“Where are we going?” Maatkare asked him as Heshtat dragged him out into a crumbling hallway. “What—” He was cut off by a fit of coughing. “What is the plan here?”

  Heshtat hurried down a broad hallway—more an avenue given the scale of it—pillars on either side slipping past far faster than they had before. Maatkare was cycling his legs frantically to keep up, but Heshtat bore most of his friend’s weight with ease.

  It wasn’t just his strength and speed that had increased. It was everything.

  His nose twitched, picking out the sickly scent of the Desolate, pinpointing their location. He could distinguish between the clicks and whistles and roars echoing around the ruin with much greater alacrity, and he fancied he could even taste the scents on the air. It wasn’t pleasant.

  “We need to awaken your soul,” Heshtat replied, cocking his head to one side as they reached a crossroads.

  “But why—”

  Heshtat hushed his friend, then turned left down a smaller hallway. This one was almost human-sized, with a ceiling a mere fifteen feet high. If it wasn’t for the flowing scripts carved into every spare inch of wall and the gold and ruby inlays frequent among them, it could have passed for a regular temple. He nodded to Maatkare as they moved, and the man started his question again, a slight wheeze beneath his words from the exertion.

  “Why did we leave that room then? I could have broken through in safety. This seems…” The man trailed off, breath sawing in and out of his battered chest.

  “Foolish?” Heshtat asked with a smile. “We are lucky to have only faced the dregs of the horde. The Desolate are not a threat because of a handful of chimeric beasts. You know this, my friend. We need somewhere away from prying eyes for you to break through. Hush now, maintain your strength.”

  “Never,” Maatkare gasped out with a wince. “I’ll die before I let you shush me, you arrogant bastard.”

  Heshtat laughed, joyous to see his friend was still in there, despite the pain and blood loss. “Still your tongue and let me save you, you overgrown sack of scarab dung.”

  Despite his earlier words, his friend reluctantly complied—a testament to the severity of his injuries. Maatkare leaned on Heshtat as he hurried them through the unending temple complex. His senses had been refined by the awakening of his soul in general, then further still by his choice to awaken the aspect of Khet. When he had greedily stolen all the power he could from Bestat’s channel to reinforce his aspect to the level of an acolyte, he had experienced even greater refinement of his physical body.

  But there was more to it as well. Bastet’s power, the divine essence that bloomed within his soul, forever changed the essence he took in and cycled automatically. It added a flavour, derived from her domain as a goddess, and it conveyed additional abilities to Heshtat. His awakened power was the feline physicality he now possessed. Not just stronger and faster than a mortal, he was also far more agile. His spine could twist, his joints withstand shocking pressures. His muscles were now lithe and explosive without any loss in flexibility. He may have lost out in relative endurance, but it was a minor trade.

  His acolyte rank conferred the reflexes and mental speed that the feline could achieve; that strange ability to react in the moment far faster than should be possible for a creature of their size. The Desolate he had fought earlier had felt as if they were mired in mud, so easy to avoid. The telegraphing of their attacks was obvious, as one would expect of base creatures, but Heshtat’s ability to capitalise on the clumsy attacks went far beyond his expectations.

  He knew this was nothing unique. Indeed, all cultivators received new abilities from their channels; awakening an aspect was beneficial beyond just the increased physicality it provided. But there was one more thing unique to Heshtat’s position that he couldn’t quite figure out.

  He had stolen the power from Bastet. It was supposed to be a trade—power for potential. She would open a channel, help him empower an aspect, and in return he would forever sacrifice an unawakened aspect in her name. But when he inspected his soul with that spiritual touch one learns as a child in Amansi, he felt no loss. Eight unawakened aspects, and one filled with divine power. None closed off, all ready to be opened with appropriate channels.

  Heshtat had taken power from the gods and given nothing in return. If that wasn’t stealing, then what was?

  Maatkare coughed at his side, and he put the thoughts from his mind. There were more important things to focus on in the here and now.

  ***

  “I cannot just reach out and force myself through the veil, my friend,” Maatkare said with a grunt as he shifted in place. He was seated, back propped up against a wall, and Heshtat suspected it was the only thing keeping his head upright. He was shaking, his skin pale against the golden bust covering the wall behind him. Heshtat had seen men in similar states before, and most didn’t survive. “I do not even understand how you did it, and I am much weaker now from all the effort I wasted saving your life on that bridge.”

  “I had a shard of bone through my guts, you oaf,” Heshtat admonished with a laugh, though he couldn’t entirely hide the worry beneath his false bravado. “You simply sport a flesh wound. Do not act so pitiable.”

  That worry only spiked when Maatkare didn’t invest in the banter but instead slumped sideways. Heshtat dove forward to catch him.

  “Heshtat… Promise me,” Maatkare coughed, cutting himself off as a spatter of crimson drool dribbled down his chin. “Promise me you’ll look after my creche. Keep them away from the gangs. I…”

  “Oh, no, no, no,” Heshtat interrupted. “Nonsense. Maatkare, you will reach out to your god of masculine charms, and you will take their power here and now. The veil is already breached, you understand? We are in the Other even now. Hold that connection in your mind, and cultivate once more.”

  “I am too weak, my friend,” Maatkare began to protest, but Heshtat slapped him. Open palm, right across the face.

  “No! I do not care for your excuses! Reach out and take it. Claim the power you once had, and we shall stand side by side once more, eh?”

  But Maatkare wasn’t listening, his eyes were lost somewhere beyond Heshtat’s shoulder. He saw the start of a smile split Maatkare’s face, and knew his friend was seeing something that wasn’t there.

  “No,” Heshtat muttered, feverish. “I won’t let you die here, you hear me?” He received no response save a flutter of an eyelid, and spun around, looking to the sky.

  He pulled every whisp of power he possessed from his fresh soul, draining it in an instant as he forced it into his words.

  “Osirion!” he roared, voice unnaturally amplified. It rebounded off the marble walls, buffeting him with the sheer noise of it. He lacked the connection he had once had to the Jb—that divine channel to the Heart aspect that could reinforce his words with power and significance if they held true to his soul—but they stood in the Other already. Things worked differently here, and emotion played a heavy role.

  “Osirion!” he called out. “I beseech you, Lord. A thousand souls in recompense!”

  Heshtat was desperate, and every fibre of his body was in agreement as the words spewed forth from his throat. He didn’t even know what he was saying, promises that made no sense tumbling from his lips, but his intent was clear. He called out to the Lord Of The Dead, begging for a splinter of that titanic deity’s attention. Maatkare’s soul was even now unmooring itself from his body as the injured man bled to death, but Heshtat would face the Lord of Silence in person before letting him shepherd his friend’s soul beyond the Final Door.

  He strained with every inch of his will, his roiling emotions churning the fabric of the realm around him. A slight crack split the floor but nothing further, and Heshtat screamed in helpless rage. So close. He was so close.

  Were he to have awakened the Jb instead it might have been enough, the aspect carrying greater weight in the Other due to its close connection to emotion. Or even the Sah—the Spiritual Body being as closely aligned with the Other as possible. But no, Heshtat had chosen the Khet. Once again, he had fallen back into old habits, seeing himself as a hammer and the world as a nail. All he could do was fight with his blade, and so all he did was fail when blades weren’t enough.

  But he had made vows. He had his duty, and he had his oath. He wouldn’t accept failing his queen a second time, and he couldn’t fail his friend here and now either.

  He thought frantically, cataloguing the options remaining. Just a bit more power. He had no familiarity with Osirion and so needed more power to force a connection. Could he instead turn to one of his old gods for the power, then use that to summon the Lord Of Silence? But no, that would take too long. Even now, Maatkare was slipping further from life, eyes fluttering closed.

  His chest felt tight, that familiar panic closing in again as he contemplated his failure. His heart beat a frantic rhythm in his chest, pumping erratically beneath his vest. In this dream-like realm, the passion of it was enough to set his vest to vibrating, the necklace of woven reeds and opal around his neck bouncing to the percussive tune.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  …

  Heshtat gasped. His queen had given him three treasures for this mission. One he had given to his friend too late to save him, one he held in his hand even now, but one still hung around his neck, swollen with power but otherwise useless for a man with a healed soul. Or so he had thought.

  Holding the image of wise Osirion in his mind, he wrapped a hand around the Ankh and siphoned all the power that artifact contained in an instant. He pictured the shepherd’s crook and flail Osirion was always depicted with. He imagined the funerary wraps that bound half his body, the styled beard and the Atef crown that so many pharaohs and kings wore in an effort to inhabit a portion of his majesty.

  He reached out in the realm of dreams one last time, using the final bit of power available to him as he begged the remnants of a primordial gods’ will to heed his call. His final cry cracked the stone of the temple cleanly down the middle, the dunes of the Endless Desert once more rising around them as the purple glow of the Otherworld’s black sun bathed his face.

  They hadn’t moved this time. Instead, the temple fell away, sinking into the golden sands as the world seemed to reorient around them. Rather than moving to where the god’s avatar wandered, like with Bestat’s remnant earlier, he had somehow called a god toward himself. Maatkare had stayed with him, and now he lay prone on the fine sands, staining them red like a fresh dawn above Idib’s knick-knack streets.

  The sight hurt Heshtat to behold, but a voice swiftly pushed all thoughts of the tragic view from his mind.

  “It’s an audacious man that calls to the Lord Of Silence in such a manner. The hint is in the name—he does not like to be disturbed.”

  Heshtat whipped around, searching out the voice. It was soft, an amused lilt to it that felt incongruous to the scene. No titans loomed in the sky, no edifice of nature rose from the sands. But as Heshtat squinted, he caught sight of a figure approaching from a distance. He walked slowly, bare feet carrying him leisurely across the dunes.

  Heshtat dug into his soul, feeling it thirst for the bountiful essence that eddied through the Otherworld. It sucked it in greedily, and he set to filtering that essence, purifying it in the flavour of his channelled goddess’s power. The thing that stalked the sands towards him was no man, of that he was sure, and it did not seem like a fragment of a god, either. It hadn’t been an empty boast to Ahhotep back in Atossa’s boat when Heshtat claimed to have killed his share of demons. He knew what horrors lurked in this nightmare realm, and he wanted to be ready as this one drew closer.

  The man was still a good five hundred yards distant, and yet Heshtat heard his voice as if spoken to his face.

  “’Tis a shame all mortals don’t have your fire. Usually they fall to pleading when they hear my hounds drawing close.”

  It was then that Heshtat heard them. The howls in the distance, rising mournfully into the purple twilight. But no, that wasn’t right. Not mournful. Eager. Beneath the lupine howls were throatier sounds. Yips and barks, growls and huffs, like a pack of dogs on the hunt, unrestrained by leashes and born by dread purpose.

  Then the words penetrated the panic that tried to shroud his mind, and Heshtat grew cold. “Hounds?” he asked, voice rasping in his suddenly dry throat. He squinted again, focusing his newly enhanced eyes on the thing that walked his way.

  “Aye,” the figure continued amicably. “It is what I am known for, is it not? You mortals delight in tales of my beasts ripping the throats from the unworthy, or so my priests tell me.”

  Priests, hounds… Heshtat began to sweat. This was not Osirion, wise ruler of the Ennead, crowned voice of his father Amin-Ra. The figure carried no weapons, no rod of office. No funerary scripts wrapped his divine form, and rather than an aura of wisdom, this figure emanated threat.

  He was clad in dark robes that flowed over the sand behind him like a pool of midnight water, open at his chest to reveal smooth skin dark as pitch, sculpted muscle visible beneath. The hounds continued to bray in the distance.

  “They have found good prey this night,” he continued, smooth head reflecting the inverted sun. He was still too distant for Heshtat to tell much of his expression, but he caught a flash of white teeth. “Your corpse kings have sent many to their deaths.”

  “Why—” Heshtat started, but cut off with a cough, his throat throbbing. He wet his dry mouth and tried again. “Why are you here, Lord? I did not call for you.”

  Another flash of teeth at that. Not a smile, though. He was still a hundred yards away, but he was making steady progress. Heshtat suddenly felt he knew what would happen when he arrived. His skin grew even colder, the air in his lungs freezing.

  “No, you called for my father. Audacious, as I said. But that is what mortals are known for, after all: Their audacity.” His voice remained even, but that final word was dripping with contempt. “Tell me, mortal,” again the word conveyed disdain. “Why have you called out for Wise Osirion? What makes you worthy of demanding his attention? I promise you this; you do not want it.”

  Heshtat watched his breath plume in the air in front of him. He shivered, his skin goose-pimpled in the chill and each hair stretched from his arms as if attempting to escape his body for safer shores. Even those tiny hairs could feel the threat.

  But all he needed was to see the form of his friend keeled on his side, barely breathing as he stained the sands red, and his purpose returned. He straightened, squared his shoulders and sheathed his khopesh, then turned back to the god that walked his way.

  “Nevertheless,” Heshtat replied, voice steady once more. “My friend lies near death, and I would see a bargain struck.”

  The figure, now close enough to discern with ease, raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?” he asked sardonically. “And what have you to offer?”

  “My soul,” Heshtat said evenly. “I do not understand how, but I awakened an aspect with Bestat’s blessing and yet no tithe was paid. I offer both to your father, and Maatkare will offer his own in turn.”

  “And that is your grand offer?”

  “Three aspects, for a single channel. It is a far better bargain than he usually receives, is it not?” Heshtat asked, jutting his chin in question. Something about the man’s eyes unsettled him—dark, amused, patient. But there was a hunger there, a fire hidden beneath. Banked, but ever burning. That Heshtat could see that fire even from fifty yards distant was testament to the god’s wrath and Heshtat’s familiarity with the feeling.

  “You think the Lord Of Silence is interested in bargains? My, my, but the arrogance of you mortals is staggering.”

  Heshtat made to speak, but Anubian appeared before him in a flash. No longer striding steadily his way, he now crowded his vision, looming from a single step, despite his modest height. Heshtat was blanketed by the presence, overwhelmed and overawed. He shrank back, his words slipping away as those blazing canine eyes bored into his own from mere feet away.

  “You think the gods offer communion to mortals out of base greed? You think we share our power unwillingly? Are we but misers in your eyes? All powerful merchants so blinded by arrogance that we can be brought low by mortal cunning? Did you think you had tricked us, clever man?”

  Again, the viciousness was cold, cutting like ice against skin, but Heshtat felt the familiar hatred hidden within those words. He had directed it at himself for a decade, while this god seemed to direct it at mortals. At Heshtat personally, it almost seemed. Things had travelled so far from the well-worn path he had hoped for already, and he desperately cast around for the right words to return them to familiar territory.

  Still, Maatkare was dying, and he had no time to consider his words.

  “I do not care for word games. You are a god. You see my soul, do you not?” He lifted his chin again, this time baring his throat to the jackal-headed god, though Anubian wore a human guise currently. “I had hoped for your father—the Lord Of The Dead seemed the most appropriate deity to bargain with for my friend’s life—but I am not discerning. If your father’s time is so precious, then offer your own in his stead.”

  Anubian smiled a toothy grin. “Ah, but that dissolves you of responsibility. You made the call.”

  “And you answered,” Heshtat replied, defiant. “Are you here for games, then? Does it amuse you to watch us kill and die? Is that why Great Amin-Ra created this place? To watch us fall to the Desolate one by one, overcome by a plague he could not foresee?”

  Those blazing eyes regarded Maatkare’s prone form, then snapped back to Heshtat’s own at the mention of the creator. “You would curse his foresight for your own kind’s failing?” he laughed. “As I said, the audacity still surprises me.”

  “Our failing?” Heshtat frowned. “So the priests are right, then. The Dreaming Tide is a divine curse for our moral degeneracy?” It was his turn to laugh. “Who would have guessed those whinging decrepit slanderers were right all along? Maatkare would die of mirth if you ever deigned to save him.”

  “My, my,” murmured Anubian, his smile softening. “But isn’t that a lot of spite. Your heart is more poisoned than my own, it seems. You are lucky I answered my father’s call—you would not have passed his tests with weight like that in your soul, little mortal.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” Heshtat spat. He had failed again and no longer had any reason to hold in his hatred. It ran deep—that river had carved tracks through his soul for years on end, and he released the floodgates to it now. “You are just as bad as the Pharaohs. Corpse kings you called them, eh? And how are your own rotting carcasses, fled beyond the Final Door to escape a plague of mortal design? As I said: fuck yourself, Anubian.”

  He saw the man raise an eyebrow once more, something like astonishment flicking its way onto his face, but Heshtat was in the grip of the rage, and there was no stopping him now. “Protector Of Graves? There shall be no need to guard mine, dog lord. I’ll come for you myself when the Desolate rip me from my slumber.”

  Anubian backhanded him across the face, and Heshtat saw no more.

  All was ringing and sand. He propped an arm beneath himself, spitting and trying to hack up the sand that filled his dry throat. He slumped. His head was a copper bell, and his limbs were leaden. Everything swam in and out of focus.

  Eventually, things resolved into the shape of the dark figure squatting on his haunches, looking down on Heshtat with a curious expression. “That was quite a tirade there, little mortal. Dog lord, was it? Such creative insults to lever my way.”

  Something wet pressed against the back of Heshtat’s neck, and he froze. He heard a sniffling sound, then the wet thing moved, and he felt a gust of fetid breath blow over his smooth skull.

  “Fortunately for you, I am not upset by the comparison. I am the Lord of the Hounds. They bear my name, after all.”

  Heshtat turned slightly to see a snout, black as his blade in the Waking, filled with fangs gleaming as white as his blade in the Other. Spittle hung from the edges of that mouth, swaying as crinkled lips drew back to reveal the true size of the teeth. A canine snort, and some of it dripped to the sands, sizzling and hissing until a small squiggle of glass remained where once had been sand and saliva. He felt the heat wafting from the creature’s open maw in waves.

  “And it seems your fortune continues,” Anubian said pleasantly. “He likes you.”

  The hound growled.

  Heshtat steeled himself as he turned back to the contemptuous god above him. “I hold to my words—you are just as cruel as those undying Pharaohs that rule in your place. You are no better than mortals. We are your reflections. If you won’t help me save my friend, then far better to have your hound kill me now. Because if not, then I promise you; once I have protected my city from the clutches of corpse kings and foreign warlords, I will turn my sights to you and your kin.”

  The words felt good. He knew they’d do nothing now, the die had already been cast, but at least they made his soul sing with their truth. He was out of his depth with the politics of it all—the twisting schemes and complex plans of enemies he didn’t even know he had. He’d been given a straight-forward task, and he had tried his best to see it through, but just as before, he had failed.

  At least he could die now on his own terms. No more bowing to petty criminals. No more submitting to foreign warlords. That was the promise Cleo had made him, back in his little hovel in Idib. “Do this for me, and we will finally be free,” she had said. A beautiful dream, and one he would hold in his heart till his end.

  He took a breath and growled a final rebuke to the careless god above him.

  “No more tyrants in Amansi.”