Eater of souls

by Lynda S. Robinson

  “We knew the best time to find you alone would be late at night,” Isis said, without concern for Meren’s irritation.

  Meren looked at his daughter with suspicion. Only yesterday she’d explained how her aunt, Idut, had given her the secret to making a friend, or ensnaring a lover. “Aunt Idut says that a man loves nothing better than talking about himself. He charms himself with such talk the way a snake charms a mouse.”

  Isis had gone on to say that she’d found that an admirer’s attention remained on her much longer if she asked him about his life, his titles, his family. Reshep was the only man who hadn’t needed encouragement to propound on such subjects.

  Suspicious, Meren asked, “Why would you need to find me alone? And I’m not alone.” He exchanged mystified glances with Kysen.

  “Kysen doesn’t count,” Isis replied as she placed her hand on Reshep’s arm.

  Even at this late hour Reshep was freshly bathed and dressed in a kilt that looked as if it had only been worn for a few moments. Meren felt dirty and disheveled standing in front of him.

  “What do you want?” Meren asked without bothering to conceal his impatience.

  “I want to give you most fortunate news,” Reshep said. His smile spread farther and threatened to climb to his ears. “I have consented to allow Isis to be my wife.”

  Folding his arms over his chest, Meren buried his fury in humor and laughed lightly. “I think not.”

  “Naturally it took Isis a while to persuade me, but after she told me of the greatness of your family—what?”

  Reshep paled and appeared to sink inward. He looked lost for a moment, disbelieving, then bewildered.

  “You refuse me? You refuse me.” The young man said it over and over, as if to force himself to believe the impossible.

  Meren had controlled his anger at the man who presumed to court his daughter and nearly make her commit herself to a worthless alliance. Now he began to feel sorry for Reshep. The fool genuinely believed he’d been bestowing a great prize upon Isis and her father.

  “I could wish you hadn’t placed yourself in a situation where I was forced to refuse you before others,” Meren said. “But you anger me with your presumption. Few men would try to ally themselves with a Friend of the King upon such short acquaintance. Indeed, I know little of your family, your home, your accomplishments and future plans, but—”

  “Father!” Isis jumped to her feet, glaring and breathing hard. Then she burst into imprecations and accusations. “You think I’m still a child. You treat me as if I were younger than Kysen’s little boy. You’ve shamed me beyond bearing!”

  Meren turned on her so quickly she started and shut her mouth with a snap. Kysen put a hand on her arm, or she might have backed up. Saying nothing, Meren lifted a brow and directed a soul-freezing look at his youngest daughter. No one moved.

  Finally Meren spoke in a quiet, implacable tone. “It grows quite late, daughter. I’m certain Lord Reshep doesn’t mean to keep you from your rest. May the goddess for whom you are named give you peaceful sleep.”

  Kysen took his sister’s arm again and pulled her down the dais steps while he muttered, “Come along, before he gets any calmer.”

  Meren turned back to Reshep in time to catch the young man looking at him. In a brief, almost imperceptible moment, he glimpsed a cauldron of flaming oil. Then it was gone.

  “You propose an alliance too soon,” Meren said.

  Reshep merely looked at him.

  “What ails you, man?” He was growing annoyed at the way Reshep kept staring at him in silence, but before he could ask him to leave, Kysen returned.

  “Father, we have another visitor.”

  “Tell him to go away.”

  Kysen whispered in his ear. “This one you might want to see. It’s Tcha, the one I told you about.”

  “Oh. Reshep, leave my house, and don’t return until—”

  He heard a great clacking and clattering. It was coming closer. Then the noise was among them, and it smelled. Meren watched what appeared to be a tent of amulets with hair scurry into the hall and propel itself to the foot of the dais.

  Everyone backed up as a wave of honeyed putrefaction roiled up at them.

  “I sawit! I sawit, I sawit, I sawit! It was huge, and then it vanished. The demon, the creature.” Tcha lifted a dirty arm and pointed at Kysen. “You think I’m stupid, you think I lie, but now you’ll see. Tcha never gets no praise for his good deeds, never gets enough payment. And now you couldn’t give me enough gold to go back there. No, not Tcha!”

  Meren, Kysen, and Reshep all stared at the trembling mass of fear that babbled at them. Reshep sniffed, then got up from the master’s chair to put it between him and Tcha. Meren found this to be the only value of having his house invaded by the thief.

  “Kysen, is this, this… Is he saying he’s seen a demon? Get him out of here.”

  Kysen began flapping his hands at Tcha to drive him out of the hall.

  “Wait, great lord! I can’t go out there. It—she is out there.”

  “Go away, Tcha,” Kysen said. He gave the thief a light shove with the tip of one finger.

  “No, wait, wait, wait.”

  Kysen poked him each time he said “wait.”

  At last Tcha scrambled out of his reach and exclaimed, “You don’t understand. This time Eater of Souls has killed the Hittite emissary!”

  Chapter 9

  Sokar was in an even more foul mood than usual. The idiot Min had roused him from sleep, and if this was another instance of the watchman trying to make himself look important by inflating the significance of his discovery, he would miss his rations for two whole months. Stomach swaying, sandals flapping, the chief of watchmen followed his underling to an alley near the area inhabited by foreigners.

  Rounding a corner, Sokar marched into darkness lit only by Min’s sputtering torch. To his consternation, two men were already there standing in the shadows near the body. Sokar’s face reddened. His stomach and chest inflated, and he barked, “Here! What are you doing? Robbing a corpse, no doubt. Min, arrest these two.”

  As he spoke, the two turned to face Sokar. He could hardly make out their features or anything else about them until one stepped into the torchlight. He was big, this one. Sokar was suddenly grateful Min was with him. Furious that this man had intimidated him, Sokar poked a finger in his direction.

  “You, who are you, and what do you here? There will be no robbery of corpses or gawking. Another useless one has been killed in the city. He’s probably some country farmer stumbling into a thief, like the others. Min, this foolishness isn’t worth my attention. Get rid of the body.”

  Sokar glared at Min, but then he looked again at the quiet stranger beside the watchman, caught sight of his scimitar, the horse whip stuck in a bronze and turquoise-beaded belt. A charioteer!

  “Officer,” Sokar purred, his stomach deflating. “I didn’t know. This is a paltry matter. Please allow me to remove this offal from the street. I beg you, don’t let this miserable discovery annoy you.” He heard an unknown voice speak quietly.

  “What others?”

  The question had come from the other man still in the shadows, and it irritated Sokar again.

  “Who demands answers of the chief of watchmen? Show yourself.”

  The stranger stepped into the torchlight. Sokar’s eyes caught the glint of a gold broad collar, wide-shouldered height, cloud-fine linen. Curse his ill luck. This was a nobleman. Wrinkling the skin on his forehead, Sokar noted the obsidian black of the man’s hair, brows, and lashes. Their darkness made his skin, a tawny brown, seem lighter than it was.

  He’d seen this man before. Envied those straight brows and that charioteer’s frame. As Sokar struggled with his memory, he noted the man’s gleaming eyes, the color of fine cedar polished with beeswax. Hollows beneath prominent cheekbones, angular lines to the face, the personal dignity of a pharaoh.

  “Lord Meren!” He’d been gawping at the Eyes of Pharaoh like a ba
ffled donkey. He snarled at Min. “On your knees before the great lord and Friend of the King.”

  Sokar grunted as he struggled to the ground and lowered his forehead. “O great lord, forgive this humble servant. I didn’t know it was you in the darkness.”

  “Tell me, chief of watchmen, do you always make such pronouncements without having seen the victim?”

  Speaking to the ground, Sokar launched into denial, only to be silenced when the Friend of the King stalked over to him.

  “You said this was another useless one killed in the city.” The words were said slowly, pronounced clearly, each like the sting of a scorpion. “What others? “

  Sokar stopped breathing. He sensed danger, to himself. If there was one thing at which he was accomplished, it was sensing and wriggling out of danger. He shoved himself upright and sat on the backs of his heels. Then he gave Lord Meren a round-eyed yet humble look.

  “Others, great lord?” Sokar wiped sweat from his upper lip. “Oh, the others. Foolish country visitors who sailed into the wake of thieves. I beg my lord not to disturb himself over such unimportant things. My reports—”

  “Said nothing of murder, said nothing of more than one, and certainly nothing of several that were alike.”

  Sokar smiled and bowed even as he shook his head. “Alike, O great one? No, no. Not alike.”

  Min lifted his head, his mouth open, but Sokar glared at him, and he quickly put his forehead to the ground. Sokar’s smile returned as he again faced Lord Meren, but the nobleman wasn’t looking at him. He was watching Min with an intense fierceness Sokar had seen in the eyes of a kestrel as it hovered, heaving into the wind, looking for prey. Sokar heard the voice of his heart grow louder, so that it seemed to inhabit his ears. His stomach began to burn, and the longer Lord Meren studied Min’s prostrate figure, the hotter his belly burned.

  Sokar tried to maintain his look of innocence, but Meren wasn’t watching him. The great one glanced at his charioteer without saying a word. At that look, the warrior strode over to Sokar, grabbed a pudgy arm, and hauled him to his feet. Sokar was already panting. Now he gasped and quacked.

  “Is aught wrong, O great one? What have I done? I am a man of duty. An honest chief. My lord? Ouch! You’re hurting my arm, you great elephant! Oh, did I say elephant? Not elephant, you’re a great lion. Please, let me go. I must defend myself to the great one.”

  Sokar kept looking over his shoulder as the charioteer dragged him down the alley. Before he was hauled away,

  Sokar glimpsed the two men left behind. To his amazement, Lord Meren bent down on one knee in the dirt and spoke to the wretched Min. Min sat up, his gaze fixed on the ground, until the Eyes of Pharaoh said something. Min’s head shot up, his mouth rounded in an exclamation. He directed an astonished and amused look at Sokar. Lord Meren said something else, and Min began to grin. In that grin, Sokar glimpsed his own ruin.

  Dawn brought silver light pouring into the streets like mist on the Nile. After getting rid of Lord Reshep, Kysen had summoned charioteers to accompany him to the alley Tcha said held the dead man, the Hittite royal emissary. Meren was pacing beside the body while Abu took down notes on this evening’s events. Charioteers blocked access to the alley while others questioned the inhabitants of the homes along it.

  He didn’t want to think about the consequences of Mugallu’s death. Better to ask why a prince would be abroad so late in a foreign city, especially the capital of his master’s greatest enemy. Better to ask why no one, as far as the charioteers could discover, had heard the attack. Better to ask Tcha why it had been he who had stumbled upon the grisly display.

  Tcha squatted in a corner, trying to be inconspicuous. Kysen kept an eye on him while he scoured the alley for any sign or mark left by the killer. It was a passage formed by the back and side walls of five houses. Four of the five had several floors that rose high above Kysen’s head like blank-faced cliffs. The fifth, at the intersection of the alley and a street, had only three floors. None of the walls had windows. It would be difficult to hear any noise coming from the alley unless it was a scream.

  It was an alley like thousands in Memphis—a narrow walk formed by accident when citizens added on to their houses generation after generation. And like those others that led nowhere, it had been used as a dumping place. Pieces of dried fish, broken pottery, goat dung, shreds of old baskets, littered the ground. Certain ripe piles announced by their scent that this was a favorite place to throw the contents of chamber pots, which sat beneath seats with holes in them. Kysen avoided one such pile, only to be forced to hop over cat dung.

  As he landed, he noticed an imprint in earth made moist by the liquid from a chamber pot—a sandal. Trying to breathe through his mouth, Kysen squatted to examine the print. It was a long impression, longer than his own foot, and narrow, like a messenger’s ship. And there was something peculiar about it. Kysen studied the foot-shaped imprint for a few moments before he realized he couldn’t see the parallel striations of reed or the impressions of palm fiber. This sandal had been made of leather.

  Rising, Kysen glanced at Mugallu’s body, which was being lifted onto a litter. The man was barefoot. The soles of his feet were caked with filth. He looked at the imprint again. Most ordinary Egyptians couldn’t afford leather sandals, and those who could didn’t usually wear them in the streets. They or a servant might carry them to a destination before they would be put to use. If they were worn in the streets and one stepped in messes such as the one at Kysen’s feet, sandals fell apart. He signaled to Turobay, called Turo, one of the charioteers who was also trained in drawing.

  “Make a drawing of this impression.” He didn’t have to give any other instruction. Turo would copy the imprint using measurements and capturing every detail.

  Mugallu’s body was carried past, on its way to the house pharaoh had assigned for the prince’s use while he was in Memphis. A linen sheet covered the body and concealed the dried cavern of flesh where the Hittite’s heart had been. The feather Meren had found sticking out of the wound was hidden in a wicker box sitting beside Abu.

  Kysen joined his father as Meren finished his notes and fell silent, staring at the litter and its defiled occupant as it left the alley. Although he appeared as calm as usual, Kysen detected a slight pallor in the delicate, finely lined skin above the eyelids. No one else would have seen it, nor would anyone have understood why Meren had removed a bracelet to rub his inner wrist.

  Meren caught him staring, and Kysen looked away, at the place where Mugallu had lain. “He didn’t fight much, for a Hittite. The blood is mostly in one area.”

  “The attacker struck his head first,” Meren replied, but he seemed to be thinking of something else. “It was like a battle injury.”

  Kysen nodded. “You mean the chest wound. Not from a knife or a dagger.”

  “Hacked, like blows from a war ax, only done after Mugallu had been stunned or knocked senseless.”

  They fell silent as each recalled the wound and its white ornament, and what had been missing. Was poor Tcha right? Had Eater of Souls come from the netherworld to deliver judgment to the living instead of the dead? Kysen was suddenly glad daylight had come.

  “What are we going to do?” he asked. “You say this is only one of several like murders.”

  “Yes, according to the watchman, Min.”

  “Remember what Tcha said?”

  Meren turned to face him and gripped his shoulder. “I haven’t forgotten, but I must go to pharaoh. The divine one must be told of Mugallu’s murder. You will have to send someone to the office of the watch to question Sokar, find whatever records he may have kept, find the victims if possible. Use every man, Ky. We have to find this evil one quickly, before the king of the Hittites decides to use this murder as an excuse for war.”

  “But what if the killer isn’t a man?” Kysen whispered.

  “Whom can we trust?” Meren countered. “Such evil needs a powerful magician and lector priest. Magicians aren’t known f
or keeping their mouths shut, and the city is already uneasy.”

  “What about Nebamun?” Kysen asked.

  “More physician than magician.”

  Kysen said, “The chief lector priest at the temple of Ptah is a rattle-mouth.”

  “I don’t trust the ones with great skill, not those in the city. Not even the priests of Anubis.” Meren sighed and frowned at the bracelet that covered the scar on his wrist. “No one… no one except…”

  “Who?”

  “Ebana.”

  “Ebana!”

  “Shhh!”

  Meren grabbed Kysen’s arm and pulled him nearer. “He was a lector priest and magician before he was appointed to serve with the high priest of Amun.”

  “By the soul of Isis, Father. Ebana hates you.”

  “He’s my cousin. He saved my life.”

  “He has promised to make you pay for the killing of his family, and you had nothing to do with it.”

  “He thinks I could have stopped Akhenaten from sending those assassins. No, Ky, you don’t understand Ebana. He hates me because he hates himself for not being there to protect his wife and son.”

  “That makes no sense,” Kysen snapped. “Please, don’t send for him. He’ll only try to hurt you in some way.”

  “He and the other priests of Amun have promised a truce with the king. That extends to Friends of the King.”

  “And of course, you trust their word.” Watching his father closely, he saw Meren’s shoulders slump.

  “You’re right, Ky.” Meren gave him a rueful smile. “This is no time to try to deal with Ebana.”

  “Good. I was beginning to think you’d send for Bentanta too.”

  “That isn’t amusing.”

  Lady Bentanta was a childhood friend of Meren’s, a woman who seemed to be able to create vast discomfort in his father. After seeing her a few weeks ago at his country house, Meren was avoiding her.

  “If you’ve left off baiting me, my son?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “I’ll think of someone to purge this place of evil before I go to the palace. You’ll have to attend Mugallu’s escort, General Labarnas, and then trace what is known of these other murders.