Queen and all she stood for. His triumph over the past and also over his own death. Aside from the Czarist kingdom, there’s no one else in the world who can withstand him.”

Serafin rubbed a hand over his forehead and desperately tried to keep pace with the sphinx’s explanations. “Even if it were true that the Pharaoh is coming to Venice … to the Doge’s Palace, for all I care … what would that change? He’ll be hidden behind an army of bodyguards. Behind his mummy soldiers. And, don’t forget, behind the magic of Seth and the other priests.”