“Can you hear it?” I asked Ahmose as I stared into the blackness ahead.
“No,” he answered. “Do you hear my brothers?”
“It’s not them that call to me. It’s something ancient. It doesn’t belong here.”
“What is it?” Ahmose asked, sliding in front of me and adopting a battle-ready stance.
In a singsong voice, I chanted, “Winding paths and rivers, hiding the sun and stars, the bite that causes shivers, we’ve lost what once was ours.”
I don’t know how long I stood there singing softly to myself, but I came to alertness only when Ahmose shook me soundly. “What lies down that path, Wasret?” he demanded. His gray eyes flashed like desert thunderclouds.
“Are you angry with me?” I asked, pressing my hand against his solid chest.
He let out a shaky breath. “No. It’s just…I don’t want to lose you, too.”
“Lose me?” I questioned, cocking my head. “That isn’t possible. I cannot be lost.” His expression didn’t show relief like I assumed it would. “Ah,” I said, supposing his continued concern was for more than just myself. “You should know that down that path lie your brothers,” I told him. “Your brothers and…and something else. Let’s hope that we find them before it finds us.”
Ahmose clapped a hand against his neck and rubbed it, then nodded. “Agreed.”
We passed a hollow containing a ghost wearing a coat of leaves, each one as worn and threadbare as the autumn forest just before the snows come. When he spied us, he shuffled hurriedly in our direction, losing several leaves in the process.
Desperately, he gathered them up, clutching them to his bosom, and begged us to help him sew them back on. I knew when they disintegrated he’d have to face what lay beneath them—a skeleton. It wasn’t his own but represented a person he’d murdered and buried beneath a pile of leaves in a long-ago place and time.
Disgusted, I pulled Ahmose past him.
The next cave held a creature clothed as a woman wearing an old lace wedding gown. She’d never been a mortal, but she’d tricked a mortal man into marrying her. She’d wanted to love him, but she’d craved human flesh more. During their honeymoon she lost control of herself and consumed him, starting with his toes. Now she rocked back and forth in her dingy gown as she sang softly to the groom who would always be with her, just not in the way he’d expected, and picked at her toes until they bled.
We passed a cavern with something that looked like a horse but was really a mortal who’d beaten his horse to death. He ran and ran over rocky terrain that gouged into his soft feet, though he actually went nowhere. Then he gorged himself on shoots and thick clumps of grass that grew from the stony ground, eating until his belly distended and split open.
Ahmose, thankfully, saw only tiny glimpses of these things because these were the oldest beings in the tomb. The ones almost wrung out of energy. It took a monumental effort on my part to pass by those that still deserved their punishments, but I somehow managed to do so, clinging to Ahmose and shutting my eyes when the view was the most dreadful.
There were others. Those who sat quietly, their vitality long spent. For those ready, simply giving them permission to let go was enough, and they were able to move on to their true deaths. There was a kind of satisfaction I found in helping them break away from the thing pinning them to the place.
Then we came upon a large chamber that was blocked with stone. Energy pulsated from the other side. I placed my hand upon the barrier and closed my eyes.
“Are they in there?” Ahmose asked in a whispered voice.
“They are,” I answered. “But something else is in there with them.” Letting out a hissing breath, I said, “I cannot move the stone. Unfortunately, I’ve spent much energy in grappling with the spider and dealing with those beings we’ve passed by. My physical body is weak, and my soul is as a wide-eyed newborn’s. There isn’t much living here I can draw upon other than you, and I won’t deplete you more than you’ve already been. You’ve already sacrificed more than you should have to keep us alive.”
If he was surprised at my words, he didn’t show it. “I can try to find a path through the stone,” he said quietly.
I nodded and stepped aside. Ahmose found a tiny chip in the rock and followed it with his fingertip, murmuring a spell as he did so. The stone shifted and split. A beam of silver light shot through the crack, and as I watched, it widened. Ahmose pulled me back several steps and moved me behind him. Finally, with a resounding boom, the stone broke into several large chunks, while one section shattered, shooting rock fragments and debris through the passageway. Dust rained down softly upon our heads.
There was a loud groan, and a whoosh of hot air blew my hair back. Ahmose stepped forward and summoned his favorite weapon, a cudgel, from the dust. It gleamed in the darkness, glowing with an unearthly light matched only by the illumination shining from his skin. “We’ll proceed cautiously,” he whispered, drawing me close to one side as he raised his weapon with the other.
I had weapons of my own, but I did not draw my bow. If I needed my spear-knives, I could access them quickly enough. But something told me my mind was the weapon I’d need more than anything else. The cavern we entered was larger than any of the other formations we’d crossed through. There was no doubt that his brothers were here somewhere. Ahmose would have called out to them if I’d let him, but I cautioned against it. We didn’t want to attract the attention of the other being that resided there.
We wound around rock outcroppings and beneath stone arches until we finally came upon two knights that stood frozen in place. It was as if they were guarding the entrance to a yawning pit that fell away behind them. The ground rumbled at our approach, and we paused. When the quaking stopped, we gingerly stepped ahead.
Ahmose lifted the visor of the first knight. “It’s Asten,” he whispered excitedly.
While he made his way to the second, I wrestled with the lioness. She was disturbed at seeing the Son of Egypt in that manner. I, too, was unsettled by his appearance. He looked dead. When Ahmose verified that the second knight was indeed Amon, he stepped back and asked the question I didn’t have an answer to.
“Why are they like that?” he asked. “They don’t respond to anything, and I can’t sense them, even standing right beside them.”
“They are here—there’s no mistaking that—and yet I cannot access their minds either,” I admitted. “Whatever happened to them must have occurred after Lily summoned you to your body. Even if I tried to raise them now, I couldn’t. They wouldn’t hear me.”
The cavern shook angrily, and we staggered and almost fell. The two knights remained rigidly in place. I tilted my head, considering, and stepped carefully to the edge of the pit they guarded. Staring into the darkness, I sought out the creature, the ancient one I knew shared this resting place with the Sons of Egypt. It was powerful, and it resented our intrusion. Its name evaded me, and it reminded me of something. Something I’d faced before. The thing stared up at me from its shadowy abyss with resentful and deadly yellow eyes.
“Come to me, Winding One,” I called. “Come and tell me why you keep these men prisoner.”
I fell to one knee as the large creature slid up from the shadows, causing the ground to shift beneath me. The tongue shot up out of the chasm first, tasting the air. Then a giant head appeared. I knew in an instant that it wasn’t Apep. No. This was Apep’s other half, his polar twin. Desperately, I reached for his name, but like Apep’s, it eluded me. The name almost crossed my lips, but then it slithered back into shadowy realms.
Why do you disturb me? The great snake opened its jaws, fangs glinting in the light cast by Ahmose’s body as it lifted its head and set it down on the lip of the pit. You have no business in my domain, goddess, it hissed as it glided ever closer.
“I did not mean to disturb you,” I said. “We’ve come for the Sons of Egypt—the two guardians you’ve trapped in your tomb with you.”
You cannot have t
hem, the snake said. They are mine.
“You didn’t consume them. So why do you wish to keep them here?”
The snake paused. I knew what the crafty creature was up to. He wanted me and Ahmose to be trapped here just like the other two. But I wouldn’t allow that to happen.
Mine is a lonely existence, he answered. They are my companions.
“But in this state, they cannot talk with you.”
True. But they cannot leave me either. The snake resumed his progress, creeping closer to me and Ahmose, who raised his cudgel in warning but lowered it when I shook my head.
“I know why you are alone,” I said. “I know where to find your other half. The one who hungers.”
Foolish goddess, he hissed. I know where my other half is. I just can’t escape my prison. Even if I could, we would only rend the cosmos in two in an attempt to consume one another.
“Yes. And now I understand why.” I took a step closer and lifted a hand, palm up. “I can give you what you seek if you will sacrifice your two companions.”
How, little goddess? How can I trust you when the last one I trusted did this to me?
“Surely, you can find the strength. I promise you that I will not only reunite you with your twin and restore that which has broken within you, but I will also punish the one who put you here.”
What can you offer me to prove you tell the truth?
“I will whisper the name of the one who ripped you from your home. You will feel the truth of it in your bones. Come closer, great one,” I said.
The snake wrenched his body farther out of the pit and moved his head alongside me. I shivered despite myself when the great fangs passed me by. A vivid memory of the snake’s twin impaling my leg and filling me with his poison clouded my vision for a brief moment. Leaning over, I bent my head close and whispered, “She who harmed you has been named. She is Abject Anthropophagus.”
The snake lifted his head and an enraged scream echoed in the chamber, causing great rocks to fall and break on the ground next to us. When he finally settled, he said, Very well, goddess. You may take my companions. But if you fail to fulfill every part of your promise, I will haunt you in your dreams and consume each soul that resides in your form.
The snake lifted his head and bit down on a rock, pumping two pools of white liquid from its fangs on either side. Take some of my venom and rub it into their wounds. They will wake soon enough. But be warned that they are trapped here in spirit as much as I am. Without their bodies, I’m afraid they won’t be able to leave either.
“Thank you,” I said to the snake as he descended into his lonely pit once again.
Ahmose carefully used the edge of his cloak to scoop up the venom. When I’d removed Asten’s armor to locate the puncture wound left by the snake, he rubbed in the white liquid. The wound healed before our eyes, and color returned to his face.
The lioness in me thrilled at seeing Asten blink his eyes. He reached out and wrapped his arms around me. Ahmose clapped him on the back, and the three of us moved over to Amon. The venom did its work quickly, but Amon didn’t wake the same way Asten did. He bucked and moaned as if fighting off a nightmare. When he finally did open his eyes, he grabbed hold of my shoulders and shouted a name, but it wasn’t mine.
“Lily!”
The human side of me lurched violently. The pieces that made me what I was split apart at the seams, ripping me asunder. I screamed, and the cosmos heard it. A great storm brewed over the Isle of the Lost just as my eyes rolled back and I collapsed into Amon’s arms.
“Lily? Lily!” Voices cried out to me, but my mind felt dark and fuzzy. I couldn’t open my eyes, and my head pounded with the beat of a thousand jungle drums. “Come back to me, Nehabet, please,” the voice implored.
I groaned. “Amon?” I managed to wrap my lips around the word, but my tongue felt thick and wrong in my mouth. It was like I’d drowned and been wrenched violently ashore, hands pounding my chest, willing me to live again.
“Wait,” another voice said, and I felt the cool touch of a hand on my forehead. “They are wounded.”
“Where?” a man asked. “How? I don’t see any injuries.”
“Their wounds are on the inside. They’ve been riven apart like the snake. Amon caused this.” The accusation had come from Ahmose.
Despite the arms that cradled me close, I felt cold, empty. I shivered and retreated, mentally distancing myself from the others.
Another being came close and touched my hand.
Something stirred. “Asten?” the lioness whispered, using my voice.
“Tia,” he said, relief evident in his tone. “Will you recover? Are all three of you there?”
“Yes. We are all here, but…something’s missing.”
“Wasret,” Ahmose said with a heavy sigh. “She’s gone. Bits and pieces of each of them went with her.”
I felt a small trickle of energy course through my body. Ahmose was attempting to heal us. “No,” Tia said as she opened my eyes. “You must not. You are too weak to give more.”
Ahmose set his jaw stubbornly, but Tia was adamant, and he finally backed away. Asten took our hand and pressed a quick kiss on our knuckles, concern etching his features. Turning my head, Tia stared into the face of the third man, the one who clutched us in his arms. His features instantly blurred. I turned completely away from everyone then, even Tia and Ashleigh. I curled up in a ball, keening in the background, unable to look out of my own eyes.
Then the man, the one whose voice had penetrated the darkness, the one who held me tenderly, even now, said, “Lily?” His voice was soft. “It’s time for you to remember.”
There was a pause. “She doesn’t want to, Amon,” said Tia.
“I know she doesn’t. She’s afraid. You all are.”
“Amon,” Asten started. “Maybe we shouldn’t push them just yet. Let them rest while you summon our bodies.”
Warmth trickled into my skin where the man touched me. It felt familiar and comforting. His body was arched over mine, sheltering, protecting, as he attempted to coax me out. Somehow, using just his voice, he’d created a space where it was just me and him. Despite the others around us, I knew he loathed to leave me just then. But I wasn’t ready to see him yet, to talk of the things I knew we needed to.
“I’ve brought what you need,” Ahmose said, and he handed a bag to Asten.
The man holding me shifted and sighed. “All right,” he said. “Ashleigh? Will you sit here with Ahmose for a time while I help Asten?”
I felt my lips pull back in a grin as the fairy rose up. “Aye, I will,” she said, and Tia joined me in the back of my mind, curling up companionably next to me. If she were still a lioness, she would have been licking our wounds.
The man settled us back against a rock. Ahmose sat beside us and wrapped an arm around our shoulders. Ashleigh nestled into him and sighed softly. “It’s glad I am ta see ya, lad,” she said.
“I’m happy to be with you again as well.”
“Are ya certain o’ that? Seems ta me like ya took a shine ta Wasret. Maybe you’re regrettin’ havin’ us back.”
Ahmose was quiet for a moment. He pulled a strand of our hair and wrapped it gently around his finger. “No. I don’t regret having you here. I’d never regret that. But you must understand, Wasret was all I had of you then. How could I reject her?”
“Pretty words in the moonlight don’ sound the same in the day. She is not like any of us.”
“No. She’s not.”
“Do ya think ya will come ta love her, then?”
“I don’t know. She’s not as…as easy. Do you remember everything?”
“No. Jus’ bits an’ fragments. But it’s fadin’ away, like a dream. One thing we do remember, though, is how she felt about ya. She wants ta keep ya after all is said and done. Assumin’, o’ course, that we all survive.”
Ahmose nodded solemnly, and Ashleigh threaded her fingers through his. “Ach, lad, what ’ave we done ta ya?” She pla
nted a kiss on his forearm. “Troubled thoughts knit yer brow near as much as they do ours.”
Together we watched as Amon summoned his power. His form gleamed bright as the sun in the dark cavern. Reaching into the bag Ahmose had provided, he uncapped the jars. Four dancing lights orbited around him, one in the shape of a bird. Then he took out something small and placed it in his palm. As he chanted a spell, weaving it in the air, Ashleigh asked Ahmose, “What did ya bring?”
“Their canopic jars. Also, Amon needed a piece of their mortal bodies to create new ones for them to inhabit. In the case of Asten, I was able to get a lock of his hair.”
“I see.”
Power swirled in a vortex, and Amon opened his hand. Wind swept through the cave and lifted the hairs from his palm. There was a small explosion in the center of the vortex. White, brilliant lights, millions of them, filled the whirlwind swirling in front of Amon. They spun faster and faster. They became so bright I had to look away. When the light dimmed, a healthy young body had formed. It gleamed with starlight.
Asten moved toward the body, which could have been his twin. Then, closing his eyes, he stepped into the gleaming form and disappeared, armor and all. The body twitched, the chest rising and falling in its first breath. When it opened its eyes, I saw Asten. His chest and legs were bare. With the white skirt wrapping around his waist, he looked like the ancient Egyptian prince come to life that he was.
Picking up the bag, Asten opened the remaining jars, then pulled out the second object and handed it to Amon. This item was bigger, bulkier.
Ashleigh turned to look at Ahmose, a questioning expression on her face.
“Amon’s wrappings were too stubborn for me to get any of his hair, so for him it was easier to simply bring his hand.” Ahmose finished with an apologetic grimace.
“His—his hand?” Ashleigh stammered. The sick feeling in her stomach was something all of us felt. We watched a bit horrified as Amon hefted his own mummy-wrapped, dismembered hand and held it out, not shying away at all from his former appendage. Summoning his power again, he wove his spell. The hand lifted into the air, twirling like a macabre Halloween decoration hanging from a tree before exploding into dust. The gleaming powder entered the maelstrom of light.