by Gene Wolfe
"About the wolf standard your armies carry into battle," Thotmaktef said. "Even as Hathor was wet nurse to Osiris, a she-wolf was wet nurse to the brothers who founded your city. When I told the chief priest that, he was satisfied and gave me the scroll. He would have told me what was in it as well, but I was anxious to get back to the ship and promised that the Noble Qanju and I would read it at once."
Qanju said, "As we now have. It contains a prophecy. Anubis is the god of death here. They must have told you that when they showed you the picture Thotmaktef described."
"Myt-ser'eu and Aahmes did," I said.
"A hero of Anubis who had forgotten Anubis would visit the temple, according to the prophecy. He would offer a black lamb."
Qanju waited for me to speak, so I said, "If I'm death's hero I don't know it, but I did indeed offer a black lamb, as I told you."
"This hero is to have the shield of Hemuset," Qanju continued. "The priests at the temple in Asyut, where the prophecy was apparently made, are to inform him of this and tell him how to find it. If you feel this doesn't pertain to you, I won't trouble you with any more of it."
Behind me Uraeus whispered, "My master wishes to hear more." I had not known he had followed me until then.
"Do you, Lucius?"
I nodded. "If you care to tell me, Noble Qanju."
"That is well. Here is what you are to do. You must find the temple beyond the last temple. There you shall find the shield. If I were to speak further, I would be repeating things I myself learned from Thotmaktef only moments ago."
The scribe cleared his throat. He is young, with honest eyes. His head is shaved. He said, "Hemuset is the goddess of fate. She's a minor goddess." He coughed. "By which I mean only that there's no great cult attached to her. When a child is born, she attends its birth, unseen, and decrees the fate of the child. She carries a shield with an arrow on it-in pictures, I mean. It's the way artists show her. Sometimes the shield is small, and she wears it on her head. It symbolizes the protection a man receives from his fate. He can't be killed until he's fated to die, in other words."
Qanju murmured, "Continue."
"The arrow symbolizes his death. Fated to die, he perishes."
Uraeus whispered, "No one sees her shield or her arrow, master."
"I understand," I said.
"If a man meets her," Thotmaktef continued, "and looks at her shield, he sees his entire life reflected there. Or so it's said." He coughed again. "None of this about Hemuset is in the scroll, it's just background. The scroll says Ra will guide you-guide the hero-to the temple beyond the last temple. Whatever that means."
Qanju sighed. "What it actually says is that a scarab will lead you to it. The scarab is a beetle found in this region. It is one of the signs of their sun god."
Now I wonder whether my scarab is meant. I cannot see how it could lead me to anything. But perhaps it will. The gods must know I do not see everything.
"I have said that we require your help," Qanju continued, "and we do. I must ask the obvious question first, however. Do you know yourself to be the hero mentioned in the prophecy?"
"I doubt that I am," I said. "I do not think myself a hero at all."
Behind me, Uraeus whispered, "You have been dead, master. Surely that is meant."
"If I have been dead," I told Qanju, "I have forgotten it."
"You were," Thotmaktef told me.
Qanju smiled. "If not dead, you were near enough to death to deceive me. Sahuset restored you-perhaps only to consciousness. Do you feel gratitude to him?"
"Certainly," I said, "if he saved me from death."
Thotmaktef said, "You should not have told him, Noble Qanju."
"I disagree. Suppose that we had kept it from him. Would he not have reason to distrust us after that?"
"He would forget it."
"He would write it in his scroll, as he writes so much. If he did not, his slave would tell him. What is gained by a lie is only a loss in disguise, Thotmaktef."
"I beg pardon," Thotmaktef said.
"Granted. Lucius, you have a woman with you. Do you know it?"
"Myt-ser'eu? Certainly. She went to the temple of the wolf-god with us."
"That is well. There are three women on this ship. Will you name them, please?"
I shook my head. "I have seen a woman taller than Myt-ser'eu but not as beautiful. She wears much jewelry, but less than Myt-ser'eu. Her right hand bleeds. I don't know her name."
"She cannot be yours," Qanju said.
"I don't want her. I have Myt-ser'eu. We shared a bed in an inn last night. You may have her if you wish."
"That is well." Qanju smiled. "All matters involving women are fraught with difficulty, and when the women are young and handsome, with great difficulty. Thotmaktef, I ask a favor. Will you bring Neht-nefret here?"
16
WITH MUSLAK?
THOTMAKTEF ROSE. "WE'LL have to get him before long, I think."
Behind me, Uraeus whispered, "I will go, if my master wishes."
Qanju shook his head. When Thotmaktef had left us, Qanju stared across the gunwale and fingered his beard. "He is a good young man, Lucius; but he has learned a great deal already and is learning more. Learning often turns good to evil."
I said, "In that case, learning itself must be evil."
"It is not. Everything depends upon what one learns, and the great thing-the thing to learn best-is that learning must serve us. If it does, we continue to serve Ahura Mazda, assuming that we served him when we began to learn. But if we serve learning, we learn too late that the dark god has donned it like a mask. Ah! Here is the beautiful Neht-nefret already. Well done, Thotmaktef. Have you a cushion to offer her?"
"I can sit on the deck like everybody else," the young woman called Neht-nefret said, and seated herself swiftly and gracefully. She has fine eyes, made finer still with kohl, a hard mouth, and a bandaged hand. "Is this about what I think it's about, Noble Qanju?"
He nodded. "Are you and Myt-ser'eu friends, Neht-nefret?"
"You know we are. I'd do anything for her. We're like sisters."
"Would Myt-ser'eu say the same?"
"I'm sure she would."
Qanju spoke to me. "If you would like to speak with Myt-ser'eu privately concerning this, Lucius, you may do so now. We will await your return."
I shook my head.
"Then we may begin. It might be well if Neht-nefret first told you how the three of you met."
Neht-nefret said, "I know you forget, Latro, but you're too smart to believe that women always tell the truth. I'm going to tell you the truth now, just the same. This is all true, and when you leave here you can ask Myt-ser'eu or Muslak, and they'll tell you the same exact thing. Myt-ser'eu and I are singing girls-it means good-looking young women of no family you can hire to entertain at parties. We'll sing or dance, serve drinks, or whatever you want, and we're under the protection of Hathor."
"A great goddess here," Qanju murmured.
I nodded. "She was wet nurse to Osiris." Thotmaktef's eyes flew wide when I said that, although he had told me himself a few minutes before.
"That's right," Neht-nefret said. "Girls like us need her protection more than you might think, so you have to go to the temple of Hathor to hire us, and the priests look after us as much as they can, refuse the money of men of bad character and so on. Try to get us out of trouble when we get into some."
I said, "I think I understand."
"That's good. I hope so. I need protection now, Latro. I think I need it pretty bad, and Noble Qanju agrees. Hathor's priests aren't here and I'm hoping to get it from you and Muslak."
I said that I would certainly protect her if I could.
"Thanks. I was supposed to tell you how we met, and this is how it was. You and Muslak came to Hathor's temple in Sais. That's where we're from, Myt-ser'eu and me."
I nodded.
"He wanted a river-wife and picked me. You said you didn't want one. Then you saw Myt-ser'eu and wanted her.
Back then, Muslak was the only friend you had."
"Our captain," Qanju murmured.
"He's still the best friend you've got here, Latro. You may not know it, but he is, and he likes me just like you like Myt-ser'eu. Last night we slept in an inn. Not the one you and her slept in, another one."
I recalled awakening in the inn and nodded.
"It was late and we were both asleep. We'd had quite a bit of beer, and you know afterward. Well, I woke up. I think Hathor must've done it, because there wasn't any reason. I woke up, and a woman with a crooked knife was bending over me. I could see her in the moonlight that got past the shutter, and I saw the shine along the edge and grabbed the blade. Look."
She unwound her bandage. There was a long, fresh cut, not very deep, across her palm; it had been smeared with yellow salve.
"I screamed and Muslak woke up, and the door slammed. He'd barred that door before we went to bed. We talked about it after my hand stopped bleeding. I said I thought he'd barred it, but I'd been sort of-of elevated, you know, so I wasn't sure. He said he most certainly had, he'd had a few bowls but he could drink a lot more than that without getting so drunk he'd go to sleep in a place like that without barring the door. Well, the bar was lying on the floor. We found it and put it back up."
I asked how the woman had gotten in.
Neht-nefret shrugged. "You tell me."
Qanju smiled. "Thotmaktef?"
"I have a theory," Thotmaktef said, "and the Noble Qanju agrees. This woman-others have seen her, if it is the same woman-is often accompanied by a large black cat." He hesitated. "Have you ever seen a leopard, Latro?"
"I don't know. I may have. Certainly I saw the skin of one this morning."
"Yes, I suppose you must have, at the temple of Ap-uat. The chief priest of every temple in our nation wears a leopard skin as his badge of office. Since you've seen that skin and remember it now, you should have some idea of the size of a living leopard. They're far bigger than any ordinary cat, but smaller than a lion."
I nodded.
"This cat is about the same size, but it's black instead of spotted. It could have climbed the outside of the inn. It's mud brick, and I've often seen cats climb mud brick. Inside, it could lift the bar with its teeth."
Neht-nefret looked as skeptical as I felt.
"It could have been trained to do that," Thotmaktef insisted. "We train animals to do things that are far more difficult."
"A baboon would be better," Neht-nefret said. "It would be easier to train, and they have hands."
I agreed and added, "From what Neht-nefret has said, this woman ran when she saw the man she was with-"
"Muslak."
"Was waking up. That would not have been necessary if the cat were her guard."
Neht-nefret said, "Muslak's sword was beside our bed."
"Did you see this cat?" I asked her.
She shook her head.
Thotmaktef said, "A man with a sword might have killed the cat in the wink of an eye. She would not want to lose it. Besides, she may have sent the cat into the corridor to make sure she wasn't interrupted."
I asked whether he and Qanju were certain the woman was on our ship.
Qanju said, "It would appear that she has been with us since we set out, though she is seen only at night."
I suggested that the ship be searched for her. Thotmaktef said that it has been. A moment ago, I asked Uraeus whether I was among the searchers. He says I was not among them this time.
Now I am sitting in the shade to write. We just passed three laden lumber ships; Muslak says they are carrying wood from Triquetra to Wast. May not this woman have her own ship? A ship or boat in which she follows ours? What Uraeus tells me cannot be true. I HAVE READ what I have written. Here I add that Muslak and I will take care to stay at the same inn tonight. We have agreed on that, and that I am to remain awake and watch.
The scarab is to guide me, but it has no wings now. No doubt they have broken off.
17
THE ALL-BEAST
THE CAT THAT accompanies the woman is terrifying. It would be easy, now, to pretend that I was not afraid of it; but what is the use of lying here? If I cannot believe what I myself write, why write? Besides, fear is a thing that accompanies the thing feared. To look into the eyes of the panther is to know fear, for any man who ever walked.
We are in Wast the Thousand-Gated. I told Myt-ser'eu that there cannot be a thousand gates in the city wall. Such a wall would be nothing but gates. Neht-nefret said there was no wall-that the courage of its soldiers was all the defense Kemet had ever required. Muslak says no one can resist the Great King, and a wall would not have saved Kemet from his armies.
Later I asked a Hellene we met in the market, because I overheard him call this city thousand-gated. He said the thousand gates are the gates of its temples, and the gates within them. It may be there are a thousand such gates, or very near that number. Certainly there are many temples here, and Muslak says that all the temples of Kemet have many gated enclosures.
It was already late when we went ashore. We arranged for rooms side by side at the top of this inn and ate a sober supper. Muslak said he would try to sleep, that he must sleep to do his duty as captain, but that he would sleep with his sword at his side, ready to spring up at the least sound. Neht-nefret said she could not sleep; Myt-ser'eu that she would do certain things to keep me awake, and sleep between times. She was less serious than we and tried to cheer us with jokes and smiles. "I'm under a curse," she said. "I must have five bowls of beer and sleep until the sun is high, or lose my beauty." She wants a new wig, and wants me to buy it for her here.
We made love, and I took up my post. I kept the door open by the width of my finger so that I might hear. The corridor was too dark for me to see. Her soft breathing soon told me Myt-ser'eu slept. The innkeeper came with a lamp, showing a new guest to his room and making him comfortable. He left, and I heard the wooden bar drop into its iron fittings. After what seemed to me a long time-I cannot say how long it really was-the light under the door went out. After that, there was a drunken quarrel in the room below, where three or four men, I think strangers to one another, shared a single room. It ceased in time; I found myself more than half asleep upon my stool and had to wake and walk around the room, draw my sword, practice some cuts, and sheath it again, until I no longer yawned.
A gong sounded in the corridor-a small gong, like the striking of a metal cup. It sounded only once, and was not repeated.
It filled me with awe-and fear.
I felt myself in the grip of an evil dream, although I knew I was not sleeping. I stood, drew Falcata again, and picked up the stool. There was no sound at all, none, yet I knew the corridor was not empty. Something waited for me outside.
Opening the door with my foot, I went out. It may be I once did a harder thing-I know I forget, and my friends confirm it. But I cannot believe I have. If opening that door had been any harder, I could not have done it.
The corridor was as black as the soil of this Kemet. At the end, where the stairs began, the gong sounded again. Very soft it was, but I heard it. I went to the stair and down its steps, moving slowly and cautiously, for I could see nothing. A woman, Neht-nefret had said, with a necklace and other jewels. I saw no woman, nor could I imagine any reason for such a woman to ring a little gong. I was frightened. I do not like writing that, but it is the truth. What sort of man, I asked myself, is frightened of a woman? But I knew, I think, that it was not a woman. Even then, I must have known it. There was a sharp odor, half lost in the stench of the stair. I did not know what it was, but it was not such a sweet scent as women delight in.
The floor below was as silent as our own, and darker. I walked the length of its corridor, groping my way with the stool and the blade of my sword.
Twenty or thirty steps brought me to the end. I turned and saw yellow eyes between me and the stair. A voice that snarled warned me to come no nearer.
I did not obey, yet it seemed
to me that I walked through water, that the night must end before I reached those glowing eyes.
The scuffle of sandals came and faded away, as someone light of foot mounted the stair. The eyes never moved.
When I had nearly reached them, it snarled. I saw its teeth, fangs like knives that gleamed in the faint light and seemed almost to shine. It was a beast, yet it had spoken like a man, ordering me to come no nearer. I halted, saying, "Beasts can't speak." I did not intend those words, which were forced from me by the eyes and shining teeth.
"Men cannot understand," the panther said.
I had stopped walking. I know that now, but I was not conscious of it then.
"Who are you?"
"You will come to our temple in the south," the panther said, "then you will know me."
Light came to the corridor. Perhaps someone in one of the rooms behind me had lit a lamp or fed a fire so that the light crept from under his door. Perhaps it was only that the moon had risen. I do not know. However the light came, I could see the entire beast then, a great black cat as big as the biggest man.
"Would you oppose me, mortal?" There was death and monstrous cruelty in the question.
"I don't want to," I said, and I have never uttered truer words. "But I must return to the floor above, and you are in my way. If I have to kill you to get there, I will."
"You will try, and you will die."
I said nothing.
It smiled as cats smile. "Aren't you curious about me? Beasts do not speak, you said. I speak. Indeed I might maintain that I am the only beast that does. I explain, and I am the soul of truth."
Someone-I have forgotten who it was-must have told me long ago that gods sometimes take the forms of beasts. Now I found I knew it.
"Would you fight a god?"
I said, "If I must, yes."
"You are a man of the name. I will kill you if it proves necessary, but I would sooner have your friendship. Know that I am a friend to many men, and will be a friend to Man always."
I suppose I nodded.