by Mike Resnick
“That’s why we let him talk so much,” said Gaafar with a chuckle. “He may bore us to tears, but every now and then he does say something that saves our lives.”
“He didn’t save our lives,” Hassam corrected him. “She did—for the third time. You had better hope we live to be as old as the Hebrews’ Methuselah, for it will take that long to pay off our debt to her.”
“You’re exaggerating,” said Lara with a smile. “I’m sure it won’t take more than a century or two.”
PART II
SUDAN
13
They sailed south for four days, and finally came to the end of Lake Nasser, which simply became the mighty Nile once again. There was no sign of the Amenhotep. Lara was sure it could catch them easily if it was traveling under full steam, which led her to conclude that the captain was stopping frequently to pick up contraband materials and get rid of contraband passengers.
She found herself thinking more and more of Kevin Mason. His father’s towering reputation had impressed her for years, but she’d never considered that he might be related to a handsome man who was good with his fists and made as much of a habit of saving her life as she seemed to be making of saving Omar and his companions.
Then, too, it would have been nice to have someone to talk to about the Amulet. Kevin wasn’t his father, but he clearly knew his stuff when it came to the Amulet of Mareish. Not that Omar wasn’t happy to discuss it, but he was no archaeologist. All he knew was that it was the source of the Mahdi’s power (or so he believed), and he could recite some of the legends concerning it. His only concern was making certain that it didn’t fall into the hands of any potential Mahdis.
She was pretty sure it had to be within, if not the official city limits of Khartoum, then at least that area around (and including) Khartoum that Gordon had turned into an island when he joined the Blue and White Niles. After all, it was the only piece of turf he controlled; there was simply no way he could have gone out into the desert to hide it without getting killed in the process.
She was still mulling the problem when Omar gently prodded her shoulder.
“What is it?” she asked.
“We are about to enter the Sudan.”
“Oh, hell!” she said suddenly.
“What is it?”
“I don’t have an exit stamp from Egypt on my passport,” she said. “Not to mention the fact that I don’t exactly resemble my passport photo at the moment.”
“Don’t worry,” said Omar. He waved at a uniformed soldier, who waved back.
“One of yours?” asked Lara.
“My cousin,” said Omar as the boat floated across the border.
“But what if we had gone by camel after all? How would we have passed through customs then?” asked Lara.
“One of my uncles,” said Omar. “I have placed men at every station.”
“But surely the Mahdists have done the same,” said Lara.
“They tried,” replied Omar with a smile that left no doubt as to the fate of those Mahdists. “As for your passport,” he continued, “do not worry; as soon as we reach Khartoum, I will get all the proper stamps for it.”
“It is a good thing you have a large family,” said Lara.
Omar laughed aloud, then stared intently at her.
“What is it?” asked Lara.
“I am still not satisfied with your disguise. I was wondering how you would look in a beard.”
“We’re going to let that remain one of life’s little mysteries,” she answered firmly. “Not only won’t I wear a false beard, but once we’re in Khartoum, I don’t plan to wear these robes any longer.”
“Women are not so independent in our country,” commented Hassam.
“Fine!” she shot back. “Get a Sudanese woman to find your Amulet.”
“Please!” said Omar. “We are allies. Let us not fight among ourselves. The enemy is out there.”
“I apologize,” said Hassam.
“Humbly,” insisted Omar.
“Humbly,” repeated Hassam.
“So do I,” said Lara. “Blame it on all the raw fish we’ve been eating.”
“You’ve had your last meal of raw fish,” announced Omar.
“Oh?”
He nodded. “We are back in our own country. We have friends here. We will go a few more miles, until we are sure no one is following us on the water or the shore, and then we will stop at a small village that will supply us with food and—”
“Let me guess,” Lara interrupted him. “More camels.”
“We can’t drive to Khartoum,” explained Omar. “There is only one road. It will be under observation, with possible ambushes awaiting us.”
“Where is this village?”
“A few miles beyond Wadi Halfa.”
“Wadi Halfa isn’t much more than a village itself,” noted Lara.
Omar seemed amused by that. “It is the largest municipality for more than two hundred miles in any direction.”
“Nevertheless,” said Lara.
Omar sighed. “True. But it is my country, and I am proud of it.”
“There’s no reason not to be proud. The world has many huge cities that I find incredibly distasteful. Size is not the measure of a man or a city.”
“That is something I tell myself every day,” replied the undersize Omar.
“How many people live there?”
“Five extended families,” said Omar. “Perhaps one hundred and thirty people in all.”
“One hundred and thirty,” she repeated. “Is it on any maps?”
“I doubt it.”
“Has it got a name?”
“Yes, but it is better if you remain ignorant of it.”
“Why?”
He looked uncomfortable. “I have family there. Anyone who helps us is, by definition, an enemy of the Mahdists. If you are captured and tortured, and reveal the name of the village, you will condemn them to a terrible fate.”
“I wouldn’t talk,” replied Lara. “But I don’t expect you to take my word for it. Not with the lives of your family at risk.”
Omar looked relieved. “I am glad you feel that way.”
They reached Wadi Halfa in four hours. Lara bent over and hid her face from view as they wended their way through dozens of fishing boats, and didn’t straighten up until Omar told her that they had run the gauntlet and there were no other crafts within sight.
They went two more miles, and then, for the first time in five days, they took the felluca ashore. Each man removed his rifle and his personal possessions, along with the saddles and other equipment the camels had carried. Lara stood aside and waited for them.
“Where’s the village?” she asked when they were done. “All I see is sand.”
“South.”
“How far of a walk?”
Omar looked at her uncomfortably.
“I know that expression by now,” she sighed. “Out with it, Omar.”
“I spoke earlier about the danger to my family if you knew the name of the village and revealed it. The same is true if you know the location. Lara Croft, I will not try to force you—indeed, I doubt even the three of us could force you to do anything you did not wish to do—but I ask, with the greatest respect, that you allow yourself to be blindfolded and led into the village.”
“If anyone else asked me such a thing, I would laugh in his face,” said Lara after a moment. “Or spit in it. But you have earned my trust and respect, Omar. All of you have. When you first approached me aboard the Amenhotep, I didn’t fully believe you were telling me the truth. Now that I know you, I am almost ashamed of my doubts. You may blindfold me. I trust you.”
Hassam stepped forward with a strip of rag torn into a blindfold, but Omar raised a hand to stop him.
“Lara Croft,” said Omar, his eyes glistening, “it is I who am ashamed. You will not enter my village blindfolded. You will enter as Lara Croft, a trusted and honored guest.”
“But Omar,” Hassam began.
; “She has saved our lives three times already,” said Omar. “They belong to her. I say no blindfold.”
“No blindfold,” Hassam agreed with a nod, letting the blindfold drop to the sand as if it were unclean.
They began walking south. There was too much equipment to carry, so they left the saddles and other heavy items behind; Omar said that men from the village would fetch it all later. After about a mile, Lara glimpsed the village in the distance. It was composed of mud and brick houses, shaded by doum palms, and surrounded by narrow cultivated fields. A half-dozen domestic cattle and eight small goats grazed on some brush near them, while some twenty camels stood in a fenced enclosure at the far end of the village.
“Even in my village,” said Omar, “we must remain on guard.”
“Then perhaps I should stay disguised,” Lara suggested.
“Your disguise will fool no one who gets within five feet of you,” said Omar. “No, we will introduce you as yourself. But we must tread carefully. My people are conservative and set in their ways.”
“I don’t want to make anyone here uncomfortable,” said Lara. “I’ll follow your lead, Omar.”
A few people came out of their homes and stared at the approaching party. Then more and more appeared, and finally, when they recognized Omar, a number of them began waving, and one small girl raced up and threw her arms around the small man.
Omar exchanged greetings with the village folk and began speaking to them so rapidly that Lara, whose knowledge of local Sudanese dialects was far more limited than her Arabic and more than a bit rusty, couldn’t follow the gist of the conversation. At one point, hearing her name mentioned and seeing the eyes of the villagers dart toward her in curiosity, she nodded deeply but said nothing. Finally, Omar turned to her.
“We will spend the night here, and leave on camels in the morning,” he announced. He pointed to a small hut. “You will sleep there. We will dine at sunset.” Suddenly he smiled. “I told them we would prefer not to have fish, cooked or otherwise.”
Lara thanked her hosts in Arabic, which was spoken throughout the Sudan, then walked over to her hut, entered it, gratefully got out of her robes, and lay down. She awoke two hours later when the smell of cooking meat came to her nostrils, and she realized that she was even hungrier than she had thought. She searched the hut for a mirror, curious to see what traces of her injuries still remained, but her search yielded nothing.
There was a knock at the door.
“Are you ready for dinner?” called Omar from outside.
“One minute,” she said.
While she was sleeping, her dirty robes had been taken away and replaced with clean ones. Though she hated the idea of wearing the confining garments again, which did a good job of concealing her weapons while making it difficult for her to reach them quickly, she dressed in the robes that had been provided. A bowl of water and a bar of soap and some towels had been provided, and she washed her face quickly and ran her fingers through her hair, the closest thing to a comb she had.
“They have prepared a goat in your honor,” said Omar as she emerged from the hut. “We told them how you saved our lives.”
“It will taste better than the finest filet at the Savoy,” she replied earnestly.
The meal was served outside, now that the sun was down, and the entire village sat around a huge fire where the goat roasted on a spit. Before long the children had their fill and went off to play, and the women retired to their houses, leaving Lara as the only female present.
“It is time that we spoke of important things,” said the headman of the village, in a tone markedly different from the pleasant heartiness of his previous speech welcoming Lara and thanking her for saving the lives of Omar, Hassam, and Gaafar.
“I am happy to speak to you, Abdul, my cousin,” said Omar. His tone suggested that he was not happy at all. “Of what shall we speak?”
“The Amulet of Mareish, of course,” said Abdul. “Do not deny that you have enlisted Lara Croft to help you find it.”
“Why should I deny it?” asked Omar. “Lara Croft’s reputation is known to all. She is famous throughout the world for finding objects lost to history. Why should we not take advantage of her expertise if she offers to help us?”
“I tell you now,” said Abdul, glowering. “The Amulet must never be found—not by Lara Croft, not by anyone!”
Lara was having trouble not speaking up on her own behalf, but Omar shot her a glance that was half-warning, half-plea, and she bit her tongue with difficulty.
“I do not understand, Abdul,” said Omar. “If Lara Croft should find the Amulet and turn it over to me to destroy, why would that displease you?”
“She will not turn it over to you! The Amulet has a life of its own, and it does not want to die! She will think she is using it, but it will use her and you! The Mahdi was an ignorant peasant, and a year after he found the Amulet he could read and write and influence millions of men. Do you think he suddenly went to the British university? It was not the Mahdi speaking and reading and writing—it was the Amulet! Lara Croft must not be allowed to find it. No one must find it. You are my cousin, Omar, but if I thought there was a chance that you could find the Amulet, I would kill you right this moment.”
“Now I must speak,” said Lara. She stood, ignoring the outraged looks and murmurs from the men of the village. “I have heard that among the people of the Sudan, there is no more sacred obligation than that of the host toward his guests. Yet I hear my host threaten the lives of his guests . . . among them, his own cousin, whom I know to be a brave and honorable man.”
A flush spread across Abdul’s cheeks as he listened. “You have heard correctly, Lara Croft,” he acknowledged at last. “The obligation of hospitality is indeed most sacred, but you do not understand the power of the Amulet. You do not know, as we do, the temptation it can wield, how it can seduce even the purest heart to evil. For this reason, we have pledged to sacrifice our lives, if necessary, to make sure the Amulet stays lost.”
“Nothing stays lost forever,” said Lara. “Believe me, I know: It’s my business. Rather than hope that no one will find the Amulet, why not find it yourselves and destroy it?”
“No one finds the Amulet unless it wishes to be found,” said Abdul. “That is why the Mahdists have not found it, though they have searched for over a hundred years. But not one of them has been judged worthy to follow in the footsteps of the Mahdi. If one of us found the Amulet, it would mean that the Amulet had chosen that person as the new Mahdi, and that person, whatever his intentions, would be unable to destroy the Amulet. From the moment he touched it, it would be too late. That is why it is dangerous even to look for the Amulet.”
“You are forgetting the spell,” said Omar. “It gives us the power to destroy the Amulet before we can be corrupted.”
Derisive murmurs erupted from the villagers at this statement. “You speak heresy, my cousin,” said Abdul in a cold voice. “Everyone knows that the spell of which you speak is a lie, a fairy tale. Only fools and children believe in it. Until now, I had not realized that you were a child, Omar. Or do you fall into the other category?”
Lara’s hands moved beneath her robes, drawing her Black Demons. But Omar simply smiled. “It is late, Abdul. Let us not say things that cannot be unsaid.”
Abdul, who had been watching Lara’s movements closely, smiled and spread his hands as if to calm his fellow villagers. “You are right, Omar. Let us not dishonor our shared blood or our shared cause. It is the Mahdists who are our true enemies.”
“You speak wisely, my cousin.”
“Go now and rest,” Abdul said. “You have traveled far and endured much. Tomorrow, we will speed you on your way.”
“It shall be as you say, Abdul,” said Omar with a respectful nod.
An hour later, Lara came instantly awake as someone entered her hut. She reached for her Black Demons, sure that the Mahdists had found her again, when a familiar voice whispered from out of the shadows:
“Lara Croft! Are you awake?”
“What is it, Omar?” she asked, lowering her weapons.
“My cousin,” Omar replied. “He means to betray us. We must leave this place at once!”
Lara stood and strapped on her holsters. “I know you and Abdul disagree about the Amulet,” she said, “but I can’t believe he’d sell us out to the Mahdists!”
“Not to the Mahdists,” Omar said.
“Then who?”
“I am ashamed to say, but it is to our own people.”
“I don’t understand . . .”
“My people have been fighting the Mahdists for over a century. In that time, a fanatical group of elite assassins has emerged. Men who believe not only that the Amulet must never be found, but that it should never even be looked for. And that those who dare to search for the Amulet must be hunted down and killed.”
“And Abdul is one of them?”
“No. The members of this cult are identifiable by a single shared characteristic, which Abdul lacks. But it is clear from his words that he sympathizes with their aims.”
“What is this characteristic?” asked Lara.
“They mutilate themselves,” Omar said with distaste, “by cutting out their own tongues. And they carry poison, so that in case of capture, they can escape any torture that might compel them to reveal their secrets in writing. For these reasons, and others, they are called the Silent Ones.”
“I’ve already met these Silent Ones of yours. In fact, they’ve already tried to kill me.”
“Then you know there is no time to lose,” said Omar.
“Won’t the villagers try to stop us from leaving?” Lara asked as she and Omar moved toward the door of the hut and the moonlit landscape beyond.
“These men are not warriors,” said Omar as he led her through the darkened village. “And Abdul, though it pains me to say so about a relative, is a coward at heart. They watch us now, from behind their doors and windows, but they will not interfere.”
Gaafar and Hassam were waiting for them beyond the outskirts with what appeared to be a small herd of camels.
