The flashing eyes.
The tattered wrappings.
The places where bone showed through sinew.
Then, like the return of a nightmare, the jagged hole where a broken tree had dealt what should have been a fatal blow.
Karim’s entire body began to tremble as he willed the apparition to vanish or reduce itself to a figment of his weary mind. But it remained.
It’s alive, he thought, his terror rising.
Setnakht is alive.
Behkai barked once—a high, frightened cry—and Karim’s glanced toward the cave, afraid that Sitamun and the dog might emerge. They didn’t. But when he turned back and looked up at the ridge, Setnakht was gone.
His brow furrowed. Had he imagined the whole thing?Wasit some kind of illusion?
He heard another footstep, and his gaze dropped to find the monster just ahead, down in the valley with him and still advancing.
Karim gasped and stumbled back, nearly tripping over the smoking ruin of their campfire. How had the creature moved so quickly, so silently? He had touched it back on the riverbank, so he knew it had weight and form, so how could it move like smoke on the wind?
“Don’t come any closer,” he said, pointlessly.
Setnakht didn’t respond. The monster took another step toward him. And another.
It was near enough now that Karim could see the holes in its time-stained skin. The lips had worn away to nothing, leaving behind a permanent snarl of brown gums and teeth. It reached a hand toward Karim, some fingers still covered in paper-thin flesh, others only bone. The movement caused some of its desiccated skin to crack and flake away.
Every instinct told Karim to run. If he stayed, he and Sitamun would end up like Djet and Pasenhor. And did he really want to empower the creature further by returning the scarab amulet that was his heart?
If I do that, or if I keep running, who else will die?he thought.I started this the day I opened that tomb. Maybe I need to listen to my own advice. Maybe I need to stop running away from things, and start running toward them.
Setnakht was nearly upon him. Its pace neither increased nor slackened. It moved toward him like it had all the time in the world.
Gritting his teeth, Karim went to pull his dagger from its sheath but reconsidered. No, his blade was useless. Even being impaled on a tree hadn’t stopped the creature. He needed something else. Something that would destroy Setnakht for good.
Karim’s eyes dropped to the smoking coals. A few of them were still aglow. He’d burned the creature before. This time, he needed to be sure to finish the job.
He wrapped a bit of his robe around one hand and waited until Setnakht’s bony fingers were close enough to touch. The monster’s body crackled softly as it moved, its scent a mixture of salt and wine, dust and myrrh.
Then, in a flash, Karim dropped down, scooped up a handful of red-hot embers from the fire, and shot forward, thrusting them deep into the creature’s chest.
The response was immediate.
Setnakht howled, the ear-shattering screech ricocheting off the walls of the valley. Its mouth opened wide, so wide that Karim thought the thin strands of sinew holding its jaw to its skull might snap. It recoiled violently, trying to wrench itself away, but Karim grabbed its shoulder and held on tight.
“You want me?” he grunted, “Here I am, sen. Here I am!”
In seconds the embers burned straight through his robe and set his skin aflame. The pain was searing, but Karim held on. The embers flared as they met the dry wrappings and resin covering the creature’s body, and within seconds, bright flames had bloomed and spread along the tatters, turning them black.
Setnakht was ablaze.
Unable to stand the pain any longer, Karim let go of the embers and tried to pull away. But the creature grabbed him by the shoulder, mirroring him. Karim cried out as the flames licked him too. Smoke filled his lungs, and he began to cough, his eyes streaming. Everything was heat and fear and pain, with he and the monster holding one another in a macabre version of a lover’s embrace.
Karim battered his burned hands against the creature, but it only made the flames spread. They consumed the sleeve of his robe, searching for the flesh beneath. As the fire reached the skinof his arm, the pain was a thousand hissing snakes, a thousand bee stings—sharp and hot and biting. Karim bit back a scream, not wanting to inhale more smoke.
He couldn’t breathe. Darkness began to creep in from the edges of his eyes.
He thought about the oracle.
