by K A Doore
Heru swept away and up the stairs, removing objects from his wrap as he walked. He took the light with him, but by now the torches were burning brightly. Thana glanced at Mo, hoping she was ready to talk, to repair what had been broken, but the healer was already walking away.
Thana sighed and eyed the tombs, briefly considering sleeping in one. Then she noticed the smear of blood beneath one tomb and, stepping back, across the floor. Now that she was looking, the blood was everywhere. Smears on the walls. Handprints across the floor.
Of course, the dead hadn’t been the only ones in the crypt. What must the marab have thought when those corpses started moving, started climbing out of their tombs? The marab would have tried to stop them. They’d failed.
Thana shuddered. The stomp of footsteps on the stairs heralded Heru’s return. He’d pulled his tagel down again. He still held the brilliant orb in one fist, but his other was streaked with blood and ash.
“That should hold for the night,” he announced. “Now, I think it’s time to plan our next steps. Djet is still out there—”
“Why do you want to stop him?” asked Mo sharply.
She’d moved in front of Heru while he walked and now blocked him with her staff, her body tense. Heru stopped and looked her over as if he’d been confronted by a growling kitten. He tried to go around, but she stepped with him.
“I know why I want to stop him,” said Mo. “He destroyed my home. He killed my people. He’s an en-marabi, a blasphemer of the worst kind.” She paused for a beat, then added, “But so are you.”
Heru tried going the other way around Mo and her staff, but again, she moved with him. “I thought my reasons were obvious,” he said.
“I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t take anything for granted right now.”
“You’re forgiven,” said Heru. “But only if you get out of my way.”
He darted suddenly to one side, but Mo moved just as quickly. Thana was smugly satisfied to recognize her training in Mo’s movements. Heru huffed his annoyance.
“Not until you tell me why,” pressed Mo.
“The Empress ordered me to.”
“I don’t think you care that much about your Empress’s orders.”
“Perhaps I don’t want someone else to obtain immortality before I do. Now move.”
But Mo continued to block him with her staff. Heru huffed again, shook his head, then opened his bloody palm: a warning. Mo’s grip tightened on her staff as she stared him down.
“I could kill you right now and bind your jaani under my will,” said Heru.
“You could. But you haven’t and you won’t. You need me.”
Heru hissed, but it sounded more pained than angry. “I shouldn’t need either of you.”
“But you do.”
“I need to get to my bags—” Heru tried darting around Mo again.
Mo’s staff connected with his stomach and Heru let out an oof of breath. “Tell me.”
“Fine. You want to know?” Heru straightened and narrowed his eyes. “Djet has taken too much. Yes, I’m an en-marabi. I wear that label with pride. The en-marab aren’t the demons and G-d blasphemers you want us to be. Djet gave the rest of us—is giving us—a bad name and I don’t appreciate that. If Djet isn’t stopped before he becomes immortal, he won’t ever stop. They’ll come for us again like they did in his time, and they’ll be just as indiscriminate in their ignorance. All my years of research, every single one of them, will be for naught. I cannot—will not—let that happen. I’ve put too much time and effort and literal blood into my work to have some has-been dust-for-a-brain snotty upstart come in and take it all away from me.” He slammed his bloody fist into his thigh. “Will you get out of my way now?”
Mo stood still for a moment, taking in Heru’s words. Then she lowered her staff and stepped aside. “I don’t think you have to worry about Djet giving the en-marab a bad name.”
“I don’t care what you think,” snipped Heru, pushing past. “The en-marab are doing and have done more for the good of mankind than any self-proclaimed, righteous, G-d-fearing marabi. It’s because of our work that marab can even quiet jaan, and it’s because of our work that there’re fewer mad jaan roaming the desert.”
“Because you enslave them!”
Heru stooped over the pile of bags and rifled inside of one. He freed a large leather box and turned it over in his hands.
Distracted, he said, “Yes, well, someone has to.”
He slid the lid off, revealing several closely crammed scrolls. He spread one of these across the floor, weighing down the corners with pieces of broken stone. A familiar map scrawled across the scroll: the same one Heru had found back in the Empress’s library. But it had been changed, marked up with scribbles in blue ink.
Heru smoothed out the scroll and surveyed his work. “We need to plan our next move and pinpoint exactly where we’re going. We won’t have the time—or supplies—to err or wander.”
Thana picked out the new additions. They ran from simple circles, clustered at the western edge of the map, to full paragraphs in a language she didn’t recognize. One line of blue ink traced their path, starting from Na Tay Khet in the upper east before plunging south, then turning west. The line passed through a sparse area before coming to a crescent of cities bordering a region that had been left completely void.
Between the crescent and the capital, the map had the occasional symbol for wells and various terrains, from the plains of sahar to the rugged, glossy rocks of regs. But the space beyond the crescent held nothing at all.
Or, it had held nothing when Thana had first seen the map. Now, blue ink filled the void.
Thana pointed to one of the new marks. “What’s all this?”
“Hmm? Oh, that.” Heru tapped a blue symbol that looked like a mountain. “I’ve been updating the map during the journey.”
Mo hovered between Heru and Thana, curiosity getting the better of her. “How?”
But Thana remembered how Heru had perched atop his bound camel, working furiously on something. Now she pictured him trying to balance the map on one knee and a full writing set on the other. Too bad he hadn’t lost his balance and fallen off.
“With the aid of the scrolls I borrowed from the library,” said Heru. “My research wasn’t complete when we left. I couldn’t risk wasting any more time sitting idly in the city, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t broaden my knowledge during the predictably slow journey.”
“You filled in the Wastes?” Thana tried not to sound impressed.
She must have failed, because Heru’s smug pride deepened. “I did. At least, as far as the sources would allow. There’s still a vast portion that can’t be known, but what I have here is a start.” He pointed at several of the mountain symbols. “By triangulating the locations in the stories with known landmarks, I have managed to place—with some small degree of error—the major mountain ranges that have been reported in the Wastes. The likelihood that one of these ranges in particular”—he tapped three symbols in quick succession—“is the Aer Essifs is so close to one hundred percent as to be actionable.
“Now, narrowing it down further has been integral because, as you can clearly see, these mountains are far enough from one another that to choose one means not choosing the others. We wouldn’t have time to investigate a second potential site if we chose incorrectly. Therefore, it’s of the utmost importance that we choose correctly.” Heru pressed his finger on a symbol furthest into the Wastes. “This is where I hypothesize the Aer Essifs lie and where Djet will go—or has gone, if we are so unlucky.”
Mo knelt and peered closely at the map. “You found them.”
“It was no easy task, of course,” said Heru. “No geographer or historian has traveled into the Wastes in living memory and the recollections of the Azal caravans that frequent its salt flats are deeply flawed, hindered as they are by their oral tradition. But I am confident in my conclusion. Djet will head here. And so shall we.”
Mo traced an invisible line from the Aer Essifs to the crescent cities, her nail stopping at Ghadid. Their projected journey was longer than the one they’d just made, over more treacherous terrain, with no marked wells. And this time, it’d just be the three of them and all their camels could carry.
“How are we going to do this?” asked Thana. “We don’t even trust each other, yet we expect to cross this”—Thana gestured at the Wastes—“and still be strong enough to take on the most powerful en-marabi that has ever lived? And win?”
“We don’t have to like each other—” began Heru.
“But we do have to trust each other.” Mo looked between them. “Thana’s right—we’ve lost that trust.”
When Mo’s gaze flicked her way, Thana caught it. “I still trust you.”
Heru grunted. “Trust is overrated. We have the same goal and I can sleep without worrying either of you will manage to kill me. With a plan, that will be sufficient. This isn’t a marriage.”
“We have no choice,” said Mo.
“Can we at least pretend not to hate each other?” asked Thana.
They shared an uncomfortable silence, staring at the map as they reached a collective, silent accord. Or so Thana hoped.
Heru placed the orb in the map’s center, its light now a soft glow. “I am sorry about the loss of your home and people, but we shouldn’t dwell on what we cannot change. We should count our assets. We have a powerful en-marabi who knows more about Djet than anyone else—that would be me, of course.” He touched his chest as if he were being modest. “Then we have a healer who can not only heal, but also find water.” He gestured at Mo. “We also have three healthy camels, one of which can run several hundred miles without tiring. The other two … I can fix that.”
“I don’t think Mo’s going to let you kill and bind the camels,” pointed out Thana.
“She’s right,” said Mo.
“And we have a useless assassin who can provide a convenient fleshy meat shield in the event of an attack,” finished Heru.
“I’m not useless.” But even as she spoke, she worried that he wasn’t as far off as she’d like. “I can fight.”
Heru waved a hand at her. “As I said. I’m sure your antics will distract Djet’s bound for a few minutes before they kill you. That aside, it’s obvious that our first order of business when the sun rises is to bind the remaining camels.”
“No.” Mo crossed her arms. “I won’t let you kill the camels.”
Heru glared at Thana and grit his teeth. “It’s for their own good, and ours. We cannot cross such a distance in time if we have to stop and rest our animals.”
“I’m not going to argue with you about whether or not it’s okay to murder our camels.”
“It isn’t murder. If anything, it’s the exact opposite. I’m giving them immortality.”
Mo shook her head, incredulous. “The same mindless immortality that Djet has given corpses?”
Heru shrugged. “They’re camels.”
“They’re alive.”
“We can talk about this later,” broke in Thana. “What about Djet? How’re we supposed to stop him?”
“That should be simple.”
Heru retrieved a second scroll from his case. This he unrolled slowly, scanning the paper with a finger as he read. Leaning closer, Thana recognized that it was one of the primary sources, easily several centuries old. Like the map, though, the scroll was covered in fresh blue ink. Heru had scribbled notes, circled passages, and underlined words.
“We have to stop Djet before he frees the sajaam,” said Heru. “If we’re too late for that, we must interrupt the binding ritual. If we’re too late for that—I suggest we genuflect and beg for his mercy.” Heru tapped the scroll. “Thankfully, the ritual will be easy to disrupt. According to this, Djet developed his binding method from typical marabi techniques. A circle of protection, a few choice herbs, and a seal, the last of which would utilize his own invented script. The seal will be the most difficult to break, as there will be built-in redundancies, so we should not let him reach that point.
“I also hypothesize that he’ll use the myth of the sajaam’s binding as his guide. In it, the marab used blood, smoke, and thorns—these three things will be instrumental in freeing them. The blood came from the marab and—” Heru stopped suddenly, his finger tracing and retracing the same note. He snapped his fingers. “The first advisory marabi and my colleagues. They never did answer me. Perhaps Djet has use for them after all. If we can remove them from the equation—ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself.”
“If you mean anything other than evacuating the marab, I refuse to be a part of it,” said Mo. “We can’t stoop to Djet’s level.”
Annoyance flashed across Heru’s uncovered face. “We will be forced to do many unseemly things before this is done. I won’t rule out any in particular. I’m merely apprising you both of the situation as I understand it. Need I remind you that this man had no compunction sending his creatures into my room and destroying an entire city? To fight monsters, sometimes it helps to become one.”
Mo tightened her lips, staring down Heru, but he didn’t waver. After a long moment, she said, “G-d will provide.”
“Maybe,” said Heru. “But sometimes you have to help G-d along.”
26
They discussed provisions and distances, then settled in for the night. Heru palmed the glowing orb, making it disappear somewhere within his wrap, but the torches remained lit. Thana pulled her wrap tighter and ignored the chill that came up from the stone floor. For the first hour, her mind jumped back and forth from her torn city to Mo’s hurt as one might poke again and again at a bruise. And Thana was all bruise.
She thought she’d never sleep, but exhaustion eventually claimed her. When she opened her eyes again, her limbs were cramped and sore from lying on the hard ground. A dense quiet had spread through the crypt. She could hear her own heartbeat and the steady breathing of her companions. No—she frowned. Not so steady.
A faint blue glow suffused the area, covering everything. Thana slowly turned her head until she saw Mo. The healer sat cross-legged and straight-backed next to the pile of waterskins, her figure awash in blue. She held a bowl of glowing water in her lap. Although her lips were moving, her expression remained impassive.
Despite the thin wrap and cold stones, Thana felt comfortable and warm. For the first time in weeks, her shoulder didn’t throb and the ache of travel that had settled in her legs and lower back had subsided. The scrapes on her palms and shins from climbing the cable were gone, her skin smooth and unbroken. Slowly, even her headache vanished.
Thana watched Mo through half-open eyes. With the blue suffusing her skin, Mo looked like an angel. The glow smoothed out her skin and her hair and her wrap, banishing darkness and shadow. In that moment, Mo was as delicate as a doll, as solid as a statue, and as inhuman as both.
The urge to go to Mo, to wrap her arms around the healer as she had on so many other nights, to feel her warmth and breathe in her citrus sweetness, hurt Thana as much as a physical wound, but one Mo couldn’t heal. Heru had ruined that for her. Instead, cradled by the blue light, Thana closed her eyes and drifted back into a restless sleep.
* * *
Ghadid’s smoking pylons were just fading into the east when the sky began to lighten and the stars winked out one by one. With a heaviness in her chest, Thana walked backward beside her camel and watched the horizon swallow her home. When she turned back around, she faced a seemingly endless stretch of flat sand, scattered with rocks. According to Heru’s map, by day’s end they’d be threading through a treacherous maze of dunes.
They’d spent another day in Ghadid before leaving. Mo had needed the rest and Thana had used the extra time to scavenge for supplies. Their camels had been grumpy but alive when they finally stepped from a carriage to the sands. Now the camels plodded along, their splayed toes sinking deeper and deeper as the hours slunk by. Each of them, even Heru, moved as if their jaan ha
d fled, leaving only their mindless and dispirited bodies behind.
They stopped at midday for tea and huddled beneath a piece of stretched cloth, exchanging only a few words. Heru turned his back on them and hunched over a glass bottle he’d picked up in Ghadid. He was drawing something on it, over and over again, but Thana wasn’t close enough to see what. She couldn’t drum up the energy to care.
Instead, she closed her eyes against the blinding sand and carefully tended to the hot bead of anger and hope. Try as she might, she couldn’t even be angry with Heru. His attempt to clear the air had been sincere, if severely misguided. No, all of her anger was directed at Djet. She tallied all the things Djet had taken from her and went over them as if they were the crimes of a mark. Her city, her people, her home, her family, her cousins, her love, her mother, her future. That anger was the only thing keeping the heaviness from choking her, the only thing keeping her going, step after step after step. Because without it, what did she have left?
They traveled into the night, keeping to a caravan’s schedule although they hadn’t discussed it. When the moon rose, they made camp. When the moon was overhead, they set out again. The heat quickly dissipated and even Heru walked to stay warm.
When dawn oozed across the sands, the world had subtly changed. Instead of an expanse of flat sand, one horizon was now choppy. The wind had picked up, become a steady breeze that spit sand and sucked the heat from their bones. As they approached, the horizon grew and spread, towering higher and higher: a dune field.
They entered the dunes around midday. Their afternoon rest was short, a shared sense of urgency forcing them onward. Heru checked his map to estimate the size of the dune field, but the effort was wasted. They were in the Wastes now and Heru’s additions could be off by miles.
The dunes grew around them from rolling hills to sleeping giants. As they walked through the valleys, the only sounds were the shh-shh-shhing of the camels’ feet and the occasional creak of leather. They turned and wound between the dunes and soon Thana lost all track of time and direction.
