Vial of Tears, page 10
But what if Teth, under his breath, had been aiming the word at Eshmun, for his violence?
Sam took a step closer, her finger still trained on his chest. “Your grandparents, too,” she hissed. “All those healers in your family. You’re really honoring their legacy.”
“Insolence,” Eshmun said. “No one speaks to me in this manner.” His voice was cold and stern, but his eyes betrayed him. He’d been thrown off-balance. Sam smiled inwardly, knowing that she’d gotten to him. She’d managed to hit a nerve.
“The truth hurts,” she said. “Doesn’t it?”
She pushed past him, back to the campsite, where Teth was still snoring loudly. But something wasn’t right. The air was sour with danger.
She sensed them before she saw them: the feral, doglike women from the streets of Baalbek.
9
Sam recognized their stained sleeves, the length of their teeth. The largest, with wiry golden hair and shoulders raised to her ears, snarled. The others snatched Rima from her sleep, clamping hands over her mouth as her eyes sprang open with terror.
The largest lunged at Sam, but Eshmun was there with Teth’s knife. Blood misted the air. Yelping, wounded, the attacker dropped to all fours and slunk backward, her copper eyes glinting wild.
“Teth!” Sam screamed. She kicked his side. “Wake up!”
The women dragged Rima—thrashing and kicking—underneath a rock overhang. Then a roar shook pebbles from ledges—and Sam could practically feel the mountains tremble as Teth barreled toward them.
“Release her!” he bellowed.
The wounded woman tipped her head back—her thick, muscular neck raised—and barked an order. Instantly, over the crests of the rocks, three more dog-women appeared. Sam could hear them panting, see the eagerness charged in their eyes.
“How dare you?” Eshmun seethed.
“You must take the obol, he commands,” one of the women said, thrusting her narrow chin forward. Her ears were high and pointed. “The god of death himself demands it.”
Sam helplessly watched Rima struggle. There was no way she could fight all of these women, but maybe she could push one into the dying campfire—maybe she could shove one over the edge.
Before she could gauge her chances, a sinewy arm hooked around her neck. Tightened. She gasped for a breath.
“I will kill you all!” Teth roared, raising himself to his full height. “Release them now!”
“Give us the obol,” the women sang in chorus, their voices shrill and cold.
As Sam choked, she locked eyes with Eshmun. Her anger coursed hot. Your fault, she thought, as she thrust her elbow backward so hard she could hear something crack—maybe a rib. Her attacker dropped her.
She scrambled away as Teth moved toward Rima and the feral dog-women. He seemed to have grown two feet in each direction. The savage women were cornered, trapped in an alcove, clutching their prey—there would be a bloody fight. But just as Teth should have been upon them, they disappeared, one by one—including Rima—into darkness.
Sam gasped and rushed forward to look at the face of rock they’d vanished into. Was it another trick of this world? Had they vanished by magic?
No. There was a hole—a cave, narrow and dark. She ducked her head and angled inside, but Eshmun caught her by the arm.
“There could be a precipice within.”
“I don’t care!” she cried. She already felt like she’d fallen and shattered, like there was nothing whole left inside her. “I need to get to my sister!”
“If you perish,” Teth said, “you will become ruḥā.”
“I have to follow them!” Sam said, wrenching away. She could still smell the women, rancid and sweaty. Her throat throbbed where she’d been choked; it felt like she’d swallowed gravel. She heard Rima’s terrified voice, echoing.
“We light a torch.” Eshmun motioned to Teth. “Your eyes go first.”
Teth nodded. He quickly gathered their supplies and handed Sam her bag to carry.
But inside the cave, Teth was too tall to stand. He crawled, pressed tight against the sides, and Sam followed closely. “Faster,” she begged.
But a fork in the cave’s pathway made Teth pause. Sam could hear him sniff the air.
“Blood,” he said. “This way.”
They followed his chosen route: It widened and soon led back outside onto another mountain trail.
“Where did they go?” Sam asked desperately, spinning left and right. Frantic despair tangled inside her.
“I am sorry,” Teth lamented, shaking his head. “Meem has told me that my snoring is like a conch shell blaring. I gave us away. I should have been awake and on guard.”
“No more arak,” Eshmun said firmly.
“We have to find them,” Sam said, her voice cracking. She felt gutted. Like someone had slapped her down on a cold rock and cut her, straight through to her backbone. “Those women will take Rima to your uncle, won’t they? We can track them. There must be footprints… pawprints! And we’ll be able to hear them. They howl!”
“No,” Teth said regretfully. “There will be an entire pack. More than even I can fight.” He turned to Eshmun. “Do we proceed to Sidon, my lord?”
“Listen to me,” Sam said. She forced herself to look Eshmun in the eye, willed herself to keep her voice steady. “We wrapped the coin in a piece of cloth,” she said, “and tied it to Rima’s hair, underneath, at the nape of her neck.” She tilted her chin high and pulled her shoulders back. She had to be a convincing daggálá, a liar. “Rima has it. So we need to find her.”
Teth grunted. Eshmun held Sam’s stare for a long minute, but she didn’t waver. She felt like she was holding a weight over her head, her muscles growing weary.
“Chasing after them would ensure capture, or worse. We continue to my walled city-state,” Eshmun decided. “It is our only course. Our safety and strength lie in Sidon alone.”
“I don’t care about safety!” Sam said. “My sister isn’t safe right now. Where does your uncle live? I need to go there!”
“He was meant to stay in Gadir,” Eshmun said. “But he could be anywhere. Everywhere. This is his realm.”
Teth bent toward Sam. “This world was set with traps before, but now you must calculate every step. You would do best to follow us willingly.” She couldn’t tell from his tone if he was threatening or comforting her. “We will likely hear of your sister’s fate once we reach Sidon, and from there my lord can order a search. He may return her to you yet.”
“May?” Sam asked. She glared at Eshmun. “You will.”
Her fate. Sam squeezed her eyes shut. She pressed her hands to her head and gripped her hair. Oh, Rima.
I’m sorry.
I’m so, so sorry.
What could she do? Teth and Eshmun wouldn’t let her follow the savage dog-women; even if she did, she couldn’t fight them alone. Was reaching Sidon her only hope now?
Eshmun handed Teth his knife. “You misplaced this,” he said. Teth’s face went slack. He looked at Sam and then took the knife from Eshmun, sliding it back into its sheath as he stuttered an apology.
For what felt like another day and night, they walked and walked, succumbing to bouts of fitful sleep. The blisters on Sam’s feet popped. Tears ran a constant river down her cheeks until, finally, the mountains stood behind them. She dropped her bag and turned to look back. Thousands of feet, slim corridors, and monsters. She’d made it through.
But Rima hadn’t.
The white summits glared coldly at her. Sam slung her bag across her shoulder once more. The forest of pine trees awaited.
“Behold the mighty cedars,” Teth said. He spread his arms wide and grinned, sucking in a deep breath. The trees stood close, head to head, like they were comparing battle plans. “The smell of our prosperity.”
The forest smelled like Teth’s house, his mattress. Pine needles, along with grassy undergrowth, lay thick upon the ground. Sam took off her sandals to walk barefoot. Eshmun showed no sign of slowing his pace.
“I have never seen him so intent,” Teth said, struggling to make his stocky legs keep pace.
“Why does he want this obol so badly?” Sam asked. At the very least, she should ask questions. It would distract her from her crippling worry—and knowledge was power. “I still don’t understand. What does his coin do?”
“Upon his death, it will take him to šmayyà.”
Heaven, Sam thought in English. Sky.
“But isn’t Eshmun… a god?” she asked, not entirely sure.
“My lord is half-god, half-mortal.”
“Can he die?” Eshmun had called her a fool more than once, and maybe she was, at least in this world. Could she actually have killed Eshmun with Teth’s knife? She had so much more to learn.
“Though it takes extraordinary means,” Teth said, pausing to pull a branch out of their way, “even the full gods can perish. None is truly immortal.”
“So šmayyà is where Eshmun would go, after death, to be reunited with his dead family and friends.”
“Yes,” he said.
She studied Teth’s expression. His lower teeth worked at his upper lip, and his eyes were glazed with a wistful look.
“You don’t want him to leave, do you?” she asked. “You can’t go with him when he goes.”
“That is correct,” Teth said. “The obol is his, and it is his redemption alone, forged with his mother’s blood by Chusor. Only he can use it to ascend to the highest realm. No one else can use it for that purpose.”
“You’ll miss him.”
Teth nodded. “I might never see him again.”
Eshmun was ahead by a hundred yards, and in his dark cloak, he seemed to vanish now and then between the trees. Sam caught sight of his knife, which he’d been holding ever since they entered the forest. He was chanting something as he walked. She could hear his voice drifting back to them.
“What’s he saying?” she asked.
“He recalls the names of lost family members and friends, along with one marked trait of each,” Teth said. “The color of an aunt’s hair or a cousin’s particular interest—a memory of some sort.”
“Why?”
“Some were friends from all the ages Eshmun has lived through. Others…” Teth took a long breath. “Others he buried with his own hands, victims of the siege.”
“What happened?” Sam asked, remembering that Meem had mentioned a siege, too. “There was a war?”
“On Earth, long, long ago. Invaders came from across the sea,” Teth said. “Eight hundred warships. Our ancestors were enslaved and slaughtered. Thousands of men impaled and displayed like battle flags along the shoreline. Eshmun himself placed many burial obols after his loved ones died—in that way, he made certain they would go to paradise, to šmayyà. He could not heal them, their injuries beyond repair, and so he is wracked with guilt, you see.
“Eshmun wishes he had stayed to fight on, but he was deceived to leave Earth. His father had stolen his obol, and Eshmun did not know where it was. He followed his father in a rage, and then he could not return. The storm god, Ba’al Saphon, had sealed the boundaries between worlds.”
“Melqart stole Eshmun’s obol,” Sam said, understanding.
“And left it on Earth, yes,” Teth said. “Some say he lost it in the chaos of war. Others claim he purposefully hid it.”
“Why would Eshmun’s own father steal his obol?”
Teth shrugged. “If you choose to believe his intentions were pure, Melqart wanted to lure his only son away from the war, for he was sure to perish in his zeal.” He patted his thigh. “Here, he could be safe by his father’s side.”
“And if you believe Melqart’s intentions were bad?”
Teth chuckled. “Melqart is the brother of Môt. Like all gods, they are both driven by both power and love. Or driven mad by them. What’s more, Melqart and Eshmun have a long history of grievances, as fathers and sons do.”
Eshmun’s muffled voice, still a steady cadence, carried through the cedars. “Cadmus and Ithtobaal,” Sam remembered. “Eshmun was listing names in his sleep.”
“Cadmus!” Teth said with a smile. “A dragon-slayer. Yes, Eshmun is always calling to those he has lost along the way.”
“I used to do the same,” Sam said. “My dad… he’s been gone a long time. Captured, maybe. I would call his name over and over again, thinking I could somehow guide him home if I kept the signal going.” She’d believed it would work if she performed it with absolute reverence, and maybe under a full moon. If only she could call out to Rima now, to send her some sort of message. I’m coming for you. I’ll find you, I promise.
“But I don’t understand something,” she said. “If Eshmun leaves the underworld, I mean… you’ll follow him eventually, won’t you?”
“We put our faith in Eshmun, that he might find the tar´ā so we may leave upon our deaths. He is the healer of us all, the salve of this world.
“You see, my ḥayuta people came to this place long ago—many even before the siege—exiled to the underworld.” Teth spread his arms. “I was born here. We have no obols. No way to leave this plane upon death without the opening of the tar´ā.”
“What?” Sam asked. “Hang on. You’re saying that if Eshmun dies and goes to šmayyà, then he can’t do that,” she reasoned. “He can’t find the gateway for everyone else to get out.”
“It is his right.”
“He would be abandoning this world,” she said, feeling her hackles rise. “He’s the only one who can find the tar´ā to heaven?”
“Another may find it,” Teth said, “such as Ba’alat Gebal. Blessings upon her as she searches now to the east. But—as the prophecy tells us—Eshmun is the only one able to open the door.”
“It’s his duty, then,” Sam said as they picked their way over mossy rocks and roots, which threaded through the earth like thickened veins.
Teth’s shoulders were set hard and square. “His obol calls to him.” Devotion rang in his voice. “My lord will claim it, as he should.”
Sam let out a curt laugh. “My dad taught me a lot about duty and honoring promises,” she said. “Leaving seems like the opposite of honor. He would be abandoning you.”
“Hmm.” Teth growled, and Sam took it as a warning. She’d pushed too far. She wanted to ask how Eshmun could be killed, if it took extraordinary means, but instead she tried another route. “You said that your ancestors were exiled. Why?”
Teth sighed. He pressed a hand to his heart. “When our people were a mighty civilization on Earth, the ḥayuta were known as protean beings who changed into animals. Some dangerous, yes.
“But,” he said, lifting a finger, “we were also the birds and the butterflies, the makers of honey and the messengers flying between homes, delivering good dreams and love songs.”
She snapped her head up at him, realizing. “You’re a… a bear, aren’t you?”
Teth grinned a toothy smile. “Of course I am,” he said. “What did you think I was? A mouse?”
Sam almost laughed, but instead her heart twisted with another realization. “The women who took Rima. They were coyotes?”
“Jackals,” Teth said. He reached out and patted her shoulder.
They walked in silence for a while, but Sam could hardly stand the sound of her own thoughts pounding in her temples.
Will they murder Rima? Eat her? No—they have to give her to the god of death. But will they hurt her? Would they torture her to find the obol? Were they coming back for Sam?
A splintered despair cut through her. She clutched her chest and took a deep breath.
“Continue your story,” she said desperately, needing to divert her thoughts before they made her so heartsick she’d have to stop walking. “Please.”
“Of course,” Teth said. “As I was saying, one dark year, our people and the gods alike were blinded by the crimes of a few ḥayuta. The atrocities committed by a small group became the reputation of us all. We were slippery, not to be trusted. A man could turn into a beast without warning. A woman could seduce you and then consume you.”
“Meem is an owl,” she said, “and Zayin is an elephant.”
“It is so,” Teth said as he looked down at Sam. His eyes were on her neck, which was probably purple with finger-shaped bruises where the jackals had choked her. When she swallowed, she felt a lump—some small broken piece of herself—throbbing underneath her skin.
“How do you even know the tar´ā exists?” Sam asked. “Why do you still believe after Eshmun has searched for so long?”
“As you have seen, there are ways between the worlds,” Teth said. “Veils hang between the boundaries. Fissures provide passage.”
“Rima and I came through a fissure.”
“Yes.” He paused to catch his breath and wipe the sweat from his forehead. Sam slowed her pace to stay at his side. “Only ruḥā can traverse the boundary—they return to Earth to haunt people’s dreams,” he said, “or roam the lands where our ancestors once lived.”
Sam shifted her heavy bag to the opposite shoulder and looked skyward. Send me a sign, Mom always said. She called them love notes from the universe. A perfectly timed green light, a winning lottery scratch-off card. The last seat on the last bus. Finding that long-lost earring, the one she wore on her honeymoon. She’d thought it was gone forever.
“Where is Rima?” she finally asked. “Is she alive? Will I be able to find her?”
“One cannot be sure,” Teth said. “Young women do not often fall from the sky. The god of death will be eager to have her. Understand, there are those who would pay a high price for you. Some will think you possess magic powers or secrets. Some will want to own you. Some will suspect you have brought an obol—a coin of Chusor’s gold—with you. You might even provide a clue to where a passageway is hidden.” He looked down at Sam with pity in his eyes. “You are lucky, at least, to be in the hands of Lord Eshmun.”
