by The King
And now these sweet harem girls became vicious creatures, no less lovely, but clawing now, scratching and biting, a multitude of ferocious cats attacking.
In one swift movement, swinging both his arms, Mathayus disentangled himself, flinging them here and there like rag dolls, and they tumbled pretty end over pretty end, landing awkwardly on the scattered pillows.
He had regained his scimitar and several daggers, but not his mighty bow, when half a dozen archers burst into the harem den ... and in their lead was the brutal Thorak.
Thorak's scar turned white as surprise and rage seized him. "It's the Akkadian] ... He lives ... but not for long—kill him!"
As the archers let fly with their arrows, the assassin dove toward that huge gong, tumbling behind it; with a sweep of his scimitar, he cut the ropes binding the golden sphere to its pedestal, from which he snatched the huge shieldlike object. Rolling the gong swiftly along, hiding behind it as arrows pinged and danced off its outer surface, Mathayus made his way to the harem doors, through which he sent the gong crashing, making an ungodly music.
When the guards followed into the corridor, Mathayus was again spiraling his golden shield along, making their arrows ineffectual. At the end of the hall, the Akkadian dove from behind the revolving orb, allowing it to clatter to a resounding stop as he pitched through waiting doors.
Again he found himself within a strange room of the palace, and he slammed the doors shut and barricaded them with an ornate chest.
He turned to get his bearings.
This was no magician's lair... and yet it was. This was a golden-hued sandstone chamber whose hieroglyph decorations seemed feminine, a sensation enhanced by delightful scents of oil and flowers and incense. He knew at once he was in Cassandra's quarters; not in her bedroom, or living chamber, no—this was an indoor bathing pool.
And he knew it belonged to the sorceress, because Cassandra herself lay within the huge bath, her lovely head and a shoulder looming above a surface covered with rose petals.
Her almond eyes grew large—she may have been a prophet, but she had clearly not anticipated his entry into her quarters, and was dumbstruck.
But, then, so was he.
The sorceress's handmaidens, who'd been tending her alongside the pool, which took up most of the floor space in the modest-sized chamber, were not struck dumb: they screamed like frightened children, and ran into the adjacent rooms of their mistress's quarters.
Quickly the regal Cassandra regained her poise, and she rose from the rose-cloaked water, throwing back the damp mane of her long dark hair, displaying every inch of her golden, well-formed flesh, perfect breasts, narrow waist, the flare of hips, flawless skin pearled with moisture, every female secret shared.
She stood with her arms at her sides and her chin, and her breasts, held high. No woman had ever been more at ease with her beauty as she said, "Well, assassin? Are you going to kill me, or just stare?"
Mathayus sighed; first the harem girls . .. now this. "Decisions," he said, "decisions."
Then someone knocked at the door—rammed at it, actually; guards beyond were yelling as they did their best to batter their way inside.
And now her voice called to him, the defiance, the pride gone; something sweet, something mystical, like a gentle wind drifting across the landscape of his soul. "Akkadian ... Akkadian ..."
He frowned, and he quietly, all but drowned out by the battering-ram sounds, said, "Oh no, witch ... Not this time."
And he dove into the pool, pulling her down under, sweeping them both below the rose-petaled skin of the water. The woman cried in surprise, but her scream was cut off abruptly, before it was much of anything really, just a yelp before she disappeared under the petals and water.
It took a while for the guards to butt through that door, and by the time they had, that rosy surface had settled, and the bath appeared empty.
Thorak strode in, sword in hand, looking around the room, frowning in frustration. Lord Memnon had joined the search, personally, and entered the bath chamber on his trusted adviser's heels.
Under the water, Mathayus slipped the tip of the scimitar under an iron grating at the base of pool, prying it open. At once, the bathwater began to rush down the narrow spillway below.
As the pool drained, the shadowy forms under the water began to reveal themselves, and Memnon cried, "Kill him!"
That spillway was not so narrow, though, that the Akkadian and the sorceress couldn't slide down in, and he didn't even have to convince the woman, as they were both carried by its flow.
And when Memnon's red-turbaned guards slashed at the draining water with their swords, they were too late.
Mathayus and Cassandra were gone, sliding, careening down a twisting drain, swept along with the tide.
Valley of the Dead
F
rom his high window in the tower room where he kept his primitive but visionary laboratory, Philos—that self-proclaimed man of science— gazed down at the source of the noise that had attracted his attention.
A phalanx of guards had gathered below, and one of them pointed up at the scientist's window, and then dispatched several of the well-armed, red-turbaned brutes, obviously on their way to come calling.
"Oh my," Philos said to himself, blinking. "I'm going to have to assume my tenure here is over...."
And he went to the carpetbag he kept snugged under a nearby wooden table and began to quickly pack, taking time to include a certain Chinese parchment. ...
Elsewhere, in the open-air marketplace of Gomorrah, outside a wine merchant's tent, the scrawny thief Arpid sat on a bench, drinking. He was not quite drunk, but neither was he entirely sober; however, when the horns and trumpets of the palace guard began to blow their piercing alarm, the horse thief snapped to alertness.
Then Arpid sighed, thinking, Well. .. I warned the fool.
He rose and raised his glass to his fellow tavern-crawling reprobates and said, "A toast—to my friend the Akkadian... let him rest in peace. Or pieces, as would seem more likely."
The drunks and bandits and general lowlifes around him responded with a hoist of their goblets. This was a group that would drink to anyone, even a member of the Akkadian tribe, who all men knew (except this idiot proposing the toast) had long since vanished from the earth.
The wine of his toast had barely passed Arpid's lips when a cluster of red-turbaned guards came clattering through the bazaar, brandishing their weapons. The thief shielded his face until the soldiers had rushed on; then he rose, bowed to his distinguished fellow scoundrels, saying, "Alas, gentle friends, I must now take my leave...."
And he left.
On a nearby street, just over from the marketplace, bedouin women were washing their clothes in a large, central fountain. Even when the soldiers of Memnon were on the march, a cry of alarm blaring through the city, life went on. The child of one of these women, tagging along with his mother, studied a tarnished coin that he'd found on the dusty street.
The hoy had never had a coin before, and didn't know what to do with it; but as he studied the fountain, he suddenly knew: a wish!
The boy tossed the coin, and—seemingly in cause-and-effect fashion—from beneath a floating linen garment, a beautiful naked woman burst from the water.
"Gods be praised!" the boy said, and for the rest of his life he would be a believer.
Cassandra leaned on the fountain, heaving for breath, as the wide-eyed boy took in the unclad delights of her lithe form. Then, from behind her, gasping for breath, came the Akkadian.
The boy frowned and shook his head, disappointed by this additional apparition. Then his mother covered the child's eyes and hustled him away. A crowd began to congregate, but at the same time gave this magnificent materialized god and goddess breathing room.
They stood panting for a while—the pair had had quite a ride down that drain, flying out a hole in a wall, splash-landing inside a dank water chamber, finally f
inding their way up and through to air and sunlight—and now it was as if they were living statues adorning the fountain.
Then the sorceress—her long hair streaming with water, her golden skin beaded with droplets— whirled at Mathayus, no longer in the grip of their shared predicament, her regal bearing returning in full force. Her long-nailed fingers turned to claws and her hands flew toward the assassin's face.
Mathayus gripped her wrists, tight, hard, even as she exploded in fury.
"How dare you touch me!" she snarled. "Your head will ride a post, your eyes will feed the birds, your entrails will be strung from the highest—"
He yanked her close, as if to kiss her; but instead he spoke softly, if firmly, his message for her, not the gathering crowd.
"Sorceress," he said sweetly, "I am an Akkadian engaged to kill you."
Her eyes flared, outrage wedded with fear.
"Now I find myself in a position where you are of more use to me alive," he said, "than dead.... Try not to give me cause to change my mind."
She said nothing, her chin high... but trembling, perhaps with the chill of the water ... perhaps from something else.
"I suggest we find you something to wear," he said. "You may catch cold in your bare skin ... and more unwanted attention."
A few coins bought bedouin robes and scarves from a washerwoman, and within minutes the Akkadian and his hostage were at the front gates of Gomorrah, which was conveniently understaffed at the moment. Apparently those horns pealing general alarm had summoned the bulk of the gate guards to other duty.
So it was that Mathayus the Akkadian and Cassandra the Sorceress—wrapped in the robes and scarves of simple desert people—departed from the city of Gomorrah, unimpeded, walking past the guards, seemingly lost in a lovers' embrace, made no less intimate by the dagger the assassin held to the witch's side.
As for the Akkadian's "partner," the little horse thief had already benefited from the slack attention of the guards at the undermanned gate. Leading a camel as he was, looking deceptively respectable, Arpid had tagged along with a wealthy fellow astride a horse.
Beyond the gates, Arpid attempted to turn the wealthy traveler into a customer, offering the vile creature Hanna to him for a mere forty duranas. It wasn't that the thief couldn't use a ride, even when provided by a beast like this; but the camel was uncooperative, would not allow him to mount her. Better to let someone else beat sense into the animal, while Arpid would buy a horse, a decent mode of transport, even if he would have to sneak back into the city to do it.
The wealthy rider, however, was ignoring him.
"Did I say forty duranas?" the thief asked humbly. "Sir, what I meant to say was thirty. Have you ever seen its like? These white camels are rare, good sir. . . ."
No response.
And Arpid could barely pull the stubborn creature any farther.
He yelled to his potential customer: "Why, at that price, this camel is practically stolen!"
No sale.
"Come on, you fleabag," Arpid said to Hanna, yanking on the camel's reins, doing his best to make her move.
But Hanna's only response was to bellow'—a loud, indignant, honking cry ...
... that echoed across the harsh landscape to where the Akkadian and his beautiful hostage trudged along, in their bedouin garb.
"Stop," Mathayus told her, raising a hand.
She obeyed.
The assassin listened, and the wind carried him a familiar snort; then another....
He grinned. 'That's my camel, all right."
"What?"
"Quiet..." And the Akkadian lifted two fingers to his lips and let go with a loud, firm, distinctive whistle.
And, a distance away, Hanna—paying the pleas and tugs of the horse thief no mind—snapped her head around, ears perking at the familiar sound-
"What... ?" Arpid shook his head. "What is it now, you mangy ... hey!"
The camel had tugged back on those reins, and now the little thief was yanked off his feet as the camel sprinted off, heeding her master's summons.
Before long, Mathayus—who had been waiting patiently, hands on his hips—grinned wide as his beloved camel came pounding over the nearest rise. The creature was dragging something, or—someone .. . Mathayus squinted, to see through the sand dust his camel was stirring... ah! The horse thief, Arpid, was being hauled rudely along by the reins.
The camel came to a stop at his master's side, and the Akkadian reached up and scratched the animal's neck.
"Good girl," the Akkadian said. He glanced back at Cassandra. "You see? She knows how to behave."
The sorceress folded her arms and glowered at him, then turned her gaze away, in disgust.
In the meantime, in a pile at Mathayus's feet, Arpid had come to his own sliding stop, and was busy coughing up dust. Finally the thief was able to speak, and he smiled up at the assassin, displaying what in more civilized days would come to be described as a shit-eating grin.
"Well! God be praised...." The thief coughed. "We were just looking for you...."
"You found me," the Akkadian said.
Arpid climbed painfully to his feet, the assassin offering no help. As he was brushing himself off, the thief finally noticed the beautiful woman in their midst.
"Well, well," he said. "Who's your comely friend?"
"That's the sorcerer," the Akkadian said flatly.
The thief's eyes widened. "What do you mean?"
"I mean what I said: that's Memnon's sorcerer. Sorceress." And now he turned to the woman, nodding toward Hanna. "Climb on."
With a sigh of resignation, the lovely woman stepped forward, the feminine shape of her playing wonderful tricks under the loose robes.
"Hurry up," the Akkadian said. "Night is coming."
She allowed him to lift her up on the camel.
Arpid was staring at the woman, agape. "Great gods ... You've stolen the warlord's sorcerer! I don't know whether to laugh or cry."
"Choke, for all I care," Mathayus said.
"Partner... why so cross with me?"
The Akkadian was examining his mount, checking to see if Hanna was all right. "You were running off with my camel, thief."
Brushing himself off some more, Arpid said, mildly miffed, "If you were paying any attention at all, my friend, you'll know that your camel was run-ning off with me."
Mathayus swung up into the saddle, behind the sorceress; the nomadic affair was large enough to accommodate them both, if snugly.
Then the Akkadian nudged the camel to motion, and they trotted away, leaving the thief behind, yet again. He scrambled after them, crying, "So ... partner ... friend—where to now?"
"The Valley of the Dead," the Akkadian said casually.
Arpid frowned, slowed. "The ..."
"Valley."
"... of the..."
"Dead. Yes. Join us, if you like."
As the Akkadian and his lovely hostage rode off, Arpid stopped and yelled at them, and at the sky. "Are you a madman? Nobody enters the Valley of the Dead . . . that's why they call it the Valley of the Dead! You go in alive, you stay in there, dead! ... Even Memnon's army wouldn't dare go there!"
Mathayus, bouncing along, granted the thief a backward glance. "Not even to regain his sorceress? The source of his battle prowess?"
Arpid trotted after them, a few hesitant steps. "Well..."
"Of course he would! Memnon would send his men to the ends of the earth to get her back—to their deaths, if need be!"
Arpid swallowed, jogging along unenthusiastically. "It's not their deaths that trouble me, partner. .. . What about ours?"
But Mathayus had no answer for that, and rode along in silence. The sorceress said nothing either, and even Arpid had naught to say... though tag along he did.
Night had fallen on Gomorrah, and in the majestic throne room of Memnon, the warlord's two most trusted military advisers awaited his orders. That faithful servant, the scarred Thorak, stood by, waiting
, hanging on his master's every word, every movement. That more recent addition to the inner circle, the patricidal Takmet, lounged at a table, sipping wine, as if disaster had not fallen.
But it had.
Troubled on his throne, the Great Teacher sat studying squirming scorpions in a glass bowl on the wide stone armrest beside him. He withdrew from his belt the dagger he'd appropriated from the Akkadian, and he sent it lancing down, spearing one of the wriggling arachnids. The deliberateness of that act now seemed at odds with his facial expression, as the warlord lifted the dagger with the writhing, dying scorpion impaled there, watching it with seemingly idle interest.
'Take a dozen of your best men," Memnon said suddenly, and Thorak snapped to attention and Takmet looked up, "track him down ... kill him ... and bring Cassandra back to me."
Thorak nodded a curt bow. "Yes, my lord."
Memnon drew the thin sharp blade down the abdomen of the scorpion, splitting it open to the tail, ending its struggle.
"Send our fastest rider back to me, with word of his death," Memnon said. "And of her safety."
Memnon reached into a quiver next to the throne and withdrew an arrow, the tip of which he poked into the venom sac of the dead scorpion. He twisted the arrow's tip, turned it, thoroughly soaking it in the poison.
"My lord," Takmet said, rising finally, "rumors have spread to our armies that Cassandra has been taken."
Memnon turned sharply to Thorak. "Is that true? Do such rumors fly?"
The scarred commander glared at his fellow adviser, conveying his aggravation at Takmet's stirring up trouble; then his gaze returned to his master, and he said, "Yes, my lord. Of course, our generals, and our officers in the field, will need to know of her abduction ... in order to rescue her."
"They will not rescue her—you will. And the men you ride with need not know, until the sorceress has been restored to our custody."
"Yes, my lord."
The warlord frowned in thought. "Silence these rumors. Kill those with traitorous tongues, at your discretion. The people must believe the prophetess is here, even if we can only sustain the deception a short while."