The desert had cooled down considerably during the hours Simon had spent inside the pyramid, and the descent from the wall was difficult with his injured shoulder and bound hands. He was barely able to find a hold for his fingers on the sheer outside of the structure and, therefore, in constant danger of tumbling to his death. He had never been a fan of heights, either, and his pain wasn't lessened by the fact that Nefertari did not want to hear anything about untying him.

  As they climbed, Simon's gaze found the dark outline of another settlement in the distance, which he was certain couldn't possibly be Cairo. It was way too early in time for that. But if it wasn't Cairo, what was it?

  Preoccupied with his thoughts, Simon slipped twice from the slim ledge to which he was clinging. The second time, he scratched open his palm, broke several fingernails, and then lost what precariously little hold he had on the limestone surface completely. Hanging from the narrow ledge surrounding this level of the pyramid's outside, the ground several hundred feet beneath him swaying alarmingly, he swung his arms upward wildly, trying to get a hold... and then his feet slipped from the sill beneath.

  Before he knew it, he was completely unsupported and, had it not been for Nefertari's quick reaction, would have surely met a very hard end on the desert ground.

  “Simon,” Nefertari shouted exasperatedly, having just grabbed the front of his shirt, which was about to strangle him now, and yet he clung to it instinctively, “be careful. I'd hate to waste more lives than necessary.”

  “How about you untie me then if this is so inconvenient for you?” Simon spat back testily, using what little breath was left in the lungs.

  Nefertari threw him an obviously bored look, as though she couldn't wait for the moment when he would finally understand that she wasn't going to relent. It did nothing to improve his temper. With effort, she pulled him back against the stone and tied the rope binding his wrists together around her own.

  “What is that there?” Simon asked once he was out of immediate danger, pointing at the settlement ahead.

  “Where have you been living?” Nefertari's eyebrows rose. “That's the capital of Egypt, Memphis.”

  Memphis, thought Simon. Another piece of the puzzle that fit... Of course he knew Memphis was the capital of the sixth dynasty, but he had had to make sure she wasn't pulling his leg...

  It took the better part of an hour until they were finally back on solid ground. Once there, Nefertari grabbed his ties like a leash and started, without taking a pause to regain their breath and footing, into the desert.

  Simon looked around. There was nothing but sand in either direction, the barren wasteland going on for miles and miles, except for the Memphis settlement, to which, he noticed quickly, they weren't headed. Every now and then, he recognized more signs he wished he didn't, because they confirmed his suspicion as to what had happened to him. He recognized another settlement to the west of the pyramids, for instance, which he assumed had to be Cairo in its early stages. Its small shape was hardly bigger than one of present-day Cairo's districts.

  “Where are we going?” Simon asked after a while.

  “You'll see when we get there,” said Nefertari shortly.

  “What if I don't want to wait?” he persisted.

  “Doesn't change a thing.”

  “Fine,” said Simon angrily.

  How Nefertari knew just where they were going was a mystery to him. Everything looked the same to him. Every dune had the same, creamy white colour in the darkness, with no tree or a single bush to determine their path, and every stretch of sand looked just like the next. And yet, Nefertari moved along swiftly (as though she were following their path on a map) and soundlessly like a cat in her leather sandals, while Simon sunk ankle-deep into the ground with every second step. This did nothing to make him feel better about being kidnapped by a crazy, shape-shifting supposed-Pharaoh.

  Right there and then, the unnerving silence that had followed their short exchange minutes earlier was interrupted by the sounds of animals: The hooting of an owl, the slithering of a long, silken body through the dunes, the clicking of tiny pincers and stingers. The desert was crawling with life. There were snakes, scorpions, and other dangerous creatures lumbering around the dunes, concealed in the sand, hungry jackals and wolves harrowing the dunes above, and several kinds of desert birds, not all of which he could name. Simon had no intention of meeting any of those, not even if he had anti-venoms to a dozen different poisons, flea and other diseases with him.

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  “Are you at least going to tell me what this is all about?” Simon sighed. No answer came, and if he was truthful with himself, he hadn't expected one anyway, the way the girl was treating him like a criminal, a prisoner. It didn't stop his outrage, however. “I could report you, you know? You killed those two men back there in the pyramid, and you've taken me hostage,” Simon was raving, but anything was better than the sudden, prickling feeling of tiny eyes on his back. “What do you want with me anyway? Am I a prisoner?”

  Nefertari stayed silent, with an air of boredom, moving gracefully ahead and leaving him in a haste to catch up. He wondered what would happen if he didn't, but yet again felt like he shouldn't provoke her temper, or gamble with his life, which hung on a preciously thin thread at the moment anyway. If she decided she didn't want to keep him after all, where was he going to go? What was he going to do? It wasn't like he had thought to bring any food or a means of shelter, like a tent, either, and the thought gave him yet another idea.

  “I don't have anything you could possibly want,” said Simon. “I haven't even got a family you could threaten for a ransom.”

  This was mostly true. He didn't really have a family, not since his grandfather had died, and Morgan (the only relative there was, although Simon liked to pretend his cousin wasn't related to him) wouldn't pay anyone a great sum of money to release him. And besides, even if he had that sort of money, how would he do the exchange from almost three millennia in the past?

  They had been walking through the desert for some time, Simon talking whenever he didn't need air and Nefertari quiet like a shadow, when Simon's throat began to dry out, and the chilly, nightly breeze made him shiver in his button-down and shorts.

  Just as he was about to open his cracked lips to complain, however, a sound broke the silence. It was the same hoarse cry they had heard before, like the hunting call of a bird. An owl, perhaps? The sound bounced off the dunes, making it appear as though the noise came from everywhere at once; there was no telling which way it had originated from.

  Simon recoiled in a mixture of renewed fright and wariness, whipping his head from side to side without seeing anything, bird or otherwise, then hastened to hurry after Nefertari, who hadn't stopped and she seemed very much unconcerned by the eerie cry.

  “What is that?” Simon demanded when he had caught up.

  Nefertari put a finger to her lips, bidding him to be quiet as they continued through the fine sand. They moved on slowly for several more minutes after the bird's cry had stopped, until another voice echoed over the dune, ghostly and unsettlingly loud in Simon's ears, although he could tell it was whispering. At this, he stopped dead in his tracks. Noticing his hesitation, Nefertari turned around and came back to his side, frowning deeply. Before she could reprimand him, however, there it was again, the strangled cry, accompanied by a whispering wind. Simon half expected another of the ghastly chimaeras to pounce on them, though this voice sounded starkly different from those beasts', a string of words that he did not gather.

  “I demand to know what that is!” repeated Simon indignantly. “What is it? What are you saying?” he continued to nobody in particular, listening closely, trying to decipher meaning from the seemingly random code...

  He hadn't really expected an answer, and was therefore even more horrified when one came. A laugh like a crow's cackling caw answered from high above, a voice unlike anything he had ever heard before, strangely inhuman and yet beautifully divine like song, and rather reminiscent of the manner in which Nefertari spoke.

  As the blood froze in his veins, Simon followed the echo to somewhere above their heads.

  A majestic peregrine falcon was sailing there over their heads with the wind, its shadow elongated on the dune to their left. Simon followed it with his eyes, his eyes fixed on the dark, tattoo-like markings around its eyes, but within seconds the bird had disappeared behind a dune.

  “What was that?” Simon asked Nefertari, although he did not envisage her to answer at this point.

  As he had known she would, the girl stayed silent, and Simon continued in his earlier vein, although his voice was not as firm as he had hoped it would be, “Listen, you drag me out here, and I demand to know what that -”

  “That was a warning,” said Nefertari. She had stopped in the midst of the barely discernible path they appeared to have been following, her head tilted to the side as though she was listening for something again. Simon copied her, straining his ears, but heard nothing.

  “A warning of what?” His voice was barely a whisper. Nefertari waved her hand impatiently, a gesture he took to mean: Be quiet.

  There was urgency in the sign and, for once, Simon shut his mouth. Just in time, because now he could hear it as well. A low, thudding sound of something heavy shuffling through the sand toward them, and it grew louder by the second, until he could make out a pattern that sounded like footsteps. All the exhaustion suddenly forgotten Simon whipped his head around for their source.

  Was this what the falcon had warned them about? And if so, was it friend or enemy to Simon? Technically, if it was an enemy to Nefertari, should it be a friend to him? Would whatever was coming their way help him or try to kill him?