Wraiths of Time (15 page)

There was a snap, a sharp return to the focus of normality. Khasti was himself again, standing by the machine, studying her with the frown line very deep carven between his eyes. Now he smiled, slowly, as had Idieze in her time, with the same tasting of a sweet that he would prolong to the utmost.

“So you are a little more perhaps than I had thought,” he said. “Yet, in the end, we shall come to terms, my terms. And, because of your stubbornness, those terms will grow harsher the longer you withstand me.”

He strode away, as if he had set her completely out of mind. Tallahassee drew a long breath and then another. But her attention was all for Khasti's back. Not because she feared his return or another attack, but because behind him, though he walked under the direct lighting of this place, which could support no shadow and did not, there trailed a tenuous
something
that she now could see. That which had kept watch above the Rod had now materialized farther, to cling to Khasti almost like a tattered cloak.

He paused at the far end of the room to bend over a table. Tallahassee thought she could see a sheet of paper laid there on which he was concentrating his gaze. The wraith hung about, seeming to nudge first one of the man's unyielding shoulders and then the other, striving to draw attention to itself, or so the girl believed. Yet Khasti displayed no sign that he knew of its presence. And the girl thought that that was the truth.

She waited for it to come drifting back to the cage of the Rod, as Khasti set aside the sheet of paper and now busied himself with the apparatus on the table. Instead it seemed to slip back into the air and was lost, nor could she sense its presence any longer. But she knew its name—Akini. And, knowing that, by the very ancient lore, she had a small bit of control over it, or would, if she remembered the proper ritual.

Now she was left to consider what had happened to her during that period of time when Khasti had striven to bring her to heel with his machine. He had failed in whatever purpose he had worked to gain. But she was still a prisoner, and so were the Rod and Key. Tallahassee did not expect any help from the outside to come thundering in to her rescue, even though she continued to doubt that Khasti had things as well under his control as he would have her believe.

There was one point he had openly made—that he was no longer, if he ever was, working to set up Userkof as Emperor. Tallahassee was not certain of the temper of the people. Would they accept a commander, a ruler not of the Blood? They appeared to have accepted the closure of the Temple, which was against all right and law and which once would have brought out a mob, squalling and fighting to get at the blasphemer who had ordered such a move.

He had offered to bargain with her, but more rightly he would in the end go straight to the source and bargain with Naldamak, the Empress. The woman who wore the triple crown was not now the same girl Ashake had called sister in the long ago. By deliberation, and through sorrow and loss, the woman in her had sunk so deep into the ruler that now she was forever remote and gave the impression of one who thought first of abstractions, and only last of human emotion, liking, hating, fearing.

Against such could Khasti use that strange weapon of hypnotism (for that surely was what the whirling disk was) and so make Naldamak his dupe? Then outwardly their world would continue the same, while inwardly he wrought a different life, overtaking the old.

Naldamak had been too set apart—Ashake memories had only the outward appearance, some guesses, to offer. This could indeed happen and very logically. Then why had Khasti suggested a bargain, attempted to force it on her—the Heir?

Because she was who she was. Naldamak had taken solemn oath she would not marry again, nor could she under the law now when her sterility had been judged complete. But with her Heir …

Tallahassee nodded. Even situated as she now was, she could find a wry smile for Idieze's fallen hopes. The wife of Userkof, instead of furthering her own cause, had played neatly into Khasti's hands by bringing the Heir within his reach. She wondered if Idieze realized that; certainly she was not stupid enough to believe that she could command her one-time ally any more.

Khasti poured greenish liquid from one beaker into another and brought it closer, to add the contents, drop by careful drop, to a bowl upon the table only a little beyond the cage of the Rod. There was a nasty smell, so irritating that Tallahassee coughed in spite of her efforts to remain quiet.

Having finished his task the man raised his head to look at her, as he picked up the bowl in one hand.

“Perhaps a chance”—he held the bowl up so she could not miss seeing it—“to forestall the imminent death of our dear Prince. A rather slim chance, I believe. But since I am called upon for miracles, so will I do my best. The Princess Idieze …” He shook his head mockingly. “Alas, Great Lady, since she cannot call for your blood openly, I think she will try most energetically to obtain it in other and more hidden ways. Not because she loves her dear Lord, but because a crown she thought very firm, if invisible, upon her brow has been dashed away.

“Well, it is a hope. As for you, Great Lady, occupy yourself with thoughts also—namely how long can even one who is Temple-trained lie pent without food or water. Food—maybe the longer. They say that those having the Talent are nourished rather than exhausted by fasting. But water is another thing.”

And as if his words had been a key to open the door for the demands of her body, Tallahassee's tongue moved within a mouth that seemed suddenly parched. The mental image of water brought a terrible thirst to rack her.

The thirst induced by that suggestion from Khasti become a torment. Tallahassee rested her head upon her arms folded over her knees as she hunched in the cage. He had reached her once with the whirling disk that had put her under his command; had he done it more subtly again by words alone? She fought to control her thoughts—to shut away mind pictures of running water, of cups full and waiting for her to pick them up.

Did Khasti believe he could set her at the screen in a frenzy of thirst and so be rid of her? Drip—drip—A sound hammered at her control. Slowly she raised her head, peered at the laboratory beyond. There was a sink fashioned of heavy stone, fed by a pipe. And from that the liquid was falling drop by drop, though she had not noticed nor heard that before. Was this but a refinement of torture arranged by Khasti?

She closed her eyes again, tried to shut her ears to that sound, monotonous, somehow deadly to her control. That Khasti had meant exactly what he said, she had no doubt. He would use her body to get at her mind …

Panic lashed at her. She covered her mouth swiftly with both hands lest she scream out in fear. That was his weapon—fear. But her defense was the anger she nurtured in herself as a wall against her own despair.

Drip—drip—

She shook her head wildly, as if by that gesture she could shut out the sound. But that was not the way to fight. Her best weapon lay in one place, of that she was sure, Ashake's memory. As she had done earlier she began to test, to draw on that knowledge, becoming more and more aware of the tatters in it—the blanks which, if filled, might have served her.

Ashake had gone through the long ordeals of the Temple, had learned there control of the natural processes of her own body that were only rumored as possible in Tallahassee's own world. Therefore somewhere there must lie an answer to this.…

The palms of her hands were wet with sweat as if the cage once more was heating around her, yet the mesh wires remained dull and fireless. She forced herself to breathe slowly, evenly. Thus—thus …

Again, it was as if she had broken through a wall, tapped a new reserve of strength she had not known existed. But—hold—do not be too quickly sure. As if she crept along some very slippery path with extinction waiting on either side, Tallahassee explored, to hold, finally to use, that bit of memory. The sensation of thirst receded. It was still there, yes, but it no longer made an unthinking creature of her.

She opened her eyes, tested her control by watching the drip of the pipe. For now—yes—she could hold!

But, the door beyond that pipe was opening slowly, as if by stealth. A moment later a figure slipped through, shut that portal quickly. Idieze hurried down the aisle between the tables, came to front the cage.

For a moment she only stood, surveying Tallahassee. However, this time there was no glint of malice in her eyes, no mocking smile to see her enemy so entrapped.

“Listen.” She moved within touching distance of the wire netting. “You have powers. Even though that one has entrapped you, still he dares not put finger to that for himself.” She pointed to the Rod. “He—he thinks to use
you
to accomplish his desire—”

“That being,” Tallahassee commented dryly, “the rule of Amun for himself.”

“Yes.” Idieze's lips were tight against her teeth. “He says he will try to cure my Lord—I think he lies.”

“And he has no more use for you?”

Idieze's expression became one of blazing fury. “This—this barbarian—and more than barbarian. He is not even human, not of this world! Oh, he thinks that is safely hidden, but there was the knowledge Zyhlarz gained. He came into this world through some demon-opened door. Where think you he learned this?” Her outflung hand indicated the laboratory.

“You were willing enough to accept his help, demon-inspired or not,” Tallahassee pointed out.

Idieze laughed. “Why not? We thought then that he lived by our favor alone. We could expose him for what he was—something that had no right to live. He promised us—showed us …”

“Enough to make you believe, but not enough to warn you,” Tallahassee continued for her. “It was his idea, was it not, to hide the Rod and Key out of time?”

Idieze brushed her hand across her forehead dislodging the set of her formal wig, but making no attempt to adjust it.

“Yes. But that did not serve, for you returned them. Yet if he can open such a door once, it can be done again—and he can draw through those to serve him.”

“You have not the mind of a child, Idieze, nor are you one whose thoughts have been emptied by the Greater Evil. Surely you knew that this would come of?…”

Idieze bit the knuckles of her clenched fist. Tallahassee wanted to laugh. Did Idieze think she could so deceive one with the Talent? (The Talent? queried another part of her mind which she did not take time to answer.) The woman's complete reversal of purpose was not to be trusted, of course. This was another ploy, probably set by Khasti for the purpose of weakening Tallahassee's own will. But if he believed that she could be won by such as this, what a very low estimate he must hold of her.

“He …” Idieze did not answer her question but switched to another track entirely. “He is not like other men, I tell you. He believes that all women are weak of will and purpose. He despises secretly our people because they will listen to women, be ruled by them!”

“Yet you believed he would listen to you, be controlled by you,” Tallahassee pointed out. “So I ask again—why?”

“Because I did not know!” Her voice was shrill and high as if that question had in some way goaded her beyond endurance. “It was not until my Lord was struck down that he revealed himself truly—”

“You are contradicting yourself now. Have you not said that you had already learned he was not of our kind?”

“I do not know what I say!” Her hands, made into fists, were lifted as if to beat in the wire of the cage, perhaps reach Tallahassee. “We knew he was different, but not how different. He spoke to me—
me
—as if I were a barbarian slave. He—there was that in him which he had not dared show me before.”

“Not dared—or not cared?” Tallahassee asked. “But why come you now to me? You have seen me safely imprisoned by his device. What can I accomplish?”

Idieze shook her head from side to side. “I do not know. But you are learned of the Upper Way, surely there is something you can do.”

“Perhaps. Reach out and bring me the Key and the Rod—” Tallahassee challenged her. “Then we shall see.”

Idieze actually turned as if to catch up those talismen. Then she shrank back.

“If I touch what holds them, I die.”

“So I have thought,” Tallahassee commented dryly. “Thus you are caught in your own fine trap. But what of the others—those in the Temple? Have you appealed to Zyhlarz?”

“There is a guard on the temple—not of men—but of one of
his
things. No one has come forth for three days.”

“And those who were my own guards—did you make them sleep and then cut their throats perhaps?” Tallahassee forced her voice to an even tone, just as she had forced control on her body.

“No!” Idieze stared at her. “To sleep, yes, when we took you. And maybe for a day thereafter. But they cannot come. Khasti has set his guards upon the city itself, so only those of his following may enter and none can leave. He waits to entrap the Empress so.”

“So having safely taken New Napata he can do all—”

“No! There is one thing he cannot do!” Idieze interrupted. “He cannot take up the Rod. He tried it when it came into his hands before and failed. That was why he sought to hide it in a place he thought no other could reach. He cannot hold the Rod any more than could Userkof.”

“You saw him try?” demanded Tallahassee.

“Yes. In his hand he held a box-so small a box. That he passed over the Rod and from it came a clicking, so that swiftly he snatched it away. But he had one who served him—whom he held by the strength of his eye and his will—and that one took the Rod—and vanished!”

“But that one did not suffer from the Rod?”

“Khasti put on his hands gloves that were very heavy. With those he gripped the Rod so no hurt came to him.”

“He can banish the Rod again, can he not? And, if he can do many strange and wonderful things, can he not rule without it?”