“Aye, tell me about that,” she broke in on him. “Tell me how Khai was taken, kidnapped, while you yourself—”
“Majesty! Majesty!” A handmaiden entered the tent unbidden, plainly confused and flustered. She approached nervously, bowing low. “Majesty, the wise men are here. They have come, as bidden—but the horsemen are not yet returned. The wise men say that . . . that they knew you desired their presence—and so they have come!”
V
KHAI’S SICKNESS
Evening was creeping in when Manek Thotak was awakened by one of his men. Ashtarta had sent him out of her tent upon the arrival of the seven mages so that she could be alone with them. Imthra had been allowed to stay, even though his own talents were as nothing compared with those of the seven. Manek, too, would have preferred to stay, but he was a warrior and had nothing to offer where the occult arts were concerned. The Candace had told him that she would call for him when she was ready, or when she had news. Now, having come to some decision or other based on whatever the seven had told her, she wanted to see him.
It was not without some trepidation that Manek prepared himself, splashing his face with water from a jar, combing his beard and making of his appearance what he could before leaving his little makeshift tent and heading for Ashtarta’s marquee. He was chiefly worried about the mages and their conclusions. Not so long ago, he might scornfully have dismissed the feasibility of magic in any shape or form; and certainly he would rather place his trust in a strong arm and a keen blade than rub shoulders with wizards, conjurers and old mummers like Imthra. Lately, however, he had seen more than enough of injurious magic to make him change his mind, and he now knew that without the seven mages the war with Khem could never have been won.
Their powers were so completely . . . inexplicable—so much more than human. Why, rumor had it that like Khasathut and the five Pharaohs before him, these seven mages were descended from the Ancient Ones themselves! That was why (or so the fable went) they were so different from ordinary men. Nor were their differences confined to fantastic powers alone. . . .
Manek had seen the seven arrive as he left Ashtarta’s tent, and they struck him now as forcefully as the first time he had seen them. A stranger crowd he could never wish to meet. They were gathered from the seven lands on Khem’s borders: from Siwad, Kush, Daraaf, Nubia, Therae, Arabba and Syra, and yet in many ways they were as like as locust beans in a pod. Alike in that they were all very old, and yet sprightly and keen-minded in their old age. Alike in their bearing, which was proud and upright; alike, too, in the hugeness of their heads. All of which set them aside almost as a different species. But then, if they were indeed descended from the Ancient Ones, surely that was only to be expected.
Entering the marquee of the Candace, Manek bowed before her and turned to the seven mages. Though he had not seen them since the commencement of the latest hostilities, he knew well enough the part they had played in the destruction of the Pharaoh’s armies. He saluted each one in turn, acknowledging his own and Kush’s debt, and those of the lands of Siwad and Nubia. He kept his eyes averted from theirs as best he could, however, while yet scrutinizing them and attempting to gauge their mood and degree of penetration of Khai’s condition.
But no, they were utterly inscrutable, particularly the yellow man. Had they arrived at any decision at all, Manek wondered? Certainly they had taken enough time over their deliberations. Again he let his eyes flicker quickly over the faces of the seven where they stood in their long white robes, arms folded on their chests, along one side of the tent.
Manek knew none of their names but easily recognized their origins. From left to right they were the yellow mage, from a land far to the east but recently an oracle in Arabba; the pale, long-bearded Theraean mage; the black, frizzy-haired Nubian from his country’s southern forests; a leathery, spindly mage from the swampy borderlands of Siwad; a sure-footed, keen-eyed brown mage from the mountain regions of Daraaf; a wind-carved, sun-scorched Syran from the hot eastern shores of the Great Sea; and finally Kush’s own hermit-mage, a wanderer of the hills, valleys and plains to the west. And here they were all gathered to council Ashtarta, come to her in her hour of need. Looking again at those seven huge heads, Manek Thotak felt a shudder run up his spine as he wondered at the workings of such great brains.
“General Manek,” came the Queen’s voice, drawing his attention, “you appear quite pale. Is something amiss?”
“Nothing, Majesty, except—I worry for the general Khai.”
She nodded. “We all do, and with good cause.”
Looking at her where she stood beside the stricken man, Manek saw the strain in her face, the great depth of the shadows under her young eyes. He crossed to Khai’s couch and looked down at him, then again faced the Candace. For a moment they stared into each other’s eyes.
“General,” quavered old Imthra, breaking the spell. He shuffled forward out of a shadowed area of the tent. “General, Khai Ibizin is not sick—not as we understand sickness. Indeed, the physicians could never help him, for his malady is quite outside their realm. However, I was shown a vision at the Pool of Yith-Shesh, and my reading of this vision has now been confirmed by the seven mages. There is a chance, of course, that we are all wrong, in which case there is no helping the general Khai. If we are right, however—”
“Then?” Manek prompted the old man, his mouth suddenly dry and tasteless as he waited for Imthra to continue.
“Then we will need a volunteer for a perilous mission.”
“A mission?”
“Aye, Manek,” the sweet voice of the Candace, husky with emotion, rejoined the conversation. “You have known Khai since he came to us out of Khem. You have been rivals at the games, warriors fighting side by side, friends and generals together. You know him as well as any man knows him. Would you offer yourself now for this special task?”
“I . . . I would do anything you wish of me, Majesty, you know that. But what is this mission you speak of?”
“May we explain, Majesty?” The new voice, which belonged to the yellow mage, was a rustle of leaves, a mere wisp of sound. And now, as one man, the seven stepped forward, moving to form a circle around the still figure on the couch, enclosing Imthra, Manek and the Candace also.
The yellow mage positioned himself directly opposite Manek Thotak. Then, turning his great head to look at the Candace, his slanted eyes bright in the lamplight, he said: “With your permission, Majesty?”
“Please go on,” she said at once. “Time is wasting.”
Now the nodding heads of the seven all seemed to lean inwards, closing on Manek Thotak like the petals of some carnivorous bloom about an insect. The yellow mage said to him, “The Pharaoh’s wizards have taken Khai Ibizin’s soul. They have performed the death rite of the nobility over him—while yet he lived! They have sent his ka down the centuries, to inhabit the body of another yet unborn.”
Manek stared into the eyes of the yellow mage and said, “And how may I help?”
“We are not completely familiar with this rite,” the whispering voice continued, “for it is an evil thing that the Pharaoh’s wizards have done, in keeping with their evil natures. Still, we believe we may be able to duplicate their dark handiwork.” Now the great heads leaned closer still.
“We wish to send your ka on Khai’s trail, also to be reborn in some far future, and we wish you to find him and bring him back. That is your mission, Manek Thotak, and if it is not done soon then surely will this mortal body of Khai’s turn into a shriveled husk. Without his soul, the general will soon die. You are the ideal choice, for you have known him well and will surely recognize him when you find him.”
Manek’s throat was now completely dry, his tongue glued to the roof of his mouth. His eyes went from those of the yellow man to his six strange colleagues, and from them to Ashtarta.
“Do this for me, Manek,” she said, “and you may name your own reward.”
Now he found his voice. “Candace, you must
know that I would claim the richest prize of all?”
For a moment her eyes widened, but in a little while she answered: “If you so desire, Manek, aye. I have thought for some time that you were an ambitious man. Is it love for me which prompts you, I wonder, or do you simply desire the throne of Kush?” She held up a hand to quiet him before he could answer. “No matter. As you must know by now, my heart was ever Khai’s. And . . . if he were to die I should not want to live. To know he is alive, here, in this world, even though he can never be mine—there is no price I would not pay. Would you still want me for your queen on terms such as these?”
“On any terms, Ashtarta.”
“Then you accept?” Hope lifted her voice.
“I will undertake this mission, aye. And when I return—with or without Khai’s soul—then you promise to make me your king?”
She cast her eyes down, nodding in agreement, then looked him straight in the eye. “I do, Manek. And if knowing it pleases you, I think there are few men in Kush would make better kings.”
“Manek,” said Imthra, shuffling closer, his voice sharper than ever the general remembered it. “Not when you return but if! You understand, of course, there is no guarantee that you will return? No man can say what awaits you in your next life. The perils may well be extreme. . . .”
VI
TIME CAPSULE
“How will it be done, and when?” Manek asked. “I have an army camped where the forests of Khem once stood, and Khai’s thousands wait outside the walls of Asorbes. Though they have their own chiefs with them, still they cannot be expected to wait forever. Who will carry your word to them, Ashtarta, and what will that word be? Without their generals the armies are a rabble, and—”
“If all goes well,” Imthra broke in, “then the armies will not wait long for their generals. So long as Khai’s army surrounds the walls of Asorbes, the Pharaoh stays within. Let him wait! Only the seven mages may answer the rest of your questions.”
The Nubian mage came forward, his voice a deep rumble as he said, “You must put your faith in us, Manek Thotak. We shall perform the rite at dawn, with the rising of the sun—or, if things should go amiss, it may be repeated with the sun’s setting. All should be well, however.” His great brown eyes stared into Manek’s. “I am the Mage of Fascination. I shall come to you with the dawn and bring you here, to Ashtarta’s marquee. I will put you to sleep and impress upon your mind the importance of your quest, that in your new life you shall remember and go about the task set you.” And the Nubian stepped back into line with his brother mages.
To Imthra, the yellow mage said, “There is the matter of a reminder.”
“Ah, yes!” Imthra replied, and he turned to Ashtarta. “Candace, when Manek finds Khai in his future incarnation, he will need something to quicken in him the true essence of Khai. The ka will of course belong to Khai, but our Khai will be asleep. There will have to be something to shock him awake!”
Ashtarta tried to understand him, frowned, shook her head. “What is required?”
Imthra looked at the seven mages. The yellow mage had picked up a facemask of beaten gold from where it lay on a soft cushion. It was in the image of Ashtarta, a funerary device prepared on her orders against the possibility of her armies being defeated by those of the Pharaoh. She had vowed that in such an event and rather than being hunted down and taken alive, she would kill herself in a secret cavern tomb in the mountains. Dying, she would place the mask over her face. As her body decayed still she would wear the golden mask, going into the next world as beautiful as she had been in this one.
“Your mask, Queen!” Imthra exclaimed. “It would seem the ideal instrument.”
“My mask? But how may we send a solid thing such as my mask to follow Khai’s ka down the years? I do not understand.”
Imthra smiled, his old face wrinkling like ancient leather. “We will not send the mask anywhere, Candace, but merely enclose it in a box of hard wood and bury it. Only I shall know of its hiding place, myself and one other. The other will be Manek Thotak. When his ka alights in the future world he will remember the mask—the Mage of Fascination will see to that—and recover it. When he finds Khai, and when Khai sees the mask—”
“—It will trigger his awakening!” Ashtarta finished. “Good! But—”
“Majesty?”
“Let there be more than merely the mask. See—” she pointed at the stricken general’s recumbent form, at his right hand. “He wears a ring. He wore it as a boy and it has never left his finger. See how deeply it indents the flesh? His father gave it to him. Remove it now.”
A physician was sent for. He arrived, applied oils to the middle digit of Khai’s right hand and slid the heavy gold band loose from flesh which was permanently grooved. The Ankh relief on the ring’s face gleamed dully in the light of the lamps.
“It is fitting,” said Imthra. “As a boy he was a Khemite. The people of Khem believe that the looped cross protects. Since the ring has failed Khai in this life, let us pray it serves him better in the next.”
“Manek,” Ashtarta turned to the silent general and held out her hand. “Let me have your ring.”
Without a word, Manek removed his silver ring and gave it to her. She gave both rings to Imthra, saying: “Let these things be buried under cover of darkness, tonight. Go now, Imthra, Manek, and mark well the place. Then return by a winding route. Tomorrow as the sun rises, there will be the ceremony. And then—”
Her gaze seemed to burn as she turned it upon the yellow mage. “How long?”
The mage steepled his long fingers and stared at them for a moment. “If all goes well, Candace,” he whispered, “the transition will be immediate. However far Khai Ibizin’s spirit has journeyed, and however far Manek Thotak must follow—even in the matter of Manek’s recovering these buried things and his searching out of Khai—time is of no importance. For when the kas of the twain return they will be drawn back to this place, this time. The ceremony will take place and Manek will be seen to wax as one dead, even as the general Khai. Then, if all goes well, both shall awaken, renewed, restored!”
“If all goes well,” she repeated him, her voice trembling, her painted eyes close to tears. “So many uncertainties. But what can go wrong? Tell me.”
He shook his great head. “We have not done this before, my child, and—”
“And ignorance is dangerous—is that it?”
“Candace, we have this one chance to make Khai Ibizin well, to give him back his ka and make him a whole man. If we fail—” Sadly he shook his head.
Ashtarta turned to Imthra. “Wise one, go now. Do what must be done.”
The old magician faced Manek Thotak and it seemed to the latter that the ancient’s eyes were suddenly veiled. “Come, Lord Manek,” Imthra said, leading him from the tent and out into the evening’s dusk. “We go to find a place. And then you must get your sleep.”
“Sleep, old man? I think not,” Manek replied. “After we have buried the mask and rings, I must be riding. The village of Thon Emahl lies not far to the west, above the heights of Dah-bhas.”
“That is so,” Imthra agreed, “but what do you want there?”
“Thon was killed when we clashed with Pharaoh’s army in the grasslands, and him without a son to carry on his name. His widow does not know—not yet.”
“And you yourself ride to tell her?”
Manek nodded. “I do . . . and to spend the night! She is a beautiful woman, Imthra, with neither family nor children. And I have been too long away from the women of Kush. Before she knew Thon, she knew me; aye, and I would have wed her if I did not desire the throne.”
The old man started, but before he could speak Manek caught his arm. “Listen, old one. If I do not survive this wizard’s quest, will you see to it that the widow of Thon Emahl has my things, all I possess? If there is issue—” he shrugged. “Thon Emahl will have been the father. He saw his wife recently.”
“We all hope and pray that you do return
, Manek,” said Imthra.
“Do you?” Manek turned on him with a snarl. “Do you, Imthra? I was of the opinion that Khai was your favorite! Or perhaps that is why you pray for my return—so that Khai will also be returned? Well, no matter. If I do return, I myself shall see to the woman’s needs. I can find a husband for her from among my men. . . .”
“Why do you do this thing, Manek?” Imthra asked. “And why tonight, of all nights, when the Candace has promised herself to you?”
“What?” Manek returned. “Do you believe that? No, old man, she has promised me the throne of Kush, nothing more. She would be my Queen, yes, but never my woman. Why do I ride to Thon Emahl’s widow? Look up there, at the bright and starry skies of Kush. Tomorrow I go to seek my destiny in a new world, Imthra, and I may never see these skies again. That is all well and good. But tonight . . . tonight I intend to leave something of myself in this world. Now do you understand?”
For answer, Imthra tugged his arm free of the other’s grasp. “Come,” he said. “We must be about our work. And you had better ensure that you are here when the Nubian mage comes looking for you before the dawn. . . .”
When the first pale flush of morning showed as a haze of gray mist on the eastern horizon, then the Mage of Fascination found Manek Thotak, haggard and chilled, where he crouched by the embers of an open fire. Together they went to Ashtarta’s tent, where certain preparations had already been made. All was still except for the phantom drift of dark figures on the camp’s perimeter, the night watch about their duties. Although the war was almost at an end, its lessons would not die an easy death.
In Ashtarta’s tent, the Nubian lay Manek down on a second couch set apart from the general Khai’s. He propped Manek’s head on a cushion and then, by the light of a hanging brazier, began to make intricate passes before his face. As he did so, he uttered a long list of sonorous, languorous words. Manek did not recognize the meaning of these words—if indeed they had a meaning—but nevertheless, he found them very lulling. In any event he was tired, and it was not unpleasant to simply lie here and listen to the black wizard’s low incantations.