The crowd began pointing and shouting, and Renifer knew what they were shouting for. The foreign male.

The girl of ivory turned even more pale, if that were possible, and she and the boy exchanged frightened looks. They had reason to be frightened.

“Go into the desert,” said Renifer, pointing at the massive hills in the west. The Nile was truly cupped in a valley, and the sides of the cup were high and brutal. No civilized person went west of the Nile.

“Sekhmet saved me,” she said quietly, “and you who protected me will be given protection. Be not afraid. I will prevent the mob from reaching you.”

Even now, the boy worried more about Renifer than himself. He wanted her to come too.

She shook her head. “Go, and go swiftly,” she said, giving him a gentle push in the right direction.

Coming out of the west, borne on a high wind, was a cloud of sand. It stood up vertically, like an approaching god. The boy and girl walked toward it, while the girl of ivory called farewell, waving, and repeating her accented version of Renifer's name.

How powerful were the gods. Sekhmet had answered every one of Renifer's prayers: Hetepheres' tomb would not be robbed twice, the queen was avenged and Pankh had suffered.

The terror and joy of dying for Pharaoh disappeared. Renifer was astonished and glad to be alive.

She followed the path back down, arriving at the bottom exactly when the soldiers did. They froze at the sight of her.

Renifer extended her long slender arms and stood under the blazing sun, all gold and white, all shimmer and ghost. She sang the chants of the dead, her soprano rising and shivering, curling around the tops of temples as she walked. She flung her head back and addressed the sky and the hidden stars. She called upon Hetepheres to be with her, and Sekhmet to avenge her. She called upon jackals and queens, upon crocodiles and princesses.

Long before she finished her song, the tourists had scurried back to the temples and the guards had fled to the safety of their headquarters. Tomb robbers they would fight. Ghosts and kas would be left to their own devices.

Renifer lowered her arms. They trembled from the weight of the gold.

The tall thin windstorm spread and deepened, until it sailed like a ship over the desert. It flung sand over the half-carved Sphinx, hiding an entire paw. It flung sand over tourists too foolish to shelter in a mausoleum. It smothered the pots of flowers and put out the fires of incense.

Renifer ignored the sand. It would wrap her forever or let her go. She walked on, accepting the will of her gods.

STRAT