The Dark Lord

'What,' Thyatis said grimly, 'did it say?'

'Oh, that.' Sheshet grinned, dark brown eyes lighting up. When she smiled, her sharp cheekbones and narrow chin transformed into something almost inhuman. 'The tomb had been plundered and the thieves left a message for those who might come after, both to mock any rival finding an empty hole and to deflect the anger of the gods. They were clever, the men working in candlelit darkness, chipping away at stone laid down a thousand years before...'

—|—

The echo of voices, not far away, brought Shirin up short. Stepping quietly, she turned the corner of a hallway filled with rough-hewn wooden crates. Not more than a dozen yards away, she could see the tall figure of Thyatis speaking to a short, dark-haired woman. Gold glinted for an instant, then vanished into the Egyptian woman's hand.

So, Shirin sniffed, we're back to work, are we? Irritated, the Khazar woman scratched her nose, ink-dark eyebrows narrowed in calculation. But who are you working for? The Order? The Duchess? The Emperor... your handyman is a Roman soldier—that much is clear from his boots, his hair, the long-shanked stride. So, the Imperial government again. But how?

A momentary vision of Thyatis, her wild, ecstatic face streaked with blood and sweat, standing on glittering, hot sand filled Shirin's memory. Her stomach turned queasily, thinking of the slaughter and the delight so plain in her lover's eyes.

You won out, Shirin thought, half-remembering things she had heard about the Romans and their customs. You killed all those men and the Emperor set you free. He must have taken you back into his service. The unsettled, greasy feeling in her stomach began to gel like meat fat cooling on a skillet. Now you're hunting again and this time you're here, searching for the same thing the Persians want. Kleopatra's weapon. A calm sense of certainty entered her. Fragments slid together; the grim look on the Persian faces, the dust on their cloaks, their long journey down the Nile fitting into a recognizable pattern. Shirin squinted at the woman in the ragged dress. A clerk or scribe, working here, cataloging the books. Hmm. A race to find Kleopatra's... treasure? Tomb? Hiding place? Those Persians thought it was downriver, but it wasn't, so they came to the Library, following an ancient trail. I should tell Thyatis what I heard in the inn...

Relieved and satisfied with her reasoning, Shirin started to step out into the corridor. Then she stopped, eyes lingering on the set of her friend's shoulders, her head, an escaped curl of brassy hair peeking from under the woolen hood of the cloak. Her chest felt tight and a rush of emotion made it impossible to breathe. Strong arms to hold me, a dear head in my lap, a laughing freckled face, sparkling sea-gray eyes... not a mad, contorted face, so like my husband's. My friend, my beloved...

Suddenly weak, Shirin put her hand out against the gritty, sandstone wall. Memories of her children running on a sandy beach welled up, Thyatis sprinting after them, roaring like a lion. Everyone sitting under a piece of sail, sunburned, eating red-backed crabs caught in the shallows. Thyatis dancing beside a bonfire, a sea of ebony faces laughing and clapping in time to thundering drums. The sky dark with flamingos as countless flocks burst up from a marsh. Thyatis holding Avrahan and Sahul each under a scarred, sun-browned arm, face tense, waiting, listening for the lionesses creeping in the high yellow grass. Oh, lord of my fathers, she won't know my babies are dead!

Shirin put a hand over her mouth for a moment, tears squeezing out between tight eyelids. Sometimes this life was too much for her to bear. When she opened her eyes again, Thyatis had moved aside, one hand raised to the Egyptian woman's face.

—|—

Thyatis produced a knife, and laid the shining, oiled tip just below the curator's eyelid. 'I'm getting impatient.'

Sheshet bared her teeth, showing glittering white incisors. 'You are hasty. They proclaimed their pharaoh, said they worked in her name, by her command. So she would take the ill-luck from their desecration and they would be spared.'

'Her?' Thyatis' nostrils flared and the tip of the knife slid sideways, away from the curator's unblinking eye.

—|—

Shirin jerked back, feeling the sharp, angry motion of Thyatis' shoulders as a physical blow. The blade of a knife glittered in the dim light for a moment, then disappeared. Distressed, Shirin stepped back, into deeper shadows. Thyatis' stance radiated repressed anger and impatience. The Khazar woman drew the corner of her cloak across the bridge of her nose, leaving only the pale gleam of her eyes visible. Careless violence? A blade set to an innocent eye? You've made no friend in this one. Foolish Roman! The Egyptian woman's face, half seen over Thyatis' shoulder, was a blank, tight mask.

Is this truly you? Shirin felt sick. Not the friend, the gentle lover I thought you were?

The Khazar woman was no stranger to violence—she had killed, to protect herself—but this casual willingness to maim, or kill, turned her blood cold. I should turn away, and leave all of this behind— Persians and Romans alike... But she did not and continued to watch from the darkness.

—|—

'Kleopatra, seventh of that name.' Sheshet's lips compressed and she began to radiate an encompassing sense of delighted satisfaction. 'I knew immediately, as soon as I read the beginning of the invocation. Half-Greek, half-Egyptian, with the truncated spelling favored by the Ptolemies. Yes, the notorious, beloved Queen of the Two Lands broke into old Nemathapi's tomb and took away this device you're searching for. I've heard she liked trinkets. The older, the better.'

Thyatis blinked. 'But the Persians had already found his tomb... they were looking for hers?'

Sheshet nodded. Thyatis returned the knife to a sheath strapped to the inside of her arm. A tense knot swelled in her stomach. 'Do you know...'

'...where Kleopatra's tomb is?' The curator shook her head slowly. 'One of the great mysteries of Egypt, archer. Many men have looked, but no one has ever found her resting place.'

'What about him?' Thyatis nodded towards Hecataeus' office. 'What did he tell the Persians?'

'Him?' Sheshet whistled derisively. 'He couldn't tell them anything. He can read the old languages, but he spends his time looking for naughty stories or poetry to pass off as his own, not for anything useful!'

'Good...' Thyatis produced another coin. 'If the Persians come back, we were never here. Agreed?'

'Of course.' Sheshet accepted the coin. 'Three volumes in one day—the end of a long drought for me.'

'Thank you,' Thyatis said in a heartfelt tone. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Nicholas standing in the hallway, looking for her. 'Good day, Mistress Sheshet.'

'Good day.' The Egyptian woman watched, curls clouding her face again, as Thyatis strode away down the corridor. 'Good riddance,' she whispered, rubbing her eyelid where the point of the knife had left a small indentation in her skin. 'Stupid barbarian!'

Then she considered the heavy gold in her hand and a perplexed expression flitted across her face. 'That Persian didn't pay me so much before... but he might now!' Cheerful at the thought of more books of her own, the little librarian slipped off into the shadows between the pillars.

—|—

'We'll need camels,' Nicholas said in a soft voice, as they walked casually down a long, granite ramp leading onto one of the triumphal avenues bisecting the city. 'Workers, shovels, picks, levers. Maybe a sled if it's too heavy to carry on a single camel.'

'The poet had something?' Thyatis kept a pace behind and to one side, as a proper wife should. At the same time, she was ghoulishly amused; the position gave her a clear strike at the man's neck simply by lifting her arm.

'A fragment of a traveler's account—a lonely tomb in the desert, revealed by a passing sandstorm. The sealed door bore the stamp of the Ptolemies—and all the other tombs are accounted for—all save one... the last