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The desert air was still, without even the hint of a breeze to offer relief from the ferocious heat that radiated from both sand and sky. It was enough to send even the most experienced desert-dweller in search of shade, but Evy barely noticed it. Her attention was entirely caught up in surveying the landscape before her. Ignoring the sun beating down on her from above, she pivoted slowly, gazing with delight at the wind-sculpted dunes of the Great Sand Sea that stretched out for countless miles around her. One thought filled her head: I'm home. With a sigh, she closed her eyes, mouth widening into an involuntary smile as she tilted her face upward, soaking in the warmth and brightness, so different from London's thick fogs.
She sensed Rick's presence before she saw him, his shadow melting into hers as he came up beside her. He turned to her with a smile and opened his mouth as if to speak, but before any words could emerge, the sand rose up around them in an impossibly fast storm that swallowed sun and sky, leaving only a faint light to see by.
Years of desert expeditions had left her well prepared. Even as her internal alarm sounded, reminding her that sandstorms didn't happen this way, Evy was tugging her scarf up over her mouth and nose and shielding her eyes with one arm. Beside her, Rick did the same, and then reached toward her with his free arm. She let him pull her closer, leaning gratefully into his hug, preparing to weather the storm together. And then she froze as she realized something odd: The sand wasn't striking them at all. Instead, it was swirling around them in a tight circle, as if they were in the unmoving eye of a hurricane. Even the fierce wind that she knew had to be there wasn't touching them. Where they stood, it was still.
Evy's heart raced as she looked around for the source of the storm, mind flashing back to the way Imhotep had controlled the elements, using wind and water as weapons against his enemies. But there was no sign of him here, and while the storm continued to circle, holding them in place, there was no indication that it was going to harm them.
Deliberately, Evy forced herself to take a step back from Rick, though she kept hold of his arm. She looked around again, this time at the storm itself. In all her years of desert expeditions, she'd never seen anything like it. Rick, she saw, had come to the same realization, and looked just as puzzled as she was.
A flash of dark movement, different from the whirling sand, caught Evy's eye. She turned her head, straining to see what was out there. Squinting, she could just make out a bent-over figure battling its way toward them. Not the creator of the storm, surely, or it wouldn't be struggling so. Nonetheless, her grip on Rick tightened. When he looked to see what was wrong, she wordlessly drew his attention to the approaching figure. He followed her gaze and one hand fell to his gun, face wary.
With the storm circling around them, there was nowhere for them to retreat to, which meant there was nothing to do except watch as the figure drew closer, step by painful step. Evy braced for whatever was coming as the man—she thought it was a man—reached the edge of the eye, nearly close enough to touch them. All of a sudden he stopped, as if held back by the protective wall of wind, and raised his head.
Ardeth.
Even with most of his face covered, it was unmistakably him, dark eyes and the line of tattoos across his forehead clearly visible despite the sand and the dim light. He held up a gloved hand, palm out, and pressed it against the edge of the storm like a small child pressing its hand against a shop window. His face, what she could see of it, was twisted in pain.
Evy and Rick moved as one, reaching out simultaneously to pull Ardeth in from the storm, into the circle—and then abruptly the wind disappeared and the sand surrendered to gravity, and Evy found herself standing in moonlight beneath the great Sphinx. Rick was still with her, his arm firm and warm beneath her hand, but there was no sign of Ardeth. As she looked around anxiously for him, a voice emerged from the figure about them, clear and crystalline and inhuman: "Do you know what you want?"
Evy looked up at Rick, her own confusion mirrored clearly on his face. And then the moonlit desert disappeared and was replaced by the dark ceiling of London bedroom as her eyes flickered open.
She lay quietly, for a moment, gathering her thoughts. It hadn't felt like a dream; it had been too vivid for that. Even now, knowing that she was here, that her body was resting between clean linen sheets next to her husband in their London home, her mind still felt like it was in the desert. No, not like a dream at all.
It also wasn't the first odd dream she'd had recently.
Gazing up at the ceiling, she tried to remember when they'd last heard from Ardeth. They generally only saw him when they were in Egypt, but he wrote them sometimes, when his work took him to a town or city—letters full of amusing anecdotes that she was sure encompassed only a small amount of what he actually did with his time. Once, after Alex was born, he'd even sent them a telegram of congratulations. His most recent letter, though—Christmas, perhaps? Yes, because Alex had been home from school and Jonathan had brought that hideous woman to spend the week. So almost five months now. How had she not noticed that it had been so long?
Beside her, Rick stirred. Evy rolled to face him and propped her head up on her hand, smiling at the sight of him in spite of the dream and her newly woken apprehension.
"Hey," he said, looked up at her sleepily.
"Good morning." It was morning now—pale grey light was starting to stream in the window, chasing away the darkness. Usually that light chased away the last remnants of dreams as well, but this one was still lingering. She thought if she closed her eyes, she'd feel the heat of the desert again.
Rick blinked, as if clearing away the last of his dream, and then his face bunched up in a familiar look of concern as he focused on her. "Did you, uh, have a strange dream last night?"
She thought for a fleeting moment that something in her expression had given her away, that her dream-desert had somehow marked her face, but Rick's tone wasn't one of concern for her. It was the tone of someone who was uncertain about their own experience and looking for reassurance. "Strange how?"
"Strange like we were back in the desert," he said. "A storm came up, but it didn't touch us. And then—"
She filled in the next line without thinking. "Ardeth appeared. He needed help."
"But we couldn't reach him in time."
"And then he disappeared, and the Sphinx was there instead. It asked us a question." Do you know what you want? She was still puzzling that one out. Of course, she did know what she wanted, here and now. She wanted to rest a while longer in her husband's arms, and then she wanted to find a letter from Ardeth, no more than a week old, waiting for them at breakfast, telling them that he was safe. But presumably the Sphinx—or whatever it had been—had had something else in mind.
"Yeah," Rick agreed. He ran a gentle hand down her arm, as if trying to confirm that she was really there, that they weren't still dreaming. "You really were there too."
He sounded relieved, knowing it wasn't just him, but it was a relief Evy didn't share. She'd had strange dreams before—still sometimes dreamed herself back in ancient Egypt, living another life—but Rick slept like a log. He rarely remembered his dreams, and he certainly didn't have weird, magical, prophetic dreams. For this to happen...
"Ardeth is in trouble," she said. "We have to—"
"I know. We will."
"This isn't the first dream I've had about him recently," she confessed. Weird and vivid dreams, many of them, but none that had quite so clearly spelled out danger.
"Me either. Last night—"
"Hamlet," Evy said. "And Ardeth was Hamlet's father's ghost."
"And two nights before that—"
"The jungle." How could they have dreamed the same thing for so many nights and not told each other?
Rick propped himself up one arm. "Have you ever heard of anything like this before? Two people sharing dreams like this? Maybe we did something on our last dig, triggered a spell or something."
"I don't think so. That was a perfectly ordinary tomb—no legends of curses or anything like that."
He gave a short laugh. "Then that must be the only tomb in Egypt where the guy's content to just stay dead." He lay back down on his back, looking up at her. "So what do we do now?"
Evy considered. "Well, as far as we know, Ardeth is still in Egypt." Or at least North Africa. She didn't think the Medjai were overly concerned with national borders.
"Right. Then I guess we start there."
***
The dreams, varied and vivid, continued throughout the trip.
"It's good, right?" Rick said on the second night, when they both woke in the early pre-dawn and huddled together, still shivering from the dream-memory of a blinding snowstorm that had swept Ardeth into an ice fissure. "It means he's still alive."
Arriving too late had been a constant fear for both of them, though one they avoided speaking of by mutual agreement. The trip from London to Egypt was faster now than it had once been, but it was still slow enough to leave both of them on edge, impatient and afraid. More than once, Evy found herself leaning forward, feet pressed to the floor as if she could force the train to move faster through sheer willpower.
"It's good," she said. "Just so long as no one's raised Imhotep again." They couldn't really imagine it would happen a third time in less than fifteen years, but they also couldn't imagine what else could pose a threat to Ardeth, warrior that he was. What mundane danger could measure up to the things they'd already faced?
They arrived in Cairo at last. They had an address for Ardeth there; not his home, but a place where they could send mail. They visited there first, though they didn't have much hope he'd be there. In that, they were correct. The inhabitants, while they knew Ardeth, said they hadn't seen him in weeks, and had no idea where he was or when he would return. Evy and Rick left a message in case Ardeth returned, telling him they were there, and then retreated to the Carnahan family home, which they'd kept as a staging area for their various expeditions.
"Now what?" Rick asked helplessly.
"I don't know," Evy replied. They had no idea where Ardeth was; they didn't even know for sure he was in Egypt. All they had were the dreams. She considered those for a moment, remembering the dunes and the heat. It seemed to her that on the whole, more of the dreams had been focused on the desert than anywhere else. "I suppose we head west."
That night, they dreamed again. There were no dunes this time. Instead, there was only Ardeth, standing a long way off, beneath a rock shaped like a rabbit. They both broke into a run when they saw him, but even as they ran, the ground began opening beneath him. A scream caught in Evy's throat as she raced toward him, knowing she'd never reach him in time.
"I recognize that rock," she told Rick in the morning. "It's in the White Desert. My parents took Jonathan and me there once when we were young. We need to go to Bahariyya."
They didn't discuss how vast White Desert was, nor how unlikely it was that Ardeth would still be there, if indeed he'd ever been there. Rick simply nodded and went to make the arrangements, while Evy clung to the hope that their dreams would guide them as they got closer; that this wasn't all happening without a purpose.
They made it to Bahariyya without incident. Once there, they hired some guides, an experienced-looking Tuareg named Uthman, resplendent in his blue robes, and his teenage sons, Khayr and Abbas. The three shook their heads at the folly of clients who thought they could find a man in the desert, but they accepted the carefully generous sum Evy and Rick offered, and packed provisions for many days.
It took the small group just under a week to reach the northern edge of the White Desert. Once they crossed into it, Uthman led them to a watering hole he knew about, where they set up camp. Even at night, the early summer desert was warm, and Evy and Rick soon dragged their bedrolls out of the tent, to sleep under the stars, surrounded by limestone yardangs.
They woke shortly after dawn to the sound of Khayr building up the fire. Evy knew as soon as she saw Rick's disappointed expression that he hadn't had any dreams that night. She shook her head as his inquiring gaze. The whole night had passed peacefully, and if she'd dreamed of anything, she couldn't remember it now. His shoulders sagged a bit at the news, mirroring her own reaction on waking. She'd been so sure that they'd receive more direction once they were here.
Over a breakfast of thin porridge and sweetened green tea—desert food—they discussed their options.
"Uthman says he knows where the rabbit is," Rick said. "He can take us there."
Evy dipped her spoon in the porridge. "The question is, are the dreams literal or symbolic?"
"Well, you're the expert on prophetic dreams."
"Those were different. For one thing, you weren't there." She paused as a thought occurred to her. "Do you think Ardeth is actually there with us too?"
"Well, if we're both there, shouldn't he be there too?"
Evy felt a stirring of excitement. "Do you think there's any way we can talk to him?"
"You mean, ask him where he is?" Rick looked doubtful. "I don't remember being able to speak in those dreams. Do you?"
"No," she admitted, deflated. Rick was right; conversation had been notably absent from all of their shared dreams. The only one she'd heard speak was the Sphinx. "But perhaps—" She was interrupted by an excited shout from Abbas. She and Rick set down their bowls and hurried over to join Abbas—and now Uthman and Khayr as well—at the edge of the camp, to see what was going on.
Evy blinked hard what she saw. In the desert beyond the camp, a familiar black-clad figure had emerged from among the yardangs like a mirage, whole and alive.
Rick and Evy strode forward immediately, heading toward him. "Ardeth!" Evy called, trying to get his attention, not sure if he was deliberately aiming for them, or if it was chance and a dream that had brought him there.
Ardeth paused at her voice, looking up at them uncertainly, as if he wasn't quite sure they were really there. Then he began moving again, staggering toward them. Evy's heart constricted with fear as she saw how unsteady he was. She was reminded suddenly of all the dreams they'd had where Ardeth seemed to be in arm's reach until he wasn't. "I think he might hurt," she said aloud, quickening her pace.
Ardeth took a few more steps, jerky movements with none of his usual grace, and then he stopped, staring straight ahead. Beside her, Rick broke into a run, sprinting over the last few yards between them. He made it just in time to catch Ardeth as he fell.
***
Rick carried Ardeth back to their camp, and settled him into their tent. Evy hovered just outside, waiting to see if he needed help. She could hear the soft rustle of fabric as Rick stripped back the layers of robes, trying to get a look at Ardeth's injuries, and then she heard him swear loudly.
"What is it?" she asked from the entry. She'd been worried already, and that didn't help.
"It looks like he's been in a fight," Rick replied. "But it's not just that. These marks ... someone tortured him, Evy. Recently."
She closed her eyes, trying not to picture it. She'd seen victims of torture before; she didn't want to imagine Ardeth in that role. "How bad is it?"
"He'll live," Rick said grimly, and then was silent for a while as he worked.
Once he had Ardeth dressed again, Evy joined him in the tent, waiting for Ardeth to wake up. Waiting for answers that she hoped he'd be willing to provide.
It wasn't long until Ardeth began to stir. Despite Rick's assurances that his injuries weren't that bad, Evy felt a flicker of relief when she saw Ardeth's eyes open. He stared up at the tent for a moment, as if trying to remember where he was, and then he bolted upright, looking around wildly.
"It's all right," Evy told him, pressing a soothing hand to his shoulder to try to ease him back down. "You're safe."
He caught her hand, resisting her efforts to push him down. "Evy. What time is it?"
"It's still morning," Rick told him. "You weren't out very long."
Ardeth relaxed a little and released Evy's hand. "Then there is still some time yet."
"Time for what?" Evy asked.
"Before I must leave," he said. He looked from Rick to Evy. "My friends, I cannot tell you how good it is to see you. And yet I wish you had not come."
"But why not?" Evy asked.
"You are in danger simply from being near me," Ardeth said. "I'm afraid no one is safe in my presence now." There was a dark undertone to the last sentence—a kind of wearied hopelessness that she'd never heard from him before.
Evy studied him more closely. Her first thought was that he looked tired. His usual vibrancy, the coiled energy of the warrior who had faced down armies and emerged unscathed, had been drained away, leaving him worn around the edges. And was it just her imagination, or were those high cheekbones a touch more prominent than they had been? It was hard to tell with the robes, but he seemed thinner.
"What's going on?" Rick asked.
Ardeth straightened up in the bed, as if bracing himself for battle. "The short version is that I am under a curse."
It wasn't what they had come to Egypt expecting to hear.
"What kind of curse?" Evy asked. She was already summoning up her mental list of the ancient curses she'd read about—and their cures.
"A sand demon has been summoned and bound to me. Each night at sundown, it arises, and I must battle it until I weaken it enough to contain it in a sacred circle for the night."
Beside her, Rick looked like he wanted to swear again. "You're saying this thing tries to kill you every night?"
"No. It doesn't try to kill me. The sand demon is sufficiently aware to realize that its existence is tied to mine. If it kills me, then it loses all form, so it doesn't dare do so. That is the only reason I have been able to fight it so many nights in a row without dying."
Rick gave him an appraising look. "How many nights are we talking about here?"
"That depends. What day is it now?"
Evy told him.
Ardeth's eyes went momentarily distant. "It's been a little more than three weeks, then." He gave them a rueful smile. "It feels longer. And shorter."
"Well, that explains why you're in such rough shape," Rick said. "When was the last time you had a hot meal?"
Ardeth shook his head, a negating gesture, and Evy resolved to ask Khayr and Abbas to make up some more food as soon as possible.
Something else had caught her attention. "Ardeth, why do you fight this creature at all? If it won't harm you, why not simply let it be?"
"Because if I do not, then it will hunt. And its favourite food is human flesh. It is a powerful, foul creature, and if it had its way, the sands of the desert would run red with blood."
"It figures," Rick said dryly. "They're always after people. Funny how demons and monsters are never satisfied with the occasional goat. So whose bright idea was it to summon this thing, anyway?"
Ardeth's face turned grave. "My cousin Rhadet."
"Your own cousin cursed you?" Evy said. "But why?" She couldn't recall his ever having mentioned his family before, though she'd known he must have one. She also couldn't imagine the family of a Medjai, especially one as dedicated as Ardeth, dealing in black magic.
There was a small sound at the door to the tent. Evy went out and found Abbas waiting there, with a cup of tea. "For your friend," he said with a slight bow.
"Thank you." She carried the tea back inside and offered it to Ardeth, who accepted it with a grateful nod.
He took a long swallow before he continued. "When I was a boy, it was my uncle Ehradt, my father's older brother, who led the Medjai. Ehradt had a son, Rhadet, who was only a year older than me. The two of us were like brothers growing up. We fought side by side and shared many adventures. When my uncle died, Rhadet expected that he would inherit his father's mantle."
"But that's not happened," Evy guessed. "The chieftains chose you instead."
Ardeth gave her a brief smile. "That's not entirely how it works. There are a number of trials that candidates must successfully complete in order to win the right to lead the Medjai. I successfully completed them all. The other candidates, including Rhadet, did not."
"So he cursed you because he's jealous?" Rick asked, disgust colouring his tone.
"Not just that, I think," Ardeth replied. "Rhadet was disappointed, of course, but at first he seemed proud of me. He congratulated me and swore to continue the fight to prevent the rise of the Creature. For many years, he served as my trusted right hand, one of my closest advisers. Gradually, though, he began spending more and more time away from us, without telling anyone where he was going or what he was doing. When he was with us, bitterness sometimes crept into his words, a claim that we were wasting our lives roaming the desert. At the same time, he began querying me closely on certain matters, and sometimes even following me when he should not have been."
"What was he hoping to find?" Evy asked.
"The leader of the Medjai is not merely a warrior; he is also the keeper of certain sacred knowledge that the Medjai have held close for over three thousand years. One of the secrets we keep is the location of a collection of objects of power—items too dangerous to be allowed out into the world. A few of the less powerful items are used on occasion for important ceremonies. Each time I caught Rhadet following me, it was when I was on my way to retrieve one of those items."
"You think he wants access to them."
"I do. When I investigated further, I discovered that Rhadet had become indebted to some very dangerous people. I believe he has promised them the objects of power as payment, or he hopes to sell some of the objects to pay them back."
"Or use them to wipe out the guys he owes," Rick suggested.
Ardeth looked troubled. "Yes, I fear that most of all. Because if that is his intention, then I do not believe he will stop with just those men."
"And how does cursing you gain him access to these objects?" Evy asked.
"Among the objects of power is a sword that can slay a sand demon. It is the only known way to break the curse, other than the death of the one who is cursed. Even the caster's death will not do it."
"So he's hoping you'll go get the sword to free yourself," Rick said.
"Indeed. He and his men follow me each day, though they keep their distance at night. I have tried at times to lose them, but there are too many of them and they are far too watchful for even me to elude. Especially when I can only travel by day."
And when he was spending half his night or more fighting, Evy thought, leaving him exhausted all the time. No food, no rest, not even the comfort of a friend.
"Are those guys the ones who tortured you?" Rick asked. In response to Ardeth's questioning look, he added, "I was the one who bandaged you up. You don't get those kinds of marks any other way."
Ardeth looked embarrassed, though Evy couldn't imagine why. Perhaps just because admitting he'd been tortured meant admitting he'd been caught. "Yes. An early attempt to get the information he sought. It didn't work, of course. But I suspect that is another reason for the curse. Rhadet does not dare let me return to the tribes and tell them what he's done, the oaths he has forsaken." He swallowed hard. "It was an unexpected betrayal. As was the curse itself. Even when I knew Rhadet sought the objects, I did not believe he had fallen so far as to delve into the dark arts. Clearly he is not the man I thought he was."
The pain in his voice was clear. Evy leaned forward and rested her hand on his. "I'm sorry," she said. "What can we do? How can we help?"
Ardeth looked at her for a moment, those dark eyes searching hers. "There is one thing you can do for me," he said slowly. "I know it's a great deal to ask, but we've been through much together."
"Whatever you need," Rick said. "We owe you our lives. We owe you our son's life. You know we'd do anything for you."
Ardeth looked relieved. "Then please, my friends, kill me."
"What?" The word arose simultaneously from both of their throats, a harsh croak of shock and denial.
"You must understand," Ardeth said, "I do not ask this lightly. I know it is a terrible thing to ask of one's friends. But as I told you, there are only two ways to break the curse, and I dare not lead Rhadet to the sword, so that only leaves my death." He gave them a pleading look. "I cannot keep fighting forever. Each night it gets harder. Soon I will not have the strength or the will to hold the sand demon back. My death could save hundreds. It could save you."
Rick recovered first. "Or we could try something else," he said. He turned to Evy. "Have you heard of these things? These sand demons?"
"No," she said, "but there's an excellent book of curses in a library in Cairo."
"Cairo is many, many days away," Ardeth said. "Too many."
"Well, what if we contact the Medjai?" Rick said. "Maybe someone there knows something else, some temporary way to hold it. Plus, someone else there has to know how to get to the objects of power, right? I mean, you said your uncle died before you were declared the new leader, so someone had to have told you."
"There are a few who carry that knowledge," Ardeth said, "in case an object is needed between leaders. But I don't know who they are. The knowledge came to me another way."
"All right, so we go to them," Evy said. "Where are they?"
"I cannot tell you," Ardeth said. He held up a hand as if to forestall their objections. "It is not that I am unwilling. It is just that there are several places they could have gone. Normally, if I wished to follow them, I would follow certain signs, but I would have to be there to find those signs. And you don't have time to check every place they might have gone."
"Then you'll just have to come with us," Evy said.
"And expose you and them to this curse and this creature, each and every night? No. It is bad enough that I am here today, endangering you. I will not put you in further danger."
"There has to be another way," Rick said firmly. "And we're going to find it."
That drew a short, sharp laugh. "You people really don't believe in fate, do you?"
"This has nothing to do with fate," Rick said. "This is one guy who can't accept that he wasn't the best."
"I believe in fate," Evy said. "I didn't used to, but I do now. And I also I believe that we were brought here for a reason. Do you know how we found you?"
Ardeth gave her a surprised look. "Are you not here on one of your endless expeditions?"
"Yeah," Rick said. "The expedition in search of our friend, Ardeth Bay, who's in trouble and needs our help."
"We've been dreaming of you," Evy said. "Both of us. For weeks now."
Ardeth went still. "What kind of dreams?"
They recited them for him, the desert and the jungle and the snowstorm and the desert yet again.
"You were truly there." Ardeth drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, looking from Rick to Evy and back again. "Perhaps," he said at last, "there is one other thing we can try."
***
At Ardeth's suggestion, they moved their camp from the watering hold to a nearby oasis that even Uthman was startled to discover existed. It was small—a trickle of water so narrow that a child could have stepped across it, and a scant half-acre of date trees—but even that bit of shade and green helped boost their spirits. And the water tasted much better than that of the watering hole.
That evening, Evy accompanied Ardeth to the edge of the oasis and watched him ride off into the sun as it made its lazy way toward the horizon. He'd agreed to take one of the camels, planning to ride it halfway and then continue on foot, so as to put greater distance between himself and the camp, without—they hoped—losing the camel to the demon.
"I don't suppose this thing gets weaker when it doesn't get to feed, does it?" she'd asked.
"No. Just angrier."
Three days, he'd told them. Three days out and three days back. Six more nights of fighting. Single-handed battles, every one of them.
Evy tried to sleep after he was out of sight, but every time she drifted off, she pictured Rick racing across the desert, or heard the clang of swords, or saw a creature of sand flowing into the camp, leaving behind it a trail of blood. She managed to doze here and there, but was still exhausted when the sun finally returned.
She rose in time to welcome Ardeth back to the camp. Watching him sway with fatigue as Khayr helped him off his camel, she experienced a flicker of doubt that he'd last five more nights.
The demon couldn't kill him, of course. He'd told them that, and Evy believed him. But she also knew that if he faltered in his attempts to contain the demon, if it somehow slipped passed him and escaped out into the world, Ardeth would slit his own throat to prevent it from reaching the camp. She suspected the only reason he hadn't done so already—the reason he'd asked Rick to do it for him—was because it was a sin in his faith. But he'd risk that to save them.
Evy helped him into the tent, where Abbas brought breakfast for them both, porridge and tea and dried cheese. Ardeth ate and drank quickly, with few words, and then fell into a deep sleep. Evy sat beside him a long time, studying the smooth planes of his face, the scarred hands, that long, lean form, before she finally left him alone.
She and Rick had warned Uthman that Ardeth was being hunted, that men might show up in search of him, especially during the day. Uthman had promised to keep watching, and assured her now that there was no sign of anyone. Satisfied that they were as safe as they could be under the circumstances, she tried to catch up on some of her missing sleep.
The cycle continued, day after day. Each evening before sunset, Ardeth rode out, and each night, Evy tossed and turned in her tent until he returned, swaying and sometimes bleeding, after dawn. Each morning, she studied him anxiously, certain that she could see the strength draining from him.
Then, on the fifth morning, Ardeth didn't return. Evy watched the horizon with mounting concern, praying for movement. An hour past the time he'd usually be back, with no sign of life, she went to the Uthman and asked that he and one of the boys accompany her out to look for Ardeth.
The heat of the desert summer rose fast around them as they rode. Mindful of the risk of Rhadet's men—and that they could be the reason Ardeth hadn't returned—all three of them were armed.
Evy pushed them hard, urging the camels to move faster, one awful image clinging with terrible clarity to her mind's eye: a protective circle broken or unused, and close beside it Ardeth's lifeless body, knife still near his hand, red blood pooling around him, staining the sand.
Twenty minutes out, Evy spotted a dark shape lying prone in the shadow of a tall yardang. She shouted to Uthman and Khayr to move faster, cursing the stubbornness of camels. Never had she longed for a horse as she did now.
As soon as she was close enough, she ordered the camel to stop and slid off, rushing to the figure in the sand, fearing the worst. A quick glance revealed that it was Ardeth and—thankfully—there was no blood marring the sand. Even so, her palms were clammy as she reached for his neck and felt for a pulse. She let out a sigh of relief when she felt warm skin and a steady heartbeat.
She touched his shoulder gently, trying to shake him awake. It took a few minutes to rouse him, and then he looked up at her blearily. "Let's go," she said as she and Khayr helped him to his feet.
They shared a camel back, though the beast protested the whole way. Ardeth didn't even eat before he collapsed in the shade at the camp and settled back into exhausted sleep.
She sat with him all day, checking him periodically for a fever, afraid to leave him alone. Even with the regular meals and hours of rest they'd been providing him, he still looked frighteningly thin to her—and drained, in the way she'd noticed when he'd first arrived.
Late in the afternoon, Ardeth began to mutter in his sleep. Evy leaned closer, trying to catch what he was saying, ready to comfort him if she could. She heard her own name, and Rick's. And then a few words in Arabic, barely comprehensible, that left her wide-eyed with shock. She touched his shoulder tenderly, and whispered a prayer that he'd survive the coming fight.
"Only one more night," she told herself.
She tried to convince Ardeth not to go out into the desert on the sixth night. "It's really not necessary," she told him. "Rick will be back any time now."
"And if he got lost or delayed? All it would take is one small mistake on my part and the demon would have you before I could do anything else. No, I must go where no one else is in danger."
For once, Evy's watch at the edge of the oasis was kept under the setting sun rather than the rising. She had some idea of which direction Rick would be coming from, and she sat there, staring into the distance, as if she could will him back faster. She'd already asked Abbas to have two camels ready to go, for when he returned.
The sun was almost entirely down before she saw movement on the horizon. She watched it impatiently, thinking of Ardeth unable to even return that morning, silently urging Rick to hurry.
Rick gave her a quick kiss as he dismounted.
"He's already out there," she said, leading him directly to the fresh camels. "We need to go."
They reached the site of the battle in just over an hour, Ardeth apparently having had enough faith in Rick not to have gone as far as he usually would. He was in the midst of the fight, struggling to wear the demon down enough to drive it into the circle.
The sand demon itself was smaller than Evy had expected, perhaps the size of a large child, but formed purely of pale sand. It didn't look quite as dangerous as she'd expected, either—until it looked past Ardeth and straight at her, baring sharp-looking teeth in a wide, vicious smile.
Ardeth must have heard them approach, but he didn't look back at them. He was leading the creature around in a circle, darting in and out with his sword, and dodging heavy blows. The sand demon may not have wanted to kill him, but it certainly didn't seem to mind injuring him. As they circled, Evy got a glimpse of Ardeth's face, locked into an expression of intense concentration. He was moving frighteningly slowly, barely dodging at all, and she suspected the only thing keeping him on his feet at this point was sheer willpower.
Beside her, Rick had slid off his camel, a long bundle in his hands. On the ground, he carefully unwrapped it and slid the sword out of its scabbard. It gleamed palely in the moonlight, brighter than even the full moon ought to warrant. Both blade and hilt were covered in runes, and Evy wondered briefly if she'd get a chance to examine it before it was returned to its home.
She'd expected Rick to slay the demon himself, but instead, as he closer, he shifted the sword to his left hand and pulled out his gun with his right. A moment later, a loud crack sounded, and the demon stumbled backward in surprise, toppling to the ground. Rick used the opening to slip in and hand the unsheathed sword to Ardeth. Ardeth sheathed his own sword and took the one Rick was offering with a fierce look of triumph.
Rick backed away as the sand demon angrily hoisted itself to its feet. The demon scratched one foot across the ground like a bull, and ran straight for Ardeth, heedless of the glowing, rune-laden blade in his hands. Ardeth held the sword in front of him, then twisted smoothly to the side as the demon neared, letting it go by. As it passed him, he swept the sword in a wide arc, cutting the creature in half. Time seemed to hold still for a moment, and then the demon exploded into a cloud of sand that was picked up by a sudden gust of wind that scattered the sand across the desert.
The sand demon was dead.
There was a moment of stillness as the three of them looked at each, unable to quite believe what had happened, and then Evy found herself trying to hug both Rick and Ardeth at the same time, as their arms encircled her and each other, gripping each other in a tight, joyous circle.
Eventually, they rode back to the camp in exhausted silence, still elated, but too tired to do more than smile at each other.
***
The camp was quiet when they rode in, but otherwise looked normal, with camels and tents in their expected places, which was why Evy didn’t realize at first that anything was wrong. It wasn't until she saw Rick and Ardeth pulling their guns as they carefully dismounted that she noticed the absence of Uthman and his sons.
She also dismounted, but left her own gun where it was. It wasn't immediately visible, and she thought the element of surprise might help later, if there were an opening.
Rick exchanged a glance with Ardeth, then raised his gun and aimed it toward the trees. "Show yourselves," he called.
There was a whisper among the trees, and then half a dozen men stepped forward.
The man at the centre of the group was clearly Ardeth's cousin, Rhadet. He wore the black robes and tattoos of a Medjai, and shared Ardeth's height and build. His features were similar enough to Ardeth's that they could have been brothers rather than cousins, but there was an underlying cruelty to Rhadet's expression that marred his beauty, something she'd never seen on Ardeth's face.
The men who were with him were all in standard European mercenary garb, save one man—boy, really; he couldn't have been more than eighteen or nineteen—who, like Rhadet, was dressed in a Medjai's robes, with a Medjai's tattoos across his face. She saw Ardeth's gaze flicker to the boy before he focused on his cousin.
Rhadet apparently saw it too; his lips curved into a satisfied smile. "As you can see, cousin, I'm not the only Medjai who has rejected your leadership. Halim works for me now."
Ardeth didn't bother responding; he simply pointed his gun. Where Rick seemed to be trying to cover the entire group with his weapon, Ardeth's had exactly one target.
The weapon didn't seem to bother Rhadet, who was speaking again in a lighthearted tone. "You broke the curse, Ardeth. I felt it go. A pity we lost you before that or else I'd know where the objects are. But when you broke the spell, I was able to follow the trail back to you. I knew then there was only place here you could hide." He looked around at the tiny oasis. "So are the objects near here? Not more than a day away, I imagine. You would have used the sword as soon as it was at hand. How tired you must be, after all that fighting. Though of course, you were always good with a sword. Your best trait, really."
Ardeth shook his head. "I have been blind. I should have seen what you were years ago."
Rhadet gave an elaborate shrug. "You saw what I wanted you to see." He took a step forward, amusement giving way to something darker. "Do you still think you can resist the inevitable? I know there's no point in torturing you, but you're no longer here alone. Do you think you'll be able to hold out when your allies are screaming for mercy?"
Evy felt a rush of rage. Did Rhadet really think he could use her and Rick against Ardeth that way. Did he think that they would ever allow it?
Rick apparently felt the same way. "First you have to take us," he called, shifting his gun toward Rhadet in subtle threat.
"You're rather badly outnumbered," Rhadet observed. "Your guides ran when they saw us coming, in case you were counting on them for help."
It was a relief to hear that Uthman and his sons were alive, but it did little to assuage Evy's anger. "We can still make sure you don't take us alive," she snapped out. "No hostages, no objects of power."
Rhadet gave her an assessing look. She lifted her chin and met his gaze, letting her fury show through. Making sure he knew that she meant every word of it.
"It doesn't really matter," he said at last, turning back to Ardeth. "Even without you, now that I know the general area, I'll find the objects."
Was it Evy's imagination, or was someone moving at the edge of the trees?
Ardeth smiled gently. "The desert is vast, cousin. And the objects are nowhere near here."
"That's not possible," Rhadet said impatiently. "You wouldn't have waited to use the sword. You wouldn't have dared."
"Except," Ardeth said, "it was not I who fetched the sword."
For the first time, Rhadet looked uncertain. "No. That's possible. There are no other Medjai here with that knowledge, and you would never reveal their location to anyone."
Rick, clearly seeing an opening, gave a derisive laugh. "Just because he doesn't trust you doesn't mean he doesn't trust anyone," he said, pulling Rhadet's attention toward him. And then, deliberately, "Not all of us betray our friends."
Rhadet's face darkened as he processed what Rick was saying. He swung around to face Ardeth. "You dared? After all the speeches, the lectures, the refusal to help your own blood, you told this outsider where our greatest treasure lies? And you call me the traitor?"
As Rhadet raged, Evy spotted Halim begin to slip closer to Rhadet, silent as a shadow, a small knife gleaming in his hand, and she understood why Ardeth had looked to him, and why he'd tried to hide it.
And then several things happened at once. Rhadet, still yelling, drew a gold sceptre, which he aimed at Rick and Evy. He spoke a word that made Evy's insides twist unpleasantly, and a light out of it. Rick swung in front of her, shoving her down, but not before she saw Ardeth jump in front of both of them, straight into the path of the light. As she hit the ground with Rick on top of her, shots rang out from the trees, where she'd seen movement earlier, and Rhadet cried out in pain.
Rick rolled off fast and rose to his knees, gun still in hand, ready to join the fight. Evy crouched beside him and drew her own gun, trying to assess the situation. Ardeth was a heap right in front of them. Halim stood over him, Ardeth's gun in his hand.
A few feet away, Rhadet was on the ground, with Halim's little knife sticking out of his throat.
Two of Rhadet's men were still on their feet, but they'd turned their attention to the trees where the shots were coming from. Evy aimed at one, preparing to fire, but before she could, Rick and Halim fired nearly simultaneously. The two mercenaries fell, and all the guns stopped.
Evy and Rick rushed over to Ardeth. Heart pounding, Evy reached for the side of his neck.
"He's alive," she told Rick. She began shaking him, trying to wake him as she had once before, but there was no response.
Halim crouched down beside them. "It won't help," he said.
"What did Rhadet do to him?" Rick asked.
"It's called the sceptre of eternal sleep."
Evy looked up at him. "Eternal?"
"It's not actually eternal," the boy explained. "Just until he dies. Three days. Maybe four."
"There has to be something we can do," Evy said. "Halim, you're clearly loyal to Ardeth."
Halim nodded. "He sent me to keep an eye on Rhadet."
"Surely the Medjai—"
"No. I'm sorry." He sounded genuinely regretful.
"What about the other objects of power?" Rick asked. "I could go back. We could take Ardeth—"
"There's nothing there that can help him," Halim said. "The kindest thing you can do is relieve his suffering."
Evy was vaguely aware that Uthman, Khayr and Abbas had emerged from the trees, weapons slung across their chests, and were busy checking the camels and moving the bodies, but her attention was focused on the man in front of her and the utter unfairness of the situation. She looked at Rick. "After all this—"
"We're not giving up," he said firmly.
***
They moved Ardeth back to their tent, where they both kept vigil throughout the long day that followed. Sometimes he stirred, twisting and thrashing. Other times, he was so still that Evy could do nothing but stare at his chest, its steady rise and fall the only evidence that he still lived. Nothing they did, no sound or smell or touch, woke him.
Uthman and the boys mostly left them alone all day, apart from preparing food that they left outside the tent. Halim had left them shortly after the fight, riding back to the Medjai to inform them of what had happened.
As evening approach, she looked to Rick. "We have to do something."
He spread his hands wide. "Evy, if you can think of anything to try, I'll do it. Just tell me what."
She looked back to Ardeth, who now looked to be sleeping peacefully. Sleeping…
"The dreams," she said excitedly. "We'll find him in our dreams, just like before. We'll find him and we'll bring him home."
"Evy, we haven't had a shared dream since we reached the desert. Unless you know how to make it happen—"
"We haven't dreamed because we didn't need to. Once we were here, we were already helping Ardeth as much as we could. But now, he needs us again." She squeezed Rick's hand. "Just think of him tonight when you go to sleep. Think of him and think of me, and I'm sure we'll find each other."
"I always think of you," Rick said, kissing her forehead. "But will we even know it's a dream? I never know until I wake up."
"We have to," she said. "We have to remember, and we have to find Ardeth, and tonight we have to reach him in time."
They decided to stay there for the night instead of retreating outside, all three of them sleeping side by side. Evy wasn't sure it would help, but she thought proximity couldn't hurt.
It was the first night in a while where she was truly eager to fall asleep, but fear and anticipation kept her lying awake in the dark. Rick had been breathing steadily beside her for what felt like hours before she finally felt herself drifting off.
The desert air was still, without even the hint of a breeze to offer relief from the ferocious heat that radiated from both sand and sky, but Evy barely noticed. Her attention was caught up in surveying the landscape around her, the wonderful, familiar sight of sand and dunes and sun.
She took a step forward, further into the desert, and then stopped, face scrunching up in concentration. There was something she was forgetting; something she was supposed to do.
She sensed Rick's presence before she saw him. He came up behind her, smiling, and slipped his hand into hers. She leaned into him, savouring the moment, her two favourite things, Rick and Egypt—no, something was missing. Alex, of course, but he was safe at school. There was something else, something important—and then the sand rose around them in an impossible storm, and Evy remembered.
She turned to Rick. "Ardeth!" she cried in his ear. "We have to find Ardeth." He nodded his understanding.
The wind spun around them, sand circling them without touching them. It was quiet where they stood. It was safe. Determinedly, Evy pulled her scarf over her nose and mouth, Rick's hand still in hers, and plunged from their place of safety into the storm.
The sand was harsh against her skin, and she couldn't fully cover her eyes if she wanted to see where she was going, but she persisted, forcing one foot in front of the other, struggling against the wind as she'd seen Ardeth do once before.
It seemed like forever before she saw a dark figure ahead of her, moving like a shadow. With relief, she tugged on Rick's hand to show him, and the two of them turned together toward Ardeth.
Ardeth hadn't seen them. He had his sword out and was waving it in the air, thrusting and parrying as if he battled the storm itself. Evy didn't need to look at Rick to know what they were going to do. The two of them moved together, hand in hand, coming up behind Ardeth and grabbing his upper arms, holding him tightly. They felt him jump in surprise, and then the sand and the wind disappeared.
Evy was in the moonlit desert, the Sphinx visible above her. One hand was still held in Rick's, and the other was still holding on to Ardeth.
She didn't want to let Ardeth go, so by mutual agreement, she and Rick released their hold on each other long enough to step in front of him before reaching for each other's hands again, forming a circle.
She saw the moment that Ardeth returned from his battle and recognized them, realizing that they were there, that they were real. He had opened his mouth to speak when from above them came a clear, crystalline, inhuman voice: "Do you know what you want?"
Evy looked up at the Sphinx, and opened her mouth. To her surprise, she was finally able to speak. "This," she said, tightening her grip on both Rick and Ardeth, knowing she was speaking for all three of them. Knowing it couldn't be this simple, but that she had to try. "We want to be together. We want Ardeth back."
And then the desert faded away, and her eyes flickered open in the tent, where the dawn light was starting to stream in. She closed her eyes again, wanting to weep. They'd been so close.
She felt Rick stirring on her left, felt his hand touch hers, fingers twining between hers. She turned her head to face him. He watching her expectantly, apparently waiting for news. She started to shake her head, to tell him they'd try again the next night, when she heard a noise on her other side.
Heart in her throat, she turned her head to her right, where her other hand had somehow found its way into Ardeth's hand—a hand that was now squeezing hers. Holding her breath, not daring to hope, she squeezed back, and Ardeth's eyes opened.
***
"You seem to do this quite a lot, you know," Evy said. "Throwing yourself into danger so that Rick and I can get away." The sun was high in the sky now, and for once, it had successfully chased the remnants of the dream away. She still remembered what had happened, but she no longer felt the sting of sand on her face, nor the echo of the Sphinx's voice in her ear.
"It's my duty," Ardeth said. He'd gotten up with seemingly no ill effects from his long day of sleep. If anything, he looked refreshed, though perhaps that was simply the result of having the curse lifted and his enemy gone. But there was a tinge of grief to that too, mourning the friend and cousin he'd once thought he had—the man Rhadet could have been.
The three of them had gathered with green tea and flatbread and dried cheese in the shade of the grove. Uthman and his sons, having prepared the food and eaten their own breakfast, had busied themselves elsewhere.
"I thought your duty was to prevent Imhotep from taking over the world," Rick said. "I seem to recall you saying that it was worth sacrificing innocent lives to prevent that from happening."
"Only as a last resort," Ardeth said. "Besides, it was my fault that you were in danger at all, and so I owed it to you."
"How was it your fault?" Evy asked. "You didn't ask us to come, and you couldn't have known that Rhadet would attack us. We're only here because of the dreams."
"Well, and because we owed you," Rick said. "Although I still want to know where those dreams came from. How did the three of us suddenly start sharing the same dreams?"
Ardeth was looking down, focused on his food, but Evy thought she spotted a flash of discomfort at the question. His fault, he'd claimed.
"Ardeth, do you know something about those dreams?"
He hesitated a long moment, then lifted his head to face them. "As I said, it was my fault that you were in danger."
"Wait, so you caused those dreams?" Rick asked.
"It wasn't deliberate," he said quickly. "I didn't set out to create the connection. Having the curse on me opened certain pathways to the beyond. One night, after the demon was contained, when my spirits were low, I thought of the two of you. In that moment, as I lay down for what little rest I could get, I longed for you to be there. But I didn't know it would have an effect. Not until you told me that you were actually there, in those dreams."
"And that's why you decided to tell me where the objects are?" Rick asked. "Because of that connection?"
"Because I was able to create that connection," Ardeth said. "Wishing is not enough, even with the curse; it requires a level of sympathy and commonality. The co-operation of fate. That kind of bond can never end in betrayal."
"The three sides of a pyramid," Evy said, remembering.
That drew questioning looks from both sides.
"Ardeth, you told us once that Rick, Alex, and I were the three sides of a pyramid," she explained, "but so are you and Rick and me. Look at how we keep finding each other. And when have we ever done anything but hold each other up?"
Ardeth smiled and raised his glass in a toast. "Then I am honoured to be counted as part of your pyramid."
***
They decided to stay at the oasis one more day, to give all of them a chance to recover before the trek to Farafra. The night was warm enough to sleep outside, which also gave them more space, but they ducked into the tent together to gather some bedding.
Standing there with both men in a tent barely large enough to contain the three of them, staring down at where they'd slept side by side, Evy flashed back to the feeling of waking with one man on each side of her, of touching both of them at once, and how that had felt
She also thought to certain things Rick had said over the years, and the way she sometimes caught him watching Ardeth when he thought no one was looking. And then there was the fact that Ardeth, in his lowest hour, had thought of the two of them, apparently equally, and had longed for nothing more than their presence. And the things he had said in his exhausted sleep, things she knew he'd never say while he was awake. Not unless she forced the issue. And then, of course, there were certain truths about her own feelings and desires, truths she'd put aside until before this, but which she now felt compelled to pull out and examine. They'd nearly lost so much here, before they even had it.
The three sides of a pyramid.
When Ardeth went to bend over to pick up a blanket, Evy placed a hand on his arm. He paused obediently, still laughing at a joke Rick had just made, waiting to see what she wanted.
She wasn't sure how to begin—this was unmarked territory for all of them—and then she knew. They'd dreamed together, after all. "The Sphinx asked us a question," she said. "Isn't it time we answered it honestly?"
"I thought we did," Rick said. "You did, for all of us."
She looked to him—her beautiful, beloved husband—and then back to Ardeth. "I said we wanted to be together."
"And here we are," Ardeth said.
"Are we?" she asked, watching their faces, waiting for the confirmation of what she suspected—the hidden feelings, the unmet desires. She could feel the ground falling away from her as she spoke. She felt like she was perched on a high wire, walking without a net. It was dizzying, but also exhilarating. You could see things from up high that you couldn't see from the ground—changes in perspective. "Is this really all you wanted when you summoned us into your dreams, Ardeth? A curse broken? A shared meal? A short journey together?"
She kept half an eye on Rick as she spoke, gauging his reactions, but most of her attention was on Ardeth. She was fairly sure she knew how Rick felt; a dozen and more years of marriage will do that, if it's a good marriage. It was Ardeth who was the enigma, even now, after his involuntary confession. But sometimes even enigmas revealed themselves, if you were patient enough.
She turned so she could see them both, to make sure they knew the question was for both of them. "What do you want?"
Rick's lips parted slightly, his face alight, but he didn't speak. She looked from him to Ardeth, who was watching her steadily but cautiously, like someone approaching a wild animal. His cheeks looked a little flushed beneath his beard.
She gave Ardeth another moment, and when he still didn't answer, she stepped closer to him and pulled him down into a kiss.
Ardeth broke it off before she did, looking mildly panicked as he looked at Rick. Rick was watching him steadily, but it wasn't in anger. Evy held out a hand toward her husband, and he took it, letting her pull him in until the three of them were a circle again.
"Rick—" Ardeth began.
"Whatever Evy wants," Rick said. His hand was still gripping hers, but his attention was entirely on Ardeth, a focused intensity that Evy was familiar with.
This time, when Evy slid a hand around Ardeth's neck to pull him closer, he let the kiss go on, let his hands slide down her body, exploring. Rick, in the meantime, had moved behind her, his mouth gliding down her neck. When at last she pulled away from Ardeth, he leaned over her shoulder to take her place on Ardeth's mouth.
"I think," she said, when the two of them separated, "that perhaps we should sleep in here tonight after all. We wouldn't want to shock the camels."
Both men smiled, a small release of tension, and then Rick stepped back to close the flap, and Evy gathered them both to her.