Chapter 6
VI
I MUTE A CRY AS DJEDEF LETS OUT AN AGONISED GROAN.
The glistening tip of the obsidian sword juts from his chest. Caeror has one hand on his shoulder and the other firmly on the blade’s hilt, holding him in place from behind.
“Say nothing except to answer my questions. Tell me what happened when you died. Be truthful. Leave nothing out that I would want to know,” he says in thick Vetusian.
I clench my fists. Shock, and the desire to do something, warring with Caeror’s warning. Djedef is evidently in pain and yet he doesn’t fall, doesn’t try to get away. If any blood seeps from his new wound, I cannot see it.
“I was … a few hours out of Duat. Heading east. Told … there would be someone out there … who might help.” He gasps the words but speaks slowly enough that I can follow without great difficulty. “One of those … things … came from nowhere. Didn’t … see it until it had seen me.”
“You were told someone would be in the desert?” Caeror’s interest is sharp.
“In … a message.” Djedef stumbles a little, but Caeror’s grip on him never wavers, not allowing him to move away. “Someone called Netiqret. He … supplied my khepri. Got me out. We never … met.”
Caeror breathes out, clearly dissatisfied. “And when the Gleaner killed you, it questioned you?”
“Yes.”
“What did you tell it?”
“What I … told you.”
“That wouldn’t be enough.” Caeror is frowning now. “What did you say to make it leave you so urgently?”
“I don’t know.”
The response changes something in Caeror. There’s a slight slumping of the shoulders. The barest tensing of muscle, though not so much that Djedef would notice.
“What time of day was it when you died, Djedef?”
“Morning. Not long before noon.”
Caeror nods, unseen by the man. Almost ready to relax again, but then he cocks his head to the side. “How many days have passed since the last restday in Duat?”
Djedef is suddenly moving. Jerking forward, physically hauling himself off the obsidian through his chest. Caeror yells for him to stop, tackles him to the ground, barely keeping the weapon embedded. Djedef writhes, tries to use the sand against his face to strip off his blindfold.
“Be still!” Caeror shouts it; as soon as the words are out of his mouth, Djedef goes limp. “Do not move. Do not speak.” He’s on his knees, one hand still on the blade’s hilt.
He steels himself. Lets go.
“We were in a—”
Djedef’s rapid words are cut off as Caeror grasps either side of his head, and twists. There’s a sharp snap. Djedef lies still.
Caeror watches him and then exhales, movements heavy. “A broken neck is almost always too much for Will to compensate for.” He extracts the obsidian sliver from Djedef’s chest and then rolls him over.
Positions the blade beneath his throat and then quickly, regretfully, slides it into his skull.
I take a shuddering step back as Caeror pulls the weapon out again and gets to his feet. He turns to me and holds out a hand in what he evidently means as a reassuring gesture.
“Why?” I whisper it.
“The Instruction Blades were originally Ka’s; using one on a mind he’s infected creates a kind of connection back to him.
Using them for this isn’t ideal, but it’s still better than having Djedef wake up one night and try to murder us all.
” He crouches, stabs the blade in the sand to clean it.
“Ka can make iunctii forget things, but he can’t give them false memories.
Which means that everything Djedef just said was the truth, but they must have caught him a day or two ago.
Brought him back to Duat, then commanded him to reenact his death when they thought we were watching.
They haven’t tried that for a few years.
” Pulls the blade out again. Inspects it.
“At least Ka will know he has no utility now. It should reduce the resources he’s willing to waste in finding him.
Means they’ll give up sooner. Now help me cover him. ”
I numbly do as he asks. We start kicking sand and piling stones over Djedef’s corpse. “But if he’s of no use—”
“The Gleaners will have already started a sweep when the body went missing, and now Ka has a direction. They’ll know we’re outside and can’t be more than a few hours away on foot.
It’s not a big area for them to cover.” He talks quickly and urgently, all seriousness now.
“Our tracks won’t be easy to spot, and the wind will help—but if they find the body in the next half hour, it could still be enough of a starting point for them to follow us. ”
The last grains of sand conceal the remnants of Djedef’s face. Caeror steps back to give the nondescript mound a critical examination, then glances up at the sky. “Let’s move. Slow and steady. Erase our tracks like last time.”
He sets off, and I follow.
The sun is almost touching the horizon as we trudge up the shadows of dunes and then down through its deep orange light, Caeror’s intent visage leaving me in no doubt as to the danger.
We’re only ten minutes in—surely not far from the cave entrance, though I have no easy point of reference—when he slows to a dismayed halt. Points to the sky in the west. “There.”
I follow his finger. Dark spots against the purple glow of sunset above Duat. Moving gradually apart. Getting larger. “What do we do?”
“We can’t make it. Not without leaving tracks.” He comes to the decision swiftly. “We have to hide.”
“How?”
“This way.” He jags off to the left, directly toward the oncoming specks. I move carefully after him, gaze twitching between my job and those distant blots. I still don’t know exactly what the Gleaners are, but I believe Caeror’s fear of them well enough.
Within a half minute we’re suddenly scurrying across sand that’s shallow, hard and uneven underfoot, small pools of white contained by craters of wind-smoothed rock.
Harder to traverse quickly, but I can immediately see the advantage.
I follow Caeror’s darting footsteps as he leaps from one solid surface to another in a crouching run.
“Here.” I gasp my relief as Caeror brings us to a skidding halt after another two minutes.
The shapes in the sky are larger against the dying violet light, but still not enough to make out detail.
They’re swinging back and forth, I think.
Tracing a systematic path toward us, rather than a direct one.
“Lie on your stomach. Arms forward, cloak over your head to create an air pocket. I’ll cover you. ”
I go where he points without hesitation. We’re somewhere in the middle of the rocky surface, and I’m quickly prostrate in one of the smaller white-filled breaks, about ten feet wide. “Will this work?”
“Wind’s enough that most of our tracks will be gone.
And dusk will help.” Not the most comforting answer.
He starts frantically kicking sand over me.
It’s fine and still hot and trickles everywhere.
“I’ll let you know when it’s safe. Until then, whatever you do, stay perfectly still,” his muffled voice warns me from the dark.
The soft crunch of fading footsteps, then silence.
I lie there in tense discomfort. Muscles cramping. Breath thick and painful. There’s a constant tickling at my skin from the shifting grains trickling their way beneath my clothes. There’s no sound.
Long minutes pass. Ten, at least. Maybe twenty. The acidic air starts to taste stale. I begin to wonder if something has gone wrong.
A particularly strong gust of wind. A flash of dim light as the corner of my cloak is tugged from my aching fingers. Sand slithers in. Then another gust before I can snag it again. My protection folds away. My head is exposed.
I lie there, frozen. I’m facing west. At first there is only horizon and the embers of sunset. Then something shifts in the sky. Floating soundlessly. I clamp my teeth together.
It’s a person.
They’re at least a hundred feet off the ground. Looking in the opposite direction. Upright and arms at their sides, as if standing, but nothing to support them. Swathed in a covering white robe, which flows behind them unsettlingly as they hover.
I watch, not breathing, as the figure drifts to the side. A controlled movement as they observe the horizon. Its arms are all wrong. Too long, too thin.
Then it turns slightly to the north, the dying light glints off a polished surface, and I realise they’re not arms at all.
They’re two blades.
I can’t take my eyes off them. Symmetrical and yet different from each other, I recognise numbly.
Obsidian on the left. What looks like granite on the right.
Not being gripped, though. Just hard surface up to the elbow, then some sort of stone sleeve affixing them to each bicep.
Nightmarish, razor-thin replacement limbs.
I repossess myself enough to slowly, ever so carefully, find the hem of my cloak. Gradually, gradually draw the covering back over my head with a trembling hand. Squeeze my eyes shut, hold my breath and pray that whatever is outside won’t spot the exposed linen.
An eternity of thudding heartbeats, and then my cloak is abruptly being pulled aside. I sputter and hack and flinch away as sand rains down.
“They’re past.” Caeror’s voice is low as he drags me to my feet, helping me brush off the worst of the grit as I spit more. The sun has completed its descent below the horizon. “Wind blew some sand off your cloak. You were lucky.”
“It blew the cloak off my gods-damned face. What …” My voice is shaking, though I have the presence of mind to match Caeror’s near whisper. “What was that?”
“You saw one?” Caeror chokes an aghast laugh as he takes in my affirmation. “Rotting gods, Vis. Lucky doesn’t begin to describe it, then. That was a Gleaner.”
“But it was a person.”