“Glory—” One of the generals began a protest. But Naldamak shook her head at him.
“If I owe my life and those of my people to such a man, I do not believe he intends to harm me now. Bring him in, Daughter-of-Apedemek!”
The priestess bowed her head in assent and slipped out of the door. But Herihor and the two generals ostentatiously drew their hand weapons and kept them at ready. Tallahassee moved a little on her folding stool so that she could better see whoever entered.
For a second or two as he stooped his head to come under the hanging Jayta pulled aside for him, for he was a tall man, she was sure that by some trick Khasti himself had won into the heart of their camp. And she half arose to call out a warning. Then she saw that even if they were of the same race there was a difference between the newcomer and him who held New Napata to his will.
This one wore the robes of a desert raider, yet she could sense they were not his natural dress. And he was older, though he had an air of inborn authority such as one of the Blood might show. As he faced Naldamak he raised one hand, palm out, in a salute they did not understand but realized was one of dignity meeting dignity, of peer facing peer.
“You are the Candace Naldamak.” That was half-question, half-statement.
“That is the truth.” Herihor leaned forward a little, his suspicion plain to read on his open face. “And who are you, outlander?”
“It does not matter who I am,” the man replied with the same authority as was in his manner of walking, of being. “Your Empress owes her life to us. Now we ask something in return.”
“I know you …” Naldamak said slowly. “You were the third man in the desert, the one who stood aside and did not approach us. Yes, I owe you life and the lives of those who are my most faithful servants. What do you want of us in return?”
“There is one in the city, of our own blood and kind. He has offended against our custom and laws by coming here. Even as we offend in seeking him. But this we must do, no matter what price we will pay later. He has taken your city, he wishes to rule here. Do not count him as an unimportant enemy, Candace Naldamak, for when he fled from whence we all come, he brought with him devices beyond the comprehension of your world. Those must be destroyed, the man taken. But we are bound by oath not to loose upon him our own weapons.…”
Jayta had returned quietly to the group, but she did not reseat herself. Instead she stood staring at the stranger. Tallahassee caught puzzlement and then a dawning wonder which was half awe in her expression. Suddenly the priestess’s hand rose in the air and with a finger she traced some pattern strange even to Ashake memory.
The man fronting Naldamak turned his head, met Jayta’s stare, to return that with something near to menace in his look.
“What do you?” he demanded.
Deliberately, for the second time, Jayta traced that symbol.
“You can’t know—” For the first time his outer self-confidence cracked somewhat, and then quickly he added:
“That such knowledge remains—”
“After all these centuries?” Jayta completed his sentence. “I am the Daughter-of-Apedemek, in the direct spiritual line, oh, far traveler, from those who—”
“No!” His gesture was forbidding. “That you know at all is contrary to all we believed. But if you do, then you also recognize what this Khasti is and that he has no place here. It is a great and final sin that he has come.”
Naldamak looked from the stranger to Jayta and then back again. Then she spoke decisively.
“We do not gather here to argue about what part of this world Khasti came from, but how we may handle him. You say, man out of the desert, that he has devices beyond our control. Yet you will not yourself go up against him. How then do you think we may handle him?” And she made of that question a challenge.
“Only get him out of his own place, or the place he has made his own, and he will be ours to take.”
Herihor laughed without mirth. “A small deed and one easily accomplished, would you say? Why not net your own fish, stranger? We have learned there are inner ways to his hole, and we shall be only too ready to show them to you.”
“I can take no part in your battles, Prince General. Even as your own priests, I have certain restraints laid upon me which I cannot break. But this I warn you—if you come by secret into this place of his, destroy it utterly. There are devices there which, used by the unwary, could not only turn New Napata into dust to pollute the earth, but would also loose death on all your world. He came well prepared for what he would do.”
“Retake perhaps an ancient heritage?” Tallahassee did not know where those words came from, or why she said them aloud. It was as if she repeated something that was born of neither of the memories that were hers.
Now that searching, near menacing stare was turned on her. She felt an odd sensation, a probing at her thoughts. Instinctively she tightened the guard that Ashake knew, fortifying it in part with the strength that had always been her own.
“You!” He took a single step toward her, the menace in his face growing. Then it gave way to puzzlement. “You are not—” he began and then checked himself. “No matter what you are—you do not serve him. But it may be that, of all this company, you can best stand against him. There is that in you which is a natural barrier to the forces at our command. I would suggest, Candace Naldamak, that this one”—he pointed deliberately to Tallahassee—“is best suited of all your people to front Khasti.”
Herihor was on his feet. “Who commands here, stranger? Who are you to tell us whom to risk? You speak to us as a general speaks to a first recruit, and we are not for your ordering—”
“Your manner,” interrupted the Candace, “does not impress itself well upon my officers. I will accept your warnings as the truth, but our battle plans remain ours—”
He was gone!
“What!—” Herihor’s weapon came up, but all he faced was empty air.
“Where did he go?” One of the generals appealed to Jayta, as if she alone might have some answer to the riddle. “You knew him, or his like, Daughter-of-Apedemek. What is he then, and that other devil, making his mischief within Napata itself? Or is this some secret too great for our minds.”
“It is an old secret, Nastasen, and one I have no right to share. But this much I say—his kind were known to the first men who were of Khem. And for some generations there was intercourse between our ancestors and such. Then they were gone, but they left us that knowledge upon which all our long history and learning is built. As for how he went—he may not have been here in flesh at all. They were able, legend tells us, to project images of themselves for long distances—”
“The wraiths?” asked Tallahassee.
Jayta frowned. “No, those wraiths which both aided and beset you are born out of the wickedness of Khasti. They are—or were—once people of our own kind, sent into a non-world for purposes of Khasti—a world into which they are imperfectly sealed, so that their thoughts and longing can reach through, if they can build up energy to do so by drawing it from us. Whether with the going of Khasti they can be restored—that even I do not know.”
“If Khasti can also wink out after this manner,” observed General Shabeke, “it would seem that our task is that much the greater. Perhaps the sooner we start upon it, the better.”
“It has been near a day since Ashake came out of New Napata. We cannot be sure if Khasti knows where she is now. It would seem, that, in spite of his boasted power, he could not search the palace, or he would have hunted you down there, Sister. So there may be a few limits yet on the power he would seize. I think that the Nomarchs Idieze summoned have not yet proclaimed Userkof, Emperor, either. Thus it is better that we move as soon as possible. My lords,”—Naldamak spoke to the generals—“marshal the forces you have selected. I trust you have picked men who cannot be troubled too much by these ‘wraiths.’ Make sure to tell them what Ashake believes, that these lurkers in the invisible have good reason to hate Khas
ti; that one, at least, served the Princess in her great need. Ashake … Jayta …”
Naldamak paused. “I do not send others where I do not go. We shall head directly for the inner palace. I and half my guard shall ascend the secret stair into my own chambers. There I shall show myself. And—”
“I shall go to the laboratory.” Though again Tallahassee had no intention of saying that, the words came from her lips. “Yes,” she waved aside the protest in Herihor’s face. “This stranger has said that I can stand best against Khasti. So be it—”
Naldamak’s hand hovered over the Key and the Rod. “Take this then, Sister.” She pushed the Key in Ashake’s direction. “It is the symbol of all your learning. Thus it may profit you in this hour.”
“I go with her.” Jayta raised the lion mask from where it had rested beside her stool. “As Daughter-of-Apedemek I have certain powers of my own, as Khasti shall discover.”
“So be it.” The Candace nodded. “Let darkness be well advanced and we go.”
Tallahassee had never thought to be returning through the noisome ways of the sewer, yet here she came, and at the head of no small company, with Naldamak herself between some of her guards not far behind, and Jayta at her very shoulder.
They had an abundance of light now, and though the girl watched carefully for any seeming curdling of the air to announce the presence of the wraiths, it would seem they no longer hunted.
They passed beneath the well which led upwards, and there they shed a full half of their force, the generals leading their men in that climb that should bring them out well within the walls of Napata. If they could force an exit through whatever topped off that well, excellent. If not they were to descend again and take the palace way. But their planned strategy was for simultaneous attacks from without the palace and within.
“This is a strange road.” Jayta’s voice sounded hollowly from within her mask. Ashake-Tallahassee wondered whether the mask filtered out some of the horrible stench. They went slowly, being careful of their footing. But the added light and the company lightened the passage for her.
Finally they reached the foot of the stair that led to the Candace’s suite and here two of the guards went to work, prying out the stones to open the way fully. Naldamak’s hand fell on Tallahassee’s arm.
“Good fortune be with you, Sister. This is a harsh gamble we take, not only with our own lives, but with Amun as well. Should we fail, Amun falls. Use the Key as you must, so will I use the Rod.”
“And good fortune go with it,” Tallahassee had wit enough to answer. Even Ashake memory could not give her a feeling of closeness to this resolute woman. From early childhood their lives had been lived apart. But that she could trust Naldamak, of that Tallahassee was very sure. In time she must trust her with the last secret of all—that there was no longer an Ashake.
With Jayta, three of the Amazon guard, and two men Herihor had insisted she take, Tallahassee sought Khasti’s own stronghold. It was on the way there that she met the wraiths.
She heard a small gasp from Jayta, who raised her hand, her fingers crossed, in a certain way. Tallahassee swung up the Key, its natural radiance lost in the torch light. But it felt warm within her hand as if it now broadcast energy of a sort she could not understand, even with Ashake knowledge.
There was no movement, only that feeling of being hemmed in, as if invisible fingers plucked at their clothing, pulled at their hair, tried in every way to draw their attention. Ashake spoke without turning her head.
“These are those of which you were told,” she said softly. “They can do you no harm. Perhaps they may be persuaded to aid us in some manner.”
There were no answers from those who followed her, but she could sense their uneasiness at such company. And she gave their courage high rating as they moved on, their boots ringing faintly on the ancient stone, with a firmness suggesting it would take more than what the wraiths manifested now to deter them from their purpose.
Unfortunately, something more just might lie ahead. What safeguards Khasti was able to throw about the center of his activity, the girl did not know, but he might have armed himself since her own escape.
Catching sight of the stairs, she passed the order to extinguish their torches. Climbing those stairs, they paused to listen for any sound from ahead. The wraiths were part of their company. Still they gave no sign of wishing to communicate. Perhaps they, too, waited to be sure Khasti had prepared no ambush.
Step after very cautious step the two women went up and on, the men following them. Without the torches, the Key shone with its own particular force as Ashake came into the hall, Jayta one pace behind. She had expected to see some light perhaps from the door of the laboratory, but if it were occupied the door must be firmly closed.
Whispering that what they sought lay now just a little ahead, Tallahassee edged close to the wall so that her shoulder brushed its surface as she went. It could not be much farther. No—there in the light of the Key she saw its smooth panels. But there was no sign of any opening latch. It might as well have been sealed like the stones that had earlier choked the other way.
Tallahassee slipped the palm of one hand along the surface, up and down to the length of her arm in both directions. There was nothing she could catch hold of. And when she pushed, first gently, and then with much more force, it remained immobile.
There remained the Key. She had not put it to any such test. She had used only the Rod before. But if it were a key, than what better way might she employ it? Concentrating on what she held, she raised the cross, clutching it by the loop at the top, and advanced its foot to the surface of the door as if she were in truth fitting a key to a lock. At the same time she felt Jayta’s hand close about the arm that held the Key and from that touch poured a force to match her own, so that their united wills fed the ankh.
There followed a burst of sparks—though not such a great flare as the Rod had brought from the cage in which Khasti had earlier pent her. Then—the defensive barrier that had held the door was gone in an instant. Under her touch it swung open, so she was able to send it spinning back against the inner wall, two of the guard crowding up to shield both her and the Priestess from any waiting attack, with their own bodies if need be.
But there was no one inside. Tallahassee could see the cage still standing, the burnt-out hole in its side. And there were all the rest of the many things that crowded the tables, lined the walls. Yet something was missing. Tallahassee tried to remember what.
In a moment she understood. This was a deserted workplace, nothing bubbled, seethed, nor clicked. The activity she had seen before had ceased. Did that mean that Khasti had fled, having had some notice of their coming? Tallahassee did not believe that, rather that he had transferred his activities elsewhere. What remained here might now be valueless but they certainly would render all of it unusable.
“Be careful, my Princess,” Jayta said as if she had read the girl’s thoughts. “There may still be much that is harmful. We must move with caution since we do not understand.”
Tallahassee accepted the prudence of that warning. But how could they understand? Or beware of harmful things they had never seen before? In her own time and world she had only the slightest knowledge of chemistry or physics. What she could draw upon as a warning was very limited.
“The Key will tell us.” Again Jayta prompted her.
Ashake-Tallahassee advanced to the nearest table, her hand bearing the Key outstretched. Twice during her slow progress, while the guards kept watch at the doorway, the Key moved in her grasp, against her will, pointing down like a diviner’s rod. Once it was above a small box of metal and again above a beaker of turgid yellow liquid. Each time Jayta took what was so indicated and carried it to the broken cage, setting her spoil within. Two more boxes and a rod, not as long as the talisman but rather like it in some ways, save that it lacked the lion mask, were added to those others before they were done.
Then Tallahassee called two of the guard to
her while the others kept watch.
“Destroy,” she ordered and pointed to the tables.
They smashed and splintered all into bits, moving rapidly along. There was a case like a file against the wall and from this Tallahassee herself tore the contents, sheets of tough paper covered with figures and diagrams foreign to her. These she hurled into the cage until they were heaped high about the objects the Key had marked as dangerous. For she knew now how to put an end to those and maybe the whole of this devilish chamber.
“Out—all of you! Back toward the Candace’s stair and do not linger!”
“What are you doing?” Jayta asked, as the well-trained troops did as they were bid.
“I would see if Khasti’s place of torment can still be used! Get you also to the door, Daughter-of-Apedemek. For what I may loose here might be a grave danger. And take you this.” She pushed the Key into the priestess’s hands.
Jayta backed away, she was at the door now. Tallahassee’s hands went to those four buttons on the front of the box that had controlled the cage. It might be in breaking out of that prison she had also broken this. But she could try.
Her fingertips spread and punched—hard.
There was a glow on the wires of the cage at the back where they were still intact. She leaped back, pushing Jayta before her, to reach the outer wall.
“The stairway—let us make the stairway!” she cried out, catching the priestess’s hand in a hard grip and hurrying her along.
They were well down on the stairs leading to the lower level, hearing the clatter of the guards’ boots on the stone before them and seeing the beams of their torches, when the answer to Tallahassee’s reckless gesture came. There was a roar of sound and a fierce burst of light from behind. The thick walls about them shook.
Both women took the last few stairs in leaps they would not have attempted earlier. The sound had deafened them, but Tallahassee waved the guard on and they plunged ahead to the second stairway leading to the Candace’s chambers. Here they had to climb in single file and she came last, panting and dizzy from the shock of the explosion.