Elynna looked over the airship’s railing as it began its descent into Luxor. Normally she loved flying by air, watching the pale desert dunes roll away beneath her and trying to spot every shimmering oasis scattered across the sand like sapphires. She loved the feeling of a warm breeze blowing through her long white hair and across her coat, ruffling the dark rings that stood out from the white-gray fur covering her tall, statuesque physique. She loved turning heads as the men and women aboard tried to hide their stares, transfixed by the sight of both her and her weapons – sometimes a bow, sometimes a sword, always a few knives within easy reach. Beastmen weren’t unusual in Egypt, but a snow leopard like herself was exotic and alluring, inspiring whispered guesses at what had brought her so far from her people’s mountain homes.
Today was not normal. Elynna drew out an envelope from a pocket, joylessly reading the letter within it for the hundredth time.
Elly,
I’m off on another trip to Egypt, this time solo. Hell with those stuffed jackets at the H.S. and hell with their funding. I’ve been doing this long enough I can poke around a dig site without a hundred signatures giving me permission.
I don’t expect this to be dangerous work, but I’m sending you this note on a clockwork pigeon and you should get it the day after I complete my survey. I trust no-one else with this knowledge or responsibility.
But in my estimation, the next time I see you it’ll be me buying the beer for a change.
—Thomas
The word permission had been scrawled so hard it had nearly torn the paper, which made Elynna sigh. Thomas Gladstone was a man who took exactly one answer for important questions: an enthusiastic Yes, followed by a toast to the generous patron of archaeology for having such good sense. He was handsome and gregarious, which helped him make friends, and absolutely devoted to the pursuit of ancient history, which helped him lose them.
There was a map scrawled on the back of the letter that showed four sites scattered along offshoots of the Nile northeast of Luxor. Three of them were less than a day out from the city, but the fourth worried Elynna. It was nestled in a crook of the Red Sea Hills, nearly a hundred miles from anything resembling civilization.
The letter had reached her home a day ago, and she had called every hotel in Luxor trying to get ahold of Thomas. It had taken a day to travel to Egypt on short notice. Perhaps already too late – in his line of work “missing” was usually a polite way of saying “didn’t leave a body.” The leopard woman shook her head. Her hair billowed in the breeze.
The airship touched down with a jerk, knocking everyone but Elynna a few steps to the side. She put the letter back in her pocket and strode to the gangplank. There was work to do.
Luxor was an ancient city that had been revitalized by modern technology – the power of steam and gasoline had transformed much of the surrounding desert into fertile farmland in a few short years, and there was population boom underway. Every street was crushed full of hurrying and shouting people who weaved around camel- and horse-drawn carts full of goods tied with precarious strings.
Elynna was meeting a contact on the far side of the city, and she wanted to run there with every fiber of her being but the zig-zagging streets and alleys had been built, maintained, demolished, and rebuilt over centuries. She could scarcely cover more than twenty or thirty yards at a time before being interrupted by a cluster of market stalls that forced her to adjust her course. After an hour of steady walking, she stepped around a rickshaw and nearly bumped into the solid brick side of an old military fort, covered with posters in flowing script that fought for any scrap of attention. A bazaar.
The building lay directly between Elynna and her destination, and there was so much commotion she couldn’t even see to the foundation’s corners on either side; there was no telling how long it would take to circumvent. She took a deep breath and pushed through the damask curtain, standing inside and allowing her vision to adjust to the smoky gloom. The smells of food, coffee, cooking oil, and spice hung thick in the air. Particles of sand and dust drifted lazily through colored beams of light that pierced the red and purple silk covers a few feet overhead. Luxor’s commotion faded away as Elynna cut through the center of the bazaar, ignoring outstretched hands and the enticements they held. It was the work of minutes to find her way to the far side and the blinding sunlight beyond the curtain. She prepared to step out.
“A lovely leopard walks past me, does she?” Elynna stopped and glanced to her left. Nestled in the corner next to the exit was a stall that looked little different from the rest lining the sides of the bazaar. A man sat behind it, canine and unassuming. She couldn’t place his species. “The leopard stalks mountains and high snows, but today she is blinded by sweet-smoke and candy glass.” He met eyes with her and winked.
“What are you selling?” Elynna walked over, puzzled enough to be distracted for the moment.
“The leopard will learn I am only a seller of needs, and she needs little.” Elynna looked down and realized the wooden surface which should have been filled with trinkets and jewelry was bare. That didn’t make sense. She could have sworn she saw it covered in loose objects out of the corner of her eye when he had first hailed her – but she wasn’t sure she she could name any single one.
“How . . . ?”
“The leopard has been too long away from clear ice, she has.” He smirked with a jawline that didn’t quite make physical sense, carnivore on one side and herbivore on the other.
Suddenly Elynna knew. She leaned forward and grabbed ahold of his shoulder. “You’re a jackal.”
The man broke into a sharp laugh as his fur and body melted, shuffling through canine species before arriving at a solid russet with a black stripe down his back. “The leopard has eyes to pierce the snow and sands alike, she does.” He rummaged beneath the stall and brought up a strange object: a silver rod about a foot long and no wider than Elynna’s finger, with a glass bubble on the end a few inches across. The bubble was divided into four parts, each filled with grayish oil shimmering in slightly different colors.
Elynna raised an eyebrow. “What is this?”
“The leopard will find a bright sky in her hand, if she can strike true.” The jackal man tapped the rod against his knuckles, jostling the chemicals to a turbulent shine before letting them settle. “Does she see?”
Elynna took the rod and looked it over. Obviously some kind of old world chemistry that had not survived the advent of the flashlight – hit it against something solid and it lights up. An antique at best, to set on a mantle and inspire stories for grandchildren. Not worth her time or attention, least of all in a desert where the “bright sky” was an ever-present danger.
Yet the old ways had their own appeal. She brought out her coinpurse. “How much?”
“The leopard does not know the dance of prices and words. She limps.”
“I’ve no time for haggling. How much?”
The man seemed sad. “For the running leopard, five Ducats.”
Another oddity; she was a hurried customer with too much money and he had asked for barely enough to cover a day’s worth of food, but Elynna’s curiosity had run dry and she wanted to get moving again. She counted out the coins and stowed the skyrod in her pack before walking into the sun and leaving the darkness behind.

[Inkbunny destroys the formatting of my work, so you can read the full story for free on my website. Link in the description.]