“Stupid Egyptian,” Danilo snarled. “Does he think he can frighten us with his tricks? Katerina, it’s merely levers and chemicals. A way to frighten off grave robbers. Pay no attention to it. Bring the light closer.”
I stepped toward his voice, finding him leaning over the sarcophagus. “Shine the light in here,” he said.
I held the torch over his head. There was nothing left of the mummy of Ankh-al-Sekhem’s apprentice except a pile of shredded linen at the bottom of the alabaster tomb. “There is no sword, Danilo.”
“Damn!” He banged the side of the sarcophagus with his palms and stared into the dark tomb for several moments before finally speaking. “Well, there’s only one other thing to do, then.” He drew out his blade again. “I will need your hand, Katerina.”
“Absolutely not.”
His sharp teeth gleamed as he smiled. “I’m afraid you have no say in the matter.” He grabbed my wrist and twisted it, wrenching my palm up. With a quick slice, he opened my palm, the blood rushing to fill the cut. My hand throbbed in pain.
Danilo closed his eyes as he raised my hand to his lips. “The strength of Isis, the heart of Isis, the power of Isis is mine,” he said.
As he drank my blood, I felt dizzy, and the room began to spin. The talisman around my neck grew warm.
A horrible moan, low and deep, rose out of the sarcophagus and grew into a screech. All of the black smoke in the room gathered in the center, creating a whirlwind. The smoke was being drawn back into the sarcophagus.
“What are you doing?” I cried as I pulled my hand out of Danilo’s grasp. “We must get out of here!”
“No!” the crown prince shouted. He glared at the smoke. “Apprentice! Show yourself!”
Out of the black smoke, the ancient Egyptian rose. No longer wrapped in the burial linens, he was little more than a shrunken corpse. There were no eyes in the sockets in his face, only black holes. But I could still recognize him. Ankh-al-Sekhem had tricked us. This had been his tomb. Not that of his apprentice.
The smoke turned into a swarm of insects, black moths and scarabs. I tried to shield my face with my arm.
“Konstantin Pavlovich.” The undead Egyptian’s voice was hoarse. “I will have my revenge upon you at last!” He reached for me with a cold, clawlike hand.
I stumbled backward in fright. “Danilo! Do something!”
“He should be under your control, Katerina! Use the talisman! Make him return inside the sarcophagus!”
But the Egyptian was not under my control. I had not raised him from the dead. He had used ancient black magic and my blood to return from the Graylands.
Ankh-al-Sekhem’s laughter was raspy. “You are both powerful, but not that powerful. The prayer your vain crown prince recited brought me back. It needed only your blood to add to the magic and set off the spell.” He climbed out of his sarcophagus, surprising me with his sudden agility. “And now, at last, I can seek my revenge upon you, Konstantin Pavlovich!”
The crown prince pulled me out of the way just in time and ran to the next chamber, a room crowded with stacked piles of sarcophagi. The chamber opened up onto a long hall lined with more mummies. I didn’t know where to run. We were surrounded by the dead.
“You cannot escape me!” the Egyptian wheezed.
We had nowhere left to run.
“Katerina, we must work together if we are to defeat him,” Danilo said. “Give me your hand!”
“No! There must be some other way!” I shouted. “Sheult Anubis!” I raised my hands and drew a cloak of shadows around us. It was the only spell I knew as a necromancer.
But as soon as the shadows began to gather, Ankh-al-Sekhem waved the bony fingers on the hand he had left. “Clever, young duchess. But not clever enough.” His magic caused the shadows to scatter.
I had nothing left with which to protect us. Except the Talisman of Isis. I held it to my bleeding hand and closed my eyes. “The blood of Isis, the strength of Isis, the power of Isis is mine,” I whispered. My hand burned and it took everything I had to hold on to the talisman.
“Katerina, what are you doing?” Danilo shouted. He held his knife out, as if he could defend us against Ankh-al-Sekhem with it. But the Egyptian necromancer smiled as the blade flew out of Danilo’s hand and skittered across the stone floor.
I felt a low, rumbling vibration as the temple shook. Most of the moths and scarabs had scattered, although there were a few with broken wings fluttering helplessly at my feet. With my incantation, the dead insects became my servants. They heralded the arrival of Danilo’s and my new allies, the mummies that had been buried in the temple with Ankh-al-Sekhem.
Hissing and moaning, the mummies shuffled into the burial chamber. Most of them had been sacrificed ritually to accompany the necromancer in his death. They were ready to reap their vengeance upon Ankh-al-Sekhem.
As dozens of scrabbling dried mummies clawed their way toward us, I tried to stay calm. I had to keep them under my control or we’d be dead. “Defend us!” I shouted to my new minions.
The ancient necromancer was able to deflect those first attacks, but the mummies continued to come after him. Danilo laughed. “Very clever, Katerina. Now we must go while he is distracted.” He pulled me by the arm down the long hallway. We saw light at the end and hoped it was a doorway to the outside.
“You will never learn where the Morning Star is hidden!” Ankh-al-Sekhem yelled after us.
As soon as we made it into the fresh air, Danilo pushed the stone door shut and sealed Ankh-al-Sekhem inside his tomb, along with the angry undead mummies. We could no longer hear his screams.
I sank down into the sand, clutching the talisman to me. My breathing was ragged and uneven. Why had I helped Konstantin instead of the Egyptian? Wasn’t one evil necromancer just as bad as the other?
22
Danilo was laughing like a madman. “I didn’t know what else to do,” I began. “I—”
He stopped laughing and helped me up, pulling me into a ferocious embrace. He spun me around until I was dizzy. “You … you were brilliant!”
“But the sword… ”
“We will still find it, Katerina. And without Ankh-al-Sekhem’s meddling.” He placed me gently back on my own two feet. Danilo’s face grew serious. “You will make a wonderful tsarina, my love.”
I pulled out of his arms, uncomfortable that I’d noticed how muscular they were. “I never wanted to be tsarina. All I ever wanted was to be a doctor.”
Danilo laughed again. “Such a small imagination you have. Do you not realize you could conjure up all the ancient teachers of medicine—Hippocrates, Galen, even da Vinci—and have them at your command?”
“How ridiculous! I don’t want to study ancient medicine. I need to know the latest in research. I need to study at a real medical university!”
In an instant, the friendliness was gone from Danilo’s face. The lich tsar had returned and was in complete control of the crown prince. He grabbed my arm painfully. “You need to remember that you are my betrothed, Katerina. You will act accordingly.”
More angry now than afraid, I decided to push back. “You have to be strong, Danilo,” I shouted. “You cannot let Konstantin win.” I searched his face and held my breath. His eyes were still a murky hazel as the two people battled within the same body. Finally, the crown prince’s eyes resumed their normal black.
He nodded toward the road. “We need to get out of here. The Grigori could arrive at any minute.”
In all of the excitement of being attacked by an evil mummy, I’d forgotten about the Grigori. “If they don’t have the sword, how can Papus and the Order of the Black Lily command the Grigori to chase after us?”
He rolled his eyes. “The same way I have persuaded the Grigori to be loyal to me. The promise of freedom.”
“And they believed you?” I asked. “What will they do when they discover you lied to them?”
Danilo shrugged, but I was no longer sure if it was the crown prince or the
lich tsar I was looking at. “By then I will possess the sword and they will have no choice but to obey. There is no way to free them. The sword is not of this world and cannot be destroyed. Nor can the Grigori touch it.”
I could not believe the Grigori would be so naïve. I foresaw only more trouble and misfortune ahead once we found this cursed sword. I looked up and down the dirt road, wishing desperately for a hat to keep the sun out of my eyes. There was nothing for miles in either direction but shimmering mirages. “Which way are we to go?” I asked.
“This way,” Danilo said as he headed toward a temple complex. We wandered through the necropolis, Danilo muttering to himself as the hot wind swept stinging sands around us.
“Is there another necromancer we are to meet today?” I asked. I was tired and famished. I had lost track of the days since I’d been abducted and was not even sure of the last time I’d had a decent night’s sleep. The adventure had become one strange and endless nightmare.
“No more necromancers today,” Danilo said with a mirthless laugh. The crown prince stopped in front of a battered statue of a sphinx. This was not the famous monster at Giza but a much smaller version. I’d always loved the two sphinxes that adorned the waterfront of the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. The teachers at Smolni enjoyed taking students to the Academy and telling us the story of how the sphinxes had been brought from Egypt to Russia in the seventeen hundreds.
This sphinx was human-sized. She sat like a cat on her back haunches, her head held high regally like a queen. Her right front paw was missing. She appeared to be guarding a very plain stone building.
I watched Danilo as he approached the statue quietly. He went down on one knee, with his right hand over his heart. “My lady,” he whispered. “I have come to you seeking wisdom.”
The stone creature’s eyes opened. “You are a strange one. More of a puzzle than I,” she said.
The sphinx had come to life. I could scarcely believe my eyes. Or indeed, my ears. The voice was young and feminine, slow and deliberate. There was no cold light surrounding her, but my own cold light seemed to shy away from her. As for Danilo, his brilliant cold light strands clung to him, as if in fear of her. How very odd.
Danilo smiled. “I am a riddle as well, my lady. Answer my question and I will answer yours.”
“You seek the Morning Star.”
“Yes.”
“You believe I can help you.” The sphinx’s voice gave me chills.
“Yes, my lady.”
“And you will answer my question when I have answered yours.”
Danilo did not move. “Where will I find the Morning Star?”
The sphinx blinked. “Past the seven gates of heaven, the Morning Star lies, betwixt the steadfast darkness and the unfailing light.”
“I seek the sword known as the Morning Star,” Danilo clarified, doing his best to sound patient and humble, but I could sense his irritation.
“And I have given you the key to find your sword,” the sphinx repeated. “Now you must answer my question. What sort of creature are you?”
“But you have not answered mine!” Danilo shouted.
“He is a lich!” I said quickly. I had no desire to see what an angry sphinx could do to us. “A blood drinker who has possessed another’s body. They share one body, my lady.”
Danilo glared at me.
“Most curious,” the sphinx said. “But you did not ask me a question. And I did not ask one of you.”
“I beg your pardon, my lady.” I felt compelled to kneel down on the hard-packed sand.
This seemed to appease the sphinx. “But you have given me the answer that I sought. And so I shall give you an answer that you seek. That answer is yes.”
I had no idea what question she was answering. But her yes gave me a faint sliver of hope. “Yes” meant possibility. It meant I might survive my journey with Danilo. That I might see George again, if the sphinx could indeed see the future. What other questions did I have except for ones regarding my future? “Thank you, my lady.”
Danilo stood up. “This has been a waste of time. Let’s go.” He jerked me up by the arm.
“How are we going to get back to Cairo?” I asked him.
“Follow the Morning Star,” the sphinx growled. And her stone eyes closed at last.
Danilo cursed under his breath. “She delights in making men mad.”
“Tell me more about the sphinx,” I said, curiosity getting the better of me. “Was she ever a mortal woman?”
“Yes.” Danilo was walking quickly back toward the road. He took a pocket watch out of his vest and consulted it with a frown.
“So who was she? When did she live?” I stumbled over some rocks as I tried to keep up with him.
“Later, Duchess. We must hurry.”
I glanced at the road in despair. “We cannot walk all the way back to Cairo. It must be miles from here.”
“It is.”
“And across the river.”
“True.”
But the road was already touching civilization, and we began to pass beggars and children and stray dogs. I’d given away all of my coins in Alexandria, but Danilo shrugged off the cries of the villagers without a second glance. I stopped when I saw a young wisp of a mother with a screaming and dirty infant in her lap. “Does the baby need medicine?” I asked.
The woman stared at me blankly, not understanding French or English. I tried Greek as well. Finally I sighed and placed my pearl earrings in her hand, closing her fingers around them. “For the baby,” I said.
She grabbed my hand and kissed it, chattering in a language I did not recognize.
Danilo turned around to see what I’d done and rolled his eyes. “Forget the beggars, Katerina. We must hurry.”
Traveling north along the road, we soon came to the recognizable Giza Plateau. The electric tramline began here, taking tourists from the most famous of the Egyptian pyramids back to the comfort of Cairo. A former royal lodge, the Mena House Hotel sat near the tram station. This luxury hotel was run by a wealthy English couple who’d done little to alter the royal furnishings and décor but included every convenience a sophisticated traveler could possibly desire.
Danilo sighed as the hotel came into view. “About bloody time.”
“Do you think the Grigori know where we are?” I asked. “At this point, Duchess, I honestly do not care. We are checking in and I am taking a hot bath. I suggest you do the same.”
23
Sister Mala and the Grigori who’d rescued me in Alexandria were waiting for us in the lobby. Sister Mala accompanied me to my room, exclaiming sarcastically the whole way how much she enjoyed my company and hoped I was pleased with her service. “I’ll have the servants send up hot water for you, Duchess.”
I glared at her but did not mention what a poor chaperone she made. I had no idea if she even would have been able to travel in the Graylands with me and the lich tsar. “I don’t suppose I have fresh clothes here, do I?” I asked.
“We were unable to bring the trunks with us. However, I will find something suitable for you,” Sister Mala said. “The crown prince will expect you downstairs in the dining room properly dressed.”
“Not tonight,” I begged. “I want nothing more than a bath and a good night’s rest.”
She shrugged. “If the crown prince will allow it” was all she would say.
Fortunately, the crown prince was merciful. By the time I’d finished scrubbing several layers of desert sand off my skin in the bathtub, Sister Mala had returned with a beautiful blue gown, comparable to the latest Paris fashions, with matching blue kid slippers and soft kid gloves. She also brought a gossamer nightgown and robe.
“The crown prince hopes you have a pleasant night’s rest and requests your presence in the morning at breakfast. He begs that you at least take some tea and bread before retiring tonight.”
I sighed. “Tell him he has my gratitude. I will have just a little tea, if you would be so kind as to
send for it.”
Her eyes were cold as she nodded. “Of course, Duchess.”
As soon as she left, I slipped into the nightgown and robe before she could return. The ensemble was close to indecent. Maman would be horrified to see me wearing such a gown. A lump formed in my throat as I thought of her and Papa. They had probably given up looking for me, Petya as well. Maman had either taken to her bed with hysterics or set off for Biarritz to escape the scandal of a runaway daughter. I only hoped the tsar’s men did not harass my family thinking they knew where I was.
Sister Mala returned with a sharp knock. She entered, followed by a servant with a tea tray. “Put it down over there,” she said. As soon as the servant had left, Sister Mala sat in one of the chairs.
“Are you joining me for tea?” I asked, clutching my robe. I wished I had a long black habit, as she did.
“We are good friends, you and I,” she said, her words startling me. “We have been traveling companions for a while now. The crown prince would not want any scandal to arise that could taint your betrothal.”
I understood her perfectly. She would lie to anyone who asked whether I’d been out of her sight.
“He and I are not betrothed. We have not been betrothed for over a year.”
Sister Mala shook her head as she poured out two cups of hot tea. “How silly of you not to remember, Duchess. You and the crown prince are to be married in St. Petersburg next month. It has been a long-standing secret engagement. But as soon as Konstantin becomes the tsar, he will want to be married as soon as possible.”
She handed me one of the teacups and smiled. “He is certain you will be just as anxious as he is.”
“Why should I be?” I hesitated before drinking the tea. I did not trust Sister Mala one bit.
“Are you not excited about becoming tsarina? It’s a fairy tale come true!”
“Not my fairy tale. And I don’t believe he will become tsar. The Romanovs will stop him.”
“The Romanovs and their foolish bogatyr?” Sister Mala laughed. “The Romanovs are weak, especially the current tsar. He can do nothing without his precious necromancer. And now his necromancer has changed her loyalty to the true tsar. Konstantin.”
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