XIV. With His Sorceress at His Side
Somewhere in all the chaos of that night, a camel paced through the middle of the ruined camp, ignoring the abandoned bodies and rubbish, finally settling next to the western gate to wait, stoically gurgling, until morning. As the sun peeked over the far mountains, the camel was towed by a sleepy-eyed soldier to the palace horse master, who, in a bit of a shock, notified his lord that a unique albino camel had appeared.
The pen smelled of camel, goat, horse, and more camel. Geese waddled through occasionally, and flies buzzed everywhere, even in the cool of the morning.
Mathayus went over his camel with careful hands. The scraps of saddle cloth still clinging to its shrunken hump were useless, of course; but other than needing a good feed and plenty of water, the creature was healthy.
"I always said camels were smarter," the king remarked to no one in particular. The camel humphed agreeably. "Well, Camel, not that I expected you to make it back after Arpid left you out there, but I'm glad to see you."
Humphing again, the beast stretched out its neck and lipped Mathayus' hair.
Mathayus scowled as he shoved the camel's nose away. "You know, I wish we'd never taken Pheron's offer. All it's led to is killing, and more killing." He chuckled grimly, then spat. "This from an assassin. But this assassin is tired of kingship. It's nothing but scheming and planning and betrayal."
He picked up a rough cloth hung over a reed gate and began scrubbing at the camel's filthy hide. "These people expect me to protect them, Camel, and I can't even protect one boy. All I do is kill." He scrubbed harder and harder, until the camel craned its neck back, groaning. "I can tell you one thing, though. With my sorceress at my side, no mortal can defeat us. And I'll make certain she's always at my side."
The camel gingerly folded one leg after the other underneath its ungainly body, closed its long-lashed eyes as it settled to the ground, and gave a long sigh.
"Me too, Camel. Me too."
* * *
The caverns, one after another after another, wove deep and silent under the mountains. There were fourteen of Isis' warriors left, including the queen herself. All that long night, into the next day, and on into the following evening--three days, though it was one unending dark for the travelers--they journeyed through the earth's belly.
At the echo of their footsteps, scuffing against the rough and silent ground, Isis knew the gods themselves were listening. Even their breaths came back to them, weirdly modulated, as if the caves were some giant musical instrument.
They filed past sunken lakes; in the flickering torchlight, they could see pale fish under the water--fish with no eyes. There were winding limestone stairs, fashioned, it seemed, by the hand of Geb the earth god himself. Then there were forests of impossible pillars, formed from stone that had somehow melted like beeswax. Even the awed whispers among the travelers fell silent then.
They saw things that none would ever be able to speak of again; there were no words for such wonders.
* * *
The sun dipped past the horizon. The fiery orange streaking through the slit windows turned to red; the air took on the stifling odor of jasmine, and Cassandra rolled over and pretended to fall asleep. The king had taken away her freedom, and then he had taken away her choice. She wondered what he felt, what he thought of, as he lay in that place between waking and sleeping.
Quietly, as if in her sleep, she rolled over again and laid one hand on his arm.
Mathayus muttered something, sighed deeply, and fell into darkness.
He saw some sort of temple. Not the Temple of Anubis in the city of the dead--a burial chamber, richly stocked with painted foods and pleasures, ushabtis, golden idols, and treasures to fill an afterlife. Meticulously cast statues, of a finer make than he'd ever seen, guarded the sanctuary with swords, spears, and battle axes.
He saw a man of great power in this burial chamber. Not dead, no. He was tall and strong, bald of head and clear of eyes. This man had the power of the elements, of storm and plague and insect, at his hands. His eyes mirrored the powers of life and death. Mathayus thought of Menes and wondered.
He saw the man kneel before him as the temple chamber began to crumble. "I am your servant!"
The king smiled.
Cassandra pulled away. Her hand flew unbidden to her mouth; she bit it to keep from crying aloud. Chills ran along her arms and back, and she felt sick.
She lay awake for a long time. Finally she rolled out of bed, dressing as quickly as she could. Then she turned away to don her sandals.
"Where are you going, sorceress?"
Mathayus had woken and was gazing at her expectantly. He seemed to glow with power in the aftermath of his dream. Finding herself unable to answer him, Cassandra sent out a desperate call, hoping it would be answered. Hoping it would not come too late.
* * *
On the third day, Isis and her companions came to a long tunnel. And here they stopped for hours and stared. Along each wall and the low, arching ceiling were paintings atop paintings. None could say when they had been made, or by whom. On the left side had been preserved animals hunting animals, men hunting animals, and men hunting men.
Much of the newer artwork was layered over older stuff, making some of the beasts look like amalgamations of several creatures. There was an animal that seemed giraffe on one end, antelope on the other. A bizarre mixture of baboon and ibis followed a three-headed man with five legs. A man painted red was attacked by another man overlayered by what looked like a giant scorpion. As the torchlight flared and danced, figures seen from the corner of the eye shifted and stirred, and then fell still.
The right side had also once shown animals, and in some places spotted cattle grazed on; but these had faded over the eons. Now there was only a woman--or a series of women--running down the wall. Her arms were slender, her legs long and muscular; figure after figure, she took great strides along the winding corridor. As Isis and her company followed, the painted woman grew more abstract. Her feminine features became more pronounced: breasts and abdomen expanded, buttocks and thighs grew stylistically outsized. Isis wondered whether she was fleeing, or running toward something.
The last painting of the woman, across from the man-scorpion on the opposite wall, showed her midstride. Between her legs was a duck and a circle with a central dot--"Son of the sun" in hieroglyphs. Isis stared at it for a long time, before one of the group touched her shoulder.
"Look," the warrior said. "Sunlight. We are almost there."
Coming out of the cave was like waking from a dream. Isis felt that she had learned something, that she had spoken to something else in that cave, had been given some great secret; but the harder she tried to remember, the more it slipped away. Under the full light of the golden morning, the whispered riddle vanished.