Stopping to rest periodically, they walked and jogged through the night. At first, Nima believed it was an amazing coincidence when Kamin called a halt every time she was on the verge of telling him she could go no farther, but then she realized he was watching her without seeming to do so, evaluating her condition and pacing himself.
As she drank the water he handed her and nibbled at their last remaining bread crust, she admired his muscular frame, his handsome face. But what I appreciate most is how considerate of me he’s been. It’s a relief – nay, a luxury - to have someone so capable, so deadly, watching over me, concerned about my comfort. He turned in her direction, and she averted her eyes, not wishing to be caught gawking. Could I ever mean something to him as a woman, not merely a person he’s grateful to for rescuing him? She laid her head on her knees, wistfully considering what it would be like to belong to a man like Kamin and wondering what his story was. I told him mine. But, of course, he was a spy, so he had to keep most things about himself secret, she supposed with a little sigh.
“So.” He touched her on the shoulder, making her jump a little, as if he could read her thoughts. “Can you draw me the map now?”
“Oh, I forgot. Of course I can.” Blushing, flustered, she placed the water skin on the ground and cast a puzzled glance at him. “But on what? We have no papyrus, no tablets.”
He tapped his forehead lightly with his index finger. “Excellent memory. I just need you to draw it for me in the sand, then I’ll have it up here. I can reproduce it on papyrus once we return to civilization.” With a quick movement, he handed her his dagger, hilt first. “Your pen, my lady scribe.”
She giggled at his exaggerated formality. “I’m no scribe and certainly no lady. I can read and write a few hieroglyphics, no more. I told you, my stepfather believed in practical education.”
“Which stood you, and me, in good stead, although your troupe master shouldn’t expect my thanks any time soon.” He smoothed a patch of sandy soil between them with the palm of his hand. “Here’s your slate. I think the moonlight is sufficient, thanks to the Great One Nuit’s generosity.”
Nima paused a moment, considering how to begin. “I’ve never drawn anything before.” Then she outlined a neat square at the top of the sand. “This was the fortress. There were odd markings, like the building was surrounded by hills.” She made delicate indentations in the sand with the tip of the knife. “And here, these are the corresponding alignments of the stars, at least at this season.”
“Excellent details,” Kamin approved. “Now the trail leading to it?”
Moving the knife tip to the opposite side of the sand square, she drew a smaller box. “Hebenar, the village where they caught me.” She closed her eyes for a second. Even the mere act of uttering the doomed settlement’s name brought sadness and horror flooding into her mind.
“Don’t let the memories intrude.” Lightly, Kamin squeezed her shoulder, as if they were comrades in arms. “You’re here with me now, not there.”
Dropping the knife into the dirt, she rubbed her hand across her eyes, furious to be tearing up again in his presence. “Will I ever be able to forget?”
He reached out and caught her to him, hugging her as she cried. “It’s all right, let the tears wash away some of the fear and pain.”
“I want to forget.” Nima protested, her voice wobbly.
She could feel the motion as he shook his head. He rubbed a hand down her back in lazy circles. “I can’t lie. Crying will help, but the memories won’t fade completely. They dim with time, I promise.”
“And—and those two men I killed? Will I ever be able to walk away from those deeds?” She sobbed harder, weeping in deep paroxysms. “When my heart is weighed by the gods after my death, will I be judged as having done the right thing? Or will they give my ka to Ammit the Destroyer?”
“You didn’t commit murder. You were engaged in warfare on behalf of Egypt. The gods will account for that.” Kamin murmured soft words in her ear, held her close.
Nima had no idea how long she indulged herself in the emotional release, but eventually the sobs faded to sniffles and hiccups, and the tears no longer fell. Such a luxury, to be comforted. There’s no tenderness in any member of Dudekh’s dance troupe.
Kamin held her away from him enough to see her face. With one hand, he blotted the tears on her cheeks. “Better now?”
Reaching for the corner of her cloak, she spilled a tiny bit of the water onto it to wash her face. “I’m sorry to have wept all over you.”
“You needed to cry.” Taking the cloak, he dried a spot on her cheek she’d missed. “I hope it helped?”
“A little.” She pressed one hand to her aching heart. “I was so helpless and terrified the night I was captured. Some of those people who died were friends. The town was my favorite stop on our regular route of touring, so I was thinking of trying to escape the troupe there. The innkeeper in Hebenar was always nice to me, snuck me extra food. And the two serving maids were twins, sweet girls my age. When I was in town, we used to go shopping in the bazaar together. I’d promised to dance at the older sister’s wedding.” Hiccupping a bit, Nima closed her eyes in pain. “She died when the soldiers were—when they had her—” Voice fading, she gulped against renewed sobs.
“If talking about the events helps you ease the memories plaguing your mind, I’ll listen to the entire tale as often as you need to tell it,” Kamin said, embracing her again. “Too much for you to carry alone. I have broad shoulders.”
“You’re so kind to me, so patient.” She searched his face. “Why?”
“You saved my life, risked your own to do so.” His answer was prompt and emphatic. “You could have left me there, let me eat the drugged stew along with our captors, to avoid any possibility I might betray you.”
“Never!” Cutting across his words, she protested immediately. “I wouldn’t have drugged you. Leaving you never even crossed my mind.”
“I know,” he said, patting her on the shoulder. “You’ve much honor. But, as I was going to say before you interrupted me, I’ve got three younger sisters who’ve needed comforting at times. Although, thank the gods, not for anything approaching what you’ve endured.”
“Oh.” He thinks of me as a little sister? The idea was deflating.
Studying her reaction, he frowned, hazel eyes narrowing. “Now your mind is going in the wrong direction, I fear.” He caught her chin and lifted her face to his. “Because a man has sisters doesn’t mean he sees every beautiful woman he meets as a sister. You have to know I find you incredibly desirable? Surely you saw how my body responded to you, how nothing else mattered to me in the moment of your dance, even though I was a prisoner in peril.” He glanced away, seeming a bit embarrassed by his declaration of her effect on him. “Such is the power of your art.”
She nodded a little shyly, feeling warmth bloom in her cheeks. She was glad it was night—perhaps he wouldn’t observe her blush. “I—I noticed. I was pleased, although it wasn’t my intent to arouse.”
“Now is not the time or the place for me to pursue what I feel for you.” His voice was a little rough as he stared into her eyes. “Gods willing, we’re going to have the leisure and the right surroundings someday.”
She blinked at his vehemence. Rising, Kamin paced away a few steps, turning to the horizon, ostensibly scanning the wide-open plains. Retrieving the dagger, Nima renewed her efforts to complete her crude map. Could he have not merely desire but affection for me? I think I’m falling in love with him like a foolish girl in a scribe’s tale. For all I know, he has a fat wife and seven children somewhere.
After a moment, Kamin walked over to watch her, asking questions about the markings as she drew them. Finally, she laid the knife aside and surveyed the map top to bottom, biting her lip as she concentrated. Brushing aside some loose dirt drifting across the representation of the trail, she dusted her hands off. “This is as much as I can recall, but I think it’s pretty much complete.”
“Amarkash was a fool. He seriously underestimated you, in all ways, thank the gods.” Kamin squatted on his haunches, hands resting on his powerful thighs. “Let me have a few moments to commit this to memory, and then we’ll wipe it away and get moving again.”
“I’ll keep watch.” She stood, adjusting her blue dress, then taking up position where he’d been, eyeing the horizon in all directions.
A movement in the sky, a flicker of wings crossing the setting moon, caught her eye, and she stood straighter. “Kamin, I see something odd, there in the sky, just below the constellation of Osiris.”
“What?” He raised his head from his contemplation of the map, obliterated her painstakingly drawn representation of the route to the enemy’s fortress with one sweeping gesture of his large hand and came to join her. Peering in the direction she pointed, he said, “It’s a bird.”
“Some kind of owl?” She heard a keening cry, and the bird veered closer, soaring high above them, drifting on a thermal breeze.
Drawing her with him, Kamin headed purposefully toward their stack of gear. “No, it’s a falcon.”
“They don’t fly at night,” she protested, suddenly uneasy.
“The Great One Horus reminds us we need to move, find a safe place to rest during the day. It’ll be dawn all too soon, and the Hyksos will be out hunting for us.” He handed her the nearly depleted water skin before taking the rest of their gear himself.
Nima stumbled. Instantly, he steadied her with one strong hand on her elbow. She asked, “You—you don’t think they might give up? I’m nothing but a dancer from a frontier town—”
“And I’m a spy who knows a lot about their most secret plans,” Kamin answered grimly. “Although the young officer I killed was the only man in the camp who knew I was anything more than an ordinary prisoner.”
“Unless he told Amarkash,” Nima said.
“Doesn’t matter, either way it’s too soon for them to call off the hunt. I wouldn’t, if I were in command, not yet.” Kamin sounded very sure as he gave his opinion.
“Where are we going to hide?” She scanned the horizon anxiously. “We left the sandstone wadis behind hours ago. No caves here.”
“We’ll find something.”
“Do you have the heiroglyph for confidence in one of your names perhaps?” Nima teased. “You’re always so sure the Great Ones will provide an answer to any dilemma.”
Kamin grinned but shook his head. “Let’s follow the direction the falcon went.”
They made considerable progress during the last hours of night, covering a lot of ground. As the sun rose in the east, Kamin eyed the sky to the west of them with severe misgivings. The wind picked up, plucking at their cloaks. “I think we could be in trouble,” he said.
“Again?” Nima grabbed at the flapping edges of her cape. Putting the hood over her hair, she sighed. “Sandstorm?”
He pointed at the horizon to the west. “See the band of yellow clouds?”
“I’ve seen such clouds before, never a good omen. The troupe was in Zauimu once when the storm blew for three days. We couldn’t set foot outside the tavern where we were staying. I came to develop a hatred for the place.” Eyes wide, she examined their surroundings. “What will we do? If we’re caught in the open, the sand will scrub the flesh from our bones.”
“There’s something over there, way in the distance.” He pointed.
“I don’t see anything.” Squinting, she was dubious. “Could it have been a mirage?”
“I’ve told you I was gifted by Horus with exceptional vision. Trust me.” He started jogging, tugging her with him. “I don’t care if it’s a house, a rock outcropping, some trees, at this point we need shelter.”
A falcon screamed in the sky, winging ahead of them, skimming the ground. The wind blew harder, and small dust devils swirled on all sides of them as they reached the rocks Kamin had seen. Again, the falcon issued a warning or a challenge, swooping at Kamin.
Nima stared at the barren rock formation. “Not too promising, is it? What are we going to do now?”
The falcon made another pass, winging low over the ground to the left, uttering low-voiced cries. With narrowed eyes, Kamin watched the bird’s trajectory. “I say we follow the bird.”
Nima nodded. “For lack of a better plan, I agree, and we need to move fast.”
They broke into a run. Nima ordered herself to move, fighting exhaustion. Kamin ran easily, not even breathing hard. As if checking on them, the bird made lazy circles in the ever-more-ominous sky. Behind the façade of the rocks, the terrain sloped, and Nima found herself in a valley with tumbledown stone ruins in a heap at the far end. Plummeting out of the sky with heart-stopping speed, the falcon shrieked, landing atop the tallest ruin, watching as they came closer.
“Here? Where’s the safe shelter here?” Nima asked, hands on her hips, her skeptical glance switching from one piece of broken masonry to the next. The muscles in her legs quivered and ached, so she sank onto a convenient pillar remnant, rubbing her calves. “There isn’t even an intact building.”
“Most likely this was a small temple in ancient times, maybe even the first civilization before ours.” Kamin walked closer to the broken columns, half buried in the sand. Sidling along the jagged edge of the roof, the falcon tilted its head to watch. “Come see this.”
“What did you find?” Wearily, Nima got up from her seat on a column base and trudged to join him.
“Maybe this was the center of the temple.” Kamin kicked at the sand and dry brush drifted across the flat space. More of the painting became visible—gazelles running through a forest growing beside a body of water. Flowers bloomed in vast carpets of sadly faded color, and the trees were laden with fruit. The hues were faint now but must have been vivid eons ago.
“Not in the modern style but beautiful.” Nima walked over to examine the flowers more closely.
The falcon winged past her, landing at the far edge of the patio, pecking at one particular flagstone with its beak before taking off again. Moving to the place indicated by the falcon, Kamin hunkered to examine the exposed floor closely. A gust of wind blew stinging sand, and they both had to stand, clutching each other for stability, backs to the gale. As soon as the wind eased, Kamin returned to the stone, rapping his knuckles on it in various spots. Running the tips of his fingers along the seam between the stone and its neighbors, he tried to pry the block up. Drawing his dagger, he used the blade as a lever. “I think this might be a trapdoor. Ah, got it.”
Moving out of the way as the painted slab he’d been working on slid aside, Kamin watched as it shifted in fits and starts under the stone next to it until a black opening loomed. He leaned over, his head inches above the ground. “Air smells fresh. Fragrant, actually.”
Nima didn’t trust the trapdoor to be anything resembling good fortune, falcon or no falcon. “Be careful, there could be snakes or scorpions.”
“I’ll protect you from those plagues, as long as you protect me from spiders. Fair’s fair.” Grinning, he held out one hand to her. “This must lead somewhere we can shelter from the storm or the falcon wouldn’t have led us to it.”
“You have a lot more confidence in birds than I do, soldier.”
Shrieking around the edges of the rock formation and the ruins, the wind was picking up.
“Horus is the Great One I serve. I can’t imagine his falcon would betray us.” Taking her hand, he squeezed it gently. “I’ll go and let you know how it is in a minute.” Stepping into the stairway, Kamin descended. Reluctantly, Nima leaned over the rim, trying to make out any features in the inky black depths, straining to hear the sound of his footsteps as they receded, growing fainter.
“Can you see anything?” she called after a few moments when she heard him walking toward her in the tunnel below.
“The passage opens into a lighted area. I didn’t go all the way to the end.” Kamin emerged partway from the tunnel, resting his arms on the ground, regarding her with a
frown. “I think we’d better hide here because we’re out of time to look for a better shelter from this weather. Trust me, trust Horus. All right?”
Taking a deep breath, one hand over her stomach to quell the nervous flutters, she let him draw her over the edge of the opening, then descended the steps by feel, going deeper into the near-total darkness.
Reaching the bottom with an awkward thump, expecting there to be more stairs, Nima peered into the gloom, eyes narrowed. She was ready for anything, pulse pounding, fight or flight. As he’d promised, light beckoned at the end of the inky blackness. The air was fresh, carrying the scent of some lush flower. Lotus here? So far from the Nile?
“What are you doing?” she asked, squinting at Kamin as he circled her to ascend the staircase.
“Trying to get the trapdoor closed,” he grunted. There was a loud snap, and she heard the panel sliding home. Kamin descended the stairs in a rush.
Hand over her heart as it thumped loudly in her chest, Nima squinted in his direction. “Can you get the capstone to open again when we’re ready to leave?”
“Probably.” His teeth flashed white in that cocky grin as he dusted his hands off. “There was a latch.” Taking her by the elbow, he led her forward in the narrow tunnel.
After about thirty paces, they stood on the threshold of the portal, mere steps away from a lush garden. Palm trees and other greenery grew at the edges of an azure lake. Birds of all colors flew in the sky or rested in the tree branches. Gazelles like the ones in the ancient temple painting ambled past. A riot of pastel-hued flowers bloomed in clumps scattered over a carpet of lush, green grass.
“How can this be? How can such things exist under the ground?” Hand over her mouth, goose bumps prickling her skin, Nima shrank against Kamin’s reassuringly solid frame. “What is this place? Are we dead? Is this the Afterlife?”
“We’re not dead,” he said. “We didn’t pass through any chamber of judgment, did we?”
“No. But this place is too perfect to be real.” On tiptoe, as if stepping into the edge of the Nile, Nima advanced onto the grass, finding the surface thicker under her aching feet than the best carpet. Pirouetting to Kamin, she extended one arm to him. “Pinch me.”
Dancer of the Nile (Gods of Egypt) Page 5
