where the fear has gone there will be nothing

Enkiel Lykoi · 06-30-2011, 08:37 PM

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Someone had been in his room.

Enkiel glared at the empty space on the shelf, red eyes so dark they appeared black. He was nude, black hair for once unruly. No one ever saw him like this; he would never abandon his composure around the others. His ease now was only because of the opium he had given Gabriel—his uncle slept heavily with the drug. The jackal was always careful with the dosage. Too much could kill a man, even one as hardy as the former Aquila.

A jar was missing. A jar of mildly useful herbs he knew as Diviner’s Sage. No one came in here without his permission, but someone had. Fury boiled through the hybrid’s blood.

He reached up and grabbed another glass jar, unmarked but known as they all were. Hallucinogens were not something he used sparingly. Yet tonight he knew that the vision of the Gods would take him far—Horus, as he believed himself to be, would show him the way.

It took perhaps twenty minutes for the drugs to take hold. Alone, in the dark, Enkiel stared at nothing. Then his vision became that of a god. He was flying through the night, silent and swift like a falcon, westward. He knew this because it was the way he had come. In silence he began to see light, but as he neared, there came a most terrible thundering from above. Something struck him and he fell.

Panic filled him long before he hit the water. Everything was cold and everything was dark. The jackal struggled, flailing against the undertow. He imagined he might drown, and this too filled him with fear.

Then something strong and terrible rose from beneath him. Enkiel felt teeth clamp onto his arm. Wide eyed he looked into the dark water and found red eyes staring back at him. His eyes. Reptilian, cold. Terrible. A voice more deep and powerful than any he knew spoke to him.

Enkiel woke hours later in the dark. His arm ached and, as he looked, bled. Something had cut him. Likely, the reasoning half of his mind thought, himself. Then everything came to a head and he reeled.

His mother was wrong.

“Sobek,” he spoke aloud, voice that of the god from his dream (as it always had been). “تمساح النيل,” he echoed in Arabic, his native tongue familiar, welcome. This had always been his path. Another would slay his brother—Enkiel’s purpose lay here.

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