Read Online Another Pan by Daniel Nayeri - Free Book Online

Elan’s only son. Elan fell to his knees, the screams of his wife and daughter fading behind the thundering in his head
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    Then, through the blur of tears and aging eyes, past the sandaled feet of the guards, he saw the rich robes of Akhara. “Slaves do not make bargains,” said the high official. “No slave should fancy himself so strong, or he and his sons will be cut down. But you have done good work, and I am a just man. I will marry your daughter as fair compensation.”
    Elan and his wife were returned to a life of slavery. His daughter, Jobey, was swept away by the guards, and Elan never saw her again. She might have been his legacy, but she was stripped of his name, of his heritage, and of his God. She was not free, but a slave to a cruel husband
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    For years, Elan wallowed in the fact that his life’s work had been for nothing and that he would have no legacy. His children’s children would be swallowed up by Egypt, their blood diluted long after he was dust. To Elan, that was the greatest injustice of all. The bitterness devoured his soul. He died with his life trapped in his bones
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    But Elan’s daughter did not forget her father. When he died, she asked her servants to steal his body and take it to the tomb that he had built with his own hands for the thief Akhara. There, she mummified his body, preserving his bones and all the venom they contained. The body of the old man rested in Akhara’s tomb undetected until the story of Elan the builder passed to legend, and the magic that he held with him found its way to the goddess of death
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    When Akhara died a few years later, his family finally discovered that the great tomb had been used. They found pieces of Elan’s burial clothes and a few of his remaining belongings, but they could not find his body. Elan’s daughter, too, was shocked to see that her father was gone. For desecrating Akhara’s tomb before his death, Elan’s daughter was put to death, and her children were given to Akhara’s other wives. The women were ordered never to speak of the children’s true heritage. As for Elan, the goddess of death had already taken the old man’s mummy, and the first bonedust with it. She shielded it with her greatest weapons, fearing that someday death might be conquered. The Dark Lady hid the mummy in a place where no one could reach it, a legendary labyrinth of the Gates, guarded by powerful deities that no human could overcome
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    And so, Elan was gone, his legacy lost. But he can never fully die. His wasted life is forever trapped as grains of immortality in his bones
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Peter sat alone on the front lawn of Marlowe watching kids in sports gear rushing this way and that, teachers heading home, and that Darling girl playing around with her boyfriend, the lacrosse player. He wondered if she’d ever had any other boyfriends, a pretty girl like that. He wondered what she really wanted — how much effort it would take him to pluck her away.
    Soon it was dusk and all the kids cleared out of the school, all the sports ended, and the Darling girl went home, too. Peter sat on the lawn — even after the dark overtook the school and that fearful part of him began to shiver.
    The Dark Lady was present. Peter could feel it. She had drawn him here. And now the school would begin to change. It would become like the world below, because now it was linked to that world. The fog would seep into every crevice and slowly infect Marlowe, just as it had done to every other place the book had been. The air would become harder to breathe. The walls would grow moldy and unwelcoming. Everything that was once fresh would become rancid and spoiled. Peter could see it happening now. It would start with just a feeling, and soon not a single happy thought would remain.
    Across the lawn, Peter spied a matronly nurse in a blue sweater set walking toward the girls’ dorm. She swept across the lawn lithely, quietly, moving the way his own nanny had all those years ago. The nanny who