Bright and Broken Relics

Prologue

Sand hides many things.

There are entire cities that have been lost to the desert—places people once called home.

Where they birthed their babes and watered their camels and worshipped their gods and buried their dead.

Sand is inevitable, you see. It is relentless.

It finds its way through the cracks of tombs and temples alike.

If you pick up a shovel and know where to dig, you could make yourself quite rich. Especially here in Egypt.

Thomas Ellington, however, is not searching for gold.

The lord has a good view of Giza’s other three pyramids as he waits by the stone slab.

Tourists and their camels string from one to the other like faience beads, eager to get a closer look at the glories of the ancient world.

They used to be more glorious, Thomas knows.

Once, the structures were covered in pale limestone and capped with gold, much like the mound behind him.

They must have made a striking sight—four gleaming pyramids all lined up in a row—though few could truly appreciate it.

Fewer now. Most of the men digging around Thomas have turbans wrapped around their brows.

Sweat glistens there, but no magic. They cannot see the fourth pyramid rising before them—mountainous.

Nor can they read the curse inscribed on the door they’re uncovering.

Just as well. They’re already jumpy due to the number of cobras they’ve encountered on this dig. Not to mention the jackal sightings. Both animals are considered omens, causing more than one Egyptian to throw down their shovel and abandon the dig. The lord, too, sees them as signs. Promising ones.

It means he’s close to something worth guarding.

There is a gap in the door, but they cannot get too close, yet.

Gases, one of the foremen explains. They must test the air with a flame.

This burns through the dark, and the lord sees gold winking back at him from beyond.

With any luck, these objects will be enchanted.

His tithe is coming due to the Order soon; if he wants to keep his awareness of magic, he must offer something worthy to the powers that be.

It’s rumored that the Apex is fond of older relics, the more ancient the better.

There are plenty of aged sphinxes poised around the entrance as the stone is heaved back, but none lurch to life when the lord steps forward.

He spies a few scarabs scuttling around the edges of the chamber—extraordinary for the fact that they’re carved out of precious stones.

But the real centerpiece is the sarcophagus.

Indeed, most of the gold shines here, in the rough shape of a woman.

The lord can sense great power in the piece—not the metal itself, but something that lies inside.

Many of the mummies he’s come across have been buried clutching relics: wedjat eyes and golden-vulture collars.

He’s eager to see what this coffin holds…

When the lid lifts, he forgets to breathe.

The corpse inside is unlike any of the other mummies Thomas has encountered.

She’s not wrapped, for one thing. There is no need to hide this woman’s face—it’s flawless.

Youth still dews her brow. Her skin rejoices in the sun, while her hair is the color of night.

Her arms are crossed over her chest, and Thomas’s heart skips when he spies the blue-gold feathers sprouting from them.

In one hand she holds an ivory tusk covered with carvings.

Another strange thing? Only one canopic jar stands on a nearby pedestal.

There should be four, all sporting the sculpted heads of the sons of Horus, but this one looks suspiciously plain. And small.

When Thomas twists it open, he sees why.

At the bottom of the jar lies a heart.

Still beating.

Can it be? He’s heard rumors that the ancient Egyptians once uncovered the secrets to everlasting life…

immortality, resurrection. Impossible magics by the Order’s standards.

(Rumors about the Apex notwithstanding.) The most a modern British magician might manage would be to briefly animate a body with a bolt of lightning.

Thomas’s hands begin to shake as he looks over at the woman in the sarcophagus.

Her eyes open.

1917

Death is everywhere.

It creeps through the trenches, alongside rats that have grown fat on the flesh of the fallen.

It grins from these men’s exposed skulls.

It rolls across the stump-riddled remains of no-man’s-land as yellow clouds of mustard gas.

It blooms across the night sky, erasing stars with artillery fire.

The soldiers below simply huddle, waiting for the next round of orders that will send them over the top, into a wall of bullets and barbed wire covered in corpses.

There are five men in the foxhole, by the German scout’s count.

An easy enough attack—given that there are fourteen other soldiers slinking through the mud behind him.

In the scant light of almost dawn, they’re all but unseen.

There is a dead oak at the ridge of the trench that provides enough cover for the scout to watch their enemy.

British, judging by their uniforms and accents.

Hans has the misfortune of understanding English—a skill that’s earned him choice positions throughout the war.

He doesn’t mind the officer’s badges, but it is one thing to shoot an enemy you cannot understand, and quite another to hear them complaining about their tea right before you run them through with a bayonet.

“God-awful.” A blond soldier grimaces into his tin mug. “Not sure why I bother. This stuff is an insult to every British bone in my body.”

The private next to him starts riffling through his pack. “You can have some of my sugar rations—”

“No, brother.”

Brother? Hans is certain he’s misheard. The two men could not look more different, the second with jet-black hair and far sharper features. He tries not to study them too closely, lest they haunt his nightmares in years to come.

“Come on, George.” The dark-haired soldier elbows his companion. “Only half my bones are British. Plus, if it weren’t for me you’d be living a life of luxury in that chateau a few towns over. Officers probably get all the sugar cubes they can stomach.”

“Aye, but then I’d miss out on these fine socks.” The first soldier tugs up the hem of his pants, to reveal the well-knit gray wool keeping trench foot at bay. “I hope Noah’s mother sends another package soon.”

Hans tightens his grip on his pistol as the rest of his unit closes in. Their bayonets rise out of the darkness, catching the last gasps of starlight. They outnumber the British soldiers three to one. It will be quick, Hans thinks again. They won’t have to worry about sugar and socks…

A cry erupts from the trench.

All hell breaks loose.

Bullets bite into the skeleton of the oak.

Hans sends his men forward with the swing of a wrist. More screams shred the mist, followed by the sick schnicks of blades entering bellies.

Primal sounds. No need to speak English or German to understand what they mean…

Hans lands next to an unfortunate bastard holding his own guts in his hands, the way you might handle an uncooked sausage.

One shot to the temple puts him out of his misery.

He supposes he should do the same for the brothers.

They’ve barely had time to reach their weapons.

Tea has spilled down their uniforms. The dark-haired private stares straight into the barrel of the gun—his eyes are surprisingly green.

It’s a color you don’t come across every day. Especially here.

Hans pulls the trigger.

Everything turns red.

But it’s not the dark-haired brother who falls. The other soldier—George—lands in the mud. His hair is no longer fair. His head has gone inside out, not so much sausage as hamburger meat.

Those green eyes widen, taking in the blood of his brother.

His brother. Hans no longer doubts this translation.

He can see the weight of it written all over the dark-haired soldier’s face.

The man falls to his knees, clawing through the mud and skull fragments as if he might somehow be able to put George back together.

Hans raises his Luger once more.

Before his finger can squeeze the trigger, another German barrels into the gun’s sights. His bayonet is raised. The dark-haired Brit scrambles back, chest exposed. The blade plunges for his heart as he throws up his hands.

Light fills the foxhole.

It is not the sun—stars continue to stare from the distant black above.

Hans waits for the heat of an artillery shell to envelop him, but again, there are still stars.

The light… It’s shining out from behind the dark-haired soldier, illuminating each of his limbs like a mountain at sunrise.

Hans can see quite clearly as his countryman’s bayonet bends back.

The rifle twists too, as easy as a fr?ulein’s hair ribbon.

Bullets are ripped out of the loading chamber, cutting cleanly through the attacking German’s throat.

“Mein Gott…” These are the only words Hans can manage. Like everyone else on the Western Front he’s heard stories of the impossible: angels appearing on the battlefield, demons striking deals with desperate soldiers. Tales fueled by too much schnapps. Or so he’d thought.

But it is not schnapps Hans tastes on his tongue as he watches the dark-haired soldier rise from the mud.

His eyes are no longer green. The pupils are gone, swallowed by more of that sunless light.

His stare is even more primal than the bayonets—it is ancient.

It is inevitable. Hans feels as if he’s gazing into hellfire itself.

He raises his Luger as the smoldering soldier takes a step forward.

He shoots.