Khai said nothing, and eventually Adonda Gomba continued:
“Well, boy, and things have gone badly for you, eh?”
Khai could only hang his head and nod. “I . . . I’ve run away from the pyramid, yes. From the Pharaoh’s high priest, Anulep. He . . . he is horrible! And Khasathut is a monster!”
“Oh? And you’ve only just learned that, have you?” Sarcasm dripped from the black’s tongue.
“What will you do with me?” Khai asked, his eyes searching the streets and shadows, his mind racing to discover a way out of his predicament.
“That depends on you, boy,” the other answered. “On what you want to do now that you’ve broken out. One thing is certain: you can’t stay in Asorbes, and certainly not here in the slave quarter. And as for Arkhenos of Subon—a friend of your father?—why, his house is the first place they’ll look for you!”
“You won’t hand me over?” Khai could hardly believe his luck.
“Little fear of that,” the other answered. “There are no rewards for slaves—especially black ones. No, I’ll not take you in. But come, we’re out in the open and that’s not wise. While I’m a king of sorts, still there are those who would depose me if they could. They wouldn’t take to you as kindly as I do, Khai Ibizin. You can thank your Khemish gods that your father was good to me!”
“He was good to everyone,” Khai answered, turning his face away.
“Ah, yes,” the Nubian rumbled more quietly. “I was forgetting.” For a moment the two were silent and the black man put his arm about the boy’s shoulders. “I, too, lost my father when I was your age,” he finally said. “A stone turned over on the ramp and trapped him. He was worn out, slow-moving and dull-witted. The stone did him a favor.”
Without another word, the black led the boy into the shadows, guiding him through a jagged gap in a wall and along a narrow alley toward a dimly burning oil lamp fixed over a hide-covered doorway. “I’m a Nubian,” said Adonda Gomba, holding the hide cover to one side. “My ancestors always kept lamps burning outside their houses to light them home. As they did in Nubia, I also do in Asorbes,” but he spat out the last word as if it were poison. “This is my house, Khai Ibizin. Not so grand as your own home, I’ll grant you, but if nothing more it’s a safe place to lie your head down for the night. Before that, though, I’d like you to tell me why you ran. And why do you call Pharaoh ‘a monster’?”
“I’ll tell you anything you wish to know,” Khai answered, “but why are you interested?”
“I’m interested in all such things, Khai,” the Nubian told him, ushering him in through the doorway and lifting down the lamp to bring it with him. By its light the boy saw a small room with a wooden table and three makeshift chairs. The ceiling was of stitched hides sagging from old beams, through which the night sky showed in several places. A second covered doorspace led on to the kitchen, from which came the smell of cooking and the rattle of wooden implements.
Adonda Gomba sat Khai down in one of the crude chairs and crossed to the curtained kitchen door. He parted the curtain and put his head through, saying something in lowered tones to whoever it was who worked by the glowing red light of a wood fire. “My wife, Nyooni,” he told Khai as he rejoined him. “Most other slaves are asleep now for they need all the strength they can muster, but I no longer need so much sleep at nights. I only work when I want to, which is when the work suits me and carries small rewards. My masters trust me, do you see, Khai? It makes life easier and gives me time to make plans, for myself and for all of the others.”
All of a sudden, the boy felt perfectly safe, and with this feeling of security came weariness. He was tired, drained—and he was starving. He sniffed at the air, savoring the odor that drifted to him from the unseen kitchen.
“Are you hungry, boy?” the black asked. “I thought so. You’ll have some bread and a piece of lamb in a moment. One of Pharaoh’s beasts,” he grinned, “that got its head trapped in the hands of one of my men!” Finding Adonda Gomba’s grin infectious, Khai attempted a wan smile.
“However,” the black continued, “you’ll have to pay me for your food. You’ll pay with information. We slaves gather all sorts of information about Pharaoh—about his guards and the pyramid—against the day when we strike back!”
“When you strike? Slaves?”
“Oh, yes, indeed. That day will come, Khai, believe it. When the time is right, we’ll rise up against Khasathut, and when we do, there’ll be no holding us!” His voice had grown so grim that the youth could only believe him.
“But there,” the black went on, “I’ve told you my secret, and now you must tell me yours. If you truly hate Pharaoh as much as I think you do, Khai, then you’ll tell me all you can of him and his ways. Now then, what do you say?”
part
FIVE
I
ADHAN’S REVENGE
Now the night was far behind and already the sun climbed half-way toward its zenith. Adonda Gomba, weary but well pleased with himself, hurried through the streets of the slave quarters back toward his poor house. He had made all of the necessary arrangements to get Khai out of the city in one piece, and now only one task remained: to give the boy the latest information about his brother and tell him how Adhan had taken his revenge. It was not a task that Gomba relished, but at least it would be repayment for those things Khai had told him.
The huge black was more than satisfied with the information he had gleaned from Khai. The boy had been able to supply him with details of the pyramid’s internal structure hitherto unknown; moreover, he had updated other information which had been false or inaccurate. Gomba had plans of all the pyramid’s many rooms and passageways, but his drawings of the lower levels—which had been designed and built all of three generations ago—were very sketchy indeed and subject to errors.
Not that Khai had physically been inside those mysterious levels long enough to study them or gain more than merely fleeting impressions, but over the years for as long as he could remember he had been allowed to pore over his father’s drawings; and a great deal of what he had seen had committed itself to his memory. The black “king” of the slaves had kept the boy at it all through the dark hours, tapping that memory, until Khai was quite literally exhausted.
He had questioned him not only with regard to the pyramid but also about Pharaoh himself; about his Vizier or so-called “high priest,” Anulep; also about those dreadful occurrences which Khai had witnessed in the monstrous bridal chamber. Khai had found it strange indeed that Gomba accepted his version of that hideous ritual of blood without reservation—without even registering more than a flicker of surprise at the more grisly details—until the black explained that his story merely confirmed the slave community’s worst suspicions, perhaps the suspicions of all Asorbes. Certainly a large majority of the city’s more privileged citizens suspected that the Pharaoh was a monster (in mind if not in form) and they feared him desperately; but he was their king and a god omnipotent; and as all men know, the gods work in exceedingly strange ways.
What had surprised Gomba was Khai’s account of Khasathut’s physical abnormalities, for these had been a secret kept very closely guarded indeed. It explained, though, why the people had never been permitted to see Pharaoh’s true form, why he had always hidden behind the great, larger-than-life, godlike exteriors constructed for him by his artists and carpenters. And of course those craftsmen were all members of Pharaoh’s personal retinue, dwellers in the pyramid. If, indeed, they still lived!
These many thoughts passed through Gomba’s mind as he neared the rude dwelling he called home. Now, in return for Khai’s invaluable information, he must tell the boy what he had discovered of Adhan: how his brother had crawled home on all fours from the foot of the great ramp, making his way—bloody, delirious with horror and in hideous agony—to this father’s now-empty house near the east wall.
And indeed the house had been empty. Only one of Harsin Ben Ibizin’s paid retainers had remained there
after the news had made it swiftly back to the house; the rest had looted the place of everything worth taking and had fled. Possibly they would soon flee the city itself. Better to be well out of it than to have been a member of the Ibizin household! At the last, soldiers had come for the slaves and they had been taken off to the city’s slave quarters, where from now on they would serve only the Pharaoh.
Mellina the old cook had been the only one to stay, for she had nowhere else to go. And Mellina it was who cleaned Adhan’s terrible wound and put him to bed. There he had remained, semi-conscious all through the late afternoon and evening, tossing in his fever and babbling of treachery and red revenge. Imthod Haphenid he named as the traitor, and swore that the junior architect would soon suffer the consequences of his devil’s work—that he, Adhan, would be the author of an awful vengeance.
Sitting by his bedside, Old Mellina had awakened from an uneasy sleep some time after the midnight hour. She found the house empty and the door standing open. Leaving only a spattering of scarlet droplets to mark his trail, Adhan had gone out into the night. Mellina went into the dark streets after him, but she could not find him.
Indeed, Adhan’s whereabouts were not discovered until mid-morning, when a messenger from the pyramid went to the house of Imthod Haphenid to bring the architect to Anulep. Haphenid was to be promoted to Harsin Ben Ibizin’s former position, and Anulep was to present him with Khasathut’s royal seal, proclaiming him Grand Architect of the Pyramid. Ah, but this was not to be! The messenger found Haphenid, most certainly, but he also found Adhan Ibizin.
By then Adhan was dead, seated stiffly in a chair in Haphenid’s study, but the grim smile on his chalky face told of a revenge which had been grisly as it was sweet. Then, in a state of shock, Anulep’s messenger stumbled about the house, and wherever he went he was met with pieces of the man he had come to find.
The traitor’s hands were in the kitchen; nevermore would he use them to sabotage the plans of a better man. His tongue lay on the tiled floor of the hall; it would not lie again to gain Pharaoh’s favor. His eyes were blindly staring nubs of jelly set neatly upon a small table in his bedroom; and they never again would glint green with envy at the marvelous works of a true master. As for his bloodless corpse: only the white feet of that stuck up from the seat in the tiny privy; and his blood filled the stone bowl in which Adhan’s corpse bathed its feet!
Wondering how best to tell Khai all of this (a story which by now was the talk and terror of all Asorbes), Gomba slowed his pace as he drew closer to his house. Had there been observers to see him, they might well have wondered at the way his steps grew shorter with the lengthening of his face.
They might also have noted a slight bulge beneath his tatters which told of something concealed there: Khai’s bow and quiver of arrows, cannily “lifted” from the now-deserted home of the once proud and flourishing Ibizins. When Khai fled the city, he would not go unarmed; Gomba had ensured that his favorite weapon would go with him. The huge black had a knife for him, too, but that was already hidden away. The penalty was death for any slave caught handling weapons, even a “king” of slaves, and Gomba risked his life in doing what he did for Khai.
There were no observers, however, only a handful of skinny, ragged urchins too young to be put to work. Except for these, the filthy streets were deserted, and Gomba’s movements attracted no eyes other than those of a pair of furtive rats that chewed on some nameless morsel in the shadow of a crumbling wall. Kicking a pebble in the direction of the vermin, Gomba cursed himself for a fool that he was risking his neck this way—but then again, perhaps not. The boy’s father had been good to him . . . and who could say? Perhaps the lad really would come back one day to send Pharaoh to hell.
The Nubian shuddered as he recalled the words of Aysha the witch-woman. He had left her hovel only a few short minutes ago and remembered her words most clearly:
“You have taken into your care a great redeemer,” she had told him. “A righter of wrongs, a general, a killer! Ah, he is a rare one. Blond of hair and blue of eyes—a queer fish! And in caring for him you do well, Adonda Gomba, for he will free you in the end. He will free all of us, who have lived our lives as slaves! Mark well my words. . . .” And Gomba had marked them, for there was no way at all that Aysha could possibly have learned of his charge, except by that strange sixth sense of hers which told her far more than any pair of keen eyes ever could!
Old Aysha, yes. Blind and yet all-seeing. Black as old leather and yet bright as a new day. In Nubia she would be a N’ganga of great power. Here in Asorbes . . . she was lucky to be still alive. Ancient, withered, of no earthly use—but the slaves fed and protected her. Hers was the magic of the olden days, and her blind eyes invariably foresaw Pharaoh’s downfall—which in itself was reason enough to keep her alive and well.
But now the picture of the witch-woman faded in Gomba’s mind’s eye as quickly as it had come. Despite his hesitancy, he now found himself at the door of his house. For a moment, he frowned, sighing deeply. Then a sterner look replaced the uncertainty on his face and his shoulders straightened. Life was hard enough without the addition of useless daydreams. He drew the hide that guarded the doorway to one side, stooped and stepped through into the cool gloom beyond.
“Khai,” he barked, his voice rough and sharp-edged. “Hey, boy, wake up! There are things I have to tell you.”
II
RAMANON’S VISIT
With Adonda Gomba’s return, Khai began yet another day and night of terror. It started with the Nubian’s story of Adhan’s revenge which, while initially it left Khai pale, shaken and sick at heart, at the last filled him with a passionate pride and strengthened his already iron resolve: to follow in his brother’s footsteps and seek vengeance, even on Pharaoh himself, no matter how long that might take. The terror only began with Gomba’s story, however, for no sooner was the tale of Adhan’s grisly revenge told than the Nubian received warning from one of his slave subjects—a crippled, one-armed Syran he used as a runner—that a certain captain of Khasathut’s Corps of Intelligence, his secret police, was on his way to see him with a squad of bully-boys who were specialists in the twin arts of interrogation and torture.
Even the big black paled on receipt of this news, and he inwardly cursed himself for ever befriending Khai in the first place; but his plans were already too far gone for alterations, regrets or recriminations. To turn Khai in at this late hour would plainly be to disclose his own part in the boy’s disappearance, which in turn would mean the end of Adonda Gomba. Before letting the crippled runner go, Gomba took Khai’s knife from where he had hidden it and bundled it up with his bow, then tied the bundle to the man’s side under his clothes. Finally, he gave the frightened Syran rapid instructions and ordered him on his way. When the man had gone, Gomba turned to Khai and explained:
“He will see to it that your weapons are smuggled out of the city and given to Mhyna.”
“Mhyna?”
“You’ll meet Mhyna soon enough, Khai, but right now we must get you hidden away.”
He gave the boy a piece of dried meat, a large wedge of bread and a cup of water, then pried up a massive slab of stone from those surrounding it in the floor of his kitchen. In doing so, he revealed a shallow trench beneath which had once been part of the city’s sewage system. Passing directly beneath Gomba’s house, the hiding place was at once ideally and very dangerously situated. Ideal in that Khai could be hidden away without his leaving Gomba’s dwelling in broad daylight, and dangerous in that if he should be discovered there, then the game would be well and truly up, not only for Khai but most certainly and conclusively for Adonda Gomba.
While no sewage had passed through this dried up bowel of a channel for many years, still the stench which instantly billowed out on removal of the slab was that of a charnel house. Gomba saw the way Khai was almost bowled over by the smell and remarked: “You’ll get used to it soon enough, boy. The stink of a few dead rats can’t harm you. It’s the liv
e ones who’ll soon be visiting me that we have to worry about!” Then he had helped Khai to get down into the hole, somehow replaced the slab and covered the floor with the layer of dirt and dust which had previously been there. But if Khai had fancied that his hiding place would be as dark, lifeless, airless and silent as the tomb itself, then he had been wrong on all counts.
At first it was indeed dark, and so warm as to be stifling, but soon Khai became aware of a rotten luminescence that seemed to have its source in the baked brick walls themselves, almost as if the vile glow of putrescence remained after all these years of disuse. And of course it was by this intermittent and unearthly light that he first became aware of the rats. . . .
The rodents bothered him from the start, coming so close and in such numbers that he was sure they intended to attack him; but on each occasion, as soon as he made any threatening movement, they would disappear back to wherever they came from and leave him on his own. The mere fact that they were there, however, somewhere in the snaking sinus of the old sewer, was enough to fill him with a shuddering nausea.
Mercifully, the trench was not airless (though the warm drafts that passed along it were so redolent of rats both living and dead, not to mention the stenches of less easily recognizable refuse, that Khai almost wished it was), and it was far from silent. Instead it seemed to the boy that he had become trapped in the coils of some vast sounding shell—like those of the great snails which were often washed up on the Nile’s banks—where every tiniest sound was magnified tenfold. The creaking of Adonda Gomba’s ancient chair in the room adjacent to the kitchen sounded to him like the groanings of some mighty oak in a great wind, and the thunderous footfalls of the Nubian as he went from room to shabby room in the crumbling ruin overhead were almost deafening. One other sound—a monotonous, dull and apparently distant pounding, which try as he might he could not shut out—bothered him continuously and even had him grinding his teeth; until suddenly he realized that it was only the magnified pounding of his own blood in his ears!