This is it, he thought.I know it.
He glanced at the others out of the corner of his eye. They were both on the other side of the room, checking the wall for more hidden compartments. He turned his back to them, so they wouldn’t see what he was doing.
Leaning in close, he traced the line of the god’s head with his fingertips and found a barely discernable edge. Working quickly, he dug at the crevice, chipping away a little of the stone so he could wedge his fingernail inside.
Finally, he was able to pry the panel out of the wall, revealing a small aperture beneath. With trembling fingers, he reached inside the hole and rummaged around until he found two ancient papyrus scrolls inside—as delicate as onion skin.
He opened the first scroll and saw that it was covered inKhetaran writing. However, instead of being written in the picture language that Karim had become familiar with from tombs and temple walls, the document was written in a flowing script, whose symbols looked like abstract versions of the birds, hands, and cups that he was used to. It was all nonsense to him, of course, except for a series of symbols he saw repeated more than once that seemed familiar: a folded cloth, a loaf of bread, a jagged line, a vulture.
The back of Karim’s neck tingled.
The symbols for Setnakht.
His instincts, as usual, had been correct. Still, the document was useless unless Kenna or Nefermaat translated it for him. But the other scroll… as soon as he laid eyes on it, his Jackal instincts took over. He knew they’d never let him take the document, even if he’d found it hidden away inside a wall. But oh, hewantedit.
“Did you find something?”
Neff’s voice interrupted his thoughts, and he startled.
“I did, sena,” Karim replied, stealthily slipping the second scroll inside his tunic. Then he turned and presented the girl with the first papyrus. “It looks like a letter of some kind. I have a good feeling about this one. Can you read it?”
The priestess brought it to Kenna at the reading table and unrolled it, weighing down each corner with small smooth stones.
“What does it say?” Karim asked anxiously.
“It’s written in the common script,” Nefermaat said with excitement. “Even I can read this!”
“Itisa letter,” Kenna said, his voice hushed with fascination. “From one embalmer to another, oddly enough. Dated more than a thousand years ago.” He scanned the words quickly. “You were right, my friend… It concerns your missing king!”
A thrill coursed through Karim’s body as his suspicions were confirmed. “That is excellent news, sen—please tell me more.”
“It names Setnakht as the third king in the sixth Khetaran dynasty,” Kenna explained. “This was back when the pharaoh’s capital city was in Low Khetara, not here in the north. I understand now why his reign was struck from the public record. Listen to this.”
He cleared his throat and began to read.
“‘To Onuriseref, Man of Anubis, my brother.
“‘Today we have buried the heretic king, Setnakht, and put the scourge of his reign behind us forever. How we have all endured these past seventeen years is beyond consideration. I do not think even the greatest seers of Khetara could have predicted the breadth of his heresy—that he would reject our gods, our traditions, our art, and even abandon our great capital city in favor of building his own—all in service to the master of storms, his one true god. And though I have done Setnakht’s bidding here in the temple, like you, I never accepted his teachings.
“‘I have spoken prayers that burned my tongue, brother. But in my soul, I knew the king would die one day, and the nightmare would end. Thanks be to Ra, that day has come. How exactly he came to his fate, I do not know, nor do I wish to. The new king has not offered details, though some suspect Setnakht did not depart from this world willingly. All that matters to me is that he is dead. And I, myself, performed the funerary rites, with the help of my assistant, Wesir.
“‘Between us, I always suspected Wesir of being an adherent to Setnakht’s madness, but without evidence I had no choice but to continue to share my chambers with him. We performed the embalming together with all the proper rituals befitting a king—with one exception. It was a command from the new pharaoh himself. I removed all Setnakht’s viscera and put them in the four jars, but I removed his heart too.
“‘Are you amazed, brother? Perhaps it seems wrong to us, asMen of Anubis, but I was happy to do it. Happy to throw that black heart into the fire and curse his name. I asked myself:Isn’tit just what he deserves?To travel all the way West, only to be turned away at judgment? To have his miserable ka wander theearth for eternity?
“‘Heartless in life, heartless in death. It is right, brother. It is good. Rejoice now, for our long suffering is over.’”
There was a moment of silence among them after Kenna finished reading.
Karim had gone cold. He thought back to that evening by the fireside with Pasenhor, to the priest reading the engraving on the back of the lapis amulet he’d pried from Setnakht’s coffin.
This is the heart of a king.
Could it be that the embalmer’s assistant, who the writer of the letter suspected was one of Setnakht’s disciples, had written that message in hopes it would give his king the one thing he lacked for his journey to the afterlife?
It sounded like superstitious Khetaran nonsense. Then again, Karim had seen impossible things since barging into that tomb, and the theory made a strange sort of sense. It explained why the creature had followed him halfway across the kingdom. PerhapsSetnakht wakened when Karim removed the amulet from his grave, and he’d been chasing him all this time… to get his heart back.
Not that it matters now, Karim thought.The monster is dead.
