He grinned. “Where does your village take its grain?”
She pointed north, downriver. “Ineb Hedj,” she told him. She added, proudly, “It is a very great place.”
Ineb Hedj. The White Walls. The city had been named for the dam that surrounded it and successfully kept the Nile at bay, one of the first of its kind in human history. Established around 3,000 BCE and sitting twelve miles from the Mediterranean coast, the city had a long, illustrious history. Eventually it would be called Memphis. At one point it had been the largest city in the world. Khepri was right, it was a very great place.
He heard the rhythmic strike of hoofbeats in the distance, and remembered the men on horseback that he had glimpsed earlier when he was airborne. If Khepri’s village was able to get grain into Ineb Hedj, the city could not be more than a day’s walk away. Probably the riders came from the city.
He smiled. Everything about this child enchanted him, from the way she pulled at her lower lip with thumb and forefinger to how she stood with one dirty foot balanced on top of the other. How had she come from such a poor, obscure beginning to become one of the most Powerful rulers in the Elder Races?
He asked, “Have you been to Ineb Hedj?”
She shook her head. “I am not allowed.”
“That will change some day,” he said.
Khepri looked in the direction of the hoofbeats. She asked, “Do you hear that?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Something is happening.” She looked excited and disturbed all over again.
The village must be far enough from the city for the men on horseback to be an event. He frowned and straightened to look north. Khepri moved closer to stand by his side.
Villagers emerged from the huts as the riders appeared. No one noticed Rune or looked in their direction. They were all staring at the approaching riders. Rune set his jaw. He did not like the look of how the riders held their spears, or their aggressive speed.
He put a hand on Khepri’s shoulder. She felt so fragile underneath his fingers, her bones as light and slender as a bird’s. She gave him a frowning look.
“Listen, darling,” he said. He kept his tone quiet and easy. “I think we should step into the field and hide in the grain, just until we know what those men want.”
Or at least that’s what he tried to say to her. Even as the words came out of his mouth, the solid feel of her shoulder melted from underneath his touch. He made an instinctive attempt to grab hold of her. His fingers clenched in an empty fist. Khepri stared at his fist and reached for it with small brown fingers that had gone transparent. Her hand passed through his. Her face tilted up. They stared at each other.
Rune sent a swift glance around. The outline of a room had appeared, sketched over the hot desert afternoon. A vertical line of curtain slashed through the riders who had lifted their spears. The rider in the lead took aim and threw his spear at the nearest villager, a slender middle-aged male. The spear’s copper head emerged from the man’s back in an explosion of liquid crimson.
Ah, hell no.
He glanced down at Khepri and saw her lips move on another word. He recognized it even though he couldn’t hear her. Papa. She opened her mouth wide to scream.
No, dammit. Whatever was really happening—memory, illusion or reality—he did not want to leave the child this way, not now, not yet. He tried to lunge in front of her so she couldn’t see anything else the riders did. He tried to scoop her up and run away with her, but she passed through his arms, as insubstantial as a ghost.
Khepri and the rest of the desert scene faded from sight. He sensed again a kind of passage, that peculiar bent, going-around-a-corner feeling, but no matter how his mind tried to grasp hold of the concept, it slid away.
Then he stood sweating in a large cool, darkened bedroom. A king-sized four-poster bed dominated one wall. A sitting area with armchairs, footstools and side tables was set up on the other side of the room, in front of a comfortable-looking, well-used fireplace.
Carling sat in one of the armchairs, an open book resting on one of the chair’s arms. Rasputin had leaped onto her lap and was licking at her cheeks. Rhoswen knelt on the floor beside her, gripping her by the hand and saying her name. With a grimace, Carling nudged the dog away from her face. Rasputin switched to licking her hand as he wagged his tail frantically. Carling caught sight of Rune. She looked at him, at the dog and at Rhoswen as though she had never seen any of them before.
She said, “Something’s happened.”