The Glass Word by Kai Meyer Read Free Book Online

heart of the matter.”
    Seth sighed deeply. “The Pharaoh betrayed the Horus priests. He gave me the commission to murder Lord Light. The sphinxes prophesied to Amenophis that someone would come out of Hell and kill him. Therefore he intended that I should kill Lord Light—and best that Ishould also die while doing it. Amenophis had all my priests taken prisoner and threatened to kill them if my mission was not successful.”
    â€œNow,” said Vermithrax with pleasure, “you are ruined. My congratulations.”
    Seth glared at him, but he made no reply. Instead he continued, “I am certain that Amenophis already knows that Lord Light is still alive.” He lowered his eyes, and Merle almost wished she could feel pity for him. “My priests are now dead. The cult of Horus exists no more. I am the only one left. And the sphinxes have taken our place at the side of the Pharaoh. It was planned thus from the beginning: We should awaken Amenophis again and lay the foundations of the Empire. The sphinxes are the ones who are now harvesting the fruits of all our labors. They waited in the background until the time was ripe to draw the Pharaoh to their side. They got him to betray us. The sphinxes used Amenophis, and they used
us.
We were manipulated without knowing it. Or, no, that’s not right. Others warned me, but I threw their advice to the winds. I didn’t want to believe that the sphinxes were playing a false game with the Empire. But it was always going toward one thing: The Empire conquers the world, and the sphinxes take over the Empire. They made us into their tools, and I was the most gullible of all, because I closed my eyes to the truth. My priests had to pay the price for my mistake.”
    â€œAnd now you are on the way to the sphinxes to avenge them,” said Junipa.
    Seth nodded.
“That,
at least, I can do.”
    â€œMy heart is quite heavy,”
the Queen remarked sarcastically.
    Merle paid no attention to her. “How do you intend to annihilate the sphinxes?”
    Seth appeared a little shocked at his own openness. He, the most powerful of the Horus priests, destroyer of countless lands and slaughterer of entire peoples, had openly spoken his thoughts to two children and an embittered stone lion.
    â€œI don’t know yet,” he said after a moment of thoughtful silence. “But I will find a way.”
    Vermithrax snorted scornfully, but not as loudly as he would probably have done
before
Seth’s avowal. The priest’s candor had surprised him, too, even impressed him a little.
    Nevertheless, no one made the mistake of considering Seth an ally. If it meant an advantage for him, he would sacrifice all of them at the first opportunity. This man had extinguished tens of thousands with a wave of his hand, had burned cities to the ground with a brief command, and desecrated the cemeteries of entire nations in order to make the bodies into mummy soldiers.
    Seth was no ally.
    He was the devil himself.

    â€œGood,”
said the Flowing Queen.
“And I was beginning to think he was going to wind all of you around his finger with his entertaining little tragedy.”
    Merle grasped Junipa’s hand. “What more do you know about him?” she asked, disregarding Seth’s blazing look.
    The mirror eyes reflected Vermithrax’s golden glow with such intensity that Merle’s image in them glowed like an insect in a candle flame. “Seth is a bad man,” said Junipa, “but the sphinxes are infinitely worse.”
    Seth gave a slight, scornful bow.
    â€œThat will look good on your tombstone,” said Vermithrax grimly.
    â€œI will order that it be chiseled out of your flank,” returned the priest.
    Vermithrax scraped one of his paws across the floor but refused to be drawn into another battle of words. He preferred a battle with sharp claws to such subtleties.
    Merle regarded Junipa with growing concern for a long