Besieged: Stories from the Iron Druid Chronicles(9)

“Am I deaf? Am I mute?” Nothing.

It couldn’t be the former. I heard other noises—people walking, sandals grinding against stone. The torc ran out of energy, which caused my camouflage and increased speed to fizzle away, and then men passing by stared at me, a strange pale fire-haired man in the streets of Alexandria, and bid me peace in Coptic or Greek or Latin. Locusts buzzed in the date palms. Horse hooves clopped on the streets. My hearing functioned just fine.

“I’m mute,” I said, but heard neither word, and since I couldn’t be heard, I added, “Seshat has cursed me.” That was the buffet of throat shenanigans I’d felt, which Ogma’s torc had not prevented at all.

It was a perfect curse for someone wishing to protect secrets: Ensure that whoever stole them could never speak of them. And it was also the perfect curse for a Druid, since I couldn’t bind or unbind a damn thing without the ability to speak.

My exertions must have torn something, for my stab wound from Horus began to bleed freely and now I had nothing to stop it but manual pressure, since I’d been robbed of my power to bind it closed. But of Horus himself or Seshat, I saw no sign. Perhaps they had decided to track me later and were instead assessing what had been stolen.

I did think of asking an elemental to help with Seshat’s curse, but this was the one place in the world that didn’t have one, thanks to the wizard who’d consumed the Saharan elemental for his own purposes in the time of the pharaohs. The remnants of that magic formed the Nile elemental, but I would have to travel some distance out of Alexandria to reach its sphere of influence. I retrieved the horse I’d left at a stable and joined the light traffic of people heading to Cairo. As soon as I reached the delta area—it wasn’t all that far—I dismounted and reached out to the Nile through my tattoos, which didn’t require verbalization.

//Help Druid// I said. //Heal wound Remove curse/

The healing began immediately, but the curse was a different matter. Nile finally had to ask me for clarification.

//Query: Curse?//

//Unable to speak// I explained. //Binding now impossible Curse on throat needs removing/

There was a wait and then a disheartening reply: //Cannot remove//

Elementals don’t kid around. If the Nile said it couldn’t be done, then it couldn’t. What I didn’t understand was why, so I had to ask.

//Unfamiliar magic Unbinding must be human craft/ Nile said.

I sighed in defeat. I’d have to make it all the way back to Jerusalem and hope Ogma could unbind it.

//Or iron could eat it// Nile said, and my confusion must have been broadcast plainly, because the elemental continued. //Iron elemental can consume magic Remove curse Leave tattoos I will control/

All I managed in reply was an //Okay// because I was a bit lost. My archdruid had never mentioned that anything of the kind was possible. We’d heard that there were lesser elementals running around associated with this or that, but it had never been suggested that we could communicate with them, much less ask them to be useful.

//Remain here Iron elemental on way/

That was a worrisome time, because it was most of the day before one finally arrived. I spent it being eyed suspiciously by travelers worried that I was some kind of brigand lying in wait for them. And I worried that someone would try to take advantage of me, of course, but worried more that Horus or Seshat or even Bast would find me.

Perhaps they would come for me in the night, when they could pass among humans unnoticed. Or perhaps the reason they hadn’t found me was because they truly didn’t know where to look.

I considered my mighty bag of holding, which held many treasures now. Only those of Horus were cursed with an alarm or whatever he had on them: What if that curse provided not only an alarm but a location? If that were the case, the bag was the safest place possible for them. As soon as I touched them again, Horus would know where to find me. He was simply waiting for me to finger them.

Or they could probably find me and their lost treasures through divination; I wasn’t sure how proficient the Egyptian pantheon was at the art, but I felt sure they’d find me if I remained in one place too long.

The iron elemental arrived as the sun sank burning into the sands.

//Be seated and remain still// Nile said. //Touch left hand to sand//

I did so and black iron filings crawled up my arm like ants, crested my shoulder, and encircled my neck. For a brief time they formed a solid band and constricted, but before I could communicate my panic to Nile it loosened, the filings slid back down my arm, and I could talk again.

“Gah, thank the gods below!” I said. “Except maybe Ogma. Yeah. Let’s not thank him right now.”

//Gratitude// I told Nile, and then, after a sudden thought, added a request: //Query: Can iron elemental eat magic surrounding items inside bag?//

//Query: Which items? Cannot see/

The road was clear at that moment, and no one was nearby. I upended the bag of holding over the sand, allowing the lacquered box and everything else to spill out without touching my hands. //These items Please remove magic outside them but not inside/

I appended that last because the items inside the box might be fantastically powerful, but I didn’t particularly want to be carrying around cursed items that would summon Horus as soon as they were touched.

It was done in less than a minute. In the magical spectrum the box looked completely normal, and I placed it back inside the bag with a grin.