The Passion of Cleopatra (Ramses the Damned 2)

Once Julie managed to take the woman in her arms, Sibyl's words came in a breathless torrent. "They're torturing her. With beasts. Terrible beasts. I can smell them. I can feel the heat of their breath. She screams through me because she will not scream before them!"

Ramses turned to the queen. "These animals. Are they the dogs of which you spoke?"

"I assume so, yes."

Ramses studied Bektaten. "You know where Cleopatra is being held? You have been inside this place where they hold her now?"

"In a manner of speaking, I have been inside it, yes."

"And so you have met with this Saqnos in his own domicile?"

"No," she said. "Aktamu, to the garden. Bring us some etoile blossoms. That should soothe her."

At the mention of her garden, Julie gave Bektaten a fearful look. Ramses, before he could stop himself, did the same.

"They are well suited to her current condition," Bektaten answered. "My garden has yielded countless miracles and only a handful of poisons."

"Save her," Sibyl whispered, "you must save her, please. You must. She cries for my help."

They said nothing. Sibyl was in such a state she might not have heard them if they had. Her eyes were slits from which tears still flowed. She clung to Julie as if a great wind might tear her away the minute she let go.

When Aktamu returned, several blue blossoms in one hand, Julie slowly withdrew from the bed, but not before settling Sibyl down onto the pillows.

Bektaten's faithful servant tore apart the blue petals and the flowers' stamens and ground them all into a powder in his hand. Then he poured water into a fresh glass and began to release this fine blue powder from between his fingers, which he continued to rub together. Graceful and quiet, this process. When they brought the glass to Sibyl's lips, it seemed to work its effect almost immediately. The tremors throughout her body came to an abrupt end.

"Do we know if it will affect Cleopatra?" Julie asked.

"We do not," Bektaten answered, "but if it does, it will make her predicament more endurable as well. Come with me. Both of you."

They did as they were told. Enamon followed. Aktamu stayed behind.

To the first floor of the tower she led them and, from there, down a set of stone steps to a kind of basement chamber with two barred windows literally carved out of the side of the cliff.

Items of great and secret value were stored here, Ramses realized. Although what could be of more value than the enchanted garden in the center of the courtyard, Ramses was not sure. But the garden would be useless to someone who did not know its secrets. And he was sure that here, in this chamber, the garden's magic was distilled, seperated and rendered useful, sometimes fatally so.

The stone walls were covered with weapons from throughout history. Great gilded swords of silver, gold, ebony, and ivory. And on the long central table, a row of silver daggers, each in its scabbard. At the table's far end, several jars of brightly colored powder, labeled in the same script he'd seen in Bektaten's journals. Various pollens, he was sure. Various pollens which had, in some manner that wasn't clear, been applied to the weapons on the table before him. Alongside one end of the row of daggers lay several bronze rings, each containing a bright red stone. These rings were suspiciously larger than ordinary, modern jewelry, for there was a chamber under the stone in each that must have contained one of Bektaten's secrets.

It was an armory, this room. There was no better word for it.

"You seek to arm us with the fruits of your garden," Ramses said.

"I do not seek to arm you. I arm you. The daggers have been dipped in a substance that will stun an immortal for several hours on the clock. Each one is good for five effective strikes before the blade is exhausted. The rings contain the permanent solution you saw today." She uncapped the jewel from one, revealing a small bronze pin underneath. "Complete penetration of the strangle lily is required for it to do its work. On the surface of your skin it will not harm you. And it will harm no mortal at all."

"The sedative," Julie asked, "the one in which you've dipped the daggers, will it work on mortals?"

"No," she answered. "But the dagger will, of course, if your aim is good and your strike is strong. Are you confident in these things, Julie Stratford?"

"It's not entirely clear what you're sending us to do," Julie answered.

"I don't send you anywhere," Bektaten said. "I grant hope of success to a mission you're sure to undertake with or without my consent. That is all."

"And is this all?" Ramses asked. "These daggers and these rings?"

"No." Bektaten turned to the mahogany cabinet behind her. Its matching doors were inlaid with pearl designs. When she opened it, Ramses glimpsed shelves of glass bottles inside. Some large, some tiny vials, each filled with fluids of different colors and luminosities.

How he wanted to explore this cabinet! To hear her describe every magical potion within it. Surely they weren't all pure seeds from her garden, but various mixtures of plants still unknown to man. Given how long she had walked the earth, some of the plants she kept and harvested might now be long extinct. But there was no time for this now. For in this chamber with them was an almost spectral presence: their fear that Sibyl might soon suffer another episode and alarm the castle once again with her terrible screams.

From the cabinet, Bektaten removed a large vial, the length of her hand and the thickness of several fingers, full of some sort of orange powder, and passed it to Enamon.