Place of Darkness lb-5

by Lauren Haney

  Ramose shook his head. “Nor do I.”

  Kasaya scooped his spear and shield from the sand. “Shall we go after it, sir?” He stared at the temple, apparently seeing nothing. Each word he spoke was more uncertain than the one before.

  “I didn’t see anything,” Ani said.

  His grandfather scratched his neck. “I don’t know if I did or not. These old eyes sometimes play tricks on me.”

  Bak stared at the ruin, its broken stones and fallen columns vague shadows in the sparse moonlight. By shouting so loud, Hori had unwittingly warned whoever was there-and he was fairly certain someone was there. He was equally sure the man would not be caught-not this night, at any rate. If his light had been seen in the valley as often as the workmen claimed, the man knew every square cubit far better than he.

  That deficiency must be corrected.

  Chapter Eleven

  Bak stood at the south end of the upper colonnade, looking down into the new chapel of the lady Hathor that would one day replace the old. The rocks on which Dedu’s body had been found were gone, used as fill beneath the foundation.

  Though the day was new and the lord Khepre had barely risen above the eastern horizon, a gang of workmen toiled in the spot where they must have been piled, shoving a paving stone into position, grunting and groaning at the effort.

  Sweat glistened on their faces and hard-muscled bodies. The day promised to be as hot as the day before.

  At the back of what would one day be a columned court, other men were lengthening a sand and debris ramp and making it higher, taking care that the grade was not too steep. They were building a retaining wall to either side of the door into the sanctuary, which was being dug into the steep slope behind the temple. From inside the small cavern Bak could hear the thud of mallets on chisels and the bark of the stone breaking free, the clatter of flying chips and the workmen talking among themselves.

  His gaze shifted southward, across the sandy waste on which the workmen’s huts stood. There lay the memorial temple of Nebhepetre Montuhotep, providing a picturesque if ruinous background for the small, mean dwellings. There he had glimpsed the tiny, flickering light the workmen had so often reported as the malign spirit. Had the man who pretended to be the spirit known Bak had remained at Djeser Djeseru and walked through the old temple, thinking to lure him to his death in the dark? Or had he come on a secret errand, unaware that he and his men had not gone home for the night?

  When Bak had accompanied his father’s housekeeper to the valley as a child, she had told him many tales of ancient kings, including a long-held belief that Nebhepetre Montuhotep lay buried beneath his temple. Later he had heard that the entrance shaft of the king’s tomb had been tunneled into by thieves, who had been forced to cut short their effort to reach the burial chamber when the ceiling collapsed.

  Pashed had verified the tale, adding that the mayor of western Waset had ordered that the shaft remain open, hoping to discourage further excavation by demonstrating how futile the first had been.

  Surely the malign spirit was not trying to reach the king’s tomb. Certainly not over a period of three or four years.

  More likely, he was hoping to find tombs of royal women or children. The jewelry in the honey jar had been that of a queen. Would not one success result in a thirst for more?

  Bak had been sorely tempted to give chase the previous evening. He regretted his failure to act, but knew in his heart he had made a wise decision. He could tell by the way the workmen failed to meet his eye, however, that they thought less of him because he had not. A conclusion he must reverse.

  “Everyone liked Dedu,” Imen said. “Why would anyone slay him?”

  Bak heaved a long and impatient sigh. “His life was taken much like Montu’s: he was struck on the back of the head.

  He was probably thrown onto the mound of rocks after his death, and the stone used as a weapon was thrown after him.

  An uninspired attempt to make his death look like an accident.”

  “Huh!” Imen said with a frown.

  A dozen or more guards stood or knelt around them in the long, early morning shadow of the rough stone hut used by the men who patrolled the construction site. To a man, they looked uncomfortable with the reminder that one of their own had been slain. Dedu’s death had occurred long enough ago that they had set aside their anxiety; now Bak had brought it back. What had happened to Dedu could as easily happen to any of them, whether caused by an ethereal being or a man.

  A scrawny guard with knotty muscles, who had been drawing circles in the sand with the butt of his spear, glanced up from his artwork. “The malign spirit. Had to be.”

  “Dedu saw it once, you know,” an older, lanky man said.

  His fellow guards turned as one to look at him, surprised at news they had apparently never before heard.

  “So’ve a lot of other people,” Imen grinned, “and they’ve not been slain.”

  A few of the men around them nodded, trying to convince themselves they were safe. The rest looked less certain.

  Bak leaned back against the rough stone and smiled en-couragement. The lanky man seemed eager to talk. Better to let him believe the malign spirit was something other than a man than to deflect his thoughts in the hope of convincing him otherwise. “Did he see more than merely a light from afar?”

  “I recall his very words. He said: ‘I practically bumped into the thing in the dark. It was kneeling in a deep shadow behind one of those big lion-like statues of our sovereign.

  Took off like a hare when it saw me.’ ”

  Yes, Bak thought. As must have happened with Montu, Dedu saw the malign spirit and it slew him, but why run away that night and come back later? Why give Dedu a chance to tell others what he had seen? “Did he say what it looked like?”

  “I asked him, and all he did was laugh. I decided the story was a joke, a tall tale made up so he could have a good laugh at my expense.”

  “Did he give any of the rest of you a similar account?”

  A man with a black mole on his nose nodded, the rest shook their heads.

  “Dedu talked with no qualms before going to his sleeping pallet,” explained the man with the mole. “When he awoke, I guess he had second thoughts. He denied the tale, agreeing with Mose that he’d been jesting.” He paused, scratched his stubbly chin. “I’d wager he was afraid.”

  “I’d be,” a stocky youth said. “Wouldn’t you?”

  Afraid of what? Bak wondered. The malign spirit or a man he recognized? “How long after he saw the spirit was he slain?”

  The lanky man grew somber. “That’s the queer part. He fell to his death the next night. I knew then he’d told the truth. I figured the malign spirit hadn’t liked him spreading the tale and had struck him down to silence him through eternity.”

  “So you repeated the story to no one?”

  “Better safe than dead,” said the man with the mole.

  Which explained why Ineni had not heard the tale.

  “Huni’s dead, isn’t he?” The artist, a tough-looking man of medium height and middle years, spat out the words almost in a whisper so no one in the half-finished court outside the solar chapel would hear. “Do you wish the same fate to befall me?”

  “You just said he didn’t tell you anything.” Bak did not bother to hide his annoyance, but he, too, spoke softly. “You can’t have it both ways. Either he confided in you or he didn’t.”

  “He was a good friend. As close to me as a brother. He’d not want me to die because of what he told me.”

  Bak rested his shoulder against the altar where the priest would ascend the steps, after Djeser Djeseru was dedicated, and face the lord Khepre rising in the eastern sky. From where he stood, he could see the door to the anteroom. He doubted the malign spirit would slay this man-too much time had passed since the scribe had died-but he did not want a death on his conscience should he err. “Then you do believe Huni was slain so his lips would be sealed forever.”

  “I
’ve never doubted it. I never fail to thank the lord Amon that he told me in confidence, with no other man to hear or to know I knew what he saw.”

  “What did he see?”

  The artist gave him a wary look. “How can I be sure you’ll not pass my words on to anyone else?”

  “I’ll tell my scribe and my Medjay. No one but them.”

  The artist stared at a bright relief of Maatkare Hatshepsut making offerings to the lord Amon. His face revealed his inner turmoil: he wanted to speak out and was sorely tempted, but was afraid. At last he shook his head. “No. One of them might talk. A single word and I’ll be slain as Huni was.”

  Bak’s mouth tightened. “I could leave this temple and within the hour tell ten or more men that Huni confided in you. How long do you think it would take for the tale to spread throughout Djeser Djeseru?” He did not like himself for making the threat, nor did he have any intention of following through, but the man must be made to talk.

  The artist’s face paled. “You wouldn’t! My death would lie at your hands.”

  “How many men have been slain by the one who calls himself the malign spirit? How many has he injured? If I don’t lay hands on him, how many more will be hurt or killed?”

  The artist clapped his hands over his ears, refusing to listen.

  Bak stepped forward, grabbed his wrists, and pulled them away from his head. “If you can help me snare him and you refuse, will not all future deaths and injuries prey on your conscience?”

  The artist slumped to the floor, buried his face in his hands. “Don’t you realize how much I ache already? Each time an accident happens, each time a man dies or is hurt, I feel as if a red hot brand has been placed on my heart.”

  “Tell me what Huni told you. It might ease your pain.”

  Bak knelt before the artist and laid a hand on his shoulder.

  “Together let’s stop this death and destruction.”

  The artist looked up, wiped tears from his cheeks. “Will you ask Pashed to send me away? To a place of safety? I’ve a brother in Mennufer. He’s an artist as I am, and he toils on the mansion of the lord Ptah. I could rest easy there.”

  “I’ll speak with Amonked, our sovereign’s cousin.” Bak prayed the information this man held within his heart would be worth the effort of digging it from him.

  The artist sucked in several deep breaths, calming himself. “Huni dwelt in the village where I live, at the base of the ridge to the north, near the cultivated land. He usually walked home with the rest of us, but now and again he’d remain behind, eat with the workmen, and sleep in Ramose’s hut. And so he did the night he saw the malign spirit.”

  A swallow darted past Bak’s head, carrying an insect to a nest in the anteroom. He heard the faint cheeping of baby birds demanding sustenance. “The workmen won’t leave the huts after dark, and the malign spirit never draws near. What prompted him to strike out alone?”

  “While sharing the evening meal, he remembered that he’d left his scribal pallet on a statue on the terrace. The white limestone, seated statue of our sovereign. He told me he drank much too much beer during the meal and after. It made him drowsy, but when he lay down on his sleeping mat, he couldn’t slumber. He kept thinking of his writing pallet. He finally decided he couldn’t leave it there overnight; he must get it.”

  “The beer thinking for him.”

  “Yes, sir.” The artist lifted himself off the floor and sat on the bottom step leading up the side of the altar. “He climbed the ramp to the terrace, taking nothing with him but a jar of beer. At the top, he felt in need of a drink.”

  “He took no torch or lamp?”

  “No, sir. The moon was full, the night bright. And he knew exactly where he’d left the pallet.”

  Bak nodded, well able to imagine the scene. A man besotted, a moonlit night, a terrace inhabited by unfinished statues, and tales of a malign spirit filling his heart.

  “He tipped the jar to his lips,” the artist went on, “and suddenly he saw a white ghostly figure flitting among the statues and architectural elements.”

  “The white statue would look ghostly in the dark.”

  “A fact I pointed out.” The swallow sped by, but the artist failed to notice its sharp, commanding twitter. “He swore he wasn’t so witless that he couldn’t tell the difference between a moving figure and one sitting still.”

  As a youth, Bak had a few times imbibed enough to see a room revolve around him, but the artist’s next words dis-pelled his skepticism.

  “The figure darted past him and down the ramp. Filled with brewed courage, Huni followed. It stayed deep in the shadow of the southern retaining wall, and so did he. Once out of the shadow, it hurried past the slope below the cliff and along the base of the platform on which the old temple of Nebhepetre Montuhotep stands. He pursued it through the moonlight, fearing the whole time it would see him.”

  “It stayed well clear of the workmen’s huts.”

  “Yes, sir. As it always does.”

  “He’s sure it didn’t know he was following?”

  “He was very quiet and it never looked back, he swore.”

  The artist rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “It climbed up a pile of rubble and onto the terrace of the old temple. Huni was close behind by this time. He’d regained a portion of his wits, he told me, but not the use of his feet. As he followed it up the rubble slope, he stumbled and a rock clattered behind him. The malign spirit heard.

  “It turned around, spread its arms wide, curled its fingers like claws, and raced toward him. He leaped off the edge of the terrace. Fortunately, the sand below was soft and he broke no limbs. He ran toward the workmen’s huts, certain that at any instant he would die. He was nearly there when he worked up the courage to look behind him. He was alone; the specter had vanished.”

  Bak could understand why the malign spirit might think Huni a threat, but he could see no reason why this man was afraid for his life, unless. . “Did Huni see the figure well enough to know it was a man and not an apparition? Did he have any idea who it was?”

  Fear once again filled the artist’s eyes. “He was sure it was a man, one driven to madness by the night. He may’ve guessed its name.”

  “But he didn’t tell you?”

  The artist, looking miserable, shook his head. “Since his death, I’ve lived in fear that the madman will think I can point a finger at him. I swear to the lord Thoth that I can’t.”

  Bak was fairly certain he was telling the truth. If not, nothing less than a god would get it from him. “When did he tell you of his adventure?”

  “At first light the next morning.”

  “How much time passed before his death?”

  “He died late that afternoon or early in the night, so Pashed believed.”

  Convinced the so-called malign spirit had slain both Dedu and Huni in fear of his identity being aired-and no doubt Montu as well-Bak decided to use the remainder of the daylight hours to explore the ruined temple of Nebhepetre Montuhotep, the place where lights were so often seen in the night. Taking Hori and a none too eager Kasaya with him, he climbed the long ramp the workmen had built to remove the stone being scavenged from what had once been a large covered main court and the colonnades surrounding three of its four sides.

  They crossed the broad strip of terrace that fronted the northern colonnade, the terrace from which Huni had jumped. The colonnade, an open structure whose stone roof had been supported by two rows of square columns, stood in front of the partially ruined wall that enclosed the main court. The roof was almost entirely gone, the broken slabs and architraves lying where they had fallen among damaged and overturned columns.

  “How many years has this building stood?” Kasaya asked, looking at the ruined colonnade as if not quite sure the malign spirit had vanished with the night.

  “I’m not sure,” Bak admitted. “Five hundred or more, I suppose.”

  The young Medjay whistled. “No wonder so much damage has been done.
”

  Hori pointed to a gang of men struggling with a broken architrave that would be reworked for use in the new temple.

  “Our sovereign’s need for stone isn’t improving its appearance.”

  “Why shouldn’t she take material from here?” Kasaya asked. “It saves the effort of quarrying. Just think how much grain and supplies will remain in the royal storehouses that would otherwise have been handed out to workmen.”

  “Savings isn’t everything. Should not Maatkare Hatshepsut have some respect for the past? For the long ago dead?”

  “One of the workmen told me Nebhepetre Montuhotep isn’t even her ancestor.”

  “What difference does that make? He was someone’s ancestor, wasn’t he?”

  Followed closely by the squabbling pair, Bak walked among the fallen stones, looking for a breach in the ruined wall. He soon found a place low enough to climb over and they entered what had once been the huge enclosed main court. They looked around, awed by what they saw. Stones were strewn everywhere, as if the edifice had been struck by the wrath of the gods.

  Small stones and rubble lay scattered around a squarish structure in the center, its original height and exact shape impossible to deduce. Broken roof slabs and architraves lay among this lesser debris and among dozens of eight-sided columns, about half of which stood whole or in part. The remainder lay broken where they had fallen on the sandstone pavement around the center structure. Bak could not begin to guess how many columns and slabs had been removed for reuse. A small rock slide had spilled over the rear wall.

  “Do you suppose Djeser Djeseru will one day look like this?” Hori asked in a voice humbled by the destruction.

  “Five hundred years into the future?” Bak shrugged. “If the king of that time has no more respect for our sovereign than she does for her worthy predecessor, it might well be torn asunder.”

  Kasaya stared, his eyes wide with amazement. “No wonder the malign spirit treads this pavement.”

  “Watch your feet,” Bak said, refusing to point out once again the exact nature of the malign spirit.

  The walking was difficult. He was glad he had refused to be enticed into the temple the previous night. Someone could easily have broken an ankle. Not the malign spirit, who knew the structure well, but he or his men.