Page 71 of Darkness Bound (Night Prowler 5)
“She can’t lie,” added kalum, assuming Hawk didn’t understand.
But he did. He understood, but he didn’t believe.
The priest shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He ladled some of the bubbling broth into a bowl and held it out to Hawk. “Anteater stew?”
“She can’t lie,” he repeated, ignoring the offered bowl. “For how long?”
“For as long as it takes for her body to burn through the potion. Two days, possibly three.”
“Three days!” Hawk shouted. “I have to live with her like that for three days?”
“It’s no good shouting at me, mar sarrim. The only way to remove her pain was to give her the brew. And you wanted to remove her pain, yes?”
“Well, yes, but not to make her . . . like . . . that!”
“Hmm,” said kalum, dipping into the bowl of stew with a spoon. He swallowed a mouthful and pointed at it. “Oh, that’s tasty. You sure you don’t want any?”
Hawk cradled his head in his hands, pressing on both temples in an effort to make the sudden throbbing subside. This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening!
The priest said innocently, “Don’t get yourself all worked up over this, mar sarrim. If she’s too much for you, just let Alejandro take care of her. I’m sure he’d be more than happy to take her off your hands . . . did you see how he looked at her when she introduced herself?” He chuckled. “Thought he was going to drool all over his own feet.”
A spike of jealousy, scalding and black, shot through Hawk’s chest. He lowered his arms to glare at the old man. “I know what you’re doing, and it’s not going to work!”
Kalum walked over to him with small, unsteady steps. He gazed up into Hawk’s face, smiled, gave him a fatherly pat on the cheek, and said, “What you think is down, is up. What you think is up, is down. They are the same, yet they are different. Yes?”
“Kalum,” said Hawk, jaw tight, “don’t speak to me in riddles. What are you saying?”
“I’m saying the way to understand the truth is to stop resisting it. The swan that believes it is an ugly duckling is no less a swan, but for its own perception. The day is also night, the dark is also light, the hunters are also the hunted. Reality is nothing more than a mirror, reflecting back what you shine forth. The truth is a mutable beast, docile or devilish simply depending on where you stand.”
Hawk stared at him, seething. “Well. How enlightening. Any clearer and it would be crystal.”
The old priest looked pleased by his sarcasm. “It will give you something to think on, then.” He clapped his hands together, as if summoning invisible servants. “Now get out of here; I’ve got two mating ceremonies and a birth blessing to do today, and you’re messing up all the good energy in this cave. Scoot!”
He shuffled back to the fire, dismissing Hawk with a wave.
Hawk watched him for a long, silent moment, before turning on his heel and marching back out the way he came.
When Hawk had gone, the priest finished his anteater stew with intent mindfulness, savoring the flavors, knowing this would be the last time it would ever pass his lips.
He made it often, in batches large enough to offer bowlfuls to the many visitors he had each day, hankering after potions or ointments or blessings on babies and unions, after punishments and before cremations, during the Season of the Inundation and at Akitu, the beginning of the New Year. Other days he made it with tapir or tamarind or capybara meat, there were a dozen different combinations, but he knew by the time it was due for the anteater to be featured again, he would no longer be here.
None of them would.
He finished it. He rinsed out his bowl and put away the spoon, carefully drying both. Then he went to the beautiful chest at the foot of his sleeping pallet, and opened the lid.
Handed down father to son as the position of kalum had been, the fossilized wood chest bore the mark of every priest of the tribe, stretching back over two thousand years. It had arrived with them when they’d fled Egypt, one of the only things to survive the trek. In it were kept the sacred scrolls, called edubba. Written in the Old Language, they were copied by hand thrice a generation to ensure the teachings survived when the paper began its inevitable decay, victim to the rainforest’s dewy clime.
Kalum knew exactly which scroll to select. His father, like his father before him, had ensured he would recognize the signs when the time came. He unrolled the parchment, gazing solemnly at the lines he already knew by heart.
It was a poem, merely four stanzas long, titled “Sanu Enzillu.”
Song of Extinction
A prince of Air, a daughter of Fire
A mournful cry and a funeral pyre
A blooded heart, a sacrifice
