by Lauren Haney
“A friend recommended him, he said.”
Bak studied the nomad thoughtfully. “Why did you make me your prisoner, Nefertem? You guessed my men and I are soldiers. Did you not realize we were traveling with User’s caravan but apart?”
“You walked in front, leading the way.” Nefertem spoke with a stubborn certainty.
“I preferred not to breathe the dust of the other men and their donkeys throughout our journey,” Bak said with a wry smile.
Nefertem was not amused. “Your men served as guards and scouts.”
“We knew we were being watched. I was concerned for our safety, as well as the well-being of the caravan.” Bak glanced around, found the water bowl, and sipped from it.
“As I was right to be. The watching man must’ve kept you well informed as to our whereabouts.”
“My people, those who travel with their flocks to water and forage, told us where you were and what you were doing.
I had no need to send a man to watch you.”
“Oh?” Bak raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Who is he then?”
“I know not.” Nefertem frowned. “My people have told me of his presence in this desert, but they don’t know him.
He’s wary of them. He lets no one draw near enough to see his face.”
The two men eyed one another, the nomad seemingly as puzzled as his prisoner. With no answer in sight, Bak asked,
“Did you think, if you took me away from the caravan, the other men would return to Kaine?”
“User is a hard man to turn around. I doubted your disap pearance would persuade him to do so.” Nefertem glowered at Bak. “I knew or thought I understood why he and the oth ers came into this desert. You were unknown to me. I wanted to know who you were and what you expected to gain from your journey.”
“Has the caravan turned back?”
Nefertem hesitated as if he thought to make further use of his silence, but at length he answered. “No. User’s guide
Dedu is leading it instead of Senna, and your Medjays are wearing themselves out, scouring the land through which they travel, searching for you.”
“Was anyone hurt after you took me?”
“To injure men and animals was not our intent.”
Bak offered a silent prayer of thanks to the lord Amon. “I suppose the many footprints your men left the day before the attack were designed to confuse my Medjays when they tried to follow those who took me.”
“The new tracks got lost among the old,” the nomad said, nodding. “They wrapped the mule’s hooves, making them indistinct, and walked over the vague prints he left.”
The scheme was so simple Bak vowed to use it himself should the occasion arise. “Now that you have me, what are you going to do with me?”
“You swear you’ve come in search of Minnakht?”
“I do.”
Nefertem stared at Bak, letting the silence grow. “You’ll never find him if you remain with the caravan, traveling through the wadis from one well or spring to another, follow ing the path Minnakht took. We searched that route when first he vanished and came up empty-handed. We’ve since looked farther afield.”
“This land is so vast and rugged that he could be any where. If I was more familiar with this desert, I might know better where to look. But if you haven’t been able to find him…” Bak let the thought hang and took another sip of water. “Senna claims he last saw him on the far side of the
Eastern Sea at the port that services the turquoise and copper mines. I’d like to know if anyone other than the guide saw the men with whom he sailed away.”
“I’ve never believed Senna’s tale, but could it be true?”
“I’ve asked myself that same question. I’ve found no an swer.” Bak watched the old man cut into the meat. He hated the thought of begging, but he was so hungry he vowed to kiss Nefertem’s feet if need be. “I suspect Minnakht went missing somewhere near the Eastern Sea, whether on this side or the other, I don’t know.”
“If he’s on the near side, he’s no longer among the living, and that I’m not prepared to accept.”
The old man drew close a basket filled with thin, round loaves of bread and called to the others. They pressed for ward out of the darkness. Nefertem took a loaf from the bas ket, offered one to Bak, and handed the container to one of his men, who sent it on around the circle. The old man cut off a chunk of meat and placed it on the bread Nefertem held.
The nomad signaled him to give Bak the second piece. The other men held out their loaves and, laughing and joking, ap peared to be urging the old man to hurry. Bak wolfed down a few bites, then ate in a more seemly manner. He had never tasted food so good.
While they ate, Nefertem questioned him about his time in the army. When he learned he had been posted in Wawat, he showed a keen interest in life on the southern frontier and in the people who dwelt there. Not until they finished eating and cleansed their hands in the sand, did he return to their previous discussion. “You may go back to your Medjays and the caravan, Lieutenant. I wish you to continue your search for Minnakht across the sea. We’re a different people than those who dwell in that barren land. We know few men there and have no friends among them.”
Bak smothered a smile. The nomad was appealing for help without bending so far as to come straight out and ask.
“You must search with all due diligence,” Nefertem added.
“If you merely go through the motions and come up with nothing, you’ll never leave this desert alive.”
Relieved at being set free, yet resentful of the threat, Bak pointed out, “If Minnakht has been slain, his body buried in some secret place or dropped into the Eastern Sea, I doubt
I’ll ever find him. How can you in all good conscience say I haven’t tried when in fact I’ve done my best?”
“What you learn, you must tell me. I’ll be the judge of how well you’ve tried.” Nefertem untied a soft leather pouch from his belt, pulled open the bound neck, and shook out a rough chunk of quartz hanging from a leather thong. Flecks of gold gleamed within the stone. “When you’ve learned Minnakht’s fate, send this to me.”
Chapter 8
Bak was beginning to think he was imagining things. Maybe the sleeping potion had lingering effects that were addling his thoughts.
For the third time in less than an hour, since breaking camp at daybreak, he had glimpsed-or imagined-a move ment on the steep, rugged slope to the south. When he had studied the hillside in the gray light of early dawn, he had seen nothing. Later, as the sun rose, he could have sworn he saw a man darting through the long, deep shadows of early morning. When he had drawn attention to the spot, Imset, the lean young nomad whom Nefertem had sent with him to serve as his guide, had shaken his head. Either the boy had seen no sign of life or he simply did not understand what Bak was trying to tell him. Until they had set out the previous morning, he had had no knowledge of the tongue of Kemet.
“Rock.” Imset touched with his toe a lump of granite half buried in sand. The stone’s black facets gleamed like silver in the light of the rising sun.
“Yes,” Bak nodded. “Rock.”
The youth, whom he guessed was about twelve years of age, scooped up a handful of sand and held it out. “Sand.”
The boy, whom Nefertem had suggested he call Imset af ter one of the lord Horus’s children, was bright and eager to learn and was vastly pleased with himself each time he got a word right, but Bak wished the landscape varied more so he could expand his vocabulary. “Sand,” he agreed.
“Donkey.” Imset threw his arm around the neck of the dark gray beast plodding along between them. The creature was laden with water and food, the bare necessities required to get them to the next well and to take the boy to his mother’s camp somewhere deep in the mountains. It also carried the spears and shields Nefertem had provided, fearing they might come upon a prowling hyena or leopard.
“Bird!” The boy swung his arm, tracing the path of the small winged creature as it flew past.
“Look!” Bak said, and pointed up the wadi. He had quickly tired the previous day of repeating the names of the objects around them and had gone on to words describing actions.
Grinning, Imset placed his hand above his eyes and stared in an exaggerated manner in the direction his teacher pointed.
Bak tried to think of a way to vary the pattern established the day before, but had second thoughts. Perhaps he could use the youth’s enthusiasm to advantage. He pulled a wa terbag off the donkey. “Walk,” he said. While the youth strode along beside him, he unplugged the bag. “Trot.”
Imset leaped forward to jog a half-dozen paces ahead. He pivoted and, smiling broadly, trotted in place until his com panion caught up. Before Bak could issue the next order, Im set spun around, shouted, “Run!” and darted forward a dozen paces. He stopped as quickly as he had started and, turning for Bak’s approval, laughed with delight. At the same time,
Bak raised the waterbag to his lips, his eyes on the hillside to the south. If the boy’s loud laughter and actions did not draw out the man who was watching-if someone was in fact keeping an eye on them-nothing would.
He spotted a movement in the shadow of a protruding boulder, the head and shoulders of a man. “Look!” he said and pointed.
Imset’s eyes followed his. The laughter died in his throat and his expression grew puzzled. The man ducked behind the boulder, out of sight.
“You see?” Bak asked, pointing at his eyes and toward the spot where the man had vanished.
The boy nodded.
“Friend?”
The youth looked confused.
Bak knelt and drew with his finger two stick figures in the sand, men standing close together, their arms around each other’s shoulders. “Friends,” he said. A pace or so away, he drew two widely spaced figures, one face-forward, the other looking away. “Strangers.” In another place, he drew two men facing each other, each carrying a spear in a threatening stance. “Enemies.”
Not until Bak pantomimed the three actions, using the somewhat mistrustful youth as a second party, did his pupil begin to understand. Bak pointed toward the spot where they had glimpsed the figure. “Friend?”
Imset shook his head vehemently.
“Stranger? Enemy?”
The youth looked at the two sketches, his finger wavering uncertainly between them.
Bak went to the donkey to retrieve their weapons.
The following day, long before the sun peered into the gorge in which they had spent the night, Bak bade a reluctant goodbye to the young nomad. They had spotted the watching man several times during the intervening twenty-four hours, and he feared for the boy on his own. His efforts to convince him to remain with him had been futile, partly because of their mutual lack of words but mostly because Imset was de termined to move on. Nefertem had told him to go to his mother, who needed him, and he refused to do otherwise.
The youth had packed a small bag of food, filled a wa terbag, and wrapped his arms around the donkey’s neck, bid ding it a fond farewell. It could not travel the terrain he intended to pass through to evade the watching man. He had collected his weapons, and, with a stouthearted smile, had pointed in a northerly direction toward the red granite peak, which could not be seen from deep within the gorge where they stood. “Home,” he had said.
They had clasped each other’s shoulders, a silent goodbye, and the youth had walked up the gorge between overhanging cliffs to enter a wider area, where the brightening sky re vealed several open pools of water. Beyond the uppermost pool, he had climbed the irregular steps of a dry waterfall.
Whether the single word meant simply that he was going home, or whether it meant he knew this barren and desolate land better than any stranger, Bak had no idea. He prayed that the latter was the case. Or, better yet, that the watching man would choose to remain behind.
As he watched Imset vanish around a rock formation, loneliness descended upon him and he clutched the leather pouch hanging from his belt. Inside he felt the pendant, his sole way of contacting Nefertem. He had had to trust the no mad that the boy would guide him to a safe place where he would find food and water and where he could await his
Medjays and the caravan. Now that he had reached that place, he had to believe they would come. If not, surely a no mad family would bring their flocks to drink.
Shoving aside the nagging thought that Nefertem had sent him here to be offered up as a sacrifice for some purpose of his own, he stowed the remaining food and waterbag in a niche in the rocks, hobbled the donkey, and collected his weapons.
The nomad had told him large numbers of sandgrouse came early each morning to drink, and he wanted to see for himself this source of food. Leaving his small camp, he walked out of the gorge to the pools. What Nefertem had called a well looked to him like natural springs. Green grass, reeds, and thorny shrubs grew in and around the lower pools, while the water in the uppermost was held in a bare pit of sand.
He climbed a cut in the hillside that looked out upon the water, found a rocky nook where no one could creep up be hind him, and settled down to wait. Not long after sunrise, the birds began to arrive. Finches came first, a whirling mul titude of stubby, dark gray birds twittering a high-pitched nasal song. They darted back and forth as if to make sure the pools were safe and finally settled around the upper pool.
Other birds came in smaller numbers, and several lizards darted through the grass around the lower pools in search of insects.
Next came the grouse, brownish birds twice the size of the finches. They wheeled swiftly around in groups of twenty or more, circling the pools as their predecessors had, voicing something that sounded to Bak like a man fluttering his tongue while expelling a loud breath. Always keeping to their own flock, they landed on the hillside to preen them selves, their color so nearly like the earth and rocks that they were difficult to see. After a short time, they flew swiftly to the wadi floor to walk to the pool, where they lined up around the edge to drink. Satiated, each flock walked away from the pool, faced down the wadi, and leaped upward to fly off to ward the open desert. Bak watched enthralled. Not until the final flock had taken to the air did he think of the birds as food. He certainly would not starve if forced to remain here.
He walked back to the gorge to get the donkey and turned it loose in the fresh grass. Keeping his weapons close by in case of need, he took off his clothing and, using the metal bowl Nefertem had given him, poured water over himself, washing away the desert’s grime. He stayed well clear of the pools so as not to foul them. The water here, Nefertem had told him, attracted not only large numbers of birds and ani mals, but nomads from all across this part of the Eastern
Desert. It was nothing less than a gift of the gods and must be treated as such.
While he bathed and washed his clothing, he studied the surrounding terrain. He did not spot the watching man, but he located near the mouth of the gorge a shaded crevice in which a man might hide through the morning hours. Fin ished with his bath and feeling considerably better for it, he donned his wet loincloth, kilt, and tunic, then led the donkey into the gorge and hobbled it so it would not wander back to the grass. Returning to the open area in which the pools were located, taking care not to be seen from above, he climbed up to the crevice, laid his waterbag beside him, and settled down to wait. With luck and the help of the gods, the watch ing man would grow curious-or fearful that his quarry had slipped away.
The sun climbed slowly into the sky. The day grew hot and the lizards indolent. A flock of cheeping sparrows flitted from shrubs to reeds to the grass and the bare ground, while a pair of larks walked among the rocks. Watching their deter mined but serene quest for sustenance, Bak grew drowsy.
Abruptly, amid sharp chirps of warning, the birds shot into the air. Bak started, came fully awake. Something had fright ened them. The watching man? He had been hidden for over an hour if the sun’s passage told true, plenty of time for cu riosity to eat away at a man. He gripped his spear and shield and rose to his feet,
as silent as the lizards that had darted in among the rocks.
A stone clattered down the slope some distance to his right. He eased into a fresh position, trying to glimpse the in truder. A jumble of rocks that had rolled down from above cut off his view. He could see no farther than the uppermost pool and considerably less of the slope. Quelling his impa tience, he remained where he was, listening for another sound, hoping to determine the intruder’s exact position. He heard nothing. The man, if indeed the noise had been made by a man, had to be a nomad to creep so silently down a hill as steep as this one and as covered with loose sand and rocks.
The time stretched to an eternity. Unable to stand the strain any longer, Bak stuck his head out of the crevice far enough to see around the rocks. A man wearing the ragged garb of a desert nomad was climbing downward, watching where he placed his feet. He was a half-dozen paces above the wadi floor at a point almost even with the uppermost pool. His hair was long and unkempt. He carried a bow, and a quiver filled with arrows hung from his left shoulder.
He stopped and looked to his left, down the wadi toward the mouth of the gorge. With nothing there to see, he shifted his gaze-and looked directly at Bak. Bak jerked back into his hideaway, but too late. Skittering rocks and the sound of feet half-sliding down the sandy slope verified the fact that he had been seen.
Shield in one hand, spear in the other, he burst out of his hiding place. He scurried down the slope, sending a minia ture rock slide before him, and hit the wadi floor running.
The nomad stood beside the upper pool, seating an arrow, pulling the string taut. Bak gave a blood-curdling yell, a fear some sound made by attacking tribesmen on the southern frontier, and charged toward the man. The arrow sped past, too high and too far to the left.
Bak raced forward undeterred. He had not lain in wait for more than an hour to turn tail and run.
The nomad quickly tugged another arrow from his quiver, seated it, and let it fly. It sped past no closer than its predeces sor. Bak sprinted on. The man spun around and ran to the dry waterfall. He raced upward, climbing the irregularly shaped and sized rocks as if they were the smoothest of steps. Unfa miliar with the terrain, Bak took longer to reach the top. The last thing he wanted was to break an ankle. He had no idea what had set the nomad to flight: the all-out charge, the howl of the southern desert tribesmen, or simply a sudden fear that he might get caught.
