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Nefermaat led Karim to a large airy chamber, lit by sunlight that poured in through broad windows on the far wall. As they approached the room, Karim’s senses were assaulted by the smell of fragrant spices and salt, so powerful that it made his eyes water. A table ran along one wall, covered with tools arrayed in orderly lines—jars of various sizes, grass brushes fastened with palm leaf, sharp flakes of obsidian, and two thin metal shafts—one with a sharp end, and one that looked like a very long spoon. In the corner of the room, Karim was surprised to see the same sacks that the long-faced vendor and his donkey had just delivered.

Natron for the embalmers.

He shivered, understanding that grim collection must be for acting out the Khetaran embalming ritual. It was exceptionally strange, particularly in contrast to his people’s custom of burying their dead within the day and marking the grave with a bed of stones. But strange though it was, the practice was also familiar. He’d seen its results dozens of times inside the tombs he’d robbed. Still, coming upon the thousand-year-old mummies out in dark desert caves was one thing. Seeing an embalming performed in person was quite another.

A small, slight young man stood with his back to them in the middle of the chamber. He wore a long schenti belted at the waist and nothing more, and Karim could clearly see the bones of his spine as he bent over the stiff, desiccated corpse in front of him. It was the body of an elderly woman, held aloft by two pedestals. Her arms were crossed demurely over her chest, and her long, neatly braided gray hair curled over one shoulder like a cat’s tail. Her skin had turned the color of earth and shone with a coating of fragrant resin. The man was carefully wrapping the woman with inscribed bandages, the roll unwinding as he passed it over and under her body with practiced precision. He was so focused on his task that he didn’t notice their arrival.

“Kenna?” Nefermaat said softly.

The young man stopped and turned to look at them. He had a severe, ill-proportioned face—the nose too big, the chin too sharp, the neck too long. He reminded Karim of a vulture hunching over carrion in the desert.

“Neff,” Kenna said, the skin around his eyes crinkling with pleasure. Then, his gaze flicked to Karim and turned curious. “Who’s this?”

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” the girl replied. “But I was hoping you’d be able to help my friend. He needs to find information about an old king who seems to have been erased from the public records. A pharaoh named Setnakht. He thinks there might be mention of him in our House of Life.”

Kenna gently set down his roll of wrappings on the dead woman’s abdomen. “Your friend …” he said with obvious suspicion.

“Greetings to you,” Karim said with a nod. “I’ve come a very long way to be here, and I’d deeply appreciate your assistance.”

“A long way, yes,” Kenna replied, studying him. “You’ve just come off the river. I’m sure your dog was pleased to be ashore after such a lengthy journey.”

Karim was thunderstruck. Did everyone in this temple know who he was? But even Nefermaat seemed surprised.

“You must be quite keen to find answers here,” Kenna went on, “Men of the Red Lands aren’t usually fond of traveling by boat.”

“How… how do you know all this?” Karim asked when he found his voice. “You are a priest—is this magic?”

Kenna’s smile was a crooked thing that hung a little uncomfortably on his face. “Ah, no. There’s no need for Heka when simple observation will suffice. Despite your Khetaran garb, everything about you indicates you’re from the Red Lands. Your accent, your manner—even your facial hair. And your tunic tells me all the rest. Not only is it suffused with the scent of the river, it’s also covered with quite a few of these.” He walked up to Karim, plucked something from his tunic, and held it up to show him. A black dog hair. “The animal must be quite devoted to you, to leave so much of himself behind.”

In that moment, Karim realized lying to this man would be a mistake. Clearly, Kenna would see right through it.

“Everything you say is true, sen. I know how your people view mine, so I suppose it would be natural for you to refuse to help. But I, too, have eyes to see, and I believe you have a fondness for this girl, this Nefermaat.” He’d noticed the way the embalmer had brightened when she’d walked into the chamber. “She and I have only just met, but she’s chosen to trust me. To help me. Perhaps, for her sake, you could do the same?”

Kenna didn’t look convinced. “What is this all about, Neff?” he asked the girl.

“I don’t know yet,” the girl replied. “Not exactly. But I know it’s important. And I promise, when I figure it out, I’ll tell you everything.”

“The origin of this king is an ancient mystery, sen,” Karim added. “You may be the only one who can help me solve it.”

To Karim’s delight, the bait had the desired effect on the curious embalmer. Kenna cast a glance back at the nearly completed mummy behind him. “I suppose she’ll keep until I return,” he said to himself. Then he turned back to Karim.

“Fine, I’ll help you. But I will be watching you very closely, my friend. Do not make me regret this kindness.” Then to Neff he said, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Neff nodded and tipped her head toward the door. “We must hurry.”

Kenna suppressed a grin. “All right.” Despite himself, Karim could see the embalmer was excited about this little adventure. “Let’s go find your missing pharaoh.”

***

The House of Life was as murky as the embalming chamber was bright. Once he’d reached the bottom of the stairs leading down to it, Karim had to stand still for several seconds to allow his eyes to adjust. Windowless and lit only by oil lamps, the vast room contained one long reading table, and walls marked by hundreds of round holes with rolled papyri nested inside. Karim felt an immediate sense of familiarity in the room, but it took a moment for him to understand why.

It feels like a tomb , he thought. Not a tomb for bodies, of course. But for memories. Words. A place to preserve the wisdom and stories of days past, and to honor them with eternal life.

Neff quickly made her way across the chamber to a far wall. “All our King Lists are here,” she said, “But without knowing the date of Setnakht’s reign, it would take too long to read through them all. These cover thousands of years of Khetaran history.”

Kenna folded his arms, his expression pensive. “It’s a pointless exercise, anyway. If this king were on the main list, we’d already know about him. No, I think I know where to look.”

He moved to the far end of the room, bringing an oil lamp along to light the way. They came to a wall that, unlike the others, had no openings in it whatsoever. Instead, it was painted with scenes of gods and battles and rituals, not unlike the ones Karim had seen on the outside of the temple itself.

Kenna began to explain. “My father once told me that scribes, when ordered to remove certain undesirable documents from the official record, would often stow them away in secret places, rather than burn them.” He moved the oil lamp very close and swept his palm slowly across the painted wall.

“That’s the thing about scribes,” he continued, “They have a natural aversion to the destruction of scrolls—no matter what those scrolls might say.”

Karim blinked. “I’m not following. This is… a wall.”

“It looks like a wall,” Kenna went on, his hands still searching. “When I first entered the priesthood and spent a lot of time here, this wall always intrigued me. Why create an intricate painting here? It’s so dark that no one can see it.

“One day, when no one was watching, I spent some time investigating and found a little hidey-hole behind a detail in the painting. There was a papyrus inside, evidence of an illicit relationship between two palace officials, I believe. So, if there’s one papyrus to be found…” His hand stopped on a cluster of lotus flowers. Then, painstakingly, he pulled a piece of the wall away, revealing a deep depression underneath. Kenna stared into it and chuckled. “Then there might be more.”

Not a wall, but a door , Karim thought, with a peculiar sense that the patterns of the world were revealing themselves to him.

Carefully, the embalmer stuck his fingers inside the hole and removed a papyrus, brittle with age.

Neff hurried to join Kenna at the reading table. “You see?” she told Karim. “I told you he could help!”

Although the contents of the papyrus—which, according to Kenna, detailed forbidden curses and other such evil magic—were interesting, they had nothing to do with Setnakht.

“Let’s keep looking,” Kenna said. “If such information exists, this would be the most likely place to find it.” Replacing the papyrus in the hole, the three of them set to searching for more hidden apertures.

Over the course of half an hour, they located three more hidden documents, but none of them held any of value to their search.

Karim stepped back from the wall and sighed. “There’s nothing here, is there?”

Kenna sucked his teeth. “Perhaps not. Whomever erased this king from the records must have done a very good job. I’m sorry, but unless we find what you’re looking for very soon, we’ll have to abandon the search. The scribes will be returning to their posts before long.”

Karim rubbed his face with his hands, frustration boiling inside him as he stared at the wall. All this way for nothing! What was he supposed to do now? Go to the pharaoh with his doomsaying? It didn’t work for Pasenhor, and it certainly wouldn’t work for a thief from the Red Lands, so—

He never finished the thought.

There, on the left side of the wall, he noticed a detail he hadn’t seen before. Grabbing the oil lamp from the young embalmer, he shone its light on the strange figure painted in black and blue and gold: a god with the head of a strange doglike animal with tall ears and a downturned snout.

He felt a familiar tug in his chest, pulling him toward the image.

This is it , he thought. I know it.

He glanced at the others out of the corner of his eye. They were both on the other side of the room, checking the wall for more hidden compartments. He turned his back to them, so they wouldn’t see what he was doing.

Leaning in close, he traced the line of the god’s head with his fingertips and found a barely discernable edge. Working quickly, he dug at the crevice, chipping away a little of the stone so he could wedge his fingernail inside.

Finally, he was able to pry the panel out of the wall, revealing a small aperture beneath. With trembling fingers, he reached inside the hole and rummaged around until he found two ancient papyrus scrolls inside—as delicate as onion skin.

He opened the first scroll and saw that it was covered in Khetaran writing. However, instead of being written in the picture language that Karim had become familiar with from tombs and temple walls, the document was written in a flowing script, whose symbols looked like abstract versions of the birds, hands, and cups that he was used to. It was all nonsense to him, of course, except for a series of symbols he saw repeated more than once that seemed familiar: a folded cloth, a loaf of bread, a jagged line, a vulture.

The back of Karim’s neck tingled.

The symbols for Setnakht.

His instincts, as usual, had been correct. Still, the document was useless unless Kenna or Nefermaat translated it for him. But the other scroll… as soon as he laid eyes on it, his Jackal instincts took over. He knew they’d never let him take the document, even if he’d found it hidden away inside a wall. But oh, he wanted it.

“Did you find something?”

Neff’s voice interrupted his thoughts, and he startled.

“I did, sena,” Karim replied, stealthily slipping the second scroll inside his tunic. Then he turned and presented the girl with the first papyrus. “It looks like a letter of some kind. I have a good feeling about this one. Can you read it?”

The priestess brought it to Kenna at the reading table and unrolled it, weighing down each corner with small smooth stones.

“What does it say?” Karim asked anxiously.

“It’s written in the common script,” Nefermaat said with excitement. “Even I can read this!”

“It is a letter,” Kenna said, his voice hushed with fascination. “From one embalmer to another, oddly enough. Dated more than a thousand years ago.” He scanned the words quickly. “You were right, my friend… It concerns your missing king!”

A thrill coursed through Karim’s body as his suspicions were confirmed. “That is excellent news, sen—please tell me more.”

“It names Setnakht as the third king in the sixth Khetaran dynasty,” Kenna explained. “This was back when the pharaoh’s capital city was in Low Khetara, not here in the north. I understand now why his reign was struck from the public record. Listen to this.”

He cleared his throat and began to read.

“‘To Onuriseref, Man of Anubis, my brother.

“‘Today we have buried the heretic king, Setnakht, and put the scourge of his reign behind us forever. How we have all endured these past seventeen years is beyond consideration. I do not think even the greatest seers of Khetara could have predicted the breadth of his heresy—that he would reject our gods, our traditions, our art, and even abandon our great capital city in favor of building his own—all in service to the master of storms, his one true god. And though I have done Setnakht’s bidding here in the temple, like you, I never accepted his teachings.

“‘I have spoken prayers that burned my tongue, brother. But in my soul, I knew the king would die one day, and the nightmare would end. Thanks be to Ra, that day has come. How exactly he came to his fate, I do not know, nor do I wish to. The new king has not offered details, though some suspect Setnakht did not depart from this world willingly. All that matters to me is that he is dead. And I, myself, performed the funerary rites, with the help of my assistant, Wesir.

“‘Between us, I always suspected Wesir of being an adherent to Setnakht’s madness, but without evidence I had no choice but to continue to share my chambers with him. We performed the embalming together with all the proper rituals befitting a king—with one exception. It was a command from the new pharaoh himself. I removed all Setnakht’s viscera and put them in the four jars, but I removed his heart too.

“‘Are you amazed, brother? Perhaps it seems wrong to us, as Men of Anubis, but I was happy to do it. Happy to throw that black heart into the fire and curse his name. I asked myself: Isn’t it just what he deserves? To travel all the way West, only to be turned away at judgment? To have his miserable ka wander the earth for eternity?

“‘Heartless in life, heartless in death. It is right, brother. It is good. Rejoice now, for our long suffering is over.’”

There was a moment of silence among them after Kenna finished reading.

Karim had gone cold. He thought back to that evening by the fireside with Pasenhor, to the priest reading the engraving on the back of the lapis amulet he’d pried from Setnakht’s coffin.

This is the heart of a king.

Could it be that the embalmer’s assistant, who the writer of the letter suspected was one of Setnakht’s disciples, had written that message in hopes it would give his king the one thing he lacked for his journey to the afterlife?

It sounded like superstitious Khetaran nonsense. Then again, Karim had seen impossible things since barging into that tomb, and the theory made a strange sort of sense. It explained why the creature had followed him halfway across the kingdom. Perhaps Setnakht wakened when Karim removed the amulet from his grave, and he’d been chasing him all this time… to get his heart back.

Not that it matters now , Karim thought. The monster is dead.

But just in case he wasn’t… Karim knew what he had to do.

“He said that Setnakht was an adherent to the master of storms,” he said to the young embalmer. “Is that—” Karim tipped his head toward the dog-headed god.

“Yes, that’s Set—lord of the desert, god of chaos and war. Osiris’s brother and murderer. Osiris is the divine king of Khetara and god of the underworld,” Kenna replied. “I have read of a small cult who once worshipped Set, but nothing like this.”

Kenna crossed his arms. “The letter seems to suggest that the entire kingdom was temporarily converted to Set’s worship. I’m amazed that such a significant event in history could be so effectively erased, but then…” A look of sadness passed over his face. “Khetara remains great in part by keeping its demons and its failures hidden in shadow.”

Karim regarded the man with curiosity. There was something noble and elegant about the little embalmer, despite his strange appearance.

“We must go,” Neff urged them. “The scribes will return at any moment.”

Karim nodded. “Of course. I don’t want either of you to get into trouble on my account. I owe you both a great debt.”

“Perhaps you can repay it by telling me what this is all about?” Kenna said. “The fear in your eyes betrays you. What does a desert tribesman have to do with a thousand-year-old Khetaran king?”

Just as Karim thought he must come up with an answer, a pale crooked man lurched down the stairs and spotted them.

“My prince!” the man exclaimed. “I… was not aware you were visiting this afternoon. To what do I owe this honor?” His protuberant eyes flicked from Kenna, to the girl, to Karim.

Karim was sure he hadn’t heard correctly. Had he mistaken the embalmer for someone else?

Kenna cleared his throat. “I apologize for not informing you, Chief Scribe,” he said. “But I needed to access a specific embalming text, and Nefermaat was kind enough to help me find it. She’s grown quite conversant under your wise tutelage.”

“Oh!” the chief scribe said, preening. “Yes, the girl has potential—but, erm, who is this, if I may ask?” He tilted his chin at Karim.

Kenna walked to the elderly man and placed a slender hand on his shoulder. “He is my guest,” he said, in a tone that bore no argument. “And now he must be on his way. Young Neff, will you walk him out? I wouldn’t want him to get lost and end up somewhere he’s not meant to be.” Kenna raised an eyebrow at Karim.

Karim put on a face of pure innocence.

“Of course, Prince Bakenamun,” Neff said, bowing her head. She turned to Karim. “Come along.”

Speechless, Karim followed her to the door, passing the perplexed chief scribe and Kenna on the way. He touched a knuckle to his nose. Kenna pursed his lips and nodded, once.

When they emerged from the House of Life into the blazing afternoon light, Karim stopped and glanced over at the young priestess. “ Prince Bakenamun?”

“The very one,” Neff replied with a smile. “We were very lucky he was with us. The chief scribe wouldn’t have let you and I go so easily.”

Karim scoffed as they made their way toward the temple gate. The embalmer’s eloquence and noble manner made a lot more sense now that he knew he was of royal birth. “You could have told me.”

“Why should I?” Neff retorted. “You would have treated him differently if you knew, and that’s why he’s here and not at the palace. I thought you of all people would understand. You assumed Kenna wouldn’t trust you once he figured out you were from the Red Lands, but he did. What assumptions would you have made about him, if you’d known he was a prince, and not some common priest?”

Karim chuckled. “You know, I have two sisters your age, and neither of them are as irritating as you.”

“Only because I’m right,” she retorted. “Besides, why should I be honest with you, when you’re obviously still hiding something from me? You haven’t even told me your name.”

Curse this child , Karim thought. She and her prince are mind readers.

“You may call me the Jackal.”

The girl rolled her eyes. “Really? I understand wanting to guard your name, but haven’t I earned your trust?”

Karim sighed. “Very well, sena. You drive a hard bargain.” He paused. “My name is Karim.”

“Well, where are you going next, Karim? I heard the contents of that letter, as you did. It’s interesting, but how does it help us understand anything about the Oracle of the Lamb?”

“The letter mentioned that Setnakht built his own capital city, apart from the Khetaran capitals,” Karim replied. “I’m going to try and find it. There’s got to be more answers to be found there, even if it’s in ruins.”

“But how?”

Karim thought about the item hidden inside his tunic. “I have my ways,” he said cryptically.

“And what about me?”

Karim remembered the way he’d felt when he looked into the girl’s eyes. The depth and the darkness contained there. “I think fate has placed you exactly where you need to be. Perhaps, if you wait long enough, your path will become clear.”

He glanced up at the position of the sun. “I really must go. There is a dog by the river who probably thinks I’m dead by now.”

“So you do have a dog!”

“He’s not my dog. He’s a dog.”

Neff snorted. “Sure he is.” She walked him to the gate, ensuring he wasn’t hassled by any of the officials there.

“Goodbye,” she said. “I have a feeling we’ll meet again, Karim of the Red Lands.”

Karim hitched his pack up onto his shoulder as they reached the open gate. Most of the vendors had gone, and the temple had resumed its normal business of tending to the gods.

“Maybe we will,” he said to the young priestess, and went on his way.