A rich orbital inhabitant uses her wealth to find the ultimate power in the heart of a pyramid, using an ancient key. That power is behind a ship…
The three travelers lost two camels to a drone attack before a soldier guarding a Sudanese refugee camp shot it down.
Bakri cringed against a dying camel that shuddered and frothed blood in agony. The teenage boy watched the drone pinwheel to the sand, exploding like a scene in a phone game. The refugee camp that the three were passing hadn’t been the drone’s target. The target was Miz Nyanath, the woman from the orbital habitat who’d hired Bakri’s uncle as a guide. Bakri’s heart hammered in his chest.
His uncle stood and pulled out his antique Glock. Bakri rolled out of the way, and the pistol boomed as Hassan fired a single bullet through the eye of each terrified, dying camel.
Bakri watched warily as Miz Nyanath regained control of the surviving camel and rode back toward him. The hood of her robe sheltered her dark face from the sun as she tossed the reins to him. “Lead the camel.”
They were fortunate it had survived; otherwise, they’d have had to carry her. Her orbital-raised bones were as brittle as a bird’s. Both her legs were exo-splinted, but Bakri had seen how awkwardly her motors carried her on loose sand. She’d never make it over the dunes alone.
As the boy took the reins, he noticed tears in his uncle’s eyes, lingering on the dead camels. Bakri felt sad for his uncle, but lucky to be alive. Hassan resumed the journey north along the Nile.
“Give me your watch,” the woman called down to Hassan.
He stared up at her, eyes blinking back tears beneath bushy gray eyebrows. Bakri wasn’t sure his uncle had understood. His English wasn’t as good as Bakri’s.
“Give me your watch!” she demanded.
Reluctantly, Hassan pulled it off and handed it to her.
Miz Nyanath did something. There was a tiny flash of light. Then she handed it back.
When he went to strap it back on his wrist, he swore. “What you do?!”
“It was GPS-linked,” she said. “That must be what they tracked. No tech, understood?”
“My father gave me! More old than you! Five times old!” Hassan switched to fluent Arabic, cursing the woman as she rode.
She stared straight ahead, letting his curses blow over her like drifting sand.
Living on the streets of Khartoum, Bakri had seen that look in beggars. Their spirit retreated to an oasis, immune to curses and kicks. He’d never managed that. Words and pain burrowed into him like maggots, leaving wounds that festered. Just as the loss of his mother had never healed.
He remembered her last words to him, five years ago, “Part of me will always watch over you.” She’d grimaced through pain, one hand stroking his curly black hair as life drained out of her in the rubble of their bombed home.
Bakri was sixteen now, and this woman, Miz Nyanath, was nothing like his mother. It was a wonder no one had succeeded in killing her yet. But the wealth she commanded was staggering. She’d paid them one-fourth in advance. And if they got her to her destination, Hassan would be richer than their entire village.
“You see how she did that?” Hassan muttered. “Witchcraft.”
Bakri shrugged. “She won’t let us use tech, but she’s half machine. You see her eyes?”
“I’m not looking in a witch’s eyes!”
Bakri had. Set in her dark sockets, they were artificial, mechanisms of silicon and sapphire and gold. No tears ever fell from those eyes. What kind of woman traded away her tears?
“You think we’ll get her where she wants?” Bakri and his uncle were speaking Arabic, which the woman only spoke half a dozen words of. Bakri suspected the devices in her head understood more.
Hassan nodded. The Nile was beyond the dunes to their left. Khartoum was behind them. And somewhere ahead to the north lay Miz Nyanath’s destination.
“They’ll try to stop her again,” said Bakri.
“I promised the stationmaster.”
Bakri sighed. Your honor will get us both killed. Miz Nyanath was from the Osiris Orbital. As Earth’s climate collapsed, the rich had fled into space. The Skyhook had deposited her in Addis Ababa along with her bodyguards. Those were all dead, murdered on the train to Khartoum. Hassan had given his word to the stationmaster in Khartoum that he’d see the woman to her destination. And Bakri came out of loyalty to his uncle, who’d taken him in after his mother was killed.
“Wad Ramli,” announced Miz Nyanath.
Bakri turned to look up at her astride the camel. Face partly hidden by the hood, she stared at the dunes with her artificial eyes.
“Town by Nile,” said his uncle. “Journey end?”
She shook her head. “Reinforcements.”
“No garrison,” said Hassan dismissively. “Little town. Goat droppings in the sand.”
“Not Sudanese reinforcements. Osiris’.”
Bakri doubted that the soldiers had descended from her orbital. Men from space would be as weak as this woman, but local mercenaries were easy to hire. Maybe once she got them, Miz Nyanath would release Bakri and his uncle. He’d be relieved with just a quarter payment. “Will they take you where you’re going?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No aircraft. Too big of a target. I can’t risk anything bigger than this cursed camel.”
“You haven’t told us exactly where we’re going.”
“North.”
Her sky-born arrogance was infuriating. The sun beat down. Bakri was thirsty, but their remaining water was in leather packs on her camel. Nearly every time he turned, the woman had a bottle to her lips. Bakri wasn’t going to ask till his uncle did. There’d be no shade till Wad Ramli.
But when they approached the town, black smoke rose ahead.
“Go there still?” asked Hassan.
Bakri looked up to see her nod stoically. He wondered what her eyes saw there that his didn’t.
At the edge of town, Hassan insisted they wait while he went ahead. Bakri got a water bottle from one of the packs. Wailing came from the town.
Hassan soon returned.
“Four drones fly in,” he said. “Outsiders shoot three. Your outsiders?”
Miz Nyanath gave a curt nod.
Hassan grunted. “Outsiders all dead now.”
“And the remaining drone?” she asked. The deaths of her mercenaries didn’t bother her.
“Fly long time, maybe looking you. Then leave. Who send?”
“The Gaia AI.”
Bakri knew that the Osiris AI controlled Miz Nyanath’s orbital. Gaia was one of the other orbitals. They both wanted something from this impoverished desert, but the woman wasn’t telling what.
“Show me where it happened,” she said.
Hassan led them into town. People studied Miz Nyanath warily, put off by her eyes and exo-splinted legs. Even beggars kept their distance.
The center of town was blasted rubble, with houses still smoldering. The remains of a drone were embedded in the adobe walls of one. Wad Ramli was a poor town, made poorer by the battle. Goats wandered the rubble.
Bakri made the camel kneel, and Miz Nyanath dismounted. The motors in her leg splints whined as she walked. A man in a traditional white robe and turban beckoned from a few houses away. Hassan went to talk to him, then came back.
“He say they collected weapons; ask if you buy them.”
Miz Nyanath pointed at the man, and pockets of sand exploded around his feet. Cursing frantically, he fled.
“No,” she said.
Bakri couldn’t tell how she’d done that. There’d been no sound of gunfire. He guessed she was wearing body armor, but he and his uncle weren’t. It wouldn’t take a drone to kill them; a knife would do it.
They came upon the dismembered remains of her mercenaries. Three of them, anyway. There might be more in the burning buildings. The soldiers had been wearing armor, but not enough to protect them from a drone. One man’s severed head lay ten meters from his body. Nearby, a woman wept hysterically in the road as townspeople tried to dig a body from the rubble. Other people tried to comfort her.
“It will be us next time,” Bakri hissed to his uncle. “Why are we still with her?”
“I gave my word to the stationmaster. You wish to leave?”
“I’m not leaving you behind with her!” Bakri glanced back at Miz Nyanath.
She was watching him. “We’ll stay by the shore till nightfall.”
Was she expecting a patrol boat on the Nile? She set off on her electrified legs, so he roused the camel to its feet and followed with his uncle. People from the town watched suspiciously from a distance. They think we’re her servants.
Greenery along the Nile was confined to a narrow strip. The wreck of a hovercraft ferry lay in the sand by the shore. It hadn’t carried passengers for decades, but at least it provided shade. They sat to wait. Bakri spotted a jackal watching him from afar.
After an hour, a food vendor approached timidly. She sold coffee and skewered goat meat to Hassan and Bakri. Hassan offered some of his to Miz Nyanath, who grimaced.
“Did you get food on the train from Khartoum?” asked Bakri.
“Not what I’d call food,” she said. “And then we were attacked.”
“Why are they trying to kill you? The orbitals have wealth beyond dreams. How can they be at war with each other?”
“Power seeks more power, boy. You know nothing but camel shit.”
His ears grew hot and he turned away, staring at the placid surface of the Nile. This aristocrat of an orbital AI knew nothing of the world below her.
The sun finally set on the other side of the river. The Moon and stars came out. As the sky grew darker, tiny lights moved in the blackness, signs of the orbitals and the Skyhook. Miz Nyanath had moved to a higher spot on the riverbank. Through her cotton robe, patterns of colored light flickered, tattoos running off her body heat.
Finally, she stood, looking at the southwest horizon. “It’s here.”
There was nothing Bakri could see with normal eyes. Then, a crack like thunder rumbled over the desert. Minutes later, he heard a quiet whine. A triangular ghost appeared against the black sky before descending onto the Nile. There was a splash followed by a rush of water. The craft on the water was smaller than a rowboat. When Miz Nyanath descended to the water’s edge, it steered toward her, leaving a V in its wake. Steam blasted around the hull in the moonlight.
“Is someone in there?” asked Bakri.
She laughed, a mocking sound. “Osiris sent me the key.”
“Key to what?”
“The treasure that Osiris seeks.”
The craft bumped against the shore. Miz Nyanath made a gesture, and there was a hiss. The upper surface of the craft split down the middle, two curved doors swinging upward.
She looked at the water and down at her electric-splinted legs. She gestured to Bakri. “Wade in and bring me the capsule.”
He stepped into the Nile, the water pleasantly cool against his legs. Pinpoints of bright violet lit the interior of the craft, which cradled a milky, egg-shaped object over a meter long. The doors of the craft radiated heat like a bread baker’s oven. Afraid of getting burned, he gingerly reached inside with one hand to dislodge the capsule.
“Use both hands!” snapped Miz Nyanath.
Careful to avoid the doors, he got a grip on it. It was warm but not hot; maybe ten kilos. The egg felt like cushioning material. In the moonlight, he couldn’t see what was inside it. Hugging it to him like an infant, he carried it to shore.
“Put it in one of the camel packs,” she said. “Throw out anything else you have to.”
“The packs hold our water,” Hassan objected.
“You heard me!”
“We need to know how far we’re going,” said Bakri. “Water is life.”
Her dead eyes stared at him. “Meroë.”
“Meroë? The necropolis?” said Hassan, incredulous. “Why?”
“You’ll find out when you need to.”
They walked to the camel in the moonlight. “It’s a long way to Meroë,” Bakri muttered in Arabic.
“I have more bags folded up,” said Hassan, “and rope. We’ll tie the water bottles outside the camel packs.”
Bakri swallowed. Loyalty to his uncle kept him from arguing.
They set out into the desert before sunrise. Early morning was cool and peaceful, with the shush of the camel’s feet plodding in the sand. Wind eddies sent sand worming in patterns around them. Looking back toward Wad Ramli, Bakri saw a jackal following. A bad omen.
“Have drones stopped hunting you?” he asked Miz Nyanath.
“Gaia knows I have the key. The AI won’t risk that I’ll destroy it if I’m attacked.”
“Why can’t they send another key?”
“Only one was ever made.”
He wondered what kind of lock needed a key weighing ten kilos that had to be delivered from orbit.
By the middle of the next day, the sky reflected off scattered lakes ahead: heat mirages. Bakri wished they were traveling in the cool dark instead. They passed occasional tufts of grass besieged by grasshoppers. As the day wore on, the shadow legs of the camel lengthened stilt-like to the east.
They made camp when night fell. There was no wind. Moonlight bleached the desert as stars filled the sky. Bakri fell into an exhausted slumber.
Thirst woke him after midnight. Hassan and Miz Nyanath slept on blankets stretched on the sand. Bakri walked to where the leather packs were piled on the sand near the camel. As he drank from a water bottle, he lifted the flap on the pack containing the key.
The capsule lay within, glowing white like an egg in the moonlight. He looked back furtively, but the woman was still asleep. Examining the packing egg’s surface, he found a seam. He pushed his water bottle into the sand to have both hands free. When he pressed his fingers against the seam to see through, there was a hiss, and the air pockets of the egg deflated. He gasped: he hadn’t meant to do that.
The key was exposed now. What the moonlight revealed wasn’t an electronic brain designed by an AI. It was an ancient relic, a construction of brass and steel with interlocking gears and levers. Words in Roman letters were engraved on a brass plate on top.
Motors whined from behind him. As he whirled in surprise, electricity jolted his body, making his muscles spasm. He jerked backward onto the sand, landing at the feet of Miz Nyanath, who loomed over him. He lay helpless; his muscles wouldn’t obey.
“Did you think it wouldn’t be alarmed?” she said. The light of her tattoos coursed angrily over her body beneath her cotton robe. She reached down to touch his chest.
A stronger jolt of electricity kicked him. He couldn’t scream, couldn’t breathe. His vision tunneled.
Then he heard the snarl of an animal. Unable to turn his head, he made out a shadow-like jackal at the corner of his eye.
The camel bellowed and lurched to its feet.
Miz Nyanath swore. “A fucking wolf?!”
From the edge of his vision, he saw bursts of sand exploding around the jackal as it danced and dodged. From the opposite corner, he saw Hassan leap up, grabbing the camel’s rope.
Bakri wheezed, a slow breath like sucking through a straw. His vision began recovering. He saw the jackal flee, Miz Nyanath’s arm pointing at it as it ran. Bakri couldn’t lift his head but saw his uncle, rope wrapped around his left wrist, pull out his pistol, aiming it at Miz Nyanath’s head. No armor there. Even her hood had fallen back.
“What you do to my nephew?!” he roared.
She held out her hands, palms open, a gesture of peace. “It will pass in a minute. He tried to steal my key.”
Hassan gaze darted back toward Bakri and took in the opened pack by his feet.
“No,” Bakri wheezed.
“He opened the pack,” said Miz Nyanath, “and unwrapped the key.”
Hassan was still pointing his Glock at her head.
If you don’t shoot her now, thought Bakri, you’ll never get another chance. The woman was a weapon, every centimeter of her. He heard the quiet whine of her leg motors keeping her balanced on the sand. The camel snorted, tugging at Hassan, who staggered to hold it.
Bakri struggled to sit up. “I was–” He gasped for air. “Curious. Not stealing.”
“You opened it?” said his uncle in Arabic. He looked disappointed but didn’t lower the pistol.
There was no expression in the woman’s artificial eyes.
“Apologize!” Hassan ordered. “Both!”
“Sorry,” muttered Bakri. He wasn’t.
“I apologize for waking you up,” said Miz Nyanath.
“No one can sleep now,” he said. “Nephew, can you walk?”
Bakri struggled to his knees. His muscles were spasming.
His uncle looked at him in concern before handing him the rope. “We go now.”
By the light of the Moon, they set off toward Meroë. Bakri avoided looking back at Miz Nyanath astride the camel. You may be paying us to get you to your destination, but I’ll be damned if we escort you back to Khartoum.
By afternoon, they came in sight of the necropolis. The pyramids rose from the mirage lake of the desert amongst a scattering of acacia scrub. Before the endless wars, there’d been tourists, but not in Bakri’s or Hassan’s lifetimes. The tops of the pyramids were blown off. That had happened centuries ago: European looters seeking Nubian gold.
“What pyramid?” asked Hassan.
Miz Nyanath pointed. “The Tomb of the Mistress.”
“For gold?”
She laughed scornfully. “Gold is an industrial commodity. That’s what mining bots are for.”
The group followed a road lined with dusty war-ravaged vehicles. The pyramids towered high above as they got closer. Miz Nyanath dismounted the camel outside the abandoned tourist entrance to the Mistress’ pyramid. Bakri watered the camel and tied it to an acacia tree.
“Bring the key,” Miz Nyanath ordered. She stepped into the entrance, where darkness swallowed her.
Bakri lifted the mechanical apparatus from the pack. His uncle rummaged through another till he found a bioluminescent light.
“If the pyramid’s open,” Bakri asked in Arabic, “why does she need a key?”
“What are you waiting for?” Miz Nyanath shouted from within the pyramid.
The shade offered welcome relief from the heat. Hassan squeezed the bio-torch, and its green glow illuminated the limestone walls.
“Follow me,” said Miz Nyanath. She frowned at Bakri. “Be careful with the key.”
Bakri was sure she could see in the dark. Only he and his uncle needed the bio-torch.
The tunnel had a musty limestone smell. It started level, but climbed abruptly. After a series of turns, he lost all sense of direction. The only sounds were their breathing as they climbed, sandals scraping the stone floor, and the whine of Miz Nyanath’s leg motors. He felt like the walls were closing in, and would have turned back if not for his uncle. His arms ached from carrying as the climb went on and on.
Finally, the tunnel ended in a stone chamber, empty except for a series of descriptive tourist panels. Sunlight filtered through timbers overhead. Bakri realized they were at what was now the top of the pyramid, its apex dynamited away by looters in the distant past. Some tourist bureau had roofed the looted chamber and installed the placards. Faded text in English and Arabic told of the Mistress’ royal chamber, sealed by stone in the depths.
Miz Nyanath was examining the walls, running her dark fingers over the limestone.
“Bring the key.” She indicated holes in the limestone block: drilled centuries ago, not chiseled by the pyramid builders. “Lift it up.”
Bakri was still panting from lugging it to the top of the pyramid, but his uncle helped him raise it to the level of her sapphire and silicon eyes.
“Turn it.” She gestured. “Now against the wall. See those holes? The bolts go there.”
He pushed, and steel bolts scraped partway into the holes. “Who made this?” he grunted.
“Francesco. A da Vinci protégé from the sixteenth century. A man studying Nubia back when the Italians had forgotten everything the Romans knew about it.”
“So he designed a key to unlock the tomb?”
“No. A mechanism for sealing the tomb. He wrote in his journal that opening it was a mistake.”
“Because it was empty?”
“Far from empty. Both of you push! Until the key is flush against the stone.”
Bakri and Hassan shoved, and the bolts ground into the openings in the block. They stepped back. The mechanism hugging the wall reflected green in the light of the bio-torch.
“There’s no door to open,” said Bakri. “Someone sold your AI a piece of junk.”
“You ignorant boy! Francesco described how his device ratcheted down a stone block to seal it. Osiris added motors to reverse the process.” She locked her hands together, palms against the mechanism. There was a loud electric whine. Stone ground against stone. The tattoos on Miz Nyanath’s skinny back pulsed blue and red through the cotton fabric. A stone block to the left of the key began grinding upward.
The chamber rumbled, sand sifting down from timbers overhead. Beneath the block, a dark opening grew, revealing a hidden passageway. The block rose until it was waist-high, and then the motor pitch changed as it began to strain. The block vibrated where it was. Miz Nyanath removed her hands from the mechanism, and it went silent, stalled in position.
“Pathetic Renaissance engineering,” she muttered. She stooped, and her legs carried her crab-like beneath the opening. “Follow me.”
When Hassan squeezed his bio-torch, it brightened to reveal a descending passage. Bakri peered in apprehensively, but Hassan climbed through, so he followed. On the other side of the block was a tunnel high enough to stand. Cold, foul-smelling air blew from the depths. Miz Nyanath started down the tunnel.
Like the passages they’d climbed from the sand, this one had turn after turn. The air grew colder. Eventually, the wall’s appearance changed. Instead of limestone blocks, the tunnel was carved into bedrock. If Bakri was claustrophobic before, he could barely breathe now. He was beneath an entire pyramid. He panted shallow gasps of bad air, only following out of loyalty to his uncle.
Finally, the passage ended in an antechamber with a heavy barred door. A sheet of leather was nailed to the wood: parchment inscribed with words in a European language like that engraved on Francesco’s mechanism.
As Miz Nyanath studied the parchment, Hassan held the bio-torch closer. Bakri was sure she didn’t need it to see.
“What does it say?” he asked.
“Francesco was afraid of the power he found.” She ripped the parchment down.
Hieroglyphics were carved in the cedar door behind the parchment. And it wasn’t a simple wooden door. Bronze bars bound the boards to hinges set in the bedrock. In addition, there were steel rods inserted in rock on each side of the door, with a heavy Renaissance lock in the center holding them together.
“You’ll have to ask Osiris for another key,” he said, relieved that they couldn’t go farther.
“I have all the keys I need.” Miz Nyanath raised her arm. Bright light flared, causing sparks to spit from the lock. Smoke and the smell of vaporized metal filled the air. After a minute, the lock dropped to the stone floor.
“Open the door,” she ordered.
Bakri wasn’t going to argue after that demonstration. He lifted the timber barring the door, but the door was still stuck.
Hassan helped him pull. When the door jerked open, desiccated corpses tumbled out into the antechamber. Bakri stared in horror. They’d been pressed against it on the inside. The skeletons were mummified, the dark faces Nubian. Their fingers were curled as if they’d tried to claw their way out.
Miz Nyanath stepped over the skeletons. In the glow of the bio-torch, the Mistress’ burial goods were piled around a large chamber: pottery, bales, clothing, spears, and trays laden with jewelry. The chamber walls were painted with scenes from the Book of the Dead: Osiris, Anubis, and Horus stood before the Mistress. In a boat pit in the center of the chamber lay her funeral barge with arched prow and royal throne.
“Follow me,” ordered Miz Nyanath.
She walked toward a mummified figure seated rigidly upon the throne, her tattoos flickering in the dark. As she stepped onto the barge, the mummy shook, as if she’d unbalanced the barge. Then the mummy’s head turned to face her.
Bakri gasped, his heart pounding in his ears.
Miz Nyanath raised her arm. A crackle of energy exploded in the mummy’s chest, and it tumbled from the throne. It was still twitching, but smoke and a smell of ozone rose from it.
As Bakri and his uncle stood paralyzed, Miz Nyanath burst into laughter. “Just a fucking bot. Unbelievable! Da Vinci’s protégé turned his back on unlimited power at the sight of a scarecrow.”
Her laughter did nothing to calm Bakri’s racing heart. He heard Hassan wheezing, with a hand pressed to his chest.
Miz Nyanath walked to the throne. She sat in it and studied the ornately carved arms.
“Ah, here it is.” She touched something on a carving.
The boat trembled, sliding backward with a whine.
A bright light appeared from an opening beneath the boat. Bakri squeezed his eyes shut, but the intense light shone through his eyelids. He raised his arm to shield his face.
“This is what the AI sent me for,” announced Miz Nyanath, “the entry to their ship.”
“Ship? I can’t see,” Bakri complained.
“Such pathetic flesh eyes. You’ll have to trust mine.”
He was afraid to move. “Who buries a ship in the desert?”
“Travelers,” she said. “They told our ancestors that they were gods, but they were long dead by the time Francesco came looting. Osiris wants their ship. Follow me.”
He heard the whine of her footsteps leave the barge, descending stone steps. He didn’t open his eyes.
Then something nuzzled his left wrist, startling him. He opened his eyes for an instant, but the light was too painful. Fur brushed his arm.
The jackal. How?
He jerked his arm back. “Miz–” he croaked. But the jackal caught his sleeve, tugging him away from her. He jerked back.
In that moment of terror and confusion, he remembered his mother’s dying words: “Part of me will always watch over you.”
And the jackal had tried to save him last night when Miz Nyanath had attacked him.
“Uncle,” he whispered. Then louder, “If we go in there, we’ll never come back out.”
“The witch…”
“You took her as far as you swore to.” Bakri reached blindly for his uncle’s hand and gripped it, pulling desperately. “You fulfilled your duty to the stationmaster.”
He let the jackal lead him back out of the chamber. Hassan’s sandals scuffed the floor after him.
In the outer chamber, he opened his eyes as slits. It was still bright but not blinding. There was no jackal, nothing holding his left sleeve. But he hadn’t imagined it.
“Where are you?” shouted Miz Nyanath from the tomb. “You fucking cowards! If you want your money, get down here!”
Then there were explosions. She screamed and swore.
Bakri started up the tunnel out of the pyramid, pulling Hassan. There were more noises behind: crackling electricity, clanging metal, and Miz Nyanath’s swearing.
His uncle pulled his hand free of Bakri’s. “Run, Nephew!”
They both ran. The light from the buried ship faded at the first turn, but Hassan still held his bio-torch. Bakri’s eyes burned with afterimages of the light that had blinded him, and he stumbled against walls at each turn. Noises from below echoed in the stone tunnel.
They kept going until they reached the place where they’d entered the tunnel. The opening beneath the block was lower than before. The Renaissance key in the tourist chamber was clicking. And with each click, the stone block ratcheted down. Hassan pushed Bakri ahead, and he squeezed beneath. Once he was through, he had to struggle to pull his uncle out beneath the block.
They fled down the tourist passages toward the pyramid exit, following the descending turns. Rumbling from below echoed in the passages.
They emerged from the pyramid to find the sun had set. The sky was deep blue, and the Moon was up. Bakri and Hassan panted from exhaustion, breathing clean desert air. Their camel rested beneath the acacia tree as if nothing had happened. Bakri went to untie it, anxious to leave in case the woman emerged.
Suddenly, there was a huge explosion from the pyramid. The camel brayed in fear, lurching to its feet. Fighting to hold onto the rope, Bakri turned toward the pyramid as the sand beneath his feet shook. Blocks began cascading from the top of the pyramid. With a roar that dwarfed thunder, the structure collapsed in on itself and Miz Nyanath, sending a sandstorm rolling toward him.
Bakri turned away, pulled by the camel as sand blasted his scalp and the back of his robe. As he did, he spotted the jackal in the distance.
It looked at him before vanishing in the blowing sand.
THE END
