Semerket, who had never before been frightened by the landscape of sleep, was now afraid to close his eyes for more than a few minutes. He discovered that by sitting up all night on the brick bench in Hetephras’s reception room, he could wake more quickly when the lioness sprang, and so elude her fangs yet another night. Since that day when Prince Pentwere had bedecked him with amulets and charms, he had been prey to sharp, mysterious pains in his body, while his skull throbbed with headaches. It seemed at times that he felt a kind of suffocation enveloping him, as if his lungs could not breathe in enough air. During the day he went about his investigations red-eyed and grim, tired from his dream running, his temper short. Qar, who had been trained by his sorceress mother to confront his nightmares, found his dream-spears powerless against the lioness. They fell short of their mark, or veered away at the last moment, or broke like straw against her. The only defense against her claws and teeth was to remain awake—or to run.
