Bak was beginning to think he was imagining things. Maybe the sleeping potion had lingering effects that were addling his thoughts.
For the third time in less than an hour, since breaking camp at daybreak, he had glimpsed-or imagined-a move ment on the steep, rugged slope to the south. When he had studied the hillside in the gray light of early dawn, he had seen nothing. Later, as the sun rose, he could have sworn he saw a man darting through the long, deep shadows of early morning. When he had drawn attention to the spot, Imset, the lean young nomad whom Nefertem had sent with him to serve as his guide, had shaken his head. Either the boy had seen no sign of life or he simply did not understand what Bak was trying to tell him. Until they had set out the previous morning, he had had no knowledge of the tongue of Kemet.
“Rock.” Imset touched with his toe a lump of granite half buried in sand. The stone’s black facets gleamed like silver in the light of the rising sun.
“Yes,” Bak nodded. “Rock.”
The youth, whom he guessed was about twelve years of age, scooped up a handful of sand and held it out. “Sand.”
The boy, whom Nefertem had suggested he call Imset af ter one of the lord Horus’s children, was bright and eager to learn and was vastly pleased with himself each time he got a word right, but Bak wished the landscape varied more so he could expand his vocabulary. “Sand,” he agreed.
“Donkey.” Imset threw his arm around the neck of the dark gray beast plodding along between them. The creature was laden with water and food, the bare necessities required to get them to the next well and to take the boy to his mother’s camp somewhere deep in the mountains. It also carried the spears and shields Nefertem had provided, fearing they might come upon a prowling hyena or leopard.
“Bird!” The boy swung his arm, tracing the path of the small winged creature as it flew past.
“Look!” Bak said, and pointed up the wadi. He had quickly tired the previous day of repeating the names of the objects around them and had gone on to words describing actions.
Grinning, Imset placed his hand above his eyes and stared in an exaggerated manner in the direction his teacher pointed.
Bak tried to think of a way to vary the pattern established the day before, but had second thoughts. Perhaps he could use the youth’s enthusiasm to advantage. He pulled a wa terbag off the donkey. “Walk,” he said. While the youth strode along beside him, he unplugged the bag. “Trot.”
Imset leaped forward to jog a half-dozen paces ahead. He pivoted and, smiling broadly, trotted in place until his com panion caught up. Before Bak could issue the next order, Im set spun around, shouted, “Run!” and darted forward a dozen paces. He stopped as quickly as he had started and, turning for Bak’s approval, laughed with delight. At the same time,
Bak raised the waterbag to his lips, his eyes on the hillside to the south. If the boy’s loud laughter and actions did not draw out the man who was watching-if someone was in fact keeping an eye on them-nothing would.
He spotted a movement in the shadow of a protruding boulder, the head and shoulders of a man. “Look!” he said and pointed.
Imset’s eyes followed his. The laughter died in his throat and his expression grew puzzled. The man ducked behind the boulder, out of sight.
“You see?” Bak asked, pointing at his eyes and toward the spot where the man had vanished.
The boy nodded.
“Friend?”
The youth looked confused.
Bak knelt and drew with his finger two stick figures in the sand, men standing close together, their arms around each other’s shoulders. “Friends,” he said. A pace or so away, he drew two widely spaced figures, one face-forward, the other looking away. “Strangers.” In another place, he drew two men facing each other, each carrying a spear in a threatening stance. “Enemies.”
Not until Bak pantomimed the three actions, using the somewhat mistrustful youth as a second party, did his pupil begin to understand. Bak pointed toward the spot where they had glimpsed the figure. “Friend?”
Imset shook his head vehemently.
“Stranger? Enemy?”
The youth looked at the two sketches, his finger wavering uncertainly between them.
Bak went to the donkey to retrieve their weapons.
The following day, long before the sun peered into the gorge in which they had spent the night, Bak bade a reluctant goodbye to the young nomad. They had spotted the watching man several times during the intervening twenty-four hours, and he feared for the boy on his own. His efforts to convince him to remain with him had been futile, partly because of their mutual lack of words but mostly because Imset was de termined to move on. Nefertem had told him to go to his mother, who needed him, and he refused to do otherwise.
The youth had packed a small bag of food, filled a wa terbag, and wrapped his arms around the donkey’s neck, bid ding it a fond farewell. It could not travel the terrain he intended to pass through to evade the watching man. He had collected his weapons, and, with a stouthearted smile, had pointed in a northerly direction toward the red granite peak, which could not be seen from deep within the gorge where they stood. “Home,” he had said.
They had clasped each other’s shoulders, a silent goodbye, and the youth had walked up the gorge between overhanging cliffs to enter a wider area, where the brightening sky re vealed several open pools of water. Beyond the uppermost pool, he had climbed the irregular steps of a dry waterfall.
Whether the single word meant simply that he was going home, or whether it meant he knew this barren and desolate land better than any stranger, Bak had no idea. He prayed that the latter was the case. Or, better yet, that the watching man would choose to remain behind.
As he watched Imset vanish around a rock formation, loneliness descended upon him and he clutched the leather pouch hanging from his belt. Inside he felt the pendant, his sole way of contacting Nefertem. He had had to trust the no mad that the boy would guide him to a safe place where he would find food and water and where he could await his
Medjays and the caravan. Now that he had reached that place, he had to believe they would come. If not, surely a no mad family would bring their flocks to drink.
Shoving aside the nagging thought that Nefertem had sent him here to be offered up as a sacrifice for some purpose of his own, he stowed the remaining food and waterbag in a niche in the rocks, hobbled the donkey, and collected his weapons.
The nomad had told him large numbers of sandgrouse came early each morning to drink, and he wanted to see for himself this source of food. Leaving his small camp, he walked out of the gorge to the pools. What Nefertem had called a well looked to him like natural springs. Green grass, reeds, and thorny shrubs grew in and around the lower pools, while the water in the uppermost was held in a bare pit of sand.
He climbed a cut in the hillside that looked out upon the water, found a rocky nook where no one could creep up be hind him, and settled down to wait. Not long after sunrise, the birds began to arrive. Finches came first, a whirling mul titude of stubby, dark gray birds twittering a high-pitched nasal song. They darted back and forth as if to make sure the pools were safe and finally settled around the upper pool.
Other birds came in smaller numbers, and several lizards darted through the grass around the lower pools in search of insects.
Next came the grouse, brownish birds twice the size of the finches. They wheeled swiftly around in groups of twenty or more, circling the pools as their predecessors had, voicing something that sounded to Bak like a man fluttering his tongue while expelling a loud breath. Always keeping to their own flock, they landed on the hillside to preen them selves, their color so nearly like the earth and rocks that they were difficult to see. After a short time, they flew swiftly to the wadi floor to walk to the pool, where they lined up around the edge to drink. Satiated, each flock walked away from the pool, faced down the wadi, and leaped upward to fly off to ward the open desert. Bak watched enthralled. Not until the final flock had taken to the air did he think of the birds as food. He certainly would not starve if forced to remain here.
He walked back to the gorge to get the donkey and turned it loose in the fresh grass. Keeping his weapons close by in case of need, he took off his clothing and, using the metal bowl Nefertem had given him, poured water over himself, washing away the desert’s grime. He stayed well clear of the pools so as not to foul them. The water here, Nefertem had told him, attracted not only large numbers of birds and ani mals, but nomads from all across this part of the Eastern
Desert. It was nothing less than a gift of the gods and must be treated as such.
While he bathed and washed his clothing, he studied the surrounding terrain. He did not spot the watching man, but he located near the mouth of the gorge a shaded crevice in which a man might hide through the morning hours. Fin ished with his bath and feeling considerably better for it, he donned his wet loincloth, kilt, and tunic, then led the donkey into the gorge and hobbled it so it would not wander back to the grass. Returning to the open area in which the pools were located, taking care not to be seen from above, he climbed up to the crevice, laid his waterbag beside him, and settled down to wait. With luck and the help of the gods, the watch ing man would grow curious-or fearful that his quarry had slipped away.
The sun climbed slowly into the sky. The day grew hot and the lizards indolent. A flock of cheeping sparrows flitted from shrubs to reeds to the grass and the bare ground, while a pair of larks walked among the rocks. Watching their deter mined but serene quest for sustenance, Bak grew drowsy.
Abruptly, amid sharp chirps of warning, the birds shot into the air. Bak started, came fully awake. Something had fright ened them. The watching man? He had been hidden for over an hour if the sun’s passage told true, plenty of time for cu riosity to eat away at a man. He gripped his spear and shield and rose to his feet, as silent as the lizards that had darted in among the rocks.
A stone clattered down the slope some distance to his right. He eased into a fresh position, trying to glimpse the in truder. A jumble of rocks that had rolled down from above cut off his view. He could see no farther than the uppermost pool and considerably less of the slope. Quelling his impa tience, he remained where he was, listening for another sound, hoping to determine the intruder’s exact position. He heard nothing. The man, if indeed the noise had been made by a man, had to be a nomad to creep so silently down a hill as steep as this one and as covered with loose sand and rocks.
The time stretched to an eternity. Unable to stand the strain any longer, Bak stuck his head out of the crevice far enough to see around the rocks. A man wearing the ragged garb of a desert nomad was climbing downward, watching where he placed his feet. He was a half-dozen paces above the wadi floor at a point almost even with the uppermost pool. His hair was long and unkempt. He carried a bow, and a quiver filled with arrows hung from his left shoulder.
He stopped and looked to his left, down the wadi toward the mouth of the gorge. With nothing there to see, he shifted his gaze-and looked directly at Bak. Bak jerked back into his hideaway, but too late. Skittering rocks and the sound of feet half-sliding down the sandy slope verified the fact that he had been seen.
Shield in one hand, spear in the other, he burst out of his hiding place. He scurried down the slope, sending a minia ture rock slide before him, and hit the wadi floor running.
The nomad stood beside the upper pool, seating an arrow, pulling the string taut. Bak gave a blood-curdling yell, a fear some sound made by attacking tribesmen on the southern frontier, and charged toward the man. The arrow sped past, too high and too far to the left.
Bak raced forward undeterred. He had not lain in wait for more than an hour to turn tail and run.
The nomad quickly tugged another arrow from his quiver, seated it, and let it fly. It sped past no closer than its predeces sor. Bak sprinted on. The man spun around and ran to the dry waterfall. He raced upward, climbing the irregularly shaped and sized rocks as if they were the smoothest of steps. Unfa miliar with the terrain, Bak took longer to reach the top. The last thing he wanted was to break an ankle. He had no idea what had set the nomad to flight: the all-out charge, the howl of the southern desert tribesmen, or simply a sudden fear that he might get caught.
Above the fall, the wadi widened out and low dark gray mountains rose in all directions. Bak raced after the nomad up the most recent channel to be cut through the ancient wa tercourse, dodging fallen rocks and boulders and a few widely spaced silla bushes clinging to life in the dry sand. In stead of slowing to an easier pace, as he should have, and biding his time, he ran hard and fast. Sweat poured from him.
His breath came out in loud gasps and he had a pain in his side. He knew that if he lost sight of the man in this play ground of the lord Set, he would never find him. Worse yet, if the man was at all familiar with this landscape, he could cir cle around and lay in wait until his unsuspecting victim re turned to the spring.
He kept up the pace for as long as he could, but finally slowed to a fast trot. The man ahead also decreased his speed.
Bak saw him pause and raise his waterbag to take a drink.
He, too, was thirsty-but he had left his water behind. When the realization struck, he cursed himself for a fool. He knew he should turn back then and there, but he plodded on.
The wadi gradually swerved to the left and the single channel split into innumerable shallow dry ditches. Ahead, he could see the gaping mouths of several intersecting wadis.
No matter which way he looked, the landscape was the same: streams of coarse golden sand dotted with rocks flowing be tween low gray mountains whose surfaces were rough and broken. Later, he thanked the lord Amon for giving him the good sense to pay heed to his surroundings, for that aware ness probably saved his life.
A thousand or so paces farther on, the nomad veered into a gap that angled off to the right between two peaks. Bak lost sight of him, but his footprints were clear in the sand. When he followed the tracks into the gap, he saw that the man had stopped and turned around to see if he was still being pur sued. Spotting Bak, he ran on.
Bak slowed to a walk, lifted the tail of his tunic to wipe the sweat from his face, and looked around. This gap was about the same width as the wadi he had just left and the peaks to either side looked exactly the same. The similarity troubled him.
Breaking into an easy trot, he resumed the chase. The stitch in his side eased, but his mouth was as dry as the sand beneath his feet. Another thousand or so paces took him through the gap, where he saw some distance ahead a forked intersection, with wadis opening to right and left. The nomad turned into the latter, glancing back as he did so. Bak fol lowed him as far as the fork and stopped to study the terrain ahead. The mountains looked no different than those all around, the wadi looked the same as the series of wadis be hind him.
Common sense dictated that he not follow any farther. He was tired and an ache at the back of his head told him how badly in need of water he was. To allow himself to be led deeper into this maze of identical mountains and wadis would be sheer folly.
Reluctantly, he turned around, giving up the chase.
“I can’t tell you how happy I was to see you.” Bak smiled at Nebre and Kaha, who had come upon him trudging back to the pools. “Never again will I go off without a waterbag.”
“You think he wished you to lose your way and die?”
Psuro asked.
Bak leaned back against the wall of the gorge, well out of the strip of sunlight that fell between the overhanging walls.
He had had enough sun for one day. “I’ve no doubt he did, but whether that was his original intent, I’ve no idea. He may’ve known no other way to get me off his trail. On the other hand, he came down to the pools to look for me. He may’ve seen Imset leave and thought to take advantage of my being alone.”
“You’re certain the boy didn’t know him?” Nebre asked.
“I don’t believe he did. He’d not have left his donkey be hind if he’d felt he could safely travel the usual, easy paths.”
Kaha scowled. “You said he looked to Nefertem as at a god. If he told him to sacrifice the donkey, would he not have done so?”
“All I know is that after I drew his attention to the man who was watching us, he was as wary as I was.”
“Who is this Nefertem?” Psuro asked.
Bak sipped water from the metal bowl, replacing the mois ture he had lost during his futile chase. He felt considerably better than before, but was disgusted with himself for having gone off so ill prepared. “He said his father, who was slain a year or so ago, was Minnakht’s guide before Senna. Min nakht is as a brother to him.”
“You believed him.”
“He was very angry about his father’s death and worried for Minnakht.”
“At least he had the good sense to send you here,” Kaha said. “Compared to the wells we’ve seen, this sheltered place and pools are like the Field of Reeds.” He referred to the do main of the lord Osiris, a place of abundance men hoped to reach in the netherworld.
Bak, Psuro, and Nebre followed his glance, looking up the gorge to the pools. User was supervising the taking of baths, making sure no one wasted a drop of water or soiled the pools in any way. Minmose and Rona, seated at the top of the dry waterfall in the shade of an overhanging rock, were keep ing watch.
Bak and his companions sat on the sand, surrounded by the water jars, supplies, and weapons they had brought from Kaine. Their donkeys and the animal Imset had left behind stood or lay in the shade inside the mouth of the gorge, doz ing. User’s camp and animals were farther back in the gorge.
From what the Medjays had told Bak, the caravan had ar rived at the well not long after he had chased the nomad up the wadi. They had found the hobbled donkey, the meager supply of food, the abandoned waterbag, and the spent ar rows. Their first thought was that the donkey’s master, who ever he was, had vanished as Minnakht had.
Nebre, while watering one of the donkeys, had spotted the print of a sandal near the pool and, thanks to a small
V-shaped cut at the heel, had recognized it as Bak’s. The
Medjays were stunned. The man they had been seeking for the past four days had been here, possibly awaiting them, but had vanished once more-maybe not of his own volition.
While Rona and Minmose had remained behind with Psuro to tend to the animals and make camp, Nebre and Kaha had gone out to look for him. The sand carpeting the wadi floor was too soft to leave clear prints, but they had gradually come to believe they were following two men. They could not tell if Bak was pursuing the other man or if he was that man’s prisoner.
Later, after returning to the pools, Bak had pointed out the slope on which he had first seen the nomad. Kaha had climbed the incline. Higher up, he had found a print of the sandal worn by the watching man.
“The boy went off alone, you say.” Psuro adjusted his seat on the hard ground. “If he was truly what he said and was no friend of the watching man, do you think he got away unharmed?”
“Coming back from my foolhardy chase, I looked specifi cally for his footprints,” Bak said. “I found the place where he left the wadi to climb a hillside too rough and rocky to leave traces of himself. From that point on, I walked in reverse the path he took when he left here, covering all sign of his passing. I saw nothing to indicate that he’d been fol lowed, and I doubt he can be now.”
Kaha and Nebre exchanged a look. The latter spoke for them both. “User wishes to spend the night here. We should have plenty of time during the cooler hours of evening to track the man you chased.”
“I’d wager the last drop of water in this bowl…” Bak held up the container from which he had been drinking.
“… that he’s even now somewhere above the pools, watch ing us.”
The Medjays looked distinctly uncomfortable with the thought.
Kaha broke their long, unhappy silence. “Nefertem must’ve sent him. How else would he have known to look for you here?”
Bak could not bring himself to trust Nefertem without res ervation, but the nomad had been true to his word as far as the pools were concerned and the caravan had come as predicted.
“I first saw him watching us a day’s walk down the main wadi that descends to the west. Is that not the way you came?”
Nebre shifted a blade of dry grass from one corner of his mouth to the other. “We did.”
“Either that’s the only way to reach the pass we crossed to get here, or someone in the caravan told him the route you meant to take and he hurried on ahead to intercept you. My coming along may’ve been a surprise.”
Bak spoke reluctantly of a traitor in their midst. He had been greeted like a long-lost brother, with every man in the caravan clapping him on the back, expressing his joy at his return, and letting him know in a multitude of ways how worried they all had been for his safety. He had described his abduction as briefly as possible and had evaded further questions, saying the nomads had known few words of the tongue of Kemet.
“We’ve a snake among us, you think?” Kaha spat out a curse.
“Why take such interest in this caravan?” Psuro asked.
“We’ve done nothing of note, nor are we likely to.”
Bak gave him a wry smile. “Nefertem seemed to think we’re seeking the gold Minnakht is rumored to have found.”
“Bah! User’s been looking for gold for years. He’s never found a thing.”
“Will he be all right?” Bak asked.
Dedu let the donkey’s hoof drop to the ground. The crea ture sidled away, favoring the one leg. “A night’s rest will help. After that, we’ll see.”
User’s nomad guide was at least ten years older than
Senna, closer in age to the explorer than to any of the other men in the caravan. White hairs were visible among the black and deep wrinkles etched his face.
Bak knelt beside him to help him gather together tweezers, a small knife, a razor, and several other bronze tools suitable for use when men or animals needed medical care. “Do you always travel with User when he comes into this desert?”
“When I was a young man…” Dedu flashed a smile, cor rected himself. “When he and I were young, I served always as his guide. But I took a wife and she bore me many chil dren. Responsibility weighed heavy on my shoulders, and my days of wandering came to an end.”
Bak smothered a smile. The nomad may have ceased to wander far from his wife, but in the ensuing years, he and his family had without doubt roamed far and wide over the East ern Desert. “Your children have grown, I suppose, allowing you more time away?”
Dedu dropped the tools into a soft leather bag along with a dozen small packets of herbs. “While at the market in Kaine,
I heard men talking about User and this journey he planned.
I’ve long wanted to increase my flock and I know he gives fair exchange for labor.” A twinkle came to his eyes. “And if the truth be told, I missed the old days.”
Smiling, Bak stood up. “So you offered your services.”
“This, I think, will be my last journey. I thought never to say so, but I long for my wife.”
Laughing, Bak eased the guide toward the hillside over looking the pools, where the rock-strewn slope lay in shadow. A gentle breeze ruffled the grass and reeds, the leaves on the bushes. Most of the men had entered the gorge for their evening meal, and the limping donkey was nibbling his way toward his equine companions hobbled within the overhanging walls.
“Did you know Minnakht?” Bak asked, sitting on a flattish rock near the base of the slope.
Dedu chose a rock not far away. “Each time he came through my family’s territory, he stopped for a day or a night.
He was a good man. Should he not return-and after so long a time, I think it unlikely-we’ll miss him.”
“Did he bring Senna with him?”
“Since a year ago. I envied Senna his task. The gods surely smiled upon him when they sent him to Minnakht.”
“Had you ever met him before? He told me he’s a man from the north, but said he first came here many years ago.”
Dedu placed the leather bag on a rock close to his feet. He adjusted the way it lay and adjusted it a second time. Evi dently sensing Bak’s eyes upon him, he said, “Once before, I saw him. Five years ago or longer.”
Bak gave him a speculative look, wondering why the de lay in answering. “Was he serving as a guide at that time?”
Another hesitation. “He was.”
Giving no sign that he noticed Dedu’s reticence, Bak said,
“He mentioned toiling as a boy for a man who wanted above all things to find gold. Was he traveling with him at that time?
A man your age or older, I’d guess.”
“No.”
The nomad had been very forthcoming earlier. What had stolen his words? “Minnakht’s father sent me into this desert to find his son, Dedu. So far, I’ve learned nothing. I don’t even know if I can trust Senna.”
“I know nothing to Senna’s discredit.”
“Something happened five years ago. What was it?”
Dedu shook his head. “Nothing.”
“You claim you liked Minnakht. Why will you not help me in my quest?”
“What happened to me and mine has nothing to do with his disappearance.”
“I can’t be sure until you tell me.”
Dedu lowered his head, covering his face with his hands.
When at last he spoke, his voice was thick with distress.
“Senna came to our camp in the mountains. The man he trav eled with was not old. Twenty years, no more.” He raised his face to Bak, letting him see his shame. “My daughter, a child of beauty and innocence, was twelve years of age. She was betrothed to the son of one of our clan leaders, a youth she claimed to love above all others. That man with Senna smiled upon her and she in turn smiled at him. They went off to gether for a night and a day and another night. If her be trothed had been any other man, her loss of purity would’ve been of no significance, easily forgiven and quickly forgot ten. But the son of a chief must keep the line pure. That man with Senna ruined her in the eyes of her betrothed.”
Bak laid a sympathetic hand on the nomad’s arm. “What part did Senna play?”
“He went out to find them and brought my daughter back.”
Bitterness entered Dedu’s voice. “Later, we learned she was with child. She lives with me yet, she and the girl, and she re fuses to wed any other man, convinced the swine will one day come back for her.”
“What was the man’s name?”
“I don’t know.”
Bak felt certain he did know, but to press for an answer might silence him altogether. “When I came back this morn ing and found the caravan here, I talked of my abduction.
One thing I failed to mention was the name of the man who led the nomads who took me away. You’ve dwelt here a life time, so you must know him. I was never told his birth name, but he said Minnakht called him Nefertem.”
The guide’s relief at the change of subject turned to sur prise. “He’s our tribal chief, the one man standing at the head of all our clans. Why would a man of his stature abduct you?”
Bak also was surprised, but for a different reason. He had not guessed Nefertem was of such import, though when he thought back on how quick the nomads had been to obey his every command, he should have. “He spoke of his father as
Minnakht’s guide, not as a tribal chieftain.”
“His father was a good man highly regarded by all, but not a leader. His uncle, who died two months ago, leaving behind no sons of his own, named Nefertem to succeed him.”
“He believes his father was slain at the hands of another. If he was so well thought of, why would anyone wish him dead?”
The question hung in the air between them with no answer to be found.