Chapter 2

I am going to kill him, Seth thought as he rode. I am going to find him, save him from whatever is trying to steal his soul, or eat his face, or whatever, and then I am going to kill him. Slowly and painfully.

The irony of the situation was not lost on him, and only served to annoy him even more. Even more infuriating than that was the realisation that he was scared. He. Was. Scared. Not that something had happened to the wanker with the pendant. No, he was scared of the tower. Of a fucking piece of architecture.

He had lived a short yet excessively violent and dangerous life, yet he had never felt this. An oppressive, primal feeling of terror, that grew greater as he neared the tower. Seth was not an anthropologist nor a writer of poor fan fiction, and so would not have described it like this, but it was a feeling akin to what primitive men, huddled round their campfires would have felt as they saw, just out of the ring of light, the glow of flames reflected in predatory eyes, heard the growl rising, and realised, with a sick certainty, that they did not have enough fuel to last the night. A helpless knowledge that something very bad was going on and there was nothing he could do about it. A less courageous (or less bloody-mindedly stubborn) man would have been cowed. Seth just glared and urged his horse into a gallop.

Right, he decided. Once I've killed/saved the pharaoh, that tower is next. He wasn't sure if it was possible to kill a bunch of rocks stuck together, but he would find a way. You could count on it.

Without warning, the howling began again. His horse shied and stopped dead, refusing to go on for all his coaxing, yelling and swearing. He gave up and left it, running as fast as the soft sand would allow. It was only mid afternoon, and the sound's premature recurrence did not bode well for Atem.

As he drew closer, it became clear that the tower was a ruin, barely standing. It was constructed of weathered grey stones, roughly hewn into shape. The dilapidated appearance only served to add to his feeling of foreboding.

He wished there was more cover; approaching a hostile stronghold like this went against all his training, and would make him an easy target for archers, but what choice did he have? He prayed his grey travelling cloak would provide at least a little camouflage. There were some ruined outbuildings, and he paused in their shelter, taking stock of his surroundings. If the howling was caused by a pack of hounds, as he was hoping (the alternatives were too bizarre to contemplate), he did not want to have to fight them in the open.

The tower was not as tall as he had first assumed, only four or five stories. The windows were irregularly spaced, giving no clear indication as to the internal layout. Only the top half was badly damaged, the stones of the battlements disarrayed and unstable. The dark and unguarded opening that was the doorway was almost facing him.

The sensible thing to do would be to sprint for the door and get out of the open as quickly as possible. Once inside, he was sure he could easily kill the inhabitants; in a dilapidated tower in the middle of nowhere, the number and skill of the men defending it would not be great.

And what makes you think this place is defended by men?

He refused to even consider the possibility. But nevertheless, he found himself unable to make the dash for the doorway. Instead, while every instinct he had screamed at him, he found himself slowly walking towards the doorway. The monotonous sound of the howling had a hypnotic quality, and everything felt surreal and dreamlike.

The faint grating of stone would not have been enough warning, for he was almost in a trance. Perhaps the sudden change in the quality of light was what spurred him into action. Whatever it was, Seth responded with catlike rapidity, throwing himself through the doorway, just as the lump of rock smashed into the ground where he had been standing.

The impact of the stone threw him to the ground. Shaken, he turned to examine the boulder. It had once been part of the battlements. The edges had been freshly chiselled. In the darkness, Seth grinned. Dropping rocks was such an obvious, human thing to do. The nightmare creatures that had populated this place in his imagination were dispelled in an instant. Humans he could deal with. Humans he could kill.

It was only then that he realised that the howling had stopped. The silence was even worse.

Sword in hand, he crept up the staircase and, on the first level, he found Atem. And the guide – after a fashion.

The room was one of the filthiest he had ever seen. Trash covered every surface, ancient and valuable looking manuscripts buried under half eaten plates of food, yet there seemed to be a strange order to its placement, inspired by some strange and alien logic. The desiccated corpses of birds and small mammals hung from the ceiling.

Atem was lying, unmoving, on a bed in the corner of the room. He offered no response when Seth shook him and whispered his name, nor when he grabbed him and yelled it. He was pale and his breathing and pulse were unnaturally slow. Seth guessed he had been drugged. Oddly, his limbs and throat had been wrapped in linen bandages. They were clearly not bonds, and when he looked underneath there was no sign of any wounds. Seth got the feeling that Atem was not actually there, and it disturbed him.

Seth gave up trying to rouse the unresponsive pharaoh and turned to explore the rest of the room. Behind a desk, buried under a pile of scrolls, he found the guide. He was wrapped in bandages in the same way as Atem, but his were stiff and stained with blood and he was plainly dead.

As he stood there, searching for an explanation, he heard heavy deliberate steps on the stairs leading to the next floor, and rasping, laboured breathing. He ducked down behind a table, staring fixedly at the staircase.

An ancient, withered man appeared around the bend in the stairs, dressed in the rags of what had once been fine clothes. He was almost bald, with wisps of lank hair hanging in rattails around his large ears.

He offered no response when Seth leapt to his feet and pressed his sword against the old man's throat. He just stared at the boy with blank incomprehension.

"Who are you, old man?" Seth hissed. "What have you done to them?"

"…No…you are dead…" The old man mumbled. "You cannot be here. I killed you. Why else would I have kept that boulder so cunningly poised, so that the slightest touch would send it over? I saw the stone fall. I saw you under it. You could not have escaped…"

"And yet I did. What is going on? What have you done?"

"I knew you did not come because of the sound. You came to hurt me and to save the boy; to stop me from doing what must be done…well it doesn't matter. You are dead!" He yelled, shoving at the priest. But when his hands failed to pass through him, he squealed, and stumbled back, his eyes glazed with fear.

"You are right as to why I came, old man," he snarled. "Wake him, or I kill you now."

To his surprise, the old man did not cower, but abruptly stood his ground. The terror in his eyes faded, to be replaced with something else, something Seth could not identify.

"I am not afraid of you, boy," he muttered. "And yet there are those of whom I am very much afraid. The only thing I fear from you is that you will try to stop me from doing what I must do to defend myself against them…" His tone changed and became wheedling. "You must not hinder me…you must not…"

Seth frowned. The look of terror that had warped the old man's face seemed permanent, and his words, for all their incoherency, sounded like the truth.

"Nevertheless, you must wake him," He repeated.

The old man did not answer him, did not even seem to hear the request. He turned away, to gaze out of a window at the bleak landscape.

"I do not fear you, boy. And yet I know everything of fear. What do you know of it? Have you lived alone with that sound for all these years, knowing what it means? I have. Fear was born into me. It was in my mother's blood and my father's and in my sisters'. There was too much magic and loneliness in this our home, and our people. And yet, as a child, they all feared and hated me. Even the servants, even the hounds who would snarl and snap before me. And yet did not my fears prove the greater? Did not they all die in such ways so that no suspicion fell upon me until the end? It was one against many, and I took no chances. They always thought that I would be the next to go, that I was small and weak and foolish."

The old man cackled, a harsh, terrible sound.

"But my sisters died as if strangled by their own hands, my mother sickened and languished, and my father seemed to throw himself from the towers top, and still I endured, until only the hounds were left. They hated me – even more that all the others – and they were starving by then, because there was no one left to feed them. Even the weakest of them could have torn out my throat, so I pretended to flee from them, and lured them into the cellar, and when they were all inside, I slipped out and locked the door. For days thereafter they howled and bayed at me, but I knew that I was finally safe. Gradually the howling grew less as they killed each other, but the survivors drew strength from the dead. They lasted a long time, until finally there was only one thin voice crying out. Every night I went to sleep telling myself that tomorrow there would be silence, but the howling never stopped. Eventually I went down to look, but there was nothing there but bones, and I told myself that soon it would be over.

"But the sound lived on, and grew louder. Then I knew that for all my cunning, I had been a fool. I may have destroyed their bodies, but their spirits lived on, and soon they would gain strength enough to return for me. I desperately studied my father's books of magic, but no spell could keep them away. Closer and closer they came, and it seemed I could hear my family's voices amongst the howling.

"One night, when the howling was louder than it had ever been before, a traveller came to this tower. There was a strange look in his eye, and I thanked the Gods that had sent him to me. I drugged him, forcing his spirit out of his body, and sent it to them. He bled and died, but his death satisfied them somewhat, for after that the howling went a long way away, and did not return for a long time. Afterwards, whenever they came too close, the Gods always sent a guest to keep them back. I learnt to bandage them, to make them last longer, and make the hunt more satisfying for the howling ones. But lately, they have grown greedy. They are less easy to satisfy, and are never far away. I wake in the night to hear them padding round the room, I feel their muzzles at my throat. I need more men to keep them back. He-"He said, pointing at the stiff body of the guide "- was nothing to them. But this one-" He said, gesturing towards Atem "- His spirit is strong. He will keep them back a long time."

It had grown dark by now, the only light coming from a guttering candle. Seth glared at where the old man sat, hunched over on a stool like an ungainly vulture, and then glanced over to where Atem lay, already looking like a corpse, and anger took hold of him. He spun and hurled himself at the old man. But the instant he brought his sword whistling down, the howling gushed back, the walls seeming to vibrate with it, bringing clouds of dust puffing from the dead things hanging from the ceiling.

He stopped the blade a hairsbreadth from the old man's throat, for the return of the sound forced him to ask the question; could anyone but the old man save Atem? Seth wavered between alternatives, then turned back to kneel by Atem's side. There was still no response. Then he heard the old man's voice, shaky and half drowned by the sound, but carrying a gloating note of confidence.

"Your friend is poised between life and death. If you are not careful, he may overbalance. Remove the bandages, and he will only die the quicker." Reading Seth's unspoken question he added "there is no antidote. But not all is lost. If he can stand against them until midnight, he may be able to return…"

Seth turned towards him then, and the old man must have read something in his merciless eyes for he said "my death by your hand will not save him. On the contrary, cheated of me, they will destroy him utterly."

"Perhaps not," Seth murmured, "but unless you offer me an alternative, I will take the chance and kill you right now."

"Stay your hand, boy. There is a way you can help him. I have more of the drug. I will give it to you, and you can fight against them together. You may even defeat them. But you must be quick. Look."

He pointed to the bandages covering Atem's left wrist. A red stain was slowly spreading. Seth shivered, and turned as the man pressed a small vial into his hand. It was a sickly purple, the colour corresponding to a dried trickle he had seen at the corner of Atem's mouth.

"Swiftly," the old man hissed. "Half should be enough. Now drink!"

But Seth didn't move, a plan forming in the back of his mind. The old man must have read it in his eyes, for he snatched at a dagger lying on a nearby table, and ran at him. Seth easily parried the old man's clumsy strike, and knocked the dagger from his hand. Panicking, he tried to knock the vial from his hand, but Seth held it up out of his reach, his other hand closing on the old man's throat.

"I will drink old man. Have no fear of that. But I will not drink alone."

The old man screamed and struggled convulsively.

"The sword! Use the sword! But do not let them get me! Please…"

Seth ignored him, and pinned him to the floor. The old man suddenly stopped struggling, and said with peculiar lucidity;

"No…it is poison I gave you. I gave the last of the drug to your friend. We shall both die horribly, and your friend will be doomed."

Seeing that Seth wasn't listening, he began to struggle again, withered arms flailing. He raked his long nails across the priest's face, but Seth was inexorable. He forced the old man's jaws open, and poured half the drug into his mouth. When he finally swallowed, it was like a death rattle. Seth climbed to his feet, sick with revulsion at what he had done. He had killed before, but had never inflicted such terror on another being. The look on the old mans face was grotesquely similar to that of a child under torture. He drank what was left in the bottle – it gave off a sickly smell, but tasted salty and a lot like blood.

The old man began to grope feebly for the dagger, and Seth almost let him reach it, but thought of the countless people he had sacrificed over the years, and kicked it out of his reach.

Gradually, the room filled with haze and began to swim. If was as if the sound was dissolving the walls, and then he felt something prying at his mind, tearing it apart.

And then there was nothing but darkness. And the howling.

To be continued

Yeah, I know. What the hell? Stay tuned for the gripping conclusion. Or don't.