Look at him.
He’s a dead man walking.
And yet, one twilight between the rivers and beneath the stars, Rameses sat across from Galen. His rotten sandals squelched in the mud, and his eyes twinkled with rare curiosity.
Galen broke his meditation. “You have questions,” he said. “Make them brief.”
Rameses gulped. Squatting in the mud, his face cracked and dry, he looked like a man twice his age. “What is your name?” he dared. “Your real name.”
“My name?” said Galen “You think it’s Prey? Or one of the thousand others the Lord and his minions throw into the wind? I am Galen. All other names, I have forgotten.”
“I did not know.” Rameses lowered his head. “Is it all true then, Galen? You live forever? You and three others? The only immortals?”
Galen smirked. It seemed not everything mortal men believed was myth.
“Yes…forever. I will live forever, and nothing will stop me.” His eyes lit up, but then fell back into shadow. “The fourth of us…she’s dead. Don’t ask of her again.”
“Oh.” Rameses’ gaze fell still lower into the dirt.
“Now…go on, ask the real question,” said Galen. “I can see it. These soft things you say…they’re not what you really want to know. There’s something else. Ask it.”
The little man glanced up, and looked for one moment like a child caught working mischief. But then he paled, and in the dying light braved his truest question:
“How? How are you undying? Is it God’s work? Is it magic? My brother…he said it’s all some trick. A great lie. The Devil’s deceit. But my king, he believes it. He says the Lord and his son are fallen from the stars, that they are no children of man, but demons from places beyond this kingdom. And he says you…you are the light, you are an angel come to deliver us. He believes this, I swear it. But is it true? I must know.”
Many thoughts swept through the darkness in Galen’s mind.
At first, he felt laughter. He made no sound Rameses could hear, but in his heart he bellowed loud enough to shake the world’s foundation.
An angel?
And Saeed believes it.
Ha.
And then his hidden laughter gave way to the truth. He saw straight through Rameses and his childlike hopes, and gazed into the heart of his so-called king, Saeed.
Through men of power, the weak will move. No wonder Rameses won’t dare avenge his brother. He thinks I’m kin with the gods.
“I can’t tell you the truth,” he said to Rameses after a long silence. The sun was only a suggestion anymore, and its red light braising the delta waters was moments from perishing.
“Why?” asked Rameses.
Galen’s smirk broke his lips. “Think about it—in ten years, you’ll be dead. You have no children, no wife. Your brother is dead. I’ve no reason to share anything with you. You wouldn’t understand even if I did. You wouldn’t be able to teach anyone. In your hands, the knowledge of me is useless. You’ll serve your purpose and bring me to your master, and then, like everyone else, you’ll be gone. So I think I’ll keep this secret. It’s mine, after all. Sorry to disappoint you.”
Rameses looked wounded. What he’d hoped to learn, Galen neither knew nor cared. He believed in what he’d said—mortals near the end of their line had no use for the truth.
Let him think I’m an angel. He watched Rameses rise and stagger away into the night. Let him think I can’t ever be killed.
Though even as he thought it, he touched the port on the back of his neck, and he knew he was closer to mortality than ever in his life.
In the morning, in the soundless desolation, he and Rameses resumed their westward voyage. They spoke no more as they walked, and they stopped only when Rameses needed to rest, piss in the reeds, or gnaw on the dark-scaled fish he pulled from the delta water.
Better this way, thought Galen.
Why give hope when there is none?
24
The roar of a faraway engine pried Galen from his meditations.
Hunkering beneath a skeletal tree near the water, he gazed into the morning sky to watch the sliver of black steel rake through the clouds. The warship was at least five miles south, but its engines’ thunder shattered the delta’s unnatural silence, the ship’s wings scarring the newborn dawn.
“God, oh God.” Rameses scrambled away from the water and slunk behind Galen’s tree. The little man had only just woken, and his eyes were red above his voluminous beard. “It’s him. It’s the Nemesis. God save us—he’s come to kill us.”
Galen didn’t react. He leaned back into the tree, gazed skyward, and yawned.
“No.” He shook his head. “Stop blubbering. It can’t see us. It’s not moving in our direction.”
Rameses hid halfway behind the tree. With one skinny hand, he pawed at Galen’s forearm, begging for Galen to join him in his terror. “How can you know this?” He quivered. “The Lord, he has eyes above the clouds. He can see us. Look at the ship. It’s death. It’ll come back around for us. It’ll turn us to ashes with invisible fire.”
Invisible fire. Galen smirked. So that’s what dead men call the Pharaoh’s weapons.
“First…” He faced Rameses, whose face was filthy with dirt. “It can’t see us. The ships never can—I’m immortal, remember? And second, look at it move. It’s coming from the east, and it’s moving fast. It’s not here to kill us, or to kill anyone. It’s headed west, toward the sea, probably into the Nile valley. It’s headed for the Pyramid, to the Lord. It’s got more important things to do than murder two men hiding in the dirt. We don’t have any machines.”
Though I wager your master does.
For a long while, Rameses wouldn’t stop quivering. Galen considered killing him for his cowardice and marching alone into the delta, but decided against it. With Rameses, he’d meet the so-called king far sooner than going alone. Without him, the journey might take weeks longer.
Anymore, time was not his friend.
The ship’s thunder rattled the tree, but Galen paid it no mind. Absently, he touched his neck’s skin-port. Dirt and sand had crusted over the smooth, steel disc. It felt rough beneath his fingers, no longer the perfect thing installed by Cedartown’s doctor. He supposed it didn’t matter.
It’s useless without a Blue Vial.
I’m not immortal—just another Habiru roaming the dust.
When he awoke from his momentary daydream, the warship was gone. Rameses had worked up the courage to climb out of the dirt and squat beside him. Galen caught himself wishing Elia were near instead of the fearful little man. She wouldn’t have been afraid. She would’ve stayed quiet and watched the ship vanish without complaint.
He shook away her memory and glared at Rameses.
“A few days more to the coast,” he said. “And we’ll meet this king of yours. Unless of course, that’s where the ship was headed. To cook your king atop his throne.”
Rameses was still squatting. Rattled, he searched the sky for more of the Pharaoh’s death-machines, but found none. “Yes. A few days.” He shuddered. “Do you think the ship will re—?”
“No. I don’t.” Galen silenced him.
That morning, with a warm breeze blowing inland, Galen took the lead in the two men’s trek across the delta. Rameses’ weakness wasn’t just in his cowardice, it seemed, but also in his body. For weeks, he’d eaten nothing but poorly-cooked black-gill fish and sipped only delta water. It was clear the little man’s strength was waning.
Galen preferred it this way.
He marched several hundred yards ahead of Rameses.
He waded through the shallows, his sandals rotting off his feet.
He pushed his way through thickets, stopping only to pluck stray berries and lonely insects from the shrubs. He felt hungrier now, and he wondered whether the long journey had made it so, or whether his immortality was waning, compelling his hunger to increase.
For three days they walked.
Twice,
they swam across dark rivers, whose waters were shallow yet swift.
They crossed many bridges, pitiful things made of bamboo and wood. The bridges were new, but of dreadful craftsmanship. Lacking tools, Rameses’ people had made each one by hand. Galen wasn’t surprised the Nemesis hadn’t bothered to destroy them. He doubted the things would survive the winter.
At last, the two men came to a deep-watered river over which no bridges crossed. Here, Rameses proved his small worth. The little man, sick, starving, and broken-hearted, pointed the way to Galen.
“Upstream, we follow this river. See the stones? The white stones on the bank? Those are markers. We lay them fresh every summer after the floods. The Nemesis…he and his father don’t care about stones.”
Galen saw the stones. The pale rocks, laid in short rows of three, had been placed on the river’s eastern bank. Every hundred yards, Rameses’ people had dug shallow holes, dropping a trio of rocks within as markers. Galen had seen the same type of thing among peasant villages and Habiru communes across the lands he’d traveled.
“One wonders,” he said to Rameses as followed the stones upstream, “if your master believes himself a king, does he know how to read?”
“You mean…the forbidden symbols?” Rameses looked nervous. “Words…on paper?”
“Yes. Those.” Galen smirked. “Rocks and stick bridges are well and good, but for a man who fancies himself capable of unseating the Lord of the Sands, I wonder how he communicates with his vassals. How he plans, strategizes, and assembles weapons in secret. If not with words, is his vocabulary limited to stones?”
Rameses didn’t know how to answer.
His king never really expected to find me.
Else he would’ve sent someone smarter.
For seven hours, they followed the stones. The river widened upstream, so vast in breadth whole islands sprouted from its center, each one the size of a small city. Near dusk, Galen saw trails of smoke wending skyward and low campfires smoldering in the islands’ trees. He smelled the water, and knew it was less poisonous. The fish were healthier, and the islands’ trees far greener than the stunted, withered things among which they’d spent so many days.
There are people on the islands, he observed.
Whole villages, no doubt.
We’ve arrived.
Near dusk, haggard and sunburned, Rameses broke away and knelt beside the shore. Five fist-sized rocks sat in the mud. Rameses hunkered above the rocks and opened his mouth to speak.
Galen saved him the trouble.
“Yes. I see them. Sandal-prints in the mud. Ruts on the shore where people from the islands land their boats. And yes, I know. We have to wait until after dark. Boats from the island won’t come out until then. Even out here, they’re afraid of the Pharaoh’s eyes.”
Rameses gazed skyward with a grimace. “You’re a dark one,” remarked the little man. “You know everything before I say it. Why do I ever speak?”
I don’t know, Galen wanted to say. Why do you?
Instead he walked down to the bank, crossed his arms, and stared at the largest of the river’s islands until sunset.
* * *
An hour after dusk, they came.
Two flat rafts, lashed together with vines and piloted by three men apiece, floated through the shadows and thudded against the shore. They’d come from the great island a hundred yards offshore. Each raft carried a man with a bamboo pole for steering. The other men, four in total, carried short wooden spears. They were menacing creatures, their oily black hair and nut-brown skin lit by pale, untrusting eyes.
The four spear-bearers hopped off their rafts. Galen stared them down, and they advanced no farther up the shore.
“Sarison?” said one, peering into the darkness beyond Galen. “Miiku?”
“Sarison and Miiku are dead.” Galen’s arms were still crossed. “Rameses is the only survivor.”
The spear-bearers glanced at one another. They spoke a different language than Rameses had used during the voyage. Their dialect was far closer to Galen’s native tongue than the rough, staccato Persi.
“You know our words?” said the tallest of them. “What is your name? Where is Rameses? He is here?”
Galen waved his arm, and Rameses emerged from the deep shadows beyond the shore. Poor Rameses looked worthy of pity. The little man was so emaciated he looked ready to fall into the mud beneath the weight of his great, dark beard.
“He speaks the truth.” Rameses’ voice was meek, and yet he switched languages with ease. “My brother is dead. The others, too.”
“How?” said one of the spear-bearers. He was agitated, shaking his little spear in his small, dark hand. “How is this possible? Nemesis? Or sickness?”
Rameses wandered closer and stood beside Galen. Galen shot him the same look he’d shown a hundred times during their journey.
Careful, said Galen’s smirk. Speak your next words wisely.
With a gulp, Rameses began his lie. He explained to the men his brothers had fallen victim to Habiru bandits living near the great Himal Mountains. He told them he’d escaped with Galen’s help, and that the bandits would have taken him if not for Galen’s valor. Galen was impressed by the depth of Rameses’ lie—the little man had clearly rehearsed it many times.
“Only with this man’s aid do I live.” Rameses gestured at Galen. “He is what Saeed said. He is the one.”
The spear-bearers didn’t appear impressed.
They took him to the island anyway.
Across the quiet, black river, the two rafts moved by starlight. The water made little sound beneath the pilots’ bamboo sticks, and the shoreline fell away into shadow. The trip was brief, but for his part Galen liked it none.
People. He closed his eyes and shut out the men’s chatter. I remind myself why I avoid them.
Their smell. Their vulgarity. The short reach of their intellect.
Their tiny ambitions.
All his life, he’d spent avoiding gatherings of people. He’d approached them only in dire need, only to advance the dark purpose of which he’d always dreamed. A part of him desired to push Rameses and the other men off the rafts and into the river.
…just to be free of their noise.
He touched his face, felt the beard still growing on his dusky cheeks. He lifted his fingertips and grazed the skin-port on his neck.
And though he hated it, he realized for now at least he needed these people.
The rafts slid onto the island’s shore. The trees, far thicker and more alive than any he’d seen in the last decade, blocked out the stars. Even so, scarlet embers moved beneath the leaves. Fires crackled in a dozen clearings, while the shadows of people moved to and fro between the trees.
One of the rafts’ pilots ran ahead to spread the word.
Galen knew his arrival was no secret.
They led him deeper onto the island. He felt the eyes of many watching him, and he heard their whispers. Instead of the fear he usually earned, he caught something else on the wind.
Hope.
These people think I’ve come to save them.
The idea wiped all his smirks away.
The jittery men led him through the trees. There, in the island’s heart, a crude shelter stood alone in a clearing. Three fires smoldered outside the shelter’s only entrance, none of them attended. The bamboo structure, roofed with leaves and raised up on tall stilts, stood otherwise in darkness.
“You.” One of the spear-bearers pointed his ugly stick in Galen’s direction. “Are you him? You come to do God’s work?”
That anyone should point a spear at him and survive injured some part of Galen’s pride.
He nodded all the same.
“Follow us.” The man waved his stick toward the bamboo shelter’s door. “We’ll lead—”
“I go alone.” Galen stared.
“No, this is not agreed. Our king, he will—” The little man walked two steps ahead, but Galen caught his shoulder, spun him around, and
slapped the spear onto the ground.
“I go alone. Just me. You and the others, wait outside.”
The men were ready to argue, maybe even fight, but it was Rameses who stepped between them. Finally, in his sickest moment, the little man showed something resembling courage.
“Let him go.” Rameses’ voice was more cough than words. “He’s not here to hurt our king. If he wanted it, we’d already be dead.”
The men looked doubtful. After all, Galen looked more like something the river had spilled ashore than he did an immortal. His sandals were gone, his fur cloak half-rotted, and his hair a mess of dark tangles.
But his eyes spoke of danger.
And no one, no matter their courage, could deny the shadow he cast on all things.
In the grim firelight, the men saw it and stepped aside.
Alone, Galen climbed the short stairs toward the shelter’s door. The smoke from the low fires obscured his vision. In his left sleeve, he hid a bone blade. If death awaited him in the blackness beyond the door, he was ready.
Inside, smoke blurred all things. A crude torch burned in the shelter’s rear chamber, throwing red light against grey vapors. Galen’s eyes adjusted quickly to the dark, and he saw the first of two rooms was empty.
No guards.
They saw me on the shore.
They knew I was coming.
“Enter,” said the man seated in the next room.
Eyes full of smoke and shadows, Galen moved forward.
There he is.
Funny, it seemed to him, the sort of man others were willing to call king. When Galen arrived in the opening between rooms, he saw what Rameses and many others must’ve seen:
A big man. Broad shoulders. Bearded. Powerful. Sitting on a chair some might call a throne.
But he also saw the truth:
A mortal like any other.
Hides his fear well.
But I can see it.
I can see everything.
“Welcome,” boomed Saeed. The huge man sat on a crude bamboo chair, his beard as big as Rameses’, his muscled arms open in greeting. He was a rare sort of man for the era, already in his mid-thirties, but untouched by sickness or radiation.
Lords of the Black Sands Page 20
