The Morning Star

Danilo was laughing like a madman. "I didn't know what else to do," I began. "I-"

He stopped laughing and helped me up, pulling me into a ferocious embrace. He spun me around until I was dizzy. "You ... you were brilliant!"

"But the sword... "

"We will still find it, Katerina. And without Ankh-al-Sekhem's meddling." He placed me gently back on my own two feet. Danilo's face grew serious. "You will make a wonderful tsarina, my love."

I pulled out of his arms, uncomfortable that I'd noticed how muscular they were. "I never wanted to be tsarina. All I ever wanted was to be a doctor."

Danilo laughed again. "Such a small imagination you have. Do you not realize you could conjure up all the ancient teachers of medicine-Hippocrates, Galen, even da Vinci-and have them at your command?"

"How ridiculous! I don't want to study ancient medicine. I need to know the latest in research. I need to study at a real medical university!"

In an instant, the friendliness was gone from Danilo's face. The lich tsar had returned and was in complete control of the crown prince. He grabbed my arm painfully. "You need to remember that you are my betrothed, Katerina. You will act accordingly."

More angry now than afraid, I decided to push back. "You have to be strong, Danilo," I shouted. "You cannot let Konstantin win." I searched his face and held my breath. His eyes were still a murky hazel as the two people battled within the same body. Finally, the crown prince's eyes resumed their normal black.

He nodded toward the road. "We need to get out of here. The Grigori could arrive at any minute."

In all of the excitement of being attacked by an evil mummy, I'd forgotten about the Grigori. "If they don't have the sword, how can Papus and the Order of the Black Lily command the Grigori to chase after us?"

He rolled his eyes. "The same way I have persuaded the Grigori to be loyal to me. The promise of freedom."

"And they believed you?" I asked. "What will they do when they discover you lied to them?"

Danilo shrugged, but I was no longer sure if it was the crown prince or the lich tsar I was looking at. "By then I will possess the sword and they will have no choice but to obey. There is no way to free them. The sword is not of this world and cannot be destroyed. Nor can the Grigori touch it."

I could not believe the Grigori would be so naive. I foresaw only more trouble and misfortune ahead once we found this cursed sword. I looked up and down the dirt road, wishing desperately for a hat to keep the sun out of my eyes. There was nothing for miles in either direction but shimmering mirages. "Which way are we to go?" I asked.

"This way," Danilo said as he headed toward a temple complex. We wandered through the necropolis, Danilo muttering to himself as the hot wind swept stinging sands around us.

"Is there another necromancer we are to meet today?" I asked. I was tired and famished. I had lost track of the days since I'd been abducted and was not even sure of the last time I'd had a decent night's sleep. The adventure had become one strange and endless nightmare.

"No more necromancers today," Danilo said with a mirthless laugh. The crown prince stopped in front of a battered statue of a sphinx. This was not the famous monster at Giza but a much smaller version. I'd always loved the two sphinxes that adorned the waterfront of the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. The teachers at Smolni enjoyed taking students to the Academy and telling us the story of how the sphinxes had been brought from Egypt to Russia in the seventeen hundreds.

This sphinx was human-sized. She sat like a cat on her back haunches, her head held high regally like a queen. Her right front paw was missing. She appeared to be guarding a very plain stone building.

I watched Danilo as he approached the statue quietly. He went down on one knee, with his right hand over his heart. "My lady," he whispered. "I have come to you seeking wisdom."

The stone creature's eyes opened. "You are a strange one. More of a puzzle than I," she said.

The sphinx had come to life. I could scarcely believe my eyes. Or indeed, my ears. The voice was young and feminine, slow and deliberate. There was no cold light surrounding her, but my own cold light seemed to shy away from her. As for Danilo, his brilliant cold light strands clung to him, as if in fear of her. How very odd.

Danilo smiled. "I am a riddle as well, my lady. Answer my question and I will answer yours."

"You seek the Morning Star."

"Yes."

"You believe I can help you." The sphinx's voice gave me chills.

"Yes, my lady."

"And you will answer my question when I have answered yours."

Danilo did not move. "Where will I find the Morning Star?"

The sphinx blinked. "Past the seven gates of heaven, the Morning Star lies, betwixt the steadfast darkness and the unfailing light."

"I seek the sword known as the Morning Star," Danilo clarified, doing his best to sound patient and humble, but I could sense his irritation.

"And I have given you the key to find your sword," the sphinx repeated. "Now you must answer my question. What sort of creature are you?"

"But you have not answered mine!" Danilo shouted.

"He is a lich!" I said quickly. I had no desire to see what an angry sphinx could do to us. "A blood drinker who has possessed another's body. They share one body, my lady."

Danilo glared at me.

"Most curious," the sphinx said. "But you did not ask me a question. And I did not ask one of you."

"I beg your pardon, my lady." I felt compelled to kneel down on the hard-packed sand.

This seemed to appease the sphinx. "But you have given me the answer that I sought. And so I shall give you an answer that you seek. That answer is yes."

I had no idea what question she was answering. But her yes gave me a faint sliver of hope. "Yes" meant possibility. It meant I might survive my journey with Danilo. That I might see George again, if the sphinx could indeed see the future. What other questions did I have except for ones regarding my future? "Thank you, my lady."

Danilo stood up. "This has been a waste of time. Let's go." He jerked me up by the arm.

"How are we going to get back to Cairo?" I asked him.

"Follow the Morning Star," the sphinx growled. And her stone eyes closed at last.

Danilo cursed under his breath. "She delights in making men mad."

"Tell me more about the sphinx," I said, curiosity getting the better of me. "Was she ever a mortal woman?"

"Yes." Danilo was walking quickly back toward the road. He took a pocket watch out of his vest and consulted it with a frown.

"So who was she? When did she live?" I stumbled over some rocks as I tried to keep up with him.

"Later, Duchess. We must hurry."

I glanced at the road in despair. "We cannot walk all the way back to Cairo. It must be miles from here."

"It is."

"And across the river."

"True."

But the road was already touching civilization, and we began to pass beggars and children and stray dogs. I'd given away all of my coins in Alexandria, but Danilo shrugged off the cries of the villagers without a second glance. I stopped when I saw a young wisp of a mother with a screaming and dirty infant in her lap. "Does the baby need medicine?" I asked.

The woman stared at me blankly, not understanding French or English. I tried Greek as well. Finally I sighed and placed my pearl earrings in her hand, closing her fingers around them. "For the baby," I said.

She grabbed my hand and kissed it, chattering in a language I did not recognize.

Danilo turned around to see what I'd done and rolled his eyes. "Forget the beggars, Katerina. We must hurry."

Traveling north along the road, we soon came to the recognizable Giza Plateau. The electric tramline began here, taking tourists from the most famous of the Egyptian pyramids back to the comfort of Cairo. A former royal lodge, the Mena House Hotel sat near the tram station. This luxury hotel was run by a wealthy English couple who'd done little to alter the royal furnishings and decor but included every convenience a sophisticated traveler could possibly desire.

Danilo sighed as the hotel came into view. "About bloody time."

"Do you think the Grigori know where we are?" I asked. "At this point, Duchess, I honestly do not care. We are checking in and I am taking a hot bath. I suggest you do the same."