Wraiths of Time Read online

  Colonel Namlia was by the door as Tallahassee and Herihor reached it. And Tallahassee gave her order.

  “We speak in private—by the pool. See that we are undisturbed.”

  “On my head be it, Great Lady.” The Colonel raised her hand to touch the lion emblem to the fore of her linen sphinx headdress.

  Two of her Amazons were waved to draw another bench near to the one where Tallahassee had rested earlier. Then they took their places well out of earshot, their backs to the four who sat there, Tallahassee between Herihor and Jayta, Idieze on the smaller bench facing the three bound in what she must see was open hostility against her.

  “You would speak, I see you,” Tallahassee said.

  “Princess, Priestess, General”—Idieze looked slowly from one face to another—“and all so ready to beware one unarmed woman—me. You grant me stature I do not have, Great Lady.”

  “Be glad then that you do not, for the wrath of the Blood is not a light thing to face.” Out of Ashake memory came the words. Yet Idieze was smiling once more, and now she laughed, low and sweetly.

  “Such ponderous language, Great Lady. One would think that the Blood was about to pronounce one of those Seven Curses which, we are told, could wither flesh, break bones. It does not matter that I am hated here, but truly I have come out of concern. The Blood has held power a very long time—by ways so ancient that the very accounts are now dreary dust. To everything there comes an end, have you ever thought of that, Great Lady? Those of the Blood, of the Upper Way are very few now, a handful against perhaps more than half a nation.

  “There is no cure for narrowness of mind; that leads only to stagnation and defeat. The end of your road is very near, Great Lady, and if one does not heed the branching of another path ahead, there can follow chaos. None of us wants to see Amun rent by a war of brother against brother, sister against sister. But the branch of the tree which gives not to pull of the storm wind breaks and is gone.”

  “A warning, Lady?” Tallahassee cut into this spate of metaphors. “So you think you are strong enough to give a warning? That in itself is interesting indeed.”

  Idieze’s smile set a fraction. “You here have had no news from New Napata, I believe, for some hours. There can be many changes in even a small portion of such a space of time, Great Lady.”

  “And what momentous happening has there been at New Napata in those hours?”

  “Changes, Great Lady. Not all love the past. It is said that the Temple of Light is now closed so that none go in or come out again. Rumor can whip the people to violence. And rumor spreads that the Son-of-Apedemek, Zyhlarz himself, has been struck mad so that he howls like a desert jackal and looses upon those of his own people death from the mind. Do not discount rumor, Great Lady, it often holds a core of truth. And do not discount what I have to offer. The turn in the road will not be open for long.”

  “That turn being a way for Userkof?” Tallahassee asked. “From such a change there could come only trouble. He is not of the direct descent and his get—though I believe you have not yet provided our lord with any to call him father—cannot sit in the Lion’s seat.”

  “So there is no heir save you, Royal Daughter? Ah, but you are also barred from the throne now since you profess the celibacy of those who strive to follow the Upper Way. And this valiant lord has waited so long for you that already he looks elsewhere!”

  She swung on Herihor, there was a sharpness in her features that carried the threat of an aimed dagger. Tallahassee did not doubt that Idieze was about to spew forth something she thought to be true.

  “In the old days, General Prince Herihor, our men took more than one wife. Does this Great Lady betrothed to you know the rumors of a white skin from the north who now confidently expects to wear jewels of your bestowing?”

  Herihor made a slight movement but his face was smooth of any telltale expression. “Your servants have been busy, Lady. But if I were you, I would subject their reports to a closer study. Such who spy upon command often relate only what their mistress wishes most to hear.”

  “Perhaps, Lord Prince.” She shot a sly, searching glance at Tallahassee, as if to judge the effect of her revelation.

  If she expected to light a fire with that! After all, though the Prince had not uttered a denial of Idieze’s malicious accusation, Tallahassee was scornful of any statement from that source. In fact she could imagine several reasons why Herihor might be on good and even confidential terms with a woman of the north through whom information affecting the border might flow. Did the Princess believe she dealt now with utter fools? When Tallahassee looked to the General Prince, she saw Jason, and Jason had had his secrets into which she had never thought to pry.

  “The loose talk of servants has never been of interest to me. But your warning is now delivered. I have seen you, Idieze.” Tallahassee deliberately used the dismissal for an inferior and was queerly glad to see the other’s lips tighten into a grimace.

  As she stood up, Idieze, too, was forced to rise, and by court custom she could not speak again. But as she withdrew, Tallahassee spoke swiftly to Herihor, hoping to convey by her very order her trust in him: “See that she is watched. Also I want her and her spying servants away from here as soon as possible. She came more to see than to warn, or so I think.”

  “She wears a mind-shield,” Jayta said in a low voice. “It is not of her Talent. Also she would not dare speak of the affairs of the Temple, as she did, was this not a fact.”

  “But Zyhlarz—” Herihor protested.

  “Yes, Zyhlarz, he who is Son-of-Apedemek in our time.” Jayta’s voice was strained. She stared after Idieze, already nearly lost in the shadows at the other end of the pool. “This is worse, far worse. Great Lady—we must know!”

  “Herihor?…” Tallahassee made a question of his name.

  “Be sure if there is any way possible, we shall know and soon. I have an officer with me—I left him in charge of the outer guard. He has undertaken such duties in the past; he will again. I have your permission to try?”

  “You have my will on it!”

  Then he was gone. Tallahassee put out her hand to the Priestess. “There is something else, there was a presence, one such as I felt in the other world …” Hurriedly she told of her experience before the arrival of Idieze.

  “Yes, that can be the wraith of him who stole the Rod and the Key. He strove to follow you through the corridor Ashake opened to reach your world. We have sealed that. But that he has still the strength to follow you … We shall set safeguards anew!”

  It was late when Tallahassee finally went to bed. She had had discussions with Jayta, later again with Herihor who had sent his officer out. And the report came that Idieze and those who followed her were safely pent in their chambers, a guard set to watch.

  As she stretched out on the bed, the faintly purring kittens again beside her, she was so tired that she felt wrung free of any emotion at all. Idieze had meant that gossip concerning Herihor’s barbarian woman to be devastating. But then she could not know that Herihor was—was like—Jason—a companion-brother—a …

  There was a faint trouble born of that thought, but she was too tired to strive to examine the source of her uneasiness.

  She roused at the growl of a kitten. Her room was dark. Only a faint light shone around the edge of the door curtain. Only—there was an intruder here. She did not need the growling to know that someone stood beside her bed.

  Tallahassee opened her mouth to shout for the guard. There was a spray of liquid, stinging on her lips and in her eyes, wet on her cheeks. She fell away, sick and dizzy, into dark nothingness.

  Tallahassee was drowning, there was water about her and nothing to hold onto. Waves lapped over her head as she fought for air for her lungs. She was drowning! However, the waves were receding, though she could still feel them beat through her exhausted body. Not a sea—not water, yet she could feel movement and hear sound. The beat of an engine!

  Her mind stirred sluggis
hly, but there was a spark of caution awakening, too. Recollection of what had happened came slowly. She had been in her bed and then—? The few moments of awareness, that spray in her face.…

  She was certainly not in her bed now, nor in the villa. So where was she? Though she ought by this time, she thought, with a queer desire to laugh, to be accustomed to unbelievable changes of scene.

  Though Tallahassee did not open her eyes (let whoever was near her believe she was still unconscious), she tensed her arms enough to know that they had been securely bound to her sides, her feet and legs immobilized in the same painstaking fashion. The bonds were not about her wrists or ankles, rather she was enveloped in some wrapping like a cocoon, though they had left her head free.

  So, she was a prisoner and on a flyer. How they had gotten her away from the well-guarded villa was a question. Unless they (whoever they were) had methodically trotted about spraying all the guards and inhabitants with that handy little gadget they had used so efficiently on her. Idieze was behind them, she was sure of that. What utter fools they had been to even let her in.

  When Tallahassee’s thoughts drew upon the Ashake memory, she could find no hint that such an attack had ever been known before. Idieze had sat there and warned them.… Tallahassee’s temper flared. She had dared—dared! Ashake memory burned at the thought she had dared to lay hands on one of the Blood! They would see what payment would be extracted for this outrage.

  But who were “they” in this instance—beside Idieze, of course, and her servants? Userkof, probably, and beyond him, Khasti—that man of mystery. At the rise of that name in her mind Tallahassee knew a wariness that dampened but did not extinguish her anger. She must learn all she could.

  First, she depended on her ears. There was the constant beat of the engines. She must be lying flat on the floor of the cabin, which she realized was very hard and unyielding. There must be a pilot, and … she tried to remember how many had accompanied Idieze. Two maids, she believed, and that crone of a nurse. But the wife of Userkof had never come without a squad of her own personal guard. Idieze would cling to that prestige no matter how supposedly private her visit.

  None of the guard had showed up in the villa. Naturally not, the Amazons would not have allowed that. Even all of Herihor’s men, save a single aide, had been restricted to the barracks beyond the landing strip. The villa was a house of women, as was correct for the unwed Daughter-of-the-Sun-in-Height.

  There could be half a dozen enemies now about her, so the longer they thought her unconscious, and helpless, the better. Now that her ears had identified the sound of the engines she heard words, always pitched so that she could not quite catch them. Her sense of smell was an aid, too; she could pick up perfume—to her left—Idieze perhaps. And with that—yes, a whiff of that sickly sweetness from such a tube as the Princess had begun to smoke at the villa.

  Farther away—another scent, vaguely unpleasant. But around her they were all very quiet. Perhaps this was how a mouse might feel trapped in a corner with a cat lazily on guard.

  There had been a change in the flyer’s rhythm, they were losing altitude, she thought, though she could not be sure. Then came a jar—landing. The engine cut off. Suddenly air puffed across her face, carrying not the freshness of the breeze at the villa, but rather a combination of odors that aroused the Tallahassee part of memory—that was like the tainted breeze of home—the smell of a city.

  She was nudged in the side by someone walking past her. But no one came to lift her out—not yet. Very slowly she raised her eyelids a fraction. Her field of vision was very limited, but not so much so that she did not see a soldier in dull green. And in his hands—the case of the ROD!

  She almost betrayed herself in that moment. What had they wrought at the villa to have that in their hold again? Could they have killed? She felt sick as she made herself face that thought. If they had reduced the others to impotency as easily as they had her, then it might well be that death had followed, leaving her entirely on her own in the hands of those who had little use for her.

  Only one use in fact—that she alone in the absence of the Empress could handle the Rod. Did they have the Key also? She could guess that they would not overlook that. Within the wrappings that bound her she felt cold as she added up a sum and found the answer was probably complete disaster. What had she left for weapons? The memory—partial—of a dead girl, memory, but not the power that girl had commanded, and such courage and resourcefulness as were her own birthright. The Rod—she could hold it, she had proved that. But could she command what it symbolized? Tallahassee was not sure if that Ashake memory tape had been edited before it was forced upon her, but she believed that it had been. Naturally—they would do that for their own protection. What did Jayta know about Tallahassee Mitford that would lead the Priestess to allow her the full memory of her predecessor? Therefore she could not fight on Ashake’s level, she could only bluff. And any bluff can be so easily called.

  There was a tramp of feet again. Resolutely Tallahassee closed her eyes entirely. She was jerked upward, still lying prone. She must be on a stretcher as they did not touch her body. Now the stretcher dipped so she might have slid off, but there was a band about her waist on the outside of the wrappings to hold her steady.

  Once more she peeked beneath three-quarter-closed lids: lights, and beyond them a scrap of night sky, also a back with wide shoulders, covered by a green uniform. Those vanished suddenly as the stretcher on which she lay was pushed into a dark, confined place. And she heard a noise like the slam of a door, whereupon all light vanished.

  A motor started up, they were moving again. But there were no openings to give her any hints of where they might have brought her. Odd that she was making this part of the trip alone. Then something slid across the floor on which the stretcher so uncomfortably rested and banged against the side. Could that be the Rod box? With the inborn awe with which most of the empire regarded that artifact, Tallahassee did not believe that they would be comfortable with it close to them.

  She tried to fit together the facts she had. There was no doubting she had been kidnapped, brazenly taken from her own home. And no one would have dared such action had the one giving the orders not believed he or she was invincible against any retaliation. The person of the Heir was sacred, even though in these latter years much of the ancient beliefs had worn thin enough.

  To expect any help from Jayta or Herihor—no. Somehow it was very hard to believe that those who had taken her would leave any such strong opponents alive. So, she was on her own now, with only Ashake’s edited memories to draw upon. However, what she felt at present was no longer fear, but Tallahassee’s own temper on the boil. She had had to learn self-control early, yet her emotions were no less strong for that suppression. Now she must make the anger work for her as she had several times in the past, to bolster her own determination to succeed and uphold the courage to back that determination.

  Idieze, Userkof, Khasti—She began methodically to summon to her mind all Ashake memories concerning those three. Userkof—he was perhaps the weak link. In a monarchy, which was firmly built on matriarchal inheritance, a king’s son held little power. If he had wed Ashake—then he could have hoped for the crown. But he had never had a chance at that.

  The Blood married by duty and not by choice, at least their first and official marriages were arranged so, though queens regnant had had their favorites, kings, their concubines, often enough. And in this generation it had been decided that fresh strains must be interbred, with hope that the infusion would lead to a new generation with the Talent. The Empress Naldamak had been married in her early youth to a very distant cousin who had been killed two years later in the crash of a flyer. And there had been no issue of that marriage, nor could there be of another, for the physicians had pronounced the Empress sterile. Thus furtherance of the line depended on Ashake—if she lived.

  And if she did not live? Userkof—perhaps.

  Idieze was only the daughte
r of a provincial governor and had in addition a trace of overseas barbarian blood—since her province was that of the sea coast where the carefully supervised trade with outlanders was conducted. That she would be empress in fact and not just consort, should Userkof come to the throne, Ashake had known for years.

  Reluctantly she drew on the memory for Khasti. Here were rulership and power, and sometimes one was not a part of the other. One could choose to stand behind the Emperor and wield through him true power. That was what was suspected of Khasti. And it would seem that suspicions were true.

  If Naldamak returned at the Half-Year Feast, to appear enthroned in the ritual ceremonies of that time without the Rod in her hands … that was what they had tried to accomplish from the first. Now they had both the Rod and Ashake! Or the seeming of that princess. From the memory she probed, Tallahassee discovered that Khasti was the least known, the most suspected.

  And what Idieze had reported—that the High Priest Zyhlarz was imprisoned in his temple—was a forewarning that he could not be called upon. No, she had better depend only on herself, Tallahassee, rather than upon the infused memory from the dead or any aid from outside.

  Though that was of little reassurance.

  The vehicle in which she was a prisoner came to a halt. She closed her eyes. Ears only now …

  She heard the clang of a latch at the back of the carrier. And then fresh air—this time a little less tainted with the effluence of a city—as the stretcher on which she lay was drawn out. Now she was being carried, and her bearers were in haste, moving at a trot. There was more light which she caught through the very narrow slit she allowed for sight.

  “To the Red Chamber.” For the first time she caught clear words. “And summon my Lord.” That was Idieze speaking.

  The Red Chamber? Yes, it was in the South Palace—that center which Herihor’s men had been unable to penetrate—to which the suspected rebel leaders had been summoned. And that room had a gruesome enough history, for within it a hundred years ago, brother had slain brother in a battle for the throne and the hand of a half sister who had already chosen her consort.