I swallowed. “Promise me you won’t go walking in the woods at night when we get back home.”
Suddenly he was wide-awake. “That nightmare?”
“I know it’s foolish, but…”
“You’re talking to someone who’s experienced the great-grandfather of all nightmares,” he interrupted.
I knew. I’d finally managed to get him to tell me. In his recurring nightmares he was Teremun, an Egyptian princeling, half-brother to the Boy King. As the nightmares unfolded, Teremun became the plaything of Khentemsemet, Anubis’s high priest, and underwent much at his hands. The final nightmare resulted in the king learning of the humiliation and degradation his brother had suffered and condemned Khentemsemet to the horrible death of being buried alive, which would result in no possibility of crossing over to the kingdom of Osiris. Before the sentence could be carried out, Khentemsemet slid a lethal knife into Teremun, causing the death of the princeling.