6 Karim
Karim
He almost had it.
The errant map fell to the ground, rolling against a rise in the desert, and Karim dove for it. He dimly heard Sitamun shouting for him to stop, but he ignored her. Without the map, they were lost. Got it! he thought as his fingers closed around the scroll.
That’s when the sandstorm hit.
The force of it took his breath away. It was like being struck by a solid wall rather than a million tiny particles. He fought to cover his face with his robes as the sand stung his eyes and flew into his nose and mouth.
I must get to the princess! he thought, struggling to keep his footing and failing. He couldn’t see her, the dog, or the little girl. He couldn’t see anything at all.
The storm pounded him mercilessly, and he was reminded of the beating he’d received from Babu, except this was a hundred thousand Babus pummeling him with fists made of earth and air. As he did before, Karim curled up on his side, trying to shield himself from the blows.
The barrage seemed to go on forever.
At one point, the dune beside him toppled, and Karim found himself nearly buried in the sand. Panicked, he tried to rise, but the storm shoved him back down.
He sat on the ground, trying to stay upright as more and more sand blew over him, covering his feet, his ankles, his waist. It happened so quickly that by the time he realized he was trapped, it was too late to free himself.
He strained, reaching up to push away the avalanche of sand, but it kept coming. Soon it was up to his chest, his neck.
He opened his mouth to take one last gasping breath before it buried him completely.
***
“Karim!”
The voice was muted, distant. Suspended in darkness, Karim couldn’t see, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, and yet, he could hear that voice.
Sitamun.
It was as if time had stopped.
“Karim, where are you?”
Was she getting closer or farther away? She sounded desperate.
His left hand, at least part of it, was above the surface of the sand. He could feel a hot breeze blowing across his skin, and the sun beating down on it. Not knowing what else to do, he wriggled his fingers. Then he snapped them.
He felt the earth tremble with the approach of galloping feet. A moment later, something cold and wet sniffed at his hand. A dog started barking.
“Behkai! What did you find?”
There was more pounding followed by a small quake of someone falling to their knees. A smooth hand slipped into his and squeezed.
“Hold on! I’m going to get you out of there!” Sita scrabbled at the sand, digging furiously.
As the sand loosened around him, Karim was able to move his arm, then his shoulder, until—with the princess’s help—he heaved himself up and out of the shallow grave.
Karim knelt on the ground, tearing his robes from his face, then fell on all fours and began coughing and vomiting sand, so much sand that he wondered if he’d ever get it all out.
Sita stood beside him, panting. Behkai whined and pawed the ground, as if eager to lick Karim’s face but uneasy about the foul-smelling stuff pouring out of him.
Finally, Karim stopped retching and took a long, ragged breath. He expected his eyes to be swollen and his lungs to burn, but after a little while, his breathing normalized and the pain faded. He sat back, wiping the trail of spittle from the side of his mouth.
Sensing his opportunity had come, Behkai leaped forward to offer an abundance of moist canine affection.
“All right, all right,” Karim said after allowing the dog to have his moment.
Sita was covered in sand, her black hair wild and windswept. “Are you all right? I thought I’d lost you!”
Karim nodded and staggered to his feet. “I think so, sena,” he said, shaking the grit from his robes. “We’re lucky the storm blew by so quickly. If I’d been buried down there any longer, I don’t think I would have made it.”
Sita stared at him. “The storm went on for an hour, maybe more. When it finally ended, I searched everywhere for you. I’d nearly given up when Behkai found you.”
“That can’t be. It had only been a few minutes when the dune collapsed on top of me. There’s no way I was under there for an hour. I would be—”
Their eyes met.
The word hung unspoken between them.
Dead.
Sita swallowed. “Perhaps I was wrong about the time. Perhaps it only felt like an hour.”
“Perhaps.”
Karim wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe it had only been a few minutes. However, the position of the sun said otherwise.
Choosing not to go further down that unfathomable line of thinking, Karim turned his mind to another burning question. “How did you survive? Did you make it to shelter before the storm hit?”
Sita bit her lip. “Not exactly.”
Karim waited for her to continue. “Well?”
“I don’t know!” She threw up her hands. “It was as if there was this barrier around us. The storm raged, but somehow it didn’t touch us. I don’t understand it.”
“It didn’t touch you? Is this more of your Khetaran magic? Did you do something? Say something?”
“I suppose I did. I was worried about the little girl, so I—”
The little girl! Karim had forgotten all about Aya. “Where is she?”
Sita’s shoulders fell. “Gone. She must have run away when I went looking for you.”
Karim reached back into the hole and pulled out his pack. He rooted around in it. Everything was accounted for, except—
He slapped his forehead. “The map! I had it in my hand!” He fumbled in the hole, trying to find it.
After sifting through the sand for several minutes and finding nothing, he stood and began to pace.
“What will we do now, hey? If the map is buried or flying on the western wind, how will we find the lost city? We don’t know our way around this region. ”
Sita squinted into the distance. “We don’t, but Aya does.” She pointed, and Karim turned to see a set of small footprints leading southeast. “Maybe the storm convinced her to return home. If we follow and track down her tribe, they might be able to tell us how to find Perset.”
As if he understood her words, Behkai trotted over to the footprints, marked the scent, and took off in Aya’s wake.
Karim hesitated.
“Unless you have a better idea?” Sita asked.
Karim swept an arm toward their new path and tipped his head. “Lead on, Princess.”
Sita snorted, and they forged ahead.
She didn’t ask Karim any other questions about how he’d survived being buried alive, and he didn’t interrogate her about how she’d magically shielded Aya and Behkai from the storm.
But as he walked, Karim could think of nothing else.
In more ways than one, he feared where their untrodden path was taking them.
***
First, the wind took the footprints. Then it took the scent. Frustrated, Behkai snuffled at the ground and began to wander in ever-widening circles.
“Now what?” Sita asked, her cheeks pink with exertion.
Karim stopped and put his hands on his hips, scanning the horizon.
Up ahead, the rolling dunes were interrupted by a collection of towering landforms. Most had sheer faces that would be impossible to scale, but one landform—a spire, like a finger pointing to the sky—featured a small plateau about halfway up the summit.
“If I climb up there,” he said, “I’ll have a better view of the area. ”
Sita stayed with the dog while he went on his mission.
He made quick work of the peak, his body feeling surprisingly hale given the fact that only a couple hours earlier he’d been vomiting up piles of sand.
Reaching the plateau, he stood and looked around.
From that vantage point, Karim could see far across the desert in all directions.
He turned southeast. There were no structures in sight.
No oasis either, which didn’t bode well.
Their water supplies were already low. A little farther south, though, he noticed something odd about the land. It looked…red.
Could it be a trick of the light?
He leaned forward, trying to get a better view, and put his hand on the wall of the spire to steady himself. As he touched the rock face, the world shuddered—and Karim had the sensation of falling backward, even though he hadn’t moved at all.
Then, everything changed.
The sun was low on the eastern horizon, and a morning chill hung in the air.
A man stood beside him, pointing out landmarks in the distance.
Below, at the base of the spire, he could see a large caravan—servants, pack animals, men in white robes surveying the land and noting details on rolls of papyrus.
They were clearly Khetaran, but their style of clothing was unrefined, the colors muted.
Karim couldn’t move or speak, only watch as the scene played out before him.
“There are several areas of interest in this region,” the man said. “Particularly to the south. There are no landforms to speak of, and the ground is relatively flat. Most importantly, we’ve discovered a water source nearby. It’s the perfect location for development.”
“And what is that area there?” The voice came from Karim’s throat, though neither it nor the words were his. A bejeweled hand that also wasn’t his pointed south.
“That is the Red Desert, my king. It is not large, but the sand there is heavy in minerals that give it that color.”
Karim felt a rumble of approval in his chest. “Then that is where we build. For Set is the red god, and my city shall be his House.”
Karim gasped as he tumbled forward in time. The world righted around him, the sun dropping west, the afternoon air hot and dry, just as he had left it.
He stared at his hand that had touched the spire. The vision had left him breathless. It was like he’d been thrust inside someone else’s memory, someone who had once stood in that very spot, steadying himself on that same stone.
Not “someone,” Karim thought. Him.
Karim ran a finger along the scarab-shaped scar on his chest, fearing afresh the consequences of what thrummed beneath his skin.
This is the heart of a king.