The Tyrant's Tomb

“Never underestimate the power of thousands of human minds all
believing the same thing. They can remake reality. Sometimes for the better,
sometimes not.”
Reyna peered at the doors. “And now Harpocrates is in there. You think
he’s powerful enough to cause all our communications failures?”
“He shouldn’t be. I don’t understand how—”
“Those cables.” Meg pointed. “They’re connecting the box to the tower.
Could they be boosting his signal somehow? Maybe that’s why he’s up
here.”
Reyna nodded appreciatively. “Meg, next time I need to set up a gaming
console, I’m calling you. Maybe we could just cut the cables and not open
the box.”
I loved that idea, which was a pretty good indication it wouldn’t work.
“It won’t be enough,” I decided. “The daughter of Bellona has to open
the door to the soundless god, right? And for our ritual summoning to work,
we need the last breath of the god after his…um, soul is cut free.”
Talking about the Sibylline recipe in the safety of the praetors’ office had
been one thing. Talking about it on Sutro Tower, facing the god’s big red
shipping container, was quite another.
I felt a deep sense of unease that had nothing to do with the cold, or the
proximity of the sphere of silence, or even the zombie poison circulating in
my blood. A few moments ago, I had admitted to bullying Harpocrates. I had
decided to apologize. Then what? I would kill him for the sake of a
prophecy? Another rock plopped into the invisible cage around my head.
Meg must have felt similarly. She made her best I-don’t-wanna scowl
and started fidgeting with the tatters of her dress. “We don’t really have to…
you know, do we? I mean even if this Harpo guy is working for the
emperors…”
“I don’t think he is.” Reyna nodded toward the chains on the locking
rods. “It looks like he’s being kept in. He’s a prisoner.”
“That’s even worse,” Meg said.
From where I stood, I could just make out the white stenciled Arabic for
Alexandria on the door of the container. I imagined the Triumvirate digging
up Harpocrates from some buried temple in the Egyptian desert, wrestling
him into that box, then shipping him off to America like third-class freight.
The emperors would’ve considered Harpocrates just another dangerous,
amusing plaything, like their trained monsters and humanoid lackeys.