Just then, a dark cloud snagged the butter-colored moon, setting off a baying chorus of jackals, dogs, and lions. Blood washed across the face of the moon. A cold hand squeezed Iset’s heart; Asar was out there in the darkness.

The unnatural howling ripped through garden, tearing the fragile veil between living and dead. A flock of geese trumpeted an alarm, and the ground buckled, opening a chasm wide enough to swallow her whole.

Her ka-soul thrashed like a bird trapped inside a tomb; but with each breath, she slid deeper into an abyss. Water, raw and rank with dead plants and fish, sloshed around her ankles. In another heartbeat, the water lapped at her spine and soaked her hair. She gagged at the first mouthful and held her breath until her lungs caught fire.

The doors to the House of Eternity swung open on a marsh littered with starved and mangled corpses. Iset stepped through the doors into a vision from years past. Sludge, clammy with soft things that she didn’t want to think about, oozed between her toes and clutched her sandals. Sorcery, tainted by hatred, swirled in the undertow. A million dreams perished when she found Asar’s ka among the corpses.

Kneeling on the putrid ground, she gathered his ka in her arms. Wrapping words around a conjure to draw his ka back to the world, she whispered, “Come to your house, my beautiful bull.”

A jackal laughed; the eerie ululation rose to a crescendo, a wild ear-shattering note. Feral eyes studded the darkness. A thousand, ten thousand beasts fell silent as they formed a barrier between Asar’s ka and the world of men.

“Come to your house, my beautiful boy.” She blew into his nostrils. His ka-soul shivered. She twined her ka around his. “Come to your house, pillar of my happiness, and I’ll send the North wind to breathe for you, my love. Open your eyes and come to your house.”

The dark magic mutated into ghostly tendrils. Despite their fragile appearance, they had the strength of a cobra when they battled her for possession of Asar’s ka. Iset sheltered him in her heart, chanting spell after counter-spell until she scarcely knew what words she flung against the enchantment. When the spell shattered, the backlash flung them into her garden. The first light trickled into dawn.

A gold beak and talons glimmered; then a magnificent hawk with feathers of tawny beryl and sparkling calcite stepped out of the horizon. Ra, the ancient and unforgiving King of Gods, fixed his hard, lapis-lazuli eyes on her.

“Iset, do you think you’ll cheat death today?”