by Lauren Haney
Commandant Thuty’s household.
Except for aisles left for the crew, the bow was piled high with similar chests, baskets, bundles, and bags. The sailors and the other passengers sat in the stern, waiting to journey onward, among cargo as densely packed as that stowed for ward. The ship’s master paced the rear deck, impatient to be on his way.
“He feels responsible, of that I’ve no doubt, but I don’t be lieve he’s to blame for whatever has happened to your son.”
Bak shifted his rear so he could push a sliver down in among the woven reeds beneath him. “If he were, why would he not vanish as Minnakht has?”
Thuty, seated on the steps leading up to the forecastle, scowled. “Bak’s right, Inebny. If Senna injured your son in any way, he’d not be here now. The Eastern Desert is vast, a place he knows well. He could hide there for years, until he died of old age and infirmity.”
“He’s a nomad,” Inebny snarled. “Those people know noth ing of our lady Maat, of law and order and common decency.”
He sucked in a breath, snorted. “My son trusted them as he would his own family, but I warned him. More than once. Do I believe this one abandoned him at a time of need? Indeed I do.”
Bak knew that nothing would change the commander’s at titude, nor would anything change his own certainty that
Senna feared something. Or someone. Inebny, probably.
“What do you think, Imsiba? Psuro?”
The big Medjay sergeant chose his words with care. “I’ve nothing of substance to base the feeling on, my friend, but I lean toward his being sincere.”
“He has every reason to be worried.” Psuro, standing at the railing beside Imsiba, glanced toward Senna, seated cross legged on the scruffy grass of the riverbank, waiting to col lect the goats and supplies Inebny had promised, all being held on the afterdeck of the traveling ship. “He’s not been paid for the time he spent with Minnakht, and the way Com mander Inebny’s acting, he can’t be sure he will be.”
“You think him innocent?” Bak asked.
“He may be, but if I were to travel with him in the desert,
I’d sleep with one eye open.”
“I know Inebny can be difficult, Lieutenant.” Thuty spoke in a low murmur so the commander, standing at the top of the gangplank, talking with the master of his traveling ship, would not hear. “I’ve often suspected that his son’s wander lust has more to do with the urge to be free of his parent than with curiosity about the world beyond the horizon. Nonethe less, he’s a friend. A good friend. And you’re the sole indi vidual I know who has a chance of finding the missing man.”
“Sir…”
Thuty raised a hand, staving off objections. “You’ve no wife or family to care for, no responsibilities other than to me. You won’t be leaving any task undone and, upon your re turn from the Eastern Desert, your new task will be awaiting you in Mennufer.”
“How many times must I remind you, sir? I don’t know the
Eastern Desert.”
“A problem easily solved, Lieutenant.”
Bak could have continued his plea, but the futility of argu ing-and, though he hated to admit it, an urge to know the truth-silenced him. Against all reason, in spite of the excite ment of a new task at a large and important garrison, in spite of the difficulties of seeking a man in an unfamiliar and for bidding landscape, he wanted to know what had happened to
Minnakht-and to see the Eastern Desert and the turquoise mines. He noticed Imsiba watching him, saw the hint of a smile on the Medjay’s face. His friend had read his thoughts.
Thuty strode to the gangplank to speak with Inebny. After a brief discussion, the commandant beckoned Bak and the sergeants, walked down the gangplank with his friend, and headed across the grass toward Senna. The trio looked at each other, not sure what to expect, and hurried after them.
As the five men descended upon the nomad, he scrambled to his feet and eyed them uncertainly.
“Lieutenant Bak has agreed to go into the desert to search for
Minnakht,” Thuty told Senna. “He’ll take you as his guide.”
“Sir?” Senna asked, startled.
Bak was equally surprised, but should not have been. The choice of guide must have been obvious to a man as open and straightforward as the commandant.
Thuty plowed ahead, allowing for no objection. “You’ll follow the path you took on your eastbound journey to the turquoise mines, searching all the while for signs of the miss ing man.”
The nomad shook his head vehemently. “Sir, I want noth ing more than to take my due and go home. I’ll not lead a man who has no knowledge of the desert to what might well be his death.”
“You lost my son,” Inebny snapped, “now you’ll help
Lieutenant Bak find him. I won’t give you the goats and sup plies I promised until after you return.”
Senna’s eyes darted toward Bak and flitted on toward the animals penned on the deck of the commander’s vessel.
“They’re mine, sir. Minnakht promised and so did you.”
“They’re not yours-make no mistake about that-and they never will be if you don’t guide the lieutenant through the desert.”
Bak felt certain Thuty had suggested the ungodly bargain, but even he seemed shocked by his friend’s malevolence.
“How will I know you’ll give them to me when we re turn?” Senna asked. “Will you find another reason to keep them from me?”
“You’ve no choice but to trust me,” Inebny snarled.
The guide’s face closed down, shielding from those who watched the mistrust and helplessness he had to have felt.
The impotence of a poor man facing a man of wealth and power.
Bak sympathized with the nomad, who had come to Kaine expecting payment for a task performed. Instead, he had to accept the promise of a man who had failed to live up to his word and also must repeat the task. “I’ll see that you receive fair return, Senna.”
“I’m grateful for the thought, sir, but how can you help me if something should happen and you perish in the desert?”
“I don’t intend to perish.” To Imsiba Bak said, “I wish to take along the four men in our company who best know the desert: Rona, Minmose, Kaha, and Nebre.”
“If you must go, my friend, and I see that you must, you couldn’t have chosen better men.” Imsiba flashed a wry smile. “I’m bound to admit my knowledge of the desert is limited, but I’ve some talent in the use of weapons. I’d like to go with you. You might need a man with a spear more than one who can read footprints in the sand.”
Bak clasped the sergeant’s wrist. “I’d be more than pleased to have you, Imsiba, but someone must take charge of our men. They’ll be entering a new garrison and taking on new tasks. They’ll need a man they like and trust to stand at their head. I can think of no one who can fill my sandals bet ter than you.”
“Take me, sir.” Psuro, who knew Bak almost as well as Im siba did, flashed a smile. “I’ve a strong desire to see the East ern Desert.”
Bak, suspecting he would need someone to watch his back, accepted the offer. Other than Imsiba, he could think of no man more loyal and devoted than Psuro, no man more dependable.
Thuty stared at the nomad guide, his face grim. “A word of warning, Senna. If my men vanish as Minnakht did, you’d better vanish with them.”
Bak and the five Medjays bade goodbye to their friends and stood at the water’s edge, watching them sail away. Feel 26
Lauren Haney ing rather like children cast aside by their parents, they turned their backs on the vessels they had thought would carry them to Mennufer and strode into Kaine. The garrison tokens Inebny had given Bak to purchase whatever they needed eased their path. In no time at all they had seven don keys, one for each man, the minimum they would require for the trek across the desert. They bought food and supplies, the large jars in which they would carry the water they would need, and a few sheaves of hay for the animals.
Bak was standing at the villa
ge well, watching Senna and his Medjays fill the water jars and goatskin waterbags, when
Psuro called from across the small sandswept square. “Lieu tenant Bak! You must hear what this man has to say, sir.”
Veering around a dirty white dog scratching its fleas, Bak hurried to the sergeant’s side. Psuro stood before a grizzled old man sitting beneath a sycamore tree, weaving reeds with gnarled hands to form a sandal. A matching sandal lay beside his skinny thigh.
“This man’s name is Huy,” Psuro said. “He’s told me of a rumor that may have something to do with Minnakht’s disap pearance.”
Bak knelt before the three pairs of sandals lined up in front of their maker. “Tell me, old man, what have you heard?”
“A rumor, no more, but one that might cause a man more trouble than he bargained for.” Huy gave Bak a sly smile, re vealing stained teeth worn down almost to the gums.
Bak well understood the pause and the suggestive smile.
“Your knife is old, I see, its blade pitted. You look in need of a new one. One with a fine bronze blade.”
The old man nodded, pleased. “They say he found gold.
Somewhere in the Eastern Desert.”
“I’ll need more. Details.”
“That’s just it, sir. Rumors abound. Tales that bode ill for the young explorer, none with any substance. Each is built upon the one before, created late in the evening in the house of pleasure by men besotted by beer and a longing for riches.”
“To earn that knife I promised, you must tell me all you’ve heard, each and every rumor no matter how unlikely. I must judge for myself what’s worthy of belief.”
The sandal maker obliged, repeating one tale after another.
Most hinted at the discovery of gold; none pointed the way to finding it. Bak would have taken none seriously-except for the danger they posed to Minnakht.
As soon as he had rewarded the old man, he hurried to the well. “Senna, have you heard the rumors that Minnakht found gold?”
“How could I not have heard? From the moment I set foot in Kaine, I was besieged by men demanding that I tell them what I knew. Nothing, I swore, yet they refused to believe me.” The guide gave a derisive snort. “Rumors fly through this village as bubbles in the air, and have as much substance.”
Late in the day, they walked away from Kaine. To their left, the river and its cultivated plain turned to the west and disappeared, hidden by high limestone escarpments. Ahead lay the first wadi in a series that Bak fervently hoped would lead them to Minnakht.
In less than an hour, they had left behind the rich black soil of the river valley, the fields blanketed with tender green shoots and dotted with birds, and had crossed the barren, lifeless sands of the low desert to enter the mouth of the wadi. One look at the vast dry watercourse rent asunder
Bak’s skepticism of ancient tales of pounding rainstorms tearing through the desert and of broad and deep rivers lined with plants and teeming with life. Over an hour’s walk in width and fed, according to Senna, by a multitude of lesser wadis, it was the culmination of what had to be a vast drainage system. The thought of himself and his compan ions, mere men, walking through so immense a landscape filled him with awe.
Senna led them up the most recent channel to be cut through the wadi by water pouring downstream after thun derstorms and heavy rain in the mountains to the east. About forty paces wide and washed out to a depth of three or four paces below the wadi floor, its hard sand surface provided easy walking for men and donkeys. An irregular line of leaf less, seemingly dead plants dotted the wadi floor, silla bushes that the smallest amount of water would bring to life.
Some distance to the east, they could see a large worn limestone mound, its profile softened by dust in the air. Far ther north, a long ridge sloped steeply down into a gap be tween itself and the mound. The gap, Senna said, marked the location of the wadi up which they would travel during the next few days.
As dusk crept upon the land and the heat of the day waned, after the small caravan had settled into the rhythm of the journey, Bak fell in beside the nomad. Behind them, the don keys walked in an irregular line led by Psuro, Rona, and Min mose. Kaha and Nebre, the most accomplished trackers in the party, had left the watercourse to range across the wadi floor, seeking knowledge of the landscape around them. The sounds of evening, a bird calling, a hoof striking a rock, a donkey blowing, the men behind talking together, were muted by the stillness of the vast expanse around them.
They spoke for a while of the trek ahead, a journey into an ever-more rugged landscape. With no lofty officers to ques tion his every move, Senna was considerably more relaxed than he had been at Kaine and much less defensive when he spoke of the trip he had made with the young explorer who had vanished.
“I know nothing of Minnakht except what his father told me,” Bak said. “He naturally spoke of the man he knew in the city, not of the explorer, and his eyes were most likely blinded by the love he feels for his son.”
“Minnakht is a fine man, that I can tell you without reser vation. A man of remarkable courage and determination.”
“You sound like his father,” Bak said in a wry voice.
Senna managed a sparse smile. “He’s a good friend to the people who dwell in this part of the desert. They know him well, know how at home he feels with them and their land.
They can’t understand how he could vanish as he did.”
Bak gave the nomad a sharp look. “You speak of the peo ple here as if you’re not one of them.”
“I was born to a tribe that dwells many days’ walk to the north. On this side of the Eastern Sea, but opposite the place where men of Kemet mine turquoise and copper.” Senna must have sensed the query in Bak’s thoughts, for he smiled,
“You’re wondering, and well you might: if I was born a stranger to the land through which we’ll be traveling, how did I get to know it well enough to serve as a guide?”
“The thought struck me, yes.”
“While a boy, I was servant to a man who wished above all things to find gold. Each cool season he explored the Eastern
Desert, trekking farther to the south than the year before. His guide at the time, a man of infinite patience and wisdom, taught me all he knew.”
“As an outsider…” Bak paused, not wanting to rub natron into what might well be an open sore.
“Do the nomads in this area blame me for Minnakht’s dis appearance?” Senna’s smile was bitter. “Why do you think I spent so many days and weeks searching for him?”
A distant whistle sounded off to the left, drawing Bak’s at tention. Kaha or Nebre assuring him and their fellow Med jays that all was well with them. A second whistle followed,
Psuro’s response.
“You’ve no idea how much I regret the illness that pre vented me returning with Minnakht,” Senna said. “Worse yet, I argued with him about his decision to leave in such haste.”
“He made the decision, not you.”
“Still, I must live with what happened. If we should find him alive, I can make amends. If we find him dead or don’t find him at all…” Senna shrugged. “How can I know how he felt about my absence? How can I myself know how I should feel?”
Unable to think of a suitable answer, Bak said instead,
“What do you believe happened to him?”
“Someone must’ve made him their prisoner or, as reluc tant as I am to think the worst, he may’ve been slain. Maybe by the fishermen he sailed away with or by bandits some where along the coast of the Eastern Sea.”
Before leaving Waset, Bak had questioned a seasoned offi cer who had escorted prisoners and supplies through the
Eastern Desert and across the sea to the turquoise and copper mines. He thought of all the man had told him: the long treks between watering places, the enormous and rugged wadis and mountains, the immense sea with its endless coastline and multitude of islands. How could he hope to find one small man in a land so vast?
Full darkness
fell. The air grew cool and fresh. The stars sparkled with a crystalline brilliance and the moon, a pale half circle, lit the sand beneath their feet. A donkey shied and a deadly viper slithered away. Night birds called to one an other, a fox barked.
Kaha and Nebre returned to the caravan as silent as the large sand-colored lizard Bak had seen during the day. If the donkeys had not turned their heads to look, he would not have noticed the two men sliding down the bank of the wa tercourse. Smiling, they loped across the sand to report.
Nebre, who was tall and slender, about forty years of age with woolly hair as white as his kilt, planted the point of his spear in the sand. “As far as we could tell, sir, we’re the only men within shouting distance, but others have gone ahead of us. Earlier today, we believe.”
Surprised, Bak looked up the line of donkeys toward their guide. “According to Senna, this path we’re following is sel dom used.”
“Not long after we left you, we spotted the tracks of a car avan. Seven men-four barefoot, two wearing woven reed sandals, and one wearing leather sandals-walking with a dozen or so donkeys. They traveled a route parallel to this channel but closer to the eastern side of the wadi.”
Bak frowned. “Reed sandals? They’ll never last in this harsh landscape. Those two couldn’t have been nomads.”
“No, sir.” Nebre glanced at Kaha, who voiced agreement, and went on with his tale. “Later, about two-thirds of the way between the mouth of the wadi and where we now stand, the tracks of two men wearing leather sandals and walking with four donkeys merged with the first set of tracks. Whether the later group caught up with the earlier or simply trod along the same path, we’ve no way of knowing.”
“Were they also men of Kemet, I wonder?”
Nebre shrugged. “Nomads usually go barefoot, but a few have taken to wearing sandals. Leather sandals.”
“Interesting,” Bak said with a wry smile. “We thought to be walking alone into the wilderness and instead we find our selves to be one segment of a procession.”