I must get to the princess!he thought, struggling to keep his footing and failing. He couldn’t see her, the dog, or the little girl. He couldn’t see anything at all.
The storm pounded him mercilessly, and he was reminded of the beating he’d received from Babu, except this was a hundred thousand Babus pummeling him with fists made of earth and air. As he did before, Karim curled up on his side, trying to shieldhimself from the blows.
The barrage seemed to go on forever.
At one point, the dune beside him toppled, and Karim found himself nearly buried in the sand. Panicked, he tried to rise, but the storm shoved him back down.
He sat on the ground, trying to stay upright as more and more sand blew over him, covering his feet, his ankles, his waist. It happened so quickly that by the time he realized he was trapped, it was too late to free himself. He strained, reaching up to push away the avalanche of sand, but it kept coming. Soon it was up to his chest, his neck.
He opened his mouth to take one last gasping breath before it buried him completely.
***
“Karim!”
The voice was muted, distant. Suspended in darkness, Karim couldn’t see, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, and yet, he could hear that voice.
Sitamun.
It was as if time had stopped.
“Karim, where are you?”
Was she getting closer or farther away?She sounded desperate.
His left hand, at least part of it, was above the surface of the sand. He could feel a hot breeze blowing across his skin, and the sun beating down on it. Not knowing what else to do, he wriggled his fingers. Then he snapped them.
He felt the earth tremble with the approach of galloping feet. A moment later, something cold and wet sniffed at his hand. A dog started barking.
“Behkai! What did you find?”
There was more pounding followed by a small quake ofsomeone falling to their knees. A smooth hand slipped into his and squeezed.
“Hold on! I’m going to get you out of there!” Sita scrabbled at the sand, digging furiously.
As the sand loosened around him, Karim was able to move his arm, then his shoulder, until—with the princess’s help—he heaved himself up and out of the shallow grave.
Karim knelt on the ground, tearing his robes from his face, then fell on all fours and began coughing and vomiting sand, so much sand that he wondered if he’d ever get it all out.
Sita stood beside him, panting. Behkai whined and pawed the ground, as if eager to lick Karim’s face but uneasy about the foul-smelling stuff pouring out of him.
Finally, Karim stopped retching and took a long, ragged breath. He expected his eyes to be swollen and his lungs to burn, but after a little while, his breathing normalized and the pain faded. He sat back, wiping the trail of spittle from the side of his mouth.
Sensing his opportunity had come, Behkai leaped forward to offer an abundance of moist canine affection.
“All right, all right,” Karim said after allowing the dog to have his moment.
Sita was covered in sand, her black hair wild and windswept. “Are you all right? I thought I’d lost you!”
Karim nodded and staggered to his feet. “I think so, sena,” he said, shaking the grit from his robes. “We’re lucky the storm blew by so quickly. If I’d been buried down there any longer, I don’t think I would have made it.”
Sita stared at him. “The storm went on for an hour, maybe more. When it finally ended, I searched everywhere for you. I’d nearly given up when Behkai found you.”
“That can’t be. It had only been a few minutes when the dunecollapsed on top of me. There’s no way I was under there for an hour. I would be—”
Their eyes met.
The word hung unspoken between them.
