Page 31 of Court of Shadows
“That will do just fine.”
I jumped, startled by the old woman appearing at my shoulder. She found a vial of Amelia’s perfume and dabbed it on the letter, then returned to the bed. The dead girl had been covered, wrapped up, and rolled into her bedsheet and two blankets.
Mrs. Haylam waved me over, taking up the body by the shoulders while I hesitated near the foot of the bed.
“Help me carry this to the kitchens, Louisa, then be off and have a bath. You stink of manure.”
Chapter Eighteen
Year One
Journal of Bennu, Who Runs
I began traveling by night to escape the scorch of the sun. Perhaps it was only my imagination, but the book felt easier to carry in the darkness. The strange men who had attacked Meti and Niyek did not find me that night as I hid in the bushes, and I did not see them again when I continued my journey north.
For five days my passage was slow but smooth. I avoidedvillages until I became desperate for food and drink, then stole what I needed come nightfall and skulked back into the wilds, sleeping under any rocky outcroppings I could find, sheltered by palm and samwa, huddled under a filched blanket. It was not comfortable or easy, but I was safe. I was safe until I made a terrible mistake.
I had wrongly assumed I had more time to reach the coast before the rainy season began. It was not so. A sudden downpour caught me unawares just as I reached the split in the Nile. Soaked and cold, I changed course away from the river and toward the nearest town. Giza would surely have safe houses with shelter and food; there I’d wait out the storm and dry off before pressing on to the sea. It had been five days since the glowing men came looking for the “writer”—by now they must have given up the search.
To assume such was foolish, but I was hungry and wet and tired, every bone and sinew aching from the weight of the book. And so I risked the streets of Giza, head down against the rain, just one of many men hurrying to get out of the damp. I found a safe house on the edge of town, not far from the abandoned stalls of a market. A few onions had been left behind on the ground, and I scooped them up for later out of habit.
The shelter, marked with the red-and-white-striped serpent near the door, was open to all. It was quiet inside, seemingly abandoned, but a few braziers burned low, the scent of incense floating thick on the air. It was a simple brick building in thestyle of a temple, an empty altar the feature of the main room, with a gathering place and a basket heaped high with offerings. In a shallow room beyond I found a kitchen, the remnants of an evening meal left uneaten but warm on the hearth. I should have considered that conundrum more carefully; I should not have been the fly so eager to tangle itself in the spider’s web. But hunger and cold make mincemeat of sense, and I dropped the satchel in the doorway, rushing forward to gobble up the bread and soup left there for seemingly no one at all.
I should have felt the twinge on the air. I should have sensed the imprint of death, the cool whispers of souls recently parted from their bodies. But I knew only the relief of a full belly and the promise of a warm bed away from the rain.
“Good work.” I heard the words emerge like a scrape on stone from the shadows behind me, and I froze, mouth still stuffed with food. The words were not for me. Whoever had made the abandoned feast was there now, watching, three young women in simple linen dresses all hugging each other, eyes wet with tears as they shivered and cowered.
I looked at the girls for only a moment, for a huge, hunchbacked figure lurked just outside the kitchen. I wondered where this thing could have been hiding, big as it was, its bulk wide enough to obscure the girls huddling in the temple. It was shaped vaguely like a woman, but cruder, as if hastily slapped together out of clay. Shreds of blue-and-white fabric clung to its shoulders, its skin the color of sun-bleached bones.
The satchel with the book lay between us, but I could not move. I had looked into the creature’s face, and the moment I saw what was there, my entire body became paralyzed not with fear but with evil magic. The cup of beer in my hand dropped to the floor, splattering us both. The creature lunged toward me, showing more of its terrible visage as it dipped into the light. It had but a small slot for a mouth, the entirety of its long face glittering with eyes. No, not eyes, I saw as it lumbered closer:wasps.
Mother protect me, I pleaded, staring down now what I knew was the bringer of my death. The wasp wings fluttered like eyelashes, all of them in unison, dozens of insects, striped and somehow allowing this thing tosee. It stopped when it reached the satchel, hands opening and closing as if in childlike delight. Bending its massive frame, lank silver hair slipping over its forehead, the creature gave a gurgling laugh and put its hand on the satchel, then turned its face up toward me. My body went even more rigid as the wings of its eyes ceased fluttering, all of its attention on me.
“A hundred servants on a hundred hunts, and at last the writer is revealed.”
“Writer?” I whispered, mouth dry. “I am no writer....”
“Silence.”
The girls behind the creature gasped and cried harder, but I could not make another sound. The beast’s command had stolen my voice away, my throat closing as if filling with sand. If only I could claw at my lips or scream for help or do anything but watchin mute terror as the beast neared, taking up the satchel and reaching its other hand toward me, slowly, slowly, wrapping its hot fingers around my neck. My eyes bulged, lungs desperate and empty, the crushing force of the beast and its fingers making sparks of light dance in front of my eyes.
Those horrible wasp eyes were nearer now, and I could hear a faint, droning hum... a hum from a bottomless pit.A deathly hum, a terrible hum...
“A new sun rises,” it hissed, drawing out the word, tongue flicking out to lick at a lipless mouth. “See darkness now as your sun sets.”
There was a crash and the girls screamed. Everything became dim and distant as I choked and lost the will to fight. Suddenly I was free, released from the creature’s merciless hold, and sliding to the floor. I felt the satchel underneath me as I fell, and covered it with my body as if I could somehow protect it that way.
I heard a trill like a pack of jackals laughing in my ear; there was hot, wet warmth on my face and then nothing, just the black embrace as I tumbled into oblivion.
When I opened my eyes again, the dark brick ceiling was above, a stuffed mattress below me. Each part of me protested as I sat up to find that I had been placed in a corner to rest, dawn breaking as the altar glowed softly with candles, ribbons of gray incense smoke rising in slow streams. The three girls in their simple dresses were cleaning the floor and walls with rags stained red through.
Pools of blood dotted with gore stretched across the floor toward me. In the middle of the room lay the body of the many-eyed creature, the wasps unmoving, for it was dead. Something or someone had torn its jaw completely open, and it hung down unnaturally, yellow teeth broken, the monster now giving an eternal scream.
I was too exhausted even to recoil, leaning back against the wall and breathing a sigh of relief when I noticed the satchel and my burden had been placed next to me on the mattress. My clothes, too, were covered in blood, an awful odor rising from the stains.
“You’re awake, that’s good.” A young man, naked from the waist up, emerged from the kitchen doorway. He was tall and well-formed, torso crisscrossed with old scars that cut lines through the fur on his chest. Stepping smoothly over the creature’s carcass, he came toward me, using his teeth to pull a bandage taut as he wrapped a gash on his right arm. “How is your throat, friend?”
“Are you lost, child?” I touched my neck, feeling the rawness in my voice.
