Inhetep nodded vigorously. "I think you speak true there, my lord. But tell us, who threatened you with exposure if you didn't have your elemental monster consume the governor's palace?"
"I agreed to conjure up the efreet because I had no way of telling who threatened my exposure. The blackmailer is unknown to me—I swear it by Poseidon! If I could have sent the elemental to that one. .. ."
"You would have gotten away freely," the magister finished for him. "But how were your instructions conveyed to you, Pyronos?"
The Cypriot nobleman shrugged and spread his hands. "There was but a single communication. A man wearing the robes of a desert nomad called upon me. He handed me a sheet of Papyrus, and on it was scribed the gist of the whole affair. I was commanded to obey on pain of having copies of that revelation sent to authorities here and in Nicosea. The man who delivered the message said nothing, and he was shielded by magick against any probing from castings at my disposal. When I'd read the whole of it and thought of actively questioning him, he was gone."
Magister Inhetep turned to the policeman. "I think that's all we'll get which is of use to us, Inspector Tuhorus. I suggest that you have Lord
Pyronos locked up. He'll have to answer to charges of conspiracy and arson, although I suspect Pharaoh will agree to eventual extradition, for King Nikos will surely want him to stand trial at home for his actions."
"Stand up, Lord Pyronos," the policeman said as he opened the door and called for a pair of his men. "Take him to a maximum security cell, one proof against heka. Lord Pyronos is under arrest." Then Tuhorus looked at the magister. "He is guilty of much, Utchat-neb, but not of assassinating the prince?"
"Pyronos had motives aplenty, Chief Inspector, but neither the opportunity nor the means. We'll get to the heart of that soon enough. The next step is to ask Shaik Yasik in here...."
I he Yarhan chief was full of bluster when he was brought into Tuhorus' office. "This is an outrage which the Al-Heshaz will avenge!" he snarled at them. "I demand to be set free at once. When I return home, there will be a blood debt owing."
"Do you know who this lady is, Shaik Yasik ibn Okhdar?"
"I have never seen her before, Magister Inhetep."
The ur-kheri-heb chuckled at that. "Of course not, my dear fellow, but that isn't at all what I asked. Have you any knowledge of Lady Xonaapi of Sarai—this very beautiful girl here in the room with us."
"I know her not, nor have I aught to tell you about her."
"Again you attempt to evade my question, Yar-ban! If you don't now cease this tactic, you are at your peril, I assure you of that!" the wizard-priest said harshly, his deep green eyes flashing. "Have you ever heard of this person, Lady Xonaapi, before I mentioned her name just now?"
"No."
Tuhorus stood up and pointed at Yasik. "Even I can sense his lie, Magister. It is a bald-faced prevarication."
The Yarban looked from Inhetep to the police inspector. "Perhaps I once heard someone mention her name—possibly it was Lord Pyronos who spoke it."
"That much is true, but there is more, isn't there, Shaik Yasik?" The magister sat back and half closed his eyes. "Let me propose this scenario to you. After completing your meetings with Prince Ram-f-amsu, you were planning to return home to /Liana. You have accommodations for tomorrow, I believe, on a fast galley which sails the Nylle-Goshen Canal to Koizum. From that port, you will return by dhow to your own tribal lands."
"What of that? I have a right to leave here as I wish. There is nothing sinister in taking ship for my own lands!"
"Ah, but you had arranged to carry with you a female slave, Yasik. None other than Xonaapi here, I submit. You see, I am aware that you were planning to take her, as well as a considerable number of chests filled with precious metals and gems, as bribes."
The man shook his head. "Ridiculous. I take no bribes."
"You give them, Shaik Yasik, not accept them. I'll wager that the girl and the bulk of the wealth were meant to bring the king of Nejd around to your way of thinking, so to speak."
"What, all-wise one, is that mindset, pray tell?" asked the Yarban sarcastically.
Inhetep shot a knowing glance at Inspector Tuhorus before saying, "You planned to raise the whole of western Yarbay against /Egypt—or at least so as to raid and harass the Middle and Upper Kingdoms of the land. With the river's delta in the grasp of the rebels and the Mare Rubine sealed by raiders and pirates, Pharaoh would be in an impossible situation."
"A very imaginative speculation, Magister. However, the enmity between the tribes of my land is too well-known to need commenting on here—except to point out that they would never cooperate with each other as you suggest, even to discomfit /Egypt!"
The priest-wizard was undaunted. "Did I mention cooperation? Well, such is hardly necessary, Shaik Yasik. While the Al-Heshaz send commerce and supplies to Lower Egypt, let's just say that Nejd and Ophir mount independent expeditions against the /Egyptian coast along the Mare Rubine and attack commerce there—even make alliance with, for instance, Axxum to raid into Nubia as well. Plunder and territorial gain need not be made through mutual cooperation."
"That's a very grim picture," Tuhorus murmured as if he were almost echoing the Yarban's words. "How do we prove this?"
"Seize Shaik Yasik's belongings and check for goods stored at the docks or aboard the barge itself, You're sure to come up with a fortune in coins and other wealth,"
"You daren't confiscate my property—I'm an—"
"There you are, Chief Inspector. He's just confirmed what I said. Send a squad at once." Tuhorus called in a junior and issued curt instructions while Yasik sat rigidly and scowled. Had he the power to lay casting by eyebite, both /Egyptians would have fallen dead. "You can forget it all, Shaik Yasik ibn Okhdar. There is no longer any chance of you getting free of here with the swag, as pirates say. Tell me though, were you planning to settle down in Babylon? Or was there some city further eastward which attracted you?"
"Sexually diseased ox," the Yarban spat. "You have been spying on me."
"Hardly necessary for a man of your sort, I assure you." Inhetep laughed. "You are highly predictable, Yasik. I'm surprised that the governor ever involved you in the first place."
"Everyone knows that Yarban is synonymous with turncoat, right, Inspector?" Xonaapi sneered as she looked at Yasik in disgust.
"You lie! It was only after the stinking Phonecians and Shamish became involved did I decide to withdraw from the scheme."
"Without giving Prince Ram-f-amsu the benefit of your thinking, of course," jibed the ur-kheri-heb. "You dislike Barogesh so much?"
"The Phoneeians are worse than swine, and the Shamash seek territorial gains in places which belong historically to Yarbay," Yasik growled. "Had the alliance been tendered to the Babylonians as originally promised, all of my people would have rejoiced. Then I would have been made overlord of all the land, and with tribute from Ram-f-amsu, we might have swept over the whole of our peninsula and taken all the western coast of Azir from Phillistia to Byzantium. By bringing in those mongrel peoples, the governor thought to prevent that, but I understood Ms move. All he did by his stupid scheming was to lose the friendship of the Al-Heshaz!"
"Do you admit to murdering Ram-f-amsu?" demanded the policeman, unable to remain a mere bystander during all this.
Yasik shook his head violently. "No! Not. that any true man of the desert would not have, mind you! How I would have relished cutting out his lying tongue, slitting his soft neck! Yet I was a helpless spectator at his death—-a much-deserved killing which some other worked with true masterfulness.''
Tuhorus wasn't convinced. "The Al-Heshaz are ruled by warrior-shamans. You, Yasik, being their great sfaaik, are certainly able to use some considerable amount of casting."
"You forget that we could find no trace of heka at the scene of either Ram-f-amsu's death or in Matiseth Chemres' apartments, my dear Inspector," Inhetep interjected. "We must look for some other means than magick. I think we also must be satisfied with lesser charges against this man—not that those won't condemn him as surely."
It was a brief matter to have Shaik Yasik taken off to another special cell, and the Yarban properly charged with a long list of crimes against Pharaoh and the state.
Thereafter, the policeman looked at Inhetep and asked, "Shamish? Is there any Shamite in the group?"
"Let's have Barogesh and the one who identified himself as a mere traveler and explorer brought in. What was that fellow's name, Tuhorus?"
The inspector looked pleased. "He called himself Vert. Both he and the Phonecian investor are in custody. I'll have them here in a jiffy."
"I'm awfully tired," Xonaapi said at that moment. "How much longer will this take?"
Inhetep and Tuhorus exchanged glances. "I think it might be a few hours yet, my dear girl," Magister Inhetep said with a smile. "You have done wonderfully, and I don't see any need for you to remain now that the only two conspirators involved in your particular aspect of this affair have been dealt with, do you, Inspector?"
"No," Tuhorus agreed. "May I have one of my patrolmen see you back to the Reedfields? Perhaps you can then get sufficient rest to enable you to make a real day of it tomorrow—you do need to buy some additional things, I recall."
That made the tall wizard-priest flinch, but Xonaapi didn't seem to notice. "That's very kind, Chief Inspector Tuhorus. I do need my beauty sleep. Is it all right with you if I leave now, Setne? I'll be in our suite when you're finished here. . . ."
"By all means, Lady Xonaapi, by all means. Don't wait up for me, though," the magister almost begged. "You must get your rest. If I don't see you before, I shall have breakfast with you in the morning." Inhetep stood, bowed, and the girl departed. "You, Tuhorus, are a fiend in the mold of the worst denizens of Re-stau," he said, referring to those abysmal regions of the Duat, I he Egyptian underworld, which was populated by serpents, demons, and the like.
That made the homely policeman grin. "You have the girl, you pay the price, Magister."
"But I assure you, Tuhorus, I do not have Xonaapi—-not in the sense you make of it! Never mind, for I can see it is useless to be drawn into this any further through your japing and baiting. Where are the next two of that bad lot?"
"Being brought in now," the inspector said. "Some tea while we are waiting?"
"That would be most refreshing," the magister told Mm. "We have a long night ahead of us yet, 1 fear."
There was only a five-minute break before Vert and the Phonecian financier were ushered into Tuhorus' office, but even the badly brewed drink supplied to them helped the two detectives to face what was before them. Each of the men greeted the two officials politely, then took seats apart from each other. Barogesh accepted a proffered glass of tea from Tuhorus, but the nondescript Vert declined. Inhetep inquired if there was anything at all he would like, but the fellow replied stiffly that he needed nothing. "Very well, then," the magister told Vert. "Let's get right down to business."
"Do you think I should be here, then?" asked the Phonecian politely.
"Quite all right," the priest-wizard said to that. "After all, since when won't the chief spy of Hasur listen to what the Shamish might reveal?"
The man claiming to be named Vert jumped up and reached for a nonexistent dagger. Barogesh reacted, too, his hands flashing toward an ornate medallion he wore as a necklace. Chief Inspector Tuhorus had a small sword out, drawing it in an instant from under his desk, the thin point directed squarely at the so-called explorer's throat. It took him a second. "Be seated, please," the police official said to Vert in a cold, level tone. At the same time, Tuhorus was keeping an eye on what the ur-kheri-heb was doing with respect to the Phonecian's sudden move, but he needn't have been concerned.
As Barogesh tried to do something with the elaborately sculpted disc he wore, Magister Inhetep reached out, producing an ankh of unusual sort from somewhere inside his garments. The side projections of it were so fashioned as to resemble the head and bill of an ibis, the bird of I hoth. The silvery metal of it sparked as Inhetep brought it into contact with the medallion. "Oh! I think there was some form of reaction there, Barogesh. Do you suppose that it might have spoiled something stored in that talisman of yours?" he asked with a concerned voice.
The Phonecian glowered as fiercely as the Yar-han, Yasik, had. "I object most strongly to such invasion of my rights. I have immunity as an emissary of Hasur," he snapped. "Release me at once."
"I too have status of diplomatic sort. I failed to reveal my actual name because of that fact, hut you must know now that I am Bal-Eloi Jossur of Shamish. You thus have no right to detain me here."
Inspector Tuhorus seemed a little taken aback at the double-thrusts from the pair, but Inhetep remained almost stolid as he told both, "I have been aware of your claimed immunity for some time, my lords. Neither case extends to such an extraordinary situation as this." He held up a hand as if to silence protests from the two, then ticked off on his fingers the possible charges. "Murder of a royal governor does not allow diplomatic immunity in Egypt, nor does the killing of an ecclesiastic head—and Matiseth Chemres was hem-neter-tepi of Set for the sepat of On." Inhetep counted off two of the upraised digits as he spoke. "Conspiracy against Pharaoh is a third offense which disallows any exclusion from arrest and prosecution. Bribery of royal officials is likewise a crime which negates any claim to immunity, and it is demonstrable that both you, Lord Barogesh, and you, Bal-Eloi Jossur, contributed large sums of money to Ram-f-amsu; so there are four potential counts for which we might have you indicted, and each and every one disallows your contentions of diplomatic privilege. Lastly, there is the matter of arson—the intentional burning of the governor's palace of the city of On. That too is an offense of the same sort."
"Five, counts, my lords, is a very serious number, for any one is sufficient to bring execution to the convicted offender."
"Perhaps there is some way to clear this up without going so far, Magister Inhetep, Inspector Tuhorus," the Phonecian said calmly. "I believe that I might have information which will prove useful, if in return my status is recognized. . . ."
"I too am willing to cooperate fully, sirs," Jossur said firmly. "Perhaps information more detailed than my Hasurite counterpart, for we Shamish are well-known for finding information and keeping accurate records of all that we learn."
The blocky little policeman was growing steadily more irate at this bargaining. "To withhold information is also a crime," he said threateningly.
"Does a condemned man fear death twice?" the Phonecian agent rejoined with a hard smile.
"As to the claims of my second-rate counterpart, Hal-Eloi Jossur, you may rest assured that anything I know has been documented to the fullest extent possible, for Hasur, as all Phonecian states, is meticulous in its record keeping, even of clandestine operations, shall we say."
Both of the accused spies looked from Tuhorus to the tall wizard-priest, for they knew all too well that Inhetep was there in his capacity as an Utchatu operative and had been a high-ranking operative in the secret service of Pharaoh. The magister inclined his head slightly. "I appreciate your uncoerced assistance, my lords. It is apparent to me that both of you were brought into this plot at a rather late date, at a time when the scheme was well-advanced. Please recount for chief Inspector Tuhorus and me all that you know. If we are satisfied that you were connected with nothing other than the financing of the prince-governor's treachery and had no hand in the rest, I believe you might be allowed to go free—forfeiting all of your money and possessions here, of course, and barred from ever setting foot on /Egyptian soil again, naturally."
"The whole of the money I brought for—" the Shamish agent began angrily, but then he cut himself off as he considered the alternative. If Barogesh had meant to object—for he too had brought millions and purportedly owned estates and goods in /Egypt, wealth which would be lost to him and Hasur—the sudden silence from his counterpart and the expression on the inspector's face kept him silent save for a very subdued, "I acquiesce."
"The two murders?" Tuhorus demanded through tight jaws.
Both men claimed to be absolutely mystified by the deaths of Governor Ram-f-amsu and the high priest. Each admitted to a smattering of magickal knowledge and the ability to utilize it operationally in their professional calling. Yet neither had any idea of what had slain Ram-f-amsu, and both were elsewhere and in company when Matiseth Chemres was killed. "It was almost as if the assassination were performed by the antithesis of dweomer," said Bal-Eloi Jossur. "My own protection showed not the slightest flow of heka." At that, the Phonecian spy concurred strongly, and it was evident to Tuhorus and the magister that truth was spoken by the two. Inhetep then queried them regarding the fire, and the result was the same. Neither the Shamish agent nor Barogesh had any knowledge of who set it or why it was done, although both suspected it was to destroy incriminating evidence. "The priest of Set was a weak link in Ram-f-amsu's chain," the Phonecian said, summing up his and Jossur's thoughts regarding Matiseth Chemres.
"What made him so?" asked the policeman.
"He was sly but not clever, overly ambitious, and seemed likely to try to usurp rulership once a new state had been forged by the prince," Barogesh surmised. "Chemres would have combined offices as was done in ancient times, and done so with a vengeance, I think, for he was intoler-ant and evil,"
After some careful questioning by Inhetep, the I wo agents revealed that they had furnished several million in coin to back the governor's plot, i nd that the money was either somewhere in Ham-f-amsu's palace or already spent. Some two million more had been promised to him by each, but the money was somewhere in transit. "Don't worry," quipped the ur-kheri-heb. "It will eventually arrive, and at that time you might go Iree." Inhetep paused and again ticked off the counts. "We have but one remaining matter, I think. Please relate what knowledge you have of the plot to truncate the kingdom. Spare not the slightest detail—names, dates, and all the rest. Your lives hang in the balance now, my lords, as does that of the dead soul when it faces judgement in Osiris' Hall of Judgement in the Duat. A feather's weight of untruth, a tiny omission, might tip it so that the scale's pointer becomes the dagger of death."
Men such as Barogesh and Jossur accept readily the hazards of their occupation. Neither of them had any particular dread of losing their life, but then again both knew that there was no need to die. The matter at hand didn't concern their nations, not any longer. Each opted to live to carry on their work, so they related what had occurred. The stories they told were similar in many respects.
The governor's right-hand man, Aufseru, evidently operated a network of private agents and spies for Ram-f-amsu. Barogesh and jossur had been ferreted out by them, and then Aufseru had personally contacted each. After some cautious negotiating, the aide had come out with the story of Prince Ram-f-amsu's ambitious scheme. In essence, the governor claimed to dislike the Greco-/Egvptian tie which had existed for so long a time. He proposed to Hasur and Shamish alike an alliance with them rather than the Grecians, but of course that assumed a change in the ruler-ship of /Egypt.
Azirian mercenaries and Yarban raiders would assure the latter, and Babylonian aid was hinted at. Ram-f-amsu claimed that with the cooperation of the high priest of Set he could wrest all of the Lower Kingdom away, and become Pharaoh himself. In time the Middle and Upper Kingdoms must then succumb as well, while the Nubian Oversight would gladly accept him as soon as it dared, but in the meantime his faction there would at least hinder any efforts to utilize its military forces and resources to assail the newly proclaimed state in the Nylle delta. Attacked from above and below, there could be little hope for the rightful ruler of /Egypt, and Ram-f-amsu would eventually rule the whole land.
The Cypriot involvement was supposed to be in return for trade. The island was leagued closely with Libbos and would thus remove that threat. Bal-Eloi Josur admitted that he eventually learned of the promise of the Shamish city of Tyre to Cyprus' ruler, King Nikos. "We planned to squelch the attempt with naval power," he told Tuhorus and the magister. "Despite that, it seemed possible, of course, and that would have shifted commerce to us as well. When confronted with the duplicity, Prince Ram-f-amsu agreed to withhold military support for that portion of the plan. Nikos would have been in a most uncomfortable position. . . ."
Scythian mercenary troop movements were to he allowed to pass through northern Babylonia and on into the Yarban territory of the tribes of the Nabati and Al-Heshaz. That was ideal for Shamish. At worst, it was thought the desirable port of /Elana might come under the rule of their nation even if the rebellion of Ram-f-amsu eventually failed. No pharaoh would mind seeing Yarban power diminished, even if that loss went to the nominally allied Shamish state. Phillistia too might be granted to Shamish for their assistance should the governor's plan succeed, albeit Yarban territory would interpose between, and the population of the area would have to be fought and subdued. No actual military assistance was to have been given to the rebel prince, though, for the Scythian mercenary's movements in support for the rebellion were too dangerous, and all forces were to be sent eastwards to assure that the wild cavalry hordes from that place didn't ravage Shamish lands. "We could agree to some cooperation with Hasur," Bal-Eloi concluded, "for we understood one another well enough. But with Scythus, Hasur, Cyprus, and Yarbay all in a kettle which Babylon was stirring, we quite frankly considered the whole thing a very unpromising endeavor."
"Yet you sent money," noted the wizard-priest.
"Of course! A little gold and silver means nothing in matters of diplomacy and statesmanship."
The magister exchanged a look with Chief Inspector Tuhorus which said that neither of them belonged to this sort of arena. Although they might have to deal with considerations of a similar nature from time to time, neither man could ever feel comfortable with such associates. "And you, Barogesh? What did Hasur think of Prince Ram-f-amsu's scheme?"
"As Lord Jossur noted, Magister Inhetep. We thought it a mess which was doomed to disaster. Besides, Babylon and her lackeys are notoriously unsuitable allies." He paused a moment to sip his tea, ignoring the look of hatred shot at him by his Shamite counterpart. "A contingent plan to assist the rightful pharaoh was ready some time ago, and had a proper channel been opened at any time, my nation would certainly have moved in support of the lawful king of /Egypt."
"Both sides of the street .. . most diplomatic," the ur-kheri-heb murmured.
"Shamish was ready to seal off the way so as to prevent further Scythian incursions, I hasten to point out," chimed in the lean-visaged jossur. "That proves the true nature of our friendship with /Egypt."
"So it does," Inhetep commented. "But we have yet to detail all of those involved in the conspiracy."
Both men agreed to send comprehensive rosters of all persons they were aware of who were part of the plot. However, each stated flatly that all such individuals were of low rank and little importance. "You, Magister Inhetep, came into the chambers where the chief associates of Prince Ram-f-amsu were gathered, and there you saw me present as an observer only," the Phonecian said self-righteously.
"And I too was there—as much to observe Ha-sur's actions as to participate as a legate, so to speak," asserted Bal-Eloi at the conclusion of the interrogation.
"So the governor and the high-priest were at (lie head of it all, and all alone?" querried the priest-wizard.
"There was Lord Aufseru," the Phonecian reminded.
With a smile of superiority, Jossur said, "And his counterpart, Uab Absobek-khaibet. Surely, Barogesh, you didn't overlook him."
Before the two spies could get into that any further, Inhetep intervened.
"Enough! Chief Inspector Tuhorus, that is the name of the man you are to have apprehended and brought in immediately. Be careful, for even though his title indicates a merely moderate level of achievement, I suspect his powers are far above the normal for a uab—otherwise Chemres would never have made him his lieutenant."
"I'll send a pair of the men most able to counter priestcrajft, Magister. Why haven't you ... ?"
"It's all right to speak out, my good colleague. I didn't name him because nowhere did I find a trace of this Absobek-khaibet's involvement—as your bureau likewise failed to do. It's no matter now, although I think he might be more deeply involved, and more powerful too, than we could naturally assume. We'll learn all soon enough.
"As for you two," the tall ur-kheri-heb said with distaste clear in his voice and manner, "that last bit has probably served to earn you the immunity you seek. However, it is for others to decide, as matters of state are most certainly going to come into play. In the meantime, I'm sure that the deputy prefect can find suitable accommodations for your lordships here—protective custody, shall we term it?"
Despite vociferous protests from the two men, Chief Inspector Tuhorus was quite agreeable to the wizard-priest's suggestion. He had them taken to quarters which were secure but nearer inn quality than prison standards. "Will they actually get out of this with their heads?" the policeman inquired after they were gone.
"The ministers of Pharaoh will exact much from Hasur and Shamish, but in the end those
two scorpions will be turned out and be free to work their mischief-—elsewhere, thankfully. Unless I'm totally mistaken, though, it will be some distant posting to Great Slovia, Berberia, or even Tartary," he added with a meaningful chuckle.
"1 have heard much about the hospitality of Kitay and the charm of Tindouf s nomad folk," Tuhorus agreed with relish.
"Whatever becomes of them, my friend, the worst is well-deserved. Now, we must hasten to conclude the business with the remainder of the i onspirators. We still have unsolved murders to reckon with and the matter of the uab priest."
"Who next?"
"Let us gather the banker, Nerhat-ab, and the four merchants. They're a sorry lot and have Utile to add, but we must speak with them nonetheless, for questioning might reveal yet more to us
Tuhorus went to the door and spoke softly with his staff outside. "They'll be here directly, Magister, as will more tea for you and me."
That the whole nefarious matter was now revealed must have somehow come to their attention before the five /Egyptians were brought to the police official's office. When they arrived, < ach of them was blurting information and imploring to be heard and receive pardon. "Quiet! All of you traitors remain silent," said the magis-ter sternly. "Neither Chief Inspector Tuhorus nor I am Pharaoh to grant pardon. We are merely policemen, and you are here to confess. Give correct information, complete statements, down to the last detail, and perhaps things won't go so hard for your families."
There was little hope for any of them. They had conspired to set up a new kingdom and make the would-be usurper, Ram f-amsu, a pharaoh. In such circumstances, it was usual for all members of a household to be executed or enslaved, all property they owned seized and added to the royal treasury. Short of plotting against Pharaoh's life, there was no more serious crime possible than what the five wealthy /Egyptians had attempted. They seated themselves, ashen-faced and fearful. Inhetep pointed. "You, Nerhat-ab, shall begin first."
Napata, Elephantine, Thebes, Memphis, and Tanis were the principal financial centers of the land. The banker related that with monies he had gained from Ram-f-amsu and others of the ring, he had built On's reputation sufficiently to attract a flow of money north. "My association now controls as much wealth as all the bankers in Napata and the tri-city of Thebes-Luxor-Karnac," Nerhat-ab almost boasted as he told his tale. Memphis and Tanis, of course, would have fallen into the realm immediately under the sway of the traitor prince and governor, so he hadn't tried overly hard to win business from those cities.
"You have operations both here and in Innu, do you not?" asked the magister.
"Yes, and also in Rosetta," the banker told him. Money from Hasur, Shamish, and Cyprus was channeled through his institutions, the coins turned into whatever minting was desired— ^Egyptian or otherwise. Then letters of credit had been made as needed. "I'll have a complete accounting for you, sirs," Nerhat-ab concluded. "I need but issue instructions, and it will be done."
"You'll do so soon enough, by letter and messenger," Tuhorus told the man. "Now, why did you join this rebellious conspiracy, and who killed Ram-f-amsu?"
"He offered inducements from the start, and only when I was in up to my neck did the prince reveal the true nature of his scheme. At first, I was convinced he meant only to make the sepat so fat and wealthy that he would be made viceroy of the Lower Kingdom and chief minister of 'Egypt. Then, after irregularities, illegal transactions, and usury were all against me, Ram-f-amsu told me the whole truth and required my continued participation. Even at that I ... spoke with others and prepared an admission, something to reveal the whole plot. We all assisted in the preparation," the banker said, so as to include the four merchants in his sweeping gesture, "as these gentlemen will testify. Each of us has a copy of that report."
"To whom did you speak about this?" Inhetep demanded.
"It was an old acquaintance of mine, a member of the Innu Prefecture, Pabar Ankh-ra, the prelect." The expression on Nerhat-ab's face showed that he was certain that this would be corroborated by that official.
"You gave him details?" asked Chief Inspector Tuhorus in disbelief.
"No, no. I spoke only in generalities and pretended that someone I knew was involved in an illegal scheme of serious sort. Ankh-ra then advised a written confession for the man. I would have sent mine to Pharaoh, but I feared for my life. . .."
"As well you should!" Tuhorus snapped. "Now, who killed the prince?"
"I have not the slightest idea," the banker said helplessly.
Emptah-hiash, Hatsotef, Thunun-maat, and Nenef-Kheru were then cross-examined by the magister and Inspector Tuhorus. None of the four merchants had any more inkling of what and whom had done for the governor than had banker Nerhat-ab. They had dealt with the banker before joining the conspiracy, being selected for their avarice, ambition, and lack of scruples. From selling shoddy goods and giving short weight, the four ran the gamut from black mar-keteering, smuggling, sale of illegal commodities, and elimination of competition to use of burglary, robbery, arson, and sabotage. "We are no different from others in our calling," said Thunun-maat defensively, when the police official made a biting comment about their dishonesty. "It just so happened that the four of us were more able, became successful, and were thus in a position to exercise such tactics with greater verve than those who sought to replace us. They likewise tried similar methods but were not as capable."
"Venetians!" spat Tuhorus in contempt.
"Would we were so powerful and rich!" shot back Hatsotef. "Those astute businessmen, however, were wise enough to form a government which they themselves control!"
"This is leading us nowhere," Magister In-lietep finally said. "I take it that you four are basically in agreement with Nerhat-ab?"
T here was a chorus of assent, each quickly giving their own account of how they sought to extricate themselves from the conspiracy and asserting that there was documentation. "We all waited only for banker Nerhat-ab's advice before going to the authorities and revealing the whole plot," avered Nenef-Kheru. "He never would ;il low us to do so," the merchant concluded accusingly.
"But I too awaited instruction," the banker whined in reply. "Prefect Ankh-ra was attempting to find a sympathetic channel, if you get my meaning."
"You suggest that the metropolitan prefect of Innu was involved in this terrible business?" demanded Tuhorus.
"No, never! He might have eventually suspected my own involvement in something illegal, though," Nerhat-ab confessed. "Pabar—Prefect Ankh-ra—had friends in the royal household to whom he spoke frequently. He said that if information passed through them, it would be well-received and serve to mitigate any crimes committed by the party coming forth to expose the criminal activity. . . ."
"So you were also dragging your feet in order to make yourself appear as little involved as possible and throw blame on whomever else was handy!" Magister Inhetep accused.
The banker couldn't deny that. He looked down in guilt, and his four associates glared at Nerhat-ab. It was evident that he had planned to throw them to the lions in hopes of saving himself. Furthermore, his delay now placed all of them in dire peril. "But it seemed so far-fetched a plan that it would end up collapsing beneath its own weight," he cried to his four comrades and the policeman. "Had Ram-f-amsu's death been otherwise, say when he was alone, or even there in the meeting as it occurred, but without Magister Inhetep present, this whole affair might have evaporated as rain in the desert! I applaud the assassination," Nerhat-ab defiantly said, "and the killing of that insufferable high priest, too! Yet I curse the killer now, for whomever is responsible has brought me to destruction as well."
Inspector Tuhorus had all five men taken outside to record formal confessions. Inhetep sat back and finished his cold tea, trying to make sense of all he had heard so far. The picture he formed was absolutely incredible in its complexity and stupidity. More facts had to be uncovered, certainly, but . . .
"What do you make of it all?" asked Tuhorus as soon as he returned.
"Just what I was considering, Inspector," Inhetep replied slowly. "There emerges a very strange collage of crime and betrayal which is more befitting a fable or play than real life."
"Yes, just so. Had someone suggested all these events, I would have laughed aloud," Tuhorus concurred. He paused, wiped his hands on his tunic as if to cleanse them from contact with the conspirators, and then queried, "Is it to be Lasuti or Aufseru next? I believe the Parthians must come last."
"I agree. Let's save the alchemist for a bit and put Prince Ram-f-amsu's aide to the question now. He should have some choice bits for us now that this whole stinking mess is in the open."
Chief Inspector Tuhorus's eyes were narrow. "If only the whole were so revealed, Magister. I ill ink you hold some information which gives vou a better perspective than is afforded to me, however."
"No need to concern yourself about it much longer, my friend. I'll give you that bit of detail as soon as the last of these men has been questioned and we are ready to follow the track."
"Which track, Magister? It seems as if we are standing at the cross-roads between oases!"
Inhetep nodded. "There are too many marks, I agree. Yet I think when we are finished, it will be Absobek-khaibet we will track—and that one will lead us to the mastermind behind the false trails."
"My men are hunting Absobek now," Tuhorus said. "You think the uab priest will talk so readily?"
"Not at all, Inspector. I am betting he'll avoid capture."
Before more could be said between them, however, they were interrupted by the arrival of Aufseru, purported aide to the dead governor.
He came in with tight lips and an expressionless face, standing stiffly even when told to sit by the police official. "Come, come, Aufseru," Tuhorus chided. "You'll get nothing from such behavior. Make it easier on yourself, man and perhaps ..."
"Hsst! What's that you say, Aufseru?" demanded the priest-wizard as Chief Inspector Tuhorus trailed off. Something about the prisoner had made the detective cease his speech, and then the aide to the murdered prince had spoken. Inhetep repeated his question. "What did you say?"
"I am a dead man . .." Aufseru said in a whispering monotone.
"That's likely," Tuhorus said brusquely, "yet there might—"
"Stop!" the magister interjected. "Listen to him!"
"... the Samarkand Solution," rasped from Aufseru's throat. "Only the gods can save you from the same fate unless you turn away now and close the case."
"Gods! What are you muttering about? Are you drugged? Tell us about the 'Samarkand Solution,' and forget threats," the policeman ordered sternly.
Magister Inhetep moved around to better view Aufseru, and he was immediately struck by the sight. Aufseru was unnatural and zombie-like. Not only was he rigid and expressionless, but something in his eyes bespoke mindlessness, and his skin was pale and seemed to have a putre-scent luminosity to it. Tuhorus had been too intent upon learning the truth to bother about such things. One pass using heka, however, showed Inhetep that there was more than that to consider.
"Careful, Inspector! He is a dead man— literally!"
That made the policeman draw back slightly, and he stared from Aufseru to the magister uncertainly. "Dead! Then what is controlling him?"
The ur-kheri-heb continued his magickal work even as Tuhorus spoke, using both the arts of the mage and the priest to scan the strange prisoner for clues as to what perils might lurk within the man. The phosphorescence of Auf-seru's skin brightened, but more evident to the priest-wizard was his inner core of energy which urew and brightened at the same moment. "Look out! Avoid him on your life, Tuhorus!" the magister shouted just as the Aufseru-zombie turned to a shimmering form of near-incandescent brightness and then flung out its arms, one in Inhetep's direction, the other toward the policeman. Globs of something flew, but the ur-kheri-heb was well out of range by then, and Inspector Tuhorus had dived to shelter behind his desk.
As suddenly as the thing had flared, a blackness replaced that furious energy. Aufseru's body seemed to be a lightless void, then it simply disintegrated into nothingness, pale gray ash drifted down to litter the floor where he had stood. "There are footprints burned into the sandstone!" exclaimed Tuhorus.
"So much for Prince Ram-f-amsu's aide," Inhetep said with an air of resignation. "Let's save the ash, Inspector, for analysis of it might tell us something."
"But by Bright Ra, man! I was nearly killed by that .. . that . . . thing!"
"So you were, Tuhorus. It attempted to send a part of that death at me as well—seems that whatever controlled the corpse didn't really expect that we'd listen meekly and close the case, so it was prepared to snuff us out."
"That would only bring in more men to investigate the matter—a hopeless tactic."
"Not so, dear Inspector. Any number of things might have resulted, including the assumption that Aufseru was the culprit and we all died apprehending him. No matter, for we won't know now what wheels would have been put in motion to cover this up had we died. The plan failed, so we are going to keep right on sussing out the evil behind this little act in the drama, Tuhorus. After we get this down, and the remains of the fellow are swept up, let's see about jobo Lasuti. I think that the Nubian alchemist must have some very interesting information for us."
"You're a cool one, Utchat-neb. I think I am beginning to understand how you've earned your reputation. What about the 'Samarkand Solution' business, though? It keeps coming up."
Magister Inhetep shook his head. "Samarkand—by any name—has long been known as a stronghold which refuses surrender to invaders. Three times the city has done so, been besieged, and eventually fallen. The victors have then razed it, but eventually a new city bearing the old name springs up, as does the phoenix from the ashes of the fire which consumed it."
"The place last fell centuries ago," Tuhorus responded, "and Samarkand is now a rich and important trading center, a city-state of import in central Azir, yet . . . how is any of that connected with the governor's plot and these murders?"
"There might be something linked to destruction—I'm not yet sure," the magister admitted.
Those who try to stand before the force which is involved here seem to meet annihilation, but ..."
"Yes, and a very strong 'but' seems appropriate. The link is thin." The inspector paused and considered a few moments. "Still, there are easterners involved, for we have the Parthians, their shaman calling himself Tengri Ataman, and the virtual destruction of each of those who might have been able to shed light on the matter."
Inhetep shook his head this time. "That doesn't lead anywhere, for it doesn't tell us why the prince was originally assassinated, Tuhorus. We have to look behind the screen of events which now surround us like Darfur's jungle walls, so that we might get a glimpse of the sinister figure who is masterminding all."
"Jobo Lasuti is?"
"Something which is neither vegetation nor the lurker it screens. You'll see my reasoning, Inspector, in a few minutes."
As if in answer to a cue, the Nubian alchemist was brought into the office. Seeing the signs of Aufseru's recent demise, Lasuti asked, "Demonstrating parlor magick for your associate, Inhetep?"
Tuhorus was surprised by the magister's reply. "Address me as 'Lord,' you inferior black dabbler. Remember, I am an ur-kheri-hep-tepi," Setne sneered. "We aren't at some formal gathering of dweomercraefters now, where I must be polite. You are a Nubian savage on trial for your life, Lasuti. I think you will prove inadequate to the challenge."
"All you bloody Egyptians have such a distorted view," the alchemist shot back, referring to Inhetep as 'bloody' in combined sense, for the term was used by separatists to describe both skin color and the methods used by the ^Egyptians in the past. "I have made such discoveries, ineffectual priest-mage, as you kheri-hebu and all the rest who think they know heka have yet to have dreamed of, and my work will not be in vain even if you personally end my life now! Nubia will be free!"
Inhetep waved a hand arrogantly. "Bah! You rant as might a newly-caged baboon. The Oversight already has too much autonomy, its people are too generally considered equals to their betters. I think it is time to remove undue privileges—and recognize that you are a boastful savage, no more able to make discoveries than the ape I likened you to," the magister added snidely.
"Then explain how your fellow aristocrat died," Lasuti jeered, his face a mask of rage. "A great ur-kheri-heb-tepi, an utchat-neb can surely manage something so simple!"
"You poisoned him, Nubian ape, and for that you will die," magister Inhetep replied coldly.
Lasuti laughed in the tall man's face. "You couldn't be more mistaken. I merely supplied Ram-f-amsu with a draught which destroys all traces of magick, a discovery . . ." The alchemist's words suddenly trailed off as he realized what he had just said.
"I thank you, lmprimus, for that confession. While I suspected something of the sort, I had no means of proving it, of course. Your work was too good. Now, with that confession, we can move ahead."
"May you rot in the darkest and most damned regions of the Duat, Inhetep!" the Nubian snarled.
"I think not—nor will you, Jobo Lasuti, for you are a man of principle and conviction, albeit a misguided one. Did you hope that by assisting Prince Ram-f-amsu's plot, the Oversight would gain independence?"
"Not would—will! If not now, eventually. You are oppressors and tyrants who must one day be driven out of Nubia."
Even the policeman had to object to that. "Come now, Lasuti," the chief inspector said.
"Nubia is as much a part of the kingdom as the three divisions and Phillistia. There have been Nubian pharaohs! There are many in the royal household who have Nubian blood in their veins, princes and officials of the land who are pure folk of your race. No one in all the Oversight has greater or fewer rights than in the rest of /Egypt. How can you speak of sundering our nation thus?"
"He is mad," Inhetep said flatly. "Despite his misguided sense of nationalism and his irrational hatred for those not Nubian, Imprimus Lasuti had made great contributions to the art of dweom-ercrasfting and the profession of alchemy. I think his past accomplishments will earn him a reprieve from execution, Tuhorus. Confinement and treatment might serve to eventually cure him of his derangement."
"Judge, jury, and Pharaoh are you, Inhetep?" the alchemist snarled.
The magister shook his head. "No, but I think I can speak for the latter in regards to your case, Jobo Lasuti. Besides, there are, unfortunately, others of your ilk, and /Egypt needs no martyr for such a cause as you champion. You'll eventually come around."
The alchemist fairly frothed at that. "Your fellow kheri-hebu will use drugs and mind control to make me into a puppet, eh? Well, I'll kill myself first, and thus all of you will be shown for what you are!"
"I think he means that, Tuhorus," Magister
Inhetep said to the policeman. "Be sure he's searched carefully and confined under constant watch in a special cell." Tuhorus nodded, and the wizard-priest spoke to Lasuti again. "Tell us about the stuff you supplied to Prince Ram-f-amsu."
The alchemist compressed his lips. When Inhetep and the police inspector tried to elicit more from him, Lasuti remained stubbornly silent, even when the magister pointed out that the alchemist's home and office could be searched and the secret potion or substance discovered. After a few minutes they gave up, charged Lasuti with the whole list of crimes involved, and had him removed.
"Why did he go silent?" querried Tuhorus after the alchemist had been physically carried to a cell, refusing even to walk.
"He was angry—as much with himself as with us—at being goaded into mentioning his alchemical discovery. That information is what we need to resolve this case, I think."
"At least the murders," Inspector Tuhorus quipped.
"Very astute, my dear Chief Inspector," Inhetep responded with a slight smile. "But once we can demonstrate how the murders were done, it will be an easy enough thing to discover the agency behind them."
Tuhorus cocked an eyebrow. "Is that so? Well, Magister Inhetep, I'll accept your word on that. Are you now going to tell me what it is you've been holding to yourself so that I too can be so sure?"
"Directly after we complete this business with the conspirators, Tuhorus, as I promised. Then we must also see about the uab, Absobek-khaibet— a most convenient name that, isn't it?"
Rhetorical or not, the blocky detective responded to the priest-wizard's query. "I hadn't considered it, but 'Shadow of Sobek's Heart' is indeed an ominous name, and an unusual one for a priest of Set, even though the red lord is allied with the crocodile-headed Sobek. What do you make of it?"
"That we shall see when we return to the Temple of Set, Chief Inspector. I think we should speak to the three Parthians now."
"Very well, I'll have them brought in immediately."
When they learned the charges, General Sa-caxes grinned. "Those are indeed serious concerns for the others, good sirs, but not of any interest to me or my men. It is easily proved that we had only one meeting with the dead governor, and that neither my nation nor we three are party to any conspiracy. There is no crime in discussing the furnishing of mercenary troops."
"Your associate, Tengri Ataman, can be charged with murder. He is a shaman, and Prince Ram-f-amsu's words implicate him as the one responsible for the crime."
"What? What's this you say?!"
Tuhorus pointed at the Parthian. "What I said is quite sustainable, as the Lord of the Pharaoh's Own Service, Utchat-neb Inhetep can testify to. Prince Ram-f-amsu spoke to him of that before he died."
"Inspector Tuhorus is telling you the truth, General Sacaxes," the magister confirmed. "It need not be pointed out that the shaman is your man, so you too are guilty, my lord."
"As a Parthian—"
"A plot against Pharaoh denies you any such convenience, General. Certain others of your c abal also attempted to claim immunity."
It seemed that all three wished to speak at once, but the shaman silenced them by simply staring down the general and the warrior called Vardin. "I assure you of our full cooperation, sirs," Tengri Ataman announced then. "In exchange for that, we will leave immediately after this."
"What do you know that makes such an exchange worthwhile?" asked the policeman, looking uncertainly from the shaman to General Sacaxes and back again. "It seems quite plain that your involvement was strictly as mercenary troops bent on sundering this land."
"On the contrary," Tengri Ataman said. "The prince was not simply out to acquire the services of wandering companies so common in our homeland, Scythia, Azir Minor, and the states around Grecia. Nor did he come to us in such a manner. Ram-f-amsu actually sent his agent to our own king to offer an alliance between Parthia and his to-be-formed kingdom—one which proposed a division of territory which would bring our land both westwards to the Middle Sea and southwards to include Bactro-kush and Farz."
"So? What difference should that make?" Tuhorus asked with irritation. "It only stresses—"
"He points out something highly embarrassing to /Egypt, Inspector," Inhetep interjected. "Even if Ram-f-amsu was a rebel and can be proven such, there will be great suspicion in the minds of the heads of the nations concerned. Such matters might be better left undiscovered, as it were." The ur-kheri-heb then addressed himself directly to Tengri Ataman. "Isn't that your implication, shaman?"
"My openly stated avowal,' the Parthian responded with a hard tone.
"Ah, but my magickal sir, what of the murders? What part did your spells have in the killings? The claims of assassins are not held in esteem by any sovereign. . . ."
The magister's suggestion was such that the shaman couldn't brush it aside. To be linked to any one of the murders would consign all three to death, and nobody would pay attention to whatever else they might claim. "You could, of course, falsify evidence," Tengri Ataman admitted. "Yet we came to On only a few days ago. That is known widely and easily provable, so your connection of us to the whole scheme would be tenuous. Likewise, any physical or magickal involvement on our part in the deaths, for none of us knows how the killings were accomplished."
"The whirlwind—both as the dead prince spoke of and as witnessed by Magister Inhetep— that's something!" the police official accused.
"Circumstantial—and as puzzling to me as to you." The shaman shrugged. "Whatever castings or other powers were involved in Ram-f-amsu's murder came from some source beyond anything possible to me or any other mage of Parthia I know. It will be just as puzzling to others who investigate the case. General Sacaxes and I are by no means blameless in regards to certain aspects of this unfortunate business, but—"
"But you are demonstrably not the true culprits, I know," the priest-wizard supplied. "Tell me one thing: what do you know of the 'Samarkand Solution'?" Inhetep asked, watching for deception in the reply.
"Nothing," Tengri Ataman said simply. "I have been to the city of Samarkand in the last year, and I haven't heard it spoken of either. General? Vardin?" Both of the other Parthians shook their heads and murmured similar negative responses.
It was so, and the two policemen knew it. Inhetep then inquired, "What of a cleric, a simple uab priest named Absobek-khaibet, who was an assistant to the Hem-neter-tepi Matiseth Chemres. Have any of you knowledge about him?"
"We met the high priest of Set only briefly. That was two days before the meeting in the palace where Prince Ram-f-amsu was killed," said the Parthian general. "We had no reason to visit Set's place of worship."
Vardin spoke up for the first time. "I recall the fellow with the priest called Chemres—another servant of Set, from his garb and trappings. Wasn't he named Kibbet-something?"
"Absobek-khaibet," Tuhorus corrected.
The general didn't recall him, but Tengri Ataman snapped his fingers. "Yes, Vardin, I think you're right. It was at night, sirs. He was wearing some sort of headdress, and said little; but I do remember the high priest speaking to him, calling him Absobek-something."
"Can you describe him?" Inhetep urged.
"No—only as tall, slender, and possibly darker of complexion than Matiseth Chemres. It was dark. . . ."
The magister and Tuhorus exchanged glances. "Well," Inhetep then said to the Parthians, "I believe we can now send you off to your return to your own land, although . . ."
"Although?" queried the shaman.
"Yes, there is a caveat. You must return all monies paid over to you by Ram-f-amsu or his associates or agents before I'll agree to your being freed." They objected to that, naturally, but eventually General Sacaxes grudgingly scribed a note to a Shamish banker in the city, ordering him to turn over all sums held in the general's name to the Metropolitan Prefecture upon demand. "Good," said the magister, smiling. "Here, Inspector Tuhorus, take this to whomever here is responsible, and have them get the funds and bring them back to be counted. When all is done, I'll have passes waiting for these three so that they can depart /Egypt immediately for their long journey home."
The Parthians left, grumbling, and in a brief time the policeman came back into his office, grinning but still anxious about one thing.
"Now, Magister, we go to hunt for the uab, Absobek-khaibet. You have something to tell me l>cfore we leave, though, I believe."
"So I do, Tuhorus, so I do. It seems that the uab is the very man I have been tracking here in On."
"And he is?"
"I'm not absolutely sure, but I think the 'priest' is none other than a Dhalikil assassin named Yakeem whom I followed here from Innu in the first place, and in so doing involved myself in this whole bizarre business."
= 12 =
Because it seemed as if time had turned topsyturvy, both men agreed to again spend the day resting and catching up on much needed sleep. All matters would proceed apace in any event, for the prefecture now had a dozen of its men on the case, and the Utchatu's agents were soon to arrive. Inhetep and the inspector would hold in abeyance their own quest until the evening. "1 am beginning to feel as if I were a vampire," quipped Tuhorus as the two parted, the policeman for his home just outside the city, Inhetep for the Reedfields where Xonaapi awaited his return. "Just as you must—especially with such a tasty morsel to savor!" he added.
"That's about all I'll stand of your nonsense, Tuhorus," the magister shot back heatedly. "You know very well the circumstances—" Inhetep bit off the rest, for Tuhorus was already well out of earshot. "Very humorous," the magister muttered as he turned and strode off toward the inn, his long legs moving even more quickly than usual because of his anger at the policeman's needling.
There was really no need for them to work this day, either. The murderous lot responsible for the killings, and the attempt on his own life and that of the policeman, would most likely strike again while he slept, so the wizard-priest was more concerned with warding himself than catching the criminals during the next few hours. After getting his rest and regaining his power, he and the chief inspector would pay another call to the Temple of Set. But what about now? Careful sealing of all entrances to his rooms, alarms and magickal protection, and . . . and the seductive Lady Xonaapi! "What will I do with her?" the magister exclaimed aloud just as he entered the inn.
The proprietor happened to be there at that moment, and he assumed Inhetep was speaking to him. "My lord? If you refer to the ah . . . young lady sharing your suite, I believe that she amuses herself quite well while you are away tending your business affairs. It took several porters to deliver her day's purchases, and she just finished taking tea in the Lotus Salon. I believe she has repaired to your ro—"
"Purchases? Tea? Why its scarcely past mid-morning!"
"You know how the shopkeepers are, my lord. Open at the first peep of Aten's disc, so that they can extract the last drop of gold, it is said."
Inhetep glared at the poor fellow, which sent him fluttering away.
What a wretched city, On. Here was a place supposed to be the poor cousin of glorious Innu, a city where only necessities and functional garb for laboring folk should be available. It had to be the enclave of well-to-do folk and the visitors to the sepat's seat of government who enabled expensive, high fashion shops to exist in this working metropolis. He should have deduced that possibility, nay probability, from the Reed-lields, for the inn was posh in the extreme and far too expensive! Then again, how could he have anticipated the girl's discovery and their inescapable association? Or her need for a wardrobe? The magister shook his head in dismay as he stalked to his suite. He had too little experience with young women of this sort.
"Oh! Are things going badly, Magister Setne Inhetep?" the girl asked with concern when the scowling ur-kheri-heb entered the room. Xonaapi dropped the gold-worked cape she was admiring and hastened to him. "Here, let me help you," she said, taking Inhetep's arm and leading him toward the divan.
"What is the matter with you, Xonaapi?" the tall man growled without real anger. "I'm not an invalid!"
"But you look so weary, Setne dear," she crooned, ignoring his crotchety behavior and seating him. "There, isn't that better?" Xonaapi took off his sandals; the priest-wizard's protests were only feeble. Then she stood up, moved behind him, and began to massage his shoulders, neck and temples. "You work too hard—you're exhausted! As soon as we get you properly relaxed, I'll see about something to revive and nourish you." Inhetep started to protest, for he wanted to sleep, but the girl wouldn't hear him.
"Now, Setne Inhetep, magister or not, you'll be quiet. You're just lucky that I managed to finish my shopping so early, and now I can devote my full attention to your needs." Xonaapi kept at her soothing work, her fingers pressing and stroking, hands moving to relax Inhetep's rigid muscles and tendons. The girl was a very good masseuse, and in a few minutes, the shaven head of the tall /Egyptian was reclining at ease on the pillow Xonaapi had carefully provided.
As he dozed, the girl slipped out and soon returned with the things she had promised. Besides a light breakfast and Inhetep's usual tea, Xonaapi had somehow managed to find several fragrant incenses and a mixture of herbs. "Come on, Setne Inhetep, have a little food and some nice tea now," the girl urged sweetly, "for you need to maintain your strength."
"Very well," he responded, feeling very relaxed and too lethargic to even protest. The odor of the stuff made him feel hungry at that, so he began to nibble at a bun and sip the sweet mint tea. "What about you?" he asked politely after a bit.
"I had breakfast a little while ago," Xonaapi told him, meanwhile bustling about the suite. "Not too much of that, you know," she admonished the ur-kheri-heb. "You'll not want to go to bed with a stomach full of food, and if you have too much tea you'll never get to sleep!"
"You had all this brought up," Inhetep protested weakly, but he set aside the barley cake he had just picked up and bitten into, one which was glazed with honey and covered with crushed almonds. "One more sip of the tea to wash this down with," the magister added almost apologetically.
"What? I can't hear you." Xonaapi's voice drifted over the sound of flowing water as she filled the pool-like tub in the next room. "Better," the girl sighed in satisfaction as she returned to where Inhetep lolled before the half-eaten breakfast. "I see you've been a good boy and listened." She smiled as he viewed the scene.
"Boy? Ha!" the wizard-priest said with mock sternness. "I ceased eating only because I have satisfied my appetite."
"Isn't that splendid," Xonaapi told him agreeably as she cleared away the remainders and set them aside. "Do you know that you're a remarkably attractive man for one so old?"
"Nothing of the sort! I'm quite average in appearance, girl, and approach but my middling years!" Inhetep contradicted crossly.
Xonaapi gave a musical, tinkling laugh, and her tawny eyes sparkled. She tugged his hand and said, "Come on now, Grandfather Setne. You must bathe and get ready for bed."
"A full stomach precludes a bath," Inhetep chided, letting the rest pass. "I'll think I'll simply stretch out here on the couch and doze a bit."
Xonaapi wouldn't hear of that. "I made certain that your repast was light, and you need to have warm water and a good soak to both get dirt off and float your cares away. Then you can sleep better—and properly in your bed, Magister Setne Inhetep! Here, you follow me, and I'll see to the whole thing."
Inhetep pulled his hand free gently. "Never mind, Lady Xonaapi," he said with resignation. She was as impossible as Rachelle; possibly even more so! "I'll take care to do as you demand," he told her as he went into the bath chamber and firmly closed the door. The tub was filled, and the girl had set alight a little brazier. Resinous lumps of incense and strange bits of leaves and stems now sent a mixture of fumes into the air to mix with the moist vapors which arose from the deep, perfumed water. The wizard-priest stripped off his kilt and tunic and sniffed carefully, trying to identify the intermingled scents. He could discern three forms of incense easily enough, and one of the herbs was surely camphor, but the rest were unknown—at least when burned in combination. Tossing his clothing onto a nearby stool, Inhetep carefully entered the pool of steaming water, using the narrow corner steps to immerse himself slowly. "I hate hot baths," he grumbled aloud, "but the oils she's put into this seem to sink into my skin, so at least I won't be dry and wrinkly when I'm done with this ordeal."
It wasn't an ordeal at all, and the magister finally hauled himself quite reluctantly out of the water after half an hour because he was beginning to wrinkle after all, and the temperature of the bath had cooled past the soothing point. The brazier had also ceased its fuming, so the chamber was now only faintly redolent with lingering wisps of the exotic perfumes. Inhetep dried himself, shaved, and then looked for a robe, but only the towel and his soiled garments were at hand. He almost called Rachelle's name, then caught himself. Opening the door to the parlor, the ur-kheri-heb called out, "Xonaapi? Do you know where my sleeping gown is?"
When he received no answer, Inhetep went to the bathroom door and again called, but there was no answer. "Not more shopping!" he said aloud as he yanked the door fully open and stalked into the large chamber beyond to locate his garment.
"Later, perhaps," Xonaapi said. "You haven't had a chance to see all the things I've bought already, though. Do you like this one?"
She was nearly speaking in his ear, and at the first whisper of sound Inhetep had almost jumped, she startled him so. Then he stood still in near shock. He had neglected to wrap the towel around his waist, and the proper magister was now acutely aware of his nakedness. Furthermore, Xonaapi was clad in a filmy bit of material more suited to a harem than anything else. She might as well have worn absolutely nothing—better, in fact, to have done that, for the wisps of transparent stuff were more provocative than simple nudity. "Immodest," he managed, trying to turn away and retreat into the bath chamber. "Suitable only for—"
"Why, Magister! What's that?" the girl giggled, pulling on him so that he was unable to retire without a struggle. "I thought you disapproved of my costume."
"That's exactly what I was referring to," he said as he tried to extricate himself from her. "Now let me go, Xonaapi. I must put something on."
"You're always fretting about clothing, Setne Inhetep," the girl rejoined without freeing him from her grip. "You've seen me with nothing at all covering me, and we've slept together that way too, so why are you now being so . . . so . . . prudish?!"
The brief struggle and the verbal exchange had fortunately served to calm him. "Very well," the priest-wizard murmured with all the dignity he could muster. "I'll find my night dress myself and retire," and he walked stiffly into the room and began to rummage quickly through the case which held his few garments. "Now, where is that blasted thing?" Inhetep said as he tossed the last of his things aside.
"You don't need it," Xonaapi told him with a pout.
"Where is it?" Inhetep almost shouted.
"I hid it," the girl said, advancing toward him like a cat stalking a mouse. "We have something else to think about now, Setne, so you might as well forget about your old gown!"
Inhetep decided to try a different tack. He turned, looked hard and long at her, and then smiled lasciviously. "You're right, Xonaapi. Why not take pleasure while I may? You are very young and beautiful, and I have a thousand things to teach you. I'll make you into a proper love-slave, and you'll exist to bring me delight." So saying, the tall wizard-priest advanced toward her with an anticipatory light in his eyes.
"Now, Magister, don't be too hasty," Xonaapi (old him, retreating and holding up her palms to ward him off.
"Hasty? Never! I'll take my time, never fear, my little delight," he said, stalking forward. The girl turned and he was sure she would shriek and flee in a moment. "Stop, Xonaapi!" he said huskily. "You can't escape from me."
Just as he uttered that, the girl shoved him. Inhetep was taken by surprise and fell back upon the bed, for it was just behind his long legs. "Flee? It's you who would run," she laughed as she sprang atop him. "You're not nearly so clever as you thing you are, Setne Inhetep."
"Or is it that I'm actually very sly?" he managed to get out before her soft lips closed over his own. They exchanged kisses and caresses for awhile, then he had to ask, "Just what did you have in that incense, girl?"
"That's my secret, all-wise Magister." She giggled. "But I'll tell you that it does certain things to men—even those who think themselves too full of dignity and importance for a young woman, just because they have maturity and experience!"
"Drugged into submission," he lamented. "You'll have me up all day just when I should be—"
"Hush," she said seriously. "This is not the time for that. Besides, in an hour or so you can go to sleep, and you'll be ready for rest then, too. All concerns with your detective work will be forgotten for the hours you will spend between now and waking." She kissed him again, and as it began to turn passionate, Xonaapi pulled free and gazed into his green eyes. "Do you really know such things as you mentioned, Setne?"
"Things?" he countered with confusion. "What do you mean?"
"You told me that you had a thousand things to teach me," the girl chided him gently, even as she ran her fingernails along his chest and stomach. "I hope you weren't just play-acting," Xonaapi told him. "I do so want to learn. .. ."
Sometime later, he heard a distant bell, its golden chiming floating in the air as might little clouds in a spring sky. With its slow ringing there came an angelic voice, almost imperceptible but somehow insistent:
"S...e...t...n...el...n...h...e... t ... e .. . p," it called ever so sweetly and far off as the golden notes from the bell sounded. He was reclining on a goose down cushion, sunk into a drowsing idyll aboard a little boat which the ripples of the Nylle moved slowly along with a rocking motion as the warm sun comforted him. What place along the riverbank had such a bell? No matter. It would soon be lost to his ears as he drifted onward. Yet the call persisted. "Setne Inhetep," it came, and now it was nearer and louder and seemed threatening. He wondered how an angelic being could evoke a sense of danger, and as his mind slowly turned that thought over, the golden notes of the bell changed into a harsh clangor as if some brazen alarm were being struck repeatedly and with fearful urgency. The priest-wizard shot up from his repose, ready to ward off whatever threatened.
"Setne Inhetep!" Xonaapi said, this time a little crossly. "What are you doing? First you won't wake up, and now you're bouncing around in that bed as if you were a child. Stop that wild prancing and look!"
The demand brought him fully awake, and the magister realized he had been dreaming so soundly that the girl's attempts to awaken him had simply melded into his slumbering mind's images. He heard a tinkling and saw that Xonaapi wore a bracelet of silver bells and was clad in a very pretty skirt and the gold cape he had seen earlier, now topped by a collar and accented by sandals and sash which were also worked with beads and gold thread. "I see—and very pretty, too," he managed to mumble. Then he sat down on the bed, cross-legged, trying to orient himself. "May I ask what time it is?"
"Almost dusk, lazy Magister Setne!" she chided. "I'm getting ready for us to go out. Is this outfit to your liking?"
"Certainly, dear girl. It's splendid. . . . Out?"
"No, really! Please tell me if it's what the ladies of On wear at night, or will I be dressed all wrong? I wouldn't want to embarrass you this evening."
What did fashionable women wear for dinner? Inhetep scratched his chin as if he still wore a beard. "An excellent questions, Xonaapi. I'm not absolutely sure about such matters, but . . ."
"Oh, you don't like it," she cried with disappointment.
"I didn't say that at all," he nearly barked. Then in gentler tone, he suggested that she show him the whole of her new wardrobe, hoping that by seeing what she had acquired he would be able to recall exactly what the wealthy folk in this city dressed like when out on the town. Xonaapi began bringing out garment after garment until the magister's head swam. Finally he told her, "You have on exactly the right costume, dear lady, except I think some gold bangles should replace the bell bracelet—and an exotic fragrance such as jasmine should be liberally applied to perfume your skin."
"Thank you, Setne Inhetep. Now don't you think you should put on something, too? After all, you said that you were expecting your friend, the chief inspector, as soon as it got dark."
Inhetep groaned. He'd forgotten entirely about Tuhorus and the murders. Worse still, what would he do with Xonaapi while he and the policeman went about their business? For that matter, what would that fiend Tuhorus jibe him about when he got a look at the girl now? Her appearance was subtly altered, and Xonaapi definitely radiated a possessive air with regard to him. The man couldn't miss it. "Very well. It won't take more than a few minutes for me to dress and be presentable. Perhaps you should go and see if Chief Inspector Tuhorus is waiting for us downstairs while I do so ... eh?"
Of course the girl agreed, for she now thought of herself as Inhetep's hostess, lady, and more. The priest-wizard groaned again, then almost shuffled as he made his way into the bath chamber to shave and make himself ready for what was to come. What had he gotten himself into now? After managing to shake off the last vestiges of his all too brief rest and donning fresh clothing for the evening, Inhetep gathered up the few items available to him for use in performing heka practice, lamenting the lack of magickal materia at his disposal as he did so. That made him think of home, which of course called to mind Rachelle. The amazon would have seen to it that he had packed such things as he now needed, but she had been too preoccupied with her own affairs to attend to that. Well, it served her right, the magister thought smugly. Her neglect, Rachelle's interest in the foppish noble, had brought this all to pass. Xonaapi was one thing to worry about, though. Perhaps something terrible would befall him due to the lack of proper compounds and implements for the performance of heka. Then Rachelle would be sorry indeed. "By the Bennu's Bill!" he exclaimed aloud. "I reflect as might a schoolboy who's just been packed off on punishment."
Inhetep stood straight, squared his shoulders, and marched out. He would manage everything tonight, from the girl to the murder, and never would Rachelle know of his predicament.
"Ah, Inhetep! Good to see you this evening." Tuhorus beamed as the ur-kheri-heb-tepi joined him and Xonaapi in the lounge salon. "You look surprisingly well-rested and fit, Magister. Another of your magickal elixirs? Or some other tonic?"
"Harumph," the priest-wizard responded in his throat. "I see your tongue is well-exercised, Tuhorus. Why not allow it to rest?"
"Yes, although Lady Xonaapi might object, for I was just telling her of a hairdresser nearby, as well as a perfumer and a jeweler who—"
"I believe that Magister Setne Inhetep has more burdensome matters on his mind, dear Chief Inspector," the girl interjected with a purr. "Perhaps we should attend to his concerns."
Tuhorus was neatly taken aback by that. "Well, if I'm not—"
"Not paying attention to what the clever young lady said," Inhetep supplied. "We do have certain matters which must be seen to, Chief Inspector."
"And Lady Xonaapi?"
"We'll all have dinner here together, and then I propose we visit the governor's palace. There's a fine young officer there, my dear," the magister said with a smile of the warmest sort, "who might be suitable to escort you for an evening of entertainment while we go about our dreary investigative chores. Does that suit you?"
"The dinner is fine, Setne Inhetep. As to the rest, I am doubtful, but I know I can't monopolize you entirely. If it is your wish, I'll make do until you have time for me."
Tuhorus chuckled—almost snickered in fact, but managed to swallow it. The wizard-priest blithely ignored him, inclining his head to Xonaapi and saying, "Thank you, my lady." He thereupon summoned various members of the inn's staff to attend properly to them.
After their repast, the three left the Reedfields and went by carriage to the nearby palace, Inhetep insisting that a lady should arrive soon as a chaperone. Actually, he paid the driver to remain on duty to serve Xonaapi and young Bekin-Tettu, hopefully, all night. "Just in case you might need to go elsewhere, Xonaapi, I'll see that this vehicle stays out here for a time, at least. It will be at your command, of course." The silver coins he then placed in the driver's hand were quite sufficient to keep the man on duty for the whole night and into the next day as well.
Inhetep had a dual purpose for the visit. If the subaltern could be brought in to assist with Xonaapi, so much the better, but the magister first and foremost desired to investigate again the subterranean regions of the palace.
Thankfully, Bekin-Tettu was neither on duty nor away from the soldiers quarters, and soon he and the girl were chatting as if they were old friends. Inhetep had sent immediately for the guardsman and asked if he would serve as an escort and protector for Xonaapi, a witness in the murder case who might be in danger. That was stretching the truth, but one look at the girl's striking beauty was sufficient to convince the subaltern that he was doing a valuable service. "That saves us from having to take her with us," the tall priest-wizard almost whispered to the policeman, even though the two young people were so busy talking and laughing that they couldn't have overheard him.
"She seems to be quite taken with that young guardsman, Inhetep," the inspector noted. "Aren't you . . . ?"
"Tuhorus, you mistake me. Don't make such an error again! Now let's leave it at that, shall we? I have only her best interests at heart; my regret is that I neglected to think of this sooner."
"Why so?"
"Come on," the magister said curtly. "We have to do a little exploring beneath this place. Bekin-Tettu and Lady Xonaapi won't miss us, and I've made it clear to the commander of the guards that the subaltern is now on special duty with the Utchatu, so he'll not have to worry about reporting."
"That seems to indicate you think well be at this for a long while, Magister. Is there likely to be much here not already discovered?"
"No, not here; but I believe we'll have much to accomplish elsewhere. 1 hope you slept well and long, Tuhorus, for this night is likely to become a very long day, so to speak."
Magister Inhetep didn't bother to seek out hidden entrances to the basement but instead asked to be taken to the stairs which led to the cellars of the palace. Once there, he and the policeman began a rapid survey of the rooms and passages. There were extensive works there, of course, built for storage and utility purposes. It didn't take long for them to find the section which had been closed, for Tuhorus had an old map from before the time Ram-f-amsu had been nome governor.
"The prince's agents 'updated' plans of the palace complex, Inhetep," the inspector quipped, "but they missed this copy which was buried in the prefecture's files. What are we looking for, anyway?"
"The escape route got me to thinking," Inhetep replied. "Such a passage might not be unique, and there are many tunnels, conduits, adits, and such running under the city."
"Of course. Sewers, aqueducts, and—but what's the use of that?"
"Here. Help me search the walls in this chamber Ram-f-amsu used as an armory. All this equipment had to get here somehow. It wasn't marched in through the front door."
It didn't take more than an hour for the two trained men to discover a very well-concealed trapdoor, which took them down beneath the palace's dungeonlike cellars. Below that basement level, they found several narrow passageways; it seemed that these, in turn, led to a maze of other subterranean corridors. "We could wander in this filthy labyrinth for weeks," Tuhorus muttered, as they peered from one to another long tunnel by the magickal witchlight the magister had produced.
"No need for that, my friend," the ur-kheri-heb told him. "You and I have more useful matters to concern us now. I'm sure that a team from the Metropolitan Prefecture can eventually map out this whole warren to your satisfaction." Inhetep paused and looked at the policeman, and Tuhorus nodded agreement. "But there's a wager I'll make with you now, Tuhorus, if you're willing."
"Which is?"
"That one of these passages will connect to the Temple of Set and that another will exit at some hidden spot near one of the docks along the Nylle here in On."
"Your confidence is sufficient, Magister. No wager." Tuhorus was still peering up into the green eyes of the tall wizard-priest. "Yet despite all this, I am baffled. What does this prove? I'll be rolled into Re-stau's flaming lakes if I see how any of this connects to the murder of the governor, Matiseth Chemres, or Aufseru!"
"Ah, Inspector Tuhorus, have patience. That will be clear to you soon enough, I think. Let's leave these dark and cramped spaces now. Some fresh air and a walk will do us a world of good."
"I have a feeling that's only mild exercise preliminary to what you have in store for us tonight, Utchat-neb."
Inhetep led the way back, and before they left the partially destroyed palace building, he made a brief detour into the burned wing in which Prince Ram-f-amsu had had his personal apartment. "Perhaps you're correct about tonight, Chief Inspector; but that remains to be seen. I hope your feeling is an omen. Help me search the walls here, please," the magister asked as he made his way through the debris of the fire into the room which had been the governor's private study. "The flames should have assisted us, for they will have burned away any concealing obstacles."
Tuhorus was pleased to help. "Here's a magick portal of some sort, Magister," he said, pointing to the scorched but otherwise intact section of a wall which had been screened by shelving. "Is that what you are looking for?"
"No. I saw its linking gate below, Tuhorus. What we must try to locate is a normal secret panel—and I am positive there's one here." With that, the hawk-nosed detective went to work, testing and trying the stones of the wall. Tuhorus joined him. It wasn't long before Inhetep was rewarded. A section which seemed solid swung inward, and there behind it was a narrow staircase of stone which spiralled downward. "What did I tell you?"
"And who would have thought to look for such a way directly beside a heka-engendered portal?" Tuhorus whistled. "What need for so conventional an escape route when Ram-f-amsu could easily have stepped through the magick door to . . . wherever?"
"It was for other sorts of comings and goings. See here? There's been plenty of traffic, too. The marks of both sandals and bare feet are plain to see in the dust and dirt of the steps."
"Not so many as you think, Magister. I can make out three or four different sandals having come this way—and the bare-footed prints, of course," the policeman said after going down and peering at the stairs. "No more than five different persons have been here in the recent past."
"One set will certainly have been made by Ram-f-amsu, and probably there are prints of Chemres' sandals there, too. Let's assume that his aide, Aufseru, is the third, and the uab, Absobek-khaibet, made the fourth set of marks there. You can find sandals from each to prove those assumptions, of course."
"Even the uab's?"
"Let's hope so. We'll go to the temple now and try our luck."
"And the unshod footprints? To whom do they belong, Inhetep?"
The tall wizard-priest smiled. "Now that, my dear Chief Inspector Tuhorus, is the key question, for whomever made those footprints assassinated the prince and the other two, as well."
The heat of the day had abated with the setting sun, so the mile walk to the Temple of Set was quite pleasant. Palms rustled in the night breeze, and the gentle wind sent tantalizing whiffs of fragrances from night-blooming flowers in the little parks and walled gardens they passed on their route. In most quarters of the city, there would have been far less pleasant odors wafted to them by the breeze, but the triangle of On between the governor's palace, the Reedfieids Inn, and the House of Set was certainly the best portion of the community. Tall, official buildings, palaces and mansions of minor nobles and rich citizens, and walled villas with elaborate gardens screened by stone barriers were laid out in neat Mocks. Wide avenues and narrow strips of vegetation were common here. Not far distant, however, were the narrow streets and twisting alleys of the city's less prosperous sectors, and the jumble of the riverfront which shouldered both sides of the well-kept quarter Inhetep and Tuhorus now traversed.
"Too bad the whole of On can't be more like this." The policeman sighed as they neared the temple grounds, "I've seen Thebes and Luxor and Karnak—beautiful. Memphis too is well-kept and prosperous, now that Saqara is but a district within that city."
"Innu and On move toward conjoining, Tuhorus, but I fear that the latter will forever be the shabby cousin of the former-—at least as long as your city remains the most active Nylle river port in Lower /Egypt. You and I will perhaps see the two joined as a single entity, and into a single sepat as well, but we shall be long in the Duat before On becomes a garden spot."
"I am a follower of Light, Magister," Tuhorus told him. "I hope that iny spirit dwells in Pet, not the dimness of the Duat."
"Well, be that as it may, whether in a heavenly sphere or that of the shadowy underworld, Tuhorus, you and I will be elsewhere, shall we say."
"Agreed."
"But not the elsewhere of Set and his ilk," Inhetep murmured as they came to the pyloned entrance to the temple complex. "That I wish on no decent person. Don't you often wonder how so many people can serve such as those of malign gloom?"
"Stupidity, greed, maliciousness . .. Shall I go
on?"
"No, for the clerics inside will take offense," The ur-kheri-heb grinned. "Truth may be relative in general, but it is firm in particular cases." They were at the temple's gates then, so Inhetep stopped speaking and pulled on the bell chain. Almost immediately a novice came to open the heavy doors, and when he saw who the two were, hastened to convey them inside. Regular services were suspended until a new high priest could take over. In the interim, the ranking "prophet" was in charge of the whole place. Such a temple as this had several such priests, those above the uabs but not yet advanced in the ecclesiastical hierarchy so as to be principal clerics. The one appointed to serve here was a sallow-skinned southerner, but his red hair probably guaranteed him success in due course.
"I am Prophet Eketi," he announced solemnly upon joining the two detectives in the antechamber of the priests' wing. "I assume this is an official call?"
"You assume right," Magister Inhetep almost snapped. "I can think of no other reason to be here, can you?"
The man, unable to make a quick response, stared blankly, a flush rising in his face, so Tuhorus asked, "Is there anyone from the prefecture here now, Prophet Eketi?"
"No, Chief Inspector. The rooms which were ... those of the former hem-neter-tepi are closed— sealed—and all of us were forbidden to enter them. We have obeyed, of course. After shutting that area off, the officials from the city police left."
"Shall we go there now, Magister?"
"No, Tuhorus. There is something we should find out first, and the 'prophet' here can assist, I think, eh, Eketi?"
"Pardon, Magister? I am uncertain . . ."
"You have been the ranking priest here for how long?"
Eketi puffed and seemed both proud and annoyed at once. "Very nearly five years now—before Matiseth Chemres came as hem-neter-tepi, in fact."
That was an unusually long time for serving in a temple as a second. Typically, such a clerical position led to assignment elsewhere, a lesser temple's headship or officiating at some important shrine. That the prophet had been here so long indicated either lack of competence or a political foe within the temple organization. As a priest-wizard himself, Inhetep was very aware of this. "Passed over unfairly were you, Eketi?"
"In truth I—" The man looked hard at the ur-kheri-heb, cutting off his words in order to assess the magister. "I have been," he finally said with a certain pride, "for I disavow involvement in matters of politics—state politics, that is."
"As I thought. Come, Prophet Eketi, you haven't taken this unfair treatment without some coun-termeasures, have you?"
"Not in the least, sir, not in the least. I've made a complete record of everything."
"Please show Chief Inspector Tuhorus and me your records, then—especially those pertaining to the staffing of the temple. I'm certain you maintained notes on personnel—your own roster, not that which the high priest retained.''
Eketi gave a sly smile and took them into his own cramped office. There he produced several little diaries: his carefully scribed notes on what had occurred in the temple over nearly five years' time. One with a dull red binding had lists of all ecclesiastic and secular personnel employed over that period of time. "Do you desire information on slaves? workers? priestesses? or priests?"
"Unquestionably detailed," Tuhorus murmured as he glanced over the cleric's shoulder at the book.
"On priests—uab rank, to be exact. Do you have an Absobek-khaibet listed?"
"Yes," Prophet Eketi said smugly, "of course I do. Here. Uab Absobek-khaibet joined us six months ago, coming here from the south by recommendation of the Innu Temple.. .. Now that's odd!"
"What do you mean?" prodded the magister.
"It is decidedly unlike me not to have made any notes regarding the fellow's performance here—his habits, predilections, weaknesses and .. . well, you understand." The cleric wasn't satisfied with that, however. He went back to his collection of materials and found another work, this one a record of attendant priests promoted to uab status. After several minutes of page turning and mumbling, Eketi exclaimed, "Here!" He handed the notebook to Magister Inhetep, one yellowish, long-nailed finger pointing to an entry. "This is the fellow."
Tuhorus came to view the entry, peering around the tall priest-wizard's shoulder. There, where the priest of Set pointed, was an entry noting that an attendant cleric, Absobek-khaibet of Ab-ydos, had attained uab status after serving in various lesser capacities for nine years. "I note that at that time he was posted to Suakin," the policeman commented.
"Yes," the cleric said, without looking at either of the two. "I wonder why I didn't note that in my journal when he was sent here. Such a place! How he managed to connive a transfer from there to Innu is beyond all understanding."
"We've seen enough, thank you, Prophet Eketi. Chief Inspector Tuhorus and I will now examine Matiseth Chemres' quarters—you'll certainly wish to make a note of that fact, won't you?"
Tuhorus saw the wizard-priest wink as Inhetep turned and left the cell-like room so filled with records. He couldn't help winking back, for Eketi was so petty and grasping. The prophet, however, failed to notice the jape and was scribbling furiously away in yet another of his tomes. "Of course, Ur-kheri-heb-tepi of Thoth. I must note that and the potential conflict between your position in the Utchatu and your devotion to the . . ."
They left him mumbling on as they proceeded toward the place where Chemres had dwelled. There were altogether five rooms and a private garden provided for the high priest of the temple. The outside wasn't of interest, nor the council room. The other four chambers, including the bath, had to be searched, "just what are we seeking, Magister?" queried the policeman.
"Sssh!" Inhetep cautioned as he used a dagger to cut the lead seal on the door. "We'll come to that in a moment, Tuhorus," he whispered. "For now, let's just be as stealthy as burglars."
"What on Yarth for?" asked the chief inspector in an equally hashed tone. "This area is— was—sealed. Are we going to surprise beetles and rodents?"
The magister looked down into the policeman's eyes and nodded. "Indeed, Tuhorus, indeed. We just might happen upon a rat, and a highly dangerous one at that. If you aren't highly adept at using heka in self-defense, Chief Inspector, I suggest that you have a weapon ready. No sword?" As he spoke, Inhetep eased open the heavy door and slipped through into the darkness beyond.
Tuhorus took him at his word, unsheathed his blade and showed the dagger to Inhetep, as he crept into the room. Inhetep shut the door and the chief inspector stood still, allowing his eyes to adjust to the gloom, for the only illumination there came from dimly glimmering motes high above on the ceiling. This was the personal chapel of the hem-neter-tepi, with a screened sanctuary for Set and two other associated deities. Besides some typical furnishings for such a place—incense burners on slender-legged stands, chests for service pieces, and the like—the room was clear and uncluttered. Across its length, at its left-hand corner, was a hanging which covered the archway leading to the chamber beyond. There was no sound audible or light visible behind that screening drapery, nothing at all to indicate there was another soul present in the dead high priest's suite. "Shall we begin searching?" asked Tuhorus in a hushed voice.
"No, not quite yet," Inhetep hissed in response. "Luck might truly be with us. Come on! Let's have a peek inside the bedroom and then see about his study." Together the two men stole on tiptoe to the inner opening and peeped into Chemres' bed chamber. It was similarly silent and deserted, so they moved the curtain and went in. "There!" the ur-kheri-heb mouthed silently, touching Tuhorus' arm and pointing. A thin line of golden light was visible at the bottom of the door which closed this room from the one next in sequence.
It could be that one of the police officers had simply left a lamp alight, but Tuhorus doubted that. With his weapon ready, he stood back so as to be able to rush into the study when the magister opened the door. Inhetep didn't yank it open immediately, however. With one hand on the latch, the tall wizard-priest paused and pressed his ear against the panel. Then he moved back, signaled to his companion, and pulled with all his might. The light which spilled suddenly into their room nearly blinded the policeman, but he blinked and darted into the adjoining chamber nonetheless, crouching low and looking right and left to avoid being ambushed.
Every book, manuscript, and scroll in the place was disturbed. These items were piled on the floor, atop the desk, and every other flat surface as well. Someone was hunched over what must have been a small stack, the last of the volumes from the last shelf, turning the pages of the topmost book as the chief inspector leaped into the study. "Don't make a move!" Tuhorus cried.
Inhetep suddenly sprang up behind the policeman. He had shut his eyes for a second before opening the door, hoping that they'd adjust quickly enough thereafter so that he could use the casting he had ready to use on the one lurking within, inflicting muscle rigidity. The mag-ick was of the sort quickly evoked, and though its effect lasted only a few seconds, the subject creature—human or otherwise—was held motionless during that time by nervous energy which locked muscles into knotted rigor. To activate the charm required but a little heka, but to lay it properly the priest-wizard had to himself freeze into immobility, consciously tense his whole body, and then transfer the magnified attitude to the other creature. Inhetep fixed his gaze on the figure by the flaring oil lamp.
Whomever was hunched there had so muffled itself in a cloak that no features were immediately distinguishable, save for dark, glaring eyes which met the ur-kheri-heb's own for a split second. Setae raised his arm and began uttering the few syllables which would transmit the store of magickal energy from his own body to that of the intruder. Yet before he could manage to get the last sound out of his mouth, the magister saw the cloaked figure move with lightning speed, a dark hand flashing toward the lamp as if to extinguish its flame. Inhetep bit off his dweomer and cried out instead, "Back, Tuhorus!"
The same sort of dweomer which had brought the fiery efreet and consumed the zombie Aufs-eru now caused the lamp to send forth its oily contents in a geyser. That jet of fuel was magnified in volume, somehow intermixed with air, and augmented at the same time with some other substance, so that as it shot up and outward it burned with a hellish brightness and blastfurnace heat. The policeman instinctively obeyed Inhetep's warning shout. The magister hurled himself backward even as he called out, and Tuhorus dived off to the side and rolled. There was a roar as the lamp's tripled volume of oil was consumed in an instant. The brass container itself was turned to a molten puddle, and then there was dead blackness, save for the red glow of the metal and the faint illumination from overhead.
"Are you all right, Tuhorus?"
The man grunted in pain but said, "Fine—a bruised knee from getting out of the way is all. I can stand on it. What happened to the intruder?"
"Gone. Fled, but I think we're now ready for the last act of this nasty drama, my friend. Shield your eyes; I'm going to cast a witchlight here so we can find anything our pyromaniacal quarry might have left behind in his hurry to escape. There," Inhetep said as the place was filled with brightness from the dweomer he had imbued into the ceiling. "Now we have proper illumination." Instead of barely twinkling "stars" above, there were beams as intense as sun rays streaming down out of midair. "Already receptive, you see," he remarked to the policeman. "Only a small matter to energize those places into suitable brightness."
"Who was that fiend who tried to blast us?" Tuhorus asked, rubbing his left knee. "He was faster than a cobra."
"Indeed he was. Did you see his feet?"
"No. What about them?"
"Bare and black, my friend. The fellow was none other than Yakeem, the Dahlikil assassin— perhaps the most able killer ever known," the ur-kheri-heb told his associate. "Now I think I have it complete. What do you make of his being here, Tuhorus?"
"He was searching for something. Every scrap of writing in this room had been gone through— except for the bit he was working on when we surprised him, that is."
"Yes. Let's take a look to see if there's anything in that last pile, and then we can move on."
"But what about the assassin—Yakeem? You can't let him escape!"
"Can't? He's already gone, Tuhorus. Nothing we can do in the next few minutes will change that. Don't worry, Chief Inspector. He didn't vanish. We can track him down well enough a bit later—at our leisure," the wizard-priest explained as he began paging through the material that the Dahlikil had been going through. "Here, take this volume and see if it has anything other than the contents it's supposed to—any scraps of paper, notes in the margins, anything, and don't neglect to check the spine and binding."
After some time, they completed the search.
'Nothing at all," the police official said with consternation. "What next?"
"That we found nothing means that Yakeem is unsure of the location of whatever it was he sought, but we know very well where it is."
"What are you talking about, Inhetep?!"
"Absobek-khaibet, of course. He had secreted something to ensure his safety—-at least, he thinks he has. Now all we need to do is locate the means of entrance to the passageways we know lie beneath here, and we'll be ready for the conclusion of the case."
__ 14 —
The escape route was concealed behind a panel in a little alcove just a few feet from where the cloaked assassin had been. Neither detective had noted the Dahlikil exit there because of the sudden flare of incandescent light and its roaring. The magister had no trouble discovering that the lamp had been magickally primed for such an effect beforehand. All the killer needed to do was add a chemical compound to the flame, and that seemingly normal tongue of fire changed instantly to a volcano-like display which might destroy any too near it, and worse, provide cover for Yakeem's flight as needed.
"He is a mage as well as a hired slayer, then?" queried Tuhorus.
"I have no doubt he has a considerable amount of skill when it comes to lethal dweomers, Inspector, but I doubt he's truly so able a spell-worker, a full practitioner of the arts. What he did here was carefully prepared, and my guess is that Jobo Lasuti's hand assisted him, directly or indirectly."
"And the uab? For a time I suspected that your assassin and Absobek-khaibet were one and the same man."
"The thought crossed my mind, Tuhorus, but I discarded it. Yakeem isn't accomplished enough at priestcraeft to pass himself off as one of the Pure of Set. No, we'll have to look elsewhere to discover the cleric's identity."
"We already know that."
"Not likely. Somewhere there's undoubtedly a long-dead corpse of the real Absobek. My guess is that his identity was assumed by another when it was time for him to come north."
"What makes you say that?"
Inhetep shrugged. "Mere speculation, perhaps, but the followers of Set aren't generally involved in this sort of thing—not in so blatantly open a manner, anyway. Not one of the priests here in the temple is a party to Chemres' involvement, are they?"
"No," the policeman admitted after a moment of reflection. "Yet I cannot make a connection between that fact and the murder of the actual uab and assumption of his identity you allege."
"Of the Seven Evils, Inspector, which looms larger than Set?"
"The red-one is the greatest save for ... Aapep!"
With an almost unconscious protective sign to ward off the attention of that dread serpent, Setne agreed. "Right. The Lord of Serpents is greatest of all in sheer power. The only ones able to give us any description of the uab say he was dusky, but we know he isn't the Dahlikil. We also must infer that he used some relatively potent heka to make those around him unable to recall his true appearance. Therefore Absobek-khaibet, the imposter posing as him, rather, is as follows:
"Dark of skin and tallish, knowledgeable enough in ecclesiastical matters pertaining to Set to perform ceremonies and rituals properly, able to employ magick outside the sphere usual for priests, and, lastly, wholly devoted to Evil."
Tuhorus understood. "Even Set himself would hesitate to object to a servant of Aapep donning the mantle of one of his own uab priests."
"Just so. And where is the serpent most venerated? The only place?"
"Darfur!"
"Your knowledge is excellent. This is correct, and therefore, Chief Inspector Tuhorus, we are seeking a skilled kheri-heb of Aapep—a malign counterpart of myself, as nearly as you like— who is a native of Darfur and is somewhere nearby as well."
"Down there someplace?"
"Not likely at all! No, I think we'll find him elsewhere, although we must venture down to have a look around."
The detective was still trying to fit the whole together. "So there is a plot fostered by Darfur, dissident Nubians, and a few renegades hereabouts? A racial war pitting black against red?"
"That would be damned awful, Tuhorus, but it's worse. This whole dirty business stems from an ^Egyptian, I fear. One who is quite willing to use any means—racism, greed, even murder. In that one's mind, Set, even Aapep, are tools to use in gaining the end he desires. Have you ever run across the Accursed?"
The policeman thought a moment, then shook his head. "What are they?"
"A loosely organized network of the most wicked sorts imaginable. This affair is just their sort of thing, but their usual stamp is not on it. No matter. We'll know for sure when we get our man."
"Who is this arch-fiend, then?" Tuhorus demanded.
"One whose guilt cannot be proved easily, but yet might be caught unaware—if we are careful and quick enough." Setne went to the secret egress from Chemres' private sanctum and summoned Chief Inspector Tuhorus to follow. "Once again, we must do a little underground exploring, my friend. Then we'll move on to the most dangerous bit."
As the two descended the hidden way, they examined the steps. Splayed bare feet had been here, the prints identical to those on the staircase in the burned wing of the governor's residence. "You knew about this all along."
"Suspected," Inhetep corrected.
"That's how you could state that you knew where Chemres' missing three volumes of notes were," the policeman said.
"Where else but hidden—or carried off by a secret way? The priests here saw no one with them and no magickal means were used to spirit them hence—that would have sounded alarms. The books had to have been physically removed, and this is the way it was accomplished."
Inhetep's sweeping gesture included the concealed entrance they had just passed through, the steps they were on, and the tunnels which lay below. "Either the uab-pretender, or Ya-keem, or both operating in tandem, came here and removed the evidence. There was no other way."
"And so too the murder of Prince-Governor Ram-f-amsu?"
"Ahemm .. . Well, I do believe that this secret way plays a part, but as yet, there's nothing conclusive. Shall we proceed with our investigation below? Perhaps there's something down there which will help us undo yet another knot holding fast this conundrum."
They went on down the staircase, a seemingly endless flight of steep and uneven steps hewn from the sandstone bedrock of the place. "The sandstone is soft, Magister, but these risers aren't particularly worn. What do you think?"
"A very private way, Tuhorus. I'd say that only the hem-neter-tepi of the temple used this stair."
"There has been usage, so what might be awaiting below?"
"There's the landing for the temple cellars,"
Inhetep noted. "Let's have a look at the steps further down." Both of them stopped after a few stairs and examined the wear to the stone there. "Far less here, but still ..."
The policeman concurred. "There has been something which brought many of the high priests of Set down here, Magister. I mislike this!"
Finally, they came to the end of their descent, at least a hundred feet underground. The little room at the bottom was also carved from living rock, and in its center there was a shaft which went down still further. "Smell that? This is a well, Tuhorus."
"That can't be the principal reason for so much secrecy, can it?"
"No, I think not." Inhetep gazed around the oval chamber, which was decorated with idols, each statue standing in a niche around the curve of the wall. "Six figures, Inspector, and not one of Set or his associates. And here! Take a look at this," the priest-wizard urged his comrade. "The stone of Hapy's head is worn," he said pointing to the figure of the Nylle god in a nearby recess. "Let's have a look at the rest."
Each of the stone figures showed the same sort of wear. Tuhorus was about to do the obvious thing and test one to see what it operated, for the idols were obviously the means to get beyond the room. The magister stopped him. "Hold on there, Chief Inspector. Have a care! Something is odd. all of this is too obvious, and the number is wrong, too. There should be seven here for the Seven Evils, and none of these deities are correct at all. Do you have the capacity of reading auras and heka?"
"To a limited extend, Inhetep. I've already noted a strong preternatural radiance pervading this whole chamber."
"Yes, and it's particularly strong around the figures, but I see it as a screen. Nothing comes from the leftmost curve there—the place unadorned by any statued niche."
"I can sense no magick there at all, Inhetep. Do you mean ... ?"
"That's where we seek egress, Tuhorus. Help me examine the wall there." Minute stains on the floor indicated others had passed there. Tactile impressions finally revealed that the seemingly smooth wall actually had etched into it shallow glyphs, the Seven Evils surmounted by three of the aspects of Set—okapi-, ass-, and warthog-headed. "I think we have three exits," the ur-kheri-heb said. "Let's open them and see."
"How is it that we could feel nothing while watching our hands at work, Magister, but with an averted gaze we could feel the markings?"
"The effect of the casting laid here. The heka makes eyes blind and sovereign over the other senses."
"But there's no aura!"
"None we can read, Inspector, but there's power here. This should come as no surprise after all that's occurred to date." Inhetep was pressing the glyphs with his fingers as he spoke, and pressure activated first the right and then the left of the slabs which hid exits from the chamber. Finally, the middle one opened, drawing back and removing the glyphs from the wizard-priest's touch. "There are the proper means of leaving, Tuhorus, but which of the three is the one for us?"
"Yakeem went along one of these ways?"
"I'm certain of it. Is there any trace of his passage?"
"No, but the central corridor has been most frequently used. That to the right is almost abandoned, while the other is nearly as neglected— note the floor and the cobwebs."
Inhetep paused and considered. One of the passageways must lead to the general complex of subterranean tunnels honeycombing the rock beneath On. That would lead them to the riverside exit he was sure existed. What of the other two? Somewhere in the stygian depths there was probably a forbidden altar, one dedicated to human sacrifice and rites too horrible to contemplate. Set's high priest must attend such services, but for what congregation? Even he had to shudder at the thought, especially when the officiating entity was considered. Such a place had to be at the leftmost. That was fitting. The center of the three ways seemed used, but no place such as this would be unguarded. The six obvious portals were the first line of defense.
Certainly they led to dead ends or worse. Even trying to activate some of them might prove fatal. Despite the careful concealment of the actual route, its malign architects wouldn't be satisfied. Left would lead to danger and death from the denizens which dwelled there. The magister snapped his fingers as a means of determination came to him. "Watch, Tuhorus, as I go into the rightmost of the ways." Thrusting aside the drooping cobwebs, the magister entered.
The policeman shouted after him, "The passage looks as if you've never been there, Inhetep! Dust has reappeared, and the veil of webs has returned as drooping and unbroken as ever."
"This is the one then, Chief Inspector. Leave them all as they are, and follow me." In the space of a few heartbeats, the policeman caught up to Setne, and the pair advanced into the unknown. It didn't take long for the nature of the way to change; the priest-wizard quickly determined that they now had come to the main artery of the maze. "The cross passage is familiar, isn't it? The same workmanship as we saw under the governor's place. It begins to ascend in that direction—must be the Nylle dock area exit I anticipated. With Yakeem having almost an hour's lead on us, there's no point in chasing that way now. Let's go and see if we can't unearth Absobek-khaibet."
"But that will allow the assassin to completely cover his trail and evade capture entirely!"
"I know where he is going, and he'll be there when we want him," the ur-kheri-heb assured Tuhorus. "Since the supposed uab has evidently fallen out with his masters, I believe he's the one to get to now."
"You think he's down here someplace?"
"Where else would you hide if the Dahlikil was seeking you?"
"Doesn't Yakeem know this labyrinth as well as the imposter priest?"
"Yes and no. Don't forget that the one posing as Absobek-khaibet is an imposter only in the sense he's not a uab of Set—he's a kheri-heb whose priestcraeft experience might have taught him these ways as a rat knows its tunnels, Tuhorus. Even Yakeem would shun venturing into a place dedicated to such things as the evilest of our subterranean realm and the netherbeings that dwell in the foul regions of the Duat."
"Yes, I understand. So there is a Blood Temple active in the city," the policeman said softly, revulsion plain in his tone. "That accounts for the rash of disappearances last year and this. . . ."
Slaves and vagrants were commonly used for the forbidden sacrifices. On special occasions, though, worshippers of the vilest Evil lords might kidnap other persons. Now the chief inspector was correlating such events with the disappearances in his prefecture.
"Tuhorus, I'd look to religious and political foes as well as . . . ah . . . those who are typically considered possible victims of human sacrifice."
"The other disused way, the one on the left.
That's the route to the outlawed temple, isn't
it?"
The ur-kheri-heb of Thoth nodded. "Let's see for ourselves. Because of the complete outlawing of Aapep in /Egypt, my guess is that the Blood Temple is his—with lesser shrines, of course, for Set, Seker, Sobk, and the others."
After returning to the oval room, the two detectives went into the other seemingly neglected passage. It soon carried them downward and into an arched corridor decorated with has relief work and wall paintings of the foulest sort, depicting unspeakable things. The wide passageway continued downward, with irregularly spaced adits along its length. What degenerate humans from above passed along this route to form the congregation for the hideous sacrificial ceremonies? Such a place would be likely to have lurking within it all manner of ghoulish things: light-hating vampires, humanoids who had for so long a time dwelled in the depths as to become alien, and demoniacal creatures, too. Here would be the worst of subterranean Mrth met in horrid revel! Inhetep used his gold ankh to englobe them both in a silvery light which was brighter than a full moon, and whose radiance bathed their skin with a crackling energy which invigorated them.
"Does this do more than what I sense?" asked Tuhorus.
"Not to us," the magister replied, "but those with unnatural life—zombies, undead, and even unliving made strong by the vitality of dark heka, the negative—are adversely affected. Their eyes are blinded by the illumination, their substance destroyed, as acid would attack our flesh, by the wash of positive force. As our bodies are aided, those of a malign nature are hindered and harmed by this heka."
"Powerful stuff," Tuhorus commented with admiration. "Not many can bind such magick."
"Let us hope that the servant of Aapep we seek cannot, for otherwise the false Absobek-khaibet might counter my own dweomer with its opposite, an anti-sphere."
Sounds of furtive movement and lambent, evil eyes glittering from the pitch darkness of the side passages made Tuhorus fervently second that wish of his associate. "At least I have this," he said, gripping the hilt of his leaf-bladed dagger.
"Better a sword, Inspector. That little knife will—"
"Better?"
"Yes, bet—" Inhetep cut his word short as he realized that his companion was asking a question regarding the weapon he held, not questioning the magister's remark. Setne grinned at the policeman, for Tuhorus had altered the dagger before his eyes, changing it to a moderately-sized stabbing weapon similar to a Grecian short sword. "Better! It has a subtle dweomer, Inspector. Can you do other tricks with that blade?"
"Lethal thrusts and cuts only, but such have served me well enough in the past. I think those columns ahead mark the entrance to the Blood Temple. Perhaps I'll have the opportunity to test my skills soon, but somehow I can't bring myself to fervently wish for that."
Perhaps it was their unexpected arrival. Then again, the denizens of the place were not an organized community. Certainly the magick from the ankh Inhetep held forth kept at bay all of the lurking monstrosities who might otherwise have assailed them. The priest-wizard and Chief Inspector Tuhorus went on unmolested and soon found themselves on the verge of the maleficent temple. A series of short flights of broad steps between columns did indeed mark the precincts of the dark place of evil worship. They had been traveling along a way almost ten paces wide, and as the two men went down the first set of three stairs, they discovered beyond the pillars a wider, vestibule-like space.
"Careful of those sigils, Tuhorus," the magister cautioned. Snaking runes of a non-Egyptian sort, perhaps not even of human invention, writhed across the floor, down the next flight of steps, and upward to twine around four larger columns. "They bear vile magicks within their forms."
"How do you know? The script isn't natural!"
"You have it there, Inspector. I see now that it's from an age before mankind walked /Erth. I know it, though, for it is still used by a handful of the most wicked dweomercraefters—and those priests who serve Evil in Darfur. At least we can be certain that beyond lies the Blood Temple, and that it is an ancient one, serving Aapep for millennia in gore and death."
Chief Inspector Tuhorus was growing progressively more nervous. "How can we pass? The sigils form a wall-to-wall barrier. We'd need wings. . .."
"That wouldn't serve, either. Those are chiseled there to ward off all entry, and even if we fly above the stone, their effect would be felt. However, at times they are neutralized, for then worshippers pass them to go into the temple and feed the monstrous Evil they serve. Similarly, any cleric bound to those honored within can traverse the warding without ill effect. Seeing that we can't spend hours searching for the means of neutralization, though, I think we'll have to step out and beyond them," the magister said drily. Then he took two little wooden strips from somewhere inside his tunic. Each was a hand's breadth long. One he tossed beyond the four stone posts at the base of the stairway, the other he set down in front of him.
"Do as I do, Tuhorus." Inhetep took a step toward the stairway. One instant he was there, the next he was beyond the columns below. "Don't touch the 'threshold,' Inspector; we'll need it when we return," he called back in a hushed voice across the thirty or so feet of distance.
The police official followed, hoping that no other dweller in these depths decided to investigate the dweomered bit of wood. He felt an awkward moment when he almost fell as he aped the wizard-priest's action, and there was a slight tugging as if he'd broken through a membrane. Then he was beside Magister Inhetep. "I begin to appreciate the true merits of using heka in detection, Utchat-neb," Tuhorus said admiringly. They moved across the intervening landing to yet another broader descent.
"Those four pillars juxtaposed themselves to bar intrusion," Inhetep said as if he hadn't heard his companion. "The three larger ones are proof against all form of radiation or aerial disturbance—light, heat, sound, and even things of an aethereal sort."
"Then we can pass easily enough."
"That we can, but be prepared for what might lie inside. Bright flames, darkness, or a roaring serpent with eyes shooting bolts of destruction might be there. We will see nothing beyond until we step off the third stair and into the temple beyond."
They entered the Blood Temple thus, stepping cautiously from the last of the wide risers, and found themselves in a space totally lightless save for the silvery glow from the priest-wizard's ankh. The stone floor and walls were black as basalt, even the huge pillars which marched to either hand off into the darkness ahead. Side aisles bordered by smaller columns could be discerned behind the massive supports flanking the way, but what lay beyond those smaller pillars was hidden in the darkness, hidden from the metal-hued illumination emanating from the sacred object Setne held high. Somewhere there were ways leading upward, for although the ceiling overhead was lost from sight in the gloom, a railed balcony was visible, its porticoes twenty feet above, paralleling the trunk-like supports.
Inhetep paced forward, his companion hanging back and turning to guard against surprise from behind. Neither spoke. It was Tuhorus who noticed darker shapes in the gloom above, fluttering batlike things which swooped and disappeared and reappeared again. "By Hathor's Horns, Magister!" he cried as they moved slowly into the huge temple, "they're eating your light."
Wherever one of the imp-visaged creatures contacted the silvery sphere of illumination, a spot of blackness replaced the radiance. They were indeed devouring the light. "Chiropum-brates! The things are from the Shadowsphere, Tuhorus," he called to the chief inspector. "They'll feed on the magickal light until it's destroyed unless we stop them!"
"I'll try to cut them down, but they're small and quick."
"You couldn't do more than bag a dpzen at best, my friend," Inhetep said as he dug inside his tunic again. "We'll need something more efficient." He held out his palm to the policeman.
"A pair of crested heron miniatures wrought in silver. Am I supposed to appreciate their artistic beauty?"
"Not quite correct. Now watch them!" The priest-wizard sent the two little figures soaring into the darkness above with a flick of his wrist and then spoke rapid words of hekau, a summoning of some sort. Two bursts of multi-hued flame roared suddenly high above, the fires making visible the stone ceiling some sixty feet overhead. Clusters of the batlike creatures immediately surrounded the flaring fires. But as they did so, the flames consumed them, and the chiropumbrates fell in an increasing rain of brittle husks which broke into ashes when they struck the stone floor.
"Bennu!" The detective referred to the Egyptian relative to the phoenix. "You conjured a pair of them!"
"Easily. This whole place is closely attuned to the Plane of Fire, Tuhorus. Our quarry is here, no doubt of it!"
As the light-hating creatures of shadow were turned into cindery corpses by the bird beings from the Empyreal Sphere, Inhetep and Tuhorus pressed on into the vaulted place where worship of the hideously evil Aapep was paramount. The blazing forms of the bennu sent dancing light and shadows throughout the Blood Temple in ever-changing patterns. That was sufficient for the two men to determine the general extent of the place and discover that at its upper end were a number of passageways leading to other subterranean places. "The malign priest-mage exudes heka, Inspector, which will draw the bennu to him. All I need to do is release them from their aerial guardianship."
"Then do so, Magister," urged the policeman. "The sooner we can exit this ghastly place, the happier I'll be!"
Inhetep actually needed no encouragement. He was already freeing the binding on the bennu, so that they could leave his vicinity. They would seek energy from their own planes as water seeks its own level. Thus, the winged creatures of pure flame would lead them to the place where lurked the false Absobek-khaibet. There was a massive altar just before them, behind it a wall of solid rock on which was carved a monstrous likeness of the coiling master serpent. The pair of flame creatures flew to it, their many-hued fires making the rank of six idols standing beneath the figure of Aapep seem to shift and sway. The magister's eyes were fixed on that line, for in its center was a seventh, living figure. "I have you, kheri-heb!" he cried out.
"No, fool of Thoth, I have you!" shouted the evil priest-mage. The carved form of the crocodile-headed serpent writhed, and its huge foreclaws shot out. They snatched the bennu from the air, stone talons grated shut, and the light in the Blood Temple went out.
—— 15 ——
Into that stygian blackness came a mist of vapors which resembled water lit by moonbeams. The cloud formed above the blood-soaked altar, thickened, and grew bright. Then its blue-white radiance came raining down, and phosphors covered the rock wall which was the representation of the progenitor of all Evil serpents Aapep. The viscous light fell upon the idols of those dark deities associated with the terrible wyrm, and starkly outlined the evil priest-mage. This was Inhetep's supernatural light, a dweomer which wove moonlight and water and made the two an inescapable cloak dampening the element of fire and telling the wizard-priest exactly where his evil counterpart was standing.
At the same moment, however, the false Absobek-khaibet had likewise been at work. Something blacker than black now twisted and coiled upon the smooth rock of the temple floor. Although it was not drenched by the phosphorescent shower, it slowly grew visible, as might a mass of cold iron heated by invisible fire. Its heat came from within, though, for it was a serpent of iron whose core was molten. That metal form rose like a cobra, and dull red spots waxed brighter as if it were indeed a living snake with eyes of incandescent metal. All the while, the magickal illumination came raining down, but the priest-mage of Evil ignored that precipitation. He was intent on his own spell, pouring heka into his conjured serpent without regard to anything else. Soon the metal serpent rose, its head swayed back, and the energy within it grew to near-bursting.
Molten venom would vomit forth from its mouth even as its hard, flesh-searing coils would writhe forward to entwine the ones who dared to oppose the power of a kheri-heb of Aapep, resist the priest-mage in his own sanctum! After all, the malign practitioner was standing at the focus of Aapep's power, and the heka at his command was immeasurably more potent here than anywhere else. "So you die, Magister Inhetep!" the man screamed in triumph. His last words sent the gigantic iron cobra into action.
Tuhorus was powerless. The enemy mage-priest had snuffed out the magister's magickal light; the policeman crouched back. Before he could do more, Tuhorus heard Inhetep whispering a chant and the pearlescent mist brought light back to the darkened Blood Temple. Then he saw the blacker-than-black shape appear. He wasn't sure what it was, but he knew that the thing was a creation of the malign kheri-heb, so he did what he could. Still crouched low, the policeman scuttled off to the right. When he was past the line of the three-foot thick columns, he sprinted at a right angle, heading for the altar area. You can use your magickal force against the utchat-neb, or you can try to stop me, but you can't do both! Tuhorus thought, and he kept that fixed in his mind as he advanced. His sword was before him, and he was ready to die.
In the meantime, the conjured snake came at Inhetep, rose, and as a fiery redness split its jaws, the iron length lashed forward. Livid crimson venom spurted forth in a thick jet. It struck a shining disc which had appeared in an instant, splattering into burning droplets, and hissed into nothingness as the molten stuff shot into a harmless spray before the magister. But then the iron head of the cobra hit the silvery shield, and the disc split into metallic shards, which fell chiming to the stone and disappeared.
"Useless!" cried the gloating voice of Aapep's servant.
"Melodious!" countered the magister, and as he spoke the chiming sounds of the falling bits of silvery disc continued, were drawn out, and their tinkling became deeper. A plangent three-note sequence grew from that, and it resonated in rhythmic waves which filled the cavernous temple. "You pet cobra seems charmed!" he called out, for the iron monster was now swaying before him as if it were some strange metronome. Left, right, back and forth it went, but never quite in time with the three sounds which now rolled and pulsed throughout the grim underground temple. Faster and faster went the unnatural snake as the waves of sound peaked and sank and charged. The reverberations were renewed, restated, and repeated, so that ever closer notes formed an impossible mesh around the dark priest-mage's metal monster of death.
Knowing that his magick was failing, the man was about to try and withdraw the iron snake, or send it in a destructive rush to overwhelm his foe, when he caught a glimpse of Tuhorus out of the corner of his eye. Letting go of his mental link with the cobra, the evil kheri-heb spun and flung a shower of fiery darts in the direction of the policeman. Then he continued turning and ran, disappearing down one of the tunnels beside the wall of Aapep.
Inspector Tuhorus used his blade to bat aside the pair of flaming darts which knifed toward his face. Another seared his chest as it hissed past. His shirt burst into flames where the fiery missile had touched it, and his short cape was likewise set ablaze by another dart which passed through its cloth. Then he was struck in the body and limbs by yet more of the things. He fell to the floor, writhing in pain, rolling to extinguish the fire which now played over him with greedy, searing tongues.
The storm of sound engendered by Inhetep's counter-heka reached a crescendo, and those ringing notes shook the iron snake; it flew suddenly in ten thousand pieces, each a tiny meteor that burned hellishly for a split second, then winked into nothingness. After the massive pyrotechnic display, the waves of metallic sound ceased, and the red light was replaced once again by the faint wash of moonlike glow from beyond. The magister had seen the attack upon Tuhorus, for his casting needed no concentration to sustain its effect. Setne was hurrying to help the policeman when something else distracted him. The six stone statues began to move with ponderous steps, and the sinuous depiction of the serpent-dragon started to come alive.
"By Thoth, this is too much even for me," Inhetep growled. With a wild heave, he threw his precious ankh of enchanted gold straight at the now gaping maw of the monstrous Aapep. His aim was true, and the charm flew past the stone teeth and down the serpent-drake's gullet. There was a great flash of silver-gold light, and then reality was restored. The wall was motionless, its carved monster solid and lifeless, the six idols of the Evil deities of Aapep mere hulks of rock— inanimate and powerless. "That was drastic but ..." he murmured as he again hastened to where the police official lay. "The powers of Balance will keep Aapep and his pack of hounds quiet for some time—hopefully long enough for me to deal with that dirty kheri-heb who relies on his master rather than fighting his own battles."
"Aaah," the inspector groaned faintly as Inhetep touched him. "I'm charred all over, and those darts seemed to have boiled my insides, too. Leave me be—I'm finished, Magister. Get that rotten bastard for me. . . ."
"And I thought you knew something about heka," Inhetep admonished, only half joking. "When we've finished up with this affair, Tuhorus, you'd better take a sabbatical—a full year, I think. You need to develop more skill in dweomercraefting of whatever practice in which you have talent!" Inhetep reached inside the neck of his tunic and pulled out a silver chain upon which hung a little vial. He poured out tiny droplets of opalescent liquid, one for each portion of the chief inspector's maimed body. Head, neck, chest, abdomen, and then his four limbs. Eight drops. "Thoth is a healer, too, you know. I know the pain is terrible, but you'll soon begin to feel better. Just remain still and try to relax." He watched Tuhorus' face, and after a minute Setne saw a change, so he continued. "See? There is no more pain, and you can begin to breathe more deeply now." The detective managed a weak smile and a nod. "You saw where the enemy went? Can you tell me?"
"Yes," Tuhorus whispered. "He ran into the passage to the right—the one by the idol of Seker."
"Don't try to point it out, man! I can find it— there's only a pair to choose from. I'm going to follow that scum. I'm without my ankh, but it's now giving that serpent of perdition severe indigestion, I trust! If so, his wretched little kheri-heb will be at a low ebb of power, too."
"Wait for me," the inspector said, his voice now stronger.
The magister shook his head. "Not even a minute, and you'll need a few more before you're able to stand up and walk. I have to go now. Follow me as quickly as you feel strong enough to try, but don't push it. This will light your way," Inhetep added, putting a disc of pale onyx into Tuhorus' hand. "Think of seeing, and that will send forth a ray of moonlight." The policeman nodded, so Inhetep went off to where the dark tunnel mouth pierced the living rock of the Blood Temple's rearmost wall. A five-foot-wide passage ran straight into the stone, and the priest-wizard stalked ahead into that tunnel with deadly purpose.
After only a few steps, however, the floor turned from cold rock into a glowing bed of coals. The evil one was protecting himself ably. Magister Inhetep actually appreciated that, for the path of deadly heat led him directly to his adversary. Water to quench the coals would fill the way with scalding steam, but sand would smother them effectively. It was risky, of course, for one-foot depth of the rock overheard would be involved, but Inhetep didn't hesitate for a second. The bed of burning embers had hardly begun to eat away the soles of his sandals when he uttered the hekau needed to decompose the stone ceiling. Out went the magick, rock turned to grains of sand, and down rained a torrent to cover the coals. Inhetep was now covered with grit, and the sand underfoot made the going heavy, but he labored on as quickly as he could. Because he was contesting with a fellow kheri-heb, albeit one of Evil, countering the dweomers was easy—especially since his opponent was nowhere near his skill. It was almost the same as contending with a mirror image foe who was but half his strength.
"Wait! I'm coming!" Tuhorus shouted when he saw the hot glow from the passage and heard the magister saying something. He struggled erect and staggered to the place, getting a little stronger and more steady with each step, but still feeling weak and slow. By the time he managed to reach the place he thought Inhetep had called out, there was no more red light, so Tuhorus invoked the illumination of the little disc and waded along the sand-covered floor of the tunnel aided by its moonbeam ray. The footprints of his companion were distinctly visible as depressions in a line going straight away, ignoring the side passage to the left where no sand covered the floor.
The evil kheri-heb, one Vuhata na Tuphopis, however, had retreated all the way to the oblong chamber which was the sanctum of the Blood Temple's chief cleric—his own, in fact. Tuphopis hastened there at the first sign of able defense and offense on the part of his two adversaries. He had reason to do so. The whole of this place was no longer of interest to his associates. In fact, the high cleric and mage knew that they would cheerfully slay him to assure his silence, just as they had killed Prince Ram-f-amsu and the hem-neter-tepi, Chemres. He had been principally responsible for the death and sending of the Aufseru-zombie thereafter. His failure to kill the two detectives now hounding him spelled the evil kheri-heb's own demise, but only if he failed to escape.
Vuhata had to avoid not only Inhetep and Tuhorus, but he needed to get away from /Egypt as well, and quickly. Although he was half /Egyptian, his mother having been a kidnapped slave, the man thought of himself as a Darfurian. That was because there in his tribal lands the dark entity, Aapep, was lord of all. He had failed to promote the worship of the Greatest Evil Serpent here, but his work had not been entirely fruitless. There were converts, the sacrifices had strengthened Aapep, and Vuhata an Tuphopis had amassed a fortune in gold, magickal items, and precious gems. He had been discovered by the two men now seeking him because Vuhata had lingered in the subterranean temple to select, pack, and arrange for the transportation of his booty. Had he been able to bring it back safely to his homeland, all Darfur might have been brought under the control of his temple.
That was now out of the question, of course. Only that treasure which he could personally carry would go with him, which was why the priest-mage had so carefully sorted his wealth. Chests and bales awaiting portage would have to be sacrificed. Vuhata na Tuphopis would take with him all that which was most precious, and he would do so now. There awaited a secret escape route from the cul de sac room, beneath On to the Nylle, where a boat would take him upriver. Magick and the vastness of the Sudd, the great swamp, would assure none would successfully follow. It was merely a matter of gathering up the coffer and bundles he had selected, placing a last dweomer to obscure his route, and he would be off.
A groaning sound alerted Vuhata to the fact that someone was before the two massive doors which closed off his sanctuary from the complex of chambers and special cells for sacrificial victims which honeycombed the area behind the temple proper. Normally there would have been a half-dozen lesser clerics on hand to bolster defenses, but like Matiseth Chemres, all were dead. Vuhata na Tuphopis had personally slain the other five when he realized they would attack him—for reasons of greed or in obedience to others. Now he was alone, and nothing stood between him and the pursuing wizard-priest of Thoth other than the magickally closed valves.
"May the toad, Shogsoshog, devour you as you pass," the man hissed as he made hasty passes in the air, sprinkled powders upon the stone floor, and then used a reptile-skulled baton to trace a shape there. The malign native deities of
Darfur were intermixed freely with service to Aapep, of course, for such ones of Evil could be invoked to compliment one another. Thus he called upon one now. The twin panels bulged and the groaning came again. Magickal pressure from without was near to sundering the heka which barred them. Vuhata na Tuphopis uttered a word and blew. The colored powders on the floor were whisked up and away, gone. "We will meet again, Inhetep," he said, leaving that whisper lingering in the air so that the ur-kheri-heb would hear it and pause. Then would Snogsos-hog the toad-fiend strike, and perhaps the matter would end in the death of his foe. If not, no matter, for Vuhata would be well away by then. The servant of Aapep whirled, dashed to grab his burdens, and slipped out of the room into the narrow escape route. Even that was a maze, so that a close pursuer would blindly seek while the one familiar with the path could travel freely to safety. In seconds, Tuphopis was gone.
The crash of the falling sanctum doors actually masked the rasping and snickering closure sounds of the pivoting stone which the evil kheri-heb shut behind him in his escape. Because the magister hadn't his ankh, he had no option but to move ahead boldly, for there was no fast means to discover traps his foe might have placed in the short corridor. However, the two doors had fallen inside, and their panels provided him with some safety. No pit, at least, could claim him. Inhetep stepped lightly onto one of the doors and bounded ahead to cover the ten feet in two strides. The toad-fiend materialized, splintering the thick wood as if it sought to swallow the man alive, but it was a fraction too late.
With a quick motion, the priest-wizard summoned a creature inimical to Shogsoshog, a cranelike being from Thoth's own realms. The great bird appeared instantly and struck at the fiend while Inhetep moved on further into the depths of the oval chamber, keeping clear of the combat. The long bill of the crane struck and stabbed, wounding the toad-fiend severely, but there was no hope in the contest, for Shogsoshog was an entity of great power, a demigod in its own right. The bird-being hurt it, but Shogsoshog shrugged off the punishment and hopped over to finish the battle. It croaked horribly as the bill pierced it in its soft belly, then came down to crush the crane, sending venom into the bird-creature's body with the many poisonous fangs in its mouth. The struggle ended then, and Shogsoshog devoured its foe with a single gulp.
By then Magister Inhetep had discovered that the place was devoid of the one who had fled to it. He turned back and prepared to fight the fiend. Shogsoshog grinned, for he knew the priest-wizard was lacking in reserves of heka. No protective aura shone forth. "Your spirit and soul," it croaked eerily, "will be tasty morsels to satisfy me."
At that moment, Chief Tuhorus came around the corner. He was nearly recovered by now, and his sword was ready. He used both hands to wield the leaf-shaped length of weapon, slicing the toad-fiend's spine from mid-back to the dorsal ending of its body. "Back to your nether pits!" he cried as he struck.
"Amazing!" his comrade said a second later as he stared at the empty place where Shogsoshog had squatted just before. "You sent it down to its own foul realm," Inhetep said as he looked at the policeman with new respect.
"The sword, Magister, the sword," Tuhorus barked as he hurried to where the ur-kheri-heb stood. "The weapon had greater heka bound in its metal than I imagined."
"Lucky for both of us, I think. We'll have to examine it later. Right now we must discover the means of egress the Darfurian used to escape us."
"You're certain of that?"
"Oh, yes. He's none other than Vuhata na Tuphopis, the vilest servant of the serpent-drake in all Darfur—and that's saying a lot, Tuhorus."
"I referred to his whereabouts."
"He was here right enough. He used a casting to hold fast the doors, then escaped by means of a concealed exit. Observe the scattered treasures and mound of abandoned loot. The fool gives away the location of the secret passage," the magister said as he strode to the place where the riches were spilled. "This bit of curving wall is closest to the only cleared space at this end of the chamber. He might as well have left the way open."
Tuhorus moved to assist the magister in his search for the triggering mechanism to the stone panel which hid a passageway. "This hole is where the catch must be," he cried.
Inhetep used his dagger and there was a metallic click. He shoved, and the seemingly solid rock moved to reveal a two-foot-wide opening. They entered immediately, the magister leading. "Use your moondisc, Chief Inspector. Well need that light." Tuhorus complied, and the two men began to explore the short series of dead-end adits which were the protective feature of the escape maze.
"Another secret doorway, Magister?"
"No, I doubt that very much. Anyone fleeing would not want to have to risk operating another—too complex and time consuming. The builders hoped to make pursuers stop and consider that, though. Ignore these blind alleys and look for a plain route." After several false turns, they discovered the true passage and followed it at a trot.
"Something ahead," Tuhorus panted. "A discarded bundle?"
"Not quite, Inspector," breathed Inhetep. He approached the object. "We have the kheri-heb of Aapep, Vuhat na Tuphopis .. . dead!"
—= 16 ——
The dead man stared at them with eyes which had seen hell. "By all the gods, Inhetep! He looks just as did the governor and Matiseth Chemres!"
"Indeed, Tuhorus. That should tell you something—it does me. Have a look ahead. Is there anything there?"
The policeman stepped over the body and went a few score paces off along the underground route which Tuphopis had thought would lead to his freedom, not sudden death. "This tunnel had a subtle curvature to it, Magister," he called back. "I think its builders made it so in order to keep the pursued out of view of the pursuers, eh?"
"Come on back then, Tuhorus. You're undoubtedly right, and we have urgent need to get out of here quickly. I don't wish to be waylaid as was this man." The words echoed in the passage, fading quickly but emphasizing their setting in a most menacing manner. The detective returned with haste, as if he too were growing nervous. "We'll leave the corpse as it is, Tuhorus, but help me to strip it of valuables. We'll not leave such a fortune as this to his killer." Inhetep freed a large pouch from the dead kheri-heb's body.
"Where to, then?" querried the chief inspector. "Can we return—"
"Sssh! Let's speak in a whisper," Inhetep hissed. "The assassin might lurk nearby still. Have your blade ready, my friend. Our only safe exit now is along this very way the Darfurian meant to follow. The Blood Temple's avenue is surely closed to us, for I haven't the talisman to manage it."
Tuhorus nodded, not even daring a whisper. The two picked up the things the dead priest-mage had been carrying and began to walk rapidly off. Several straight side passages offered themselves, but Inhetep stayed on the curving route, assuming that it was the single and most direct way to the surface. After about a quarter-hour's brisk walking, they came to a flight of steps which stretched upward. "We've nearly made it, Chief Inspector. Go up and get that trapdoor open. I'll stay here to see that nothing assails us when we least expect it."
"Got it, Inhetep," the policeman called down a minute later. "We're in a ruined building, and dawn's just breaking outside!"
The ur-kheri-heb backed cautiously up the steps, watching the tunnel. No feral eyes glowed, no sound or movement came. They had been able, or allowed to leave unmolested. That didn't surprise the magister, either. Tuphopis' death had been all his assailant was equipped for. "Let's pile some rubble atop the trapdoor," he snapped, tossing a pair of bricks on it as he spoke. "I want to be certain that nobody will follow us from there."
"Someone was trailing us?"
"I am nearly positive of it, Tuhorus. The one who struck down the kheri-heb of Aapep would have stayed near to spy on us."
"Yakeem the Dahlikil?"
"None other. That fact alone now ties the whole thing up quite neatly. Let's get back to the Reedfields. I'll need fresh clothing, and I must get another ankh—thank Thoth that the gathering of kheri-hebu is here in On, Tuhorus. You'll need some proper attire too, for we must look our best when we lay the master criminal by his heels, Chief Inspector, don't you agree?"
Knowing that he'd get nothing more from the utchat-neb, Tuhorus shrugged and remained silent. It irked him a little that the magister seemed so confident of the resolution of this affair—and that he was still uncertain. After they had heaped a mound of rubble over the exit, the two went outside, walked along the riverbank to make certain that they would be able to locate the place again, and then plunged into the city. The policeman found a carter and hired him in order to get to his own residence quickly. "An hour or so, Inhetep, and I'll be back."
"Excellent, my friend," the magister called back. "I'll be ready."
Xonaapi and Subaltern Bekin-Tettu were sitting in the inn's main lounge when he entered the building. "What? You two still up? What are you sitting here for?"
The young guardsman stood up and took a nervous step in the magister's direction. Then he stopped, fidgeted, and looked back at the golden-haired girl. "Well?" Xonaapi urged, "Tell him!"
"You two have found true love," Inhetep supplied with a solemn expression.
"How did you guess?" asked the dumbfounded subaltern, his eyes wide.
The ur-kheri-heb smiled stiffly in order to hide a laugh. "Ahem! I ... I am a wizard, you know." Both of the young people started to speak, but Setne held up a long-fingered hand. "Stop. Say nothing. It is all too clear to me! Go. May you find the great happiness you expect. I will ... manage. You have my blessing," he concluded, turning away.
"You mean that?" querried Bekin-Tettu.
Back still turned, the priest-wizard mumbled, "May the Great Thoth aid and guide you, children. I do mean what I said."
"He is a fine fellow," the young officer said as he led the now vaguely reluctant Xonaapi from the inn.
"I saw his shoulders quiver," she responded. "He was crying, I know." She hesitated a moment, debating with herself. The she looked at the young officer and smiled. "But he will get over the fact that you won me," Xonappi told him, hugging the subaltern possessively as they strolled off into the bright day.
Not caring if early risers heard him, Magister Inhetep allowed his booming laughter to roll forth as he went into his suite. "I am indeed a fortunate fellow!" he cried once inside, wiping tears from his eyes and grinning still. "The only problem left in this whole case has been resolved!" Then he hastened to the bath to get ready for the real work still ahead.
When Tuhorus arrived, they detoured to the place where the convocation of priest-mages was to be held. Inhetep acquired what he needed, and shortly thereafter the two of them hired an upriver barge. "We go to Innu, Inspector. There's where we lay this dirty business to rest."
"That's where you first spotted Yakeem," Tuhorus noted.
"Odd, isn't it? The city of On is the poor relation of the two. Yet Innu is the center of the web of evil which has been spun hereabouts of late, and your city lies like an insect caught by the strands."
"The Dahlikil is the spider?"
"Yes and no. He certainly moves along the lines of the web easily enough, but the bloated one at the middle is the greater evil and the true fabricator of the whole. But here we are, Chief Inspector Tuhorus. The quay there is nearest to the government buildings to which we must go. I think a call upon Prefect Pabar Ankh-ra is required."
What the magister had to say to the head of Innu's police surprised Tuhorus completely. "You must know the Chief Inspector," he said to Ankh-ra when the prefect greeted them personally. "His superior is your counterpart just downriver in On."
"Certainly. Chief Inspector Tuhorus is a solid detective," the man smiled. "Thinking of transferring to this city, Tuhorus? I could use a workhorse like you to—"
"No, Prefect," Inhetep interrupted. "I brought him here to meet you personally so there would be no doubt about his position. You see, Inspector Tuhorus is now serving as my personal deputy and must be accorded status accordingly."
"Status? You are retired, Magister—"
"Not now. You may address me as Utchat-neb for the time, sir. I am formally announcing that Tuhorus is now an acting agent of the Utchatu. He has the authority of Pharaoh, and only the king or others of higher rank than he holds in the Utchatu may now question or hinder him."
"What's this all about, Inhet—Utchatu-neb?"
"We are here on official business, Prefect. Please call in all of the officers on duty and inform them accordingly."
Pabar Ankh-ra stiffly complied, his face held rigidly expressionless. The intelligence service of Pharaoh was a powerful force in the kingdom, and he didn't dare object to what the magister demanded. However, it was evident he disliked having to do so and would make it as difficult as possible if given any opportunity. "I must congratulate you then, Agent Tuhorus, on attaining royal service," he said in a snide tone.
"This is but a temporary assignment," Tuhorus said noncommittally. "I love On too much to be away from my regular work there for long."
"How nice," drawled the prefect as he stared at them both. "And you, Utchatu-neb Inhetep? Are you planning on remaining on active duty now?"
"As Pharaoh wishes," the magister said meaningfully. "Not even a True Prince can deny such a command, of course, so who am I to say?"
Ankh-ra smiled thinly as he nodded agreement, then hastened out to round up his officers. "He is our enemy!" Tuhorus murmured as soon as they were alone. His homely countenance showed some degree of uncertainty.
"In a matter of speaking, but there's worse to come. Sorry not to have told you first, Tuhorus, but I didn't wish to give anything away. I trust no one here or in On for that matter—nobody save yourself, that is. Now let's be still. Here they come."
Seven officers accompanied the prefect on his return. Inhetep told the assembled policemen that both he and Tuhorus were in their city on royal business, and that no interference would be tolerated. "Interfere? We're not in the habit of obstructing any police, even Utchatu," quipped the prefect. "How can we assist?"
He was sincere, even though there was bitterness in his voice. The chief inspector looked at Inhetep, but the magister shook his head slightly. Tuhorus replied, "I understand your words, sir, and thanks for offering, but the utchat-neb and I can manage by ourselves, thanks. That's why I was brought along you know," he added with a wink to the officers. "The royal boys need someone who knows real detective work." The two exited shortly thereafter, and all the police save the prefect were still chuckling and grinning. "Where now?" inquired Tuhorus when they had left the building.
"To the sepat palace," said the magister. "It's time to pay our respects to Prince Harphosh."
The governor of the city and district of Innu received them warmly, greeting the policeman in a fatherly fashion and asking the priest-mage, "Is it the Khazars, Setne? I thought you'd be the one to get to the bottom of that!"
The magister laughed softly as if at a private joke. Then he sobered and looked at the grizzled prince. "In a way, Governor, perhaps it is so. There's a lot more to it than that, of course. I'm here because of assassination, treason, and a myriad of lesser crimes which I won't bother to detail now."
"The Khazars are doing that?" Harphosh's face was a study in disbelief.
"No, Prince. You are the guilty party!"
The governor laughed loudly, looking from Inhetep to Tuhorus. "Our friend is quite a jester, isn't he?" he said to the policeman. "I wasn't expecting that...."
"No. Not after you thought you'd murdered those able to link you to the dirty affair and destroyed all the written evidence. I should suppose you thought yourself free and clear. You're not, Prince Harphosh. You are under arrest."
"This is impossible—you're an old friend, Inhetep!" said the prince as he sat down heavily behind his large desk. "Why do you accuse me of such terrible things?"
"Because you are as guilty as Set—or Aapep, I might better say. You're careless, too. What's in that glass box there, Harphosh?" the magister demanded, pointing at an aquariumlike object partially obscured from view by a carved wooden screen.
"Madder still! That's merely a terrarium—a place to keep certain insects I happen to enjoy observing."
"Insects? Or is it arachnids, Governor? I'll wager on the last!"
Tuhorus saw the prince's ruddy face pale slightly at that. "Well, so I have some spiders— they're akin to insects. .. . What's criminal in having a few spiders? I think I shall have to demand that you leave now—both of you! This matter will be brought to Pharaoh's attention immediately." He arose threateningly from his chair.
"Stay put, Harphosh, or else I'll have to use force. You are under arrest, and I am not joking! Come on, Prince! Give it up. I am onto your whole scheme. Those spiders are the Samarkand Solution, aren't they?"
Prince Harphosh pretended to sink back at that. Suddenly, though, in a move unbelievably quick for one of his age and bulk, the governor jumped erect and hurled two crystal globes at Inhetep and Tuhorus, shouting "Yakeem, to me!"
The ur-kheri-neb moved even more swiftly than Harphosh had, and with speed so great that it was hard to follow with the eye, plucked both spheres out of the air before they could impact and shatter. Chief Inspector Tuhorus turned instinctively, drawing forth his dagger and changing it to a sword as soon as it was clear of the sheath. He managed just in time to fend off a vicious stroke aimed by the lank assassin who had appeared as if by magick. Yakeem the Dahlikil had, however, merely stepped from the door behind the two men. His eyes were bloodshot, and murder was etched on his snarling features as he attacked.
Yakeem wielded a pair of long knives, and although the policeman's sword parried one, he used the other with greater effect, drawing a long cut along Tuhorus's forearm. "A pleasure to butcher a policeman always," he said in a resonant baritone which was laden with malice. "I have a knife for you, too, Magister!"
"Get away from him, Chief Inspector!" Inhetep cried. "There's poison on those blades!" The magister threw one of the globes back at the governor; the other he sent flying toward Yakeem's leering face. A gasp from Harphosh told him that the first sphere had struck home. The second glassy ball seemed to be traveling in slow motion as it flew toward the assassin. It was his own heightened perceptions which made it appear thus, the magister knew, yet at the same time it made him feel insecure in his aim.
The Dahlikil slashed again at Tuhorus with one of the knives, his other weapon moving up and out toward Inhetep at the same instant. Then he caught sight of the crystalline missile and changed his thrust. The blade deflected the fragile sphere with such gentle precision that it was sent off intact on a tangential course past him. "My turn," he snarled at the priest-wizard, as he flipped the knife in his right hand over and hurled it suddenly at Inhetep.
The magister dropped flat to avoid the flashing blade. Then Tuhorus began to cry thinly; a terrible keening sound from the pain of the venom which had begun to course through his body. The slam of the door sounded plainly, but Inhetep ignored its implications. "Hold on tight, Tuhorus," he called as he scrambled over to where the policeman lay writhing on the thick rug. "I'll have the toxin out of your bloodstream as quickly as Isis cured Ra!"
True to his word, the ur-kheri-heb's heka neutralized the venom which had nearly slain Tuhorus. "The assassin ... ?" the chief inspector asked weakly when the pain had ebbed.
"Fled. Yakeem understood there was no sense in remaining to aid Harphosh, not even if he somehow managed to kill us both. The governor's whole scheme has obviously been compromised— exposed."
"You let him escape to save my life?"
"More or less, my dear Tuhorus. You and I have been trading such favors recently. Besides, the Utchatu knows we're here, and there are agents posted around this palace. Somehow, though, I fear that the Dahlikil will elude them----"
"He must be brought to justice!" the chief inspector said through gritted teeth. "He's a foul killer and—"
"One likely to remain at large for a long time, my friend. Don't upset yourself now. He's slipped away from better detectives than you and I."
Tuhorus thought the latter claim unlikely but let the matter drop. Instead he queried the magister on his assertion that Prince Harphosh was the mastermind of the plot. "Did the governor— Harphosh, that is, not Ram-f-amsu—hope to become a pharaoh?" The policeman struggled into a sitting position, adding, "And how in all the hells did you discover his involvement?"
"The coincidence of seeing the assassin here in Innu seemed just that at first, but as things developed in regard to the business in your own city, Chief Inspector, I began to suspect that it was not chance at all. Let me go back over the circumstances, and you'll see what I mean.
"When Ankh-ra," he related, indicating the unconscious prince, "called me here to talk about an inordinate number of Khazars studying magick in Egypt, I thought it a little more than a sign that the fellow was growing old and should retire
"When Chemres hauled me off to the governor's palace in On, I knew that something was wrong there. The circle of conferees there, and Ram-f-amsu's reaction, were certainly telltale signs. However, I coupled that assassin with that incriminating gathering . . . until the prince was killed. At that point, it was clear that either the hem-neter-tepi, Matiseth Chemres, was responsible, or else there was a controlling figure remaining in the shadows."
The police official nodded in agreement. "Chemres was a man of ambitions, Magister, but he lacked the crucial skills and ability to manage such a plot."
" 'Such a plot' is an understatement, Tuhorus. Never was a wilder scheme concocted around so disparate a body of conspirators! No hope for success existed beyond the second or third addition to the cabal, of course. That was almost painfully evident in casual questioning. Ergo, the whole mess was never meant to actually achieve its expressed goals. Prince Ram-f-amsu was a fool and a bungler, but even he would have realized the hopelessness of the affair had not someone else been at his side to gloss over the inconsistencies and explain away contradictions. No doubt, the scheme was meant to be a failure.
"Then the matter of the so-called uab priest, Absobek-khaibet, came to light. He had been assigned to Innu before coming to On. At last I had the connection which made me consider things in a different perspective. Then Yakeem's appearance in Innu, and his trip to On, made sense. He received instructions from Innu and carried them out in On."
"That follows," Tuhorus said as the magister paused and glanced over at the governor to see if he was still under the effects of the narcotic gas which had been contained in the crystal globes. "But what made you link Prince Harphosh to Yakeem and the rest?"
The priest-wizard smiled. "A host of little things," he replied. "The prince was reluctant to retire and wished for a more important position. He set me on the track of the Khazars. A sepat governor just doesn't concern himself with matters of that sort. Harphosh desired as much confusion as possible. He was going to expose the plot, and the more false threats read into the matter, the greater would seem the magnitude of lurking menace to /Egypt.
"Then we have the rather prosaic matter of the two cities. Innu creeps northward, On edges south. Cities and districts must soon be joined. One or another of them will be subrogated to the other, and a single authority will then govern the combined entity. That was the lesser prospect for Harphosh, however."
"How so?"
"His detection of a 'threat' from the Khazars would make a bold statement to Pharaoh when the treasonous business in the sepat next to Prince Harphosh's own came to light. Ram-f-amsu plotted, Harphosh was vigilant for threats. Greater ambition still, however, certainly motivated the governor. Trouble in the Nubian Oversight, plots in Phillistia, and bankers and merchants with interests all over the kingdom surfaced as threats. Widespread treachery and criminal activity call for an authority to keep such matters in check. The viceroy of lower /Egypt would be compromised by such goings on. Prince Harphosh, with his lack of ties to the royal house, would be the perfect choice to replace him as viceroy of this semi-kingdom. After all, what claim could he have to the throne? None. Place an honest man of experience as a lion to watch Lower /Egypt and its untrustworthy sepat governors, and Egypt is secure."
"Devious and cunning too, Magister. It could have succeeded."
Inhetep snapped his fingers, green eyes flashing. "Indeed, my friend, indeed! In a flash, too, once the sordid details of the 'plot' by Ram-f-amsu were recounted to Pharaoh. Naturally, the 'guilty' parties would have to have died before that time—otherwise, they would have linked Prince Harphosh to the scheme."
"You mentioned the Samarkand Solution."
"A code name devised for those nasty spiders there," the ur-kheri-heb replied. "They provided the means to get rid of any who might reveal the Innu-On connection."
Chief Inspector Tuhorus went over and looked at the glass terrarium. There were six nasty-looking arachnids inside—each spider purple-black, hairy, and nearly as large as a child's hand. "Ugly bastards," he murmured, suppressing a shudder. "I don't see their connection, or how they could actually kill someone as they did."
"The alchemist wasn't aware of it, but he was the instrument which enabled Harphosh to perfect his murder scheme. Do you recall Jobo Lasuti mentioning his work in what might be termed anti-magick or non-heka power?" When Tuhorus nodded, the magister continued. "I realized suddenly that such an alchemical discovery might be used to screen magickal energy—much the same as a leafy branch might be used to obliterate footprints left in the dust. Close examination of the spot will reveal that something wiped away the tracks, but no amount of scrutiny will reveal what those tracks were.
"That brought me to consider what had occurred. Ram-f-amsu left the council room to speak with Matiseth Chemres, and then he was slain. The attack upon the governor had to have come when he was outside the council chamber. How? That stumped me. The rigidity and odd gyrations tokened either magick or some unknown and horrible poison. Magick seemed out of the question, so only a toxin was left."
Tuhorus held up a hand. "But the levitation! That had to be magickal."
The tall wizard-priest began to pace back and forth. "The mention of a 'whirlwind' and the 'Samarkand Solution' made me think dweomers were at work. They were, but as a part of the spider's venom. Those nasty creatures are nurtured on a mixture of human blood and the alchemical discovery of Imprimus Lasuti. The latter not only negates heka but affects natural laws as it reacts with the victim's body. Weird things occur then—as the poison kills the one bitten. The two work to completely destroy the victim—a true reflection of the Samarkand Solution, by the way. Wipe the offending place away entirely, leave nothing alive there, and no trace of what occurred save the rubble."
"In this case, the husk of the corpse."
"Exactly, Inspector. Yakeem came, placed a spider upon the victim, and the vile thing bit instinctively—warmth and the blood it craved triggering its attack. In seconds, the one bitten is beyond saving."
"He used the secret ways, of course. I don't doubt your word, Inhetep, but what made you think of such a thing as spiders?"
The magister shrugged. "I had the advantage of having recently been here in Prince Harphosh's office, Inspector Tuhorus. I saw his little cage of arachnids then, although he wasn't aware of it. However, there was another clue. There was an aura of blackness remaining after the killing, the sense of something dark and horrible, a thing which manipulated the victim as might a puppeteer. A puppet master ... or a spider in a web! I thought of the spider I had seen in Ram-f-amsu's study—dead and dried up almost beyond recognition."
"So the creature dies when it bites!"
"Perfect instrument of death, isn't it? The reaction with vital blood serums lacking the alchemical potion kills the arachnid almost as soon as its own victim dies. That way there's no embarrassing evidence left, no spider running around biting anyone else, just a dead little 'insect' husk, a dried spider somewhere on the floor. Who would find that notable?"
"Who indeed, Inhetep. But if so, what made you note it?"
"I had the impression of the dark monstrosity behind the assassination. When I happened to spot another dead spider in Chemres' apartments, I finally put the whole thing together. I had known the Dahlikil was the killer, but with that clue I knew the means he used to do his foul work. It was not difficult to confirm the supposition, for I took the remains of the arachnid from the Temple of Set and used heka to examine it.
The aural impressions matched those surrounding Ram-f-amsu. The remainder was simply a matter of filling in the missing pieces of the puzzle."
"Blast you, Inhetep," the policeman said without animosity. "You kept all that to yourself, and I had no real chance to arrive at a proper solution myself."
The ur-kheri-heb grinned. "Quite right, Tuhorus, but no! I've told all, as it were, so the next time you have a murder on your hands you'll know how to go about solving it!"
"As I'll know how to dally with young girls and then be rid of them, eh, Magister? That business with Lady Xonaapi was a masterful piece of work, I think. ..."
"Most unfair, Tuhorus, and misleading to any who might hear you speak of it."
"Just desserts, Magister, only that."
"Perhaps, but with your coming leave and course of study, you'll be much too busy to discuss anything of that nature, won't you? Afterwards, as a member of the Utchatu, you'll not wish to compromise a fellow officer."
Tuhorus stared at the shaven-pated man. "Threat? Bribe? Or .. ."
"Consider it a reward and my interest in furthering the security of Pharaoh and /Egypt. Besides, you're too good a detective to be stuck as Chief Inspector of the city of On until you retire. The Utchatu needs men of your sort, Tuhorus. I'd have seen you posted thus regardless of the little business regarding the Lady Xonaapi, you know."
The homely face of the chief inspector broke into a broad smile. Tuhorus knew that the ur-kheri-heb spoke truth.
—— 17 ——
The whole affair was hushed up as much as possible. Word would get out, but it wouldn't reveal the depth of the treason. Prince Harphosh was allowed to commit suicide, and his death was then stated as from "natural causes." Only the Utchatu knew of Yakeem's involvement. Ram-f-amsu's murder and the others killed were said to be a part of a falling out among thieves, with the dead governor a quasi-heroic victim. Thin, but it avoided royal scandal and served to supply a reasonably plausible answer to what had occurred. All the /Egyptians involved were held incommunicado and then executed. No leaks there. It was all blown over by the time Magister Inhetep, again "retired" from the secret service of Pharaoh, concluded his time attending the convocation of kheri-neb« and returned south to his own villa.
"I have just heard about the trouble in On, Setne!" Rachelle exclaimed after hugging him hello as he came in. "Were you involved?"
"Murder and bribery are always nasty, my
dear Rachelle, but no. I was called in, shall we say, to consult for a little. An excellent fellow by the name of Tuhorus managed the case quite ably, however, so there wasn't much for me to do. Now, the Grand Convocation—"
"Bored you to tears, if I know you," the amazon said forcefully. "Did you find anything else of interest there, Setne? Anything to relieve the tedium?"
Inhetep walked into the next room, tossed down his case, and came back. "Oh, a little of this, a bit of that—nothing special. And you? How was the hunting and the sparkling company of Lord Lakhent? Did he keep you from tedium?"
"He is quite a boor, actually. Had it not been for Lady Mintet, I would have returned much sooner than I did."
"Sooner? Did you cut your visit short?"
"Yes, dear shave-pate," Rachelle told him seriously, "I did. That fop, as you have called him so aptly in the past, was constantly around me, panting and pawing. You would have thought I was some choice animal and he was the hunter bent on bagging me for his trophy collection."
"Quite aptly put on your part," Inhetep drawled. "So you've been here for some time?"
"Well, no. I thought a little city life might restore my humors, so I went downriver for a few days."
The tall wizard-priest didn't ask where. "Ah ..." he murmured. "That's nice. I trust you found that trip more enjoyable."
Rachelle looked at him a moment before replying. "Yes and no, Setne. I met a charming young couple, but she was so splendidly dressed I felt frumpish. I think it's time I acquired a few new things for my wardrobe."
"But you're not one to ... to ... go in for high fashion," he stammered. "A new riding outfit, a corslet of chain ..."
"I believe I've had enough of leather and armor for a time," Rachelle said firmly. "From now on, I plan to dress in more attractive style. Memphis has wonderful boutiques, I hear. How soon can we go there, Setne?"
The magister drooped and went to check his cash box, calling back over his shoulder, "A day or two, perhaps, Rachelle. I'll have to see about getting some funds in hand—I fear we're somewhat strapped at the moment."
"Oh, no, dear," the amazon called to him in reply. "After I took care of the bills sent up from On with the money you'd left here, I withdrew more from your banker. Do you think a hundred gold atens will be sufficient for the trip?"
The sum was enough to buy a villa. Setne threw up his hands, "What!?"
"Couldn't we take just a little more to make sure, dear?"
"Yes, Rachelle, I suppose we could. If I were Pharaoh, perhaps!"
"But Setne, you spent almost that much when
you were by yourself in On—at least, I assume you were alone. . . ."
The magister winced, happy that she was unable to see him. "Well, why not? I did receive a small honorarium for assisting in the investigation—will another ten atens do?"
"Let's take two hundred," Racheile said firmly.
The priest-wizard knew better than to discuss the matter further. "I'll have it all arranged tomorrow, Racheile."
And that was the true conclusion of the events surrounding the Samarkand Solution.
1 The four forms, in order of importance are: Repa-maa, Hereditary Prinee Ur-kheri-heb-tepi, Great priest-wizard-master Utchat-neb, a full captain of the secret police, a colonel Magister