“Anything?”
“Yes.”
“Roll over.”
She complied and he took out a knife, slicing her bonds in a moment. She sat up, rubbed at her wrists and then, seeing that his eyes were back where they least belonged, pulled down the hem of her dress. As he grinned nervously yet again, she reached up and slapped him as hard as she could across the face. He jumped back in surprise, tripped and sat down with a thump on broken reeds. She laughed gleefully and wagged a finger at him.
“Oh, and is this how you Kushites pay your debts?” His eyes were scornful. “And you a king’s daughter and all. Shame on you!”
“I am the Princess Ashtarta!” she cried. “And indeed I pay my debts.”
“You promised me anything.”
“Yes,” she spat, gritting her perfect white teeth.
“Then give me that,” he growled, “which these dead men would have stolen from you. . . .”
Her mouth formed an O and her hand went to her suddenly flushed cheek. “How dare—”
“Huh!” Khai grunted. “Just as I thought.” But deep inside he was pleased. Plainly the girl was not just a little whore, though certainly there were prostitutes of her tender years in Asorbes. Also, he was not so sure that it would have been any good if she had agreed. A mere girl, she would not have Mhyna’s expertise. Expertise? Why, she would know nothing at all!
“Virgin,” he said, “I free you of your obligation.” Then, turning his back on her, he pushed aside the reeds and stepped out into bright sunlight.
A massive hand caught him by the shoulder as he emerged from the reed-clump, spun him about until he stared at the sun. Off-guard and blind, Khai instinctively reached for his knife. In that same instant, he heard Ashtarta’s voice shouting from behind him: “No, Ephrais, don’t kill him. He helped me!”
Hearing her pleas, Ephrais the sentry turned his notched bronze scimitar and checked its weight, so that only the flat of the blade near the hilt struck Khai’s temple, stunning him instantly. The boy’s knife spun from his hand and fell with a splash into the river; but Khai was no longer aware of that, was aware of nothing. Before he could fall, Ephrais threw him across a broad shoulder. Then the big Kushite took Ashtarta’s hand, saying:
“Come on, little princess. You’ll have to explain to your father what happened here. I’ve seen those two brigands in there—Theraens by their looks. Are there any more of them about?”
“I don’t think so,” Ashtarta panted, running to keep up with the striding giant. She saw an ugly lump on Khai’s temple. “Is he hurt bad? Have you killed him?”
“No, but I would have killed him if you hadn’t stopped me.”
“Even though he killed those two creatures who attacked me?”
“Yes, well, I didn’t know that, did I? And anyway, when our enemies fight among themselves, does it make them any less our enemies?” Ephrais paused in his striding, then led Ashtarta away from the river. The girl looked back to see why the sentry was avoiding a certain spot on the riverbank, gasping when she saw the leg of the handmaiden sticking out of a clump of grass. She recognized Launie’s leg by a red bangle round the ankle.
“Launie, she—”
“She’s dead,” Ephrais told her gruffly. “She followed you up the riverbank and I followed her. If you had not chosen to go running off, and if I had thought to follow more swiftly, perhaps the handmaiden would not be dead.”
Ashtarta shuddered. “And if this Khemish boy had not helped me, I would surely be with her.” She began to cry. “Oh, Launie.”
“Too late for that now, girl,” growled Ephrais. “If you must cry, do it for yourself. You’ll have good reason after we report to your father. He’ll have to decide what’s to be done with the boy. Meanwhile, you can tell me what you know about him—what he told you—if he told you anything at all.” He looked at her closely. “You seem very taken with him.”
“He helped me and . . . I made him a promise.”
“Oh? And what was that?”
“I promised him that—that he’d come to no harm,” she lied. But to herself she said: “One day, Khai of Khem—you strange, blue-eyed boy—I might just pay that debt of mine. But not until I’m Queen of all Kush and you’re a general in my army. . . .”
And looking at her out of the corner of his eye, Ephrais wondered why the princess was blushing so furiously.
part
SEVEN
I
DEATHSPELL
As Khai entered the Kushite encampment slumped over the shoulder of Ephrais the sentry, downriver in Asorbes Anulep prostrated himself before Pharaoh in his pyramid audience chamber and suffered a tirade of threats and accusations.
“Gone!” Pharaoh whooshed from behind a smaller, more portable miniature of his ceremonial gown and mask. “The boy Khai, gone?” He sat on a small throne and his impatience and irritation were apparent in the way his robes twitched and shivered. “Missing for several days, you say—and yet I have learned of it only this morning? What sort of intrigue is this, Anulep? I have asked to see the boy—and you cannot produce him!”
“Run away, Omnipotent One,” Anulep gabbled, his bald head close to the floor and his eyes fearfully upturned to gaze at the small but menacing figure of Khem’s God-king. “On the night following the Royal Procession. Run away and fled upriver.”
“But why was I not informed sooner?” Pharaoh whooshed.
“I had hoped to find him, fetch him back,” the Vizier answered. “I would have punished him, made him repent, and the matter need never have concerned Your Most Perfect Being.”
“But it does concern me!” cried Khasathut, “How could he flee? And where is he now? Call the Dark Heptad at once. They will tell me where he is.”
“I have been to the Dark Heptad, master,” Anulep crept fractionally closer. “I have been in constant consultation with them since the boy disappeared. Even they cannot say how he fled—but they do know where he is now.”
“Ah!” Khasathut leaned forward, his octopus eyes boring through the slits of his gilt mask. “And where is he?”
Anulep trembled from head to toe. “He . . . he has met up with a band of Kushite raiders to the south. They have taken him. The Dark Ones saw it in their scrying, and—”
“Kushites!” Khasathut hissed. “Again the damned Kushites!” His good hand crept out from under his robe to grip the arm of his throne until the flesh of his fingers turned completely white.
“The Dark Ones say,” Anulep gulped, “that Melembrin himself commands this party. As you know, Omnipotent One, the Kushite Fox has been raiding in Khem for months.”
“Months? It seems like years!” came Pharaoh’s answer in a whoosh of rage. “And what have we done to put an end to it? Nothing!”
“Master, the hour of reckoning is surely at hand for Melembrin,” Anulep quavered.
“What? How so? Say on, Vizier, while I yet deign to listen.”
“Why, you yourself have lately ordered troops westward, Son of Re!” Anulep answered, straightening his back a little as he gained confidence. “Those same troops you sent out to protect the forts and reinforce the border with Kush. And they close on Melembrin even now.”
“And you say that Khai is with this Kushite king?”
“So the Dark Heptad tell me, master. The raiders have taken him within this very hour.”
Khasathut sank slowly back into his chair and grew silent. “Kush,” he finally mused, his voice a poisonous hiss. “Always Kush! Must every other word I hear be Kush?” He sat up again and his voice was loud once more. “Let there be an end to it. I want the tribes of Kush destroyed and scattered to the winds. Let my army work for its keep. Khem has suffered parasite neighbors long enough. Let war be waged. I don’t care if it takes ten years and fifty thousand trained soldiers to do it, but Kush must be whelmed. Let Pharaoh’s might be seen!”
“It shall be as you command, master,” Anulep touched the floor with his forehead.
“Get up, high
priest, and be about your work,” Khasathut said. “Speak to one of my commanders and tell him what I want. We’ll deal with this Kush once and for all, and after that—who can say? I do not like this black upstart N’jakka. Aye, and there’s gold in Nubia, much gold for my pyramid.”
“Master, I go,” Anulep began to back away. “I go to hasten your word. I—”
“Back here, Vizier,” Khasathut hissed. “On your knees.”
Anulep approached, went down before the Pharaoh who placed his good hand upon his polished, shivering head. “Vizier,” said Pharaoh softly, “if I thought for one moment that you were in any way instrumental in the boy’s vanishment—that perhaps you feared for your own high station and thought to thwart my plans—then it would go very badly for you.” He stuck his nails slowly and deliberately into Anulep’s scalp.
“Master, I—”
“Very badly indeed.” And Pharaoh drew the tips of his nails rakingly forward over Anulep’s head, leaving four thin lines of blood to well slowly to the surface. Then he kicked his high priest away from him and shouted: “Now get out! Begone from me—and let my will be done!”
To go down into the chamber of the Dark Heptad of mages was to enter a pit of snakes, and for all that the Vizier had been there many times before, still he shuddered—even Anulep—and paused briefly before entering that room of bubbling vats, flickering shadows and mumbled incantations. The figures of the seven stirred as he entered and their mumblings ceased. One of them, in the voice of an asp, said:
“Are you come again to speak with us, Vizier? So soon?”
“I am come again, aye,” Anulep answered, dabbing at his head with a square of linen.
“We are not doctors, Anulep,” a second mage whispered. “We may not dress your wounds.”
“Look to your own health, wizard!” Anulep snapped.
“Oh? And is something amiss, Vizier?”
“I’ll not waste your time,” Anulep answered. “The Pharaoh suspects that I have deceived him, which you may be sure I have—with your help!”
Almost as a man, the seven figures began to chuckle and titter. Finally, one of them said: “We have not aided you in any deception, Anulep. That would be a hard thing to prove.”
“Oh? And what of the boy, Khai? You could have found him while he was still in Asorbes, if you had bothered to look for him!”
“We knew nothing of the boy!” a third mage whined. “Not until you told us. What interest have we in mere boys, we who serve the immemorial Gods!”
“But I would say that you knew of him,” Anulep smiled his hideous smile, “if ever I believed you worked against me.”
“You have threatened us before, Vizier,” hissed the mage with a snake’s voice, “we who have always served you well. We will not tell Pharaoh of your deceit.”
“No,” Anulep answered, “you will not, for I would be dead within the hour—and you would not last much longer! Even if Pharaoh let you live, still you would not be safe. It takes a powerful magic to sway a dart loosed in flight, or drain a draft of rare poison from an innocent cup of wine.”
“More threats, Anulep?”
“Listen,” the Vizier snarled. “Listen, all of you. I threaten because I am afraid. You see my head? Pharaoh himself did this! His anger is such that he might well be driven to kill. You know well enough the pleasure he takes in killing, but he rarely kills them that serve him. One word carelessly uttered, however, and—” He drew a finger across his throat.
“We understand, Vizier,” said the one whose voice was a whisper, “and you have nothing to fear from us. We wish you a long life.”
“Yes, I’m sure you do,” Anulep sneered. He began to turn away, then paused.
“One other thing. I know you sometimes have the power to influence things to come. Well then, there is something you can do. Less than one hour ago, you told me that the boy Khai had fallen into the hands of the Kushites.”
“That is so,” the shrill-voiced mage answered, his skeletal face half in flickering shadow. “I myself saw it, and no other sees so clearly or so far.”
“Good,” Anulep nodded. “Now listen: Khasathut’s soldiers may well take The Fox this time. If that happens, the boy must die. Do you understand me? Cast whatever spells are necessary—do what must be done—but ensure that Khai Ibizin is not brought back here to Asorbes.”
“And if the raiders are not caught?” one of the seven asked.
“Then I am not interested. Doubtless, the Kushites will kill the boy themselves. I don’t care, except that he shall not grow to manhood in Khem. I will not be replaced by the soft son of some soft architect.”
“We understand,” the Dark Heptad nodded as a man.
“Good, then understand this also: I plotted that Khai should escape. I told him this and showed him that which were designed to make him flee—and flee he did. Except . . . I had hoped he might die escaping. He did not die, and so I ordered officers of Pharaoh’s Corps of Intelligence into the city’s streets to find him. They were to return him to me and I would then have sought to kill him by another means. They did not find him. . . .”
“We could have found him,” hissed the one with a snake’s voice.
“Aye,” Anulep answered, “and so discovered my plot. I did not want you to know of it. If you had been brought in, perhaps Pharaoh would have learned of my part in the matter. He might even have ordered you to protect the boy, which would be contrary to my plans. Now?” and he shrugged, “now it does not matter. Let me simply remind you that if my part in this thing is discovered, then that your own lives are forfeit. I have given orders to that effect.”
“We can only repeat, Vizier, that you have nothing to fear from us,” assured the whisperer.
Anulep slowly nodded. He dabbed again at his scarred head and peered at the mages one by one where their eyes regarded him strangely. Finally, apparently satisfied, he turned and left them.
Long moments after he had disappeared into gloom and his footsteps had faded into silence, the mage with a snake’s voice hissed: “The Fox will not be taken—neither The Fox nor the boy Khai.”
“True,” answered another, silent until this moment. “And the boy will live.”
“If we allow it,” said a third with a voice which bubbled like the many vats sunken into the floor of the place.
“I do not think we could prevent it,” added a fourth. “There is destiny in that boy. I feel it in my bones.”
“That may well be,” hissed the first, “but we had best be sure. I shall prepare a spell. Then, if the boy is taken back from the Kushites, he will not be taken alive.”
“And is this a measure of your fear of Anulep?” asked the whisperer.
“It is,” came a hiss in the darkness. “I fear him more than Pharaoh himself. Khasathut does the things he does because he is insane. Anulep is sane, wherefore he is far more dangerous. . . .”
When Anulep got back to his own sparsely-furnished apartments, he went straight to a secret nook and took out a small wooden box. Removing its lid, he gazed upon a set of polished bronze teeth. They had been made by a master craftsman three years earlier, after Anulep had suffered a severe beating at the hands of Khasathut. The craftsman had died soon after—very suddenly and mysteriously—and now only Anulep knew about his teeth.
He smiled as he slipped them carefully into his mouth. They fitted him perfectly and it was good to feel their cold metal against his shriveled gums. He had to be careful not to trap his tongue, for these were not ordinary teeth. Their biting edges were honed to a razor’s edge!
For a moment or two, Anulep tenderly fingered his scarred head, then removed the teeth from his mouth and put them back in their box. They were for another day: that day when finally Pharaoh would decide to replace his Vizier with someone new. Anulep knew what such “replacement” meant. Ah, but Khasathut would have good reason to kill him. Indeed he would. Using his bronze teeth, Anulep himself would provide that reason.
He looked down at the
awful teeth once again and smiled his monstrous smile, then carefully closed the box. . . .
II
KHAI . . . OF KUSH!
Khai had not regained consciousness until the Kushite raiding party set up its camp again in shrub- and grassland twenty miles west of the Nile. He had been bundled onto a travois-like framework amidst assorted supplies, to be dragged along behind a sturdy hill-pony and its bareback rider, and the bruises he discovered when he awoke resulted from a bumpy ride over fairly rough terrain. All of The Fox’s supplies traveled the same way—his wounded, too, when he had any—for nothing so sophisticated as a wheel was yet known in the days when the Sahara was green.
When the new camp was operational, then Khai had sat himself up, rubbed the lump on his head and felt his aching bones; and the girl who called herself Ashtarta had been there to lead him staggering to the tent of the warrior king. Busy as they were with their work in and about the new camp, Melembrin’s guerrilla warriors had taken little note of the Khemite youth as he was guided through their hustle and bustle. They had heard something of his coming and would learn the full story in due course, but for now there was work to be done and a watch to be set. And Melembrin had already mentioned his desire to seek out and destroy at least one more of Pharaoh’s border patrols before making for the keep at Hortaph.
So Khai had followed Ashtarta into the presence of the mighty Melembrin, and from her obvious familiarity with the king he inferred that she was indeed his daughter. Remembering what had transpired on the riverbank and the way he had spoken to the girl, he was uncomfortably aware of her presence where she seated herself on a cushion to one side of the tent while her father questioned him. Now his story had been told in full and he stood as still as he could under The Fox’s bushy-browed gaze.
The youth didn’t look like much, Melembrin thought. A bit thin and pale for your average Kushite. In fact, he looked like nothing Melembrin had ever seen before; not with his blue eyes, fair skin and blond hair. He wasn’t an albino, for a certainty, and his wiriness in no way suggested fragility. At the moment, he was probably underfed, and the bags under his eyes had doubtless resulted through lack of sleep before and during his flight from Asorbes. Actually, he was quite a handsome lad and would soon make a handsome man. His shoulders would broaden out soon enough and his forearms already had a width to them that the Kushite king liked.