Chapter 12
Karim
Karim swung his scythe across the stalks of grain, and they fell at his feet with a satisfying swish.
I could get used to this. He thought of Raetawy, the farm girl he’d met on his journey downriver, to whom he’d given the red lion amulet.
He remembered the golden fields of wheat behind her and wondered if she took the same pleasure in harvesting.
It was certainly quieter and sweeter-smelling than being a shepherd.
Safer than tomb robbing too.
Karim couldn’t blame the Hudjefa for wanting to protect their life in that secret, fertile valley.
The oasis provided rich soil for growing grain and vegetables, and there were date palms and fig trees in abundance, likely the progeny of those planted by the ancient city’s architects.
Knowing what he did about his own people’s struggles for survival in the Red Lands—the constant travel, the fear of nighttime raids, the reliance on the herds to provide everything from food to clothing to barter—he could understand the tribe’s decision to cut themselves off from the outside world to preserve their way of life.
Not that Karim wanted to be trapped in Perset indefinitely, but…
The idea was tempting.
He thought of Sitamun. Her smile as they danced in the firelight. The curve of her back against his hand as he held her. The exhilarating softness of her lips as they kissed.
How wonderful it would be to forget everything outside the valley, as the Hudjefa had done! What a relief to cast off the burden of the past, to be tomb robber and princess no more, and start life anew in that hidden paradise!
He swung the scythe again and again, allowing his mind to fill with pleasant, preposterous thoughts.
“Karim-sen! Why are you still working? It’s time to eat!”
The voice pulled Karim from his daydreaming. Young Aya stood beside the field in a long brown dress, her dark hair untamed.
“Oh! I must have lost track of time,” he said, lowering the blade.
“Sita sent me,” Aya went on. “She made bread and wants you to have some. It’s a bit burnt, but she seems very excited about it. She says if you don’t come soon, she’ll feed it to the dog, because ‘at least Behkai will appreciate it.’”
Karim smiled. “Did she now?” That woman is taking this ruse of being married quite seriously. “I shouldn’t keep her waiting then, hey?”
Together, they made their way from the field toward the houses.
As they walked, Aya regaled Karim with stories about what colors her friends liked, how horrible it was the time she ate a rotten fig, and why snakes “aren’t actually so bad.
” The girl had been spending more and more time with him and the princess since Sami’s miraculous recovery, helping around the house, playing with Behkai, and talking.
She talked so much, in fact, Karim wondered if she ever stopped to take a breath.
He didn’t mind, though. Aya reminded him of his sisters when they were little—though he tried not to think of them too often.
The shame of not going back for them and his mother, of abandoning them after his fight with the other Jackals, was too painful to contemplate.
It was one more memory from his past that he almost wished he could forget.
“Zev still doesn’t like you, you know.”
Karim turned to Aya, who had become very serious. “No? I’m not surprised. Zev doesn’t seem to like much of anything.”
“He says you and Sita are pretending to like it here, and that one day you’ll run back home and tell on us.” She kicked a rock and watched it skitter down the path. “Are you really going to run away, Karim-sen?”
Karim tried to disguise his discomfort. That was, in fact, exactly what he and Sita were planning to do.
Since the day they’d arrived, they’d been slowly collecting supplies, as well as using every free moment to explore the ruins.
So far, other than a few choice artifacts that they’d found inside Setnakht’s palace, they hadn’t discovered anything useful about the ancient pharaoh.
Karim knew that soon they’d need to cut their losses and make their way back to Khetara—but the thought of doing so became more difficult with each passing day.
They’d made friends in the city, had lived and worked alongside their neighbors.
Sita had saved a life. Strange as it seemed, Perset had begun to feel like a second home.
Instead of answering Aya’s question, Karim asked one of his own. “You know, you never told us why you ran away. Why we found you alone in the middle of the desert.”
“I wanted to see,” Aya replied.
“See what?”
Aya threw up her hands. “Everything! I want to have adventures! But Sabba says we mustn’t leave the valley because there are mean people who want to hurt us.
He doesn’t even like it when I explore the city!
All because I got bit by a scorpion one time.
The day I ran away, I’d found something out by the palace.
I tried to get someone to come look at it, but they were all too busy. ”
Karim stopped short.
There it was. That familiar tug, like a rope around his chest pulling him toward secrets buried and forgotten.
Aya went on, bouncing on her heels beside him. “I was so mad that I got my bag and left. I wanted them to miss me and feel bad about ignoring me.” She bit her lip and peered up at Karim. “But after you and Sita found me and the storm came, I got scared. So I ran home while she was looking for you.”
“Aya,” Karim said slowly. “What did you find out by the palace?”
The little girl beamed. “Something wonderful.”
Karim swallowed, his instincts tingling. As surely as the sun rises, he knew that whatever Aya had found would bring an end to his life in Perset. Whatever it was would change everything.
Karim ought to have been thrilled. They’d been scouring the city for something, anything to aid them in the battle against Setnakht, and Aya may have found it.
And yet, all Karim felt was dread.
He thought of Sita waiting for him in the house they shared, delighted to have baked a loaf of bread with her own hands.
The princess had changed so much since they’d arrived.
She worked long shifts in the bakery, as if every bowl of flour she ground was atonement for her past. She’d begun to teach the other women basic techniques for treating wounds and other ailments, so they too could have the power to heal.
Every day, Karim saw her light—hidden for so long—shine a little brighter.
He felt it too. Even now, knowing the answer to their prayers might be buried nearby, he longed to go home to Sitamun. To finish his work in the fields, then return to luxuriate in the lie they’d built together. The lie that had become so comfortable that it felt almost like the truth.
Karim scolded himself for such selfish thoughts. Wake up, you fool. You have slept on your task long enough. You cannot escape who you are. Neither can the princess. What we have is fleeting. It blooms only here, only now, and never again.
“I’m sorry no one listened to you before,” he said to the little girl. “But I’m listening. Will you show me?”
Aya squealed in delight. “Yes!” She took his hand and tugged him toward the distant ruins.
“Right now? What about lunch?”
“Let her give it to the dog. Come on!”
Karim allowed himself to be dragged down the path, feeling like a boat that pulled anchor and was being swept away by a fast-moving current.
As he went, he mourned the bread that he’d never get to taste.
***
After a short walk, Aya led Karim to a large open area west of the palace.
Unlike the verdant land on the east side, which was close to the oasis, nothing grew there except scrub bushes.
In fact, there wasn’t much to see besides some broken stone archways and pillars, which lay half buried in the sand.
Overwhelmed with excitement, Aya released Karim’s hand and dashed through the ruins.
“Look! It’s over here!” she exclaimed.
Karim jogged up to her, amazed. The sand had been cleared away to reveal a huge black granite statue, which must have stood at the height of three men before it fell onto its side and was buried over time.
How in the world did Sita and I miss this? he wondered. They’d been so focused on searching the palace, they hadn’t considered looking that far afield.
“Isn’t she pretty?” Aya asked, sweeping her fingers across the statue’s serene face.
It was a statue of a kneeling woman with one hand raised, her palm facing toward her in a mysterious gesture. She wore a pillar-like crown on her head, topped with what appeared to be a basket.
“Can you read what it says?” Aya asked, pointing to a line of Khetaran writing engraved on the statue’s back.
“No, but Sita can. We must fetch her right away. But first I want to check something.”
Standing beside the statue, Karim turned in a slow circle, surveying the open land around him, noting the placement of the ruined archways, the crumbled pillars. Then, without warning, he dropped to the ground and lay flat on his belly.
“I want to try!” Aya said and flopped down next to him. She was silent, staring off into the distance before spitting sand out of her mouth and asking, “What are we doing?”
“The people who built Perset probably chose this location because the valley is flat, hey?” Karim said.
Aya nodded. “If you built a house on a hill, it would fall down!”
“Right. And as you can see from this angle, the land around us is very flat. But you can also see that this area we’re in is lower than the ground around it.”
“You mean… The ground fell down, like the statue?”
Karim got back to his feet and brushed the sand from his clothes. “Exactly, young sena! That would explain why the arches and pillars collapsed. If the land beneath them sank, it would have caused them to topple.”
“But why would the land sink?” Aya asked.
Karim smiled, smelling smoke and honey on the wind. “Because there’s something built underneath it.”
Aya’s eyes bulged. “So…what I found…it’s good?”
His sorrows momentarily forgotten, Karim grasped the girl by her shoulders and declared, “Aya-sena, it is incredible! You are a genius!”
“I am?” the girl asked, confused and delighted. “I am!”
“Now, go quickly and fetch Sita. Tell her to bring a chisel, my bow drill, and a torch. And Aya, let’s keep this discovery to ourselves, hey? I don’t want the whole tribe descending upon us until we know what we’re dealing with.”
“I am a genius!” Aya said, by way of agreement, and took off running.
Allowing that invisible rope to lead him, Karim wandered the area before stopping in a place that felt different than the rest. Falling to his knees, he pushed his fingers into the hot sand, searching for the prize that would lead to all other prizes, the gateway to triumph or ruin or both.
Searching for a door.