In truth my intimate knowledge of your heart assures me more than it alarms me. It is my brothers I am more concerned about. I do not wish for them to feel the pain and sorrow of loss, but I will not give you up to them, Lily, especially not when I know your true feelings.
They may need the three of you, but as for me, I just need you. You’re all I want. All I think of. If the cosmos fashioned me a perfect companion, one I could share my life with, it would be you.
My eyes welled up and I blinked rapidly but a few tears trickled down. “I’d choose to be with you, too,” I said, wiping my eyes. “I mean, I do. I do choose to be with you.” It was the truth, and it felt right in my heart, though I couldn’t ignore the other two girls in the back of my mind. My heart was bound to Amon in more ways than one, and there was no changing it.
The rocking of his body soothed me, and soon I drifted to sleep.
I woke to the sound of a hearty voice ringing through the cosmos. “Ahoy, guardians!”
The birds turned as one and flew headlong toward Cherty’s ship, which bounced on the waves of the river, stirring up a swirling of stars. When we passed over the ship, I laughed gleefully, seeing the red-faced captain bracing an arm on the tiller, steadying Mesektet for our approach. He squinted and hollered up at us to hurry up already, a big smile lighting his face.
Asten drew close to the ship, his wings beating wildly as he hovered over it. Ahmose dropped down lightly to the deck and then caught me when I slid off Amon’s back. Just as he set me down, the starlit ibis drew in his wings, his great body shimmering, and then he fell. Ahmose leapt and caught his brother just as he took human form, preventing him from crashing to the deck. Asten was so drained he couldn’t move.
“Here, Dreamer,” Cherty said, bringing him a skein of water and yanking open his bag of supplies.
Amon landed on his own two feet, but he quickly sat, his back against the ship railing as he closed his eyes and panted. I brought him water and food, and after eating a bit, Amon slumped down, pillowed his head on my lap, and promptly fell asleep.
When I looked up at Ahmose and nodded toward Asten, Ahmose said, “He’ll be fine. They both just need rest.”
Cherty crouched down next to me. “The sailin’ is smooth for the time bein’. My passengers have been left at the dock of the afterlife.” He grunted. “What remains of it, anyway.”
“What about them?” I asked, pointing to two remaining ghosts who hovered in the corner of the ship watching us with dark eyes and stony expressions.
“Those two took a look and decided to head toward greener pastures. They asked if they could stay on board and if I might drop ’em off at my next port. I was feelin’ more amenable than I usually do, so I agreed. Between us, I wouldn’a wanted ta stay there either. Still better’n the Island of the Lost. You’ll hafta tell me all about yer adventure when ya’ve a mind to. But for now, go ahead and catch some sleep yerself, girlie. I’ll wake ya when we reach Heliopolis.”
“Thank you,” I said. I managed to give Cherty a small smile, and with one hand in Amon’s hair and the other clutched in his, pressed against his chest, I rested my head against the railing and slept, too.
I wasn’t sure how many hours we slumbered. For all I knew, it could have been days, but when we awoke, we were all ravenous. Cherty not only spread out his typical rations but managed to produce an abundance of juicy grilled fish (I didn’t allow myself to consider what species), jars of preserved fruits that we spread on dried biscuits, salted pork (at least I thought it was pork), pickled vegetables, and a bowlful of beans and rice.
We ate until we were sated, and now that we’d slept and our bellies were full, my mind turned to other things, like bathing and clothes. After tugging the hem of my own filthy shirt, I looked up at Amon and Asten, expecting them to still be wearing their white skirts. Instead, I found them dressed in ragged, loose-fitting sailor clothes.
Amon wore baggy breeches tied with a rope at the waist and an open-necked shirt that had seen better days, but his feet were still bare. He looked every inch the pirate king as he stood atop the railing holding on to a rope for a balance. I itched to join him there and feel the spray of the river on my face as I stood in the warmth of his arms.
Asten wore a similar set of pants, but they were cut off just above the knee. His cloak was threadbare and tattered, and he obviously hadn’t found a shirt. Asten’s muscular frame was ripcord thin even after he’d consumed a large portion of our meal, a sign of just how much energy he’d expended on our flight. Even so, a part of me rather enjoyed seeing the wide expanse of exposed skin. A pair of scuffed boots adorned his feet, but he strode across the deck as confident as if he’d been born sailing.
I headed over to Cherty. “Thank you for loaning your spare clothes.”
“Weren’t nothin’,” he said, and turned his gaze away. Red patches crept up his neck.
Peering at his face, my eyes narrowed. “Ahmose told you.”
Cherty shrugged. “Told me enough. Wasret took you over. Nobody wants ta lose ya just so’s they can have nicer clothes.”
“Well, thank you again.”
“Welcome. It’s nice ta have ya back, girlie. I…I’ll have ya know, I stayed as long as my ship allowed.”
“I understand,” I said, quieting him by placing my hand on his arm. “I don’t blame you for leaving. You warned us.”
He grunted and spat over the side of the ship. “Stayed two days. The groanin’ of the ghosties was so bad, I couldn’t hear myself think. When Mesektet started shaking, itchin’ ta leave, I held her back as long as possible.”
“I know,” I said, surprised to see a telltale glistening in his eyes. Not wanting the big captain, the ferryman, to be caught in such an emotional state, I changed the subject. “How close are we to Heliopolis?” I asked.
“Not far now. The shore is just over the horizon. You four slept a good deal of the way. Surprised ya found me. The gods must be smilin’ on ya, for ya ta get that far on yer own.”
“I think if the gods were truly smiling on us, we’d be a bit better off than we are now.”
“Maybe,” he replied. “The gods have been a bit busy as of late.”
“Yes. I imagine they have.”
Just then, the boat shook as something hit it from below. Cherty drew his river sticks from the side, raising the weapons. “Take the rudder, girlie, while I check to see what beastie hunts us.”
Another shudder rocked the ship. Asten and Ahmose leaned over the side, pointing at something. I glanced over myself and saw a spiny, armored tail disappearing into the river. The two ghosts had moved closer to me in the meantime. I wasn’t sure if they wanted my protection or if they were merely curious. Amon strode over to me quickly, a wicked set of swords materializing in his hands.
“Never seen that beastie before,” Cherty called out.
“We have,” Amon replied. To me he added, “It’s the necromancer.”
Alarm coursed through me. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“How did he find us?”
“I don’t know, but we’re going to have to end him once and for all.”
“But how?” I hissed. “He’s so big!”
“We’ll give him a second death.”
“But you said he was only half-dead. So we must not have killed him completely before.”
“You’re right. The spell Hassan used banished him from the mortal realm. He came here instead.” Amon held me steady as the boat was wrenched to the side in danger of capsizing. “We’ve got to end him for good now. Stay here. And don’t use your power.” When I nodded hesitantly, he ducked his head to look in my eyes. “Please,” he added, waiting for me to answer after he’d read my thoughts. When he was satisfied with my response, he went to help his brothers.
Ahmose called the same meteor rocks that had held Apep at bay and pummeled the river with them. His wicked-looking cudgel, silvery with a sharp edge, and his lethal ax sat at his feet, waiting t
o be used. Asten had his bow and arrows and he shot them into the water as the beast passed beneath the boat. The projectiles moved more like torpedoes than arrows once they hit the water, but they still glanced off the crocodile’s rough hide.
Amon summoned the power of the sun and giant balls of fire appeared in his hands. He lobbed them at the beast, but it ducked under the surface of the river. The giant reptile moved under us, lifting the ship on his back. It fell with a crash back into the water. I was relieved to see Ahmose still at the bow of the ship, but Asten and Amon were missing.
“Where are they?” I screamed, but then I looked out over the water, and I knew.
Both Asten and Amon were moving quickly through the starlit river, riding the back of the beast and stabbing the crocodile with their weapons. In retaliation, the beast dove, leaving them stranded, treading water on the surface. The river became still, and as Amon and Asten swam back toward the boat, I scanned the horizon, looking for the monster that I knew lurked beneath the surface.
Then I saw the creature surface. His powerful tail thrust back and forth, and his enormous jaws opened wide to swallow the swimming men. In my mind, Sebak reached out to me. I told you I’d be back for you. This meal will be most satisfying indeed.
Ahmose used his power to rain down fiery boulders upon the beast, but many of them missed. He was obviously concerned about hitting Amon and Asten. The two men reached the ship and were scrambling aboard. Still the monster came at us, mouth open, with sharp teeth gleaming in the starlight. He was going to ram the ship and bite them in half in the process.
“No!” I screamed, hauling myself up on the railing as Ahmose helped them up. “You won’t take them!”
Just as I was about to channel my power, there was a pounding of feet on the deck. “Come on, beastie!” Cherty shouted as he ran. “Show me what you got!”
He leapt over the side of the ship with a terrible war cry, his river sticks with sharpened points raised over his head. My breath caught in my lungs as I watched him fall down, down, his weapons positioned to thrust into the head of the crocodile. The monster angled his head upward at the last minute and caught Cherty around the waist. The monster’s body slammed into the ship, creating a wide hole that sucked in water. I knew the ship would heal itself, but I couldn’t say the same for its captain.
With a terrible crunch, the jaws of the beast snapped together again and again. Cherty’s cry turned into a gurgle as the crocodile shook him hard and swallowed down the lower half of the captain’s body as it thrashed in the water. The captain rallied and managed to stab the beast in the eye with one of his sticks, but it wasn’t enough. I leaned over the side, my hand against my mouth, watching in shock and terror as Cherty disappeared, moving down the crocodile’s pale throat swallow by sickening swallow, until he was gone.
“No!” I screamed, my whole body shaking with rage and grief as I pounded the railing with my clenched fists. Tears blurred my vision, and I became a beast myself. Hurriedly, I dashed the wetness from my eyes, relishing the hot, burning trails coursing down my cheeks. I will destroy him.
A pair of arms wrapped around me. I wrenched back and forth. “Let me go, Asten!” I demanded.
“There’s no helping him now.”
“But I can—”
“No.” There was no hesitation in Asten’s voice. He would brook no argument. Horror and anguish tore through me like a living thing. I twisted and bucked, but Asten held firm. Just then, the giant crocodile leapt from the water, breaching the river entirely and gliding over the boat as if he were simply a giant, reptilian bird looking for a fish.
Amon and Ahmose made their move. The two men ran and leapt, lifting their weapons to the crocodile’s exposed underbelly. As it passed over them, their blades found their marks and sank deep into the soft underbelly of the creature. Thick sheets of black blood coursed down from its deep slashes. By the time it passed over the boat completely, we knew it was mortally wounded.
It fell with a heavy splash into the water on the other side, and we waited, breath held, watching the heaving water until it stilled. There was no sign of the beast. Not a flicker of movement in the water. Then something stirred. At first, I wasn’t sure it was the giant crocodile, the upside-down body looked so pale in the water, but it was. He had finally died.
Amon and Ahmose came over to me, black smears of blood on their faces and arms. The river turned oily, its surface peeled back like torn skin, exposing the ruined beast that had lived within it. Quickly, the water began to churn anew as unseen creatures, attracted to the smell of the crocodile’s blood, began to feast. Feeling sick and brokenhearted, I turned away and pressed my face against Asten’s shoulder, sobbing with all I had.
I only lifted my head when I heard a strange sound. The two ghosts who had cowered the entire time were whispering as they stared up at the stars. “What…what are they saying?” I asked. They were speaking a language I didn’t understand.
Asten furrowed his brow. “They’re saying…Master, the necromancer is dead. They are coming!”
“What? I don’t under—”
With a violent expression, Amon sliced the heads off of both ghosts. “They were shabtis sent to spy for Seth,” he said. “Now he knows.”
Ahmose shuffled behind me to take the tiller, and the ship moved jerkily forward, only partially repaired. Soon we left behind the half-eaten corpse of the necromancer as well as the remains of our dear friend. I was inconsolable. Amon tried to get me to eat or drink, but I refused all their attempts to comfort me. When the shore of Heliopolis came into view on the distant horizon, I felt nothing. Not joy or happiness or a need to help the gods. All I felt was sorrow over what had been lost.
I didn’t even register the fact that we were slowly sinking.
Amon figured it out first.
“The boat’s dying,” he said.
Something about that prompted a giddy, wrong internal response, and a crazy-sounding chortle, one of half amazement, half insanity, burst from my mouth. Mesektet was dying? I guessed it made sense. She was connected to her captain. Without him, she either couldn’t heal herself or didn’t want to. Asten and Ahmose scrambled to keep us afloat for as long as possible, but it soon became obvious that we were going to have to leave her behind.
I cringed, wondering if we might be going down with the ship. There were evil things that lived in the water. Monstrous wormy creatures that wove nets to capture prey, malicious cousins of mermaids called serin. Then there was a myriad of venomous and aggressive fish that were just waiting for their next meal. I’d had an up-close-and-personal experience with a few of those monsters before. In my mourning, I regarded them with very little fear. After battling with the necromancer, anything else seemed easy.
“Can you just transition and fly us to shore?” I asked Asten. It would seem a more logical solution. But he nervously explained, “The moment Mesektet sinks, Heliopolis will disappear from view, just like the Isle of the Lost. We’d likely become disoriented again on the Cosmic River. The best we can do is swim to shore while holding on to a piece of her.”
It looked like a piece was all we were going to end up with, and that was only if we were lucky. Mesektet was not only sinking but shrinking. The bow and the stern were much closer together than they’d originally been, and the sides were narrowing gradually as well. The mast cracked, fell into the river, and was swarmed by creatures that chewed through the sails and gouged the wood into tiny pieces as if the boat had been a living thing. I watched the process, feeling a cold ache in my heart.
Sitting in the back, water lapping over my toes as we limped along, I ran my hand over the slick deck and whispered my sorrow to the ship. I told her how much I’d admired her captain and how beautiful I thought she was the first time I boarded her. I wasn’t sure if the boat was still alive in her way or if she understood me, but the ship seemed to respond, at least from my perspective. The rudder shifted, angling us toward the distant shore.
The boys a
ll scrambled around the deck tossing anything they could overboard to give us more time to narrow the distance, and they bailed river water as fast as they could. Ahmose used his power to draw it up and out, sending it away from the ship, but it filled again almost instantly. Water hissed around the sides as it sloshed over the boards near me, and then finally it swamped over the front. We knew we had no choice then but to leave the ship.
Just as the brothers began making their way toward me, there was a splash as a large creature bit into the bow. The stern lifted out of the water, and I dug my claws in to hold on. Whatever it was tore away a chunk of decking. When the creature dropped back, the river surged over in an angry, hissing wave. The ship settled with a splash, and then Mesektet finally let go.
I could almost sense her leave. It was as tangible as the loss of Cherty.
Water surged up around my waist, and I could no longer feel the deck with my feet. I treaded water on my own as I resisted the pull of the sinking ship beneath me. Bubbles erupted around my body, and something grabbed my arm and tugged. I hit a solid chest.
“Here,” Amon said, pressing a small piece of the ship into my arms. “We’ve got to swim away from her as quickly as possible. We’re hoping she’ll attract all the predators for now.”
I felt sick using Cherty’s broken ship in that way. It was like throwing your friend to a pack of zombies so you could escape. But my legs automatically kicked when Amon started pulling me. Asten and Ahmose drew near, each of them taking a position around me as if to draw attention away.
Asten held on to a piece of railing and Ahmose a section of the mast. When I glanced down at what I gripped in my hands, I saw it was the rudder. Though the shore seemed close, the river pushed against us, and we struggled for more than an hour before the waves finally assisted and pushed us toward shore.
“Do you know where we are?” I asked Ahmose. Sand coated my skin, but I was so grateful to be on shore that I didn’t care. The healing stela began working on the cuts and scrapes on my skin. When I was whole, I’d make sure we used it on each of them as well.