Free City of the Dead by T. L. Higley

I inhaled the cool darkness.
    The flame-red chaos of the festival seemed a far-off thing amid gnarled fig trunks and the shade of sycamores. I rubbed the sweatfrom my neck, let the night air cool me, and closed my eyes with relief. Festivals are for people with nothing better to fill their heads. The room had bubbled and frothed like a vegetable stew over a stoked fire, and I had felt like a chunk of basalt sunk to the bottom of the pot.
    Footsteps whispered along the garden path.
    If that woman followed me out …
    I was dangerously close to telling Tamit what I thought of her.
    But it was Axum’s white eyes that faced me on the path, and I held out an arm in grateful welcome. We were men who knew what it was to command, and I admired Axum’s strength of silence.
    His voice was low and confiding. “A task for me, Grand Vizier?”
    I nodded and drew close. Somewhere in the desert a jackal howled. “Mentu’s murder has caused a disruption in Egypt.”
    We moved back to stand under a sycamore.
    Axum scowled and his white teeth glowed. “He was a good man.”
    “Yes. Yes, he was. I want you to find out who killed him.”
    Axum leaned one shoulder against the tree. “Some things only the gods are meant to know.”
    I gripped Axum’s elbow, below the gold bands that circled his upper arm. “We must find justice. There will be disorder until we do. I—I fear that there will be other … problems … until ma’at is restored.”
    Axum looked into the distance, toward the perfect lines of the pyramid against the night. “Should not the grand vizier occupy his mind with his responsibilities?”
    I smacked my palm with a fist. “Egypt is my concern! If there is no divine order, no justice, then all that we work for is of no value.”
    “Perhaps you should find this killer yourself.”
    I threw my head back to the cold sky above us and tried to let it cool my temper. “The Horizon of Khufu demands my full attention. But I trust you. Will you find justice for Mentu?”
    I felt Axum studying me in the dark. “Does the death of one man have the power to change the world?”
    The scrape of an approach turned me to the garden entrance. Jackals did not often dare near the light of the palace, but one could never be certain.
    A slave boy trotted up the path to the palace entrance. Axum seemed to recognize him and let out a low, curious whistle. The boy stopped and whirled, then ran toward us.
    “One of my boys,” Axum said to me, with some measure of pride.
    The boy was not a Nubian, and I assumed that Axum must employ him in some manner.
    “There has been a death, my father!” The boy panted and bowed to Axum.
    I raised an eyebrow at this title of honor.
    “Another goat pulled from the flock?”
    “No.” The boy’s eyes were wide, and his narrow chest heaved. “No, a peasant woman from the village. She was murdered.”
    Axum frowned with the look of a parent who’s discovered that his children have disobeyed.
    “Her husband?” I asked the boy.
    The slave boy lifted his bony shoulders and held out his hands. “She was found at the harbor, alone, my lord. No one has yet claimed her.”
    I crossed my arms and faced Axum squarely. “You see? Ma’at has been disturbed, and now a woman has also crossed to the west.”
    Axum squeezed the boy’s shoulder. “No one knows who she is?”
    “No one has seen her face, my father.” The boy’s eyes sparked with the excitement that youth feels at any sort of intrigue. “When the body was found, her face was hidden. No one has disturbed it.”
    “Hidden?”
    The boy’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Covered,” he said, “with a beautiful golden mask.”

SIX
    At the slave’s mention of a mask, I stepped between him and the Nubian and grabbed the boy by the shoulders. Anxiety shot through me and my fingers tingled. “Where did you say this woman was found?”
    “At the harbor’s edge, my lord.” His eyes widened and his lower lip trembled. I released him. “Run