Wraiths of Time

by Andre Norton

  There was something—a sudden small spark of Ashake memory stirred at the sight of it. But it faded quickly when Tallahassee tried to define it more clearly. She was left with the feeling that with the Rod and the Key together something could be done for her own defense and perhaps return attack against those responsible for bringing her here.

  The cage did not have any visible door, and when she tentatively reached out her hand toward the mesh there was a warning reflex that made her wary of touching it. She would not sacrifice her single garment, but the cloth about her head might be used.

  Carefully Tallahassee twisted it into a hard knot and then gingerly touched one end—holding it as far from her fingers as she could—to the screen wall. There came an instant flare as Tallahassee froze. What if her hand or arm had come in contact with that? Now she sat cross-legged in the middle of her cage and tried to see ahead—though the future was more than unpredictable.

  Her thoughts were unpleasant and led nowhere, but it was some time before she began to realize that she was not alone in this room. Though she arose to her feet and turned slowly around, giving a long and searching survey to every portion of the long room, there was no one else. And the room itself was very open, with no screened corners or places she could not view.

  But—she was not alone!

  Some spy device? Tallahassee could well believe that such might be turned on her. Only she could not sense such a thing! That would be impossible. Therefore the identity was of another kind. Identity—yes, this was the same sensation she had had in her own—or Ashake’s home—that there was a definite personality, unseen, perhaps unhearable (if it was trying to communicate), yet none the less present.

  Slowly Tallahassee settled back on the floor of the cage. She was attempting something now that was very new to her. How does one locate a thing that is invisible (for this time there was not the least hint of the shadows she thought she had previously seen on such occasions) but which is here?

  She set about methodically quartering the room, studying each part with a painful intensity, trying to “listen,” if one might term it that, with her mind. Not there, nor there—nor there … Bit-by-bit she became somehow convinced that each judgment, ruling out a portion of the chamber, was correct.

  In the end—she knew!

  It hung close to the other cage, the cage where lay the Rod and the Key.

  Who? Idieze had spoken of using her as a hostage, a term that presupposed there were those left who might bargain for her life. Naldamak, perhaps, on her return? The Followers of the Upper Way, locked now within their city temple? Or Jayta and Herihor? But had there not been that clean sweep of death at the villa which she had made herself halfway accept? She remembered that Khasti had pushed aside the suggestion of hostages as of little account. And this was Khasti’s own stronghold—Tallahassee had no doubt of that at all.

  They had sought always, those of the Upper Way, for things that might be termed of the spirit—for control over their own minds, the sharpening and lessoning of their own talents. Khasti was plainly one who was achieving, outside himself, something of their same ends. That he had succeeded in part was why she was here. Hypnotism, that must be the answer to that swinging disk that had compelled her to his will. Also there was the chemical which rendered one so speedily unconscious, as well the initial stealing and hiding of the Rod and the Key in another plane of consciousness, the one that was her own. What other weapons and tools had he devised?

  It was still there, that thing. Now and again she tested her strange sense of awareness and always found the same answer. Was it the identity of the messenger who had wrought Khasti’s will in transporting the Key and the Rod and then been “locked out” by Jayta’s quick action in the desert? Could she communicate with it or him? Would she dare to try? Now that Khasti had the two symbols of power in his hold he might well free his messenger—or could he?

  Tallahassee’s hands balled into fists. There was so much she wanted to—had to—know. And all she could reach were guesses.

  There came a sharp sound at the far end of the room. Here there were no hanging curtains such as she had seen at the villa, but rather a door of the kind she had known most of her life. Khasti, his long grey robe exchanged for a sleeveless, knee-long smock of white, came purposefully down the aisle between the two lengthy tables of equipment to face her.

  He must have noted at once the burned edge of the cloth knot which she had thrown down beside her, for now he smiled.

  “You have already realized the folly of any thought of escape, you were quick,” he commented. “How did you guess that there might lie some such danger in the walls about you?”

  “I knew,” she returned with all the calm she could command. “Just as,” something made her add, “I know that we are not alone here now.”

  He looked around quickly, even a little startled, which displayed a small sense of unease in him that Tallahassee had not believed he would show. She marked it in her mind as a chink in his facade of complete authority.

  Now he laughed. “Spirits of the air, Great Lady? Or the shadow of Apedemek Himself waxing strong to give freedom to His Chosen?”

  “What is here, barbarian”—deliberately she gave to that word all the opprobrium it held among the nobility—“is not of Apedemek, nor of the Way, but of your dealing. It hangs now above the Things of Power.” She pointed to the caged Rod and Key as if she could indeed see some shadow there. “It was sent by you, so it returns to you.”

  He had turned his head to look in the direction she had pointed. Once more he laughed.

  “Do you seek to enweb me with your ancient follies? I know better than to believe such.”

  Tallahassee shrugged. “Believe or not, Khasti—but Akini is here.” From whence had come that name into her mind? She could not have told, she had only said it aloud as if it had been that moment whispered into her ear—or called to her despairingly from a long, long distance.

  His eyes swung back to her. “You know much, Great Lady. But it will do you no good to use the name of a dead man to make me believe in your ‘Power.’ Such a name could well be known already to those who have served your cause. I say that that cause is dead, just as you are dead when and if I will it so. Do you believe me? Yes, in the innermost part of you, you do. Good, now we understand each other. And I have yet to meet the man or woman who will not bargain for life itself.

  “If you will give me your knowledge—such as how you blasted that weak fool Userkof without laying finger on him—of the energy that abides in this”—he waved to the caged Rod—“then we can deal together. Did you think that I would make any lasting compact with Userkof and that she-leopard who moves him about at her whim? They have been of use. Now they are no longer. One can wipe them away as dust from the hands.”

  “You want the Old Knowledge, yet you say it is no longer of any worth,” Tallahassee returned. “It seems with your own speech you contradict yourself.”

  “Do I? Not so, Great Lady. That there is a portion of the unexplained, and perhaps the usable, in your knowledge, that I am willing to concede. Amun has endured a long time, and before that was Meroë, and earlier still Egypt. What you possess now must be only the near-worn-out crumbs of what was once a vast alien science. And there are other ways of achieving a return to that day—shorter and straighter ways. Let me learn the secret of such power as these can generate”—again he pointed to the smaller cage—“and there is nothing I cannot aspire to! Would you rise to set foot upon the very moon above us, Great Lady? Who knows that that might not be done!”

  Though enthusiasm colored his voice, she sensed his falseness. This was how he wooed those dissatisfied with the past to join in his dream of the future. Did he think that one with the Talent could not read him for what he was—one who would rule, draw power into his hands, until he believed himself Lord of Life and Death?

  The girl did not answer, only locked stares with him. One small part of her senses told her that whatever had bro
oded above the caged talismen now had drawn closer to him.

  “Does Akini whisper in your ear, Khasti? He stands close enough now to lay hand upon your shoulder.”

  “So—you loose your witchcraft? Well, do not believe that it will do aught for you here. I have had secrets out of brains in plenty, Great Lady. Do not think that I will suffer yours to escape me. See—I shall give you but a small taste of what can be done.”

  He strode to the click box, pushed with his forefinger upon a certain place. Tallahassee jerked. It was as if a band had settled about her head, was closing, squeezing inward. Fear brought a sour taste to her mouth.

  Then Ashake memory came without her tapping it. This is what he wishes, do thus and thus. All life is a state of mind, use your mind as a tool.…

  It was as if she were able to retreat into herself, passing swiftly over some well-known path into a place of safety where no pain or fear could reach, a castle where the core of her identity could hold the walls against all assault.

  She had believed that she could not find in Ashake memory those portions that dealt with the Power—yet this was such a one. Perhaps it was fear of that which had turned the proper key to let her in.

  Thus—and thus—and thus!

  She saw shadows, the very cage that held her became a wispy thing, like a cobweb, to be struck lazily away if such was her will. And Khasti—he was not a man, but rather a beam of light, pulsing a lurid red-purple, the color of arrogance and self-belief which no man should hold within himself. For all knowledge comes from the Fountain of Life, and such as Khasti deliberately deny that Fount and say it is naught.

  There was a snap, a sharp return to the focus of normality. Khasti was himself again, standing by the machine, studying her with the frown line very deep carven between his eyes. Now he smiled, slowly, as had Idieze in her time, with the same tasting of a sweet that he would prolong to the utmost.

  “So you are a little more perhaps than I had thought,” he said. “Yet, in the end, we shall come to terms, my terms. And, because of your stubbornness, those terms will grow harsher the longer you withstand me.”

  He strode away, as if he had set her completely out of mind. Tallahassee drew a long breath and then another. But her attention was all for Khasti’s back. Not because she feared his return or another attack, but because behind him, though he walked under the direct lighting of this place, which could support no shadow and did not, there trailed a tenuous something that she now could see. That which had kept watch above the Rod had now materialized farther, to cling to Khasti almost like a tattered cloak.

  He paused at the far end of the room to bend over a table. Tallahassee thought she could see a sheet of paper laid there on which he was concentrating his gaze. The wraith hung about, seeming to nudge first one of the man’s unyielding shoulders and then the other, striving to draw attention to itself, or so the girl believed. Yet Khasti displayed no sign that he knew of its presence. And the girl thought that that was the truth.

  She waited for it to come drifting back to the cage of the Rod, as Khasti set aside the sheet of paper and now busied himself with the apparatus on the table. Instead it seemed to slip back into the air and was lost, nor could she sense its presence any longer. But she knew its name—Akini. And, knowing that, by the very ancient lore, she had a small bit of control over it, or would, if she remembered the proper ritual.

  Now she was left to consider what had happened to her during that period of time when Khasti had striven to bring her to heel with his machine. He had failed in whatever purpose he had worked to gain. But she was still a prisoner, and so were the Rod and Key. Tallahassee did not expect any help from the outside to come thundering in to her rescue, even though she continued to doubt that Khasti had things as well under his control as he would have her believe.

  There was one point he had openly made—that he was no longer, if he ever was, working to set up Userkof as Emperor. Tallahassee was not certain of the temper of the people. Would they accept a commander, a ruler not of the Blood? They appeared to have accepted the closure of the Temple, which was against all right and law and which once would have brought out a mob, squalling and fighting to get at the blasphemer who had ordered such a move.

  He had offered to bargain with her, but more rightly he would in the end go straight to the source and bargain with Naldamak, the Empress. The woman who wore the triple crown was not now the same girl Ashake had called sister in the long ago. By deliberation, and through sorrow and loss, the woman in her had sunk so deep into the ruler that now she was forever remote and gave the impression of one who thought first of abstractions, and only last of human emotion, liking, hating, fearing.

  Against such could Khasti use that strange weapon of hypnotism (for that surely was what the whirling disk was) and so make Naldamak his dupe? Then outwardly their world would continue the same, while inwardly he wrought a different life, overtaking the old.

  Naldamak had been too set apart—Ashake memories had only the outward appearance, some guesses, to offer. This could indeed happen and very logically. Then why had Khasti suggested a bargain, attempted to force it on her—the Heir?

  Because she was who she was. Naldamak had taken solemn oath she would not marry again, nor could she under the law now when her sterility had been judged complete. But with her Heir …

  Tallahassee nodded. Even situated as she now was, she could find a wry smile for Idieze’s fallen hopes. The wife of Userkof, instead of furthering her own cause, had played neatly into Khasti’s hands by bringing the Heir within his reach. She wondered if Idieze realized that; certainly she was not stupid enough to believe that she could command her one-time ally any more.

  Khasti poured greenish liquid from one beaker into another and brought it closer, to add the contents, drop by careful drop, to a bowl upon the table only a little beyond the cage of the Rod. There was a nasty smell, so irritating that Tallahassee coughed in spite of her efforts to remain quiet.

  Having finished his task the man raised his head to look at her, as he picked up the bowl in one hand.

  “Perhaps a chance”—he held the bowl up so she could not miss seeing it—“to forestall the imminent death of our dear Prince. A rather slim chance, I believe. But since I am called upon for miracles, so will I do my best. The Princess Idieze …” He shook his head mockingly. “Alas, Great Lady, since she cannot call for your blood openly, I think she will try most energetically to obtain it in other and more hidden ways. Not because she loves her dear Lord, but because a crown she thought very firm, if invisible, upon her brow has been dashed away.

  “Well, it is a hope. As for you, Great Lady, occupy yourself with thoughts also—namely how long can even one who is Temple-trained lie pent without food or water. Food—maybe the longer. They say that those having the Talent are nourished rather than exhausted by fasting. But water is another thing.”

  And as if his words had been a key to open the door for the demands of her body, Tallahassee’s tongue moved within a mouth that seemed suddenly parched. The mental image of water brought a terrible thirst to rack her.

  The thirst induced by that suggestion from Khasti become a torment. Tallahassee rested her head upon her arms folded over her knees as she hunched in the cage. He had reached her once with the whirling disk that had put her under his command; had he done it more subtly again by words alone? She fought to control her thoughts—to shut away mind pictures of running water, of cups full and waiting for her to pick them up.

  Did Khasti believe he could set her at the screen in a frenzy of thirst and so be rid of her? Drip—drip—A sound hammered at her control. Slowly she raised her head, peered at the laboratory beyond. There was a sink fashioned of heavy stone, fed by a pipe. And from that the liquid was falling drop by drop, though she had not noticed nor heard that before. Was this but a refinement of torture arranged by Khasti?

  She closed her eyes again, tried to shut her ears to that sound, monotonous, somehow deadly to her control
. That Khasti had meant exactly what he said, she had no doubt. He would use her body to get at her mind …

  Panic lashed at her. She covered her mouth swiftly with both hands lest she scream out in fear. That was his weapon—fear. But her defense was the anger she nurtured in herself as a wall against her own despair.

  Drip—drip—

  She shook her head wildly, as if by that gesture she could shut out the sound. But that was not the way to fight. Her best weapon lay in one place, of that she was sure, Ashake’s memory. As she had done earlier she began to test, to draw on that knowledge, becoming more and more aware of the tatters in it—the blanks which, if filled, might have served her.

  Ashake had gone through the long ordeals of the Temple, had learned there control of the natural processes of her own body that were only rumored as possible in Tallahassee’s own world. Therefore somewhere there must lie an answer to this.…

  The palms of her hands were wet with sweat as if the cage once more was heating around her, yet the mesh wires remained dull and fireless. She forced herself to breathe slowly, evenly. Thus—thus …

  Again, it was as if she had broken through a wall, tapped a new reserve of strength she had not known existed. But—hold—do not be too quickly sure. As if she crept along some very slippery path with extinction waiting on either side, Tallahassee explored, to hold, finally to use, that bit of memory. The sensation of thirst receded. It was still there, yes, but it no longer made an unthinking creature of her.

  She opened her eyes, tested her control by watching the drip of the pipe. For now—yes—she could hold!

  But, the door beyond that pipe was opening slowly, as if by stealth. A moment later a figure slipped through, shut that portal quickly. Idieze hurried down the aisle between the tables, came to front the cage.