Wraiths of Time

by Andre Norton

  “However you may think of it, we have proved it true. Are you not here in Amun?”

  Tallahassee ran her tongue over lips that seemed suddenly dry. Fantastic, insane?… What other words could she find to explain such a suggestion? Yet it was plain Jayta was entirely serious.

  “Accept that it is so,” continued the Priestess, “and know that a year ago one Khasti found a way to breach the wall of that time—for the purpose of mining Amun itself!”

  Her deepset eyes sparked fire, and she seemed even in her mind-to-mind speech to spit forth the name “Khasti” as if it were an obscenity.

  “Two treasures have we possessed from the earliest days when we first fled to Kush, we of the most ancient people. This is the truth—an object upon which the Power has been so long focused becomes in turn a reservoir of that force, sometimes to the extent that only those, by training and blood immune to it, can touch it and live.”

  “The Rod.” Tallahassee glanced at the case on the bed.

  “The Rod into which has entered the centuries of thought-force of those of the Blood. Even I, who can control the Key-to-Life, dare not lay bare hand on that.”

  “Then why can I?” challenged Tallahassee.

  “That I do not know, though I have two guesses, the first being that in your world you are the same as the Princess Ashake, she who gave her life to regain that which had been stolen. The other is that because you are from that world, your inner force is of a different nature, repelling rather than attracting the Power that is bound within this. But that is another matter. I must tell you what else you should know and quickly—we may not have time, much time. And there are those who will be alerted once they know that the Rod has returned.

  “It was taken by a creature of Khasti because Khasti himself stands behind the late Pharoah’s son, Userkof. We have had many queens, and they rule by their own right, not under the will of any man. If they take a husband he is one apart and cannot command in their name. Nor can this Userkof, which is a sore thing to him. For our Candace was the eldest child of King Pahfor’s sister and thus the heir.

  “The new people among us—those who are restless and would put away the heritage of our past—they strive to follow foreign ways. And Idieze, she who is chief wife to Userkof, would be queen. Thus she plays for power with Khasti and his knowledge.

  “The creature of Khasti was sent into the world beyond the time wall and there he was to hide the Rod. There he was freed to draw upon the strength of those of Khasti’s own way of thought—those who hated the rule of women—for his energy and aid. Thus the Candace could not come before the people at the Half-Year Feasting with it in her hand. And because of that theft, she could be lied into the loss of her throne. But, Khasti was not as secret as he thought and, when the Rod indeed disappeared, there was a way of learning what he had done and why. However, it took us much searching and experimenting before we could ourselves dare to hope to unlock the same door. And the Key, which we held—that, at a last moment, was itself taken—with dead guards left to mark that we had once held it. For the Key and the Rod are linked, and one can point always the way to the other.

  “It was made plain to us that one with power to hold the Rod and to mind-search for it must also breach the door of parallel time—though this was a desperate and perhaps deadly thing. And the Princess Ashake, she whose form you wear, swore that it was her venture alone. For the Candace could not be risked, and there is no other of the whole Blood in this generation, so thin have our ranks now become. Thus we went to the most holy place where the vibrations of the Power had long been, and there she threw herself into the unknown. There she must also have met the full force of some hate like unto Khasti’s.”

  Carey? Tallahassee’s thought caught and held upon the man who had made so plain his dislike.… It could well be Carey, influenced beyond his knowledge or belief, had been the hostile focus.

  “When she returned”—Jayta paused, and then went on—“it would seem that because you, too, had laid hand on the Rod, she must draw you with her. And this was too great a strain on the Talent we had summoned to our backing. Thus she was gone from us, even as she fulfilled the mighty task she had bent herself to do. Also—there was that creature of Khasti’s who would have followed her—perhaps it was necessary for her to strive with him also in your time. For he came after—but”—there was complete satisfaction in Jayta’s thought now—“him I was able to seal outside now that Key and Rod had returned. I know not if his master has managed to draw him back by whatever unhallowed means he employs, but if he has—then Khasti knows what we have done. Also Userkof knows, for it was the personal guards of his household who broke in upon us at Meroë and were forced to acknowledge that they had no right of intrusion upon the Daughter of the Blood.”

  At least there was logic in Jayta’s explanation, wild as it might seem to Tallahassee. If she could accept this all as reality, then the fact of her sudden transportation here was true.

  “What do you want of me?” she asked.

  An expression of surprise altered the harsh cast of Jayta’s features for a moment.

  “Need you ask? The Candace, who knows all of this—save of Ashake’s death (though word of that is already on the way to her) is in the north on a state visit to the People of the Sea. She will return in time for the Half-Year Feast. We must then have the Rod ready for her hand. But to all others you must be Ashake! Those who were with us at Meroë are of the second circle of Believers and servers. They are sworn to a still tongue on this business for I needed their united power with mine to light the way for Ashake’s return. But in Amun you are the Princess Heir and must be—”

  “And if I choose not to aid your plans? I was drawn into this through no will of my own—”

  “How?” countered Jayta.

  Tallahassee found herself telling of the wild night’s work in the museum and how she had been compelled to follow the ankh to the rod, of the presences she had felt during that strange struggle of wills.

  “Khasti’s creature. It was he who stole the Key and hid it so. It was he who hoped to reach the Rod before the Princess broke through to claim it. It was he who had you lay hand upon it, and so brought her to her death.”

  “You say his ‘creature’. What do you mean?” Tallahassee asked.

  For a moment or two she believed that Jayta was not going to answer. Then the message came with obvious reluctance.

  “We do not know by what means Khasti has learned of this thing, or how he projected his servant with the Rod into this other world of yours and in turn sent the Key after it. He has set up shields about his work of a kind we cannot pierce. And those who are of our Talent dare not try to spy on him, for they can be instantly detected by some trick of his own kind of power, as we discovered when the Rod vanished. To be unmasked by Khasti is death—we think—for none we sent returned, and neither could we after pick them up by personna-scanner. They—they simply vanished. But his servant who did this thing—he, she, or it—could not have been of the Talent. For that, too, would have registered on those devices our mind-watchers maintain. We do know only that there must have been some alteration in the messenger-thief he sent. You say that the Princess you saw only as a shadow, and this other was also a shadow—a wraith in your world. Well”—again there was satisfaction in Jayta’s voice—“that other remains a wraith, since the Key has been turned against the creature’s return!”

  “If I play this part you wish”—Tallahassee stared straight into the woman’s eyes as she formulated that thought with all the force she could summon—“then when it is done and your Queen safe once more, can you return me to my own time?”

  “I give you the truth. As it stands now, I am uncertain. But if Userkof is vanquished and all is safe—it may be that the Candace herself can do this thing. If so—she will have the backing in power of all of us who command the Talent.”

  “But you are not sure?” persisted the girl.

  “I am not sure,” agreed t
he priestess. “What we can do, that we shall. There is this—we must do something, or all we have accomplished so far will be lost.”

  There was a strong determination in that, and Tallahassee felt a new wariness.

  “What?”

  “You must become Ashake—not only outwardly, as you are now but inwardly—owning her memories and knowledge.”

  Tallahassee could see the sense of that, but it would take some time, and how good would she be at learning the language, all the small details of the life of the girl she had replaced? Did they have weeks?

  “It will take some time—”

  Jayta shook her head. “We cannot give you the Talent if you are not born with it. But all else can be shifted mind-to-mind from our archives—”

  “The what?”

  “The storehouse of knowledge possessed by all those who follow the way of Power, also those of the Blood who come to rule. The Rod.” She gestured to the box. “That is theirs by right, but it does not enrich their memories. Rather do all of us with the Talent come twice yearly to the shrine, and there cast our memories into the lap of the Great Power. Thus if I must know what the Daughter-of-Apedemek who was before me at an earlier time understood, I go to this storehouse and draw forth the memory of one who may have lived two lifetimes ago and wore the Golden Mask. What the Princess Ashake knew, you must have—”

  “Computer memory banks!” Tallahassee interrupted, excited that she could make such an identification with her own time.

  “I do not understand,” Jayta returned. “The picture in your mind—it is strange—like unto those things which Khasti has turned to. But in another time-world, who knows what form knowledge takes? There is one more whom we must admit to your secret, since only he will have power enough to use my seal and unlock for use Ashake’s recordings. I have already summoned him, and if luck favors us he will be here before daybreak. Now I urge you—eat, sleep, rest well, for what lies before you is no little task. We use such recordings only for a few facts. You must absorb many upon many and those as quickly as possible.”

  Jayta took the button from her own ear, coiled the line, and laid it neatly upon the top of the box sitting between them. At a clap of her hands, Idia entered and bowed.

  Tallahassee was at last able to shed the wig, her head feeling curiously light without its stifling weight. But when she glanced at her shorn skull in the mirror, she was a little startled. Did she look really that bad without hair? She wished that the ladies of Amun had not held to that particular legacy from Egypt. Another curtained door gave upon a bath wherein she was glad to plunge, washing away the remaining grit of the desert, though she noted that the skin dye they had laid on her in the temple did not disappear in turn. When she had wrapped around her a loose, long square of soft cotton and gone back to the other room, she found Idia setting out a tray of dishes that contained a small roasted bird, some fruit which Tallahassee identified as slices of melon and small, reddish bananas, and bread which came in thin sheets spread with what could only be a conserve of dates.

  It was dark now and, with the coming of the darkness, there glowed two candle-shaped sticks of light, on which no flames danced. Instead, radiance was diffused from along their length. Idia left her alone, and Tallahassee had time to think as she ate. If she could accept this first premise of sidewise trips by an unorthodox theory of time travel, then all else did fall into place. But now the thoughts of taking on Ashake’s carefully preserved memories made her uneasy. It was true that to learn the language would be a vast help. And if she could play the part of princess better by being able to recognize the proper people and places, she would be safer than she was now. But it remained to be seen just how she took this crash course and how it would change her own mind.

  Dare she really risk any such meddling? She would demand from Jayta a complete summary of what such an action would entail when she saw the priestess again. Finishing the meal, Tallahassee moved slowly around the room, studying the fittings on the dressing table. Once she put out her hand to open one of the drawers and then refrained. She did not feel, for all her curiosity concerning the girl she was now supposed to be, that she had any right to pry in this way.

  There was a soft “puurtt” and under the edge of the outer door curtain padded first one and then the other of the kittens she had met in the garden. They seemed at home here, falling into a follow-the-leader game of leaping on the bed, prancing across it, then jumping from its end to the top of the dressing table where they landed with ease, threading in and out, with the air of long practice, among the bottles and jars there. At last they returned to the bed and curled up, one of them eyeing Tallahassee sleepily over the other’s rounded back as if asking why she did not join them.

  But she felt far from sleepy. The length of cloth she had found lying on a bench beside the bath was hardly attire to go venturing forth in. And she had no wish to assume again the wig which now sat on a stand before the mirror—the lifted cobra head of the diadem seeming to watch her knowingly with small, jeweled eyes. When Idia returned for the supper tray, she smiled at Tallahassee reassuringly and held out one hand to cup the candle lamp, though her flesh did not touch its radiant surface. As she drew her fingers downward along it, the light faded. Tallahassee understood the pantomimed instruction, smiled in return, and nodded.

  All at once she did begin to feel sleepy. It had been a long day—or maybe days. For the first time she wondered, as she slipped out of the cloth and into the bed, trying not to disturb the kittens, what had happened back in her own time and place. What excuse would they have for her being missing? Could they think she had taken both their mysterious find and the rod? Dr. Carey, for one, she believed would never credit what had happened. Perhaps it was better for her that she had come through and not been left to face him with the wild story she would have had to tell when the real Ashake did her disappearing act.

  One of the kittens shifted position and laid its head on her leg as if that were a pillow. This was real, here and now, she could never deny that any more. And so she drifted into sleep more quickly than she would have believed possible.

  Tallahassee awoke with a weight on her chest and opened her eyes a little dazedly to look upward into a kitten face. The small mouth shaped an impatient mew, and she saw that sunlight entered the room in broad shafts from under the door curtain. Only a moment later Makeda came in. It was plain she was disturbed for she began to gesture as soon as she saw that Tallahassee was watching her, making the motions of getting up as if there was some need for hurry.

  The kitten hissed as the girl put it gently to one side to slip out of bed. Makeda gestured again—this time to the door of the bath. Again Tallahassee found water drawn, this time with petals of flowers strewn upon its surface, and two open pots standing nearby, each giving off a strange, sweet scent. She bathed and dried herself on the towel Makeda produced and then, at the other’s direction, scooped up fingers of the creamy, scented lotion from the pot she liked best and rubbed it into her darkened skin. The odor once applied was not so strong, but fragrant enough to please.

  This time the robe Makeda held ready for her was not the austere white slip of a priestess, but rather resembled in style the caftan popular in her own world. The color was clear rose pink, the borders of the wide sleeves worked about six inches deep with gold thread, a girdle of gold links settling about her slim hips to mold the folds closer to her body.

  Makeda set to work deftly, applying the heavy eye make-up. But Tallahassee was glad to see that she did not reach again for the thick, smothering wig. Instead the other produced from one of the drawers of the dressing table a small, turban-like cap of gold net and with it a box from which she took a wide collar that extended nearly to shoulder point on either side and well down Tallahassee’s breast. This was fashioned of rows of small flowers, rose quartz, clear crystal, and enameled metal, the whole set in gold.

  Tallahassee studied the result of their combined labors for the perfect toilet of a princes
s as Makeda stood back, having clasped the necklace-collar. Barbaric? Not quite, she decided. More like a sophisticated playing at barbarianism, something akin to those fads that swept the time she knew, drawing on African, South American, Mayan designs, in part, for their source. The necklace was a heavy weight, and she shifted her shoulders, trying to adjust to its presence.

  “Ashake!”

  A man’s voice just outside the door curtain. Makeda’s hand had flown to her lips, her expression was one of consternation.

  “Ashake!” There was a rising impatience in that hail, and Tallahassee decided that who ever stood there was not in the mood to be put off. Who would have the familiarity to hail a Princess of the Blood in such a fashion? The cousin who had his eye on the throne? Drawing a quick breath, Tallahassee arose. There was no use in lingering here—sooner or later she was going to have to face whoever impatiently demanded her presence.

  She moved to the door. Makeda made a small gesture of defeat. Yet the girl, looking closely at the under-priestess as she passed, thought she did not detect any fear. Or would she be afraid if it was Userkof? Apparently she now agreed with Tallahassee that the stranger must be faced, for she went to sweep aside the door curtain.

  Tallahassee, seeing who stood there, froze, but was startled into voicing a name:

  “Jason!”

  But even as Tallahassee spoke that name she knew that this was not the Jason she had known all her life. He wore Jason’s features right enough, but he could not be Jason.

  “Ashake?” Now he made of her name not a request for her instant company, but rather a question as he stared at her, his expression of pleasure fading into one of puzzlement.

  It was hard to believe that the man was not Jason, though the garments he wore, which resembled those of the soldiers who had first invaded the temple (yet were of a different color, a rust-brown, and had embellishments of brilliant gold on the collar and a lion’s head on the chest), were certainly nothing pertaining to her Jason. Nor were the wide bands of gold about his wrists, the belt with a precious-metal-hilted dagger riding on one hip.