Chapter Seven

Of course, Jack said, Sarah would want to rescue Ayaan. Along the way Sarah could liberate Ptolemy’s captive mummies. Simple.

Hardly, she thought as she clambered over the razor wire and back into the camp. There was nothing simple in the proposition.

For one thing Ayaan herself would hate it. Her policy had always been that those who fell behind were left behind. There were no exceptions, could be no exceptions, because exceptions endangered other people. Ayaan would expect no special treatment.

Then there was Fathia's wrath to consider.

Ayaan had saved Sarah's life a thousand times, though, often putting herself in risk to do it. And the thought of one of the greatest warriors ever to fight the dead ending up as food for ghouls--or worse, becoming a ghoul herself--was untenable.

Sarah knew she would have to at least make the effort to save Ayaan, but she also knew she couldn’t do it alone.

Dawn was dragging blood-stained fingers across the eastern hills as she slipped into the helicopter pool and found Osman sleeping in his hammock. She only had a few minutes to pull off one of the stupidest plans she’d ever imagined. Trying to be gentle she put a hand over the old man’s mouth and pinched his nose. He awoke in a panic, his eyes rolling wildly as he tried to figure out what was happening. When he saw Sarah the look on his face downgraded to one of wary confusion.

“Ayaan is alive,” she said. “If we go right now we can still rescue her.” She told Osman everything—even the secret she’d kept for so many years.

“Jack? The American soldier? He's a ghost now and he talks to you? That doesn’t make any sense.”

Sarah shrugged. “He killed my father. He’s been trying to make up for that. Listen, we don’t have time to argue. The camp is going to wake up soon. If they find out what we’re up to—“

Osman barked a small laugh. “You’re assuming I’ll go along with this lunacy. In the old time I would accuse you of doing drugs. Now I just wish you would share. Listen, girl, Ayaan has done well by me. She has saved my skin many, many times. But she knew a bad proposition when she heard it. The second we leave, Fathia will brand us traitors. She would never let us come back.”

“If we have Ayaan with us when we return it won’t matter what Fathia says.”

Osman accepted that with a gesture of both hands. He wasn’t fully convinced, though. “Jack?”

“You need to get past that. It’s Jack. He’s given me enough information to make a plan, and I trust him. He’s also arranged some help for us.” In the end she had to fall back on the near terror most people felt when they knew about her power. “Come on, Osman. You say Ayaan has done well by you. Haven’t I? You’ve seen my power. It has gotten you out of scrapes, you know it’s real. Why are you doubting me now?”

Together they fueled up the better of the two Mi-8s. Working in the half light they unbolted the external fuel pods from the carcass of the third helicopter and mounted them in the Mi-8’s cargo area. They tried to stay quiet but there was no way to silence the noise of the aircraft’s engine starting up. Its pulsing roar would wake the entire camp.

“Straight up,” Sarah shouted as Osman lifted the vehicle from its pad, barely waiting for the rotor to spin up to speed. “Get out of rifle range, hurry!”

She had known what would happen when they were discovered, and she had not been wrong. Women came running out of tents half-dressed, rifles in their arms. They would have slept with their weapons, waiting for some sign of the Tsarevich’s army. When they saw that it was one of their own vehicles taking off most of them lowered their weapons but one or two lined up shots and started firing.

“This is Fathia!” the helicopter’s radio squealed. “I do not understand what madness has taken you, but if you do not put down this minute—“

Sarah switched off the radio. The content of the threat didn’t matter—they already knew they were in trouble.

Once they were past rifle range the next threat came from the other helicopter. Though the weapons that came with the aircraft were long ago used up another pilot could follow them to their destination and then just shoot them there. Sarah rushed back into the cargo area and stared down at the airfield they’d just abandoned. She positively willed the other helicopter to stay on the ground. This was the one great weakness of her plan, this first desperate flight. It could all be over then and there.

Then she saw what she most feared. “They’re powering up the other copter,” she shouted into her headset. “Osman, we have a major problem.”

“With a minor solution. The next time I do something stupid, Sarah, please keep this in mind.”

Sarah didn’t understand—until she saw puffs of fire blast from the dual turbines on top of the grounded helicopter. “You sabotaged it!”

“I disconnected a fuel line. It will take them but a moment to repair the damage, but it may take most of the day to find it.”

Sarah wanted to rush forward and hug him. You didn’t embrace the pilot of a military helicopter in mid-flight, though. “We’re safe,” she trumpeted, and he snorted one of his sarcastic laughs.

“Safe to fly into certain death, yes,” he chortled. “Alright, commander. Where to first?”

“Nekropolis,” she told him.

“Never heard of it.”

She hadn’t either. “There’s a good reason for that. Head northeast, toward the sea. We’re looking for a salt pan just this side of the canal. It’s surrounded on most sides by slickrock.”

They found it with relative ease. From the air the salt pan looked like a sheet of ice in the middle of the desert. Osman set down on the solid rock just off the edge of the pan—such features were notorious for their poor stability—and together they jumped out, their nerves still buzzing with adrenaline. “This is where we pick up our reinforcements?” Osman asked.

Sarah could understand his skepticism. On the far side of the pan a city had been constructed but it was like no city either of them had ever seen. Its main feature was a massive slab-walled temple set into the rocky cliffs, a structure of thick columns crowned with carved lotus blossoms and huge, thin statues of serene-faced men. On either side of the temple entrance stood a sphinx, one with the face of a pharaoh, the other with the head of an ancient Roman woman. Nearby stood both a pyramid and a mastaba. There were ruins like this all over Egypt—they had both seen dozens—but none so eclectic. Nor any so new. Precarious scaffolding covered the pyramid. Across the pan they could see tiny figures moving up and down on the scaffolding, some carrying blocks of sandstone on their backs that must have weighed half a ton. Osman glared at her. “I’m not going to like this,” he said.

“No.” She lead him across the pan, their feet breaking the crust of salt that rimed its surface and made it glisten from the air. From the ground it just looked white, a featureless white that caught the glare of the sun and made Sarah feel as if she were moving through pure light. As she climbed the steps to the temple she saw the darkness inside its square entrance and wondered how nice it would be to go in there where it would be cool and the air wouldn’t burn her lungs. She didn’t get the chance to find out. Ptolemaeus Canopus emerged first, his painted face bobbing toward her from the shadows. Other mummies followed him. One looked a hundred times as old and her wrappings were badly tattered but gold glistened from underneath here and there. Another wore a wooden mask in the shape of a ram’s head painted red and green and white.

As Ptolemy stepped down to meet her there was a great silent commotion on the pyramid. The work there stopped and the mummies who were building the giant tomb fell to their knees with their arms in the air. Jack had mentioned that Ptolemy had been an important man in his day—just what had he been, Sarah wondered, to evince such respect?

He came closer and Osman stepped backwards, down the steps. Sarah held her ground. Ptolemy came close enough to touch her, close enough that she could smell him: cinnamon and nutmeg with an undernote of road tar. The ram-headed mummy held something out to her and she took it—a scarab carved out of soapstone. The same one she’d seen Jack give to Ptolemy the night before.

“Thank you,” she said, uncertain of protocol, but then she shrieked and nearly dropped the thing. It had come alive in her hand—she could feel it squirming and buzzing. She managed not to let go somehow and when she looked down she saw it hadn’t changed at all. It was energy, pure life energy neither light nor dark that was pulsing against her skin.

scarab this is heart this is my scarab my heart scarab it said to her, the words piling up and resonating off each other, looping around and around in her head until dizziness swept over her. She could feel the words instead of hearing them—they raced up her arms to her throat and she felt them there as if she’d said them herself. you only heart scarab you only can hear you only you can scarab hear me. This chosen is why hear you heart were chosen.

The female mummy, the ancient one, pressed her body against Ptolemy. Her hands clutched at him and her linen-wrapped face buried itself in the crook of his neck.

wife my alone this is my wife alone she will gone rule in my place she will be alone when rule i am gone, Ptolemy told Sarah. Sarah just looked away and cleared her throat. He let the female nuzzle him a moment longer then stepped forward, closer to Sarah.

you family have no mate do family you have family

“Just... just the woman I’m looking to rescue,” Sarah told him.

those alike i seek triumph are my family together we are seek alike we will triumph together

“Yeah,” she said, when the vibrations from the scarab had calmed down, “great.” She cocked one thumb over her shoulder at the helicopter. Should we get started?”

Osman grabbed her arm after the mummy had walked past. "They are very, very strong," he said. There was something in his eyes. A basic mistrust. "And they are not human. You know what that means."

Sarah was pretty sure that she did.