Nightmare Passage

by James Axler

  Slowly, the image of Ryan dissolved, the eye patch and scar melting away. The figure who took his place was still tall and dark haired and her lover, but his eyes glowed crimson.

  Krysty sat up with a start, unable to repress a cry of surprise. Though the water was still warm, she felt very cold. She stood, climbed out of the tub, toweled herself off and dried her hair.

  A soft knock came from the door, and Nefron entered with a garment folded over her arm. "I for­got to leave this before."

  She flicked her eyes up and down Krysty's naked form, and appreciation and envy glinted in them. "You are so beautiful already, Krysty, but we need to make you more presentable for Pharaoh."

  "How do you do that stuff on your eyes?" Krysty asked.

  Nefron pointed to a mirrored dressing table. "It's called kohl, that black pencil there. Shall I show you how?"

  Krysty nodded, ignoring the faraway voice shout­ing a dim warning in her head. She allowed Nefron to skillfully apply the cosmetics to her face, and within minutes she looked very different. With her eyelids outlined in black, her large green eyes seemed huge, with an innocent yet aristocratic ex­pression in them. Nefron painted her lips a deep red and used a blush to accentuate her high cheekbones.

  She allowed the girl to swab her with a perfume that smelled like the sweetest of garden flowers, then she put on the dress Nefron had brought. It was a high-waisted white gown that plunged at the neck almost to her navel. The right side was slit to above the thigh, but at least the material wasn't the semi-transparent gauze worn by Nefron. She put on brace­lets and rings, and Nefron slid a collar of beaten gold around her slender neck.

  "Pharaoh will be pleased," the girl said with something like sarcasm buried deep in her tone.

  Krysty shot Nefron a stricken look of guilt. "I wasn't thinking about dressing for him… I don't want—"

  Squeezing her eyes shut, Krysty rubbed her fore­head with her fingers. "What's wrong with me? Why should I dress up like a gaudy slut for a man who's keeping me a prisoner? This isn't me."

  Nefron put a hand on her shoulder, saying ear­nestly, "For the time being, it must be. Krysty, if you can make Pharaoh believe you are who he wants you to be, he will treat you and your friends kindly."

  She chuckled dryly. "Who does he want me to be?"

  "That you will learn. I cannot prepare you for it."

  Krysty shook her head, her scarlet tresses coiling. "This is a charade. It's like I forgot that or some­thing—"

  "We need time to make our plans for your es­cape. You can buy us that time."

  Taking a deep, calming breath, Krysty said, "This could get out of control. I know what's happening. I'm already responding to the bastard's psychic cues."

  "You must be strong, now that you are aware of them."

  "All right, Nefron. I just want to get this over with. I want Pharaoh to let us leave."

  Nefron nodded. "As do we all. Now, he is ready for you."

  Krysty balled her fists, her nails biting into her palms. "That's what I was afraid you were going to say."

  NEFRON LED KRYSTY into a very broad corridor. High up in the vaulted ceiling, skylights like the ones in the bedchamber let in colored sunlight. Two balus-traded galleries ran along each side of the corridor, one above the other.

  They turned into an open door, and Nefron an­nounced simply, "Pharaoh Akhnaton."

  Krysty hadn't been sure of what to expect, but the chamber into which she was escorted was almost Spartan in its furnishings. It certainly wasn't a throne room or royal living quarters. It was more like a study or a library. Shelves laden with books and bound volumes of magazines covered two walls. A worktable held the tools and materials of a sculp­tor—clay, stone, chisels and delicate picks.

  A huge predark map of the United States hung on the far wall. Krysty noted that large sections of it had been altered by red ink, no doubt to make it conform to the geophysical changes since the nuke-caust.

  The man seated at an ornately carved desk was a stranger, yet when he stood, she knew with a sick, sinking sensation in her stomach that she had seen him before. He looked to be in his midthirties, his black hair was short cropped and his shoulders almost impossibly broad. He wore only a brown, gilt-edged vest and a white linen kilt, which showed off his deeply tanned, muscled arms and legs. How­ever, it was the deep red hue of his big eyes that captured Krysty's attention.

  He stared at her silently for a long moment, then stepped toward her. It wasn't until he was next to her that she realized just how tall he was. At one inch shy of six feet, she was hardly petite, but he truly towered over her, not just in height but in breadth.

  In a low voice, he said, "I must have the name to which you presently answer."

  Disregarding the odd phrase he had used, she said, "Krysty."

  He bowed his head, as if ashamed. "Krysty, please forgive the manner in which we meet again, but the circumstances dictated it to be the only way."

  His voice seemed to echo and vibrate around her skull. Instead of feeling fear or anger, she felt flus­tered.

  "How should I address you?" she asked, tilting her head back, trying to meet his gaze.

  A smile creased his lips. "You may call me Akhnaton. There's no need for the two of us to stand on formalities. I feel I know you intimately."

  She felt her cheeks burning with a blush of em­barrassment or a flush of anger. She wasn't sure which. Rather than saying anything, she walked around him to a chair facing the desk and sat in it. Akhnaton chuckled and returned to his seat behind the desk.

  "What did you mean about meeting me again?" she demanded, deliberately trying to sound abrupt.

  Akhnaton drummed his fingers on the desktop. "Are you telling me you don't remember? Ah, well, that's unimportant. All that matters is you are here now, when the monument nears completion. Would you like something to drink?"

  "That would be very nice," Krysty said, more to have something to say than to quench her thirst.

  Akhnaton closed his eyes for the briefest of moments. When he opened them, Nefiron came through the door. "You wish something, Pharaoh?"

  "Dandelion wine. The batch from three summers ago."

  Nefron ducked her head. "By your command." Though her tone was subservient, anger glinted in the dark depths of her eyes.

  The woman quickly went to a cabinet across the room and removed a corked earthenware bottle and two goblets. She brought them to Akhnaton's desk, allowing the Pharaoh to remove the cork with a neg­ligent twist of thumb and forefinger. Nefron filled the goblets, handed one to Krysty, then lingered by her chair.

  "You may go," Akhnaton intoned.

  Nefron bowed her head again and left the room. She steadfastly avoided making eye contact with Krysty.

  Akhnaton sipped the wine and cast Krysty a ques­tioning look. She tasted it, found it sweet with just a hint of a bitter aftertaste, but more than palatable overall.

  Akhnaton placed the goblet on the desk, and his eyes gazed directly into hers. "Now that the wine has cleansed our palates of falsehoods, let us speak truthfully and plainly, shall we?"

  Krysty met that crimson stare and felt a distinct shock somewhere in the back of her mind. "Yes," she heard herself saying, "we shall."

  "I knew our individual roads of destiny would converge at this time."

  "Destiny?" She crooked an ironic eyebrow at him. "I'm not sure if I understand you."

  He gestured with both hands. "My monument could not be completed without your presence, but I continued to build it, knowing you would arrive before the capstone ceremony. And you have."

  "A strange coincidence, I can't deny that."

  "Coincidence?" Akhnaton spluttered with laugh­ter. "Krysty, I have searched for you for many years."

  "Why?"

  "Because you are my fated queen—now, as al­ways. We have always been together. When I, as Amenhotep, took the name of Akhnaton, I took you to wife."

  Krysty stared at him incredulously. "When was this?"
/>   "At the height of the glorious Eighteenth Dy­nasty… over three thousand years ago, give or take a decade or two. Your name was Nefertiti. You know that, don't you? You have the same psychic memory as I, stretching back over the long track and tide of time. You and I have been reborn many, many times, and always we have been together."

  Krysty wasn't frightened by the man's words, or by the obvious sincerity that charged them with emotion. She accepted, if not necessarily believed, the doctrine of reincarnation and was intrigued. But all she said was, "I belong to another."

  Akhnaton waved aside her statement as if he were brushing off a bothersome gnat. "As did I. Merely way stops on the road of fate, temporary patches on the wounds of loneliness. Always I knew my ka mate was coming. It was hard to be patient, but I was. I waited. And here you are, at last."

  Krysty inhaled deeply, noting how Akhnaton's eyes suddenly flickered toward her half-revealed bosom. "You said we would speak the truth to each other."

  He nodded. "So I did."

  "Then let us do so, without dragging souls, des­tiny and past lives into the mix. I was in the redoubt where you were born—or created. There was an­other like you, a female. She died. I found out about you, about O'Brien, about Harrier."

  Akhnaton's face remained an immobile bronze mask, impassive and unreadable.

  "Somehow, when my friends and I jumped into the redoubt, you got into our heads—Ryan, Doc and most of all, me. You were testing us from here, find­ing out who was the most psi-sensitive, and you locked in on me. Your abilities are like mine, op­erating on an empathic level rather than telepathic. You made me—" she searched for a tactful word, then chose the first one that popped into her mind "—perform for you. Later, when we tried to leave, you kept the mat-trans chamber from working. Psy­chokinesis?"

  "Yes. After many years of practice, I possess a small degree of it."

  Krysty didn't delve further. She supposed that since distance meant nothing to psi-powers, as long as Akhnaton retained a clear picture of the redoubt, he could mentally reach out and interact with it. "Have I spoken the truth?"

  "You have. Your perception of it, at least."

  "Then speak of your perception. Why have you done all of this?"

  "I believe I explained that."

  Krysty smiled coldly. "You explained nothing. I possess a limited precognitive gift, but for you to have known well in advance that one day I would appear in your redoubt is too thin for me to consider the truth."

  Akhnaton let a sigh of weariness escape his lips. Slowly, he rose from the desk and paced over to his worktable. A closed cabinet hung on the wall above it. He opened the door panel, saying softly, rever­ently, "Look at this, Krysty. Look."

  Inside the cabinet rested a life-size painted bust of a woman. Her face was smoothly contoured, the cheekbones high, the nose straight and finely chis­eled, the chin round and firm. The mouth was straight with a full lower lip. The slender column of the throat was long and graceful. Above a high, smooth forehead rested a cylindrical, flat-topped headpiece, concealing all the hair. But beneath curved brows, the wide, slightly tilted eyes were a brilliant green.

  Krysty felt as if she were looking into a mirror rather than inspecting a piece of statuary. Her heart­beat sped up, and her red tresses slid and curled.

  Akhnaton fingered the chin of the bust lovingly. "This is an exact copy of a bust found in a work­shop in Akhnaton's royal palace. The original was over three thousand years old. Historians agreed that it is probably the only true likeness of Akhnaton's queen, Nefertiti."

  Krysty's tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of her mouth. She drained the last of the dandelion wine as Akhnaton closed the cabinet door and re­garded her quietly.

  She shook her head. "What do you expect me to say?"

  "That you will at least contemplate the possibility that your spirit, your ka and mine were meant to meet again, that we are fated to rule as god and goddess over this blighted planet."

  "I can't contemplate anything," she replied sharply. "Not when I'm so concerned about my friends."

  "They mean much to you?"

  "Yes. Especially Ryan."

  "The one-eyed man."

  "Yes."

  A hint of a grim smile touched Akhnaton's lips. "He is a true warrior, that one. The ka of the leopard lives within him. However, Aten has no need of leopards or warriors. There may be no place for him or your friends."

  She fixed an unblinking, emerald gaze on his face. Flatly, determinedly, she stated, "If there is no place for them, there is no place for me."

  Akhnaton returned her gaze for a long, specula­tive moment, then returned to his chair behind the desk. "My high counselor, Mimses, took responsi­bility for containing your people. I will speak to him, though he is very angry over the losses you caused him."

  "Losses?"

  "The Incarnates."

  Thinking of the sheep-headed man she had back shot in Fort Fubar, Krysty elected to say nothing.

  As he had a few minutes before, Akhnaton closed his eyes, and a moment later Nefron came into the study. He said to her, "Fetch Mimses. Bring him here immediately."

  The girl ducked her head and left the room.

  "Was that telepathy just now?" Krysty asked.

  Akhnaton looked at her uncomprehendingly for a moment. "You mean with Nefron?"

  "Yes. You closed your eyes and she—"

  "There are certain minds I can touch, minds with which I can establish psychic links. Not very many, because the other mind must possess a certain de­gree of psionic abilities, as well. Nefron is one. You, obviously, are another."

  Krysty didn't like the direction of the conversa­tion, but to abruptly change the very subject she had raised would arouse the man's suspicious. She kept wondering, too, why neither Nefron nor Akhnaton had mentioned their familial connection.

  Choosing her words carefully, she said, "And you can't influence psi-null minds unless they're unwary or unguarded."

  "Or asleep," he replied pointedly. And he smiled a very genuine, almost boyish smile.

  An overweight black man entered the chamber, head at a deferential posture. A blue robelike cloak draped his body. "You wished to see me, Pha­raoh?"

  He gave Krysty a quick appraising glance. She found his deeply creased face and small, flesh-bagged eyes repulsive.

  Akhnaton asked him several questions about Krysty's friends.

  Reluctantly, he answered, "I interviewed a woman named Mildred. She lied to me about herself and the others."

  "She was afraid," Krysty interjected.

  Mimses ignored her. "I intend to question the others."

  "No need," Akhnaton said. "Where is this Mil­dred now?"

  "In the hall of women, in isolation."

  "Release her and the rest of the newcomers. Send Iwat to begin their education."

  Mimses scowled and extended a pair of fingers. "Lord Pharaoh, two matters must be addressed. First, one of their group is still at large. An Incarnate was found in Baltic Alley. He had been stabbed to death."

  "Continue the search for him. My order to take him alive still stands."

  "The second matter is of murder and reparation. Eight of my Incarnates have been slaughtered. Six are missing, and I presume them dead."

  "There will be reparation," Akhnaton said firmly. He gestured toward the door.

  Mimses bowed, gave Krysty a grudging nod and stalked out of the study.

  "What did you mean by education?" Krysty asked.

  "If your friends are to remain among us, they must learn our customs, our beliefs, our ways."

  "I don't suppose," Krysty ventured, "that simply letting us return to the redoubt and jump out of here is an option."

  "No. It is not. The people who come among us learn to live by our ways or they don't live at all."

  "When may I see my friends, then?" she asked.

  "Soon," he replied promptly.

  Akhnaton stood and walked toward her, extending a hand. After a hesitant
moment, she took it and allowed him to gently pull her to her feet.

  "You must absorb what you have learned," he said kindly. "Nefron will take you back to your quarters. We will speak again tomorrow."

  Then, swiftly, unexpectedly, he pulled her against him. He bent his head and whispered into her ear, "He came to her straight away. He was ardent for her. He gave his heart unto her, let her see him in the form of a god after he came before her."

  His voice rolled and vibrated through her head, like the echoes of a gong. As swiftly as he had em­braced her, he released her, guiding her out into the corridor. Nefron stood there, her mouth set in a tight, grim line.

  A dew of sweat had gathered at Krysty's temples, and she realized she was moist elsewhere. Looking down at herself, she was shamed and a little shocked to see her nipples, hard and hot, poking against the thin fabric covering her breasts.

  "Let us go," Nefron said stiffly.

  Krysty tried to engage her in conversation on the walk back to her chambers, but she refused to speak until they were behind closed doors. Krysty said faintly, "He's not what I expected."

  "Krysty, be on your guard. His power is working on you too quickly. If you are seduced before—"

  Whirling on her angrily, Krysty said between clenched teeth, "I've done what you told me to do. Nobody—not Pharaoh, baron or god—will seduce me. You wanted me to buy you some time by play­ing nice. Did I or didn't I?"

  Nefron's face twisted momentarily in anger, then she shook her head, exhaling sharply. "I apologize. I spoke out of turn. But you must always keep in mind the power he can bring to bear. It's not a simple matter of Pharaoh wanting to have his way…he always has his way."

  She forced a bitter smile to her lips and patted Krysty's arm. "Just remember to guard your thoughts…and your dreams."

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ryan, Doc and J.B. had spent a relatively miserable night in their cells. Relatively, because they could easily recall worse nights spent in far worse places. Still, they were a long way from being comfortable.