Chapter eight
Peter and I were sitting in a small seedy bar next to Memphis's large harbor, we were dressed as foreign merchants. Peter wore a large fake beard and I had used makeup to darken his pale skin, I wore the clothing of a slave.
We sat drinking cups of thick dark beer, I heard a commotion at the bars entrance, I looked up and saw two palace guards walk in armed with spears. They surveyed the sparse crowd and then walked towards us.
"Names please," one of them asked sternly.
"We are not the people you are looking for," I said.
The guards stared at me for a moment then turned and walked away. It always amazed me that if you said something with great confidence and forcefulness people would generally believe you.
I looked around the bar, I saw two men sitting across from each other talking in loud voices, I realized they were arguing, one of them stood up suddenly he pointed his finger in a threatening manner at the other man and muttered something in a menacing voice, then he turned and walked away.
I grabbed Peter's sleeve signalling him to follow me, then I stood up and walked over to the now solitary man, Peter and I sat down across from him.
"You are a Captain... you have a ship?" I asked.
"That depends..." he said arrogantly.
"On what?"
"What are you willing to pay?"
"One hundred deben."
He laughed.
"You might have fooled those guards, but you can't fool me, the palace is looking for you... two hundred."
"I want to see your ship first... and we leave right away."
He downed his beer and then stood up, "follow me."
Peter and I were soon standing on a stone pier staring at a fifty foot long single masted wooden ship. I noticed the wood it was made of looked old and cracked.
"This is a piece of junk," I said.
"Looks aren't everything girly... she's a fast boat, I've made Crete in seven days."
"If it sinks, I want my money back," I said as Peter and I climbed aboard.
There was a large man with a full beard working on the boats rigging, the Captain whistled at him causing him to turn, he grunted something incomprehensible, then jumped onto the pier and started untying the boat.
The ship had a crew of ten people, they soon had the boat pushed away from the pier and were rowing out towards open water. We had gone only a few hundred yards when I noticed another ship leaving the pier as well.
It was a royal ship, I could tell from the insignia painted on the prow, it was headed in our direction.
"Drop the sail," I said to the Captain.
"There's no wind," he said derisively.
I used my bracelet to summon a stiff breeze, the rigging started to whip back and forth.
"How about now?"
The Captain stared at me, his eye's the size of saucers.
"How... how..." he stammered.
Thankfully the crew noticed the wind picking up and had started to unfurl the large square sail. We were soon leaving the pier and our tail far behind.
"Where are we going?" The Captain asked, he stood as far away from me as he possibly could.
"To the north, we want to travel down the Via Maris."
"I will stop at Dor... three days sail, you can join a caravan," the Captain said bruskly.
We were fortunate to have a strong wind that blew in the exact right direction, or so I told the Captain, from his expression I knew he didn't believe me. He was right or course, the wind had been conjured up by me, thankfully it cut our journey time down to two days.
We spent one uncomfortable night sleeping on the boat as it was anchored near the shore, people of this era did not sail at night unless they had no choice.
I was grateful when we finally pulled into the city of Dor.
Dor could only have been called a city in this time period, my eyes, which had been acclimated to the future, saw a small fortified village of about a thousand people. There were large fenced in areas near the cities walls which held hundreds of camels.
Peter and I jumped off the boat and onto the small pier that it had been tied up to, the Captain did not even wave goodbye. The entire crew had spent the whole voyage staring at us whilst occasionally making what I assumed were some sort of religious gestures.
"Geez get a lucky wind and everybody thinks you're a witch," I muttered to Peter.
"Aren't you worried they'll gossip?"
"It was a pretty underwhelming spell, it ain't gonna be much of a story."
"Ya... I guess... evil witch summons a wind, then leaves."
We walked towards the cities small gate, I saw archers on top of the walls keeping a close eye on the goings on below. We walked through the gate without incident, there were no guards, once inside we soon saw the only reason this city existed.
There were literally thousands of crates, bales, rolls and baskets of every kind of good imaginable. I saw spices, fine woods, carpets, clothing, I felt the same feeling I had when I would walk around the enormous warehouse stores of the future.
There was an enormous bustle of activity everywhere, men carrying bundles of leather harnesses, groups of people packing goods into baskets or carrying leather bags of water. I saw what looked like an administrative building in the distance. I grabbed Peters hand and pulled him along.
We were soon standing in front of an open window of the administrative building, there was a short bald officious looking man on the other side. He had a stylus cocked behind one ear.
"State your business," he said without looking up.
"We would like to join a caravan," I said.
"Goods?"
"No, just passage, two people."
"Two hundred deben, fifty deben administrative fee payable to me, it leaves tonight just before sunset."
I had conjured up a small sack of copper deben previously, I paid him fifty deben.
"Names?" He still hadn't looked up.
"Kem and Peter," I said.
He grabbed the stylus from behind his ear dipped it into an inkwell then wrote our names in a column on a piece of papyrus, he wrote the number twenty five beside each. He finally looked up examining us carefully.
"Fee of two hundred deben is to be paid to caravan chief Heb, no refunds... Next!" He yelled, waving us away.
Peter and I walked away.
"All those administrative records, kept meticulously for millennia, it seems like such a waste." I said.
We spent the rest of the day walking around the town and looking at all the goods. Everything was for sale, I bought some spices and bolts of cloth that I knew I would never be able to find in the present. I dispelled them back to my quarters surreptitiously after I had purchased them.
When night fell we walked outside the city walls and started looking for our caravan, it turned out to be an easy task, there was only one leaving.
The caravan was a long line of approximately fifty camels all had loads of cargo piled onto their backs. The camels were tied together with ropes and harnesses making them look like a decorative chain. There were ten animal handlers.
Peter and I walked up to the caravan's leader in order to pay our fee.
"Are you Heb?" I asked.
"You have your fee?" He said without looking, he was adjusting a harness on one of the animals head.
"Yes here," I handed him some small blocks of copper, he whipped out a small weigh scale and put them onto it.
"Two hundred... on the dot, perfect, remember keep near at all times we can't afford to wait."
"We're not going to ride?"
Heb's eyes grew wide.
"Ride?! An animal... are you crazy?"
"Well... um... they seem to carry cargo without a problem," I had forgotten we were so far back in the past animals had not been used for human transport yet.
"Don't let them fool you... you think they are dumb animals, they are evil dangerous beasts, look at this one's eyes, even now he is plotting a way to throw o
ff his cargo and trample me to death."
I looked at the camels eyes, Heb was right, I could see a cunning wickedness, the camel licked it's lips and stared at me defiantly.
"The only thing more dangerous is a horse... thankfully they're only used for food," Geb said laughing.
Heb had made a strong argument, riding animals was dangerous and foolhardy, I had been feeling trepidation at just the thought of it, now I felt relieved.
"So which ones are we riding?" Peter asked.
"Um... we are too far back in the past, animals are just used to carry things."
"Well I can fix that, I've broken a few horses in my day, these camels shouldn't be very hard they're already trained to carry things," Peter had walked up to one of the treacherous beasts and was soon petting it's snout.
The feeling of trepidation started to come back.
"Well normally that would be true... but um... these are specially trained attack camels... they um... will trample anyone that touches their backs... um... you know... so nobody takes their stuff."
"Attack camels huh..." I could see Peter was trying to suppress a smile.
Somehow Peter had produced a handful of grain and was in the process of bewitching the horrible beast, Heb was staring at him with a look of amazement.
Peter undid the camels pack saddle and plucked it off putting in on the ground. The camel stared at him suspiciously, he grabbed the animals harness and tied makeshift reins onto it, then he produced another handful of grain. The camel munched the grain out of his hand while Peter whispered into the animals ear.
While I was looking at Peter and the camel an image of a confidence man bamboozling an overconfident mark popped into my head.
Peter let the harness go and in a quick graceful leap was on the animals back, he was very agile for a large man, I thought to myself.
The camel jerked its head up in surprise and started to stomp around in anger, in an instant Peter had jumped off and was standing next to it again with another handful of grain.
The camel stared at him, then slowly dipped his head to eat the grain all the while eyeing him suspiciously. Peter stroked the animals snout whispering into its ear, then he leaped onto it's back again. The camel stood stock still, it appeared be indecisive, not sure of what to do. Peter cautiously reached over and grabbed the reins then he gently tapped the animals sides with his heels.
The camel took off in an erratic gallop braying in anger, Peter clung to the animal like a predator to its prey. The animal ran at what I assumed, for a camel, was a blistering pace, this lasted for about a minute, then it stopped, it was breathing heavily.
Peter stroked its neck still holding onto the reins, he waited for a minute then lightly kicked it again, the animal brayed and then broke into a slow walk back towards the caravan.
Peter jumped off the camel when it returned to its spot in the caravan, he stroked it's neck as he tied a rope to its harness. I looked into the beast's dark eyes, I did not see the cunning wickedness anymore.
"How... it's not possible... how," Heb stammered.
"What should I tell him," I asked Peter.
"Tell him it's a herd animal, you can be like a pack of wolves and control them with fear, or you can join the herd."
I translated this to Heb.
"Hmm... join the herd, interesting, I would not have believed this possible."
"I don't want to ride them," I said to Peter.
"Good idea... attack camels can be tricky," he smiled at me, "we don't have proper saddles anyway, and they still have to be trained to respond to the reins."
"We will only walk for a day or two, then be on our own," I said.
"Why are we travelling this way anyway?" Peter asked, a curious expression on his face.
"In the city of Magic, I found a building full of surveillance devices, from what I could tell they were designed to spot magical effects, some of them were still on, they were monitoring most of the middle east and the Mediterranean, if Semiramis had access to them in this era we might give ourselves away."
"Magical effects?"
"Ya... things flying around or appearing out of nowhere... it wasn't super sophisticated."
I heard Heb yell suddenly, saying it was time to leave, the sun had finally dipped below the horizon lighting it up in a beautiful orange glow.
The camels shuffled a bit not wanting to start walking, Heb had a long thin whip in his hand and was preparing to whack the lead animal on the nose, he stopped suddenly. He put the whip down walked up to the camel and patted in on the snout, then adjusted it's pack.
The animal stared at him suspiciously, Heb grabbed its reins and said in a loud voice, let's go. The long train of animals slowly started to walk.