Vial of Tears, page 23
“I feel the time has come—how shall I put this?—to crush them. So that I may finally rule once more.” He thrust a fist in the air and peered down at Eshmun. “You really should stay in better touch with your dear uncle. These things would not come as such a surprise to you.”
“Shall we proceed with the ceremony?” the shapeshifter asked again, more insistently. The crowd responded with a growling cheer. “Take her to bed!” a guard in the front row screamed. The one she’d followed from the marketplace. The one from the dungeons, the one who’d lifted her dress and snapped his whip at her.
“Yes, yes,” Môt said. He climbed down a rope ladder from the elephant’s platform and jumped to the stage with theatrical flair. Again, the crowd went wild. “Let us proceed!”
He stalked across the stage and smacked Eshmun on the shoulder as if they were old friends. His eyes were fixed on Sam, taking her in from head to toe.
“I hope it takes some time to impregnate my bride,” he said, approaching. He circled Sam and let his hand slide along her arm. “I should like to work at it for a long while.” Sam recoiled, her skin bristling with goose bumps.
She curled her hands into fists, wishing she had Rugzā again. Her fingers itched for it. She could have been sinking the blade into the hollow of Môt’s neck.
“Do not touch her,” Eshmun warned.
“Oh, I will,” Môt said, and the crowd whistled. “Every inch of her!”
“Take her now!” the guard in the front row screamed. Sam inhaled—deep, deep, deep—and closed her eyes. Please, she thought. Let lightning strike. Let Eshmun have some other magical powers. Make me disappear.
“And what of Ba’alat Gebal?” Eshmun asked. “Your goddess of love. Do you not still hope for reconciliation?”
Môt’s face sank into a hateful grimace. “There will be no forgiveness,” he said. “Always in Byblos on some pretense of checking on her precious city-state. She has lovers there, of course. And then, as if I could not reach so far east, she ran to Baalbek with my own brother.”
“And you, Uncle?” Eshmun asked. “You were always faithful?”
“I am faithful to myself!” Môt spat. “It is over, especially for her. Though I am still considering how exactly I’ll deliver her to hell. There must be some sort of show, a grand event.” He spread his arms wide, and the crowd erupted with cheers upon his cue.
“My father was right about you,” Eshmun snarled at Môt. “You were not to be trusted. We should have never given you an inch of the underworld. Not even Gadir.”
“The underworld was mine!” Môt roared. “All mine, until you cowards fled from Earth! The time has come for me to remind you that it is still mine. And your father!” He laughed. “The handsome one, the gregarious one. Always so popular. Where is he now? Ah! Here he is.”
Môt motioned once again to the shapeshifter, who strode toward Eshmun, morphing into the likeness of Melqart as he walked. His bare chest was thrust forward with pride, and he wore a mask of bright feathers. “Son,” he said, raising a goblet to his lips. “Where is the passage, Eshmun? The tar´ā? Where is it?”
The rat creatures tittered. A roar of laughter lifted from the crowd. Sam watched helplessly, feeling like a trapped animal. She was sweating through her gown.
“Still, after all this time, you have not found it? Eshmun, my son, are you blind?” the shapeshifter asked. “And now you believe that if you cannot find the way, your child will? All these centuries, and you have not impregnated a single soul. You are powerless. Impotent. Really, you have been such a disappointment to me.”
“You impregnated only one,” Eshmun said angrily, “and then you let her die.” He shook his head. “No. I will not have an argument with this ancient shapeshifter. You are not Melqart.” He turned to his uncle. “And Samira is not yours to marry. You cannot have her. You will not.” He said it simply, an indisputable fact.
Môt laughed wickedly. “You delivered her to me, did you not? Whether intentionally or by your own stupidity, I cannot say, but does it matter? You brought her here. You brought her into this world, into my domain. My underworld. She is my property. As are you all.”
Môt hooked a finger under Sam’s chin. His breath smelled like the stone walls of the prison: cold and dank. She cringed and turned away. “Is this the one the jackals captured?” he asked the three guards who stood behind Eshmun. “Where is the other? The one who wandered through the marketplace like a fly into a spider’s web?”
“No,” Sam choked, feeling like the air was suddenly too thin to breathe. He knew there were two of them. That meant—
Rima was shoved onto the stage, looking terrified. She was still filthy from the dungeons, wearing the same stained dress, but her hair had been pulled back into a messy, low bun.
“We assumed you drowned at sea in your tiny little boat,” Môt said, confusing the two of them. “You must have been very determined to reach me. Sisters, yes? I wonder which of you the prophecy means.”
Rima looked him up and down before her eyes went to the rats hiding in the corners. She screamed.
Sam flashed a desperate look at Eshmun. We have to do something. She could see that he was pulling at the rope that bound him. But the arena was packed with spectators; the rat creatures paced and skittered along the edges of the stage and through the aisles; burly guards flanked Eshmun. The elephant shifted nervously on its feet, its tusks scraping the stage. There was nowhere to go.
And now, behind Rima, one of the women who had scrubbed and scraped Sam stepped forward. She held a pillow. It was small and elegant, the kind that would normally hold wedding bands. But instead, on top of the pillow were Sam’s old shoes, the ones Meem had been murdered for. Sam slapped a hand to her mouth, but not before blurting out a cry of disbelief.
“Whose shoes are they?” Môt called out to the rapt audience. “We shall see!”
The woman first took the shoes to Rima, but Sam already knew what would happen. Even though she was taller than Sam, her feet were smaller, so the shoes would slide right off. Rima shook and was as pale as death as she put the shoes on. Sam ached to reach out to her.
“Walk!” the woman barked at Rima. Rima took one trembling step after another, the shoes flapping at her heels as she crossed the stage.
“The other, then!” Môt said.
Rima took the shoes off and handed them to Sam, her eyes filled with despair. Sam put on the shoes, bloodstained and stiff with Meem’s murder, and walked.
“Ah, then they are yours!” Môt followed gleefully, gripping his greenish fingers around Sam’s arm and whispering in her ear. “You did come through the gateway! You will tell me what they say. And you will tell me about your passage to this world. I will be the master of every border.”
“I’ll tell you nothing,” Sam croaked.
There was a long, pregnant pause, and then Môt smacked his slim stomach, forcing an overacted laugh. “She thinks she has a choice!” The audience roared with laughter as he stalked across the stage, pumping his fists and working the crowd into a frenzy.
“The prophecy means that I myself am the god who is the father,” Môt continued from center stage. He thwacked his chest. “Forget Melqart and his Tyrian princess. Forget this half-breed nephew of mine. Here are my otherworldly mortal brides. My child will be the one, the one with the gift of finding passage, and so I will own every gateway that might be revealed. In the meantime, I will rule this underworld. I will no longer share it with any other god. I will not be sent to far-flung cities. This is my domain and I mean to reclaim it!”
He walked back and forth, enjoying his soliloquy.
“I have always despised children,” he continued from across the stage. “I have been very careful not to have any of my own. But now is the time! Fate has decreed it! I will plant myself inside these beautiful girls, whose father was a noble warrior, a hero of war. My seed will make a true prophet, and as my son, I will rule him.”
As Môt spoke, Sam inched toward Rima. Do you still have the sword? She was desperate to ask, but Rima’s terrified eyes were on the rat creatures hiding in the corners.
“What did you do with Ba’alat Gebal?” Eshmun asked after the roar of the crowd had subsided. “Where is she?”
Môt raised his eyebrows at the interruption. He turned slowly to address Eshmun. “Oh, how we all hold her up as if she were the light of this world, the sun,” he said bitterly. “Let me tell you: Where there is sun, there are shadows, long and dark. She is not blameless. She is vain.”
“If she turned to despair,” Eshmun said, “it was because of you. She withered in the depths of Gadir. Tell me. Where is she now?”
“Ba’alat Gebal is with your father,” Môt said with a sneer.
“In Baalbek?”
Môt made a face laden with false concern. “You are so confused. He is here.” He swept his hand toward the shapeshifter who still looked like Melqart, sipping wine from his goblet.
With a condescending sigh, Môt told the audience, “Oh, Eshmun. You were never good at finding anything, were you? No sense of direction.” He spun back to face him. “Do not worry. I will take you to Ba’alat Gebal and Melqart, and soon I will have Ba’al Hammon as well, and all his crops will wither, and his precious fields of lavender will die. And then, in a grand show of celebration, I will torture every one of you and throw you into the depths of hell, and thereby reclaim my kingdom once and for all. Have you forgotten who I am?”
Hands on his hips, he spread his legs into a wide stance and mumbled something—a prayer, a curse. One of his guards knelt before him and handed him a torch, green fire leaping from its tip. Môt opened his mouth, tipped back his head, and pushed the flame deep into his throat. The guard fumbled to his feet and drew away as Môt’s eyes rolled back into his head.
A moment later, at the death god’s feet, the floor opened into a gaping hole.
Moans of suffering rose up and out of it like a mist rising from a dark swamp. It made Sam dizzy. She closed her eyes and suddenly she was in a boat—her boat—wobbling across a midnight lake. But the water smelled sulfurous and stale. It was full of dead fish. They bobbed around her, lifeless eyes trained upward, seeing nothing.
Môt clapped his hands and the pit disappeared. The stage was solid again underneath his feet. Sam blinked the images away, though she could still smell death. The audience had fallen completely silent.
Môt nodded solemnly. “Yes,” he said. “A reminder.”
By now, Sam was close enough to Rima to hold her hand. Rima’s fingers were as cold as marble, her posture rigid with fear. But before Sam could speak to her, she felt a bony hand on her shoulder and spun to find the shapeshifter lurking behind them.
“Give me the obol,” he breathed, tangling his fingers into her hair.
She tried to wriggle away, her heart jolting. She looked at Rima and saw the tiny handle of the sword peeking out of her hair. Rima had used it—hidden it—by threading it into her bun.
“Come, Alchemist! Let the wedding ceremony begin!” the god of death cried, snapping his fingers at him.
The shapeshifter bowed and, with a shake of his shoulders, he became a young man dressed in a long white robe, a red stole folded over his shoulder and a square turban on his head. Two musicians came onto the stage, playing small flutes, a sad and slow melody like a funeral march.
“Do you take this god to be your master and husband?” the shapeshifter asked Rima as he yanked her away from Sam. “To obey, worship, submit to, and pleasure until the end of time?”
Rima shook her head. “No.”
Stab him, Sam thought. Pull the sword out and strike!
The shapeshifter fluttered his arms and in an instant, he was Rima in a purple wedding dress and bare feet with bells around his ankles. He sidled up to Môt. “I do,” the shapeshifter said, batting his eyelashes and clasping his terrible hands over his heart. Sam felt her stomach churning. He looked just like Rima; his voice was hers.
“She does not,” Sam whispered, shifting in her bloodied shoes, clenching her teeth.
“And you,” Môt said, turning to Sam with a cold smile. “Yes, you. I will wed you both. We shall see who is the first to birth a son.” He clapped his hands. “It will be a race! A grand competition.” He narrowed his eyes at the girls. “Who will win?”
Sam shuddered and turned to Eshmun, but he was looking upward with the oddest expression on his face. Sam suddenly felt dizzy as she followed his eyes to a nascent swirl above his head. It was a small tornado cloud, an eye at the center. Slowly, it descended, a blanket of gray pressing down on them.
A funnel!
“I cannot believe it,” Eshmun whispered. “It summons me once more.”
“What is this?” Môt screamed at the thick, opaque fog. “Whose sorcery is this?” He stood at a distance, his knees bent and an arm shielding his head.
Sam’s heart pounded. Tears flooded her eyes.
The crowd had fallen silent once again. The prison guards cowered away from the stage. The cloud hung above Eshmun’s head like a black halo, and his eyes turned toward a distant place. At his feet sat the rope that had bound his hands; he was free, and the three men who had been guarding him backed away into the corners along with the rats.
With Môt’s attention diverted, Sam lunged for Rima and yanked her close. “Grab onto him!” she cried, kicking a rat to get to Eshmun and pressing Rima against him as the cloud slid over his head.
“Seriously?” Rima screamed, kicking at the air. “He’s all slippery and bloody!”
“Just hold on! We’re going back!”
A moment later, the funnel began to lift the three of them up, twisting them in midair. Sam felt her toes leaving the ground below.
They rose and spun, Sam closing her eyes against the dizziness. She wrapped her arm around Rima’s waist, locking her close as they ascended with increasing speed. She ran her fingers through the back of her sister’s hair, grabbing onto the small sword and extracting it, but then Rima started thrashing wildly.
“What are you doing?” Sam screamed. “Hold tight! We’re going to lose you!”
“Rat!” Rima shrieked. Sam could see the black shape as it clawed up Rima’s leg. Rima frantically tried to shake it off, making herself slide downward with the effort. Sam was losing her grip on her sister, holding the sword in one hand and Rima’s arm with the other. The rat was too far away to stab.
“Rima!” Sam screamed. And then her heart leaped into her throat.
Môt’s green face was there, below them. He was holding on to Rima’s ankle, and he looked up at Sam with a sneer of triumph.
Rima was there one moment and gone the next, falling back down into the underworld.
19
“No!” Sam screamed. “No!”
She heard the sound of her sister, along with Môt, hitting the stage with a whump, and the roar of the audience. And then Sam’s ears filled with a dense and muffled hum. The black clouds around her turned grainy as soil, and she was suddenly facedown in her backyard garden. There were Mom’s plastic pots turned on their sides, the abandoned gardening spade and gloves.
And Mr. Koplow was there.
He held a coin in front of him, gape-mouthed, hand shaking. “What the hell?” he asked, his eyes wild, his face an awkward grimace. “Is this a joke?” he asked, his words slurred and thick.
Sam rolled away from the edge of the funnel and looked at her lopsided house, which to her had never looked so perfect and so beautiful. She wanted to run inside, but there was Eshmun standing larger than life in her backyard, half naked and bleeding; the lower half of his body was a swirl of smoke. Mr. Koplow went pale and tripped backward.
“Mine,” Eshmun said. “Give me my obol.”
Mr. Koplow palmed the coin and turned to run, but Eshmun caught him by the wrist and he cried out. “Help,” he choked. His hand was frozen closed, Sam knew. It would be almost impossible to let go of the coin.
The inky ground beneath Eshmun’s feet roiled and then changed direction, pulling downward rather than up. Sam felt it tugging on her feet and she skittered away from the growing edge.
But she felt ripped in half.
Stay here!
Go back for Rima!
How could she live with herself if she stayed? How could she willingly return to the underworld? Abandon Rima, or Mom? She knew this moment would haunt her, no matter what she chose.
She looked at her house again. Inside was her bed, her clothes, her fishing gear, her homework. Her entire life was here, waiting for her return. Home. I’m home!
Eshmun still had Mr. Koplow by the wrist. Mr. Koplow gave Sam a pleading look as if she could help him, but she had already wrapped her arms around Eshmun, pressing her face against his bloodied back. Would she ever get the chance to come home again?
At the last moment, Mom opened the back door.
Sam’s heart slammed into her throat at the sight of her. Mom’s hair looked unbrushed and her skin pink from crying. She probably hadn’t slept since they’d disappeared.
“Sam!” Mom screamed, thrusting her hands forward. But Sam squeezed her eyes closed. “Sam, my sweet baby Sam!”
“I’m sorry,” Sam whispered through her tears. “I’m so sorry.”
With one last glance at Mom, she let herself fall away, hearing the sound of her name being called over and over again, her mother shrieking for her to come home, to come back.
20
Sam crashed down onto a hard surface, gasping for air. She could hear muffled voices. There was no sign of Eshmun or Mr. Koplow or anyone else.
Standing slowly, she rubbed a throbbing elbow and moaned. The inside of her mouth tasted like potting soil. Her ribs were tender. When she touched her face and drew her fingers away, she found them sticky with blood—it must have been Eshmun’s, from pressing her cheek against his bare back. The funnel had made her dizzy, but she felt even sicker about what had just happened. Mom had been twenty feet away.
