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17

Karim

Karim sat on the riverbank, eating bits of bread and fish and holding a speared onion over the fire he’d built for the night. He chewed each piece slowly, trying to make them last as long as he could. Behkai watched him, rigid with concentration, a long, pendulous string of drool suspended from his mouth.

Karim tried to ignore the dog, focusing instead on the flames blackening the onion skin, releasing a savory smell into the air.

Behkai let out a high, piteous whine.

“Fine! Fine!” Karim tossed him a piece of bread and a hefty chunk of fish. Behkai swallowed them without chewing, then looked back at him, hopeful for more.

“That’s all you’re getting. This food has to last us until we get to the city, and we’ve already gone through more than half of it. If you’re still hungry, go catch a rat.”

Behkai cocked his head, like he was offended by the suggestion. Snuffling, he turned around three times and curled into a tight black circle of fur by the fireside.

Karim sighed, then noticed his onion was on fire. Cursing, he quickly pulled it from the flames and blew it out. Luckily, it still looked edible, so he waited until it stopped smoldering and took a bite. The burnt skin was crispy, and the hot, savory juices inside burst in his mouth. Not bad at all. As he ate, he thought about the farm girl who had given him the food. There was something about her that stayed with him, something more than her act of kindness and the boldness of her manner. He felt as if he was always supposed to meet her on that riverbank, that it was a passage in a story already written long ago.

Karim swallowed the last bit of onion and threw the skewer into the fire. He was still having trouble reconciling his involvement in the ancient Khetaran oracle with his own spiritual beliefs. The Anen, like most of the other tribes of the Red Lands, had neither the time nor the patience for a host of fickle gods and their ill portents.

They had one god. A creator and a destroyer, both—a god of all. Any more seemed unnecessary.

The same god who protected his flock one day might slaughter it the next, just as the shepherds in his tribe might do. And as the sheep couldn’t possibly understand the reason for their fate, man couldn’t hope to understand his either. In this way, the tribes accepted the harshness of life, while celebrating blessings when they came. They knew that in the end, fate rendered its will upon you, regardless of whether you deserved it or not.

In comparison, the Khetarans’ faith seemed complicated to the point of absurdity. But if their gods were false, then how had the Oracle of the Lamb come to be? The whole situation had thrown his thoughts into disarray. How was he to know what to believe? The image of the creature standing on the riverbank was never far from his mind, though the farther they drifted from that temple in the desert, the harder it was for Karim to believe that it all had really happened.

He’d initially embarked on the voyage to Thonis because of his promise to Pa. But the closer he got to the city, the more he wanted answers for himself too.

Having finished his meal, Karim sat back and brushed the crumbs from his hands. He’d been doing a lot of thinking during those days floating down the river. Traveling on the skiff made him realize that in all his life, he’d never really been alone before. Back with the Anen, he’d always been around other men or his family—and later, with the Jackals. Other than the occasional solitary hunting expedition, there’d always been another voice in his ear. But on the river, there was nothing. Nothing but the sound of water rolling over rocks, and the urgent cries of ibis flying overhead. Other boats would often pass them by, but aside from a few polite greetings, no one stopped to talk.

When the solitude got to be too much, or when he couldn’t sleep for fear of what waited in dreams, Karim had gotten in the habit of talking to the dog. He’d talk about the weather, tell stories about his time with the Jackals, and point out interesting landmarks he saw on the way.

Behkai turned out to be quite a pleasant traveling companion. When Karim wanted quiet, Behkai either slept, cleaned himself, or stared down at the water, transfixed by the creatures he saw below. When Karim wanted to talk, Behkai sat very still and listened, his big black head cocked in a show of intense interest.

They saw many wonders along the river. White pyramids topped with gold, vast columned temples bright with color, and enormous stone kings, carved straight from the mountains, as if a thousand artists had chipped away the rock until the man inside was freed. Karim had little love for the Khetarans, but he was awestruck by the sight of their handiwork.

It was mostly at night, when darkness threw a shroud over those wonders, that bitterness set in. What had the Khetarans done to deserve a river that offered unending bounty and asked nothing in return? What earned them the gift of greatness?

Is this what it looked like—the other side of destiny? Would the Khetarans’ good fortune really last forever? His cynical side—the side that was always waiting for the next raid, the next pestilence, the next unexpected catastrophe—told him no. Nothing lasts forever. No matter how tall their monuments or how beautiful their tombs, fate, Karim knew, would come for them all.

***

Behkai was growling.

Karim’s eyes fluttered open, having nearly slipped into a doze. The fire had burned down to embers, and only glowed enough to light a small circle around them. He glanced over at the dog, who’d gotten up and was standing at attention, growling deep in his throat at something in the darkness. Karim sat up at once, scooping some of the embers into his torch until a steady flame rose from it. Then Karim was at Behkai’s side, squinting in the direction of the dog’s gaze.

Probably a snake—or a jackal , he thought mildly, but the wild beating of his heart betrayed him. He swung the torch slowly from left to right, illuminating a boulder, a cluster of thorny shrubs, the jagged remains of a tamarisk tree sticking out from the ground like a broken tooth, and—

Something moved.

He scrabbled at his waist, feeling for the knife in his belt. He found it and pulled it free, holding the blade out in front of him. It trembled.

No, it’s not possible . He’d traveled so far… farther than any man from his tribe had ever gone, and the river was swift.

A hint of sweat appeared on his brow. He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself not to imagine the creature whose image had been burned into his mind that night at Pa’s temple, the creature he seemed to see in every shadow.

Karim cursed himself for allowing his fear to take control.

Stop it , he commanded, swinging the torch back around and finding only sand and emptiness. Nothing could have followed you here on foot at that speed. Nothing. Not even—

He froze.

A figure stood in front of the thorny shrubs. It hadn’t been there a moment before.

A man.

The figure was cloaked in rough robes of indeterminate color, his face shrouded under a ragged hood. For a moment, Karim felt relief. This couldn’t be the creature he’d seen in the desert that had killed Djet in the depths of the earth.

But then, then…

The firelight reached the man’s hands. The skin was dark with decay, his curling, skeletal fingers capped with golden tips. His feet were clad in fine leather sandals inlaid with gold, sandals far too fine for a man such as this. Strips of fine linen wrappings, soiled with time, their ends shredded, dragged serpentine along the ground behind him, trailing from the body beneath the robe—

The wind blew off the river, filling the man’s hood like a sail and allowing the firelight to reach his face.

Suddenly, despite being outside, surrounded by endless space, Karim felt as if he were back in the press of that suffocating tomb, with its walls closing in around him. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t scream.

As a child in the Red Lands, Karim often imagined the face of fate, the grim visage that followed in your footsteps all your life, waiting for the moment you finally belonged to him.

That was the face that peered out from behind the shroud.

A gaunt, hairless, desiccated face, its skin stretched taut over a skull exposed in places to reveal sinew stretching between cheeks and mouth. No visible eyes looked back at him from the two black gaping holes, but only twin glints of reflected firelight, glittering with malice.

Somewhere in the distance, a jackal howled.

Then, as if the sound had broken a spell, the creature took a step forward.

Behkai shot past Karim, tearing toward the creature with a ferocious snarl.

“Behkai, no!” Karim shouted, finally finding his voice.

He imagined the dog crashing through the specter, revealing it to be nothing but a loose cloth held up by a bundle of dry sticks, a false man constructed to scare away predators. But instead, the thing reached out, grabbed a fistful of scruff behind the dog’s neck, and hurled Behkai away as if he weighed nothing at all. The dog slammed into a boulder, yelping in pain before sliding to the ground and lying still.

Karim stared at Behkai’s body in shock.

The creature took another step forward. And another.

Karim should have run. Should have bolted back to the skiff and left everything behind. He might have made it too. But something had overtaken him, something stronger than terror.

Rage.

In one fluid motion, he lobbed the flaming embers inside his torch at the creature. The rough fibers of its robe caught instantly and began to burn. The thing hissed, throwing off its smoking robes, revealing the horror of a half-wrapped mummified body beneath. Where the skin of its chest had worn away, a network of gray tendon and muscle crisscrossed, and beneath that, a hollow cage of bone. An intricate scarab collar hung around its neck, and an ornamental pendant depicting the same doglike creature he’d seen in the tomb—with a downturned snout and tall, blunted ears—hung from a gold belt looped loosely around its waist.

The creature turned its head toward Karim, light still burning in the hollows of its eyes. With a chilling, unearthly roar, it lunged for him.

But Karim was ready. Sidestepping the creature’s reach, Karim used its forward momentum to thrust his dagger deep into its abdomen, and then upward into its chest cavity. But the dagger found little purchase with no flesh to pierce or tear. Karim stabbed again and again, but the creature took no notice. It reached up, its bony, gold-tipped fingers closing around Karim’s throat.

The creature’s grip was so strong, so abruptly suffocating, that the dagger slipped from Karim’s fingers. He raked at its hands, using every bit of his own strength to try and pry them off his neck.

Already his head felt light and swollen with blood, each pump of his heart pulsing through his eyes as he stared into the gruesome face of the creature.

It has a name , he thought as he felt his body grow limp, his defensive blows growing weaker and weaker with every passing moment. A name he’d whispered into the night. A name like a curse.

Setnakht.

The monster held on to him as he collapsed to the ground, his vision blurring at the edges, the roar of wind in his ears. Dimly, he felt one of its hands release his throat and move to his torso, ripping his robes aside and exposing his bare chest.

What is it doing?

But before he could wonder further, there was a blur in his fading vision. Something lay in the shadows just behind where the creature knelt over him, like a wild dog hunched over its kill. It was small and white and darkly wet, and it regarded him with huge black eyes.

A bloody lamb.

“Not yet,” the lamb whispered in his mind. “Not yet.”

Karim’s eyes fluttered, and the vision vanished.

The creature’s hand was on Karim’s chest, its fingers digging into his flesh. But with its concentration no longer on strangling him, the grip on his throat loosened enough for Karim to get a little air, a little strength. Where the lamb had been, he spotted a single smoldering ember, just within reach. He grabbed it, ignoring the searing pain in his hand, and pushed it straight into the creature’s face.

The mummified skin around the ember hissed as it burned away, and the creature let out an earsplitting howl. Releasing its hold on Karim’s throat, it rose up, scrabbling at the smoking hole in its face.

Wasting no time, Karim got to his feet and, with a guttural cry, charged at the creature. He struck it with his shoulder and wrapped his arms about its waist as he drove it back, back, until they both fell.

They never hit the ground.

There was a dry, splintering sound, and Karim felt something sharp nearly drive up into his belly. Nimbly, he twisted his body, rolling off the creature and onto the sand below. The impact drove the little breath he had left straight from his lungs, but he didn’t stay down. Jumping back up, he squared his shoulders, anticipating another attack. But none came.

He’d impaled the creature on the broken stump of the tamarisk tree. The thick, jagged blade of wood cut a gaping hole through its body and reached, bloodless, to the night sky. The ember had burned away half of the remaining skin on the monster’s face, exposing naked bone and charred sinew beneath. Karim stared, agog and gasping, into the deafening silence of the desert. He kept his distance, waiting for the figure to rise up and come for him again.

Minutes passed, and still Karim waited. He coughed, spitting bile, which lit his bruised throat on fire. But still the creature didn’t move. Shuffling a little closer, Karim kicked once, twice, driving it farther onto the spike of wood.

Nothing.

Karim allowed himself a whimper of relief. He stumbled over to Behkai, who lay in a pool of starlight. The dog hadn’t moved since the monster had kicked him.

Karim looked down at the animal’s body and sniffed, wiping at his eyes.

“Curse you,” he said, his voice thick. “Why did you have to attack it? Stupid, fool dog.”

Without Behkai there to help lift it, the silence was too heavy.

Karim dropped to his knees and laid a hand on Behkai’s chest.

It rose and fell.

Karim’s heart soared. “Hey! Hey! Are you alive?” He bent low, pulling the dog’s face toward him and rubbing it vigorously. “Come on, sen, stay with me. Stay with me, you fool dog!”

A long, long moment passed.

Then Behkai’s eyes dragged open. He blinked, and licked Karim on the mouth.

“Ugh,” Karim sputtered, “Disgusting.” Behkai’s tail wagged weakly, and Karim rubbed him behind the ears. “Good boy,” he whispered.

Behkai attempted to rise to his feet but whined with the movement and lay back down.

“Stay,” Karim told him, holding up a hand.

With effort, he gathered the big dog into his arms. He carried him back to the skiff, Behkai’s long legs sticking comically into the air. After getting the dog settled on a blanket, he ran back to gather the rest of the supplies, and then pulled anchor, pushing back onto the gentle current of the river.

It was only then, once they’d left that cursed bit of desert behind them, that Karim allowed himself to feel the pain and exhaustion that had been waiting on the other side of terror. His body felt numb and heavy. He slid down to the floor of the skiff alongside the dog. Behkai was already asleep, his warm, silken body a comfort against the brisk night air.

Karim closed his eyes, subconsciously pressing his cheek against the back of Behkai’s great black head, grateful both to be alive and not alone.

***

A sound woke him, or rather, a thousand sounds.

The sun had been up for hours by the time Karim opened his eyes. Blinking into the glare of day, he rose to find an astonishing sight. Instead of the emptiness of the Red Lands, the rolling fields of farmland, or the vast Khetaran temple complexes he’d been accustomed to seeing from the river, the skiff was approaching a city on the east bank. A city so huge, so spectacular, and so white , that he thought that he was still dreaming. He’d floated past other towns and villages on his journey, but none that rivaled this one.

Among the thousands of flat-topped white structures stretching as far as the eye could see, bursts of color splashed across walls and temples and towers pointed with electrum. There was more color too, from flowering trees and bushes to crowds of people in vivid robes of red, blue, and green. The whole of it was like a tremendous canvas painted joyously with moving, breathing life.

This was Thonis. Capital city of Khetara.

“Wake up, Behkai,” he breathed. “We’ve arrived.”

Drinking in the miraculous scene, Karim wondered if he could finally stop running, or if he’d merely traded one kind of danger for another.