Lord of the Desert

by Nina Bruhns

—Love song, Papyrus Chester Beatty I

  Al Fahl rode the burning wind of the Western Desert, flying with his prize clinging to his back, up, up the soaring sandstone gebel to the desolate plateau above, galloping over hot sands into the flaming orb of the setting sun, taking the woman to meet her destiny.

  The woman he wanted for himself.

  At the hidden entrance to Khepesh, he came to a clattering halt and reared up, letting out a whinnying cry of triumph as he turned on his hind legs and brought forth the transformation unto his flesh, so he was once more a man.

  Rhys reached around and caught Gillian before she slid from his back to the shadowing ground.

  “My God, my God!” she sobbed over and over as he lifted her in his arms to carry her. She blinked up at him in abject horror, trying desperately to push him away. “What are you? What in God’s name are you?”

  “I told you. I am one of Set-Sutekh’s immortals,” he said, sending a calming spell over her. “As such, I have the ability to shape-shift. I chose a stallion as my ka body.”

  “Al Fahl,” she said with an all too clear understanding of what that implied.

  “Yes,” he admitted. “A convenient mythology, but it’s a bit embarrassing to have such an unsavory reputation out there.” Now was probably not the time to tell her that much of it was true. At least it had been. “Feeling better yet?”

  “No,” she said, more forcefully than her limp state would signify. “Put me down. Please.”

  “I shouldn’t trust your legs right now.”

  He strode to the entrance of the rock-hewn stairway that descended into the underground tomb-palace of Khepesh and waved his hand over it, uttering the opening incantation. When the chasm of stone opened, he plunged down into the darkness, taking two steps at a time.

  Gillian twisted in his arms, panic radiating from every pore. “Where are you taking me? Let me go.”

  Obviously the calming spell wasn’t working.

  “Darling, we’ve talked about this. You know where we’re going. There’s nothing to worry about. I swear you won’t be harmed. You promised to trust me, remember?”

  “This was not part of the bargain! I thought… God, I don’t know what I thought. But not this!”

  “Believe me, I know it’s a lot to take in. I went through it all myself.” He halted on a wide step and lowered her to her feet, but kept her body pressed close to his, just in case she tried to bolt.

  The tunnel was dark as night. As a denizen of the underworld he was used to it. He didn’t have to see her face to know what she was feeling. He could smell the fear in her shallow breaths, feel the doubts in her trembling limbs and the need to escape in the clamminess of her hands as she clung to him in the blackness.

  “You won’t be sorry, Gillian. You can have life without end, gifted with powers you’ve never even dreamed of.”

  She let out a soft sob. “What if I don’t want powers, or to live forever?”

  “Don’t be absurd. Everyone wants to live forever.”

  The tension of her grip increased. “That depends on what one is expected to do during all that time, doesn’t it?”

  Wise beyond her years, this one. It had taken him half a century to figure that out.

  “It’s simple. You must serve our god, Set-Sutekh, and our leader, the High Priest Seth-Aziz. Apart from those few duties, your life can be your own.”

  “I’m not a pagan, Rhys. I only believe in one God.”

  “And yet you pour libations to the local spirits when you eat. I’ve seen you and your sisters perform this rite.”

  She choked out a strangled curse. “I didn’t say I wasn’t superstitious.”

  He kissed her temple. “I’m a Christian just like you, Gillian. But once you see the powers of these ancient gods, you won’t be able to deny their existence, either. I believe we all merely serve different aspects of God’s incredible creation. I don’t see it as a contradiction.”

  “You’ve been living in Egypt too long,” she said unhappily. “Everything here is a contradiction.”

  “So you agree to come and see for yourself?”

  She was silent for a long moment. “I’m afraid, Rhys,” she whispered.

  “I understand. I was, too, the first time I entered Khepesh. But when I saw the wonders, heard what would be granted me, felt the power I could possess, I knew I’d found my home.”

  “I suppose…it wouldn’t hurt to look.”

  “There is just one stipulation,” he told her.

  He felt her tense again. “The sacrifice?”

  “Other than that.” He ran his hand down her back. “You must come to us willingly.”

  “Before or after I’ve seen it?”

  “Both.”

  “And if I’m not willing? If I don’t want to stay?”

  Oh, she would be staying, all right. One way or another.

  He didn’t really want to think about the alternative. Unwilling mortals who had seen or learned too much were turned to shabti, robbed of their will and made human servants, well-treated but unable to retain their former personality or a will of their own. It was a loathsome practice Rhys had been fighting for most of his tenure as master steward. But he knew the only other option for an unwilling initiate was to meet with some kind of fatal accident.

  Neither was an acceptable fate for Gillian. He wanted her alive and vibrant and able to say no. There was little joy in a conquest who had no power to deny him.

  As for the ceremony…Seth needed a blood sacrifice, but it didn’t necessarily have to be Gillian. Nor did Seth have to take her body as part of the ritual. There were plenty of others in the palace who would jump at the chance to serve as sacrificial vessel. Rhys would just have to persuade him to choose someone else.

  But either way, Gillian must be brought to Khepesh. And his job was to see it done.

  In the darkness, he bent down and sought her lips with his. He brushed over them softly. “Never doubt it, you are already willing, my sweet,” he murmured. “Now, let us go.”

  “Promise not to leave me?” she whispered, clinging to him.

  “I’ll be there for you, Gillian. Always. That much I swear.”

  And silently he prayed he’d be allowed to keep that promise.

  Gillian took Rhys’s hand and blindly followed him down, down into the blackest void she’d ever experienced…other than the tomb where she’d first encountered Rhys. Was this the same eerie tomb? He kept calling it a palace. But weren’t palaces aboveground? This felt like entering the Underworld. The only thing keeping her from dissolving into unmitigated panic was the feel of his strong, unrelenting fingers clasping hers.

  “Let your instincts guide you,” he told her when she stumbled for the fourth time. “Your feet know where to step. Don’t think about it, just close off your mind and let your senses show you the way.”

  “Easy for you to say,” she muttered, and in her hand as he squeezed it, she felt his smile.

  But she gave it a try, and amazingly, she stopped stumbling. They walked on and on, the air around them growing cool and sweetly spicy as they went deeper and deeper into the earth. Compared to the blazing heat above, it felt surprisingly good. With no other sensory input, she lost track of all direction, all sense of time and space.

  After what could have been five minutes or twenty-five, suddenly out of the darkness in front of them loomed a huge double door blocking the tunnel. Glittering silver and flanked by tall, lotus-shaped, burning torches, it soared at least three stories above them, making her squint against the brightness after the stygian tunnel. When her eyes adjusted, she saw that both wings of the monumental door were decorated in intricate hieroglyphics. She recognized the cartouches of Set-Sutekh that graced the center of each, and to her shock, the same left Eye of Horus as on Mehmet’s amulet. After that, she couldn’t concentrate to decipher the rest of the inscription. She was too freaked out by the sight of it all. Hell, by the whole astonishing experience. She had a hard time believing an
y of what had happened to her today. She’d tried telling herself she was still knocked out, dreaming in that dratted tomb, and that Mehmet would arrive any moment to awaken her and take her back to her sisters. But she had the sinking feeling that wasn’t going to happen.

  Her anxiety skyrocketed when the portal resonated with a long, deep clang, and slowly started to open.

  “Welcome to Khepesh,” Rhys said, his eyes gleaming an unnatural red in the flames of the torches. She shivered. Oh, God, what had she done? Was he a devil? Was this Hell? Like Persephone, was she really about to descend into the realm of the Underworld?

  She tried to extract her hand from his, to run away through the blackness, back up to the familiar light of the desert surface.

  But he wouldn’t let his grip on her slacken. “Steady on,” he admonished quietly.

  What had she been thinking? “I’ve changed my mind,” she blurted out, panic sweeping over her with a vengeance. Okay, she didn’t believe in Hades…or anything else she’d seen today, even though to deny it would be admitting she’d lost her mind for real… but this was way too creepy.

  “Too late,” he said.

  She spun in the direction of his gaze. Standing in the bright gape of the monumental entry gate were a half hundred people, all dressed in gorgeous attire and staring at her with varying degrees of curiosity. A tall, regal man stood in their midst, a beautiful redheaded woman next to him. From his aura of steely authority and his splendid robes, Gillian guessed he was the man in charge. The modern-day Seth-Aziz? Rather than curious, his expression was more like…gratified. Was the woman next to him the seer Rhys had spoken of?

  “My lord,” Rhys said with a formal bow, confirming one of her suspicions. “I am returned from above with the captive, as promised.” He motioned to her and intoned, “On your knees, woman, and bow before your lord and master, Seth-Aziz, Immortal Guardian of Darkness, high priest to the Lord of the Night Sky!”

  Gillian’s eyes widened, spooling back Rhys’s rhetoric. There was that word again. Captive. Had he lied to her after all?

  Before she knew what was happening, she found herself kneeling just outside the gate, under intense scrutiny by the gathering of onlookers. But especially by Seth-Aziz and his flame-haired companion. A rash of goose bumps rose along Gillian’s arms. Immortal shape-shifter or crazy cult leader? She wasn’t sure which would be worse….

  She squirmed uncomfortably under their gaze, crossing her arms over her body, embarrassed by the near-transparency of the dress Rhys had given her. Why had she not remembered to change clothes before coming?

  “It is she!” the red-haired woman cried, clearly pleased. “The woman from my vision!”

  A low murmur rippled through the crowd. Seth-Aziz’s eyes returned to Gillian, taking her in again from head to knee. A smile slowly spread across his quite handsome face. “Excellent! You have done well, Lord Kilpatrick. She will make a succulent sacrifice and a worthy consort. What is her name?”

  Hold on. Consort? No, no. Hell, no.

  “Gillian Haliday, my lord,” Rhys answered respectfully.

  “And she comes willingly to us?”

  She opened her mouth to set the record straight and tell him no damn way would she have any part of this newest insanity, but Rhys shot her a fierce warning glance. “Yes. She is willing.”

  “And the family, the sisters you spoke of?”

  “Dealt with.”

  Alarm zinged through her. He’d mentioned be spelling, but could he mean something more sinister? Again, Rhys warned her off with a penetrating look. She wanted to cry out in protest! To demand to know what he’d really done to them. But the palpable power emanating from the leader Seth-Aziz brushed over her skin in waves, raising the fine hairs and convincing her she should trust Rhys’s counsel, and heed it. She had to be careful.

  It went against everything in her to remain silent, but she did. For now. She would grill him later.

  Was she being stupid by trusting a virtual stranger? Making the biggest mistake of her life? Getting herself into something for which there was no way out? It seemed more and more likely. One look at the faces around her and she knew she was in too deep to back out now.

  Thoughts of her mother seared through her mind. Had she also been confronted by a fatal choice years ago? Not by the lure of the per netjer or a dark lover—Mama had loved Daddy to distraction, had never even looked at another man and hadn’t believed in organized religion, legit or not. But maybe the enticement had been something closer to home, like the promise of a fabulous archaeological find. A lost pharaoh’s tomb…or a demigod’s.

  Or perhaps eternal life…? Gillian could see that being a temptation to one who loved life with such a passion. Had the whisper of immortality been enough for Mama to desert her precious family? The man in the photo—had he been her mother’s harbinger of everlasting life? Had he perhaps threatened her children, her husband, if she refused to join the cult?

  Impossible choices.

  All this rushed through Gillian’s mind as the high priest stepped forward through the parted crowd. Rhys left her kneeling before the gigantic doors and went to stand at his leader’s side, opposite the seer-priestess.

  “If you would join us, Gillian Haliday, and become one of Set-Sutekh’s immortals,” Seth-Aziz bid her in a booming command. “Rise and walk through the portal and meet your destiny!”

  By now many more people had gathered around the entrance to the palace. They all watched her expectantly. Rhys nodded almost imperceptibly. It was clear what he wanted her to do.

  Lord help her.

  Could she really go through with this?

  Wasn’t it all too insane? Too ridiculously dangerous?

  And yet, at this point what choice did she have? Cult crazies or the vastly unlikely remnants of an ancient race of immortals, these people were not going to just let her walk away. That was obvious by the scatter of muscular armed guards that had quietly rimmed the periphery of the crowd. She must either join them now, or anger them and risk the consequences. She glanced at Rhys. He smiled encouragingly. He didn’t look crazy. And he had promised to keep her safe….

  She trusted him. It was totally irrational, but she did.

  So with a deep breath, she rose to her feet, held her head high and walked through the magnificent silver double doors of the Great Western Gate. And hoped to hell she hadn’t just sealed her fate.

  Seth-Aziz held out his hands to her as she crossed the threshold. “Welcome home, my dear Gillian.”

  Whatever fate that might be…

  Chapter 11

  I dream lying dreams of your love lost,

  And my heart stands still inside me.

  —Song of the Birdcatcher’s Daughter

  Rhys felt like a bastard. There were no two ways about it—he’d misled Gillian, gotten her here under somewhat false pretenses. Which in itself was nothing new. But feeling like a bastard about it was.

  He did not like that feeling one bit.

  But did he have a choice? No. He was fulfilling his duties as master steward of Khepesh, something he’d done countless times before. So what was different about this time?

  Foolish question.

  Gillian. The fact that he desperately wanted her for himself.

  That had never happened before.

  As he watched Seth take possession of her, he had to physically restrain himself from stepping between them. Luckily, Nephtys did it in his place.

  “My lord, allow me to take Gillian to the temple. The ceremony is in five short days. She must be quickly taught our ways and prepared.”

  “Yes, of course,” Seth said, though Rhys could tell he was loath to release his hold on her.

  “I promised she’d be shown around the palace,” Rhys interjected, mindful of the deer-in-headlights look she was now giving him. “So she can see how we live, and what to expect of her future here with us. I know she has many questions.”

  “That I’ll leave in your capable hands,”
Seth told him, finally letting her go of hers.

  “But, Rhys—” she began to protest.

  He cut her off. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Miss Haliday. Tonight just relax and settle in.”

  “But—”

  “Nephtys will take good care of you. We’ll talk in the morning.”

  Rhys smiled reassuringly at her as the priestess led her away, already calculating what excuse he could concoct to break protocol tonight and see her.

  The crowd dispersed, and he and Seth set off for the council chambers, where they were to meet with the rest of Khepesh’s leaders to update the plans for the ceremony, now that the sacrificial vessel had been chosen. He must also inform Seth of Haru-Re’s threat.

  “She’s perfect,” Seth said as they strode along. “As usual you manage to exceed my expectations, Kilpatrick. I couldn’t have asked for better.”

  “I’m glad you’re pleased,” Rhys returned, then cleared his throat. “There’s something I’d like to discuss with you, my lord.”

  “Very pleased,” Seth continued, brushing off his request. “Did you hear Nephtys had a vision of the woman?”

  Rhys frowned, a tingle of foreboding trickling through his veins. “Indeed?”

  “She says Miss Haliday will come to be greatly respected by the people of Khepesh. And that we will be happy together, she and I, as true lovers.”

  Rhys’s heart nearly stopped beating. That changed everything. If it was true, Rhys had no chance at all to claim Gillian as his own. “Is that right? Nephtys saw this?”

  “Earlier. Just before you arrived. It’s why there were so many at the gate to receive you. They wanted a glimpse of the woman the god has smiled upon.”

  Pain and jealousy raged through Rhys, but he forced himself to say, “That’s wonderful news, Seth. It’s about time you found a woman of your heart.” And normally Rhys would honestly be pleased for his friend. He’d been alone for a long time. But why did it have to be this woman?

  “Yes,” Seth said thoughtfully. “She is beautiful. Though she seems a bit…timid. And obviously terrified of me. I suppose that’ll change in time.”