“It was late and we were both asleep. We'd had quite a bit of beer, and you know afterward. Well, I woke up. I think Hathor must've done it, because there wasn't any reason. I woke up, and a woman with a crooked knife was bending over me. I could see her in the moonlight that got past the shutter, and I saw the shine along the edge and grabbed the blade. Look.”

  She unwound her bandage. There was a long, fresh cut, not very deep, across her palm; it had been smeared with yellow salve.

  “I screamed and Muslak woke up, and the door slammed. He'd barred that door before we went to bed. We talked about it after my hand stopped bleeding. I said I thought he'd barred it, but I'd been sort of—of elevated, you know, so I wasn't sure. He said he most certainly had, he'd had a few bowls but he could drink a lot more than that without getting so drunk he'd go to sleep in a place like that without barring the door. Well, the bar was lying on the floor. We found it and put it back up.”

  I asked how the woman had gotten in.

  Neht-nefret shrugged. “You tell me.”

  Qanju smiled. “Thotmaktef?”

  “I have a theory,” Thotmaktef said, “and the Noble Qanju agrees. This woman—others have seen her, if it is the same woman—is often accompanied by a large black cat.” He hesitated. “Have you ever seen a leopard, Latro?”

  “I don't know. I may have. Certainly I saw the skin of one this morning.”

  “Yes, I suppose you must have, at the temple of Ap-uat. The chief priest of every temple in our nation wears a leopard skin as his badge of office. Since you've seen that skin and remember it now, you should have some idea of the size of a living leopard. They're far bigger than any ordinary cat, but smaller than a lion.”

  I nodded.

  “This cat is about the same size, but it's black instead of spotted. It could have climbed the outside of the inn. It's mud brick, and I've often seen cats climb mud brick. Inside, it could lift the bar with its teeth.”

  Neht-nefret looked as skeptical as I felt.

  “It could have been trained to do that,” Thotmaktef insisted. “We train animals to do things that are far more difficult.”

  “A baboon would be better,” Neht-nefret said. “It would be easier to train, and they have hands.”

  I agreed and added, “From what Neht-nefret has said, this woman ran when she saw the man she was with—”

  “Muslak.”

  “Was waking up. That would not have been necessary if the cat were her guard.”

  Neht-nefret said, “Muslak's sword was beside our bed.”

  “Did you see this cat?” I asked her.

  She shook her head.

  Thotmaktef said, “A man with a sword might have killed the cat in the wink of an eye. She would not want to lose it. Besides, she may have sent the cat into the corridor to make sure she wasn't interrupted.”

  I asked whether he and Qanju were certain the woman was on our ship.

  Qanju said, “It would appear that she has been with us since we set out, though she is seen only at night.”

  I suggested that the ship be searched for her. Thotmaktef said that it has been. A moment ago, I asked Uraeus whether I was among the searchers. He says I was not among them this time.

  Now I am sitting in the shade to write. We just passed three laden lumber ships; Muslak says they are carrying wood from Triquetra to Wast. May not this woman have her own ship? A ship or boat in which she follows ours? What Uraeus tells me cannot be true.

  I HAVE READ what I have written. Here I add that Muslak and I will take care to stay at the same inn tonight. We have agreed on that, and that I am to remain awake and watch.

  The scarab is to guide me, but it has no wings now. No doubt they have broken off.

  17

  THE ALL-BEAST

  THE CAT THAT accompanies the woman is terrifying. It would be easy, now, to pretend that I was not afraid of it; but what is the use of lying here? If I cannot believe what I myself write, why write? Besides, fear is a thing that accompanies the thing feared. To look into the eyes of the panther is to know fear, for any man who ever walked.

  We are in Wast the Thousand-Gated. I told Myt-ser'eu that there cannot be a thousand gates in the city wall. Such a wall would be nothing but gates. Neht-nefret said there was no wall—that the courage of its soldiers was all the defense Kemet had ever required. Muslak says no one can resist the Great King, and a wall would not have saved Kemet from his armies.

  Later I asked a Hellene we met in the market, because I overheard him call this city thousand-gated. He said the thousand gates are the gates of its temples, and the gates within them. It may be there are a thousand such gates, or very near that number. Certainly there are many temples here, and Muslak says that all the temples of Kemet have many gated enclosures.

  It was already late when we went ashore. We arranged for rooms side by side at the top of this inn and ate a sober supper. Muslak said he would try to sleep, that he must sleep to do his duty as captain, but that he would sleep with his sword at his side, ready to spring up at the least sound. Neht-nefret said she could not sleep; Myt-ser'eu that she would do certain things to keep me awake, and sleep between times. She was less serious than we and tried to cheer us with jokes and smiles. “I'm under a curse,” she said. “I must have five bowls of beer and sleep until the sun is high, or lose my beauty.” She wants a new wig, and wants me to buy it for her here.

  We made love, and I took up my post. I kept the door open by the width of my finger so that I might hear. The corridor was too dark for me to see. Her soft breathing soon told me Myt-ser'eu slept. The innkeeper came with a lamp, showing a new guest to his room and making him comfortable. He left, and I heard the wooden bar drop into its iron fittings. After what seemed to me a long time—I cannot say how long it really was—the light under the door went out. After that, there was a drunken quarrel in the room below, where three or four men, I think strangers to one another, shared a single room. It ceased in time; I found myself more than half asleep upon my stool and had to wake and walk around the room, draw my sword, practice some cuts, and sheath it again, until I no longer yawned.

  A gong sounded in the corridor—a small gong, like the striking of a metal cup. It sounded only once, and was not repeated.

  It filled me with awe—and fear.

  I felt myself in the grip of an evil dream, although I knew I was not sleeping. I stood, drew Falcata again, and picked up the stool. There was no sound at all, none, yet I knew the corridor was not empty. Something waited for me outside.

  Opening the door with my foot, I went out. It may be I once did a harder thing—I know I forget, and my friends confirm it. But I cannot believe I have. If opening that door had been any harder, I could not have done it.

  The corridor was as black as the soil of this Kemet. At the end, where the stairs began, the gong sounded again. Very soft it was, but I heard it. I went to the stair and down its steps, moving slowly and cautiously, for I could see nothing. A woman, Neht-nefret had said, with a necklace and other jewels. I saw no woman, nor could I imagine any reason for such a woman to ring a little gong. I was frightened. I do not like writing that, but it is the truth. What sort of man, I asked myself, is frightened of a woman? But I knew, I think, that it was not a woman. Even then, I must have known it. There was a sharp odor, half lost in the stench of the stair. I did not know what it was, but it was not such a sweet scent as women delight in.

  The floor below was as silent as our own, and darker. I walked the length of its corridor, groping my way with the stool and the blade of my sword.

  Twenty or thirty steps brought me to the end. I turned and saw yellow eyes between me and the stair. A voice that snarled warned me to come no nearer.

  I did not obey, yet it seemed to me that I walked through water, that the night must end before I reached those glowing eyes.

  The scuffle of sandals came and faded away, as someone light of foot mounted the stair. The eyes never moved.

  When I had nearly reached them, it snarled. I saw its teeth, fangs like knives that gleamed in the faint light and seemed almost to shine. It was a beast, yet it had spoken like a man, ordering me to come no nearer. I halted, saying, “Beasts can't speak.” I did not intend those words, which were forced from me by the eyes and shining teeth.

  “Men cannot understand,” the panther said.

  I had stopped walking. I know that now, but I was not conscious of it then.

  “Who are you?”

  “You will come to our temple in the south,” the panther said, “then you will know me.”

  Light came to the corridor. Perhaps someone in one of the rooms behind me had lit a lamp or fed a fire so that the light crept from under his door. Perhaps it was only that the moon had risen. I do not know. However the light came, I could see the entire beast then, a great black cat as big as the biggest man.

  “Would you oppose me, mortal?” There was death and monstrous cruelty in the question.

  “I don't want to,” I said, and I have never uttered truer words. “But I must return to the floor above, and you are in my way. If I have to kill you to get there, I will.”

  “You will try, and you will die.”

  I said nothing.

  It smiled as cats smile. “Aren't you curious about me? Beasts do not speak, you said. I speak. Indeed I might maintain that I am the only beast that does. I explain, and I am the soul of truth.”

  Someone—I have forgotten who it was—must have told me long ago that gods sometimes take the forms of beasts. Now I found I knew it.

  “Would you fight a god?”

  I said, “If I must, yes.”

  “You are a man of the name. I will kill you if it proves necessary, but I would sooner have your friendship. Know that I am a friend to many men, and will be a friend to Man always.”

  I suppose I nodded.

  “Sometimes even to men like you. Listen. My master gave a pet to a worshipper. You know him. Evil men drove that pet away. It returned to my master, mewing numberless complaints. You have a kitten yourself. Conceive it.”

  I could only think that I was speaking to a god I was about to kill. I took one step, and another, and shook as if awakened from a dream of falling. The tread of sandaled feet sounded again, this time from above.

  “I came to investigate,” the panther said, “and to help the worshipper if help were needed. Many gods have sought to kill me, and have failed.”

  The sandaled feet were behind him.

  “My master gives him a helpmeet for him.” The panther's tail swung to and fro, like the tail of a cat that watches for prey. “Farewell.”

  At that moment I recalled the stool, which I had brought to use as a shield. I flung it at the panther, but he was no longer there.

  The stool clattered on the empty steps. The sandaled feet were already far below. Their quick tread faded. …And was gone.

  When I returned to this room, Myt-ser'eu was still asleep, in a welter of blood. I cut strips from my headcloth to make a bandage. Neht-nefret heard her sobs and helped, rousing an inn servant, bringing clean rags, and kindling this lamp.

  “I dreamed I had the most beautiful bracelet,” Myt-ser'eu told us. “It was rubies, and circled my wrist like flame—a bracelet a queen might wear.”

  Neht-nefret asked, “Did you see who cut you?”

  I do not believe Myt-ser'eu heard. Her big, dark eyes were full of dreams. “My sister Sabra asked me to give it to her,” she said, “and I did. I gave it gladly.”

  Neht-nefret bent above her. “Do you have a sister? You never talk about her.”

  “Yes.” Myt-ser'eu nodded as the dream left her. “She's older than I am. Her name's Maftet, and I hate her.” After that, she wept as before. She is pale and very weak.

  It is a clean wound, long, and deeper than I like. Soon I will tell Myt-ser'eu we must change her bandage; I want to look at her wound again by sunlight.

  This is enough writing. I must get what sleep I can. Muslak slept the whole time.

  WE ARE BACK on the ship. I wanted to take Myt-ser'eu to the healer, but he was still on shore. I took her to Qanju instead, and he and Thotmaktef washed her wound and applied a healing ointment. “This will hold the edges closed,” Qanju told her, “provided you do not finger it and do not try to lift any heavy thing. You have lost a great deal of blood.”

  She promised that she would not, and he made her leave us and lie down in the shade. “You must get the best water you can for her,” he told me, “and mix it with wine. Five measures of water to each of wine.”

  I said that I had no wine.

  “You have money, Lucius, and money will always buy wine. Go to the market as soon as it opens. You must get good wine, you understand. Buy from a reputable merchant.”

  “I'll go with you,” Thotmaktef said, “if the Noble Qanju does not object.”

  “The water must be good, too,” Qanju told us, “the purest obtainable.”

  Then he began to question me about the events of the night. I had read this scroll, and I told him about the chime I had heard, and the cat.

  “That was the Dark God,” Qanju said; he did not seem afraid. “We call him Angra Manyu. He has but that one name among us, but many others among other peoples. He is the thing that eats the stars.”

  I do not believe stars can be eaten, but I did not contradict Qanju.

  “We call him Apep,” Thotmaktef told me, “and Aaapef. Set, Sut, Sutekh, Setcheh, and many other names.”

  I asked whether it were not possible to appease this god.

  “You would not wish to do so,” Qanju said.

  The healer returned with a monkey riding his shoulder. This monkey made faces at Myt-ser'eu and me, chattered, whispered to the healer, tried to peer up Myt-ser'eu's thin cotton shift, and did many other things that amused me.

  I told the healer how Myt-ser'eu had been hurt, but he did not wish to examine her wound. “If the Noble Qanju has treated it, he will have done all I could do,” the healer said. “I will make an amulet for her to keep this from happening again.”

  He took the little bag Myt-ser'eu wears about her neck; I saw that she was loath to part with it, although she did at my urging. It was given to her by a priest of Hathor.

  “What of the Dark God,” I said, “the god Noble Qanju calls Angra Manyu?”

  “You sit in the sun all day,” the healer told me, “in order to be comfortable. Is that not so?”

  I said that I did not remember, but that it did not seem likely. Myt-ser'eu said we sit in the shade. The sun here is bright and strong, and even the sailors lounge in the shade when they have no work to do. My soldiers—the five from Kemet—make shades of their big shields.

  “In that case,” the healer told us, “you must not listen when men speak ill of the Dark God.”

  I asked whether this god ever appeared as a black cat of great size.

  “Ah, you've seen his servant. He often takes that shape. I see him in that shape by night, here on the ship.”

  I explained that he had kept me from returning to Myt-ser'eu while she was being cut; the healer said it would not happen again, that the amulet he would give her would prevent it.

  Myt-ser'eu said, “How was it possible for someone to cut me without waking me? I had drunk only a single bowl. I swear it.”

  “Her knife is very sharp,” the healer said, “and she knows spells that bring deep sleep.”

  We wanted to know who this woman was. It was clear he knew her. He would not tell us, saying that the time was not ripe and ill fortune would follow if he revealed her name.

  “If the panther is a god,” I said, “how is it he serves this woman?”

  “He is not and does not,” the healer told us. “He serves the Dark God, and Sabra serves me.”

  18

  THE MONKEY

  THE HEALER'S PET wished us farewell as Thotmaktef, Uraeus, and I went to the market to buy wine for Myt-ser'eu. It used both front paws, and it seemed to me the omen was ill. If a man had those eyes, I would at once suppose him a bad one.

  Qanju had told us to buy good wine, and to bring Myt-ser'eu only the cleanest and purest water. This is because of the wound she suffered while sleeping in an inn. Now I can recall neither the inn nor the panther, but I know I told Qanju about them. I have read this scroll, and all that I said is written here as well.

  When we had left our ship, and indeed the quay and its storehouses, behind us, Thotmaktef assured me that Muslak would not put out without me, and that Qanju would not permit him to put out without us in any case.

  After that, the first thing we did ashore was to buy a new headcloth for me. My head is shaved, I suppose to prevent vermin, and Thotmaktef said people would assume that I was another priest if I did not cover it. My head is large, but a seller of such cloths had his wife sew one to my measure. She was quick, and the cloth is strong cotton with blue stripes. It keeps the sun from my head and shelters my shoulders too. I like it very much and paid for a second for Uraeus, whose bald head might easily be mistaken for a shaved one.

  Thotmaktef and I talked of our errand. He pointed out that we would require more water than wine. A single jar of wine would be sufficient, but we should have five of water. We rented a donkey with panniers to carry our jars and bought five large jars for water cheaply and without difficulty. The woman who sold them told us there was a foreign shop not a hundred steps from her stall that sold the best wine in all Kemet, fine vintages straight from Hellas.

  We went in and introduced ourselves to the merchant, whose name is Agathocles. “We spoke yesterday,” he told me. “You were with a pretty young lady, remember? I told you why we call this polis Thebes of the Thousand Gates. You told me you had only just come to Wast and were traveling south.”

  I did not remember, but I recalled reading of the encounter in my scroll and said I did.

  “I've seen you before that, too.” He drummed his chest with his fingers, which seems to be a habit of his when perplexed. “That was why I went up to you and spoke. I wish I could remember where.”

 

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