The Stone Light by Kai Meyer

Author:Kai Meyer
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Published: 2007-09-27T04:00:00+00:00

10 THE ASSAULT

THERE WERE SEVEN OF THEM.

Too many, Serafin thought as they pushed through the darkness. Way too many.

Five boys, including himself and Dario. In addition, two slender figures, two women. Larger than some of the boys—rebels, he chided himself, full of cynicism—but smaller than he was.

Eft had the kerchief over her face again, although he wasn’t sure why. Presumably they’d be seeing worse things this night than a mermaid’s mouth. But she insisted on her masquerade, though he didn’t believe she was ashamed of her origin. She was a mermaid and always would be. The human legs Eft bore instead of her kalimar, her scaly tail, were only external. In her veins flowed the salty sea, the water of the lagoon.

The second woman was Lalapeya. The sphinx had taken her human form, and now his having seen her with her lion body seemed to Serafin almost like a bad dream. Each diminution of her perfection, each tiny blot seemed absurd in consideration of such perfection. He had to forcibly remind himself that this, too, was just part of her magic. The magic did not end with her external change; she manipulated the thoughts of all those who looked at her, just as she appeared to manipulate everything that happened around her.

And Serafin still wondered whether what they were doing was right. Why was he going along with Lalapeya? What was it that made him and the others do what she wanted?

Not all the others. Eft withstood the sphinx’s magic. Serafin suspected that Eft saw Lalapeya in her true form sneaking through the tunnels, a creature half lion, half human, moving forward on the velvet paws of a predator. He’d already noticed, too, that Lalapeya made less noise, less even than he did. It might look as though she was walking on human feet—but the truth was something else.

The sphinx was no human and would never be one. Why was she so interested in Venice and its inhabitants? What made her incite a gang of street boys to assassinate the Pharaoh? The Pharaoh! Serafin simply could not understand why he’d let himself in for this.

“Eft,” he whispered in the half-dark of the underground canal.

She looked at him over the edge of the scarf covering her mouth. She nodded once, very briefly.

“Do you feel it too?” he asked.

Again she nodded.

“What is it?” He rubbed his hand over his right arm. The hairs were standing on end, and his skin was crawling, as if he’d grabbed hold of an anthill.

“Magic,” said Eft.

“Sphinx magic, worked by the commandants of the Pharaoh,” said Lalapeya, who suddenly stood beside the mermaid, as if someone had poured the darkness into the shape of a young woman.

Eft threw her a side glance, but she said nothing.

“Sphinx magic?” Serafin asked. He kept hoping that the other boys didn’t notice his uncertainty. But Dario, at least, perceived it and stopped next to him.

Serafin raised a hand and brought the entire troop to a halt. He and Dario and the two women formed the lead.

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