The Age of Ra

34. Beast

''There,'' said Steven rancorously. ''Happy now? It's Set's emblem. Set is my master. I have been doing the bidding of the Lord of the Desert. Set rules me. How many other ways can I phrase it? Set saved my life and I've been working for him ever since. You got it out of me. Congrats.'' He stood up. ''Now, if it's all right with you, I'm going to find a spare mask, put it on and go out there and be the Lightbringer for a little while longer.''

''No.'' David thrust him back down into the chair. ''We're not done yet.''

''But the people out there,'' Steven protested, ''my people…''

''You don't care that much what happens to them.''

''They need to see that I'm there, looking out for them.''

''A few more minutes, that's all.''

Steven glared, but did not try to get up again. ''All right. Have your big moment. Lecture me on what I've done wrong.''

''I said a few minutes. That lecture would take several hours.''

''Oh, ha ha.''

''Steven, don't you see what you've done? The enormity of it? You've led three-thousand-odd people to their deaths. You've abused their trust and sacrificed them to save your own skin. You've deceived them with a lie which you don't even believe in yourself.''

''You — you can be such a high-and-mighty prig, Dave,'' his brother snapped. ''Don't you dare judge me. You weren't on that island. It wasn't your life hanging in the balance. If you'd been there, suffering like I was, you'd have done the same. You'd have leapt at the chance Set was offering you. Don't tell me you wouldn't.''

''I wouldn't.''

''Come off it.''

''No, really, I wouldn't. I'd have thought through the consequences and said no.''

''And died? Lingeringly? Agonisingly? Yeah, right, fuck off.''

''You forget. Not so long ago, I got lost in the desert. I went through pretty much what you did. I know exactly how you felt, and if Set or any other god had come to me with a bargain like that, even when I was at my lowest point, I know what my answer would have been.''

''You can't say that for certain.''

''I think I can.''

''Well then, doesn't that make you the nobler, better one of us?'' Steven spat out. ''You're the upstanding older brother, never knowingly unheroic, and I'm the weakling, the runt, the disappointment, Westwynter Minor in every way. Glad we've established that — or rather, re-established.''

''What gets me is that you gave in so easily. You didn't put up a fight. You didn't hesitate. Set barely had to ask and you were his.''

''Isn't that how it is? A perfect illustration of the relationship between the Pantheon and humankind. They screw us, and we bend over and take it.''

''You feel no shame?''

''I left shame behind somewhere in the middle of the Aegean.''

''Yes, I reckon you did and all.'' David scratched his chin. ''Tell me, this gift Set gave you…''

''Not a gift.''

''The prize you won, then. You used it on all the Freegyptians?''

''Yep. In my speeches, or on a one-to-one basis. All I had to do was sound convincing, and they'd be convinced. You could call it a heightened form of my natural charm. Sometimes it was almost too easy. They wanted what I was promising them, wanted it so much. First of all peace in Upper Freegypt, then the opportunity to spread their national philosophy — their belief in unbelief — to the rest of the world. In a way, what they were looking for was a prophet, a secular evangelist. And they got one.''

''No, they got a false messiah.''

''More harsh words.''

''Just telling it like it is, Steven.''

''Look, Dave, you can accuse me of misleading people, toying with their hopes, throwing away their lives, whatever, but as far as I'm concerned I've done nothing wrong. I've been acting on a god's commands. You do that. Everyone does that! Slag me off if it makes you feel better, but you're not going to make me feel bad.''

''Fine,'' said David. ''Then I won't try. There is one thing I'd like to know, however.''

''What?'' said Steven with an exasperated huff.

''Did you use it on me at any point? Your power?''

Quickly: ''No.''

''You're sure about that?''

''No! I mean, yes I'm sure. No, I didn't use it on you.''

''Not in order to get me to tag along with you, for instance?''

''No.'' Steven chortled. ''You definitely did that all by yourself. Remember what I said? I said Set told me that I won't be able to make anyone do what they didn't want to. I can encourage people along, I can facilitate their own desires, but I can't force them to act against their will. I meant it earlier, when I described the Freegyptians as being willing to lay down their lives for me. They are. And they wouldn't if the cause I stood for wasn't one they felt was worth dying for.''

''You made them feel that way. Manipulated them.''

''I simply showed them that that was how they felt.''

''So you never once did the same to me? About anything?''

''Why does this matter to you so much, Dave?''

''It just does.''

Steven looked him in the eye. ''I did not, I swear,'' he said, and David couldn't help noticing how the Typhonic Beast on Steven's cheek writhed as he spoke, as though the words were coming as much from it as him. ''Everything you've done has been of your own free will. I haven't tried to influence you in any way.''

David thought of Zafirah. He thought of Steven telling him, She's not for you. He thought of how the admonition had stuck with him, like some sort of imperishable creed in his brain. How it stood now like a screen between him and her.

If Steven was telling the truth, then he only had his own timidity to blame. Deep down he was afraid of Zafirah. Not of who she was but of how she saw into the heart of him and didn't hesitate to tell him what she found there. Women he had gone out with in the past had been superficial women. He'd known that and liked that. They wanted nothing more from him than to be what he appeared to be, rich and debonair David Westwynter, a man with a family cartouche and a wallet to match. Zafirah didn't care about any of that, which made her dangerous to him. As dangerous as she was alluring. With her, he had to be who he was, and what he was wasn't something he was all that comfortable with.

That was if Steven was telling the truth.

If Steven was lying…

Then on one level it didn't make any difference. He still had only himself to blame. Steven couldn't have made him shrink from Zafirah if that wasn't what he himself, whether he knew it or not, wanted.

It did, though, make a difference on another level. It meant Steven had used his power to reinforce David's self-doubt, in order to guarantee nothing would happen between him and Zafirah.

''I don't believe you,'' David said at last.

''Fair enough, then don't.''

''You haven't been straight with me this whole time. Why should things have changed now? You've kept so much hidden from me…''

''For a good reason. If you'd known everything, you'd never have stuck around, and I wanted you to stick around. We'd been brought back together by some incredible quirk of fate. We'd become the closest I can ever remember us being. There were times when I wanted to come clean with you, really I did, but I was just so happy to have you back and have you respecting me for once. It seemed daft to put that at risk.''

''Good reason? Selfish reason, more like.''

''If that's how you want to see it, Dave, then you have something seriously twisted in your head. Anyway, I've had enough of this conversation. I need to go. Let me.''

Steven rose and waved at his brother to move aside.

David didn't.

Steven made to push past him.

David grabbed him by the shoulder.

Steven brushed his hand off.

David grabbed him again.

They stared at each other, and in each other's eyes saw twenty-plus years of brotherhood, of shared blood and experience. They saw a love that was so old they took it for granted and scarcely noticed it any more, and a rivalry that became only fresher and sharper with every argument they had, every set of insults they exchanged, every lie one or the other of them told. The bond between them was so ingrained — so familiar, in every sense of the word — that it was easy to forget it existed, while the things that separated them grew ever more numerous. Suddenly, now, more divided them than joined them. The canyon between them had grown wider than the span of its bridges.

Neither of them threw the first punch. Or rather, they both did. It happened spontaneously and simultaneously. David swung for Steven; Steven swung for David.

And then they were grappling, brawling, sprawling on the floor, rolling in the storehouse dust, now David on top, now Steven, and the blows came thick and fast, delivered with fury and scorn, and they were boys again, the children they used to be, as though years had not gone by and nothing had changed. They hated each other with the intensity of boyhood hate. All either could think about was hurting the other, physically expressing his contempt for the other.

Briefly David gained the upper hand. Straddling Steven, he pounded him with everything he had. Then Steven grabbed David's injured arm and squeezed the wound till several of the stitches burst and blood erupted, soaking through his shirtsleeve. David roared, and Steven shoved him off. Standing, he started to kick David in the stomach. David grabbed his foot, twisted it, and sent him spinning over onto his belly. Then he dived onto Steven's back and slammed his face against the floor repeatedly. Steven elbow-jabbed him in the nose. More blood gushed. David got an arm around his brother's neck and wrenched his head backwards. Steven gasped and gargled. David locked his other hand against Steven's temple and increased the pressure. Steven's face reddened, then purpled. Spittle flew from his mouth, snot dribbled from his nose. He flailed at David helplessly; clawed at his arm. David continued to lever his head backwards and sideways, aware he was preventing Steven from breathing properly. Aware he was asphyxiating him. Killing him.

''Dave… don't…'' Steven choked out.

Servant of Set. Betrayer of trust. Liar. Deceiver. Man who would be god.

In his mind's eye, David saw Osiris smiling. This was what his god wanted. The Lightbringer, the earthly agent of Osiris's despised brother, must die. And who, then, could be better suited for the role of assassin than the Lightbringer's very own brother?

''… daaave…''

A few more seconds, that was all it would take. David had a firm grip. Steven's windpipe was being crushed. He was struggling to breathe. His throat was making a series of wet, glottal noises like hiccups crossed with grunts, but no air was getting in. A few more seconds, and then it would all be over. The Freegyptians could surrender. The Nephthysians and Setics might not treat them kindly as captives, but at least they'd have a chance of surviving. Otherwise they were as good as dead. By taking this one life, David might save a thousand others.

''… d…''

No.

David let go. Steven slumped face first on the floor, wheezing hard.

No. David had had his fill of killing. He remembered the terebinth tree and the corpses. Life, not death.

He sat in a corner while Steven recovered. Slowly the colour left Steven's face and his breathing began to come evenly, less harshly. He rolled onto his back and looked at David. His eyes were craze-patterned with broken capillaries.

''You fucker,'' he rasped, hoarse-voiced. ''You were going to do it, weren't you? You really were.''

David said nothing, just examined his hands. There was blood on them but only his own, stray spatters from his nose and his sodden shirtsleeve.

''I knew you were a heartless bastard,'' Steven went on. ''But even so. Fuck's sake, I was halfway to Iaru. What got into you?''

David wiped his hands on his trousers. He checked his nose. Not broken. The blood there was starting to coagulate. His arm throbbed exquisitely. The reopened gash would need attention. New stitches. His knuckles ached. Bad punching. In his blind, all-consuming rage he'd forgotten his training. He'd hit too hard. He was lucky not to have broken a finger.

Sitting up, Steven probed his neck in a gingerly fashion. ''Suppose I should just be thankful you stopped.''

David completed his self-inventory. Bruises, abrasions… He'd been in worse shape than this.

''You not talking to me any more? Is that it?'' Steven said. ''Bet you're not. Bet you're too fucking ashamed to. Psychopath. Honestly, David, if I were you I'd seek professional-''

''Shut up.''

''Don't tell me to shut up, you ruddy lunatic. There's you going on about how I don't care about other people's lives, and then you go and-''

''Shut up and listen, Steven.''

''To you? No thanks.''

''No. Listen.''

Steven cocked his head.

Outside, there were shouts of alarm, and a low, distant grinding drone.

''That sounds like…''

''Bombers,'' said David. ''From the south. Neph Typhons again, I'd guess.''

''Holy shit,'' Steven breathed. ''This is it.''