Page 13

9

Karim

Karim could have slept the whole morning—maybe even the entire day—except something was licking him.

“Ugh,” he grunted, opening his eyes to see the black dog standing over him, slathering his face in slobber. Karim propped himself up on an elbow and shoved the dog’s snout aside with one hand. Behkai, not to be dissuaded, started licking his hand instead. “Get away, will you?”

Karim sat up from his makeshift bed on the ground. He winced as his body not-so-subtly reminded him of the previous day’s activities.

Finally taking the hint, the dog sat on his haunches and regarded Karim, head tilted, tongue lolling.

“Don’t be angry with Behkai,” Pa said from where he sat nearby, finishing his breakfast. “You’re the one who overslept.”

“Overslept? The sun has barely risen.” Karim groaned. His body felt like a rug that had gotten the dust beaten out of it. With a stick. Named Babu.

The old priest plucked something from his bowl and threw it at him. It bounced off Karim’s head, but he caught it before it could fall to the ground. A date. Pa tossed another date into his mouth, chewed it, and spit the seed onto the sand. “Then we are not yet too late. Break your fast and make it quick. The least you can do is make yourself useful while you’re here. The gods would not be pleased with you thieving their time, as well as their dead.”

Karim touched his knuckle to his nose in thanks and gobbled up a few dates and a chunk of bread, washing it down with a cup of sweet beer. Behkai stared at him the entire time with huge soulful eyes, until Karim relented and tossed him the crust. The dog caught it in his mouth and swallowed it without chewing. Or tasting, probably.

Pa tutted. “Now you’ve done it. He’ll never give you peace again.” The old priest stood, stretched his creaky legs, and turned toward the temple. “Come along now. We have much to do.”

Karim stood—carefully—and followed the priest up seven stone steps, the dog padding at his heels. He passed under the archway and into the dim temple, where the air was cool and somehow heavier, smelling richly of cedarwood and flowers in late bloom. Despite his distaste for the Khetarans and their gods, Karim felt his body tense in response, as if he was in the presence of some powerful force. His life, thus far, had been practically bereft of awe, but even he recognized that if magic had a smell, a sensation—this was it.

Four square support columns stood at the center of the hall, a stone altar between them. Light streamed in from between the exterior columns, illuminating a tidy gathering of items on the altar—small stone jars of various sizes and colors, a neatly folded pile of linen, and bowls of more dates, bread, beer, and water. Pa stood at the altar, humming, gathering some of the items onto a round ceramic tray. Karim cast his eyes around the hall, amazed at the profusion of color and design painted on every surface. On one wall, a parade of boats carried standing gods across a field of blue, while on another, fantastic beasts roamed—winged snakes, a bird with a crocodile face, and a man with a donkey’s body and a scorpion’s tail. But although the paintings were in fairly good condition, Karim could see that the temple was old—the color faded in places where the sun shined brightest, and crumbling in dark corners where the light didn’t reach. He could hardly imagine how splendid it must have been in its heyday.

“Well?” Pa asked, hefting the clattering tray into his arms. “Are you going to help me, or are you going to stand there like a goose?”

“Oh—um, yes,” Karim grabbed the pile of linen and bowl of water that remained, nearly upsetting it in his haste.

“For gods’ sake, be careful!” the priest barked. He examined Karim critically, taking in his stained robes, stubbled chin, and sleep-mussed hair. He frowned. “You’re filthier than the dog, but I suppose it can’t be helped. Better to come into the god’s house with dirty feet than to never visit at all. Come on, thief. Khnum forgive me…” He then made his way toward the far side of the temple, where three more steps led to a curtained inner sanctum. Karim followed obediently, setting the items down just inside the curtain as directed by the priest.

“Only I may enter the holy of holies and approach the god. You must remain here until I’m finished,” Pa commanded. He glanced meaningfully toward the palm stem broom leaning against the wall. “I encourage you to stay busy and earn your keep.” With that, he vanished beyond the veil.

Sighing, Karim took up the broom and began sweeping sand into a little pile. Behkai, seemingly accustomed to this daily ritual, turned three times and curled up in a sunbeam. Soon, the sound of Pa’s voice filled the air.

“Greetings to you, O Khnum!” he chanted. “Divine Potter, who shapes all men on his Wheel! Look north upon a new day!”

Curious, Karim crept back to the curtain and peeked through the edges, trying to get a glimpse of what lay within. The priest knelt on the floor, alternately kissing the ground and raising his arms into the air. Before him stood a golden statue in the shape of a crowned, ram-headed man, surrounded by cups of burning incense and the various offerings from the tray. Karim’s eyes bugged at the sight of all that gold. How has the old man kept such a treasure from being stolen all these years? Then he remembered how comfortable Pa seemed wielding that spear and wondered how many other “thieves” like himself had perished at the end of it.

The gold wasn’t the only unique feature. The ram-headed statue also had four faces, each pointing in a different direction.

Talk about an all-seeing god , Karim thought.

Pa continued, “Greetings O Khnum, Lord of the Great River! Look south upon a new day!” He rose and began wrapping the linens around the statue, as if clothing it.

Having seen enough, Karim wandered away from the door, sweeping absently and thinking about what he was going to do next. Was it worth the risk of trading some of the tomb’s treasures in the nearest city? Or should he lie low and look for work in the next village? He darkened at the thought of herding sheep, after all his attempts to avoid doing just that.

Such were his thoughts when his gaze fell upon a scene on the wall. “What…?” he breathed, moving closer to the painting.

The scene showed a man with one arm outstretched, as if summoning something. Unlike the other figures on the wall, his skin was a different shade of red ochre, his chin bearded, his robe long and dark. The man stood before a long black box marked with what Pa had called a “shenu”—an oval with a line across one end. Inside the shenu were two symbols. There might have been others, but time had worn them away. Karim recognized the symbols immediately—the folded cloth, the loaf of bread. They were the same ones engraved on the amulet he’d taken from Setnakht’s tomb.

“Greetings O Khnum, God of Hidden Things, Father of Mystery,” Pa’s voice rang out. “Look east upon a new day!”

Karim’s heart began to pound. What made him almost run from that place was not the symbols, but the man. Despite the strange Khetaran style, the simplicity of line and color, Karim recognized him.

“Greetings O Khnum, protector of the living and the dead, who sets every soul on their path! Look west upon a new day!”

The broom slipped from Karim’s hand and clattered to the floor as every thought fled his mind but one.

That man is me.

***

Karim still hadn’t moved by the time the old priest completed his rituals. He remained in front of his likeness, his mind attempting to make sense of what he was seeing.

There was a scraping sound as Pa pushed the tray of offerings out through the curtain, and then emerged from the inner sanctum backwards, bent low, sweeping away his footsteps as he went. When he straightened, he saw Karim’s stare.

“I wondered when you’d find it,” he said with an enigmatic smile.

Karim suddenly felt trapped and confused. He still did not trust the priest, and with the appearance of such strange magic, he trusted him even less. He considered bolting—the old man would be hard-pressed to stop him—but in the end, his curiosity won out. “That… that picture,” he stammered, glancing back at the image. “It…”

Pa patted the perspiration from his forehead with a clean cloth. “It looks remarkably like you, doesn’t it?”

Karim felt as if the floor had dropped out from under him. “You knew about this?” he exclaimed.

The priest scoffed. “Of course I did. I know every fingerbreadth of this temple like the back of my own hand. The moment I saw the engraving on that stone of yours, I knew Khnum had sent you to me. The first two symbols match the wall exactly, and the man in the painting is your perfect likeness. I wasn’t prepared to tell you about it right away, though, not before I knew you wouldn’t murder me in the night. Thieves like you can’t be trusted. But now that you’ve found it, I might as well tell you everything. After all, you’re part of this now.”

Karim fought a wave of dizziness as the priest’s words swirled around his mind. It was almost too much to take in, and so unexpected that he hardly knew how to react. “Part of what?” He gestured at the wall. “I hail from the Red Lands, hey? These are not my ways. If you could please… explain what this is?”

“It’s the oracle I mentioned to you last night, given to us by Khnum himself. The Oracle of the Lamb.”

“‘Oracle?’” he repeated. He’d heard Pa use the word but didn’t quite understand what it meant.

“It’s a, hmm,” the priest said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, “a message from the divine. A foretelling of our future, yes? Like I said, it was the reason this temple was constructed more than a thousand years ago. It shows four scenes surrounding a central image, and a bit of writing along the left side of the wall.” He pointed to the central image of a lamb with a bloody wound in its side. A man knelt before it, his arms raised in reverence.

“Look here,” the priest went on. “Above the dying lamb is the symbol of Khnum, a ram—meaning that this creature represents the god on earth. And above the man is a mesedjer—an ear. Which tells us that the man is meant to listen to the word of Khnum and bring his message to the people.”

“So, what’s the message?” Karim asked, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

Pa cleared his throat. “That is not so easy to answer. Not that I and a hundred priests before me haven’t tried. The writing here is quite vague and open to much interpretation.” He began to read from the writing on the side of the images.

“‘Beware,’ it says, ‘for soon the Great River of Khetara will turn to blood. Lies will grow fruitful as wheat in the fields, and where once there was order, chaos will reign. A secret shall rise from beneath the earth, and the Red and the White Crowns will be forever broken.’

“It goes on a bit more about general disaster, but nothing in the way of dates, names, or specific details. Other than that, all we have to go on are these four scenes that surround the central image.”

Karim’s stomach twisted at the ominous words, but before he could think more about it, Pa continued, pointing to the scene painted directly above the lamb. Three figures stood in profile, two men and one woman standing between them.

“I believe these are King Amunmose’s three children: Meryamun, marked with a red cobra; Sitamun, marked with a black cobra; and Bakenamun, marked with the seated Anubis animal. Though I cannot tell you why Sitamun is painted larger than the other two. Perhaps she is connected to the oracle in a way her brothers are not?”

“What’s that she’s holding?” Karim asked, squinting at what looked like a jar with square handles on either side.

“That is an ieb—a heart. That which is weighed against the feather of Maat at the time of judgment.” He sighed. “You know, I went to the king seventeen years ago, once the news of his children’s miraculous birth reached me. Triplets! Clearly, it was a sign that the oracle would come to pass during their lifetime. It was my duty as a Priest of Khnum to tell the pharaoh. So I left this place under guard and traveled to Thonis to see him. But when I was finally granted an audience, he dismissed the oracle entirely!”

“‘Khnum has no power in the City of Amun,’ the king sneered, as if I were some common spell-scroll salesman from the market. ‘It has nothing to do with me or my family.’ He accused me of darkening his house with gloom and sent me away, commanding me never to return.” Pa sneered with obvious disgust. “The fool! He calls himself a god-king, but he is nothing but a pretender.”

His dread deepening, Karim studied the image below the lamb. It depicted a group of men, some wielding spears and knives, some on their knees with their wrists bound behind their backs, and others prostrate on the ground, felled by their enemies’ arrows. All the figures wore identical white schentis except for one—a woman in a white sheath dress, who was painted larger than the men.

“What kind of weapon is that?” Karim indicated the blunted spear in the woman’s hand.

“Not a weapon, exactly,” Pa answered. “It’s a sekhem scepter, a symbol of Sekhmet, the lion goddess. Whosoever holds it is said to wield great power and strength. Sekhmet is the warlike side of Bast, the patron goddess of Bubas. The two are like day and night—one loving, one fierce—but both great protectors, particularly of women and children.” He pointed. “Bast herself appears in the third scene on the right.”

In it, a cat-headed goddess placed a feather above a bald-headed child.

“The feather of Maat?” Karim guessed.

Pa nodded. “Not bad for a thief,” he said approvingly. “The child appears to be a priest of some kind, though it would be rare for one so young, and a girl too.”

They were both silent as they gazed once again at the painting to the left of the lamb, of the man and the black box. Karim desperately wanted to believe everything the priest had told him was superstitious Khetaran nonsense, but he couldn’t deny the image right before his eyes. It was undeniably him, and it had apparently been there for more than a thousand years.

He remembered the relentless pull he’d felt toward the tomb back in the valley. Was it his gift for finding treasure that brought him to that hidden door? Or something else?

“You must tell me everything that happened down in that tomb,” Pa pressed him. “You promised to give me answers—now is the time to deliver them. I cannot stress how important it is not to miss a single detail, thief. It could be important.”

Karim sighed. “As you wish,” and he began the story.

He told Pa about the hidden door. About the treasure room and the chariots and the wine. He told him about the statue and the little soldiers, and the black coffin where he found the amulet. But when it came time to tell the priest about the blood, and the dark presence that rose from its grave, Karim hesitated.

He glanced back at the painting, a testament to his crime. In the rendering, the man’s expression was passive as he reached out to whatever was hidden inside the box. I didn’t really summon it, did I? I know nothing of Khetaran magic. How could I have done such a thing? All I did was open the box! He rubbed his finger, still smarting from where he’d cut it on the chisel.

“Well?” Pa asked, impatient. “Is there more?”

Karim opened his mouth to continue, but found himself saying, “No, that’s all. Djet went back with the other Jackals after we fought, and that was the last I saw of him.”

Liar.

Pa regarded him with suspicion. “Are you sure there’s nothing else?”

Karim shook his head.

Coward.

He wasn’t exactly sure what kept him from telling Pa the whole story. Fear of retribution? Of judgment? Or perhaps it was simply easier to tell a version of the story where he hadn’t released a terrible curse into the world. A story where Djet hadn’t died alone in the dark.

He shivered, remembering the chill he’d felt down in the tomb, when he’d been certain the thing had been lurking just behind him. Where is it now? he wondered.

“Do you really believe all this will come to pass?” he asked Pa. “That Khetara could be destroyed?”

“The oracle only foretells the beginning of the story,” Pa replied gravely. “It’s up to us to decide how it ends.”

***

Karim spent the rest of the morning helping Pa with his chores and listening to him make grand plans about his future—and Karim’s too.

“I’ll leave for Thonis first thing in the morning,” Pa said as they pulled the day’s water up from the well. “After we finish this, I’ll go tell my friend in the village that I need him to watch over the temple while I’m gone.”

“Wait a minute,” Karim said. “I thought you were too old to travel. You said so yourself.”

Pa batted the words away. “I’ve changed my mind. After hearing what you’ve had to say, I can see this is too important to ignore. Besides, until you brought me that amulet, I never had the full name of the king engraved on the temple wall. It was incomplete, you see. Now, we know the name of Setnakht. We need to visit the Great Temple of Amun for answers about him, and at least try to get another audience with the king. If he won’t see me, perhaps one of his children will. Perhaps the princess herself, since she’s clearly involved in the oracle somehow.” He spoke quickly, more to himself than to Karim.

“Did you say ‘we?’” Karim retorted. “What makes you think I’m going with you on this expedition, hey?”

Pa turned on him. “Have you not listened to a word I’ve said? This oracle foretells disaster on a grand scale! Perhaps you care nothing for Khetara, but how about your own people? Do you really think the coming war and bloodshed will leave your fellow tribesmen unscathed? Is that a risk you’re willing to take? Spreading Khnum’s word is my life’s work, thief, and if you care at all about the future of this land, you’ll accept that it’s yours now too.”

Karim rubbed his temples. He wanted an excuse to get out of this obligation but found that he had none. Although he worried for his family and would have loved to raise a small army to go back and slaughter Babu, he knew that returning home wasn’t an option. Not yet, at least. So why not go north? Even if the priest’s mission failed, Karim could probably make a small fortune trading the rest of his treasures at the Thonis market, which he knew was the largest in the land.

“I’ll come with you to Thonis,” he said, “But that’s all. If you don’t find the answers that you’re looking for, we part ways.”

Pa looked relieved. “Good.” He dried his wet hands on his tunic. “Perhaps if we’re lucky, Khnum will place the other two people from the oracle in our path. Each of you have a role to play, you see.”

Karim shrugged. “Whatever you say, sen. How are we getting there, anyway? Isn’t Thonis far north of here?”

“I have a fishing skiff moored by the river. We’ll bring supplies to eat on the way, so we don’t have to stop to trade. Of course, you’ll have to share yours with the dog.”

Karim glanced over to Behkai, who was watching him from the steps of the temple. “You put me on the same level as the dog?”

“Oh, you are below the dog, my friend,” Pa replied. “The dog begs , but he does not steal.”

They worked until the sun set. Karim was so exhausted he barely tasted his dinner. Who knew that a priest’s work was so hard? As soon as it was finished, he lay on his mat and was asleep. The next day promised to be a long one.

***

The dog woke him.

Karim sat up with a gasp. It was still full dark, the desert lit only by moonlight. Behkai was barking. Karim looked around, but he couldn’t see the dog or the priest anywhere. Perhaps Pa had gone to make water, as old men often have to do in the night, and Behkai had gone to guard him from predators. But as Karim turned over to go back to sleep, the barking continued, transforming from a guttural alarm to a shrill, yelping cry. Dog or not, Karim knew that sound.

Behkai was afraid.

A terrible thought struck him. What if Babu and Hager tracked me here? Have they been lying in wait to attack?

Scrambling to his feet, Karim ignored the aches and pains in his body and ran toward the sound, the blue amulet heavy against his leg.

“Pa!” he shouted into the murk.

The temple glowed white in the moonlight. Karim dashed along its western wall, listening for the old man’s response.

Nothing.

“Pasenhor!”

Behkai’s cries became more frantic.

Perhaps if he’d had time to think, or if he hadn’t still been half asleep, Karim would have been more cautious. Perhaps he wouldn’t have announced himself. Instead, he ran straight toward the front of the building, right out into the open path leading to the temple steps.

Behkai, blacker than the night itself, stood guard there, his back arched, tail tucked between his legs, his teeth bared as he barked at something Karim couldn’t see. Beside him, lying in a pool of moonlight, was Pa.

“No…” Karim rushed to the priest’s side.

The dog wheeled toward him, mistaking him for another threat, and lunged, snarling.

“Hey! Hey!” Karim exclaimed, backing away. “It’s me, sen,” he said softly, reaching out a hand as a peace offering. “Just me.”

The dog sniffed him and began to whine, keeping his eyes trained on the two stone pillars flanking the path, their tops marked with pyramids pointing to the sky.

“It’s all right. It’s all right,” Karim murmured, rubbing the dog behind the ears. He dropped to his knees next to the old priest, fearing what he would find, but Pa didn’t seem to have a single wound on his body. Karim gently lifted his head from the ground. The priest’s skin was cold and clammy, but his mouth was moving, as if in silent prayer.

He was alive.

“Pasenhor! Wake up, holy man. Wake up, your god still needs you. We have a long trip, tomorrow, remember?”

The priest’s eyes fluttered before focusing on him.

“Thief.”

The word was barely audible, more a memory than a whisper.

“What happened to you? Come on, get up. Let’s get you back to the temple, you need water—”

The priest shook his head. He strained, his neck muscles bulging, struggling to speak. Karim bent so his ear was close to the man’s lips.

“You lied to me.”

Karim’s whole body tensed. “What do you mean?”

“Something happened in that… tomb,” the priest gasped.

Karim shook his head, desperate to deny the truth. “No, I didn’t do anything, I didn’t—”

“‘A secret shall rise from beneath the earth,’” the priest quoted. “It’s in the oracle. I should have… known…”

Karim’s heart began to race. Behkai hadn’t moved, and was watching the shadows, a growl deep in his throat.

Someone did follow me. But it wasn’t Hager or Babu.

“It’s too late now. It’s… here.”

In a panic, Karim grabbed the priest under his arms, trying to drag him to his feet.

“We have to go, old man. Come on—”

Suddenly, the priest cried out in pain. “Don’t move me!” he insisted, grimacing. It was only then that Karim noticed his teeth were tinged with blood. “Don’t…”

“What?” Karim exclaimed, scrambling back as a gush of dark blood spilled from beneath the priest’s body, as if by lifting him, Karim had unstopped a bottle of wine that was now pouring freely onto the sand. In a matter of seconds, Pa’s face had gone from pale to deathly gray.

Karim went cold. He’d only glimpsed it for an instant—but that was enough. There was a small hole, deep and fatal, in the priest’s back. As if someone had come up behind Pa and punched straight through his flesh to the soft viscera within.

“Nothing to be done now,” the priest said, the words garbled and wet. A thin trail of blood slipped from his lips as he spoke, but somehow he still had the strength to grasp Karim by his robes and pull him close.

“Now get out of here, thief,” he said with gruesome ferocity, “Quickly, while you still can. And promise me you will go to Thonis and do as I meant to do!”

“I promise! I promise!” Karim sputtered, alarmed and afraid.

“It gives me… no pleasure to leave this in your hands.” The priest’s voice weakened with every word. “But I have no choice. There is no one… you must… the oracle…”

The priest’s body went slack, his eyes stilled on Karim’s face.

The blood beneath him had grown to an immense black pool.

Karim lowered the priest’s head back to the ground, his heart hammering. Behkai whimpered next to him and nuzzled his master’s hand.

All around them, the desert mourned in silence.

Then, one of the shadows moved.

Karim jumped to his feet, nearly stumbling over the dead man’s legs in his haste. He squinted into the gloom beyond the stone column, desperate to discern the shape of his enemy. From within the darkness, two eyes flashed.

Terror seized him, like fingers around his throat.

With a strangled sound, Karim took one step back, and then another, before turning and running as fast as he could. He tore back the way he came, Behkai galloping at his side, stopping only to grab his readied pack from beside the sleeping mats.

He ran toward the river, the khamasin wind pulling at his robes as he crested the dunes, his chest burning with exhaustion, the primal terror like lightning in his veins.

He only dared to look back once, squinting into the biting wind. What he saw, bathed in moonlight, burned itself onto his memory, its afterimage appearing like a phantom every time he closed his eyes.

It pursued him, as inevitable as death itself.

The river came into view, a dark glittering serpent winding its way to the horizon. Karim nearly tumbled down the dune toward it, the dog nimbly leaping along beside him. He spied Pa’s fishing skiff pulled ashore nearby, constructed of little more than bundles of dried papyrus reeds molded into a boat shape, one end turned up like a scorpion’s tail. Without hesitation, Karim tore its mooring from the ground, tossed his pack aboard, and jumped on.

Hoisting the single wooden oar into his hands, Karim was about to push away from the shore when he saw Behkai standing on the riverbank, panting, eyes brimming with fear.

“Absolutely not,” Karim said with finality, “I don’t have time for a pet.”

The dog whined. His pointed ears flattened along the sides of his head.

A shadow rose over the nearest dune, growing closer.

Karim cursed. “I am going to regret this.” He grabbed the dog by the scruff and hauled him onboard. Behkai licked his face, and cursing again, Karim pushed away the dog’s snout and snatched up the oar. With one mighty shove, he pushed the skiff into the current and began feverishly rowing away from the riverbank.

The creature stood on the edge of the water, watching them drift downriver, north toward Thonis.

Karim didn’t stop rowing until he could no longer see it, until it had melted back into the shadows and vanished into the night.