Isaac awoke to a starry sky. A furry hand covered his mouth.

  “Be still,” Zaria whispered. “They’re coming.”

  With his arms and legs tied together, and a paw pressing his head to the sand, he had to look solely with his eyes.

  The night was dark and cloudless. A thin crescent of yellow was the only indication of the moon. All he saw was varying shades of black and the vague flowing curves of dune tops—the stars were the only sign of where the land ended and the sky began. There was no movement save a small spout of sand twisting in the wind.

  Then the sandship emerged, rising over the waves. Lanterns dangled across the edges of the top deck, orange light illuminating the magically treated wood of the hull. The glowing sigil on the twin masted sail emitted a faint beam of light, like an afterimage from staring into the sun. The ship glided along the crest of a dune, silent as a knife, and he could faintly see the outlines of lions and hyenas at watch positions across the length of the vessel, peering into the night with a predator’s vision.

  “Not like that they’ll spot us,” Zaria said. “Best not to take the chance, though.”

  Isaac nodded slowly, smelling her musk through the hand on his mouth.

  “Going to let you breathe. Don’t scream like a maiden.”

  He looked at her indignantly.

  She released his face from her grip, and the glint of her dagger reached down towards his midsection. There was an audible series of cuts. His legs were freed, severed rope falling past his ankles. Using as little movement as possible, the two hefted their packs to their back and began to climb up the dune on hands and feet, clinging to the thin shadow that it offered.

  When they reached the top, the ship was still sailing east at a watchful pace. Its black pirate standard fluttered in the night breeze, and the brass lips of the cannon holes glinted underneath the light of the lanterns.

  “Xotra’s cunt,” Zaria said. “Check the broadside.”

  If Isaac squinted, he could just barely make out a circle of light wood against the hull’s darker brown. At this distance, it was about the size of a coin, but must’ve been quite large up close. Looked like an emergency repair on the middeck hull.

  “That’s my old ship,” Zaria said. “The Silent Saber. Thought she’d head back to port after I blew a hole in her side. Didn’t think she’d range so close to the tomb, neither.”

  He caught glimpses of various species holding positions along every side of the vessel, perched up in the rigging like bugs in a spider’s nest. It seemed half the crew was currently on watch.

  “They must really want you dead.”

  “Aye. That they do.”

  The Saber dipped down the face of a small dune, her lanterns disappearing below the sand. Only her glowing sail remained visible, like the fin of a shark skulking through water.

  “We should go,” Isaac said.

  The hyena continued to watch the sandship, her mohawk swaying with the breeze. The fur on her neck was standing on end.

  “Zaria.”

  “Aye,” she said. “Right. Onwards.”

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  It was two hours through the night before Zaria stopped peering over her shoulder. Even still, she refused to let them travel over the tops of the dunes—instead, they had to walk in the deep depressions between the hills of sand, forced to diverge from their main route whenever an easy path did not present itself. They used the star constellations overhead to navigate by the cardinal directions, always near the thin shadows and gentle slopes.

  No more sandships were spotted. The desert night was quiet and pleasantly cool. Eventually, the sun began to return like a mortal enemy.

  It was at least an hour after dawn before she tried to engage him with conversation.

  “What’ll you do with your half of the treasure?”

  Isaac continued picking at the peeling skin on his sunburnt face, pausing only to push some blond hair away from his eyes. “No idea.”

  “Not a clue?” she asked, the morning sun illuminating half her face. “None whatsoever?”

  “Hadn’t thought about it.”

  She hummed to herself. “Are you taking suggestions?”

  “I suppose you’ll give them, regardless.”

  “Well,” she said, “considering a mage like yourself is probably chaster than a nun, I recommend you indulge in drink and whores till your cock’s as wet as your gullet. Healthier than a thousand books, in your case.”

  “It’s more chaste, not chaster. Please conjugate properly.”

  “See, now, that’s exactly my point. That tongue’d be put to better use licking cunts than teaching vocabulary.”

  Isaac shook his head, pacing slightly ahead of her.

  “Oh?” she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice. “Does mention of them bits and bobs make you squeamish, Isaac?”

  “I’m just wondering why you insist on chatting with me like I’m not your hostage.”

  She blew a raspberry. “Come now. Is that really gonna get in the way of our relationship?”

  “Yes! Yes, it will!”

  “You talk as if we haven’t aired our feelings already. Tension’s been released, hasn’t it? We’re all better for the experience, aren’t we?”

  “Oh, yes. Having my life threatened with teeth and blade makes me feel quite warm and fuzzy inside. Right at peace with the world.”

  She clapped him on the back, squeezing his shoulder. He almost lost his balance. “I see the problem now. You’re in need of more catharsis. Need to let your frustrations run wild.”

  He wriggled out of her grasp, shuffling through the sand. “I’m fine.”

  “No, no, no. Go on, then. Let me have it. Air your complaints.”

  “No.”

  “Come on. Do your worst.”

  “I refuse.”

  “Squire, I command you to insult me.”

  “By the gods, will you ever leave me alone?”

  “Isaac, I shall not rest until you have wounded my character.”

  “Fine!” Isaac shouted, louder than he expected. “Fine! You know what? You’re a horrible snorer! Worse than my uncle! It felt like sleeping next to a snarling rhino!”

  The hyena chuckled, scratching her snout. “Sorry, love. Broke my nose a year back. Never healed proper.”

  “And by the grace of Ivtarr, you smell! I have no earthly idea how it manages to get everywhere! It’s on every breeze I feel, every breath I take! I would rather bathe in sewage and entrails than rub against you again!”

  Her tail began to wag, a grin on her face.

  “And do you know what I despise most? What I can’t forgive, above all else?”

  “All ears, squire.”

  “Grammar! Your grasp of sentence structure is atrocious! Every word you speak is an affront to language itself! If my hands were not tied, I would beat you with grammar books until a proper dialect was caved into your fucking skull!”

  She reared her head back in laughter. Isaac growled to himself, trying to feel like something more than a barking dog on a leash.

  They were marching up a gentle slope of sand, in the wide valley between two enormous dunes. There was no cover for hundreds of feet in any direction. Zaria didn’t seem to mind the exposure—or, at least, the paranoia brought by seeing her old ship had slipped from her mind. Her laughter was full and becoming quite high pitched, almost a yipping sound.

  “On my word, Isaac,” she said, clapping him on the back again, “I will make a proper man of you yet.”

  “I am quite fine how I am, thanks.”

  The morning sun began to catch her face as they ascended the slope. “Might be, when our adventure is over, I’ll show you some fine taverns near the shrubland, places where we could—”

  They both stopped.

  In the distance, a colossal skull rose from the sand. It was so spectacularly massive that the dunes around it seemed to be the size of wrinkled skin. It tilted up towards the sky like a drowning man sinking below water, its maw half-submerged and opened wide. Isaac could only imagine how far the rest of the skeleton sunk below the earth. Various holes and gaps ran along its snout and cranial plate, and he wasn’t sure which were openings for eyes and nasal cavities or simply damage brought by centuries of time—regardless, the gaps in the skull were cavernous, and the bone itself had been bleached a chalky white by the desert sun.

  “Well,” Zaria said. “Fuck me, that’s ominous.”

  Isaac didn’t move. He almost couldn’t breathe.

  This was it. The tomb.

  He was really here.

  Somewhere, deep in the earth, perhaps right where he was standing, his father lay trapped. He wanted to say he could feel his presence, sense him through stone and sand, but he couldn’t—there was only the wind and the sun and a feeling of awe.

  Zaria snorted. “Now I understand why my fellows always stood clear of this place. Superstitious lot.” She glanced at him. “You ready?”

  He nodded absently. For a moment, she seemed ready to give a jest, but the look on his face stopped her. She closed her mouth and straightened her back, her poleaxe glinting in the sun.

  Isaac took a deep breath and began to walk forward. Zaria followed close behind.

  It took them over an hour to close the distance to the skull. Its massive size seemed to distort all sense of perspective. Flocks of birds flew around the eye sockets and nostrils, less than ants in comparison. Colonies of vines and stalks hung limply from sockets in the bone, almost like scraggly hair—it seemed to be old vegetation that had grown in trapped pockets of dirt, now dead and desiccated by the sun. At its open mouth, the teeth of its lower jaw jutted from the sand like giant calvary spikes.

  “Incredible,” Isaac said, gazing up in wonder. “Do you know what this means?”

  Zaria unsheathed her weapon.

  “Current theory is that creatures beyond a certain size cannot exist naturally. Something about the speed of blood flow and delay in nourishment.” He pointed like the whole thing might’ve escaped her notice. “Someone created this monster. Very advanced magic. I mean, the energy dynamics alone must’ve—”

  “It’s dead now, Isaac. Keep your focus.”

  Her entire body language had changed. Before, she was something close to relaxed. Now, her stance was firm on the sand, her grip was tight on her weapon, and her ears had flattened back to her skull. She was staring at the colossal skull like it might challenge her to a duel—a challenge she had no intention of yielding to.

  Isaac’s mind raced with visions of monsters lurking through dark corridors. Thralls and abominations, hexes and animated machinery, an ancient sorceress wielding eldritch power. His father, respected and feared by many, bested by this tomb’s horrors. And Isaac himself, out of scrolls and low on vials, barely more than an infant compared to the knowledge and skill of a millennia-old necromancer.

  He couldn’t let this happen.

  “Zaria,” he said, stepping in front of her. “Don’t go in there.”

  “Isaac—”

  “No. Listen to me.” He pointed north, towards an endless expanse of sand. “Walk away. Forget about the treasure and take your chances somewhere else. Escape to the hinterlands, join a watership, ask a town bailiff for clemency. Find a different solution.”

  She peered down at him with a controlled expression. He became very aware of their difference in stature and strength.

  “I’m prepared to die for my mission. Your odds of survival are much better up here than down there, especially if you insist on keeping my arms bound.”

  She gazed up at the skull. It loomed so far overhead that she had to tilt her head to see the sky.

  “You told me not to throw away my life. I’m telling you not to throw away yours, either.”

  Her scarred gaze returned to him.

  “Walk away. Please.”

  She blinked, breathed slowly out through her nose, and, for just a moment, a hint of grim resignation crossed her features. Then it was gone. She pressed the haft of her poleaxe into his chest and pushed him towards the skull.

  Isaac caught his balance. “At the very least, untie me. For your sake.”

  “I’ve said my piece already.” Her voice was quiet but firm. “I’m not doing it again.”

  Her axe blade tilted slightly in his direction.

  Isaac pulled himself straight. Then he shook his head and began to walk forward. With his hands tied and the hyena behind him, he imagined being led by an executioner to a bloody stump.

  The mouth of the skull was shaded and dark, the top teeth bristling with dead vines. It was opened so wide that a sandship could’ve sailed clean through, if its hull survived the bed of teeth jutting from the ground. Walking towards the maw, Isaac received the distinct impression that this creature had died in agony, roaring its fear and pain towards the sky. What had killed it? How had the rest of its body been buried? Who had created it in the first place?

  A relatively open entrance presented itself at the center of the snout—the creature’s incisors barely poked up through the sand, no taller than sapling trees, while its canines loomed to the sides like sharp pillars. It was easy enough to walk past them. He leaned on a canine for leverage and gingerly stepped over an incisor, squinting his eyes to adjust to the gloom.

  Inside the mouth, he found a scene of carnage. The ground was covered with bodies. With his unadjusted eyes, all he could see were impressions of death—slivers of bone, torn cloth, and rusted weapons. It was like stumbling upon the site of an ancient battlefield. Most of the corpses were concentrated towards the back half of the mouth as if ready to be swallowed, clustered in groups or slumped against the molars to the side. An old stench of decay rose to greet him.

  Three glints of light appeared through the shade. They seemed like eyes. Isaac quickly held out his bound hands, stopping Zaria behind him.

  At the back, a wall of granite had been erected around the ring of the throat, the edges smoothed down into seamless connections with the flow of bone. The granite had become porous and rough, cracked through with roots and vines. Reliefs were carved into the stone, sculptures of figures and battles long since faded into illegibility by the elements.

  A doorway sat in the stone, leading towards a staircase that descended down at the same angle as the creature’s vertebrae. Perched above this doorway, on a raised dais of slate and bronze, a four-legged statue sat back on its haunches. It had the face of a lion, its mane striped with gold and jewels, and two large wings stretched at its back, connected to the granite behind by the tips of its topmost feathers. The lion face had three eyes—two at the normal position, and one in the center of the forehead. They formed a perfect triangle.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Isaac had to force himself to remain calm.

  He recognized the statue. It was a sphinx. A stone automaton often used by ancient cultures to guard places of importance—palaces, burial sites, things of that nature. These statues were designed to fend off both invaders and grave robbers alike, and, as such, were almost always imbued with powerful magics. He had read stories of archaeologists stumbling across these automatons without warning. There were reports of flaming lances, comets of raw entropy, and even, in one case, claims of banishment to alternate planes of reality.

  The amount of bodies at the feet of this statue suggested it had stopped many explorers before, and the glint in its three eyes suggested that it could still do so now.

  “Don’t like that statue,” Zaria said. “Should I?”

  “No. You shouldn’t.”

  “Why’s the lion have four legs? And wings, for that matter. Why not make it more true to life?”

  “It’s art, Zaria, for fuck’s sake.”

  All the bodies were clustered close to the sphinx. Their positions suggested they had been struck down where they stood—he was beginning to make out scorch marks and severed limbs. At the very least, their positions also suggested that the sphinx had a limited range. It wouldn’t shoot them just for standing at the teeth.

  Still, the entrance to the tomb was right below the statue. There would be no entering without crossing below it. Getting into its range, mainly.

  Isaac had an easy solution to that. His uncle had prepared him for just this sort of obstacle. But something was catching his eye—the area just before the start of the corpses. It was smooth. Too smooth for natural sand. The faint traces of black ichor leaking from the bodies seemed to just—

  Firm hand on his shoulder. “Isaac. What’s the plan?”

  The trail of ichor ended at the smooth patch of ground. Ended in a perfectly straight line. . . .

  A trapdoor. The blood and rot from the ancient corpses had flown between the hinges. Of course. Sphinxes tended to have mechanical traps, too. Anything to preserve their magical energy as long as possible. These trapdoors would drop down to a simple pit with metal bars wrapped around the bedrock. A jail cell. Probably a network of them running below the ground, built between the mandible bones of the jaw.

  In ancient times, this trapdoor would catch and hold would-be grave robbers long enough for the proper authorities to come and arrest them. Now, with every trace of this civilization crumbled to dust, anyone who fell through that trapdoor would be stuck there until they died.

  “Oh, Isaac,” Zaria whispered into his ear. “Feel free to explain the corpses at your leisure.”

  He couldn’t enter the tomb with his hands tied and expect to come back out alive. He couldn’t enter the tomb with the hyena accompanying him at all. She wouldn’t listen to him. She would only get in his way. And he couldn’t take that kind of chance with his father’s life on the line.

  He had to escape. But he had no hope of physically overpowering her. Running away would be pointless, as well. There would need to be some . . . improvisation.

  He made a split-second decision.

  “It’s an automaton,” Isaac said. “It—”

  “A what now?”

  “An, uh, automated device.”

  “Still lost me.”

  “By Oerin, it’s a statue that shoots fire, okay?”

  “Right,” Zaria said, keeping her poleaxe pointed in its direction. “There a way to stop that?”

  “No need. It’s lost power.”

  She looked at him, then back at the sphinx. It’s three eyes continued to glint in the shade. “You keen on testin’ that?”

  “If it hadn’t,” Isaac lied, “we’d be dead by now.” Casually as he could, he slipped his pack off his shoulders and began to dig. “You know, they’ve got some fascinating construction history. The way these ancient builders used to both infuse statues with power, and get them to cast specific spells, is extraordinarily complex. Inside that lion head, there’s an extremely fine network of vents and valves, shunting all the—”

  “Isaac,” she said. “Consider my interest purely practical. As in, shut your mouth.”

  While he was rambling, he had grabbed his uncle’s letter, folded it so the seal was displayed prominently on the parchment, and slipped it down his sleeve. His ruse had worked. She hadn’t noticed anything. She was staring down the statue like the winged lion might leap at her at any moment.

  “If you insist,” Isaac said, putting his pack back on while sipping from a waterskin, as if that’s what he’d wanted the whole time. “Lead the way, madam knight.”

  She eyed him carefully. “I think my squire deserves the honor.”

  Had she seen the trapdoor?

  “Oh, surely I’m only fit to polish your steel and give girlish screams.”

  “Appreciate you learning your place, love, but you’re still going first.”

  He glanced at the sphinx. “That’s it? Am I just your human shield?”

  “Said it was fine, didn’t you? If there’s no danger, what’s the problem?”

  Isaac wasn’t sure if she didn’t trust him or the statue. It seemed to be a little of both. She wouldn’t be insisting on keeping his hands bound if she had much faith in him, and walking past a fire-breathing statue with a pool of corpses at its paws was probably not a very reassuring task, either.

  But that was fine. He had been expecting that.

  He made sure to place his back to Zaria before approaching. In the shade of the throat, the sphinx’s eyes glittered over a pool of corpses. His arms remained together in front of him—to the pirate behind him, they would appear casually held in place. But, at his front, his hands twisted as much as they could through the restraints. His uncle’s letter fell into his palm, and he quickly held it out towards the lion statue like a protective ward. The wax seal was red and still mostly intact.

  No one was quite sure why the symbol pacified the automatons. There was little detail of its purpose in the archeological record. Some evidence suggested that ancient cultures worshipped the symbol as a sort of emblem for their gods. Other theories pointed to the possible existence of an empire that predated even the oldest known civilizations. The symbol itself was fairly plain—an ordered collection of stars wrapped with thick stripes. To Isaac, it had never seemed regal enough to represent royalty or godhood. A family dynasty, perhaps, or maybe even the secret logo of a long-forgotten conspiracy of powerful nobles.

  Regardless, the symbol allowed safe passage past the sphinxes. His uncle had placed particular emphasis on keeping the wax stamping in good condition. If the symbol melted too much. . . .

  Isaac stepped onto the trapdoor. The sphinx jerked its head down with artificial swiftness. Its three eyes centered on him, and its stone jaw fell open. Fire boiled out of its mouth. He steeled himself, clutching the paper tight, and took another step forward.

  The fire receded from the sphinx’s jaws. The trapdoor stayed shut. Its three glittering eyes remained focused on him for a moment, then the head shifted back to its original stoic position. Dust fell from the stone jaws as they closed.

  Isaac continued to slowly walk forward as if his heart wasn’t pounding in his throat. When he reached the pool of bodies, he slipped his uncle’s letter back up his sleeve and turned to face Zaria, displaying empty palms.

  “See?” he said. “No danger.”

  He could see the whites of the hyena’s eyes. “That bloody thing still has fire in its belly.”

  “Sure, but not enough to cast anything. Without a catalyst, it can’t reach transmutation potential.”

  “Don’t use them made-up words on me, squire. Speak plain.”

  “It’s fine.” He gestured to the corpses at his feet. “It didn’t kill me. It’s not going to kill you, either. It just does that to scare off grave robbers.”

  Her poleaxe was still hefted as if fending off a cavalry charge. The fur on her neck was standing needle straight. All at once, Isaac realized she was afraid. It wasn’t solely from the giant skull and the bodies and the fire-breathing lion, either. She was terrified of being caught by her former shipmates. In the endless dunes of the desert, she had nowhere to hide except for an ancient crypt full of dangerous magic. She feigned confidence well enough—perhaps trying a little too hard to seem self-assured—but now the reality of her situation was becoming obvious. He imagined it might feel like a sailor standing on the deck of a burning watership, getting ready to jump into the ocean when she knew she couldn’t swim. Staying with the fire was certain death, but taking the leap into water held slim odds of success. It was the only choice available, but that didn’t make it easy.

  He almost felt guilty.

  “Zaria,” he said. “Those eyes are a weak spot. Break them and you’ll break the circuit, keep it from firing.

  “I’m supposed to toss my polearm like a javelin, am I?”

  “Just, uh, you know—trying to help.”

  “You do it, then!”

  He held up his bound wrists. “Can’t exactly climb statues right now.”

  She shuffled back and forth on her feet, fingers curling around the haft of her weapon.

  “Hey,” Isaac said. “It’s alright. You’ll be fine. I promise.”

  She stared at the three-eyed statue. She looked at the tomb entrance just below it. She glanced behind her, where the morning sunlight illuminated the colossal teeth and rising dunes. Finally, she looked at him. He nodded, careful to manage his expression.

  She walked forward with the pace and stance of someone ready to leap away at a moment’s notice. Her ears flat, her tail curling down, Zaria took the exact same path Isaac had taken. The one that lead right over the trapdoor.

  Isaac fingered the letter in his sleeve. He hoped the sphinx would follow its programming. They were finicky at the best of times, especially the ones that had stood for millennia. He had to be ready for anything.

  Zaria stepped on the trapdoor. The sphinx’s head snapped down to her, its jaws opening with a cocked roar of fire. She almost reared back, breathing hard. She looked to him again. Isaac swallowed, a bead of sweat rolling down his face, and beckoned her forward.

  She took another step, and the trapdoor opened.

  The floor beneath her gave way so suddenly that she didn’t have time to cry out. There was a spurt of dust, a vicious shunt of rusty mechanisms, and then she was gone. After a second, a loud thud echoed from below. A few seconds later, a faint gasp followed, punctuated with coughing and groans.

  Isaac let out such a sigh of relief that his entire chest sunk with it. Behind him, the sphinx had already closed its mouth, returning to its eternal vigil over the mouth of the skull. Trying not to think about the ancient corpses, or how close he might’ve been to joining them, he paced over to the trapdoor and squatted down at the edge.

  A thick cloud of dust drifted up from the open hole, disturbed from the fall. He batted it away until he could see further in. The pit beneath the trap door went twenty or thirty feet down to a bed of rock. Rusted metal bars lined one wall of the pit bottom, but parts of the gate had bent inwards from a previous cave-in, the pieces of rock just barely held in place. The entire jail complex between the jaw bones had probably collapsed sometime in the previous centuries. Otherwise, the pit was devoid of anything save earth and sand.

  Zaria struggled back to her feet, coughing and waving away the dust. Her mohawk and fur were coated in dirt.

  “You alright?” Isaac shouted down.

  She wiped her face with an arm and peered up towards the light. “What happened?”

  “I let you fall into a grave robber’s pit.”

  Her tail flexed upwards.

  Isaac took his uncle’s letter from his sleeve and displayed it over the edge. “Should’ve held on to this. I told you it would grant me safe passage.”

  She breathed out, swirling the dust. “Isaac, you best believe—”

  “No, Zaria, listen to me—”

  “Get me out of here, you sodding ape!”

  He took a slow breath. “I’m sorry. You gave me no choice. For what it’s worth, I only did this because I knew the fall wouldn’t kill you.”

  “No, it didn’t!” she shouted back. “And you’ll be right fucking sorry about that if you don’t free me this instant!”

  “I’d advise you not to threaten me anymore.”

  She stood straight, fists clenched, breathing slow and hard.

  “Look,” he said, shrugging his pack off, “I’m going to give you this.” He dug around in his pack and pulled out a glass vial full of green liquid. “Catch.”

  He let the vial fall, and she caught it in her hand, twisting the capsule as she peered inside.

  “What’s this?” she called back. “Some poison to end my life so I don’t die of thirst? You call that mercy?”

  “It’s corrosive acid. You’re in a grave robber’s cell with metal bars. You can figure out the rest.”

  She glanced over to the cell bars. A flow of rock was bulging it inwards, the rusted metal barely holding to its foundation.

  “Of course,” Isaac said, “it looks like there was a cave-in. It’ll probably take you a while to dig your way to the exit. But, hey, you’re a grizzled pirate with more kills than bathing sessions. I’m sure you can handle it.”

  She clenched the vial in her fist. “So help you and your furless neck, once I’m clear from this—”

  “You’re not going to follow me,” Isaac finished, “because I’m going to enter the tomb now, and the sphinx will end your life if you try.”

  The dust had mostly settled again, and Isaac could finally make out her eyes. She was glaring up at him with a snarling lip and raised hackles. He was very glad there was a twenty foot drop between them.

  “You still have my map, don’t you?”

  “That I do,” she replied. “Want to come down for it?”

  “No, actually. I want you to keep it. In fact, check the markings for me.”

  She continued to watch him.

  “Go on. I can wait.”

  Without taking her eyes off him, she slung her pack off, nudging her poleaxe along on the floor, and took the rolled map from a side pocket. She unfolded the parchment like she wanted to rip it in half just on principle.

  “Check the south-eastern edge of the desert. I’ve marked a star on a little farming hamlet, close to the flood plains. You see it?”

  “Aye. There’s a—” She squinted at it. “What’s these letters say?”

  “It’s the name of the Diet of Nine contact we have in the region. Goes by the alias of Sparrow, mostly because he is a sparrow. The rest of that writing is the code phrase he’ll expect you to recite. ‘The snake flies alone.’ Can you remember that?”

  “That’s the dumbest cloak and dagger shite I’ve ever heard in my life.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t pick it myself. He operates a safehouse for travelling mages and apprentices working on Diet business. The kind of agent that scares away assassins, if need be. He owns the tavern in the middle of town, third building to the right of the well. Go to him and say that phrase. He’ll probably look you at funny, but he won’t ask questions. You’ll be safe.”

  “What game are you playing? You trick me into a trap, and expect me to blunder into another one?”

  “No, I’m offering you protection from the band of pirates trying to kill you. If you can get there, of course. Not much I can do about that, but, again, you’re pretty resourceful. I’m sure you’ll manage.”

  She huffed. “Glad you decided to take that chance for me.”

  “Go to Sparrow, say the phrase, and wait for me in the tavern, okay? I’m going to have to return there on my way back to Khador, and, when I do, I’ll have a provisional survey claim ready for you to sign.”

  “What the bloody hell does that mean?”

  “It means I’m giving you the entire treasure. All of it. There’ll be some taxes, of course, but the fortune will be yours, fair and legal. You can pay off any bounties you might have. Start your life over.”

  She leaned her head back, mohawk flowing above her eyes. “I’m supposed to believe that? You’d give up unimaginable wealth to some cutthroat you barely know?”

  “I don’t care about the treasure. Never have. I just want my father back.”

  She scoffed, shaking her head.

  “I want to say this again.” He leaned over the edge of the hole. “I’m sorry, Zaria. I’m sorry for doing this to you, and I’m sorry for what’s happening to you, as well. I’m sorry you’re being punished for doing something good.” He glanced down at the rope around his wrists. “You did a brave thing, trying to help those kids. And I think you deserve a reward for it. There’s no trick. It just seems like the right thing to do.”

  He stood up straight. Outside, the desert sun creeped in through the gaps of giant teeth.

  “I’m trying to save your life,” Isaac said. “I hope you realize that.”

  “Isaac.”

  “Goodbye. Hopefully, we’ll see each other again.”

  “Isaac,” she said, voice rising.

  He walked away from the open trapdoor, eyes set on the tomb entrance.

  “Isaac! Isaac!”

  First order of business—cutting off his restraints.

  The sphinx didn’t accost him as he passed back within its range. They had long memories. He supposed a millennia old automaton would need them. Isaac made his way over to the pool of bodies spread around its feet. His goal was to find a weapon. It was likely he wouldn’t find anything that hadn’t turned into a rusty hunk of iron, but that would have to be good enough.

  He bent down, pilfering through rotted bone and tattered garments. He vaguely recognized the age of some of the bodies just by the clothes they were wearing. Turbans and robes that hadn’t been fashionable for centuries, old chainmail and boiled leather. Most of it had decayed to scraps and shards.

  At the trapdoor, Zaria stopped shouting. A silence fell over the skull mouth.

  Isaac found a bronze sword underneath the body of what must’ve been a cleric. The human had been clutching it in his hands when he died, and his forearm detached from the skeleton when it was relieved from him. The blade had remarkably little rust, despite its age and the general heat of its climate. As Isaac sat on the sandy floor of the mouth, trying to angle the weapon between his wrists, he thought of afternoons in his uncle’s library, studying metal alloys and the economics of smithing.

  He began to saw. Progress was slow. Even if bronze did not rust, it could still become dull. His bound wrists prevented him from gaining much leverage, as well. Still, he could see the blade gradually work through the ship rigging. He’d be free in minutes.

  Something caught his eye. A frock of hair falling over an ear. Isaac bent over, ignoring the metal groans coming from the trapdoor behind him.

  There was a human corpse slumped over on the back of a giant molar. It was fresh—relatively, at least. The skin was still intact and there were no visible maggots. He was lying on his side, facing away, and the sickly purple blotches of lividity were pooling on his head and neck. Isaac gripped his shoulder, finding the muscle stiff and uncompliant. He remembered anatomy lessons on the decomposition process as he flipped the body onto its back. It was no more than a day old.

  The face was of a young man, his eyes open and blue. His throat had been slit, and his head listed slightly back like an opening door. His face was unshaved, and his skin was a pallid grey. He didn’t look shocked or angry or afraid. He had no expression whatsoever.

  A sigil had been crudely carved into his forehead, probably with something no more sophisticated than a knife. Isaac recognized it immediately, and a chill went up his spine. Some scholars referred to it as charm magic, but most agreed on calling it what it truly was—parasitism. The sigil turned the victim into an unwitting thrall, their higher functioning overridden and their body’s energy leeched into the caster. Some of these criminal sorcerers used the sigils to raise an army of slaves. Others simply utilized the mindless victims as energy reservoirs. The two were not mutually exclusive.

  Isaac gazed towards the tomb entrance. It was dark, a bed of stairs leading down deep into the earth. As he looked, he saw the young man had twisted his left ankle.

  He imagined a sequence of events. A puppeteer sorcerer leading an entourage into the mouth of the skull, gaining safe passage from the sphinx. One of the thralls tripping over a skeleton because he lacked the sense to watch his step. The young man twisting his ankle. The sorcerer, considering the matter no more deeply than a horse with a broken leg, ordering his thrall executed for no longer being useful. And now here he lay—a young human, presumably with history and family and friends, lying dead in the sand for a mistake he did not have the presence of mind to avoid.

  He had not died more than a day ago. Whoever had carved that sigil into his head could not have been far. And there was only one place they could’ve gone. Had another sorcerer arrived before him? Or was the necromancer residing in this tomb capable of recruiting new thralls from the surface?

  Isaac watched the shadowy tomb entrance a moment longer before reaching over and gently closing the young man’s eyes. He sighed and looked away.

  A loud crash echoed behind him. When he looked, he saw the ground before the trapdoor begin to splinter and shake. Underneath a cacophony of falling earth, he heard yelling and groans of effort.

  He dropped the bronze sword from his bindings and raced over. Down in the grave robber’s pit, Zaria had started to yank the metal bars free with her bare hands, and the cave-in was now spilling into her cell. With her foot braced and her teeth gritted, she ripped another pair of bars directly from their rusty foundations. Beneath him, the ground continued to tremble as the long-dormant cave-in was now free to continue spilling, triggering cascades of load-bearing failures.

  She looked up at him. With a snarl, she wrenched a small boulder free from the growing stack of rock, accelerating the collapse.

  The ground beneath Isaac gave a sickening lurch. He began to run.

  A semi-circle of earth collapsed beneath him, and he didn’t quite make it. His chest slammed into the edge of solid ground, his body draped along a new slope of cracked rock and dry scree. A room-sized cloud of dust kicked up into the air. Isaac fought for purchase, his feet kicking uselessly beneath him, trying to pull himself toward safety.

  “Isaac!”

  Zaria climbed from the wreckage of spilled earth. Her mohawk was wild and covered in dust, blood leaking down her face, her poleaxe held tightly in hand. She climbed free from a pile of boulders and sprinted up the slope of rock and scree. Isaac scrambled back to solid ground, crawling desperately on his hands and knees. He fell nearly face-first into the ancient skeletons, gripping rotted cloth for purchase as he struggled back to his feet.

  Zaria emerged from the crater of the cave-in, panting with all her teeth displayed, eyes dead focused on him.

  “Stop!” Isaac shouted. “Stop!”

  She stood in place, breathing heavily. Above, he heard the sphinx shunt its head down to her, catching the glint of magical fire from the corner of his vision.

  “Don’t come any closer,” Isaac said, holding out his tied hands. “The sphinx will kill you.”

  Her pink tongue threaded over her teeth.

  “Okay,” Isaac said. “Okay. Listen to me. You need to think about this—”

  She took one hand off her poleaxe and tossed it upwards, catching it in an overhand grip. Arm cocked at a ninety degree angle, leaning her weight on her backfoot, she twisted her body back and shot it forward with a shot-putter’s grace, throwing her entire weight behind the swing. Her polearm flew like a javelin.

  Isaac heard the crunch of magically-treated glass before the shards rained down over his shoulders. The forehead eye of the sphinx had been pierced clean through with the spear tip of her poleaxe, buried up to the axe blade. The lion head reeled back, the old stone of its neck cracking apart, fire spewing from the open stump like a dragon’s breath, and, finally, the head tilted forward, breaking free from its hinges and tumbling towards the ground. It shattered partially on the floor, the gold tipped mane rolling on the sand. The flames quickly died on its tongue, and the poleaxe remained firmly embedded in its face.

  Zaria clenched her fists, growling from deep in her chest.

  “Oh, fuck,” Isaac said, and ran into the tomb.