by James Axler
"What's the albino like?"
"Young and strong. He killed your Serapis in Baltic Alley, though he was debilitated by a metauh rod. We've kept him drugged since then, and I squeezed his mind while he slept."
Mimses dropped his hands and gazed at her skeptically. "Squeezed his mind how?"
"I stimulated his libido. I embedded certain perceptions about Kela and me into his consciousness. That, combined with the potion and Kela's attention to him, will keep him tractable until we need him."
"You hope."
"He's young, like I said," Nefron responded defensively. "Full of hormones, and his sex drive is very close to the surface, very easy to manipulate."
"As long as he's satisfied with Kela and will stay put for another couple of days."
Nefron sighed wearily. "If his attention wanders, I'll provide him with another distraction."
Mimses eyed her dourly. "You?"
She shrugged carelessly. "If need be. If I gauged his reaction to me correctly, the very thought of me gets him hard."
Mimses smirked. "Kind of like how that mutie whore affects Pharaoh. How goes it with her?"
"Her psychic defenses are strong but undisciplined. I encountered considerable resistance yesterday when I supplanted the image of the one-eyed man with that of Pharaoh. It is difficult to, on the one hand, verbally try to convince her Pharaoh is a monster, and on the other, mentally nudge her into his arms."
"A little too complicated for my tastes."
"Not really. Krysty is so busy trying to screen out Pharaoh's influence, she's completely unaware that I'm slipping in the back door and chipping away at her barriers."
"Where is she now?"
"With Pharaoh. She seemed sluggish this morning, so I figure Pharaoh gave her mind a squeeze while she slept. Combined with the spiked wine I poured for her and Pharaoh's proximity, she should be a prime candidate for Spellbound City before the day is through."
"Sort of like your mother," Mimses commented dryly.
Nefron pushed herself away from the wall, thrusting her head forward angrily. "He seduced and tricked her and killed her."
"He didn't kill her," Mimses stated. "And it didn't take a whole hell of a lot of seducing."
Nefron's lips peeled back from her teeth in a silent snarl. "She wasn't in her right mind—you know that."
"Oh, she was in her right mind," Mimses said with a smirk. "It was her reproduction system that wasn't right. Pharaoh fixed her so she could give birth to you, but it was a one-time-only deal. The second time he played around with her insides, she wasn't so lucky."
"He did operate on her, performed surgery against her will. That's the same as killing her."
"Nefron, sweetie," Mimses said, striving for a tone of condolence, "poor old Connie didn't have much will left to her."
"And who's fault was that?"
"I've managed to keep your dear old dad pretty much out of my head for the past few years."
"Aren't you lucky?" she said with a sneer. Mimses chuckled. "Not as lucky as I'm going to be. The machinery is all in place in the King's Chamber. The newcomers won't cause you any trouble, since you're their only hope of getting out of here. They'll do what you say. If it's revenge you're after, you'll get it. So relax."
Nefron's tense, haughty expression slowly softened. "You're right. What about the Incarnates?"
"What's left of them, you mean?" Mimses replied in irritation. "They're primed and ready to play their parts. Are you sure you can count on the kid, the albino?"
"I'll be able to persuade him to push the deadfall lever. Since he's never been anywhere near Pharaoh, he will not be able to sense his intentions."
Mimses laughed and clapped his hands. "It's foolproof. Once that mutant whoreson and his mutie bitch are out of the way, I'll declare you queen. The newcomers will make perfect patsies."
Nefron didn't join in with the laughter. Her eyes narrowed, focusing on the open collar of Mimses's robe. "Where's your amulet?"
Mimses laughter clogged in his throat. He made a slapping grab for his throat, his upper chest.
"Shit," he hissed, his eyes showing fear. "I don't know what could have— I always wear it!"
"You'll have to be around Pharaoh a lot these next couple of days," Nefron said grimly. "You'd better find another one very quickly, or this foolproof plan you're so proud of will be a foolproof way to get all of us executed."
LIKE AKHNATON HAD SAID, Ryan awoke feeling as if every muscle had been worked over by a meat tenderizer. He'd had no trouble getting back into the dormitory the night before and hadn't spoken to J.B. He collapsed onto his pallet and lay awake for a very long time, his body aching, his soul in agony. He managed to fall asleep after several hours and awakened when the dawn-to-noon labor shift shuffled out for breakfast. He tried to go back to sleep, but only dozed fitfully.
When he finally decided to get up, he saw J.B. staring at him disconcertedly. "What?" he asked irritably, his voice hoarse and thick.
"You've got bruises on your neck," his friend said mildly.
Ryan fingered the sore, tender flesh of his throat. "Not too far off the mark. It's the royal handprint of Pharaoh Akhnaton."
Tersely, without spicing it up, he told the Armorer of his violent encounter with Akhnaton.
His face a mask of astonishment, J.B. demanded, "Dark night! Why didn't he chill you?"
"He could have…or ordered some flunkies to do it. He said he'd rather punish me, hold Krysty over my head to control and torture me."
J.B. scowled. "Bastard coldheart."
"Yeah," Ryan grunted. "Let's see if there's anything to eat in this dump."
There was. A wheeled cart held savory biscuits, tea and a watered-down sort of fruit beverage. To their mild surprise, they had more or less free run of the dormitory and found a rec room where men played various board games. Curiously, their dorm mates were disinterested in them, treating them indifferently. After inviting them to join in a particularly boring-looking game and being promptly refused, J.B. and Ryan were pretty much left to themselves.
They found a shower room, which they took eager advantage of. Water flowed from amphorsae and ran down carefully chiseled channels and drains in the floor, dripping into purification tanks just below, and recirculated to supply tanks. So rare was the commodity, water had to be carefully conserved, no more permitted to evaporate than was unavoidable.
Adjacent to the shower room was a workshop equipped with a number of hand tools and even a band saw, drill press and a punch. Fasa was there at a bench, sharpening a number of chisels on a whetstone. He looked up when they entered and smiled. "Want to help me get the tools ready for the day?"
"Is it part of our responsibility?" J.B. asked.
Fasa's face acquired a faintly troubled look. "No, not exactly. Just thought you might care to make our shift go smoother. We can't use another shift's tools, you know."
Ryan shrugged and sat next to the man on the bench. He ran an oiled rag over the chisels to no real purpose except to appear helpful.
"Tell me about the capstone ceremony," Ryan suggested, hoping to sound ingenuous.
Fasa launched into a long, fancifully worded dissertation about how the capstone was a crystalline pyramidion built by Pharaoh's own hands, following ancient texts. Once in place, it would draw down the power of Osiris and fill Akhnaton with the supernal power of a god.
"Where's the capstone now?" J.B. asked.
Fasa regarded him solemnly. "Why do you want to know?"
"Won't we be the ones to put it into place?"
"No," Fasa retorted. "You have yet to be purified. You won't be allowed to touch it."
"Oh," Ryan said. "You can at least tell us where it is."
"I can't. Its location is a secret, known only to Pharaoh."
J.B. poked around in the contents of a wooden bin at the end of the table. He picked up a thin wafer of gray metal. "Some kind of alloy…lead and copper, mebbe."
&
nbsp; "It is used in the manufacture of the metauh rods," Fasa said.
"This stuff?" J.B. said doubtfully. "Doesn't seem like it would be a very good conductor."
"That and other materials are used on the rods' handles to protect the Incarnates from their own mena energy." He glanced from J.B. to Ryan suspiciously. "You are a rather inquisitive pair."
"Why shouldn't we be?" Ryan responded smoothly. "If our futures lie in Aten and service to Pharaoh, we need to learn as much as possible."
The answer seemed to satisfy Fasa. He returned his attention to sharpening the chisels, and J.B. and Ryan wandered away from the workroom.
"Did you understand any of that mumbo jumbo horseshit about the capstone?" J.B. asked.
Ryan shook his head impatiently. "Not nearly enough. We're getting nowhere fast."
A tall, scrawny, faintly ridiculous figure suddenly stepped from a side corridor. It required a second for them to recognize the lean figure wearing a kilt as Doc.
J.B. laughed. "What are you doing running around in that hairdo with your skinny shanks showing, Doc?"
Doc's lips tightened in disapproval. "I assure you that you present quite as ludicrous a picture as I, John Barrymore." In a low voice, he added, "I have felicitous news, but I cannot tarry overlong. So far, no one has prevented me from going where I will, however I do not care to—"
"Have you seen Mildred?" J.B. interrupted.
"Yes, yesterday. She is working on Mimses's staff."
"Mimses?"
"A counselor. His real name is Stockbridge."
"What about Krysty?" Ryan asked.
"I have not seen her, but I am sure she is being well treated."
"Any word from this Kela about efforts to get us out of here?" J.B. inquired.
"Not directly, though Dr. Wyeth informed me that Akhnaton's daughter, Nefron, is the guiding force behind the plan. Or plot. She seems to be in touch with Dr. Wyeth, and that is the reason I am here."
Doc dug around his loincloth and brought out an ankh, a smaller duplicate of the one Danielson had around his neck. "The doctor lifted this from Mimses. She theorizes it may be our key to getting out of here."
J.B. took it from his hand and inspected it closely. "It looks sort of like that alloy in the workroom. Why does Mildred think it's important?"
Doc quickly related their discussion of the day before, concluding, "The doctor feels that the ankh may dissipate or block psychic influence directed toward us by our hosts."
"I suppose I can make a couple with the odds and ends in the workroom," J.B. said musingly. "I'll use this one as the template… I just don't know if the metal is the same."
Ryan shook his head. "It's straw-grasping, but it's the only straw we have. Krysty may be under psychic influence. We'll need to make enough of those things for all of us."
"Has it occurred to anybody that we could already be under the influence of Hell Eyes and not know it?" J.B. inquired.
"An unnerving notion, indeed," Doc replied.
"He said something to me last night…if a strong mind consciously resists him, he can't do much," Ryan said.
Doc's blue eyes went wide. "You met Akhnaton? What kind of man is he?"
"Hey! Newcomers!" Shukeli's braying voice bawled from the door to the barracks room. "Get ready to go on shift! You! Old one! Go back to your station! You're impeding progress!"
The three of them exchanged grim glances and did as they were told. J.B. carefully slipped the ankh into an inner pocket of his apron.
Chapter Twenty-Three
It had taken most of the shift to lay down the casing blocks that would serve as the foundation and support pedestal for the pyramid's capstone. They were told that the following day, the morning shift would raise the roller rails in order to convey the pyramidion to the apex of the monument.
Ryan had given up on the idea of sowing the seeds of discontent among his fellow laborers. First, there was little time to get the idea percolating. Second, most of them still retained vivid memories of the aborted uprising of nearly two years before.
And third, if they were indeed in bondage, they didn't find it particularly difficult to bear.
When their shift was over and the workers were back in the dormitory, J.B. and Ryan went to the shower room. Doc was waiting for them there, a tool belt girding his bony waist. He pretended to be examining one of the water spouts, tapping on it with a small hammer.
Ryan and J.B. stood under the adjacent spout and showered, the sound of running water and the murmurs of the other men muffling their conversation. To their questions about Krysty, Jak and Mildred, Doc responded with doleful negatives.
J.B. gritted his teeth. "This is ridiculous. There's nothing to stop us from just strolling out of here."
"Stroll out to where?" Ryan snapped in a tone harsher than he intended. "The only place to go is Fort Fubar. And if we don't stay there and strike out on our own away from the redoubt, how can we carry enough food and water? We won't have our blasters and we won't have Krysty, Mildred and Jak."
"We know where Mildred is," the Armorer muttered. "And we've got a good idea of where Krysty is being held."
"It is my suspicion that Nefron plans to stage our escape during the pyramid ceremony," Doc said quietly. "From what I've heard, all of Aten will be caught up in the festivities."
J.B. dried himself with a ragged scrap of cloth serving as a towel. "I still don't understand this whole deal about the pyramid."
"Not even historians or Egyptologists really understood it," Doc replied. "In my day, there was a great deal of speculation regarding the Great Pyramid of Cheops. How old it was, what secrets it contained and, most important, how it was built."
"We know now how it was probably built," Ryan said wryly.
Doc smiled. "There was a lot more to the pyramids than most scientists wanted to admit. A correlation was found between some of the pyramid measurements and the circumference of the world and the value of pi."
Ryan and J.B. exchanged puzzled glances.
"That's all speculation, however," Doc continued. "What is known is that in order to get the great pyramids built, Egyptian society was made repressive to increase the efficiency of the human laborers. The historical Akhnaton was obsessed with gaining spiritual knowledge through a mystic power created by the pyramids. Evidently, his red-eyed namesake shares the same esoteric objective."
"The main difference," Ryan said grimly, "is that the first Akhnaton didn't hold Krysty as a hostage."
Doc nodded sagely. "In which case, we need to assure ourselves she is acting under some sort of psychic duress."
Ryan fixed him with a cold, blue-eyed glare. "You think she's not?"
"There's only one way to find out for certain. Get an ankh to her."
J.B. nodded, patting the pocket of his apron. "I'll see what I can do about that tonight."
Doc smiled wanly. "Good. I shall try to contact you tomorrow."
Ryan watched him leave, saying to J.B., "Let's go to the workroom and get started. We'll brazen it out."
Most of their workers were having their evening meal, so the room was deserted. While Ryan stood watch by the door, J.B. hunted through the metal scraps in the bin, comparing them with the composition of the ankh. He found several wafers that seemed similar and he traced the outline of the amulet with a piece of soapstone.
With much under-the-breath cursing, J.B. got the band saw working. He had to keep pumping a foot pedal so it would spin at a high speed and continuously apply oil to the metal wafer to dim the screech of the saw blade.
He managed to cut a fairly close approximation of the ankh, then moved over to the drill press to punch a hole through it. With a hammer and grindstone, he smoothed down the rough edges and spurs, then tossed it to Ryan for inspection.
The one-eyed man stowed it in his apron, saying, "It'll have to do. Make another one."
J.B. repeated the process, laboriously forming a second ankh in less time than it
took to make the first. He was busy outlining the third amulet when Ryan hissed, "Somebody's coming."
J.B. turned over the metal wafer a second before Fasa sauntered in. He regarded them both with surprise, then suspicion. "Why are you here?"
"No reason," J.B. replied.
Ryan winced.
Fasa swept his gaze over the drill press and band saw and announced, "You're not supposed to be using the tools without authorization or supervision. What have you been making?"
J.B. caught Ryan's eye. "Should I tell him?"
Sidling up behind the man, he replied, "Why not?"
J.B. turned over the piece of metal on the table, exposing the template ankh. Fasa's eyes widened, then bugged. "A forbidden thing. You're making a forbidden thing! Pharaoh will punish you!"
"Why?" J.B. demanded. "It's just jewelry, right?"
As if explaining a complex math problem to a child, Fasa said patiently, "It's not so much the symbol itself as the metal fashioned into that shape. It interferes with Pharaoh's power."
"Yeah," Ryan said quietly. "So we've heard. That's why we're making them."
He hit him hard, a short jab to the kidney. Fasa uttered a gargling cry, rising up on his toes and falling forward into J.B.'s arms. The Armorer wrestled him to the floor, squatted on his chest and covered his mouth with a hand.
"We don't want to chill you," J.B. said quietly, "but we will if you force us. All we want is to get out of here."
Fasa mumbled something through J.B.'s clamped fingers. The Armorer moved his hand away, ready to throttle him if the man spoke in anything other than a whisper.
"Why?" Fasa asked, voice tight with pain and confusion.
"Why do we want to leave?"
"Yes."
"My friends and me don't like living as property or as work animals."
"But you're well treated here!"
J.B. shook his head in disgust. "I'm not going to waste my time explaining things about freedom and liberty to you. All you need to know is this—if you betray us, you'll die."
While J.B. spoke, Ryan found a coil of rope and a handful of oily rags.
"Your choice, Fasa," the Armorer continued. "We'll tie you up and hide you, or kill you and hide you. Which one will it be?"