Etruscans Read Free Page B

hear hia and siu whispering in the Otherworld.
    She could even catch the faintest scent of the Netherworld where Satres ruled and Veno protected the dead. As long as she was alive its mysteries were denied her. But the perfumes that wafted from that dark kingdom were spiced with myrrh and cinnamon and subtler, more alluring fragrances that promised and beguiled. She felt their temptation, potent as a stirring in the loins.
    Death, the Aegyptians claimed, was a jewel of incomparable brilliance.
    On every side shadows twisted and dissolved, hinting at wonders, each one attempting to draw her into the darkness from which she knew she would never return.
    Fragments of songs, ghosts of winds, the distant trilling of unknown birds called to her, and behind them the faintest whispers that might have been prayers, incantations, secrets … .
    With an effort Vesi forced herself to concentrate on the injured man. To allow her spirit to be distracted would leave her vulnerable to vengeful spirits lurking in wait for the unwary. The young woman was trembling with tension as finally she stepped into the rectangle of the templum.
    It was as if she had walked into a maelstrom.
    Dark hair tore free of her silver fillet; saffron peplos molded itself to her body. The air within the area was so thick she had to force herself through invisible density. The beings lurking beyond human sight in the Otherworld were frenzied as she had never known them to be … but then she had never walked through unhallowed Sacred Space before. They clustered and gibbered at the very edges of her vision, vanishing when she turned to look at them, reappearing as writhing shadows when she looked away.

    The absence of a bloody trail was more puzzling now, but only because there was so much blood around the man’s body. Vesi forced herself to kneel beside him, drawing her linen skirt up onto her thighs to keep from staining it any more than necessary. She gently examined the wounds on his back—deep punctures and long, raking claw marks that flayed the flesh. Then, sliding her hands under the man’s body, she turned him over.
    She was startled to find the broken body of a huge white owl underneath him, downy feathers plastered to his bloody chest. Then when she looked upon his face, she realized this was no ordinary man.
    Vesi was about to scream when he opened his eyes.

THREE
    T hough he was half a mile from the river, Artile caught a whiff of the tainted breeze. Instinctively he dropped to the ground and rolled a short distance down the terraced slope. Yet even as he rolled, the stench followed him.
    Twice before he had encountered a similar putrid chill. The first time had been when a Babylonian magus loosed a minor utukki , an ummu demon, on a caravan Artile was leading across the Great Sand Waste. The utukki ’s presence had been heralded by a foul, icy breeze. Artile had smelled the odor again many seasons later on the day he came upon the remains of a human sacrifice high in the Black Mountains. Although the day had been warm, the telltale chill had lingered around the butchered corpses.
    The purtani said the foul wind slipped through whenever the fabric between the worlds was torn.
    Lying flat on the ground, Artile raised his head cautiously and sniffed. The air around him smelt only of
loamy earth and healthy grapevines. The noxious odor had vanished.
    And yet …
    Artile fumbled for his pruning knife and got to his feet with the inadequate weapon clutched in his hand. He crouched like a man ready to run; there was no shame in running. In his youth he had been a mariner, a guide, and a mercenary warrior, surviving all three dangerous occupations because he had learned to trust his instincts … and run when the occasion warranted.
    His instincts were telling him now that something was wrong, terribly wrong.
    Shading his eyes with one hand, he turned full circle. His vineyard spread out before him, vines laden with grapes just