Sahib Magister of /Egypt and the Sahibah Rachelle present themselves most humbly before the power of the Peacock Throne and his Resplendent Majesty Guldir Sivadji."
Perhaps he would have gone on with the string of honorifics attached to the maharajah's crown, but Sivadji Guldir crooked his finger. The majordomo prostrated himself. Hissing to his charges to do likewise, he instructed them to crawl the length of the runner to a place before the throne where the maharajah would tell them when they might arise.
Ignoring those whispers, Magister Inhetep gave a full bow, with the courtly flourishes proper for a prince of Pharaoh's mighty realm. Rachelle was watching Setne out of the corner of her eye. Taking her cue from him, she made a low curtsy. Then both walked stiffly to stand three paces from the seated monarch, repeating their gestures of respect in abbreviated fashion. "Your humble servants, Resplendent Majesty," the wizard-priest said as he lifted his head from that second bow. He kept his eyes on the monarch, calm and level. Gold was everywhere. It was the least of the splendors there. Inhetep was not to be distracted by the marvels of mosaic tiles, masterful paintings, or even the multitude of faceted gems which encrusted the peacock-shaped seat of state in glittering array.
"You are given Our permission to approach," the ruler of Delhi said, granting that leave ex post facto. If he was unaccustomed to their mode of acknowledgement of royalty—and the /Egyptian court now followed /Eropan style, so it was unlikely Sivadji Guldir had ever seen such acts before—the maharajah seemed entirely unruffled by their actions and satisfied that proper homage had been given. This acceptance of something less than the Oriental prostration was explained a moment later, though, when he went on: "Welcome, True Prince of the Triple Kingdom, grand priest and wizard—and to you too, Lady, I extend Our gracious greeting. Is the fame which has reached Us justified?"
"Thank you, Your Majesty," Inhetep responded, while Rachelle made a third curtsy to accept that benison. "I am unable to answer the question, I fear, for I have no intelligence in respect to the information Your Majesty has received. I can say only that I try my best."
"You have Our leave to address me as Maharajah Sivadji. We expect your best to answer Our requirements! Do not disappoint Us. We are already annoyed at having to wait so long. Explain your delay in answering Our . . . missive."
"As you command, Maharajah Sivadji." Inhetep was forthright, his voice calm and with no hint of apology as he told the monarch, "There were certain matters which had to be attended to in order to prepare for our departure—things most necessary to assure that our services would indeed answer Your Majesty's requirements. It was also my considered opinion that when all aspects of the matter were weighed in balance, time could be traded for positive assurance."
Rachelle was watching the whole time. She had taken an instant dislike to the maharajah, finding the fat man toad-like in appearance. He was oily skinned and repulsive. This ugly grossness was repeated in the corpulent eunuchs behind him and the fawning, scantily clad women reclining at his feet around the be-jeweled seat. She did her best to mask her thoughts and conceal her growing revulsion. However, when his thick lips uttered their next words, the amazon's eyes glittered with a fire as hard as the stones of the maharajah's throne.
"You will stand on that assurance, and answer to Us if you cannot do so!" He then let his beady eyes slide from Inhetep to Rachelle. They moved slowly, staring at her head and going leisurely down her body, lingering at breast and thighs, before returning to look at the magister once again. "But We are sure you understood that already. Enough for now. You are stained from your long and possibly unnecessary travel across Our kingdom—improperly garbed for continued audience. Leave Us. After you have bathed and put on robes appropriate for the occasion We will sup with you." Maharajah Sivadji tugged at a pendulous earlobe before waving to signify the dismissal was to be obeyed. "We are pleased that you brought your charming companion along, Prince Magister. She is your ward, adopted in your house, is she not?"
"That is essentially correct, Your Majesty."
The maharajah smirked at his own display of personal knowledge regarding the tall /Egyptian. He also was pleased with something else. "She must be displayed to more advantage. We will have Our Dresser of Court Women see to that."
"That is not required," the magister said quickly, his words clear and distinct in contradiction. He had to be quick, for Rachelle understood and was about to react in a way guaranteed to bring an uproar to the court. At the very best, the wizard-priest might be able to extricate the two of them with some great hekau. More probably, they would have been cut down by the guards for assault on the person of the monarch. "Lady Rachelle is charged with my personal protection, Your Majesty. It would violate her sworn duty to appear in other than her armor."
Scowling, Guldir Sivadji signaled that the audience was over. With appropriate gestures, they backed three steps from the royal presence, then turned and walked from the cham-her. There were mutters and gasps from behind, but Inhetep and the amazon seemed deaf to those noises. The near-hysterical major-domo came flying out after them, having managed to creep backwards on hands and knees at a record rate in order to manage that. "This way, please, Pr— Sahib Magister, Sahibah. I will show you to your rooms. The bath is hot. Attendants are there to see to your slightest wish. If you require anything else, merely clap your hands, and I will come instantly."
Rachelle could not contain herself. She whispered angrily to Inhetep as they followed the functionary: "When he looked me over, Setne, I felt as if slugs were crawling over my body— in places slugs should not be! He's a vile . . . filthy . . . nauseating . . . And when he spoke to you about—"
"I understand and agree, my dear. This is no place to discuss the matter, though. Wait until we are alone."
Their suite consisted of two separate bedrooms, a parlor, and a huge bath chamber with a sunken tub nearly large enough to swim in. Being of the /Egyptian aristocracy, neither was surprised or disconcerted to find a bevy of half-naked serving women there to undress them, to perfume the water, dry them, massage and oil their bodies, and finally to help them don splendid Hindic garments. When the girls giggled at seeing Setne unclothed, however, Ra-chelle decided she had had enough of the maharajah's court. "Out!" she commanded in /Egyptian, her tone and pointing finger communicating her meaning as clearly as if she had uttered it in perfect Hindi.
They girls moved to obey, but one fell on her knees, weeping. "Do not dismiss us, Sahibah, I beg of you! The majordomo will have us beaten, flayed for displeasing you. We are sorry! We will not offend again, please?"
"Stay," Rachelle muttered, horrified at what she had heard, believing the sincerity of the plea. The magister repeated her instruction, embellishing it sufficiently to calm them down. "Very well, Setne Inhetep. Have your moment of glory at the hands of these foreign hussies," she told him. Then her voice grew serious. "I like this whole situation less and less," she exclaimed in a very low voice, certain that there were ears and eyes spying on all they did. "What sort of a man is he?"
"We shall see quite soon. Be on guard at dinner—and after. It is time we dug into the meat of the matter, and I do not refer to the repast we are about to share with the maharajah."
At the appointed hour came a man who introduced himself as Gorvan. He brought the two guests to the private salon in which the maharajah was giving the special supper. "I am, lord and lady, the . . . what is the word? Chancellor is correct, I believe, yes? That is the one responsible for the treasure of state, is he not?" He spoke in carefully phrased Trade Phonecian, for he had learned that Rachelle was unable to speak Hindi.
"Yes, a chancellor is usually the treasurer. A very important office, Gorvan Sahib. You must have been most. . . distraught when the crown jewels were stolen," Inhetep said with some sympathy and a trace of uncertainty.
"Oh, yes, Magister. I was very, very unhappy to learn of that terrible theft—even though it brought me greater position in the government."
"Greater?"
"But of course, Magister," he said with a sly
smile. "That came right after the robbery, when I was promoted from master of the royal chambers to the recently vacant office of chancellor."
"I see," Inhetep grunted. Fortunately he wasn't required to engage in any more of that polite conversation. They entered the room in which they were to dine.
Gorvan showed them to their places, saying, "Just stand here until His Resplendence arrives. When he is seated, we may all then do likewise. Meanwhile, you will brought light refreshments. I must leave you now, but I will return soon. If there is aught you require, command any slave here."
As the wiry man slipped away and left them to themselves, both had a chance to examine their surroundings. Inhetep thought the place horribly gauche. Such an opinion was unusual, for he seldom considered taste foremost. Although the magister was certainly well versed in such matters, he was, after all, a wizard-priest bent on other aspects of life. That the place was over-decorated, cluttered in a fashion only possible for one determined to show extreme wealth by flaunting it in eveiy way, seemed undeniable. Nothing else could have possessed the owner to have done this to an otherwise pretty chamber of marble and tile.
There were at least big, over-stuffed chairs and a much-carved, inlaid table, so the ordeal of sitting on the floor as if he were a peasant too poor to afford decent furniture would be avoided. In fact, Inhetep noted that the seat at the head of the table was as wide as a divan, deep, and heaped with bright cushions whose patterned surfaces fairly screamed at each other. "Sivadji Guldir will enjoy his meal at some ease," he quipped to Rachelle. "That is, if he can manage to eat in this bizarrely furnished room."
"And I thought the tiger skins and elephant feet such clever touches. Never, Setne, have I seen so many rugs piled atop one smother, so much gold and objets d'art crowded like bric-a-brac. This is going to be an ordeal. Imagine the menu! Speaking of which, I had better taste all of your food and drink first. In such a nightmare place as this, poison can only be expected."
Inhetep barked a soft mirthful sound. "Don't be melodramatic, my dear. You know as well as I that I have taken such simple precautions as to ward both of us from something such as you suggest. I swear to you, it is this room which makes one say such things." He paused, ran a hand over his shaven head. "Hmmm . . . Now there's a thought."
"Will you share it?"
"Oh, no—sorry, my dear. It was nothing, actually. I was just rambling."
That seemed to satisfy Rachelle, distracted as she was by their surroundings. "There seem to be no other guests assembling," she observed after a moment. "I wonder how long we are to be kept waiting." There was no answer forthcoming, although a slave padded up and presented the two with a tray filled with various drinks. Rachelle examined the selection, peering, sniffing, even tasting. "Tea, Setne? There is also some fruit juice here, beer, white wine— a red, perhaps?" The magister was standing before a complex tapestry, staring intently at the scene it depicted. "Did you hear?" she prompted.
"What? Red? Ah, but no. Nothing, thank you," he said as he took in the tableau and his mind picked up the thread of her conversation. Then he reversed himself with an uncharacteristic suddenness. "Wait! Give me a goblet of the red wine you suggested. Perhaps it is just what I need."
Rachelle looked hard at her mentor but made no comment other than to select one of the gold vessels filled with the beverage he named. What he did made Rachelle even more uncertain. She watched as the magister thrust his finger into the wine, stirring it and muttering to himself. That was too much. "Setne, what are you doing?"
Inhetep withdrew the finger with a guilty expression, shook it off, and took a hasty swallow from the golden cup before he responded. "Just lost in thought, dear girl. Sorry for the bad form." Then an eyelid dropped to mask one emerald eye for an instant. "You know," he went on as if he had done nothing out of the ordinary, "this is a rather decent vintage—Magyar, I think, but quite drinkable."
They had only a minute alone after that before Chancellor Gorvan appeared in the room, his slippers making hardly a sound on the polished floor and heaped rugs. "A hundred pardons for my absence. I was delayed by an unavoidable matter of no import to you, but one I had to attend to. Good! You have taken refreshments. I will join you." He clapped his hands, and the big servant with the drink selection hurried to where the man could help himself. "You Eire having the Magyar red wine, I see. I shall do likewise." He did just that, gulped down half the contents of the goblet, and smacked his thin lips. "You find this good, no?"
Rachelle nodded politely. Inhetep said, "It is passable."
"Ohhh, yes, Magister Sahib. I am not surprised to hear you find it to your liking. It is superior to /Egyptian wines, is it not?"
If the wizard-priest was going to answer, the sudden arrival of Maharajah Sivadji precluded it. A huge guardsman entered the room, as tall as Inhetep, rolls of fat barely concealing the massive muscles beneath. He carried a naked scimitar with proportions appropriate to his size and strength. Immediately after entering he stepped aside, head bowed only to such extent as made it possible for him to keep his eyes fastened on all within the chamber. On seeing the guard, Gorvan flung himself prostrate on the carpets, somehow managing to retain the contents of the wine goblet.
"Now I know the reason for the piles of rugs," Rachelle whispered as their host came waddling in after his bodyguard.
Guldir Maharajah Sivadji looked more than ever like a toad dressed in regal adornments. Behind him came a pair of fan bearers and a half dozen of the seemingly obligatoiy harem women. Again, the sovereign ruler of Delhi appeared quite satisfied with the less dramatic gestures which Magister Inhetep and the ama-zon made in recognition of his royal presence. "Good evening, My most welcome guests. We must eat and drink now, for Our hunger demands it." He plopped onto his massive couch with a grunt. The women hastened to grab cushions and pillows, thrust them here and there, so that every conceivable place their master might loll would be supported. Not to be outdone, the male slaves fanned furiously as this occurred, as if they wished to demonstrate that their concerns were as great as those of the women. He grunted and the women instantly ceased their fussing and fell into seductive poses, secretly fighting for the more noticeable positions before their lord's divan.
Gorvan had stood at the maharajah's first words. He hastened to take Rachelle's arm. "You will sit here," he said as he tried to lead her to the left of the table. She removed the man's hand from her arm with polite firmness. Gorvan's expression was startled when she did so, for her strength was greater than his own. She made no protest, however, and followed his instruction to take the chair at the maharajah's left hand. The chancellor indicated that Setne was to have the honored seat on the monarch's right. Then, as if on cue, and before anyone other than Sivadji Guldir was actually seated, two others arrived.
"General Ratha! Pirimah Lady Sujata!" the maharajah exclaimed in evident joviality as the two named newcomers prostrated themselves. "Arise, arise. Greet Our guests—the princely Sahib Magister Inhetep of Egypt of whom We have spoken to you and his companion bodyguard the Sahibah Rachelle. Isn't she a lovely protectress? We should have such ones to guard Our person!"
There was a hasty babble at his words. "I shall see to it tomorrow. Resplendence," Gorvan said smoothly. The harem women glared at him as he spoke. The arising general gave Inhetep and Rachelle each a stiff little bow as soon as he was back on his feet. "I am honored to meet you," he said in a grating voice. Similarly, the lady arose, smiling briefly and nodding to Rachelle, flashing her teeth more broadly at the magister and bowing deeply enough to flash something else at him. "Your powers, Magister, are legendary," Sujata stated in flawless Trade Phoenician.
"Our court practitioner reminds Us of courtesy," the obese monarch called from the head of the table. "We command that all converse is to be carried on this night in the tongue of commerce." Switching to that speech, Maharajah Sivadji added, "It is a language none in this room save Us and our fellow banqueters understand." He beamed at his cleverness, the thick lips of his big mouth seeming to stretch almost to his dangling ears. He seemed unaware of the stream of servants bent under the weight of great platters, trays, and other things entering to fill the table's top with sufficient fare for a dozen diners.
General Ratha was lean, muscular, and rather handsome in a dark, bearded way. The scar on his face which ran from the outer tip of his left eyebrow down to the center of his cheek could be found dashing in some eyes. The chancellor pointed Ratha to the chair next to Rachelle's.
The court practitioner was almost stunning in her good looks, despite the fact that she was well into her thirties. Her eyes sparkled with admiration, and her attention was riveted on the magister. Rachelle took an instant dislike to her, seeing her to be as ugly inside as the maharajah was on the outside. Setne's interest in what she was saying made the amazon fume, but between the general's grave remarks and the need to watch the maharajah's every move, she couldn't catch much of what was being said between them.
Everyone was free to chat and eat as they chose, for Sivadji Guldir had begun stuffing himself immediately after introducing the two last members of the dinner party. The females attending him assisted his consumption by popping choice morsels of this and that into his mouth, if he hadn't filled it full on his own, as two eunuchs made dishes of all sorts hover before him, and the ever-busy fan bearers beat the air with their fans of ostrich feathers.
Seeing how he was engrossed in eating and drinking, Rachelle allowed the monarch of Delhi less constant attention, speaking with General Ratha, who seemed intent on nothing but his troubles with "bandit rebels" who lurked in the northern hills "unlawfully sheltered by both Katehar and Sirmur." He was dull, but at least the commander of Delhi's military wasn't disgusting.
It was just as well that the amazon was unable to hear the Pirimah Lady Sujata. After lavishing compliments on the /Egyptian wizard-priest for several minutes, the court practitioner moved her leg so that her thigh pressed against Inhet-ep's. "Let us exchange magickal secrets tonight, Magister. My chambers are just down the hall from your own. ..." And as she allowed her invitation to trail off, she smiled seductively into Setae's eyes.
"There is . . . ah . . . the small matter immediately before me, Lady Sujata," he said in vaguely apologetic tone as he eased his leg away from the hot flesh of the woman.
"Now what could that be?" the pirimah demanded with pretended crossness. Then she glanced archly across the table. "Surely not your bodyguard!"
The magister gave an easy laugh and shook his head. "To delay such an invitation from so beautiful a source on that account? Really, dear lady!" He lifted up his goblet and sipped as if in toast to her. "It is altogether another sort of thing I speak of—the command of your own royal sovereign."
As if he had been listening, before the pirimah could reply to what Inhetep had said, the maharajah gave a thunderous belch. Every head turned to watch. Nobody moved or dared speak. Sivadji Guldir swatted away a slender hand which happened to be approaching his face with more food, speaking as he motioned. "We are replete. It is time to discuss matters of state. Clear all this away!" he commanded, his arms flung out towards the laden length of the table. "Bring cool sherbets and fresh wine for Us to drink. Then get out!" He sat then, eyeing the assemblage before him, the similarity to a big toad striking, as the slaves scurried to comply with his commands and the fan bearers and members of the harem skulked off as if they were whipped dogs.
When the six of them were alone, the maharajah snapped, "Have you discovered the culprit, Magister? Is the guilty one known so that Our justice can be done to him?!"
"Not quite yet, Your Majesty. There are a few small things which I must see to before I can give you that happy report."
"What small things? I do not like delays in carrying out my wishes!" The tone of his voice was threatening, and the maharajah's ugly face darkened as he spoke.
If Inhetep was nonplussed by this display, he didn't reveal it in the least. "It is plain that your righteous ire falls squarely upon the head or heads of the party responsible for the theft of the crown jewels of Delhi, Maharajah Sivadji. I will do my utmost to see that the delay forced upon you by that criminal act is short. In that regard, and keeping in mind your expressed displeasure at the time the required steps must take, I ask Your Majesty to have your subjects here present lend me their full cooperation."
"Of course I command that. I want the jewels returned, that happy event followed by the slow death of the guilty parties, their heads displayed on the walls for all to see thereafter!"
"You are most gracious. Majesty, as befits so grand a monarch. Do you give me leave now to visit the place from whence the jewels were stolen? If so, I ask that your chancellor and the Pirimah Lady Sujata accompany me."
The glowering maharajah opened his thick, downturned lips and snapped, "You have Our leave. These 'small matters' had better not take long. I'll brook no weeks of investigating—not after your month delay in obeying Our command!" He looked at the magister to see what reaction his words had on the ^Egyptian, but Inhetep's green eyes revealed only polite attention. The maharajah clapped his hands, the meaty palms making a sharp report which was answered almost instantly by the appearance of his huge bodyguard. "I go to sport in the women's quarters. Report immediately when you have the information We require."
The magister murmured something polite as the maharajah heaved and the guard hauled to lift him from his seat. The Hindis prostrated themselves, Inhetep and Rachelle bowed, and Sivadji Guldir waddled out of the salon. As the door closed behind him, the priest-wizard turned to smile at the others. "Well, Lady Sujata, Chancellor, lead the way. Oh, by the way," he added as an apparent afterthought, "General
Ratha! Would you be so kind as to stay here with Sahibah Rachelle? You will certainly have much you can tell her about enemies of the state—there are rebels in the mountains, aren't there?"
Even as the military man was nodding and about to say something about the matter of hill bandits, the magister shifted to his companion. "Good. Now, Rachelle, please pay strict attention to the general's words. I will need you to repeat later all of the salient facts he imparts, Speaking of later, I might be some time in completing my examination of the vault from which the crown jewels were taken. You needn't stay up for me."
"As you wish, Magister," was all she said as the three departed. Then she turned to General Ratha and smiled. "Please tell me about yourself before going into the boring matters regarding those rebels."
Unlike many other treasure repositories, that of the maharajah of Delhi was neither deep beneath the ground nor high in a tower strongroom. The place where the great wealth of the state was stored was in a chamber adjacent to the great throne room, directly behind the Peacock Throne, in fact. Magickal guards and wards englobed both. Sentries stood by each, of course. The sheer size of the chair of state, the exposed position and continual watch assured that it remained unmolested. On the other hand, the little chamber hidden behind it was sheathed in layers of protective metal ranging from lead and silver to iron and adamantine alloy. Its single door was barred by multiple locks, then sealed by castings.
"Without an amulet to prevent activation of heka. Sahib Magister, a person would cause alarms and other castings to be loosed as soon as he came within three cubits of the entrance," the chancellor explained.
"Noncorporeal approach is considered?"
"Certainly—as is any form of dimensional transference."
Inhetep gazed at the wall panel which had been opened to reveal the door. "What about the floor and ceiling, or the other walls, for that matter?"
Gorvan was almost smug as he replied. "They are enchanted, enspelled as is the door. Warnings will sound, death in a dozen forms will be loosed. They are also solid. Absolutely intact and untampered with, as is the entry to the vault. Its locks were closed fast."
"Does an amulet deactivate the whole of the protection?"
The chancellor shook his head vigorously. "No, never! It simply enables the individual to pass."
"Who had, or still has, amulets to deactivate the heka?"
"The maharajah and the chancellor—but the latter amulet is in two parts, and it won't operate without the court practitioner being present. Speaking in the past tense with regard to chancellor, I refer to Prince Dahasti."
The magister cocked an eyebrow as he switched his scrutiny from the vault entry to the chancellor's visage. "Eh? Of course! I recall you mentioned being recently elevated to your office. Who is or was this Prince Dahasti, and what happened to him?"
"Was is correct. He would probably have been summarily executed for allowing such a loss to occur, but that pain was spared to my liege, quite unnecessary under the circumstances. When His Resplendence was unable to locate either his practitioner or treasurer, the maharajah came directly to this very place. When he entered, he found a pile of ashes and charred bones. With it was the remains of the chancellory amulet and some jewelry which could be identified as the prince's own. It seems Dahasti was blasted by whomever was responsible for the theft. He might have actually caught them in the act."
"The Prince Dahasti was a loyal and trusted vassal?"
At that Gorvan was most positive. "He was the nephew of the maharajah!"
"And since that time, what has been done inside the treasure vault?"
"Nothing, Sahib Magister, other than to add some small amount of coins to the strongboxes therein. Both Lady Sujata and I advised against altering anything."
"In fact," the pirimah interjected at that point, "I laid a preservation casting inside as soon as I was permitted, and have maintained it in the hope that something would thus be revealed by your greater art when you came."
"I see," the magister said as he briefly considered all he had been told. "Let us then proceed inside the vault. I was fortunate, I suppose, to have selected the two very persons needed to do that without the exalted personage of the maharajah himself, eh? Please proceed."
The two brought forth small objects, fitted them into one, and then took hold of Inhetep. "By such touch you are included in the amulet's field," Lady Sujata supplied.
A permanent magickal illumination existed inside the treasure repository, so that it was bright with a glow which equalled that of the noon sun on a summer day. That light made the black mark on the floor starkly evident. It was shaped vaguely like a body. Along one wall, open cabinets revealed empty interiors where a crown, scepter, orb, collar, girdle, and ring had once been nestled in velvet. There were shut ones too, in which were stored certain other great treasures of state— magickal ones, according to the chancellor. Arrayed on two of the other walls were precious art objects. Cases held rare books and tablets, even ancient scrolls. Stands ranked round the room displayed incredible armor of precious metals and weapons encrusted with precious stones. On either side of the entry were small steel boxes, some stacked nearly as high as the ceiling.
"What are those?" queried the wizard-priest.
Gorvan shrugged. "Merely the tax coffers, Sahib Magister—chuckrums in this stack, rupees here, annas . . . each sort of coin," he said with an expression that might have added, "I assumed a practitioner of your repute would know that."
Ignoring that look, Inhetep passed his hand over his smooth pate in a characteristic gesture. He asked, "What did you make of this, lady practitioner, when you initially examined the vault?"
"I was called in the day after it happened, Magister," Sujata told him. "Perhaps if I had been here immediately after the loss was discovered, but I wasn't," she confided to him. "I could find no clue, none at all. The auras remaining were totally diffused. Random heka was present, but type and source was untraceable—due to the blast of energy which incinerated the poor prince, I assume."
Inhetep nodded. "Speaking of the ex-treasurer, I see that the remains have been considerably disturbed; gone, in fact, save for these few bits." As he made that observation, Setne stooped and quickly scooped up a bit of dusty stuff in a square of paper he had drawn from the inner fold of his garment. "No matter, this should suffice."
Gorvan was concerned. "Is that sufficient? We had to take the ashes and remaining artifacts in order to make positive identification of the prince and the amulet."
"If I need that or anything else you can furnish, Lord Chancellor, I will not hesitate to call upon you. As of now, however, I believe this will be all I need. And I have seen enough here, too. Will you excuse us, Gorvan? I need to get some rest, but I have a few private questions of the pirimah. With the chancellor's leave, lady, I ask that we walk alone together. Your chambers are near my own, are they not? The few words I need from you regarding magickal matters can be taken care of thus, and that way we can all retire in short order after this trying day."
With a quick look of appraisal shot to the court practitioner, Gorvan assented. "But of course, Sahib Magister. I have other duties to which I must attend before retiring, and I appreciate the opportunity to do so now."
The three left the vault, then Gorvan and Lady Sujata returned to secure the door. The chancellor worked his several keys, and they separated the amulet. With all thus in order, Gorvan hurried off in one direction, Inhetep and the court practitioner strolling arm-in-arm together in the opposite.
—— 10 ——
As they walked slowly towards her suite, Setne queried her about something which he thought most odd. "Has no one raised an inquiry about the amulet?"
"Only insofar as to determine if it was truly the real key. Because of the circumstances, I could be no more than ninety-nine percent certain. But, physical and magickal proofs aside, I feel absolutely sure that all was as it seems. The prince and his amulet were incinerated there on the floor of the treasury."
He raised both brows at that. "You have no questions about how that occurred when he possessed only his portion of the two-part amulet?"
Lady Sujata gave a tinkling little laugh. "Oh, I forgot! You do not know, of course. I too have just recently become the court practitioner. He who was practitioner before me is . . . gone."
"I confess mystification, dear lady!" Inhetep stopped walking, forcing Sujata to likewise halt. He freed his arm and looked at her intently. "Please do not withhold information. It is vital that I know everything possible. Otherwise I cannot prevail, and ..." He allowed the rest to remain unsaid.
The dark eyes of the pirimah searched his green ones. "No, I wouldn't want you to fail— and for more reasons than displeasing His Majesty the maharajah," she assured the magister. Her dark eyes were filled with something which might be read as desire. "The court practitioner before me was a Brahman called Pur-shiva Yogi Rishi. He was but a middle-aged fool, despite his priestly status and great learning. I will not go into the great differences, political and moral, which existed between him and the maharajah. Suffice that they were intense, and the Purshiva Yogi Rishi's continual preaching and opposition would soon have led to his . . . replacement had not it occurred first."
"What do you mean, it?"
"The theft of the crown jewels, and his disappearance."
That took Setne aback, at least a little. "And there's no search for Purshiva Yogi Rishi? No suspicion that he was involved? This is more than passing strange."
"Only at first glance, Magister. I had much assistance in the magickal examination of the scene of the crime. The former court practitioner's presence outside the vault on the night of the robbexy was clearly recorded and lound in vibratory readings of the material there. The reading revealed that he and several others were there as well. Purshiva Yogi Rishi never entered the vault. Aural reading proved unquestionably that he was enchanted, bound and silenced by castings at the time. There was, in fact, a pool of his blood there. I personally used heka to positively identify it as that of the yogi. It was cleaned away, for attention must not be drawn to the anteroom in which the entrance to the treasure is concealed, of course."
"Of course. So you think that he too met with foul play at the hands of the thieves."
She turned away, taking his arm firmly once again, and resumed her progress toward her chambers. "That is so. By even my most potent means—and I have some great ones, sir—I find no trace of Purshiva Yogi Rishi on this sphere, no print indicating he is concealed on some other. No, Magister, he is dead. Probably blasted to ash somewhere, as was his former fellow. If it weren't for the loss of the crown jewels, I would say good riddance to both," Sujata added in a cold voice. But her tone was sultry when she next spoke. "At last we are here!" With that exclamation, Sujata opened the door to her chambers. "I heard you make excuses to your bodyguard, so we have all night to spend here, mighty one of /Egypt."
Inhetep placed a long finger to her lips. "Hush, lady," he said in a near whisper. "I have detected an invisible presence of the sort which enables spying!" As he said that, he held forth in his left hand a slender ankh carved from pure turquoise in whose loop there showed a ghostly eye. Startled, the pirimah drew back, gesturing with her own right hand at the object before her, uttering a string of harsh syllables as she made the sign. A second after Sujata did that, the wizard-priest passed his free hand over the ankh. When he completed his pass, the vision of the eye had vanished.
"What was that?" the woman demanded in a voice no longer syrupy and charming.
"Some foreign sending which meant no good to you, Pirimah! Perhaps I can find something specific when I am determining more about the ashy remains of the former chancellor. All that can wait until later, of course. For now let us go inside your suite, lady, and—"
"Give me that turquoise charm of yours," she demanded before he could say more.
"That is impossible, dear lady. It is a symbol of my gods, and it must not be touched by any not faithful to them." It was not exactly a lie. "The sending is gone, wiped away. Forget it. There are more important things of the flesh to think about."
With a hard expression making her face cruel, the Lady Sujata refused. "No. That is now impossible. Go. Leave me. Find out who dared to spy on me—us, and tell me as soon as you know."
"As you wish, lady," Inhetep murmured with a slightly deflated tone as he left her and went along the short way to where his own door was. "On the morrow?"
The pirimah made no reply but simply disappeared inside her chambers. The door closed rather loudly behind her.
Once within his own rooms, Setne sighed deeply. He then spoke a hasty enchantment of privacy. Finally he said a happy, "Whew! That was a near thing!"
Rachelle, sitting quietly and observing the whole procedure, was provoked sufficiently to inquire, "Just what was a near thing, Magister Setne Inhetep?"
"Being out there alone with the predatoiy court practitioner, my dear. I fear that Pirimah Sujata is no lady—" and he laughed at his play on words. Then he described the trick he had played with a special ankh to escape her harpylike clutches and laughed again.
"Laugh all you want, Setne. Sujata isn't just 'no lady,' that woman is a witch\"
The magister struck his palm with a fist. "You have done it again, Rachelle! Thoth bless you," he added as he grabbed her, and gave her a hug and a smack on her forehead.
"Done what?" she demanded with less crossness than she had previously evidenced.
"Why, struck the mark dead center. No wonder I could not read her by my power; even with a surreptitious casting I found only bland, general auras. It was if she were a nonentity, so to speak. But the reason for that is her own enchantments and devices, Rachelle. Sujata is undoubtedly an artisan with great skills in many other areas of heka practice, but first and foremost, that woman is a true witch—a follower and worker of vilest Evil!"
"The gods know I instinctively disliked her— intuitively, if you wish Setne," Rachelle added, seeing that the wizard-priest was going to interrupt her when she attributed her feelings to a non-magickal source. Not wanting to lose her train of thought, she hurried on. "In fact, I despised that bitch the moment I clapped eyes on her! Is she really a witch, Setne? Can you be absolutely certain? After all, she is the mahara-jah's chief enchantress, or whatever title they give in this country. To accuse her of such is dangerous to her and to us."
"Accuse? I hadn't that in mind, not at all." Inhetep thought a moment and stepped back so that Rachelle could see him plainly. "You tell me. Be the disinterested judge." Then the magister imitated Sujata's gesture, the motion and sign followed by a close approximation of her words, including pitch, tone, and inflec-t ion. When he completed the mimicry he asked,
"Well?"
"That was the Black Craeft, no question, Setne!" Her voice was assured, for Rachelle was positive after seeing what he had done. Being bright and capable, the young amazon was by no means content to be a mere guard to the magister. Sword wielding was fine, but she saw herself in other roles too. Amongst her many pursuits of scholarly sort, Rachelle included several which required the utilization of heka power, including witchcraft. That subject both fascinated and repelled Rachelle. It had done so ever since she had first heard of it as a child. In school, she had been allowed only a cursory look at the subject. When she had left the halls of formal education in favor of assisting Inhetep in his adventures aimed at thwarting evil, uncovering crime and criminals, Rachelle began to delve into witchcraft by reading every work on it she could lay her hands on. Between the magister's extensive library and what she found on her own, the amazon had over the past half dozen years amassed considerable knowledge about the malign practice. Of course, this learning was theoretical, not applied. Nevertheless, she was an authority of sorts. Her enthusiasm was possibly spurred on by the fact that Inhetep was virtually ignorant of the subject. Here roles were reversed: she the master, he the student.
"You must let me get close to her, Setne," Rachelle said earnestly. "Ill find out what motivates the Lady Sujata. You can bet that the pirimah has some machinations in mind—as the court practitioner she must have had a part in the theft, but there must be a larger and more evil plot brewing here." She stopped her urging and looked up at the magister with her most appealing gaze.
"She is dangerous—very dangerous, Rachelle. I'n not sure about her involvement in the disappearance of the maharajah's regalia, either." The dark eyes were looking into his green ones as he spoke, and it was beginning to effect him. "Still, I understand your desire, and we do need to know everything, including everything about our enemies. There can be no question of that. Sujata will happily see us both dead, although we probably aren't disposable until after recovering the crown jewels."
That gave Rachelle pause. "What makes you say that? She probably stole them herself, so the pirimah will want us out of the way, permanently and quickly!"
"Most doubtful. I am now reasonably sure that whomever absconded with the items in question is not among the court any longer." Telling her that, the magister then launched into a rapid-fire account of what he had learned while she had been with the military chief of Delhi. As he concluded his narrative, Inhetep asked, "And you? What did the general have to
say?"
"After I convinced him that I really didn't want his hands all over me, let alone to bed him, Ratha was fairly open. Perhaps he thought he might impress me into agreeing to some fast fornicating. Typical man—no offense, Setne.
"The so-called hill bandits came off sounding like a rather well-organized rebel force to me. General Ratha admitted as much in so many words. It seems as if it is a popular movement which includes actual outlaws, peasants, free folk, and even some of the rustic aristocracy. They claim to be led by a half-brother of the maharajah."
The magister broke in at that point. "How widespread is the unrest? Do these rebels have any following outside the areas they control by force of arms?"
"Ill say they do. Ratha let that slip when he complained about not being able to take the field and root the rebels out of their highland encampments. It seems that too many of his men must remain in city and town garrisons, being kept on a short tether to patrol the main roads."
"He merely complained about that?"
Rachelle smiled knowingly. "No. I used my wiles, wondered how such a clever and brave fellow could allow mere brigands to thwart him. 'Ha!* he bragged at that, 'I employ mercenaries to check the rebels, use thags to keep the stinking commoners in their place. Soon now too, when there is a change in theological direction, a force of hillmen more savage than the rebels' own will be available to me. Then we will have their miserable heads!' What did he mean by thags?"
"Thugs, of course. Never mind that for the moment. You say he bragged about assistance from 'savage hillmen'?" She nodded. That caused the magister to stroke his shaven head several times as he thought.
"That was very good, my dear. You are absolutely indispensable to me! But there is one other matter. Did the general appear unconcerned about the leader of the insurgents?"
It was Rachelle's turn to ponder for a minute. "Serpents, Setne, I don't know!" she said finally. "Ratha simply passed over the matter of the rebels being led by a purported brother of Sivadji Guldir with a derisive laugh. He never dwelled on it, so I'd have to say that he dismissed the possibility." Then her face lit up as she recalled something, growing suddenly grim as she brought it to mind.
"What is it, Rachelle? Have you remembered something critical?"
"Ugly, Setne. Perhaps it is critical. I don't know. It is something that General Ratha said before I led him into accounting the current difficulties with the rebels."
"Go on, please."
She cleared her throat as If she wanted to spit from the bad taste of what she was going to say. "I had commented on the maharajah's evident desire to be surrounded with concubines at all times, inquired about wives and harem ..."
"And?"
"After hearing the Sivadji Guldir had not married but contented himself with some hundreds of concubines and slaves, I asked the logical question: 'What will he do for an heir?' Then the general gave a laugh of wicked sort. Heir? He has any infant born in the harem taken and killed, just as he executed all of his siblings to become monarch of this land! Our maharajah has no worries about living long, maybe forever, save being cut down by an assassin. When none can claim the Peacock Throne by blood, there is no threat, you see.' That is as close as I can come to his exact words, Setne. The maharajah is a monster! No wonder he has hired a witch as his court practitioner," Rachelle concluded as the realization struck home in her mind.
"Quite possibly," Inhetep said as he put his arm around her shoulders in support and comfort. "That is the sort of thing we have vowed to face, though, dear girl; the purpose of what we undertake is just what we are finding here. Brace up. I have suspected much of this since before we actually arrived in the capital and were confronted with 'His Resplendence' for the first time." Rachelle hugged him back, took a deep breath, and was herself again. "Good! You must be clear and keen of mind, you see. You'll need to be at your best tomorrow."
The amazon looked at him inquiringly. "Why so? Do we—"
"No. You. I agree to your suggestion, Rachelle. Tomorrow, when I am spending some time following a clue which directs me to the thieves' quarter of the city, and thus able to wander the streets of Delhi on my own, you will call upon the Pirimah Lady Sujata as you urged. You will ask her whatever questions you wish, make notes, then be beguiled by her wondrous charm and personality. When the 'formal' inquiry is concluded, your real work will begin, of course!"
"Of course, Setne. I know all about managing that sort of thing. After all, I've had enough experience gallivanting all over the globe keeping you safe. There is one thing, though."
Inhetep's brows shot up. "One? What is that, my dear?"
"What do I tell the 'lady' when she asks what you found out about the 'all-seeing eye' you discovered peering at you before her boudoir
door?"
"Bah!" was the only response she could elicit on that score, as the magister stalked off to wash before retiring.
— 11 ——
Before he left on his own investigation, the magister spoke to Chancellor Gorvan about the matter. Naturally, the man was uncertain but had no choice but to agree, cautioning that the maharajah would stand for no delays. Ignoring the veiled threat, Inhetep pushed on. "The Sahibah Rachelle, Chancellor, will remain here in the palace to pursue our investigations. In that regard, you will inform the Pirimah Lady Sujata that I urgently beg she give her attention to my associate. Please convey my regrets at being unable to see to this personally. Do tell the Lady Sujata that I look forward to seeing her later today, of course. In the meantime, the Sahibah Rachelle is going to gather information which I need to solve the crime. She is competent, having had some fair exposure to the work in the past. It saves my valuable talents for more pressing concerns."
Gorvan could understand the latter well
enough. "As you wish, Sahib Magister. I will Impart your request to the Lady Court Practitioner just as you voiced it to me. How many men will you need for your foray into the city?"
"Why, none at all," the wizard-priest said with airy authority as he walked away from the startled fellow.
The chancellor went hastily about taking care of things immediately after Inhetep departed. Gorvan was most circumspect when it came to relaying the magister's message to Sujata. Deep in his heart, the chancellor feared the woman greatly.
"Do make yourself comfortable, sahibah," the pirimah said sweetly as one of her slaves brought Rachelle into her salon a little after mid-morning. Sujata remained seated at her dressing table, finishing the last touches of her toilet— kohl and perfume. She didn't turn around as she spoke.
Rachelle could see the woman in the mirror. Well preserved for one so old, she thought sourly, then relented a little. Lady Sujata looked exquisite in the bright morning light, appearing to be no more than thirty, her skin and body younger still. It was the heavily kohl-rimmed eyes which betrayed her as being past the first bloom of youth. Just then, the woman's eyes caught hers in the mirror. "Please call me Rachelle, Pirimah," she said easily, allowing her eyes to rove on as if she were merely taking in the well-furnished, feminine room which belonged to the chief heka-user of the court.
"And you, Rachelle, may call me Lady Sujata," the woman said with a friendly firmness belied by the words. "I understand your master has sent you here to ask me some questions. I will be available in just a few moments, child." With that the pirimah returned to her primping.
This treatment came as no surprise to the amazon, of course. The assumption of superior-inferior roles, the belittling of her status with the magister, even the lack of courtesy displayed in not offering refreshment were natural. Sujata was a female, after all, Witch or no, a woman who found Setne attractive and intended to do something about it would behave thus. Should she go beyond the mild flirtation stage, the pirimah would become even more slyly aggressive. Rachelle usually chose different means of expressing herself, getting her way. She was well able to understand Lady Sujata's methods, for Rachelle was herself an expert. She knew how to use indirect approach, insinuation, position, influence. Rachelle could use her intelligence to play on sympathies, use her femininity and beauty, and it was now easier to do so. Her opponent allowed her own conceit to cloud her judgment. Armor and sword hid a strong mind and keen wit from the witch's eyes.
"You are most kind, Lady Sujata. I do hate to bother you. I know that being the head of the maharajah's magickal affairs is demanding, that you have so many important things to attend to. Please do not huriy because I am here. I am content to wait, see how it is that you bring out your natural beauty as you do." When the woman seemed surprised at her statement, Rachelle purposely made it seem she misunderstood. "Oh! I have offended you. I didn't mean to imply I was staring as you put on your makeup, Lady Sujata. It's just that in my role as a swordswoman I am not treated to the secrets of such feminine things."
The pirimah warmed a little, turned. "Poor thing, I hadn't thought of that. Hard armor and clumsy weapons are the poor tools of men, and yet you must rely on such. Yet you seem pretty enough even without those touches which make beauty what it is. Yes . . . with my direction we could make you over into one not even the maharajah himself could keep from lusting after beyond all else," Lady Sujata said with a speculative air as she gazed at Rachelle as she might inspect a fat calf brought for slaughter.
Resisting the urge to strike the woman, nauseated at the thought of the toad-like monarch pawing her, Rachelle shook her head and said, "No, Lady Sujata. I would never want to be beautiful for any man's pleasure—to be a plaything is abhorrent to me. Perhaps being a war-rioress is better. That way I am equal to men."
"Aaah, ha, ha, ha!" the woman laughed in something between pity and derision. "What a novel idea. To be equal to men!"
"You may laugh, lady," Rachelle said, allowing a hint of envy and irritation to seep into her voice. "You are high in the council of a king! Why, you must be the third or fourth most powerful person in Delhi—and a woman!"
The woman tossed aside her cosmetics, stood erect, and advanced on Rachelle as if she were a tiger about to seize its prey. "Third or fourth? You are a stupid little thing. I am the one who directs every action of that fat fool—" Lady Sujata bit off her words. She stared at the ama-zon, her eyes bright and hard, as if trying to read Rachelle with some malign power. There was no response from the young woman, though. Rachelle looked up with incomprehension, nervously returning the witch's gaze. She betrayed no sign. Her aura was straightforward, her thoughts were of personal success, domination. "Either you are a sister or a clever foe—which is it, Rachelle?"
"I ... I don't understand, Lady Sujata. I am here only to ask you for details which Magister Inhetep has dictated. I am certainly no enemy of yours how could I be?"
"Umm. Perhaps, perhaps. We will let that be for now. It is time for my breakfast. You will ask your questions while I eat. Come with me " Without waiting to see if Rachelle complied with her order, the pirimah walked purposefully through an archway which led to a shaded veranda. There a table and chairs stood, the former spread with a white cloth and covered with silver dishes.
Rachelle seated herself across from the woman after Lady Sujata had allowed a servant to attend to her at her own place. When the pirimah had taken a little crystal container of fruit juice from where it had lain half-buried in ice in the heart of a covered dish, and sipped, Rachelle took a deep breath and began.
"Who is the most ardent foe of the maharajah?"
Sujata opened her mouth, then shut it quickly. After a few seconds, she took up a little piece of some exotic Hindic fruit and daintily ate it. "Why do you ask that?"
"The magister needs to compile a complete list of suspects."
"You don't have anything with which to write down what I tell you."
"I have a very good memory, lady. I seldom need such an aid."
The woman smiled. "Good." Her look was distant, as if she were considering another topic entirely, however. Then the pirimah's eyes were aimed at her questioner. "His Resplendence has only one meaningful opposer here in
Delhi—and that includes the kingdom, you understand?" Rachelle said she did. "Do you know about the rebels?"
Turning tables was a device which Rachelle could avoid without seeming to. "Only what the blustering general told me. Nothing substantial. Is it among those outlaws that the chief enemy of the maharajah is to be found?"
"Yes. I don't suppose Ratha mentioned his claims, gave you his name. ..."
"He told me only that the man pretended to be of royal lineage. Please tell rne his name— pretend and actual." The pirimah admitted that the leader of the insurgents was known to them only as "Rama-dharma, the duty of Rama." At hearing that, Rachelle said, "Wasn't Rama a great hero of antiquity who became a deity through his nobility and strength of purpose?"
"A cursed dog," the woman said vehemently, no trace of fear showing at giving such offense to a deity.
"You mean the rebel, of course."
"Don't speak for me. I mean both! If I knew the pretender's actual name, though, little one, he would be no threat to the throne. Get on with your questions."
With her uncertainties well hidden, the amazon did as she had been told. "There is but one foe, the rebel calling himself Rama-dharma. There are no others. But what about palace intrigues—are there none who would see the maharajah discomfited by the loss so as to gain
thereby?"
"What would be the gain? All in positions of power here stand or fall by the fate of Guldir— the maharajah—at least for some time. Nobody here has the brains to range into the distant future. Not the general, nor that weakling Gorvan. All the others are petty, without hope of anything beyond retaining their current, undeserved, rank. Besides, to have done what was done dangerously weakens not only the maharajah but all who serve him."
That made her sit up mentally, but again Rachelle hid her intense interest in what she had heard. "The loss is humiliation if news of it should be broadcast. Lady Sujata, but surely the lack of even such precious ornaments as the crown jewels inflicts no important loss of power."
"You are ignorant. The regalia has more than symbolic significance."
Without adding to that, the pirimah turned her attention to the food, nibbling a little of this and that. Rachelle went over what she had been told for the woman's benefit. "There is only the bandit chief to look to then, and his motive in robbing the maharajah of the crown jewels was to hinder his plans by depriving the throne of the powers the regalia bestowed upon him."
Lady Sujata's eyes widened, and she looked at the amazon with a glimmer of new respect. "No. I didn't say that. It might be accurate in part, but it is inaccurate in general. Your magister will have to discover if some unsuspected villain who lurks in hiding perpetrated the crime. As to the motive, that is information unnecessary to the recovery of the lost jewels. After all, why else would I have recommended that the maharajah employ him? With his heka power and experience at this sort of thing, he should be able, must, get to the bottom of things before the dark of the moon. It is essential that the crown jewels be returned by that time."
Rachelle let out a little gasp. "Two days' time?"
"That is all. Can he do it?"
"The magister Is unequaled in his field. There are few suspects, possibly but a single one, and the lost items are potently charged with heka. If anyone can find them, Inhetep will."
The woman smiled thinly. "Good. He had better, for his sake and probably yours, too. But let us not dwell on unpleasantries. Tell me, do you wish your Magister Inhetep to marry you?"
"The wealth and position would be fine, but he is too hard to control." Rachelle lowered her tone as she confided, "If I had my choice, I would rather be married to someone more powerful than he, perhaps a vizier, one old and tractable."
Lady Sujata watched the amazon as she spoke. Her eyes were knowing. "Not a bad aspiration—for a woman of average abilities. Too uncertain, too many other women competing. You are educated?"
Even though it was more statement than question, Rachelle responded at some length. "Yes. It is usual for the middle and upper classes of /Egypt to be given some degree of education. For many years I was schooled. During that time, I was trained as a priestess of the goddess Neith."
"Were you, now? I thought we had some affinity. ... I am not acquainted with the pantheon of your land. What concerns your Neith? What teachings are ascribed to her?"
"Warfare is her forte, lady. She favors the bow, the hunt."
"I see. You are a huntress too, and ply a bow, 111 wager."
Rachelle's face showed how impressed she was. "That is so, my Lady Sujata. You are very astute."
"Astute is one way of putting it. Tell me, Rachelle, what is the true perspective of the goddess? She is not of the light, is she?" The pirimah's expression was crafty as she kept asking her questions. "You may speak freely to me, have no fear. I will repeat nothing, not even to the vaunted Magister Inhetep—rest assured you can trust rne."
"Light is far from Neith's ethos. ..."
Again the woman gave her somehow sinister-sounding laugh. "I thought so. You are a vassal of gloom stuck with a foolish fellow who thinks that there can be a position which bestrides light and darkness even as he violates his own tenets. Well, I am one who can use such fools to undo their ilk! You see, Rachelle, I too serve a dark goddess, one even more bloody and potent than this Neith of yours. Serve me and I will show you how you may bend men and even states to your will, and have all you desire!"
For the space of several heartbeats Rachelle sat frozen, staring at the woman's now-hard countenance. "You are a witch," she said at last.
"Is that so? And what if I am . . . ?" There was great menace in the question.
The amazon's hand made a sign, and she bowed her head towards the Lady Sujata. "I pay you homage, mistress. I am an initiate in the Black Craeft, but I have feared to take the last step."
"You show your wisdom by such hesitation. You must have a plan, know exactly what you desire to accomplish, before you commit. Now listen to me. I want you to act as my agent. You must learn exactly what your magister is doing. If you can, find out who has the jewels, where they are hidden. Tell me everything you learn. When the regalia of state is returned, I will rule Delhi through that toad who squats on the Peacock Throne. Then, in due course, as the maharani. If you have served me well, I will make you my lieutenant here, or else send you back to /Egypt if you so desire, to become great there."
"I can manage the carrying of information, Pirimah, but how can I accomplish the rest? I have no powers such as yours."
"But you will, for if you fulfill the task I have laid upon you, I will call up such a demon as you cannot imagine, one whose strength is unmatched. To him you will bend your knee, make your blood pact, and then you will wield the might needed to gain all you lust for. Men will serve you in thousands. Never will you need to be one of hundreds or dozens of women competing for a small place at the feet of some man."
Rachelle smiled. "It is a vision unreachable for most. I will serve you. Ah, but Lady Sujata, a moment! Doesn't the great goddess you are sworn to take umbrage at making a pact with the lords of the netherrealms?"
"Don't be silly. Why should black Kali object to my service to darkness? She may slay some dwellers therein, but it is her own place as well. I further her aims by being both a sworn witch and priestess of the goddess Kali!"
Rachelle stood up, inclined her head. "I will serve you as you command. Great Lady Witch."
"Of course you will take an oath to that effect."
"I swear my fealty and pledge my bond by Neith the Huntress."
Now the pirimah arose. "Not good enough. Follow me." She led the amazon into her bedroom. There she opened a tall cupboard, drew forth a box, and from inside it took out various items. "Hold out your hand." There was hardly a tremble as Rachelle thrust forth her little hand. "Pretty, but too calloused," Sujata observed as she used a lancet to pierce the tip of one of the fingers she grasped firmly. When a drop welled up as if it were a ruby bead, she touched a little doll to it. Now the figurine had a crimson mark upon its breast. "I place this upon the alter of Kali. Do you place yourself in the arms of the Black Goddess thus?"
"Yes," Rachelle whispered. She could say nothing else.
The witch used some charm to search for deception, then cast an augury to see if that revealed any duplicity. Neither means showed anything other than an unyielding determination on the part of the young warrior. "Then you are bound to her and to me. If you betray your oath, Kali's vengeance will take you—if my own fails, which I doubt."
—— 12 ——
He arose and left their rooms so quietly that even the catlike senses of the amazon were not alerted to Inhetep's departure. He didn't concern himself with the sleeping Rachelle, for she had had her instructions, knew her work well— almost as well as he, the magister thought to himself with a satisfied grin. She looked so beautiful and childlike where she lay, but woe to the foe who thought she was vulnerable! Slipping out the door, the magister avoided the sentinel, heading for the rear portion of the palace. Surprisingly, he felt thirsty and a trifle hungry too, so Inhetep located the royal kitchens and asked for tea and something to eat. Wide-eyed, a scullion ran off to bring a cook, who in turn fled upon seeing the /Egyptian standing there. The pantler begged his forgiveness, at least, before hurrying away to find the steward.
"Please come this way, Sahib Magister," that 189
worthy intoned. "I will have a morning room prepared, a proper repast ready in but a brief time."
"Pish! You'll do nothing of the sort. Ill not budge from here. Listen carefully. I desire a big glass of tea and some food—bread will do. I want that brought to me here, now!"
The wizard-priest tapped his foot in impatience as the steward went around in confusion tiying to comply with the foreigner's strange orders even while making that part of the kitchen complex into something resembling a proper place for an aristocratic guest of the ma-harajah's to break his fast. Inhetep forbore scolding. He understood that the steward feared for his head if he displeased him or displeased his monarch by not treating a guest properly. The process was creating an ever greater uproar without increased promise of fulfilling the magister's instructions. Inhetep walked into the next room. Behind him there was a babble of shouting and the commotion of a dozen people trying to do their best to be in the same spot at the same time. The steward, pantler, cook, and baker were each demanding he be obeyed immediately. Thus, none noticed the departure of the one who had created the bedlam.
"Ill have that," Setne said firmly as he passed a startled worker and plucked a wooden bowl filled with a steaming, aromatic morning tea from him. He quaffed it off in big gulps as he continued along to another room, grabbed and ate a radish as he passed through. Outside finally, he found himself in the yard where ovens yielded flat loafs of bread. In fact, there was a whole pile of bread in his path. He snatched the top one and pulled it into two portions. "Wonderful!" the magister exclaimed as he sniffed at the fresh odor. "And it has onions baked into it, too. Perfect!" He stuffed a big hunk in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. "Ahh." He ate more, but after the loaf was about half gone, he had had enough.
Despite raised eyebrows, Inhetep managed to find and exit the palace compound through the rear servant's entrance. He was clad in the simple garb of a Hindi working man, but his towering height and copper-hued complexion set him apart at a single glance. Ignoring the uneasy glances of those who passed, the magister used his long legs to effect. Inhetep still held the hunk of onion-laden bread. In the space of a few minutes, he was many streets and a whole world removed from the splendor of the Maharajah Sivadji's tightly guarded fortress.
Seeing a grubby child with skinny limbs and a big belly standing in the street before him, the magister went a little out of his way to hand the boy the remains of his breakfast. "Here, lad, take this." The urchin grabbed the bread and ran off clutching his prize. Not knowing whether to laugh with shared joy at the boy's good fortune or cry at the conditions which allowed such abject poverty, the wizard-priest simply dusted his hands and walked on. If there were those who decried the near-absoluteness of the monarchy of Pharaoh, he thought, they would laud it after seeing what a true despot brings to his subjects. Only the determined could find a way to starve in /Egypt. Between industry and the many charities of temple and fraternal societies, not one in a thousand lacked sufficient, if plain, food. "Like bread and onions," he said aloud as he turned a corner suddenly.
Of course he was being followed. Inhetep's sixth sense had informed him, not that he actually needed such intelligence. Common sense told the wizard-priest that the maharajah and other officials would put their agents on his trail to watch where he went. With his legs moving very quickly now, he covered the ground between the corner and a narrow passage before anyone following could get a view of him. Then Setne ducked into the gangway and broke into a lope, bent over so as to minimize his height. One or two startled pedestrians hastily withdrew from his path. There was an even smaller adit angling off to the right. Inhetep jogged into it, followed it to where it branched into two dead ends, then went left and up a steep flight of stairs, almost lost in the deep shadows of this nearly lightless place where only a little rectangle of sky far overhead allowed day to show.
"Perfect," he panted aloud. There wasn't a soul in sight to hear him or to see what he was about to do. His ploy was as obvious in its own way as those following him. That is, whomever was trailing after him would know he was a practitioner of heka and expect him to use it to alter his appearance. Once it was certain that he had managed to get away from constant surveillance, some device to detect mag-ickal disguise or change would be used to attempt to locate him again. "Time for the alteration," he murmured. Less than a minute later, he was again Chandgar. He drew a strip of blue cotton from his baggy loincloth, replacing the white turban he wore with a blue one by wrapping the long strip around his head. The casting which altered his physical appearance also blanketed the wizard-priest in such a way as to conceal emanations from his person. Thus, he would be nearly invisible to searches for aural or magickal radiation. Too invisible, and thus visible—unless there were decoys.
The magister came back along his trail to the small passage. There he turned right, so as to continue away from the route which brought him to the hidden spot. Now none of the people he met gave him a second look, for he was just another Hindi dwelling in Delhi. The little lane soon opened into a courtyard. There was a fountain in its center, an upthrust block with a spout trickling water for the residents of the neighborhood. Around the plaza were a handful of peddlers, vendors, and a sprinkling of customers. Inhetep went to the busiest stall, a place where vegetables were offered, and thrust himself between a man and a woman to get to the very front so as to be able to peer closely at the produce offered. The two he had brushed past glared, and the man muttered a curse which the magister ignored. "Not what I want," he said to the seller, who likewise sent doom after him as he walked away. In about five minutes, he had been to each place there, bought nothing, but incurred the enmity of a dozen citizens by his rudeness.
"Who was that fellow?" one asked.
His neighbor shook his head. "A stranger here. Say, do you suppose he was a pickpocket?" As he said that, the resident began to check his person for loss. He kept his small horde of coins carefully folded inside the waist of his loincloth. So too his fellow who was likewise frantically searching to see if his money had been stolen. "No. I have not lost anything," the second man said in relief. "He was just a pushy bastard."
More cautious than his fellow, the second local not only touched his coins but counted them. Even though no thief would take only some, it was reassuring to check just in case. The man was startled to find there was a silver one among the bronze and copper coins he knew he had. He hid his surprise. Where had the worn old chuckrum come from? He could t hink of only one way: somebody had carelessly given it to him in change. "I too have all my money," he said finally. It was most unwise to reveal newfound wealth to anyone, of course, even a good neighbor.
By then the magister was a long way from the two. Smiling contentedly to himself, he sought out the worst slum of Delhi to begin his work. Behind him were nine people with strong heka emanating from them. Each had a silver chuckrum, and the coin was the source of the magickal radiation, in particular indicating physical disguise. "Let them try to follow those false trails," he said to himself. Before long some of the coins would change hands, and silver should be hidden on the receiver's person. It would be an hour or more before the ruse was discovered—if any were indeed clever enough. By then he would be hopelessly lost to anything save a full-scale search of the city. The master of Delhi wouldn't do that. "Ill be given a hot reception when I return, but by then 111 have found all I need to know here," Inhetep ruminated. He came to the quarter he had sought, and entered the first public house he saw there.
"Beer," he said to the barman.
The fellow gave Inhetep a hard look of appraisal, and brought a wooden tankard. "One anna," he said loudly as he set the container on the stained and worn plank.
The magister produced the coin, dropped it on the bar, picked up his beer, and turned his back on the servitor. It was a typical dive: little light even in bright morning sun; narrow, deep, with many odd tables and chairs cluttering its length. As his eyes adjusted fully to the dimness, Inhetep saw there were already more than a handful of customers in the place. He chose a table as far away from them as he could. He put his back to the wall and drank.
For a few minutes, he was the subject of guarded scrutiny. Then he was ignored by the patrons and barkeep alike. Ignored but not accepted, he thought. He finished his beer, walked back to the bar, and asked for another. The process was the same as before, but this time he was eyed more closely by the man as he put the refilled tankard before the wizard-priest. Without attempting any conversation, Inhetep went back to his table. He glanced neither right nor left. This time he drank more slowly, waiting.
"Buy me wine?" The whore had come from the depths of the tavern's rear. Even in the gloom the magister could see she was very young, very well-built, and would have been extremely pretty had her face not been badly scarred by disease. He slapped his hand down on the table before her. She started a bit, unsure of what he was doing. Then he moved it, and she saw a bronze coin lying there. "Wine is a rupee, master," she told him in her toneless, professional voice.
"Drink beer then or do without," Inhetep responded with an emotionless tone which matched hers.
"Come on, master, you're a sport aren't you? Buy me wine, and then maybe 111 treat you to something special later." Inhetep ignored her wheedling. The whore grabbed the anna, got up angrily, and left him alone. Two minutes later she returned, a tankard in her hand. She plopped down in the chair opposite him, gulping the beer.
"Tea or fruit juice would be better for one so young," the magister observed in a low, flat voice.
"What the hells are you, some kind of a holy reformer?" She was angry because her commission on wine was an anna; for beer she got only the drink. "Do you want to get laid or don't you? It's a hundred—" His harsh laughter made her break off what she was saying. "All right. Because its early, 111 let you go for fifty annas."
Inhetep shook his head "Crap. The rate is half that. Do you think me stupid?" He finally looked into the too-old eyes in the young, pocked face. "Your name is Braji. No. I am not a spy for the maharajah. No, I am not any sort of policeman, either. Yes. I am not going to pay you for sex, just as you fear. No. It isn't because your face is ugly—it is scarred but pretty, by the way, and the smallpox which caused it happened when you were eight," he added as the astonished girl stared at him with her mouth agape.
"You read my mind. You are a swami!"
"Lower your voice," Inhetep commanded. "Otherwise you won't be paid." He saw that got through to her. She was ready to flee from him at the slightest provocation, but her desire for money held her there tenuously. "You are close, girl. Suffice to say I am a practitioner of the arts. No more stealing thoughts. Relax. I did that only to show you I am no enemy."
It took no magick to see from her expression that she thought that total bullshit as she replied, "Okay, you're my pal. Where's the money you promised, and what do I have to do to earn it? I don't do exhibitions with ani—"
"Shut up and listen to me, Braji," the magister said in a voice so harsh that the young whore froze silent in her chair. But as he spoke thus, he made a copper rupee appear on the table. "There are more, chuckrums too, if you play this right."
She in turn made the coin vanish. "For small change I don't do much of anything," she warned. She didn't mean it, though. Business for her was never good, and money always scarce.
"No lies or even misleading answers," the wizard-priest warned. "Remember I can read your thoughts if need be. All we are going to do is talk. When I'm satisfied you've answered a question fully and truthfully, you get paid. I have a lot of questions. ..."
"You got a deal. Ask away." If he said anything out of line, asked her to tell him anything he shouldn't know, she was determined to walk away. With a little luck, she'd at least have some jingle in her purse when she did that. She quickly shut away the rising thought of what would happen if it turned out he was one of the . . .
"Why do you sell yourself?"
Oh, so maybe this fellow was just another one of those kind. "My father is dead, my mother an invalid. Someone has to bring food home for my little brothers and sis—"
"Don't be a fool. Tell me the truth, I said, or else you can get your ass out of that chair now!"
"I have no hope of marriage—not looking like this. My family threw me out after a soldier raped me. I have to live, and there's no other way." A coin appeared. It was a rupee, and she took it wondering if she might have earned a chuckrum if she had been truthful in the first place.
"The government doesn't serve the people here, does it?"
That made Braji swallow hard. She risked it. "No," she managed in a small voice. The payment was silver.
"Can you recall a time it was less tyrannical, when it was maybe all right for what it was? Is it getting worse now?"
"Things have never been good from what I've heard, or what I recall as a child. That bastard who raped me wouldn't have dared doing that years ago—my parents said that, even though they blamed me. It is becoming worse all the time too, and if you are one of the maharajah's spies, I'm as good as dead now."
The magister smiled at her, a paternal and reassuring show. He produced a rupee and another silver chuckrum. "Buy yourself wine, Braji; then come back. I have more questions, but we want no suspicions as to what is really being transacted between us, do we?"
In a bit, she returned. She had her wine in one hand, a beer in the other. "On me," she said. When she saw Inhetep's questioning look, Braji told him, "Don't worry about the barman—Upura is a good fellow and won't say anything even if he suspected you were a rebel recruiter."
"Do you think I am?"
She shrugged. "I don't know—I've never met one. Are you?" The young whore actually giggled when he asked her for a chuckrum if she wanted an answer. "Right," she said as she regained her composure. "You ask, 111 answer and get the coin."
"How great is the hatred for the maharajah? Are there active rebels here in the capital? Have there been incidents?" As he posed the string of queries to her, the magister slipped three silver discs partway across the table.
She looked at the coins, then at Inhetep. "What you ask of me is very dangerous! I am afraid to answer, even for so much money."
"Here," Inhetep said. "Take them and don't answer if you are so afraid. Know that I am here as one able to assist those who wish to change things, and I will never reveal anything I learn to those who are tyrannizing you."
He had measured her character well. Braji was a prostitute but otherwise a very decent girl. Despite enforced hardness, she couldn't help trusting him. "The toad is the most hated man in the world!" she hissed. "He is not fit to rule a swamp. He has now surrounded himself with officials as bad as he is. His soldiers are rotten and the new mercenaries who swarm over the land worse. Tax collectors extort the last coin from widows. If my face were not so horrid, I'd probably be kidnapped for a slave in one of those pig's harems," she concluded, touching her scarred cheek, then adding, "I should be happy for this . . . blessing!"
"I understand. You became so vehement you forgot to speak about active opposition here in the city. Are there insurgents here in Delhi who are fighting back?"
She nodded, looked around to be sure nobody was near. "Yes. They have even come here once or twice to find men and women willing to join the cause. They have done small things only up to now. Killing a tax collector, making a particularly brutal soldier disappear. Even such little attacks have brought terrible reprisals—executions of randomly seized men, the burning of a building suspected to house a rebel sympathizer. If the opposition tried anything major, it would mean slaughter among the people. The maharajah's men would be loosed to do as they want here."
"So the insurgents build strength and wait for something, a general uprising when their forces in the hills are strong enough to come into the open and fight."
"You know the whole plan?"
The magister bent forward to push the three coins to her, sat back, raised his hand as if taking an oath, then lowered it while saying, "What I just told you is the way of all revolutionaries everywhere. I don't have to see the documents to know the details. What's more, I believe that I fully support it. Whether it will succeed or not is another matter. Yet even there I suspect I might be influential. Come, Braji. Let us go to your room."
That shocked her. "You want to have sex now?"
"No. You are like a friend to me now. But we must go to your lodging place to make sure that anyone who might be a spy for the maharajah thinks that is what I am after. Is it nearby?"
Braji nodded. "It is a little room on the fourth floor of the building next door. Come on." She got up with a false smile on her face and held onto the magister. She gave the barman, Upura, a wave as they left. He returned a knowing smile. "If he bought it," she murmured, "anyone else watching did." They walked the short distance to the entrance to the adjacent structure and climbed up the long sets of steps to arrive at her door. "Sorry for this place," she said. "It is the best I can manage."
Setne entered, and when she had closed the door he sat on the bed. "Can you take me around the city—especially to places where the rebels might be present?"
"I can, but..." Again Braji made her unconscious gesture, fingers over pitted and scarred face. "Let's be realistic. If I'm not recognized as a whore, my looks will cause trouble for you. I think you need another guide."
"Could you do it otherwise?"
"Maybe, I'm not sure," the girl admitted.
Inhetep reached into his shawl-like upper garment and pulled out a little box. "You know I have powers," he said. "Here is something I want you to use now, an unguent for your skin. Smooth it on wherever you have scarring, but be sparing. A little is good, a lot wasteful. There is enough for seven applications, understand? That will help you to judge how much you need to use each time after this."
Braji's eyes brightened with a flash of hope, then clouded. It was something she didn't dare consider. While this stranger seemed a good man, had given her over a hundred annas, not betrayed her as a traitor to the crown, trust and hope both were foreign to her thinking. Like love and caring, to survive in her environment all such potentially weakening emotions had to be shut out. "Ill use it, but you'll have to pay me a chuckrum," she said in her hard, business-like voice.
"Here," the magister replied, tossing a coin through the air. "Maybe this will finally convince you. Even if it doesn't, you need it far more than I." His voice was absolutely neutral. There was neither pity nor judgment in his words or expression.
Braji noted that even as she caught the spinning coin. It was gold. "You throw me a lakh as if it were nothing?" She looked at it closely, bit it to see if it were a counterfeit. "Did you conjure this? Will it soon vanish?" she asked with a mixture of wonder and suspicion. When he shook his head, Braji believed him. The man's eyes denied all duplicity. "Why . . . ?"
"Never mind. Take it—and stop wasting my time. Use the salve. Hurry up. The morning is almost gone, and there's a whole city for you to show to me."
Without hesitation, she put her fingers into the box, touched the pale green stuff inside. The contact made her whole hand tingle. Jaw set, she pressed gently, took the salved digits out, up to her left cheek, then repeated the process on the other. Braji pretended she was applying a beauty creme, that her skin was perfect, that she was the lovely daughter of a wealthy merchant, a Vaisya maid readying to be presented to a dozen handsome suitors. After all, she was but a girl and still had some bit of dream hidden in her heart.
"That's fine." The words snapped her out of her reverie. "Do you have a mirror?" When Braji said she didn't, he swore, then told her, "You'll have to wait a bit then to see the effect. I think you 11 be pleased," he added cryptically. "Just make sure you apply the unguent once a day for the next six days. Don't use it more often, and don't miss a day, hear?"
She shrugged, nodded. When he wasn't around, she would do as she pleased. "Is this a paste which hides my scars?"
"You'll soon see. Now let's get out of here. Are we likely to run into anyone on the stairs?"
"Not at this time of day. Too early by half. I was out only because I had no money and nothing to eat."
The magister opened the door, looked out, saw no one. "It is as you said. Now, dear niece, after you. I am your Uncle Chandgar from Alwar, and you are going to show me the capital. But first you'll need a more suitable sari, and a few other things too. You see, I have a very dear companion who happens to also be a beautiful woman like you will grow to be."
Despite her puzzlement at all this, Braji didn't believe a word of that. Beautiful indeed. At least she would get a new dress. If he made her take him into dangerous territory, she'd give this Chandgar, or whoever he really was, the slip. Maybe she'd do that before they got to a shop. After all, she was now holding over a thousand annas. Never press your luck, a wise old harlot had once advised.
—— 13 ——
The magister kept a tight hold on her arm as she led him out the back way of the building and along a filthy alley to a busy street. He maintained that grip until they came to a shop selling small objects for the household. "Well go in here for a minute, Braji. I see they have decorative things for sale."
"What?"
"Decorations. Look there, see the pretty frame around the little mirror which hangs just there? Look, see if you'd like it to hang in your room."
Of course she had no mirror there. Nor did she want one. She hated to see herself. Braji tried to avoid his suggestion by playing along with his proposed charade and saying, "No, Uncle . . . Chandgar. I like the brass incense burner over there ever so much better."
It was time to make her stop being what she had become. "The mirror, dear niece!" Inhetep actually used his strong fingers to cause her a little pain as he squeezed her bicep. Braji winced and went to stand before the mirror where it hung. Her attitude showed that it might have been a spider or venomous snake from her perspective. The magister was there, close to her, forcing her to finally look at her own reflection.
"Oh!" was all she said when she saw herself. She pulled back as if stung, then moved forward, cautiously, little by little so as to view only a bit of her face at a time. "It is a miracle," she whispered, as she finally stood squarely before the glass, fingertips of both hands playing across her forehead, slowly traveling down her cheeks to her neck.
"You want to buy that mirror?" the puzzled proprietor demanded in a half-querulous tone as if her careful inspection in the looking glass would somehow wear it out.
"Yes!" Braji cried excitedly. Then she caught herself and looked at Inhetep as if he might refuse.
He chuckled. "Here, fellow, my young niece wants your second-rate goods, so I give you a rupee. How much change do I get?" The bargaining which followed was only half-hearted on the magister's part, and he ended up paying twenty annas for it.
Braji was scandalized. "It is worth no more than fifteen, tops," she said as they walked out of the shop. "I will do the bargaining from now on—with your permission, of course, Uncle Chandgar."
It was almost as if she believed they were niece and uncle now, so filled with the wonder of her unscarred face was this girl who minutes before had schemed like the hard tart she had survived being. "You are doing much better now, Braji, much better. Ill certainly allow you to haggle with the owner of the shop in which we select your new clothes. Let us find such a place." She took his hand and tugged him along, for the girl knew exactly where she wanted to buy her clothes, a place which had saris fit for a princess. "Don't you have anything to say about what the unguent did?" Inhetep asked as they hurried along one street after another.
"Thank you!"
"No. I appreciate that, but I meant do you have questions about how it works?"
"Magick. You said you were like a swami, and I think you are the greatest, most wonderful one in all Delhi—the world! I will use the ointment faithfully each day for six more days, just as you said. Is there more?"
She was smart, no question. "You might notice a coarsening of your skin, and enlargement of the pores or something like the return of the pock marks by tomorrow morning. You must not use the stuff then, though. Wait until about the same hour to apply it again—an hour before midday or so."
"Yes, uncle." She said nothing more, trusting him fully now in at least the matter of the unguent, possibly more. "Here is the shop. Let's go in!" Before she suited her actions to her words, however, Braji stopped abruptly. Inhetep almost collided with her.
"Is something wrong?"
"I . . . well . . . This is a very fancy place, you see." She looked sheepish and crestfallen. It took no genius to tell she was ashamed of herself. "I have been inside once. They ask a fortune for their things. Perhaps we should go somewhere else. You have already paid me too much money, given me that which is worth more than all the gold in the world to me." Suddenly her face lit up again. "No. I have it! Ill use the lakh you gave me and buy a dress with it!"
The magister frowned and shook his head. "No. You'll need that to find new lodgings, get a new start."
"You are right. Let us go to shop where ordinary women get their clothes." Braji meant it. She was already starting to head off in another direction.
"Just a moment, niece. Do they have things which aren't too conspicuous here? Something nice but in good taste?"
She stopped. "I am not sure," she admitted.
"I have longed for the dresses which are like those a rani might wear, but I don't recall everything that they sell."
"Seeing that you know you like the goods in this shop, Braji, I think we should go in and look around. I have only so much time, you know." She was pleased, of course, agreeing readily. It was not entirely a lie, either. Inhetep did want to go many places before the day ended. He had much to learn, and that meant he had to visit all the quarters of Delhi and speak with the right people in each.
At first the woman who greeted them was cool. The two didn't look like they were able to afford the merchandise sold in the shop, and her voice told them as much. Inhetep spotted a couple of garments which were day wear, not blatantly expensive, and seemed tastefully pretty as well. "Which of these two do you like the best, niece?" he asked. "Because it's your birthday, I will buy whichever one you choose." That made the clerk hasten to attend Braji. The magister stood back while the two chattered, looked at his selections, and drifted away to look at others elsewhere. "We have much to do today," he called. Perhaps it hurried her a little.
'This one. Uncle Chandgar." Braji held up a lovely sari of pale turquoise, its edges trimmed in fine silver stitching. "It is the prettiest—outside those suitable for nighttime parties and such. ..." Her voice was wistful.
"There you have it. A shawl to go with it, and new sandals." He said it quickly so as to make her forget the fancier things which wouldn't do at all. "How much?"
"Don't talk so loud or look as if you will positively buy; and never, never appear to be in a hurry." With that Braji left him to his own devices while she selected the other things. It took her surprisingly little time to do that, and to strike a bargain with the woman helping her.
"No more?" Inhetep asked with some surprise. She smiled, told him that was the price agreed to, and he handed her some coins. With that they left the dress shop and went off to the part of Delhi which was principally that of the medial castes. "Now listen, Braji. Here is what I want to see." After reeling off a long list, the magister added, "and we should find somewhere which serves food, too. Make it a nice place that the well-to-do frequent."
They ate a good lunch, sipped tea afterwards. The priest-wizard seemingly listening to her chatter while actually paying attention to conversations going on around them. Sometimes, in fact, he used other means to overhear. After an hour he grew tired of it, settled their check, and the two departed.
"Thank the gods," Braji breathed as they hurried off to the next place on the tour he had set. "I was beginning to run out of polite things to say! Can't you do something other than respond with, 'How nice,' or 'Is that so?', or 'Of course'? Carrying on a one-way conversation and trying not to attract attention isn't easy, you know."
"You will certainly go far, dear Niece Braji, in your new circumstances," Inhetep said to avoid the matter. "What do you plan to do?"
"Why, be a courtesan, naturally," she replied instantly. "I can get ever so much for my favors now that I am beautiful. Then I'll save enough to buy a house, hire other women to work in it, and be the richest madam in Delhi." Braji looked up at him, smiling brightly.
Not knowing if she were serious or having him on, the magister changed the subject once again. He would not try to influence her values. "So now we go where?"
"To the big bazaar where everybody congregates. From there I'll take you to the avenue where most of the temples are located. Next will be the Street of Arms, then the Street of Smiths—it's right next to the armorers, and has everything from brass and copper workers to silversmiths and goldsmiths." She took a breath, mentally went over what she had said, then added, "Not too far away from there are several good places to eat supper, and after that well go to the tavern I know of where the latest ballads are sung."
He was pleased. "Just the ticket, girl! Nothing important missed. Tell me the way to get to the market." She pointed him in the right direction, and Setne took over from there. Although the population of the city was great, its size was compact. Delhi was packed into its crowded walls. Because this was the hottest time of the day, however, the traffic wasn't impossible. There were plenty of carts being pushed or pulled along by donkey power. Buffalo and oxen were too big and slow to be used inside the city, horses too dear for common work. There were even a few human mules bearing big burdens along to some destination or another. Other sorts of traffic were at a minimum. Many shops and outside stalls were shut down. Peddlers and other vendors were not active. Shoppers were at home, workers busy inside their places of employment. Even the soldiers who were commonly seen patrolling in pairs or sections seemed to have slipped off to some cooler place to rest.
"You don't mind this heat?" Braji was a little breathless.
"Pish! It is nothing. In /Egypt's deserts, girl, it gets hot!" the magister said sotto voce. He slowed his pace a bit, though. Just ahead the street widened dramatically into a large plaza. "Good. We're at the bazaar, and it isn't too crowded." He handed her a few coins. "We will split up but stay in sight of one another. While you are using eyes and ears to find what I am seeking, use these to buy some small thing or another. We must not appear to be spying." A minute later, they separated.
It proved to be a fruitless exercise. Perhaps those he sought for were avoiding the blaze of early afternoon as did normal citizens and soldiery alike. Discrete inquiries were out of the question in such a place. Inhetep let slip a muttered curse aimed at the throne here, some treasonous hint in what he said there. Besides getting an odd look or two, and making several sellers nervous in the extreme, he got nowhere. No sympathetic agreement, no rebel recruiter, nothing. An hour was all he could allow, and that time was gone. The girl was nearby, so he went to where she was intently examining braided shoulder bags and similar items. "Let us be off, niece," he said to Braji.
She smiled and nodded. "As you wish. Uncle Chandgar." Then, when they were out of earshot of everyone, the girl said, "I saw no one I recognized, heard no voice speaking of rebellion. But look, I managed to find a pretty little ivory necklace and earrings. I also bought a little bag to keep things in as we walk around."
"Later, Braji. I'm sure the things you found are nice, but I can't waste time looking at them now. We must hasten on to where armor and weapons are offered."
"We are almost there, Chandgar—Uncle Chandgar," she replied, taking his arm and giving it an affectionate little hug. "I took a route through the bazaar which brought us to the side which leads to the Street of Smiths."
Inhetep was not surprised to find that a number of the places there were closed and sealed, a sign proclaiming that the owner had been arrested and the shop seized by order of His Resplendent Majesty Guldir Maharajah Sivadji. Some weapons and armor makers remained open, arms were offered for sale, but there were few customers in evidence. The magister stopped in at each place, examining the wares, chatting a little about this and that. Again he tried his best but learned nothing. In the process, he found an unusual dagger of fine workmanship which he purchased as a gift for Rachelle. Oddly, he was treated suspiciously when he paid over the rather hefty sum the weapon sold for.
When Braji asked about it as they went on, he told her it was for a friend who was an enthusiast of such things. "Your magick is more potent than such tools," she observed, "but better still I think is influence through emotion or even ideas. It is the means most natural for people. In the end, it will prove more powerful than even enchantments, I think."
The magister looked at her speculatively. Such insight for a young and uneducated girl was unusual—disconcerting, in fact. He began to wonder what he had loosed by his well-intentioned assistance. "Possibly, niece," he allowed. "Forget about all that now. Concentrate on finding some insurgent talk, or better still one you recognize as a rebel. And by the by, we will not be making any purchases from the silversmiths and goldsmiths. Your 'Uncle Chandgar' is not made of money!"
"I would never dream of so much as suggesting such a thing, Chandgar."
"Easy to say, but when women see things which they believe enhance their attractiveness, apparent status, or financial security, such intentions often fly off as does a loosed bird." He harumphed a little to underscore his point, for just ahead was the place where precious metals were shaped into forms which only the wealthy could afford.
Surprisingly, it was in this locale that the wizard-priest's hints brought the first positive response. A silversmith muttered back that he was nearly bankrupt because of the obscene taxation which took not only his money but made it hard for others to have enough to buy his wares. That sentiment was echoed several times, albeit only faintly, as the two worked their way along the small sector where precious metals were wrought. Inhetep violated his own admonition and bought a little gold ring for Braji, in order to see if that would elicit more from a proprietor who had expressed a veiled suggestion it was time for a new government.
That proved to be a useless purchase, save from the delighted girl's point of view.
Discouraged to some extent, the magister allowed Braji to guide him around to peer into some of the surrounding establishments, places that purveyed expensive and rare goods for those wealthy patrons coming to the quarter to buy silver, gold, and jewels. After what seemed a very long time to him, the shadows grew into lightless pools. Shops were closing, witchlights and torches were set out. "At last," he murmured. "It is time for us to find a place for our dinner."
"Yes, I fear so—and I have not nearly seen enough here," she agreed ruefully. "Still, I am quite hungry. Down that way a ways is where there are many places catering to the better castes who like to have their meals prepared and served to them outside their homes."
They dined well, Inhetep selecting what appeared to be a large but not overly expensive restaurant, one he assumed would have many customers of average and well-to-do sort. However, the place was nearly empty. Service was very prompt, attentive. The food was well prepared. All in all, the magister thought it a waste of time. He was becoming heartily tired of a steady diet of Hindic cooking with its mouth-burning spices and invariable curry and curry-like dishes. His companion seemed quite content, even thrilled, with it all. The attention she received from the males, from proprietor and waiter to other guests, seemed to add considerable zest to the occasion for Braji. When he suggested it was time to leave, she said, "So soon? I thought we might have more tea Her glances, though, were sent towards a nearby table where several handsome young men were sitting. "You can flirt tomorrow and for a long time thereafter, niece," Inhetep said a little irritably. "Right now I need you to get me to the last place on my agenda."
"Oh, very well," she said with resignation which was tinged with regret. Then she patted his hand. "You are like an uncle to me, a very dear uncle, Chandgar. Please forgive me for being infatuated with this new world you've shown to me." Braji spoke in a low voice meant only for him. "Yes. Tomorrow I will make it mine, and I owe you much for that—all. I will pray you find what you seek at the tavern where the poets and musicians gather. Then I will have really helped you, no?"
The place she took him to was one in which caste was ignored. This was truly amazing to the magister. It seemed that even in the rigid society of this land there were free spirits who disregarded the structures of society in favor of more reasoned and intellectual precepts, and possibly less restrained and carnal attitudes as well. No matter. It was just the sort of gathering he sought. The tavern was filled with students, performers, and all manner of others typical of such an establishment. He heard recitations of an inflammatory sort, ballads were sung which obliquely lionized outlaws, praised motives, and lauded deeds which the mahara-jah's government labeled as criminal and treasonous.
Inhetep and Braji found a table just vacated and got to it before the others looking for Just such an opportunity could claim it for their own. A plain serving woman took their order and eventually brought them their refreshments. Because the tavern was so busy, that took a long time, and a kindly young fellow at the next table gave Braji a cup of wine to tide her over until they finally got their own. That gesture, of course, enabled him to converse with his neighbors, principally with the pretty young girl and not the older uncle. In such an atmosphere, the magister felt able to speak more freely, and so he voiced support of freedom from tyranny, hinted he would support with money and even arm a cause which would place a new ruler upon the Peacock Throne. He drank much and bought drinks freely for others.
After about two hours, what the magister had hoped for occurred. Several people asked if they could join them at their table. The wizard-priest told them they of course could, they were welcome. Chairs seemed to appear from nowhere. Three young gallants and two girls were soon wedged in with Inhetep and Braji. With them came more drinks, passed around freely. After a little while, the fellow at the magister's elbow said, "You do not approve of the way Delhi is governed?"
"I see no good," Inhetep shot back without hesitation, "only ill. Yes. I agree with all those who are calling for change."
"Your words are vague, and their meaning could be taken in many ways. Can you speak unequivocally?"
The magister looked squarely at his questioner. The young man had intense eyes and a strong face. "Do you mean do I support the movement to put Rama-dharma on the throne?"
The fellow hissed at him, "Be careful! Speaking that name could bring death to you in summary fashion, even here. We must speak more, but not in this room. I will leave you now, go to relieve myself, and not return. Wait a reasonable time after I am gone, then you and your companion must go through the back to a private room. You'll find it easily, as it has a door marked 'private'. I'll be waiting for you there."
"How do I know this is not a trap? That you aren't an agent who will arrest us?"
He laughed loudly at that. "You do not know, save what is in your own mind and heart regarding that matter." Then he got up and left before any more could be said.
It took the magister some time to catch Braji's attention and pry her away from the two young men who were attentively conversing with her in evident competition, vying with each other to win her favor. Both frowned when Inhetep crushed their hopes. "Come along, niece. We have an appointment to keep now."
"But Uncle Chandgar, it is still very early!"
He stood up, placing a hand on her chair, and the other on Braji's shoulder. "There is tomorrow, you know."
"Yes, there is uncle. Sorry." Braji smiled at the two gallants, then arose and followed as would a dutiful niece. "I hope this is worth it," she said to Setne.
"Worth? Well, yes, I would say so. It is why I enlisted you in the first place, Braji. We are about to meet a rebel, or maybe even several of them, I think. Go to the back and through the archway, please." They made their way through the crowd, not huriying, attracting no attention as they exited. The arch gave onto a long hallway. Along it were several doors, including the one Inhetep sought. "The one with the privacy sign on it, Braji. In we go!"
As soon as he stepped through the door, he knew that he had at last found what he sought.
Also extinction. The two gallants who had been left sighing at the table were now behind them, their daggers pressing into not only the magis-ter's back but also the shapely Braji's. An assortment of blades bristled ahead where they must go. No question about it, here were rebels.
"If you so much as open your mouths or twitch you are dead," said the young man who had directed Inhetep to this trap. "Now walk very, very slowly towards me. We know that you have magickal prowess. One of us can read such things. Don't tiy to use any device or utter a casting."
The two did as ordered, and chairs were thrust forth for them to sit. Then, bound and blindfolded, Inhetep and Braji were questioned. After an hour or more, the magister was allowed to prove his claims. He assumed his true identity, told his inquisitors what his mission was, and why he had come seeking them. "Now you must listen to me for unless you do, your whole cause is doomed to failure."
"Just what do you have to say that we must listen to, Egyptian?" The young man who demanded that answer was called Garuda by the others. It was obviously a style assumed for his position in the insurgency.
"I need to know if your leader is indeed of royal blood. Then you must let us go, never saying that we met."
"You are mad!" Garuda sneered. "Free the man who is bound to recover the crown jewels, expose our leader, overthrow our cause? Kill them both!"
— 14 ——
"Where have you been, Setne?" Rachelle's voice quivered with repressed tension. Her face was drawn.
Exhausted from his long day and harrowing night, the wizard-priest didn't notice that. "Touring Delhi with a just-made-pretty young harlot," he said truthfully but with a light-hearted tone. The magister hurried on to tell her in a deeper and more earnest voice, "I did What I think was a good deed, you see. Had to in pursuit of this case, of course, but the motive was pure nonetheless. When I finally managed to find those I sought, I was rewarded by having a near-fatal meeting with a band of rebels who thought me a spy for the crown. . . . Despite that extremely close call, I believe that 1 would rate the day a fair success—fair to middling good, in fact!"
If she heard the first part at all, she didn't believe him. In truth, Rachelle's state of mind made it unlikely any of his later words registered fully. Her reply indicated this. "It is past midnight! Don't you have any consideration at all? I was worried half-sick!" She glared at him, and as he was about to say something she snapped, "What was that you said about where you'd been?"
"Never mind that. Once said is enough. But you! You do appear haggard beyond belief, my dear. There's more to your state than mere concern for me—I am quite a capable man, after all, and not even you really expect me to report in!" His words held no rebuke at all. He was greatly concerned. "Tell me, Rachelle, what occurred to you today to cause this? Was it the witch, Sujata?"
Rachelle burst into tears. It was something she had never done in all the time she had been his bodyguard and companion, hadn't done since she was past age ten or eleven. She tried to regain self-control, took a breath, and managed to blurt out. "O gods help me, Setne. I . . . I think 1 have doomed myself to betrayal of you or my own death. Ill not flinch from the latter, but how will you manage when I am no longer here by your side?" Then the amazon collapsed onto a chair and wept again, uncontrollably.
The magister rushed to comfort her. He held her for a minute, then wiped her tears away with gentle fingers as he made soothing sounds. "Come on now, girl! I just avoided a dozen blades and not a few fell castings in order to return here to you. What's this business about you being doomed? Nonsense, isn't it? This is the ur-kheri-heb-tepi Inhetep you are speaking to now, Rachelle. The master smeti, investigator-detective par excellence— unraveller of mysteries. Whatever it is, I am sure I can take care of it."
Those words had no impact, so he had to continue his simple, soothing touches to assist her in her need. It took quite some time to calm her. First, Inhetep carried Rachelle to the bed, then lay down beside her, and only after some time had passed thus, finally spoke about a variety of positive things to assist her in regaining her control.
At last she stopped sobbing and managed to stutter. "Hadd be . . . (sob!) . . . subthig to . . . (sniff!) . . . blow by dnose, blease, Sedne." Inhetep understood, and gave her a linen square. After wiping away tears and then clearing her nasal passages, the amazon seemed more herself when she told him, "This isn't me, Setne. This is the witch's sending at work on me. I am no sniveling coward! Her heka erodes my strength, makes me servile and afraid. You must remove this curse or I shall be useless to you!"
"Whoa there, my dear! Perhaps, perhaps not. More likely the latter, I must say! In either case, you make it an easier task of subversion by any means. That witch might use mere words, not heka, to affect you! By thinking and then speaking thus to reinforce the implanted idea, you help to undo yourself. Drive such fears from your mind now. You are your own person. Nobody controls you. No malign workings on the part of another will bend your spirit to conform to wickedness, reduce you to subservience to another's will. Say that." Rachelle did a fair approximation of repeating what Inhetep had commanded her to say. "Good. Keep going over that in the back of your mind. Believe it! Now tell me all about your meeting with the pirimah, please. Well soon set this whole dirty matter aright."
She began at the beginning, telling him everything. At first, her account was almost mechanical. As she went along, however, Rachelle became animated. "Do you know that 1 think that that woman actually feels a certain liking for me? Gods forefend that there is something alike in the two of us! She admitted to being a Black Crsefter, a dedicated witch under compact to a foul demon—one of the great demons of the nether realms, according to her own words!" Rachelle's shudder as she said that matched her expression of disgust and loathing. "When I asked if such a pact didn't compromise her vows as a priestess, she said her goddess worked for the same ends, so she approved!"
"Ugly Indeed, my dear. Priestess to a killer goddess, the Mistress of Thugs. More is explained by knowing that. This woman is Indeed one to be reckoned with—a potent shadow behind the maharajah's throne. Fine work you did managing to uncover that," he reflected. Then the wizard-priest queried, "When she had told you all those things, Sujata made you swear to serve her, betray me, is that so?"
"Yes, but it came out badly, not at all the way I planned," Rachelle confessed with a voice laden great anxiety. "I swore by my dedication to Neith—an empty and meaningless promise, of course."
The magister understood the latter. No contract, so to speak, without consideration. Even the most evil of entities would laugh at one seeking to enforce such an agreement. "Clever," he said to her. "Your actions were most appropriate, not at all ill conceived. You have nothing to worry about after all, so why the concern?"
"No. You are premature in your judgment, Setne. I was not so safe in my cunning as I thought. Not clever enough by a bowshot. The damned bitch saw through that, made me swear an oath, and took out a drop of my blood to bind it. I am now marked. I cannot escape the words I agreed to. Yet what else could I do? To have refused would certainly have meant my death at that instant."
"Under the circumstances, Rachelle, you did the only thing possible. Forget the oath. It was coerced, and a forced swearing is breakable. I will use my hekau to negate it in due course."
She stared at him as if he had lost his mind. "Setne, my oath was before the black goddess of the Hindi's. I swore to obey. Are you saying that you can defeat the might of Kali?\"
"No, I claim no such thing. But it was the pirimah, Lady Sujata the priestess, who elicited the compact, not Kali. Do you doubt that my abilities are greater than that woman's— inferior to any witch save, perhaps, the Crone of Pohjola?!"
"That's absurd. Of course I do not. You are surely a more able practitioner, Setne, but—" "No buts. Wipe the matter from your mind. Forget it for now. In addition, dear Rachelle, I give you this bit of additional information. Be of good cheer, stout heart. It is good news which far outweighs a petty casting from some second-rate witch." He was careful to make that seem plausible, to hide the patent falsehood.
Rachelle's condition made workable the ruse he employed. She responded as he had planned. "Don't keep me in suspense, Setne! What is it you have learned?"
He grinned at her, stood up, and walked to a nearby stand. "Among other things, I now know for certain where the missing crown jewels are hidden!"
Rachelle looked horrified when he said that. "Don't tell me more—Sujata will be able to get that information from me, and then I think she will have you killed!"
"Bah. I don't give a fig for what that dabbler might attempt. I won't go into the details of my discovery, Rachelle, but not because of her, but because it is now veiy late. High time both of us were asleep, in fact, for tomorrow we will have much to do. Here, you and 1 will have some of the wine our charming host has so generously provided." The magister poured the liquor into two of the goblets ranked round the ewer and handed the one containing a bit more wine to her. "You get the extra drops, Rachelle. 1 think your day was even more trying than mine."
She accepted it gratefully. They both drank, taking long swallows so as to drain the vessels quickly. "That is a bit better," Rachelle admitted as she set the empty glass aside. Then the amazon prilled off her gown, settling back under the sheets nude. "Now I am feeling much better still," she told him as she rested her head on a pair of down pillows. "You were starting to tell me about your day before I behaved so badly. As I recall, Setne, you mentioned you had spent your time with somebody, but I don't remember who it was. Begin again from the beginning, and tell me everything you did. It will help me relax."
The wizard-priest took a deep breath, set aside his empty goblet, and lay down beside her, but stayed atop the sheets. "It began with my search for breakfast. What an ordeal that was!" Inhetep proceeded to regale her with an accurate if exaggerated history of his attempts to get a quick bit of food before leaving. Rachelle had to laugh. "Then, well away from the palace, I gave the slip to those set to keep track of me. Here's the way I did it. . . ."He paused, looked at her. Rachelle was sound asleep, a little smile still showing on her full lips. Setne leaned over carefully, kissed her forehead gently. "I do love you, amazon. Sorry I had to slip a little sleeping draught into your wine, but you've had too much for any one person. Sleep soundly."
He was up, pacing back and forth immediately thereafter. Inhetep left the bed chamber and paced still more in the big salon. How indeed would he manage to break the oath made to Kali? If they were in /Egypt or some other land in which its pantheon was recognized as supreme, then it would be an easier matter. In such circumstances, his own ecclesiastical prowess would suffice to invoke assistance from the /Egyptian deities, and the matter would be taken care of. Here he could not do so. The continual movement assisted his thinking, but after a time it was apparent to the wiz-ard-priest that the familiar activity was not going to be enough to enable his mind to produce what was required. "It is now about two hours after midnight," he said aloud. "That gives me plenty of time for both. ..."
What he meant, of course, was meditation and preparation thereafter. Inhetep was adept at yoga, having studied it under an ancient Hindi master, a guru who had made the magister into one of the greatest in /Egypt. That was not to say that he was a true master. Inhetep knew his ability tell far short of that. It did enable him, though, to do and achieve many useful things. "Here will be fine," he muttered, seating himself in the lotus posture upon a soft carpet. "Three hours of deep trance, and then awaken," he told himself." His fingers met in a certain manner, and the next second his mind began the process of ascending. Energy flowed through his body, and left to itself, his systems worked at greater efficiency to restore themselves. His conscious mind went into the state typical of the deepest slumber. Meanwhile, that part of the brain unused by most humans was stimulated into action. In that portion, the wiz-ard-priest was alert and active.
In truth, it was not only ^Egyptians who knew about the many parts of a person. Some, if not all, of that knowledge was common among those enlightened ones of the East— from Hind to Tibet and Ch'in. Inhetep's body was at rest, his heart beating regularly in slow rhythm. Only the physical part of his power was affected. He still could command the mental and spiritual force of his being, and the five other portions of that which made up Magister Setne Inhetep the ur-kheri-heb-tepi were unaffected or even made more potent by the trance. His double could roam ethereally or astrally, his spirit and soul were there, along with his name. All would be employed in the three hours given.
When his consciousness returned, the magister moved slowly out of his folded sitting position, performing a number of exercises in the process of eventually standing erect. It required half an hour to complete the regimen, but at its conclusion Inhetep felt splendid, his mind refreshed and alert, his body rested and finely tuned. He drank a little water but ate nothing. His body needed no nourishment; in fact, such foreign matter taken into it would detract from its efficient operation at this time. He thought of time then. "Very dark," he noted, peering out the window. "A full hour and a bit more before the eastern sky pales." He went to his bag and drew out the box. He knew instantly that his things had been searched, the container he held opened. That made him smile.
Setne flipped the lid up without saying the special words required. There was a statuette of the great Thoth inside, one which radiated the power of a fetish. It was personal to him and dangerous for anyone besides himself to touch. "Thank you, Lord of Wisdom, for guarding my secret," he murmured aloud. He meant that little prayer. Whomever had dared to tamper with their belongings had avoided doing more than simply opening the box. The priest-wizard shut the little coffer, spoke the enchantment necessary, and reopened it. Its opening now accessed a very much larger space, one as large in volume as any massive traveling trunk boasted. In that magickal hiding place were those things he needed for what was to come.
He had allowed himself one full hour before any interruption was likely to occur. Yesterday, the magister had risen at first light and found the palace barely awake; only its slaves, servants, and petty officials were required to be up and about then. General Ratha might keep to a soldier's schedule, but he was not the one who would be coming to disturb the two of them. The foxy little chancellor or the court's evil chief practitioner would be the agents coming soon. They would be sure to pay an early visit, earlier than usual for either of them. Inhetep expected a knock at the door at sunrise.
After most of the time he had alotted was spent, the wizard-priest replaced those things he no longer needed and closed up the magickal coffer. Clothed in his best garments, the tall /Egyptian looked every inch the mighty heka practitioner. He held a little goblet, one which might have been a ceremonial vessel of priestly sort, but which was actually for another purpose entirely. It contained an elixir he had prepared for Rachelle. It would banish any lingering effects from the drug he had induced her to drink so that she would rest.
He hurried into the bedroom, for the sun's rays were painting the sky a golden color. In a few minutes the call would come, he knew. Calling out as he stepped through the door, the magister said, "Here! Wake up sleepy head. Day dawns, and you lie abed still? For shame, girl! Now up! I have a little ..." The rest of what he was going to say to her died in his throat. What he had at first taken to be the amazon was merely the folds of the coverlet and sheets, tossed back so as to resemble a human form.
The magister hurried into the adjoining lavatory and bath, but the big chamber was desolate, as desolate as he felt when he saw that. Rachelle was gone. Just at that moment, he heard a pounding on the door, then the bang of it being thrown open.
THE JEWELS OR YOUR LIFE, INHETEP
"/Egyptian! Come with me now. The maharajah demands your presence before the throne."
The magister walked slowly from the inner room to the salon. He saw a young palace guard officer backed by a mere handful of men arrayed before the entry to the suite. "I have been sent to bring you before His Resplendence," the young officer said harshly. He was doing his best to seem bold and confident, but there was fear in his eyes, for he knew the repute of the tall, green-eyed man who stared at him un-winkingly. He was a great mage, one able to blast him where he stood. Trying to conceal his need to swallow, dry mouth making his voice harsher than even he wanted to sound, the officer barked the words he had been instructed to say; "Do not delay. You will come now, as you are."
This was the ultimate insult, a total disregard for his rank, power, and supposed status
as a guest of the imperial ruler of the state of Delhi. Inhetep read the situation, the man, the all-pervasive fear from the soldiers with him. It almost made him laugh. All this he had anticipated—all save the kidnapping of Rachelle. The magister was dressed, ready, and armed with everything he required, right down to the box bearing the figurine of Thoth within it. He had all save that which was most precious to him: Rachelle. Inhetep didn't laugh. When the young officer's eyes slid in fear from his own, the wizard-priest inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement of what the man had said. "I hear the words given to you by others. I agree to follow you because it suits me now. Woe to you though, feeble little man, if any harm has come to she who is my companion."
Although the /Egyptian spoke in low voice, his words sent a terrible chill through the officer's spine, numbing his brain. "I did no harm to your woman—she is in the hands of the pirimah who herself too—" He chopped off his babble, too late. He had spoken what he had been commanded not to, and for that the court practitioner would have his head.
No look of satisfaction crossed Inhetep's countenance. The guardsman had merely confirmed what the magister had suspected. His anger was directed at himself as much as towards the treacherous Hindis. Of course, the wizard-priest thought in self-reviling lashes, it was typical of one such as Sujata. Rachelle's being taken was his fault. Had he taken precautions, it could have been prevented. The icy fury which filled Inhetep spilled forth to sweep over the soldiers, and they shook before the blast of it as little flowers before a storm. "Well you should tremble, officer, but it will be your masters' hands who bring punishments upon you, not mine. All of you! Brace your weak knees and march. Lead me to your maharajah as you have been ordered!"
The seven men went off, all ahead of the Egyptian wizard-priest. It was absolutely improper. Half should have marched behind to assure he didn't flee. Instead, they proceeded him like sheep being driven to a pen by a shepherd—or a wolf. None dared to protest. Their commander opened the door to the chamber in which awaited Guldir Maharajah Sivadji and his chief advisors. His soldiers hastily made for positions to either side of the entry, moving back in two ranks so as to be out of sight and avoid the way of the terrible, tall man as he came on with unfaltering tread. With a voice shrill from fear the royal guards lieutenant flung himself prostrate, somehow managing to cry, "The /Egyptian whom You required to attend You is here, Resplendent Majesty!"
Ranked around the little dais and informal throne stood those who hoped to rule Delhi under the fat and lustful sovereign. While the maharajah stuffed himself with rich foods and dallied with his women, they would run the empire and reap the rewards of power. General Ratha scowled, hands on his hips. Gorvan the chancellor wore a crafty expression, seemed tensely alert, ready to seize any opportunity which this situation offered. Nearest to the throne, the Lady Sujata was at ease, a little sneer lifting one corner of her cruel mouth. It was she who knew how things would play out here. She held the trump cards, ready to use them to win the game at the end.
Feeling mighty from an earlier than usual consumption of bhang, his armed bodyguard at hand, and his useful councilors ready to serve at his command, the maharajah was sitting proudly in his chair, hauteur swelling his chest, the drug he had smoked stiffening his spine in the face of this vaunted Worker of mag-icks. Sivadji Guldir scarcely glanced at the /Egyptian as he demanded, "Well, great Magister, where are Our crown jewels? Your life is forfeit if you fail Us. Our pirimah informs us that you have learned the whereabouts of the stolen regalia. Well, speak! Tell us—" He looked scornfully at the tall man as he was making his threats, and Sivadji's heart skipped a beat. He didn't finish his words. He could not. Never had the maharajah seen so deadly a look in the eyes of anyone. He was paralyzed by It.
"I am come to discuss that, Majesty. As you can see from my garments, I expected your summons." That statement didn't faze the general, made Gorvan shift uneasily, and in the witch's eyes there flickered a hint of fear which vanished as her mind told her that this man was caught helplessly in the web she had spun. As for the toad-like maharajah, terror so filled him that he was unable to think or speak, only nod stupidly as the tall man asked in a bland voice, "May I have leave to speak a parable, Majesty?"
Seeing Sivadji consent in dumb show to that insolent request made the pirimah hiss in anger, but she could do nothing to prevent the man from speaking, for the stupid toad had granted royal permission for Inhetep to do so.
"Once, Mighty Maharajah, long ago, the land was ruled only by animals for the gods had not yet created mankind. The greatest of the animals was the elephant, of course. He ruled the jungle, and no other one dwelling there could refuse him. Yet the elephant was not satisfied with things as they were. Why? Because although he was greatest, there were those who did not serve him, others who refused to answer his summons to attend his fetes. His discontent was noted by the cobra. 'Greatest of Animals, Maharajah of the Jungle,' the snake said. 'Listen to my plan, for I see that you would have every living thing subjected to your will, and I can help you to accomplish that.'
" 'How?' demanded the elephant. 'If what you say is so, 1 will make you second only to me!' Then the cobra told him her plan, and the elephant smiled, for it seemed to be good. He commanded the tiger to drive the buffalo and all cattle before him to pay homage. The tiger did not fail, and all those were then his subjects. Next the elephant ordered the leopard and the wolves to round up all the deer and gazelles, so that they too would become his subjects. Likewise, those animals came perforce, and now his kingdom was an empire. 'I am lord of all the animals,' elephant boasted.
"The eagle flying far overhead heard those words. 'You are indeed a maharajah of animals, elephant,' the eagle said. "I acknowledge that so that I might make you wise as well as mighty. Know, however, that no animal can ever rule all others.'
" "What is this? How dare you speak thus?!' demanded the elephant in royal anger.
" 'It is truth, and truth must always be spoken freely, or you cannot be a great monarch,' the eagle told him without flinching at the elephant's terrible ire, for he was a brave and courageous friend. 'On the vast plains the rhinoceros roams as he wills and pays no heed to your court.'
"The elephant might have heeded, but the cobra was at his side and hissed words of false kind. 'The eagle says you are not lord of animals, that the rhinoceros is your master. The bird is a false counselor and no friend.' The elephant heard that and rage returned to his heart.
"Again the eagle saw this and cried from above, "Consider the fearsome dhole, the dog pack which hunts where it pleases. Even so, are you less of a king over them? The dhole acknowledge your monarchy.'
"Perhaps the elephant would have understood, but for a second time the perfidious cobra used her evil to blind him: 'See, the eagle again mocks Your Majesty. He will never cease his lying. He will turn all the animals away from you, for eagle desires to be the great lord of all.' Thus the vile snake spoke, and the elephant listened to her bad words and believed them. 'What can I do?' he asked the cobra. 'That eagle flies beyond even my reach.'
" 'Not for long if you trick him into coming near. Smile, pretend you agree with what he says. Tell him he must come close so that you may hear every word. Then he will be within your power, maharajah of all animals.'
"So the elephant called out with false words of praise to the eagle and told the noble bird to approach and explain further his truth. Being without treachery in his heart, eagle winged down to be near the great elephant as he said, 'And most of all consider the smallest—' At that instant, the eagle was plucked from the air by the elephant's trunk, hurled to the ground, and crushed to nothingness beneath his huge foot. 'So die all who say 1 am not the maharajah of all animals in the world!' trumpeted the elephant. Yet who killed the eagle? It was the cobra's venomous words, and the master was now ruled by the subject."
Inhetep looked at those before him. The Pirimah Lady Sujata broke the silence, her words acerbic, mocking: "Is that the end of your amusing little story, entertainer?"
"By no means, witch," he replied without heat. "You will hear that now." Unable to object, they watched and listened as the wizard priest went on: "The elephant now demanded that the cobra prove him to be the lord of all. With the elephant's permission, the cobra now ordered the others of his subjects as she would. Tiger and leopard were sent forth to bring the rhinoceros back cls 8l subject or to slay him. Bear and wolf were dispatched to do the same with the dhole pack. But soon these two forces returned, driven off by those they were to capture or slay. The elephant was furious, so to save herself, cobra sent all the warriors to get the rhinoceros. After that they would deal with the pack of wild dogs.
"Again the servants of elephant returned. We failed, maharajah,' they confessed, "because now the nose-horned one makes common cause with the dhole. They stand together, so we cannot overcome them.' Now the cobra was very troubled. Again her plans had failed, and her rule over the elephant was threatened. 'There are other animals in other places. If we had gifts for them, Greatest of Animals,' she told the elephant, 'they would come and serve you. With their aid the rhinoceros and the dogs who serve him will be slain. Your conquest will be complete, and none will dispute your right to rule.'
" 'Where can I get such gifts?' demanded the angry maharajah. The cobra told him that his many subjects had what was needed to buy support from the distant animals. 'Take what they have. Keep some for yourself as your due. Give the rest to the foreign animals, and they will come and serve you.' The elephant thought this wise counsel. So it passed that his subjects were stripped of food, many in fact enslaved to be given as gifts, and the jungle groaned under the tyranny thus imposed by the elephant.
"The cobra's latest plan was set in motion. At a terrible cost, allies from a distant place were bought. But the one thing the eagle had tried to tell the elephant, the warning he had been uttering when cobra's poison struck him down, came to pass. The smallest of subjects in the realm of the elephant, the ants, took umbrage at what was being done to them. They poured forth in their numbers, and marched against elephant. The mighty lord of animals laughed at their temerity, and so too did all those serving him. Small they were, and easy to kill. Thousands were crushed, but the ants pressed on undaunted. Their millions bore down even elephant, leaving naught but white bones behind when their fighting ceased. Before the end, the maharajah had called out to cobra to save him. She was slithering away, trying to free her body of the thousands of biting insects which covered it, as she called back, 'You are the one who would be king. Why ask me when you are lord of animals? 1 have my own problems to manage and have no time for yours.' "
Then the wizard-priest looked from one to another of those before him, letting his piercing gaze settle at last upon the maharajah. "If there is some lesson in this little tale, the discerning monarch will grasp it and act accordingly. If you find nothing of worth in my words, then say your say."
The ugly face of the maharajah had gone ashen as the parable progressed. Just before it was concluded, though, and Magister Inhetep had addressed him directly thus, another voice whispered in Sivadji's mind: "He prates of animals and ants. Do not be frightened by children's stories. You are about to seize your enemies and crush them. Let no weakness enter you now, or all will fail! You are a man and emperor, not a stupid elephant." By the end of Inhetep's words, the bloated body of the ruler of Delhi was straight-backed again, his face set in determination. As the /Egyptian gazed at him levelly with his odd, green eyes, Sivadji actually felt stronger and allowed that power to rise.
"Most entertaining—and a waste of your breath and my time. I ask one final time: where are My crown jewels?"
Encouraged by that, General Ratha gestured, and the guardsmen nearby pointed their spears at the tall priest-wizard. It was to be death for the arrogant man unless he revealed what the maharajah demanded.
Not to be outdone, the master of the royal treasury spoke. "My agents know what you did, traitorous /Egyptian. Your little trick with the coins wasn't good enough," Gorvan sneered, "at least not for long," he added almost as if in admission. "That you sought out the rebel outlaws, consorted with them, advised and comforted them is documented. It spells your doom, /Egyptian, unless you deliver what you were commanded. I am certain you know where His Resplendency's property is, so tell us."
But of course the most powerful of the three had the last word on the subject. Lady Sujata hissed out, "Yes. We know all. Do as Our Glorious Maharajah says, and quick, too. Otherwise, I shall have your leman's throat cut before your eyes!" As if on cue, two guards dragged an unconscious Rachelle into view from behind the arras which had concealed them.
Guldir Maharajah Sivadji snickered, the sound almost that of a toad's croak as he said, "You see, Magister, all your magicks are useless. You must do as I command."
Nothing in the posture or expression of the wizard-priest was readable. No sign betrayed his plan to his foes. His mind was an iron barrier. The magister's gaze was likewise hooded, revealing neither fear nor anger, acquiescence nor resistance. "This is your course, Sivadji, Maharajah of Delhi?"
The fat monarch laughed more loudly than he meant to, the bhang slipping Into his mind and making his throat release the peals of mirth from his belly. After awhile he managed to choke it off, say in a booming voice, "All that transpires here is rny course, foolish fellow! Get on with it! Produce the regalia needed for formal coronations. I believe that I'll have your tongue pulled out if you bore me with more of your silly talk."
"Don't harm, the girl," Inhetep said in a flat voice. "I know how to recover your lost jewels."
"Harm?" The toad-like maharajah laughed in another burst, obscene in its sound. "Not at all. I plan to honor your ward with my favor. She will be added to my harem, you see," and he snorted his mirth again. The burning scorn in the eyes of the pirimah was lost to him, so delighted with himself and the way things were progressing was he.
"Even if I retrieve the crown jewels? Surely our agreement would be violated if you held the sahibah against her will."
"I piss upon such things, puny man," he said in reply to the magister's mild rebuke. "We have no agreement. You are Our slave. Do as you are commanded, and you will keep your miserable life. Fail Us, and you will die—your woman too, but only after I have used her in the most original ways, given her to my guards, and thereafter to the torturer. Stop delaying and deliver!" As he concluded his tirade, the maharajah was actually foaming, his mouth sending frothy spittle spraying forth as he shouted.
Inhetep inclined his head. "I concur, Guldir Maharajah Sivadji, no compact between us exists. As to your regalia, I can tell you with absolute assurance that I know who was responsible for the disappearance and where the crown jewels are now hidden. I can retrieve them, but that is a more difficult matter. It will take time."
"How much time?" That query came from the pirimah.
"I give you no time," thundered the maharajah, ignoring Sujata. "Now, instantly, or I'll—"
"Shut up . . . Your Resplendence," the witch said in a voice which cut the obese ruler short, the honorific she appended sounding as if it were a vulgar epithet. "Allow this man such reasonable period as is required to get us the regalia."
Sivadji's huge mouth worked, and his face turned purple as his anger at his chief practitioner filled him. Bhang or no, however, he swallowed his fury when the Lady Sujata glared back at him, her eyes as dangerous as any adder's. Doing his best to retain a semblance of royal prestige, the maharajah gripped the arms of his chair, inhaled deeply. "We have considered your words, your too boldly spoken counsel, and find them wise. Thus We forgive your transgression, for it was done in an over-zealous desire to assist Us, We are sure." He paused, and the pirimah bowed her head as he stared at her. "Yes. We agree." The toad-like head swiveled to point at Inhetep. "You have one hour, no more, to deliver. First the crown jewels, then 111 know the names of the guilty ones and how they managed the theft. Now begin."
Without a word, Magister Inhetep turned his back on the maharajah and his cluster of officials. Ignoring even the amazon held by the guardsmen with ready blades to end her life at a stroke, the wizard-priest began walking towards the door. Soldiers rushed to bar his way with their spetums leveled at his chest.
"Where do you think you are going?" demanded the maharajah, too stunned by the sudden action to even think of the lese-majeste which had just occurred.
"To your royal treasury vault, of course. That is where I must go if I am to fulfill your wishes." He slowed not a whit as he spoke, and faced with the choice of impaling him or yielding, the guardsman shifted their points, and the magister passed to the exit and was gone from the audience room, unmolested.
"Don't just stand there, you dolts! Go after him! Keep him in custody, and be ready to kill him at the slightest sign he disobeys," shrieked Sivadji to his viziers and guards alike.
All rushed to obey, and there was a jam at the door. General Ratha used his muscle to burst through and rushed after the receding back of the /Egyptian, trailed by a string of soldiers. "Halt!" he commanded, but his word had no effect. Inhetep walked on at the same steady pace, turning left and disappearing. Uttering the foulest of oaths, the general ran and caught up with his charge as Inhetep entered the antechamber in which the treasury's entrance was concealed. "It is fortunate for you, foreigner, that you didn't seek to escape the palace," Ratha panted iri angry, empty threat.
The magister turned at that, looking at the military man with the same expressionless gaze which had been on his face since the end of the parable told to the maharajah. "Is that a fact? Then the gods must have guided my steps here." Without another word, Inhetep stood there, his eyes now on the place where the secret way into the vault was hidden behind a wall panel. The wait was brief.
The others came boiling into the room, men-at-arms making way for Guldir Maharajah Sivadji, he followed by his own personal bodyguard, close behind the pirimah and Gorvan. Then came more soldiers and a handful of priests and men whose garb showed them to be practitioners of other sorts. "What is this?" the king finally bellowed over the commotion. He was wheezing, and ready for bloodshed.
"It is obedience to your wishes," said the magister dryly. He pointed to the chancellor and Lady Sujata. "Well, aren't you two going to use your amulets so as to open the door? You know I must get into the treasury—or don't you want me to be able to return the jewels?"
Gorvan looked at the pirimah, then at Inhetep. "Why do you need—"
"Stop dithering, you incompetent," the witch hissed at him under her breath. "I can read him, and he is telling us the truth. Somehow or other the /Egyptian has found an answer. He does have to go in there to get the regalia. I can feel the Tightness, but I can't tell how he will manage to accomplish it. Let him get on with it."
The maharajah's bhang-fired anger was growing again, spreading to include all. "Stop that whispering in Our presence! What is happening? We demand answers now!"
"A thousand apologies, Lord of Lords," Lady Sujata responded with a smoothness verging on insolence. "I, we—your chancellor and I— did not wish to reveal the precautions we plan to the foreign magician. That is all."
That made the toadish countenance of the maharajah writhe in scorn. "Precautions? What nonsense do you speak, Pirimah? You know that the vault is proof against entry and exit save through the one door. What, pray tell. Court Practitioner, is there to guard against if the /Egyptian is within the treasury? Are you and my money-minder fearful of his pocketing a few rupees? Put him inside!"
The verbal chastisement caused Gorvan to go pale, and a deadly glitter sprang into Lady Su-jata's eyes once again. Neither did more than to accept the abuse with humility, however. "Of course, Resplendency," the chancellor managed. "Your words recall to me why you are master, I your willing slave." The Lady Sujata simply said, "To hear is to obey." The two glanced at each other, drew forth their devices, and in a moment conjoined them to make a single magickal key. As Gorvan took the instrument and employed it to open the vault, the pirimah went to where a lone guardsman now held the semiconscious amazon.
"Give her to me," she snapped, and the soldier complied with haste, aversion to the witch plain in his expression. Sujata gave a low laugh at that, a sound of evil pleasure. Then she turned to the maharajah. "With Your Majesty's, permission, I will be ready to send this woman to the blazing hells of the netherplanes at the slightest sign of trickery from the /Egyptian." Sujata spoke in a loud clear voice, which Inhetep could not fail to hear.
"Kill? I want that choice bit of stuff for My pleasure!" the thick-lipped ruler of Delhi countered. It was almost but not quite a refusal. Even the bhang was insufficient to cause him to do that.
"Of course, Resplendence. I merely wish to assure that your orders are obeyed. Are not the crown jewels more important than a woman?"
Sivadji actually considered that for a moment. This one was especially beautiful of face, shapely of form. On the other hand, there were thousands of good-looking women available. He had to have the regalia, and if in the process the amazon had to be slaughtered, too bad. It was not actually that important. Best of all, h<-might have both: hear the screams of the dying /Egyptian from the dungeon while he enjoyed his female. That was a pleasurable thought. "Very well," he said with a wave which dismissed the matter. "Just get on with it."
"You heard, Inhetep Magister?" Gorvan had the door open now. The tall wizard-priest was before it, ready to enter the vault. "If anything goes wrong, I will blast your little Rachelle, send her spirit into the darkness of the abyssal pits." The pirimah saw his face and was surprised. His eyes could not hide his thoughts for a split second. The man was actually sneering at her words because he didn't care what happened to her hostage. Inhetep disdained her threat because he would sacrifice Rachelle's life to save himself. That sent Sujata's mind into a frenzied consideration of what he might do. Did this foreign heka-bender have some means of thwarting them? Could he escape? Not likely, but . . .
"I hear you," Inhetep said as she stared at him. "I will be as brief as possible." The magister entered the strongroom, ducking beneath the low lintel, beginning to close the door behind him.
"STOP!" the pirimah shouted in a voice possible only for a priestess and witch. The sound was terrible. Inhetep stopped, peering out from the vault at Lady Sujata with no little uncertainly.
"If I am to obey your liege lord, witch, I must be in here. I need privacy to assure my castings work properly."
"Why do you delay him, Pirimah? The vault is a safer cell than any in my deepest dungeons, a place from which there is no escape," Sivadji barked at her after hearing the /Egyptian's words.
"Something is wrong," she said rapidly, omitting any honorifics. Then she turned away from the fat monarch and dragged her hostage towards the vault entrance. "Hold, Inhetep Magister. Do not close that door. Your leman and I will accompany you."
Of course, General Ratha and Gorvan then chimed in their demand to do likewise. After them came the voices of the assembled under-clerics and magicians, sounding as if a chorus, demanding entry as well. "No! Never. It will make what I must do totally impossible. Kill me now, Maharajah of Delhi, for with such a pack of dogs as that in here with me, I cannot succeed in regaining the relics of state which were stolen from this vault," Inhetep said in disgust, dismissing the lot with a sweep of his arm. He started to come out of the treasure room.
"You will recover them for Us when you are in there?" The maharajah was incredulous. "This is the first I've heard of it," and he began to titter. That laughter died an instant later when he saw phantom shapes spring into being within the vault. To his utter amazement, he saw what appeared to be the shades of both his former chancellor and chief practitioner there inside the strongroom. The two were standing with the missing jewels in hand. Prince Dahasti with his arms loaded, Purshiva Yogi Rishi, who had supposedly not gone inside the vault at all, holding the royal crown in his left hand as he moved his right above it in magickal passes. The maharajah couldn't believe his eyes—or could he?
"is that so?" queried the magister, and with a wave of his ankh the translucent images vanished. "Perhaps your pirimah needs lessons in heka use, Majesty. I repeat, 1 must be alone."
Seeing that he was about to consent, Lady Sujata spoke. "Only a portion of his words are so, Most Resplendent Majesty. Heed him not, or else I cannot be responsible for what occurs. Perhaps he is unable to perform his castings with a crowd of onlookers there with him in the treasury. Yet 1 will not disrupt any enchantments, for I too am an able practitioner with great heka to command. Neither will bis woman's presence there cause any trouble. After all, she has been his constant companion for many years according to his own words. She and I must be inside to assure all goes as he claims it will."
"I object, Your Ma—"
"Be silent!" the maharajah shouted at the /Egyptian, cutting off his protest. Sivadji Guldir looked at the witch. "You guarantee all will go as it should if you are inside? You will stake your life on it?"
"Of course," Lady Sujata shot back. "With the girl hostage with me, of course," she added, just to make sure the stupid fool didn't think he could keep Rachelle outside and fondle her while he awaited the return of the crown jewels. "My life is as always yours to use or dispose of. Resplendent Majesty." That lie came easily from her lips. "I beg to accompany the Egyptian only to assure he obeys you fully and without trickery."
"So be it, Lady Sujata," the maharajah said to her. Then he called loudly to the magister: "The pirimah with the Sahibah Rachelle as surety of your actions will enter and observe, /Egyptian." He saw the magister raise a hand, open his mouth. "No argument, or your ward dies this instant, you slowly thereafter."
"Very well," Inhetep said tonelessly from his position by the vault door. "I accept."
"Accept this, too," the maharajah said as the two women were about to go through the opening. "Whatever happens to Our pirimah, or your companion for that matter, when you are inside there is of no consequence to Us. When you come forth, as exit you must, Our other priests, heka-benders, and guardsmen with bow and spear will be ready and waiting. If you bear the crown jewels, then We will reward you and set you free. If you come out empty-handed, then you die, /Egyptian!"
Green eyes fixed on his own made the maharajah glad he was some distance from the wizard-priest. Inhetep seemed resigned, though, for he said, "When I open this door, Maharajah of Delhi,, you can be assured that I will have your precious royal regalia." With that he closed the massive portal, and the fat lord of the land was grateful at not having to deal further with the magister. He orders his pipe, in fact, determined to enjoy more bhang while he waited. It could not be long. . . .
Inside the now-sealed vault, Inhetep strode to the empty cases where the crown jewels had been kept. "The jewels never were taken from this room, only removed to a dimensional pocket, you see," he said offhandedly as if speaking to no one in particular.
"That is impossible!" the pirimah said as if stung. "I personally examined those cases seeking for just such a ruse." She shoved Rachelle in the direction of the wizard-priest so as to get closer and see exactly what he was doing.
Inhetep laughed at her words. "Admit it, witch. You aren't as skilled as you think. You were deceived by the readings outside and in here, so you didn't give these cases a thorough going over as 1 did. Why should you? Didn't you see the jewels being carried outside?"
"Yes, my castings evoked those true past images, but—"
"Always buts," the magister interjected. "Pathetic. Those were false images, not true, you incompetent twit. See here?" He made a pass with his golden ankh, spoke words of hekau as he did so, and there was a shimmering in the cabinets. Suddenly that scintillation coalesced into solidity, a glittering of gems and gold, not magickal energy. "There are your 'stolen' crown jewels, right where they have always been, displaced into Inconceivability by a casting too advanced for your petty abilities to detect." He reached inside, took the royal orb from its velvet depression, turned, and tossed it to Sujata. "Catch!"
The pirimah had no choice. All of her plans rested with the precious regalia of state. All of it. If one small part were missing or inoperable, then her scheme would be for naught, all of her years of planning and work to reach her goal made useless. At this moment, when she saw fruition but a few days' distant, she could not allow the orb to fall and be damaged, even though it meant she must release her grip on Rachelle. With a small cry of anxiety, she loosed the amazon and reached to pluck the descending sphere of gem-encrusted gold from its arcing descent towards the stone floor of the vault.
But even with that distraction to absorb her, Sujata the witch, priestess of Kali, was not wholly concentrating on the physical act of preventing the orb from falling. As she did that, the pirimah called to mind a terrible curse. As her hand closed on the globe-like object, her other joining the first to assure the hold, Sujata's eyes sent forth a blast of heka, and her mouth spoke foul words of witchery aimed at slaying the /Egyptian.
Inhetep had expected such an attack. As he let the orb loose, he began uttering his own protective casting, so that the deadly eyebite sent at him by the pirimah flashed into nothingness without striking him. It was a stalemate for the moment, but only for that time. Already the witch was invoking the power of the globe she held, using it to link to the other objects which the /Egyptian had brought back to their places. Powers which she could employ but which were untappable by the foreigner. Once linked together, the energy and powers contained in the regalia were more than sufficient to overwhelm even the heka of the wizard-priest.
"I'll take that!" It was Rachelle who spoke, and as she did so she suited her actions to her words. As she plucked the globe from the witch's grasp with one strong hand, she used the other to slap Sujata across the face. The open-handed blow was sufficient to send the pirimah reeling aside. She fell to the floor, stunned.
"Well done, my dear Rachelle!" Inhetep cried. "I was hoping you'd be able to do something like that!"
"Thank you, Setne, for making that dirty bitch release her hold on me," the amazon said with a smile. "I've been wanting to do that for a long time." She laughed, looking over to where the Hindi witch lay sprawled in a most humiliating posture, her left cheek darkening where Rachelle's hard palm and fingers had struck.
Before either of the two could say anything else, however, Lady Sujata recovered sufficiently to shriek out in a voice filled with insane rage and fury, "Kali, come to your faithful priestess, I implore. A life here is yours, I swear!"
At the last utterance the whole room went dark, then light reappeared, but it was as if all were seen in negative. In the vault with them was a black-skinned figure, a woman over eight feet tall with four arms, her torso adorned by a necklace of human skulls. "I am here, daughter," boomed a voice from that dreadful figure. "Come to collect the life you have pledged."
"Yes, YES!" shrieked Sujata in frenzied joy. "Thank you, Mother of Death! There! There is the one who broke her oath to YOU. Take her!"
As the goddess reached forth with rumal and hook to strangle Rachelle, sink in the cruel iron point to drag the amazon's mortal remains physically to Kali's own sphere, Magister Setne
Inhetep interposed himself, his upraised ankh of gold the only glint of color in the weirdly illuminated strongroom. "Restrain yourself a moment, great goddess."
"What?! Who dares to challenge my right to the promised life?" the terrible voice of Kali boomed.
"Not I, great one. I only ask that you direct your efforts to she whose life is forfeit, your priestess called Lady Sujata."
The pirimah shrieked denials, cursing Inhetep and Rachelle. "She did break the oath she made in your name, Great Black Mother of Death. She agreed to give herself to you should she break it."
"Puny servant of the bird-headed Thoth, my priestess speaks right. I see the past events unfold as she claims. Out of my way, or I shall have your life as well as hers. Your lord has no power to save you here."
"La! Do not be so hasty, great goddess Kali. To make remarks about appearance demeans the speaker—and perhaps the Lord of Wisdom has allies here in the realms you are recognized in. In any event, form does not indicate content, does it?"
"What are you saying, man?" Kali thundered. Her expression was menacing, terrible, but she stayed her hand.
Inhetep pointed at the witch. "The form of the oath was in blood. The content was a demand for action which if not carried through made the one swearing yours."
"By your own words you give your leman to my goddess! Take her, Black Mother, don't listen to the /Egyptian! Why do you hesitate? Run your noose round that white throat and choke the life from she who is yours!"
Ignoring the ranting words, the towering goddess stayed her hand to ask, "Is there meaning in your words, man? If so, tell me. If not, or if you are wrong, then I shall slay you as well as the other."
"The form was blood. You did not give blood to your faithful, Kali. You forbade them to take life by shedding it, in fact. Yet that would be the effect of what you propose if Rachelle*s life is taken by you. You would be a surrogate of the witch, Sujata. She as your priestess shed blood, and that blood would then be the proximate cause, the means bringing death to another human."
"A fine point you make, mortal."
"Indeed, goddess, but in the end do not even the deities stand or fall on being able to distinguish such?"
"Don't listen to him! O My Great Black Mother, Lady of Death. Kill them. Kill them both! I promise for that I will—"
Kali pointed, Sujata was struck dumb. "I need quiet to think on this a moment. I do not come in answer to a call from one of my faithful to be made to look foolish, still ..."
"Goddess, it is the half-hearted woman you have silenced who is the cause of all this. As to her faith, only you can judge, but the oath she extracted from the woman she implores you to strangle is the true problem. Its exaction will violate your own law."
"So I am to be made foolish by returning empty-handed?"
Inhetep shook his head. "No, goddess. She who dared to call you here is the one to die in payment—a dual justice for causing the dilemma of the contract of blood and death as well."
"You would have me slay my own priestess?" Kali was angry at that, raising her four hands menacingly towards the man before her who dared to suggest such a thing.
The magister retired a pace, but spoke with no fear in his voice. "If it please you, goddess, the delivery of payment can be made by other means. The king she pretends to serve as pirimah, whom she would soon betray and replace, awaits outside. Sujata has pledged her life on a matter which will cause it to be taken forthwith, if I am free to do as I please."
"Which is?"
"Leave here, taking the woman, Rachelle, with me."
Kali leaned towards the wizard-priest. The goddess fully understood many connotations of what he had just said about Lady Sujata, deeming them true. Her so-called priestess was one who sat astride fences, would serve only to dispossess and herself be served. "What of the objects? They are sacred to this land, and 1 cannot stand idly by while you make off with them."
"Never had I contemplated such action, goddess. I wish only to send them back to the place in which they were sequestered. In essence, the crown jewels will never leave this vault."
It was not entirely satisfactory. Sujata's continued existence would be more favorable to Kali, make her stronger among the other gods. She moved the rumal she held, speculating, considering.
Seeing that it was not going as smoothly as he had hoped, the magister dared one thing further. "Goddess?"
"What now, man?"
He cleared his throat. "Thoth may not be potent in this place, just as you have pointed out. Still, he knows what is occurring and will be aware of my fate. He will communicate your compromise to those of your own pantheon, Kali."
"Is that a fact? Dare you threaten ME?!"
Again the tall /Egyptian took a hasty backward step to stand pressed against the cases. "Threaten? Never, goddess. It is simply a fact I state," and as he spoke, Inhetep brought forth the little coffer and opened it. A bright radiance came forth as if he had unhooded a lantern. There the green, ibis-head of Thoth showed its hue atop the golden man's body below. The atef crown with its plumes and horns adorning that head was bright, so too the striped headcover-ing, colorful collar, and linen kilt. Such rainbow hues as were displayed from the foot-high figurine indicated one thing. The spirit of that deity was present and signified its awareness of what transpired by casting the light which defied the negative darkness of the Black Goddess.
"I see ..." Kali said more softly.
Something enabled the witch to break free from her enforced silence. She jumped up and ran to the goddess. "No! No! You cannot allow this to happen. I am your priestess, and I forbid it!"
"You were my servant, Sujata. But not even my most faithful priestess ever, ever forbids me anything!"
The next instant, the witch was no longer in the vault. Kali touched her, and the woman disappeared. Then the goddess glared at Inhetep. "It shall be as you suggest, man of ^figypt. It will go hard on you if we ever meet again." Then the black form likewise vanished.
Outside there was an uproar when Lady Sujata suddenly appeared before the maharajah.
She was limp, unable to move properly or to speak. Around her neck was a strangling cloth. "What is going on?" roared the frightened monarch. He got no response. He stared at the pirimah, then a sound distracted his attention. The door to the vault had come open with a popping noise. The place appeared to be empty, and he ordered the chamberlain inside to see if the Egyptian and his woman were concealed in a near corner so as to make it appear that they had somehow escaped. Gorvan trembled but obeyed.
In a minute, he came flying from the treasure room with horror-filled face. "They are not there, Radiance, and neither are the crown jewels restored!"
After watching his personal guard cut the head from Gorvan's shoulders with a single backhand stroke, Maharajah Sivadji took personal pleasure in strangling the pirimah with his own hands, slowly tightening the noose, watching her eyes that tried vainly to convey something to him. Who cared what she meant by those looks. . . .
"That is as close as I ever hope to come to premature death," the magister said with an explosive sound as he threw himself down into his favorite chair in the study. "What a team we are though, girl!" he had to say as he sprawled there. He was absolutely delighted, surprisingly animated in expression and words, despite his physical exhaustion. "We may have managed it only by the proverbial hair's breadth, but we did it!"
Rachelle was not so effusive. "I agree that it was much too near a thing, Setne. What I don't see is what you are so pleased about!"
"Why, my dear, we have done our part to see that a most miserable tyrant has but numbered days on his throne. Had we assisted in the recovery of those jewels as the Maharajah Sivadji hoped we would, then we would have been guilty of a true injustice—perpetuating his rule and worse."
"Worse?"
Inhetep got up and rummaged around until
he found some tobacco to stuff into his hookah, which rested on its usual brass stand next to the big armchair. He again sat, puffing contentedly, soothed by the soft burbling sounds that it made. Rachelle was reclining on a couch, resigned to her wait, for she knew that now he couldn't resist talking about what they had just done; especially those parts where his deduction alone enabled them to follow through properly.
"Much worse," the magister said as if there hadn't been a delay of several minutes between her query and his response. "Lady Sujata would have been made the chief priestess of Delhi, the worship of Kali the only one supported by the crown, and then the Afghanis would have come—unless the witch managed to do in that toad before then."
"Now you truly have gone over my head, Setne, as well you know!"
Having elicited the response which he sought, the magister chuckled. "Just wanted your full attention, Rachelle. Where shall I pick up the threads so you will see the pattern?"
"How about the place where I missed something?" she said sarcastically.
"Then let's go to the beginning!"
She jerked upright. "Now just a moment, Setne. There's no need to belittle me."
"Not in the least, my dear. It is merely a matter of me being older and less taken by . . . appearances, let us say. You see, I was put off when the maharajah's parcel was opened."
"Do tell? What was there in that package to make you uncomfortable?"
Inhetep puffed, blew a big smoke ring skyward. "Bribery. Pleas and fawning promises which obviously weren't meant to be kept. The one obviously aimed at winning you to the maharajah's cause, the other added inducements meant for both of us."
"Me? That toad was aware of me when he sent his messenger here?"
"Don't be modest. To solicit my aid is to ask Inhetep and his companion, Rachelle, to attend to the matter. That much is known by anyone aware of my services. Certainly I am not to go about sporting a ruby necklace, so the gift was sent not to me but to you, despite the omission of your name."
Rachelle nodded. It made sense. "And I went for it in a big way, didn't I? Hungry for the lure of the promised wealth to follow should you succeed in solving the mystery of who stole the jewels."
"Nobody could blame you for liking such an exquisite piece of jewelry, my dear, or for thinking that a casketful of more like it would be nice."
"Face it, Setne, I was greedy."
"Not greedy, just a little too anxious to have such baubles. There was the lure of a distant land too, you know. No matter, for I decided to accept, and I did so on my own without any influence from you.
"Yet I had severe reservations. That's why we made the journey in such an odd fashion. I needed to find things out, and I didn't want to prejudice you in the process. Your opinions and thoughts are far too valuable to me to do that!"
"Stop flattering me."
The magister waved his hand to disperse the layer of smoke which he had created, for it was clouding his view of Rachelle. "No flattery," he said in clipped tones as he fanned. "I should have a slave or two to take care of this sort of thing as the toad had."
Rachelle giggled at that. "He is such a toad," she agreed, "and those ridiculously active fan bearers with their fluttering plumes beating around his fat head!" She laughed, then grew serious. "Better Kali than him," she muttered, thinking of the maharajah's plans for her.
"Better neither. You'll have to settle for me, and that's that. Now where was I? Oh, yes. On the way to Delhi. Some of that was really necessary, of course, once I opted not to bull straight on from here to the palace of the maharajah. The rest was aimed at giving you and me a chance to get to know a bit about the Hindis in general, the folk of Delhi in particular. With such information, naturally, we could judge the ruler and the way he governed."
She smiled. "It was pretty clear that something was lacking, wasn't it? By the time we came to the capital, 1 had the distinct impression I wasn't going to like the king. Little did I know. . . . The fear the people showed, the comments regarding how the government worked, made me certain that the Peacock Throne displayed little merit in the eyes of those ruled from its perch."
"You verge on puns. I am happy to see you are recovering, but I refuse to pick up that gauntlet—at least not until I have finished enlightening you." Inhetep ignored her facial expression and the razzing sound which accompanied it. "The thugs were the final weight which tipped the balance to the side favoring the rebels. Your discovery of the pirimah s dedication to Kali explained it, for someone in a high place had to be allowing such a band to operate."
"That is certain. They knew who we were— or at least that we were there on business of the maharajah. That was evident when they got a look at us changed from our disguises as Hindis and ran off rather than attacked."
"Very good, Rachelle! I see I shall have to work harder at this." He laughed. Puffing away for a moment as he considered, the magister then asked, "Were you impressed at how I got you out of the oath? Clever bit that, the blood and all, recalling Kali's having to strangle the 'Demon of Blood and Seed'."
She propped her head up with one hand. "I hate to say it, Setne, but I caught on as soon as you spoke of form and content. There is something, though, that I do wish you'd tell me about."
"But of course, I'd be happy to, my dear. What?"
"The day you went out alone to see about contacting the rebels in Delhi." When Inhetep shifted uncomfortable in his chair she knew she was onto it. "Yes, Setne. What was it you said you had done? I recall the words voluptuous and whore."
"Pish! Nothing of the sort. I said I had helped to recover a lost girl from a life of prostitution to something more noble, and in return she aided me in contacting the insurgents hidden in the city." He drew himself up and gave her his best expression of aristocratic altruism. Rachelle wasn't buying it, so he deflated his chest a little. "Very well. If you need eveiy sordid detail, here is what occurred." When Inhetep concluded, she laughed. He looked sour.
"So Braji is now probably a courtesan in great demand in Delhi!"
"No—at least, not if she stuck with her later decision."
"What was that?"
"When I left the rebels, she stayed, vowing to join them and fight for the cause of the claimant. It is one of Sivadji's half-brothers. It seems the old yogi, Purshiva Rishi, somehow managed to save one of the royal brood from his brother's tender mercies. He and Prince Da-hasti both are alive, lending their talents to the claimant in his mountain retreat. Because I had to, ah . . . rather strongly insist they not butcher me as a spy for the maharajah, most of the insurgents fled the city to join the growing army of rebels gathered to the soon-to-be ruler of Delhi. Braji went tripping off with those young warriors, happily receiving court from a half-dozen of them."
Rachelle laughed again, merrily. "That is a tale. If she gets to meet the royal rebel claimant, 111 wager that she charms him!"
"Not interested in that bet, my dear."
"How did you manage to convince the young hotheads not to run you through, Setne?"
The magister frowned. "It was necessary for me to employ heka. Most annoying, under the circumstances. I displaced myself to be free of threat, changed to show my actual appearance, and then had to go through a number of castings as if I were a mountebank or charlatan impressing yokels before I convinced them they were actually at my mercy and all that. Demeaning to everybody concerned, you know.
Made them look like weaklings, me a blundering bully who had gotten himself captured and then had to flex his magickal muscles to get free."
"You have wonderful muscles of that sort— and the physical sort too, dear Magister," she cooed. That made him more annoyed than ever, and Rachelle laughed. "Don't be so stuffy, Setne. You know I'm only teasing you because 1 have to have you tell me so much about what went on."
Feeling much better at hearing that, the magister smiled back, then himself laughed. "Funny, isn't it? When it comes down to it, all of us are just fragile little folk. Glad you're not too fragile, though, or you'd not have gotten that orb away from the pirimah. I'd have been in for it then! Which reminds me\ How did you manage to shake off whatever it was the witch had done to you?"
"The sleeping draught you gave me made me unconscious for the whole kidnapping, Setne. I heard that awful bitch mention a secret passage, so I knew how they entered the bedroom and took me without you knowing about it. Not trusting to common old drugs, she laid one of her witchcraeft castings on me. She knew I have studied the art, and that made her think 1 would be more vulnerable. Little did she know I am more skilled at apotropaistic things than at witchery. I managed a counter to her evil, so that the duration of its effect was foreshortened greatly. In fact, I had to pretend to be helpless from the time they brought me to the vault entrance. Your feigning no interest in whether I lived or died was superb play acting, Setne. You almost had me convinced."
She probably thought his slight raising of a brow had to do with the last words she spoke, but the magister was piqued at what the ama-zon had related about her kidnapping. "Fortunately, my dear," he said earnestly, "those malign fools didn't know much about me. If they had, the game would have ended then and there, for those familiar with Magister Setne Inhetep know that his companion is more dear to him than his own life."
"That was sweet, Setne. You had better mean it!"
"But of course. Could my head dispense with my body because it lacks a brain?"
"That does it, Inhetep. Now I'll make you sorry for your cruel jests!" She started to get up, then stayed put, sitting on the couch and looking at the wizard-priest. "Speaking of cruel jests, you keep me on tenterhooks, Setne. You haven't explained about how the two supposedly dead officials of the maharajah are actually living, how the seemingly stolen crown jewels were really there all along, and how we managed to get out of the vault which nobody could enter nor escape from without a special amulet! How did you manage that?"
"Oh, that's easy. Because the place couldn't be broken into, and no rebels outside the palace could force their way inside to make the chancellor and court practitioner cooperate, it had to be an inside job. Working from that premise, it was most probable that those two were working in conjunction, of course. What was said about the two by their replacements made that the only reasonable assumption.
"The two must have spent a very long time preparing their strike. Months, I'd guess— about the time it became clear to them that the maharajah's interest in the witch, Lady Sujata, would mean death for them. I'm certain that both were staying in the palace to better aid the rebels, but when she came along they had to abandon that post. What Sujata wanted was obvious. To become pirimah. The court practitioner of Delhi is always chief cleric as well as the head of magick. In her case, it meant priestess of Kali and Thugee. Unthinkable to both men, I'm sure! With the Purshiva Yogi Rishi's heka, they set up the seeming robbery. The 'remains' left behind were so good they almost fooled me, until I thought a bit and realized that half of the amulet key would never have been left behind with the supposed ashes of a slain treasurer. He might have been killed by thieves, but never would such a thing be left behind to be ruined by whomever did him in.
"Somebody's body was burned to ashes, but 1 can't imagine whose. The Yogi Rishi's blood was used, but not so much as to be fatal. Together with the proper castings, the whole thing threw everyone off the track. Why just the Crown Jewels? And why were the maharajah and his court witch so desperate to get them back? Because in order to properly invest the chief cleric of the land, the power of those objects—the crown, orb, and all—must be invoked. Only when she was properly recognized thus would the Lady Sujata agree to use her influence to bring in aid to put an end to the rebels. Among her other dark dealings, the woman was in touch with Kabul. Perhaps she would have called in the Afghanis; maybe she would have trusted to a growing Thug movement to strangle the rebels." Inhetep shrugged, palms held out. "So we foiled all that. The rebels will certainly triumph now, for the maharajah is a weak and hateful fellow doomed to die as he has lived. It might be months or a few years, but soon now we will hear of a new ruler taking the Peacock Throne." He glanced at her, saw there was still attentiveness in Rachelle's expression, and realized one question remained to be answered.
"Hmmm. What else. Ah, I recall. You wanted to know about the hidden crown jewels. It was
DEATH IN DELHI
a matter of elimination. If they couldn't be located anywhere within Delhi—city or state— and hadn't been spirited from the land, where could they be? Only one place was possible. That was a place where all manner of castings were made useless. Where was such a place? In the palace vault, of course! Now then, how could they be hidden? That was more difficult, but finally I hit on it. If the chamberlain and the court practitioner were working hand-in-glove on all things, it followed that the two of them managed to do something inside the strongroom. What could they do? What else but to create a special space in some inaccessible dimension to displace the regalia. The little spot wouldn't be detectable to any sort of search save one which went to the exact location in which it was tied to the mundane. The Yogi Rishi was good! He did it by accessing the ninth and least known of the dimensions, my dear. Into that place the crown jewels went, and there they are now—and will remain until the fellow extracts them to place on the person of the new maharajah he champions."
Rachelle finally stood up and came over to where the magister sat calmly with his fuming hookah. "How did you get us out of the impenetrable barriers surrounding the vault? None of what you've told me explains that."
"Well, you can thank Rishi for that. By allowing the ninth dimension to impinge on the vault, he opened a way for me to access the Central Nexus. It was some work, of course, channeling energy so as to make a sort of tunnel from it to the nexus. But once done, poof! And who's the wiser about something going from Inconceivability to a remote part of /Egypt? So here we are!"