Wraiths of Time (16 page)

Idieze stared at her now. “But you know whereof the Rod is made. It is the heart of our nation—our people! Without it we are finished. Why do you say that the Rod is naught and Khasti can rule without it?”

A bad mistake, Tallahassee realized instantly. Those of Amun were conditioned by the centuries to that belief. And if indeed the Rod were taken from them they would crumble as a state, die out as a people, because they believed this would be so.

“Yet he took and hid it,” she pointed out.

“Only for a space was that to be. He had knowledge of where it lay—and only four knew that it was gone. Until you and Jayta divined it!”

“But you took it—and me.”

Idieze pounded her fists together. “Userkof is of the Blood, none has denied it. The Empress does not wed, she has withdrawn much from the world. And you—you are of the Upper Path. What have you to do with ruling? Userkof was the Emperor's own son. Why should he not be ruler here?” Her words tripped over one another in a rush. “In other nations it is the king's own son who follows him—”

“Among the barbarians,” Tallahassee pointed out. “Of them you have more intimate knowledge than do I. You speak of the Rod as being the heart of our nation. Well, to it are wedded our own customs in turn. We do not follow barbarian ways.”

“Throw my blood against me if you will! Yes, my grandmother was of the western sea people—but she was none the less for that. She was the daughter of a king—the which you are also.”

So their suspicion of Idieze's blood mixture had been the truth. Not that that mattered to Tallahassee.

“What matters now whose blood runs in our veins? It is enough that Khasti has been turned loose to do his will. And since you know him better than do I, what do you propose then?” She brought them back to the main matter. And she indeed wished to have Idieze's answer to that.

When the other hesitated, Tallahassee asked another question. “How is this cage in which I sit controlled? I have learned there is energy in its sides so I cannot hope to batter my way out.”

Idieze shook her head. “I do not know. I have been in this room only once before. And then Khasti said that death lay all around for the unwary and not to touch aught that was here.”

“Then why did you come?” persisted Tallahassee. “To tell me how hopeless it is to struggle against this barbarian you sought to use as a tool, who now turns easily in your hand to threaten you?”

“I came because—because for all Khasti has said—the Talent
is
. And there is that in the Upper Way which is as powerful as his machines—to urge you to use that against him before it is too late!”

Tallahassee observed her through narrowed eyes. She had begun this interview by believing Idieze's arrival a subtle attack or feint against her, doubtless set in action by Khasti. But that new sense of hers was able to pick up now that the other was indeed afraid, that she might be quite close to meaning exactly what she said. Though of old the truth was not in this woman, now fear itself was forcing it out.

“I think you mean that—but it would seem too late,” Tallahassee observed. “There is this you can do—alert those who would rise to crush Khasti, open a way for Jayta and Herihor—”

Idieze was already shaking her head. “I have told you—he has his own guards on Napata—”

“Guards can be—” began Tallahassee, when the other interrupted.

“Not these guards—for they are not men, as I said, but rather things he has wrought within
this
place. We know not how to command them, any more than I can release you from this cage. His ways are not ours.”

“Perhaps not.” Tallahassee eyed the block wherefrom came that steady clicking, where Khasti's adjustments had brought upon her that searing attempt to master her mind. “It is that”—she pointed—“that, I believe, controls this cage. What can you see on its fore?” The thing sat just at the wrong angle for her to be sure of the front panel.

Idieze moved to stand before it, her fingers laced behind her as if she dreaded above all else any contact with the thing.

“There is a panel; upon it burns a small red light. Below that is a row of buttons.”

“How many buttons?”

“Four.”

Four, and the farthest one controlled the agony with which Khasti had attacked her. Would any of the other three release her? It was a slim chance but Tallahassee dared not let it go.

“Do not touch the one that lies the farthest to your right. But try the one farthest to your left.”

“It is death to touch.
He
said so!” Idieze made no move to lift her hand.

“If you did not come to aid me—then why?”

“Use your own powers,” Idieze returned. “You of the Upper Way have in the past said that so much can be done in that fashion. I have given you warning, but I will not touch this thing born out of demon knowledge.”

Then she wheeled and ran, as if she were pursued by some horror. Tallahassee watched her go. Use her own powers indeed. Was Idieze really moved by panic, or had all her talk been a deception, a need for knowing
what
Tallahassee, with the vaunted Talent, could do? Her conviction that the other had been truthful in her fear was shaken. Truth and falsehood could be skillfully mingled so that one could not be sifted free of the other.

But she was haunted by those four buttons. If she could only have talked Idieze into trying them! She stared at the block to her left as if by will alone she could manipulate its secret, win her freedom.

Will alone! Ashake memory responded with another fragment. Unluckily one on which she could build nothing. She only knew that Ashake herself had once witnessed such a feat of telekinesis. But it had been performed by several adepts acting together, joining their powers. And it was not common.

She closed her eyes, to shut out the here and now, to better catch any hint from that second and mutilated memory. Some details were so clear that she could believe she herself had done such things. Others—they blurred, faded, when she tried to fasten on them. An animal could be mind-touched, brought into control, made to perform any task within its physical ability. But such manipulation of other life forms was not to be indulged in. For all life was to be respected and man should make no slave of any species. Also, where in this room was she to find anything she could influence, even if she might have the power to do so?

Where …

Tallahassee grew tense. That—that presence—for which the name Akini stood—it was back. She opened her eyes and looked to the cage of the Rod above which it again hovered.

But—Akini—it—was not alone!

She could see nothing, only sense that there was more than one presence here now. Still she watched, hardly daring to draw a deep breath.

“Akini …” Tallahassee moistened her lips, spoke the name aloud.

There fell a queer kind of stillness—as if what she had not seen had halted, was listening intently, that now these presences were focusing on her.

“Akini.” Again she spoke the name, this time was a certainty that she was heard.

There was a flow of emotion, striking her suddenly as a wave might batter a cliff—anger, fear—but not aimed toward her. No, that emotion flooded out for her to receive merely because she was present and in some way had established a thread of contact with the identity that generated it.

But the contact seemed all on one side. If it—Akini—knew her or
did
respond as she thought was happening, he—it—could not reply.

Save that there was a wavering in the air, a shadow, a wraith—like a cloudy outline with a blob for a head, stick arms, legs, a cylinder body.… It writhed, as if striving to set what might be suggestions of feet on the floor, still it wavered and floated. Save that somehow it could control its movements enough to front her cage.

Emotion again—a pleading—a voiceless cry for help.

“Akini.” She summoned up all her control, for the wavering thing held for her a growing horror, and she had to force herself to look at it. “I am a prisoner—I cannot help you—
now.”

Did it—he—understand? There was plainly a struggle to hold to even the slight visibility it had. And then one of those stick arms began to stretch, pulling into itself the gossamer material of which the whole was fashioned, until there swam in the air restless coils of what might have been a great serpent—very thin in diameter but long. It looped about the cage from which Tallahassee watched it wide-eyed. She had been able to accept in part the wraith she had first seen, but this was something else again, and still it was spinning out its substance, refining it down and down to threadlike size dimensions.

The thread end poised before the screen of the cage. Tallahassee threw up her hands before her face. She knew what would happen. It strove now to enter between the wires of the deadly mesh! To reach her! Her control snapped. With a cry she sank down, her face against her knees, her arms laced protectingly over her head—though there was no protection, she was certain that could hold against what hunted her now.

There came a touch, cold, sending a tingle up her arm from the wrist where it had met her flesh. She tried to ball herself more closely together, moaning softly, with no thought now but the need for escape.

Then—it was gone!

Tallahassee need not look up, out into the laboratory, to know that. Its snuffing-out was a mental not a physical thing. For the moment she was only thankful for its withdrawal, for her escape—though what she feared from it she could not have said.

There came the sound of a closing door. Idieze returning? She above all must not see Tallahassee reduced to these straits. The girl fought for control of her shivering body, of her scattered, half-dazed thoughts, and drew on the dregs of her energy to raise her head.

“How is it with you, Great Lady?”

Tallahassee's blurred sight cleared. Khasti! But at this moment Khasti, though he had entrapped her, was safe compared to what had hung in the air, tried to reach her through the netting of her prison walls.

“Do you wish to drink?” he asked with malicious mockery, crossing from the side of the cage to the sink to twist the end of the dripping pipe. A gush of water answered him.

“Water, Great Lady. At this moment I would say you would find this sweeter to the taste than the rarest of wines. Is that not so?…”

She shook her head, not so much in denial, as rather to clear her thoughts. Khasti was a man, that other thing … She shivered.

“No water? They have trained you well.” He turned from the pipe flow and began to swing the disk once more on its glittering chain. But this time she was forewarned and closed her eyes. He could not hypnotize her a second time.

“Stupid female!”

“Was Akini stupid too?” she asked.

“Akini! Where got you that name? Your spies have been busy.” There was a new harshness in his voice. By the sound of it, he had moved away from the sink, was coming closer to the cage.

It was as if a hand were laid warningly over her lips. For a second out of time that other was here again. There was anger—toward Khasti—a sharp hint of silence for her.

“As yours must have been in their turn,” she answered. But she did not open her eyes, even though she believed she could no longer hear the thin swish of the chain passing through the air.

“It does not matter.” He was master of himself once again. “You might wish to know, since he is your kin. Userkof did not ‘depart for the west'—as your people so euphemistically put it. He will live—a cripple—and no more thankful to you for that than any man would be. As for you, I leave you to your dreams, Great Lady—and I do not think that this night they will be pleasant ones!”

She could hear the scrape of his sandals on the floor. He had passed her cage, was going to that block bearing the buttons. Another assault upon her mind? She was too worn now—she could not hold—she could not.…

Did she, or did she not catch the faint click of a button? There was a hum, soft but persistent, walling her in, as if the wires of the mesh were being plucked as might be the strings of a harp—singing—lulling … Her head fell forward once more so that her forehead rested on her knees. She tried to prod her will into keeping her awake, but she could not.…

There was no cage—instead she walked down a corridor and she knew what lay at the end. This was the trial of a novice who must face death and then rebirth or never tread the Upper Way. Fear walked at her shoulder, matching step to step with her, but she did not turn her head to see what form it took. She fought to breathe evenly, slowly, as one does when fully relaxed, to make each pace as measured as the next. Behind her lay years of the Temple training, before her only this last ordeal, and then she could prove her right to the Power which she felt struggling now within her, seeking the outlet that only the initiate could truly give.

There hung the dark curtain of death-in-life and beyond it was life-in-death to be fronted. Ashake held high her head as if she already wore the initiate's crown of victory. Her hand moved, closed upon the curtain and drew it aside. With the courage of a warrior she stepped out into the deep dark.

This was her last trial. By years of training, or learning to know herself and the depths of her thoughts even when they were unpleasant to face, she had been prepared for this moment, to be pitted against the fears from which those thoughts were born. For none can wield the Power until they can command themselves fully.

She was ready.…

But something else struggled in her. Not her fear, no. This was urgent, a warning. Ashake hesitated within that all-enveloping dark, tried to understand.

This—this she had done before! She was being made to relive the past by some force outside herself. And that force had only one reason, that through her it could learn secrets which none who knew them must ever reveal.