Nightmare Passage

by James Axler

  "Where go?"

  "The gateway."

  "You know about gateway?"

  "Oh, yes. In Pharaoh's tomb."

  "When pyramid ceremony?"

  "Tomorrow. Sunset. I will arrange transportation and return your weapons to you." She paused. There was a rustling sound, and she whispered, "Look at me, Jak."

  Taking a deep breath, he turned, jaw muscles bunched with determination. Nefron's eyes seemed to hit him with a dizzying force in the center of his chest, in the center of who he was. His breath caught in his throat as he drank in her nude beauty. He felt himself hardening, rising.

  "I am baring myself to you Jak, because I need you. I need you to do something for me…for Kela…for your friends."

  His tongue seemed frozen in his mouth, but he managed to ask, "What?"

  "Pharaoh and his counselors will be at the dedi­cation ceremony in the pyramid. The King's Cham­ber has been designed so that most of the weight of the stone is deflected by the relieving chambers above it. There is a mechanism built into one cham­ber that will cause the floors to collapse, one by one. The device is built to allow enough time to climb down to an escape shaft. I'll be waiting for you there with your friends. In the confusion, we will escape the city. Everyone will be trying to dig out Pharaoh and the people trapped inside the pyramid."

  "You need me do this." Jak wasn't asking a question.

  Tears welled up Nefron's eyes. Brimming, they flashed like wet black jewels. "If there was any other way to prevent Pharaoh from imprisoning us here, I would take it. What you have to understand is that Pharaoh is a monster, a mutant who cares for no one but himself. If you don't value your own freedom, then at least value that of your friends. You must do this thing."

  "Who with Pharaoh in there?"

  "Toadies who are as bad as he is. Nobody you need worry about, Jak."

  Jak was silent for several moments as he mulled over Nefron's words. Finally, he asked, "Why me?"

  Nefron's gaze was misted by tears, by love. "Be­cause only you can do it. You're the only man in this whole corrupt city who isn't under Pharaoh's influence. You're strong and fast and agile."

  She paused, eyeing him keenly. "Just give me another day…and we're free. I'll escape with you."

  "Kela, too?"

  Nefron smiled. "Kela, too. You won't let us down, will you? You won't back out on us after all I and Kela have done for you?"

  She gazed unblinkingly into his ruby eyes. A fire seemed to dance in the depths of her own.

  Jak stared back. "No. Not let you and Kela down."

  It was the last thing he said before she came into his arms, kissing him passionately, inserting her tongue into his mouth, pressing her body tightly against his so he could feel and respond to the erotic, urgent heat of it. His whole being felt stunned, as if he had been flattened by a concussion gren.

  They flowed together down to the floor. Nefron whispered into his ear, "Don't think. Just feel."

  "Yeah," he said, and he did as he was told.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  As Doc had promised, he met J.B. and Ryan in the dormitory the next morning. Surrounded by a mill­ing crowd of men lining up for breakfast and the toilets, no one gave the three men more than a pass­ing glance.

  It was the work of only a few seconds to pass three of the ankhs, including the template original, to Doc. Though he quickly slipped them into his loincloth, he seemed inclined to linger.

  "The streets are filling up," he said. "The festiv­ities are under way."

  "We know," Ryan said flatly. "We busted our humps yesterday cleaning up the top of the pyra­mid."

  "Yeah," J.B. added. "We also found this stuff when we woke up." He pointed to a stack of clean linen tunics just outside of the shower room. "I guess we're to look our best today."

  "I wish a pair of proper pants was in there," Doc said wistfully.

  "We've got other things to worry about than pants," Ryan retorted. "Has anybody heard any­thing from Nefron?"

  "No, but I have not spoken to Dr. Wyeth yet. I shall be going to her workstation straightaway. I am sure she has heard something by now."

  Doc left the dormitory, the weight of the metal ankhs causing his loincloth to sag in an embarrass­ing place. He even jingled faintly when he walked.

  No one called to him as he crossed the compound to the rear of the palace. Though it was full of peo­ple, striding purposefully to and fro, they were too caught up in the joy of being ruled by a god and goddess.

  Doc understood that the pyramid had cast a truly entrancing spell over the population of Aten. The belief in Pharaoh's crazy vision to become a god was palpable.

  The kitchen was as busy as the rest of Aten, filled with the clack and clatter of pots and the odors of several feasts being prepared at once. Doc found Mildred in a side room, looking hot and harried as she peeled fruit. He wasted no time on preambles.. Handing her two of the ankhs, he said simply, "Let us hope they work."

  Mildred slid them inside her breast coverings. "They'll work against Akhnaton, I'm pretty sure. I hope they're as effective against Nefron."

  Doc stared in surprise. "You haven't heard from her?"

  "Not a word from her or her maid, Kela."

  "Still, she may be making the final preparations for our flight. No need to become paranoid at this late date that she is psychically influencing us."

  Mildred wiped perspiration from her forehead with the back of her hand. "She's Pharaoh's daugh­ter. Even if he doesn't claim her, it stands to reason she would have inherited some of his abilities."

  "She's been helping us," Doc retorted. "And re­gardless, she is our best shot of escaping."

  "So you think we should continue to rely on her?" Mildred asked.

  "We do not have much choice," Doc answered grimly.

  She sighed, eyeing an apple. "I'll try to get one of the amulets to Krysty as soon as possible."

  "Hopefully," Doc commented dryly, "before she exchanges I do's with Pharaoh."

  KRYSTY KNEW DIMLY something wasn't right. Not wrong, exactly, just not right. She knew it wasn't normal to be in a perpetual state between wakefulness and sleeping, but that was how she felt.

  It was as if she wavered backward through time, as though she were irresistibly pulled toward eter­nity. She had flashes of images, of emotions. There was a scar-faced man. A child. Though she knew she loved them, she had difficulty remembering what they looked like. It all seemed so long ago, swept away by the ghostly currents of a river of memory.

  Krysty tried to return her attention to her bath. It was her wedding day, and she wanted it to be perfect because her god wanted her to want it. The sunken bath was filled with steaming water and a mixture of scented oils. The mirror was fogged, and she sponged it dry and looked for a long moment at her face.

  She wasn't sure if it was the face of Krysty Wroth or Nefertiti the queen. Memories came and went in a panoramic kaleidoscope. The scar-faced, one-eyed man was always there, but each time she tried to focus on him, he blurred, melted, transmogrifying into the hard, bronzed lines of her husband-to-be, beckoning to her, aching for her, all of him poised, erect and ready.

  Krysty slid into her bath and tried to relax in the soothing heat of the perfumed water, letting the warmth ooze through her muscles, letting her thoughts drift free.

  Once more the image of her lover, her husband-to-be, floated through her mind. Waves of desire ra­diated from him, an insatiable hunger, not a lust for her, but an obsession to propagate, to spawn and spread his hell-eyed seed over the ravaged face of the earth.

  She glimpsed fortress cities, duplicates of Aten, on every continent, the subdued populations bowing in homage to the dynasty of red-haired god-kings. And she felt hatred—not springing from her, but from the heart of her beloved, hating the humans his offspring held in fearful thrall, hating humankind, desperate to shackle them to live and die in the ser­vice of his dynasty, his empire.

  And hating, then loving, then hating again, he be
ckoned to her, his Krysty, his Nefertiti, his Connaught, his mother and lover and tool and breeder—

  Krysty sat upright in the water, blinking against the dark, disturbing visions crowding into her mind. Her hair knotted tightly at her nape, like the fist of a frightened child. She wanted to weep, to run, to hide herself away. She didn't know why. Very vaguely, very distantly, she knew she had peered at a fragment of Akhnaton's soul he had tried to keep concealed.

  Pushing the restless, uneasy thoughts far back into a recess of her mind, she concentrated on finishing her bath. She arose finally, dried and perfumed her­self, wondering absently where Nefron might be.

  She strolled out into the bedchamber, wrapped in a soft robe of blue wool. She had lingered in her bath overlong, and it was near midmorning. Leaning listlessly against the table, she dwelled on the future and what it might bring to her, as the consort of a god.

  A quick three-rap rhythm sounded from the door, a signal that she almost recognized from another time, another life. Wearily, she called, "Enter."

  One of the double doors opened just enough to admit a scantily clad black woman carrying a tray of sliced and artfully arranged fruit. Krysty had seen the woman before, but dressed in faded khakis, not dressed like a—

  "Mildred?" Krysty asked, a faint line of conster­nation creasing her brow.

  Placing the tray on the table, Mildred put a finger to her lips. "I've brought you breakfast."

  "Where's Nefron? This is her job. She's sup­posed to help me dress."

  Mildred shook her head at Krysty's troubled, slightly petulant tone. She pressed a large apple into her hands. "Eat this first. It's a gift from Ryan."

  "Ryan? The one-eyed man."

  Mildred stared hard into her face, examining every inch of it. With an index finger, she drew an invisible line before Krysty's eyes.

  "What are you doing?" Krysty asked irritably.

  "Eat the apple." Mildred's voice was flat, devoid of emotions.

  "Why?"

  "Just do it." Mildred turned to leave. Then, on impulse, she turned and hugged her quickly. Before she left the chamber, Krysty was sure she had seen moisture in the woman's eyes.

  Krysty looked at the apple in her hand, then bit into it thoughtfully. As she nibbled around the stem, her teeth struck a hard, unyielding object. Muttering peevishly, Krysty worked out the metal ankh cun­ningly concealed within the fruit.

  Frowning, she studied it as it lay in her palm. There was something about its shape that seemed familiar. She closed her fingers around it.

  An uncanny chill shook her. Her pulse and heart­beat rose, deafening her. Her fist trembled around the cool, slick metal. Within her was a maelstrom of spinning energies combining hate, fear and tri­umph.

  Krysty Wroth's self, the center of consciousness that defined her identity, was sucked into this mental whirlpool. She forgot who Akhnaton wanted her to be and remembered who she was.

  She took a deep breath and glanced around her chambers. They looked the same as in the previous moment, but they were undeniably, subtly different now. The walls exuded the same cold atmosphere as a prison cell and, for a moment, she couldn't understand why.

  Then, like a crashing of a surf, she remembered what Danielson had said. The shape of the amulet is a closed double-helix energy pattern. It protects my bioaural field from the resonating mena ener­gies.

  She clenched her teeth so hard, they squeaked and her jaw muscles ached. She knew instantly what had been done to her, and she knew who had done it.

  "You bitch," she hissed. "You double-dealing, vicious little bitch."

  She also knew that Akhnaton had simply followed the path his daughter had blazed. He was equally responsible. Krysty remembered what she had vowed to Ryan four days and a thousand years ago: He got into my head and played with me, like I was a sex puppet. Whether he's a pharaoh, god or mu­tant, and whether he wants me to bear his children or warm his bed, I'll provide him with a surprise that will give him nightmares for the rest of his life.

  She still meant every word of it.

  MILDRED RECOGNIZED a hypnagogic state of con­sciousness, and Krysty was deep in the throes of one. The inability of her eyes to respond and track her finger had been the tip-off. If the state had been induced by drugs, then the ankh would probably do little to ameliorate it.

  She hadn't gone more than twenty yards down the corridor when she sensed rather than heard a stealthy someone falling into step behind her. Pivoting sharply on her heel, she saw the Set-headed Incar­nate looming there, a metauh rod held across his left breast. Fright leaped through her, dried the saliva in her mouth, set her heart to racing.

  "Just keep going," he said tonelessly.

  "To where?"

  "To where I tell you."

  Mildred did as he ordered, walking through what seemed like acres of shadowy, pillared halls. She knew she was back in the quarters of Mimses, and that he had sent one of his Incarnates to fetch her.

  They went down a curving staircase with Set nearly treading on her heels. The stair ended facing an open doorway. She hesitated, peering into it, try­ing to see or hear what lay beyond it.

  With the serpentine quickness of his namesake, Set clapped his hand over Mildred's mouth and passed his other arm around her waist. He jerked her off her feet and carried her swiftly through the door. Mildred flailed at him with her fists, but the big man seemed impervious to her blows.

  The room was lit only by a single, sputtering ta­per, and Mildred saw bleak, bare walls and a wooden bench in a corner. She also saw a metal ring bolted in the wall, well above the level of her head. From it dangled leather cuffs. Set yanked up her wrists, slid the cuffs around them, tightened the straps and released her. She hung with her arms above her head, only the balls of her feet touching the floor.

  Hearing a footfall from a corner, she turned her head, looking over a shoulder. Mimses was swathed in a gaudy crimson-and-yellow robe, the big sleeves decorated with gleaming silver and gold braids. He smiled at her, vulpine lips spreading in an oily smirk of mock sympathy. Mildred felt his eyes running up and down her near naked body.

  "You son of a bitch," she said calmly.

  "Call me what you want, brown sugar. It'll only shorten your life."

  Mimses stepped close to her, lightly stroking her bare back. The smirk was fixed on his face, but he saw the disgust flickering in her eyes and his lips compressed in anger.

  "You stole from me." His tone was strident.

  Mildred didn't reply.

  Growling deep in his throat, Mimses raked his fingers over her body, clawing away her clothing. When her breastplates were stripped away, the ankh clinked to the stone floor. Mimses stooped to pick it up, holding it between thumb and forefinger.

  "Danielson told you about the power of this," he said. "I should've guessed. Life in Aten has soft­ened me. What did you do with it? Did you make copies?"

  "Copies?" Mildred echoed. "Why would I do that?"

  Mimses didn't answer, but Nefron did, in a cold voice from the doorway. "She's lying."

  Shock and despair enfolded Mildred. Tears sud­denly burned against her eyes, but she blinked them back angrily. Nefron stepped up beside her. Mildred didn't meet her gaze, and trying to keep her voice steady, she said, "I had my suspicions about you. I wish I'd acted on them."

  Nefron's reply was a breathy, amused whisper. "You are more intelligent than I gave you credit for. You figured out the workings of the ankhs, how they set up a damping field that Pharaoh's power cannot penetrate."

  "Or yours," Mildred said.

  "Or mine."

  "What's your agenda, Nefron? Why are you us­ing us as pawns?"

  Nefron shrugged. "In Aten, everyone is a pawn to one degree or another. The answer to your ques­tion is simple—I want the throne and I want that red-eyed monster dead."

  "And you can't have one without the other."

  Nefron chuckled. "See, Mimses? I told you she was brighter than the usual women you take a fancy to." />
  She tugged playfully on one of Mildred's braided plaits. "Because of some insane reaction to my mother's death, Pharaoh decided I was not his true heir. He stripped me of my rank and status. I am only the servant of the bitch he has chosen as his breeder. He expects her to bear him a litter of squall­ing gods and goddesses. I will not allow that to hap­pen."

  "You want this sick little fantasyland all to your­self."

  "Fantasyland?" All the humor vanished from Nefron's voice. "What do you mean?"

  Mildred forced a dry chuckle. "I mean this isn't a kingdom. You're tromping around in an old movie set, playing 'let's pretend' to the point of imbecility. Akhnaton isn't a pharaoh—you aren't a princess. He's the product of an experiment in controlled eu­genics, and you're his progeny. He's mutant, and so are you. Not royalty, not divine, just a couple of genetically twisted monstrosities with delusions."

  While she spoke, Nefron's face twisted into some­thing ugly and hard. Her grip on Mildred's braid tightened, and she jerked Mildred's head back pain­fully. "The only thing separating fantasy from re­ality is a matter of perception," she snapped. "Since I am in charge, it is my perception of reality that matters."

  "Get to the goddamn point," Mimses said im­patiently.

  Nefron glanced his way with bright, venomous eyes. He hastily glanced away. Returning her gaze to Mildred, she asked, "Did you tell your friends about the power of the ankhs? Did you make more of them? You were found in Pharaoh's quarters. Did you give one to Krysty? Answer me."

  Mildred didn't answer or even act as if she had heard the questions. She focused her vision on the wall only a few inches away from her face.

  The room suddenly reverberated with a snapping crack. It took all of Mildred's self-control not to scream as streaks of agony blazed across her back. Twisting her head back and around, she saw Mimses holding a whip in his right hand. The lash consisted of three pliant, knotted leather cords.

  "Answer her," he said. The cold, lustful light gleaming in his eyes showed that he really didn't want her to cooperate.

  "What difference does it make?" Mildred de­manded between clenched teeth.