Path of Shadows lb-8

by Lauren Haney

  The explorer scowled. “I doubt a nomad would’ve mis taken the slain man for me, Lieutenant.”

  Bak, who had spoken in haste, hurried to make amends.

  A rift between him and User or among any of the others would multiply ten times ten any danger they might have to face. Clapping the explorer on the shoulder, he smiled.

  “That was a thought, no more. I’m a soldier, trained to be always on the defensive. An animal may’ve set those rocks to falling, not a man. Nebre and Kaha will soon learn the truth.”

  “A man was up there, all right.” Nebre knelt beside the small fire Minmose had made, using a dead bush for fuel. He had built the fire on the wadi floor, well away from the hill side. Its fiery coals made a tiny patch of cheer beneath the cooler light of the stars and moon. “The man with the worn sandal, the one whose footprint Kaha found north of Kaine.”

  “We followed him for more than an hour,” Kaha said, lay ing his bow and quiver with those of Nebre and squatting be side his friend. “He must’ve feared we’d catch him, for he put something on his feet to smudge his prints, a woolly sheep skin, I’d wager. Because the prints were so unclear and he traveled across rock as much as he could, we lost his trail.”

  Nebre scowled as Minmose broke up a crusty chunk of bread and dropped it in the onion and lentil stew warming on the coals. He was not irritated by the food being stretched to go around, but by the difficulties they had faced. “The lord

  Amon alone knows how much time we wasted walking in circles, trying to find him again. Not wishing to spend the night in an unfamiliar landscape, we thought to return before the lord Re entered the netherworld.”

  The smell of heated onions reminded Bak of how hungry he was. “Who can he be, I wonder? Why is he watching us?”

  Nebre shrugged, as did Kaha. Psuro offered no comment, nor did Minmose or Rona.

  “Could he have slain the man we found this morning with out leaving behind any sign of his presence?”

  Nebre shrugged. “Anything is possible, but I don’t see how.”

  Bak looked down the wadi toward the small fire around which the men of User’s party could be dimly seen. They, too, had thought it best to camp well out on the wadi floor.

  Night had fallen swiftly. The wind had died and the heat of the day had vanished with the sun. Most of the donkeys, sated with water and forage, were lying down, better able to rest in the cool of night.

  He scanned the faces of the Medjays sitting around the fire, making sure he had their undivided attention. “From now on, one of you must stand watch every night, taking turns, and two of you must serve as scouts during each day’s march. I know Nebre and Kaha are the best trackers among you, but you must all share the task. The days are too hot, the landscape too rough for the same two men to bear the burden day after day.” He wrapped his arms around his bent legs and added in a deliberate voice, “If you see the man who’s been watching us-or if you see anyone else, for that mat ter-you must bring him to me if you can. If he’s too far away to talk to, you must give chase, but not for any great distance.”

  Kaha threw him a pained look. “But, sir!”

  Bak raised a hand to silence the Medjay. “I doubt any of you would get lost, even in this wild and barren land. You’ve too much experience in the desert. But I don’t want you walking into a trap. Nor do I want you injured by chance somewhere far from help.”

  “Sir!” Nebre said. “That’s like leading a goat to water and not letting it drink.”

  “With luck and the help of the gods, before this journey is over, we’ll find a way to draw the watching man into a trap of our own.”

  Chapter 6

  They left the well before dawn to cross a low divide and en ter another wadi, this many paces wide. Striking off in a more northerly direction, it carried them into a world totally different than that of the previous two days. The grayish limestone cliffs that had lined the lower wadi slid away be hind them, replaced by yellow and brown sandstone. Golden dunes climbed the sides of the slopes, a few so tall they spilled over the top. Scattered boulders and stones of all sizes spread across the coarse sand on the wadi floor, casting long blackish shadows before the rising sun.

  Nebenkemet’s appraisal of Minnakht refused to fade from

  Bak’s thoughts. Ani, Wensu, and Amonmose alike had de scribed a man whose enthusiasm and way with words en thralled those with whom he spoke, filling the hearts of the most unlikely with dreams of adventure, wealth, and fame.

  Even User, admittedly envious of his competitor, thought the young explorer a man who loved the life he lived, the land he trod, and the nomads who dwelt in that land.

  Bak had known men from all walks of life whose astute observations placed them above their fellows. Could

  Nebenkemet be one of them? Or did he, like User, harbor jealousy in his heart? Resentment of a man endowed with the wealth and opportunity he had never had.

  “Look at this, Lieutenant.” Ani scooped up a handful of sand and sorted through it with a finger, revealing granules of pink, white, and beige. “Feldspar and quartz washed down from those mountains.” He pointed toward the northeast, where tall, rugged peaks reached up to the turquoise sky, catching wisps of cloud on their craggy tops. Towering above them all was a reddish mountain whose innumerable pinna cles caught the morning sun. Those peaks, several days’ walk ahead, marked the place where the wadis drained eastward rather than toward the west as they did here. “Mere bits of rock, but beautiful, aren’t they? Especially when one consid ers how small they are and how far they’ve traveled.”

  Bak hated to dampen the jeweler’s enthusiasm, but he feared for his safety. “They’re very much the colors of a viper, Ani. You must take care when you reach down like that. The snakes bury themselves close to the surface of the sand, and are quick to attack when they feel themselves threatened.” He had long ago exchanged his baton of office for a spear to probe the sand ahead of his feet.

  “So User has told me, but I forget.”

  Belaboring the subject would be a waste of breath, Bak felt sure. “Could the man we found slain at the first well have been mistaken for Minnakht? Did they resemble each other in any way?”

  “I wouldn’t think so.” Ani let the granules fall to the ground and wiped his hand on his kilt. “The dead man was about the same age, but was of medium height and build.

  His face was unremarkable, with no distinguishing features that I recall.” The jeweler screwed up his face, trying to re member. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I’d never before seen a man slain in his sleep. I guess I was more upset than I thought.”

  “Can you describe Minnakht?”

  A smile lit up Ani’s face. “That’s easy enough. He was tall, taller than the dead man by more than a hand’s breadth. He had thick, dark hair, slightly curly, lively dark eyes, and a most expressive face, bright with vitality and good humor.”

  Bak wondered how many hundreds of men would answer to that description. “Did he wear any jewelry of note or any special amulet?” This, he felt certain, Ani would be able to answer in detail.

  “I saw him only the one time, and that in Waset,” the jew eler reminded him. “He wore a broad collar much too fine to wear into the desert, and bracelets and armlets of an equal quality. He wore a bronze chain around his neck. I remember wondering why he chose bronze instead of gold. I couldn’t see what hung from the chain. Whatever it was was hidden beneath the collar.”

  Bak would have given his best pair of sandals to know what hung from that chain. “You told me how you met him and how he swept you away with his tales of the desert and of the many beautiful minerals and stones found here. Did he talk of himself at all?”

  “He wasn’t an individual who enjoyed speaking of per sonal matters. He did say…” Ani stopped himself, reluctant to reveal what another man had told him, if not in confidence at least as one man to another. “I suppose, since he’s been gone so long…”

  “Anything you tell me might help. The most unlikely b
it of information could be of infinite value.”

  “Well…” Ani bent to pick up another handful of sand giving himself time to think, Bak suspected. Paying no heed to the possibility that he might disturb a viper. “You see,

  Lieutenant, he wanted my assurance that I could go off into the desert, leaving no one behind uncared for. I told him I dwelt alone, that my wife of twenty years had gone to the netherworld not six months earlier and my children were wed and had homes of their own. I told him my overseer, the chief jeweler in the royal house, would allow me to go with his good wishes and a prayer that I’d return with many unique and beautiful stones.”

  Ani ran a finger through the sand he held. Finding nothing special, he tipped his hand, spilling out the grit. The hot breeze was strong enough to carry away the dust but too weak to deflect the path of the falling granules. “He spoke of a young woman he had loved and lost. One who had vowed to be his forever. He left her behind to come into the desert, confident she would wait and wait again each time he set out to explore this barren land. Upon his return, he found her wed to another, a young nobleman who had given her a fine home and would never wander from her side.” Brushing the dust from his hands, Ani added, “Six or seven years ago, it was, but he made no secret that the loss still hurt.”

  Bak wondered if the tale had been offered casually. Or had its telling been calculated to win the jeweler over? Ani had told Minnakht of a wife gone to the netherworld, and the ex plorer had offered up a mutual loss. A tie that had bound the older man to the younger, personally as well as profession ally.

  The wadi narrowed to half its former width. The yellowish sandstone walls rose higher, contrasting with the sky above, making the blue more intense. Bak walked a few paces to the left of the caravan, following the tracks of gazelle that had traveled this way sometime in the recent past. The day of their passing was unimportant, the event memorable for only as long as the tracks remained.

  Ani’s description of Minnakht had been sketchy at best, but Bak doubted the man at the well had been mistakenly slain in place of the explorer. Minnakht had vanished two months ago. If the people of the Eastern Desert were any thing like those who dwelt on the southern frontier-and he assumed they were-news traveled faster than locusts laying waste to the land. All the world would have long ago known of the explorer’s disappearance.

  Which meant that the unknown man’s death was a sepa rate incident-but was somehow related, he felt sure. That the dead man had carried no means of identification was not unusual, but was frustrating nonetheless. His appearance had been ordinary, his few personal items and clothing of reason ably good quality but not the best. His traveling supplies had been much like those Bak and his men had brought into the desert. His thick wrists and muscular arms looked to be those of an archer. He might have been a soldier, but could as eas ily have been a man who ofttimes practiced with the bow.

  Nothing but the gold chain and pendant, both of fine quality and workmanship, had been noteworthy.

  Shoving aside thoughts that led him nowhere, Bak crossed a stretch of sand whose grains sparkled in the sunlight and climbed a large reddish outcrop that angled upward until it was twice the height of a man. From the more elevated per spective, he looked up the wadi as far as he could see and scanned the clifftops to either side. He thought he glimpsed a figure on the southern rim, but the glare of sunlight made it impossible to be certain. Kaha and Minmose had slipped away from the caravan as they broke camp, and he assumed they were somewhere above. The figure might have been one of them.

  User strode across the sand and climbed up beside him.

  “You’ve kept to yourself much of the morning, Lieutenant.”

  “I’ve been thinking about the dead man we sent back to

  Kemet. Wondering who he was.”

  “I pray someone in Kaine recognizes him. I, for one, wouldn’t want to be buried nameless.”

  They stood in an uncomfortable silence, enshrouded by the thought. The loss of his name would doom the dead man to the destruction of his memory and would deprive him of existence in the netherworld.

  “I’ve also been thinking of Minnakht,” Bak said. “I’ve come to realize I have no idea what he looks like.”

  User smiled unexpectedly. “Never fear, Lieutenant. If you should come upon him while you’re with this caravan, the rest of us will recognize him.”

  Bak had to laugh. “Are you so pleased with my company that you wish me to stay forever?”

  “So far you’ve made no demands on me or my drovers or my animals.” User had become dead serious. “In fact, you’ve given more than you’ve taken. I’ve not the men to scout ahead, and that’s a task I’m beginning to think we sorely need.”

  “Because the nomads are leaving the wells before we ap pear? Or because someone has been watching us from afar?”

  User eyed the passing caravan, the men and animals trudg ing in an irregular line up the dry, sunstruck riverbed. “I’ve never known the people to be so shy, and I can’t explain it.

  They usually come to talk, to hear news of other nomads, and they come to trade for items hard to find out here in this re mote land. Each time I enter this desert, I bring cloth, beads, honey, needles, and other small objects they need or desire.

  They’ve come to expect them, so why has no one approached thus far to see what I’ve brought?”

  “Could they believe you responsible for Minnakht’s disap pearance?”

  “I don’t see why they would. I’ve not been out here since last he left Kaine.” User looked up the wadi toward Senna, marching at the head of the caravan. “I’m more inclined to believe they don’t trust your guide.”

  Bak’s eyes followed User’s. Did the nomads hold Senna directly responsible for Minnakht’s disappearance, or did they simply consider him a man who had failed in his duty?

  “What did Minnakht look like?”

  User barked out a cynical laugh, as if he had guessed

  Bak’s lack of confidence in Senna. “He looked a bit like the dead man, but may not have been quite as tall. He had a lot of straight dark hair and dark eyes, and his skin was ruddy from too much sun.”

  Interesting, Bak thought. Ani, a short man, had described

  Minnakht as tall. User was tall; therefore, he thought the young explorer short. One man remembered his hair as curly, the other said it was straight. The truth must be somewhere in between. After taking a final look along the clifftops, reassur ing himself that all was well, he walked down the sloping rock to the wadi floor. The older man kept pace with him stride for stride.

  “He had a way of walking that struck me as an affectation, although I doubt it was,” User said. “I know his father was a military man, and I guess he taught him to move like that, but he marched rather than walked. Chin high, long strides, spine as straight as that spear you’re holding. It gave him the ap pearance of supreme self-confidence. A man invincible.”

  “Did he wear any special jewelry that he never took off, something he wore even when traveling through the desert?”

  User shrugged. “I seem to remember a chain with some kind of pendant. Exactly what, I paid no heed.”

  “Sorry, Lieutenant, but I’m no good at guessing how tall people are.” Amonmose walked up the gradually narrowing wadi between Bak and a donkey, his gait rolling like that of the sailor he had been in his youth, his stride easy. “I judge a man by his actions. If he’s hard-working and honest, he’s tall in my eyes. If he’s indolent and a sneak, I think of him as small.”

  Bak could not help but smile at so simplistic a way of looking at others. “Did you see Minnakht as tall or short?”

  “Hmmm.” Amonmose probed his teeth with a sharpened twig, thinking. “Interesting. I thought him tall, but I recall standing before him, looking him straight in the eye.”

  “What else do you remember?”

  “He was well-formed in body and face. What more can I say?”

  Bak eyed the trader at his side. As he had before, h
e mar veled that such a portly man could walk in the sun for hours on end without undue suffering from the heat. Too bad his powers of observation were not as powerful as his stamina.

  “From what you told me yesterday, the man who vanished ten months ago was a stranger to this part of the desert.”

  “So I assumed.” Amonmose frowned, thinking back. “If the people who spoke of him had known him, their voices would’ve held more warmth or chill. More sympathy for the man, more passion at his failure to return.”

  “Did he know Minnakht, do you think?”

  “No one said.” The trader took the twig from his mouth and threw it away. “No more than a half-dozen men explore this desert year after year, Lieutenant. The area between the southern trail that runs east from Waset and the northern trail that connects Mennufer to the Eastern Sea is vast. They might never come face to face, but they’ll surely have heard of each other.”

  Bak looked back along the caravan, thinking to ask User if he had known the missing man. The explorer was standing off to the side of the line of passing donkeys, watching a drover reload an animal whose burden had shifted on its back. He would have to wait for a better time.

  An hour or so before midday, they stopped beside a strip of shade at the base of a cliff on the south side of the water course. The wadi had narrowed to a quarter of its original width. After checking the welfare of men and donkeys, Bak thought to speak with Wensu, another man who might better describe Minnakht than had Ani or Amonmose or User. On the other hand, having seen the explorer as a heroic figure, his description might be as influenced as theirs by his feel ings about the missing man.

  Wensu had rolled out his thin sleeping mat in the most comfortable place in which to rest, a wider than average swath of shade free of fallen rocks. While Nebenkemet and

  Amonmose had helped the drovers unload the donkeys, while Ani had wandered across the wadi floor in search of in teresting stones, he had surrounded himself with his posses sions, wasting precious shade better used by men and donkeys than by objects.