Gary Gygax - Dangerous Journeys 1 - Anubis Murders (17 page)

Now the girl was truly puzzled, but she had no thought of anything other than complying with Inhetep's command. "Oh yes, m'lord, there is most certainly an usher—Master Medwyn by name, m'lord. Do you wish to go through the grand salon? Or will you prefer a more discrete route?"

That made the Egyptian smile. This was a highly perceptive and intelligent servant. "By all means, lass," he replied, "let's use the more quiet way, for what I have to say to Master Medwyn is most confidential—a sort of special surprise for your great lord, as it were." The girl nodded and led Setne through several small servant's passages and into the foyer of the main hall. There were two tall doors, closed, from behind which came the sounds of the wassail— music, loud voices, laughter. Before these portals stood a liveried man whose sash and gold chain bespoke his position as an officer of the staff, to whit, the usher. Inhetep waved the lass away, stepping quickly to the man on duty at the doors before he could ask anything of her.

"Please be so good as to announce Magister Setne Inhetep to His Lordship the Gwyddorr and the other guests within, Master Medwyn," the wizard-priest said smoothly. His tone was firm and irresistible. The usher had no thought of anything other than immediate compliance. He bowed, opened the two doors, and stepped into the massive room beyond.

Thump, thump!
sounded above the party as the fellow used his staff to draw attention to his proud performance of office. The noise dropped off as eyes turned towards the entrance. A guest at midnight was most unusual indeed. "The August Magister Setne Inhetep!" Master Medwyn cried, embellishing Setne's style as was the wont of such functionaries. He began a sweeping bow but stopped short as gasps rose from the assemblage of revelers in the salon.

"No need for all that," the Egyptian murmured in the general direction of the startled usher as Setne strode into the great hall and faced the two-score folk staring at him. "What?

Is a poor ur-kheri-heb of Thoth so important as to create an interruption in the festivities? Nay, nay, dear people! Please go back to your revelry, for I have come only to speak a word or two with your host; then, I fear, I will have to hurry off."

A babble arose from the guests. Someone shouted, "The very devil himself!" and a dozen guards leaped from their positions of attention around the chamber and rushed toward Inhetep, who stood unmoving. He folded his arms and smiled more broadly still into the confusion.

— 11 —

HIDE AND SEEK

Two of the soldiers were ready to drive their broad-bladed spontoons at Inhetep's chest even as another pair were approaching fast to reinforce that attack. From somewhere above, someplace hidden by pillar and drapery and decorative work, a pair of arrows zipped down to pierce the Egyptian just as the spearpoints would. Their target was unmoving, a small crook held in one hand, the other crossed with a flail as if in imitation of some Pharaoh. Just as the steel tongues of spear and arrowhead were about to strike home, however, Setne's arms uncrossed. The spontoons were caught by the crook and swept aside as if they were straws, even as the many little tails of the sweeping flail brushed aside the speeding shafts as mere flies would be swept from their course by such an instrument. "Come, come, Aldriss! Haven't you instructed your guardsmen better than this? Surely they need know that such as they can do no harm to a real kheri-heb!"

Every guest in the hall was silent at those

words. The bard arose from his high-backed chair at the head of the banquet table. His aqua-blue and emerald-green velvet robe, all embroidered with silver-thread trim to betoken his station as the Great Bard of Lyonnesse, rippled and glittered as he moved. "You dare!" Aldriss roared. Yet his face was paler than normal, and there was a faint tremor in his voice.

"You mean to ask how I managed to pass through your enmeshing magicks, I think," the wizard-priest said as he walked slowly down to where the bard stood. Celebrants flinched and shied from the Egyptian's approach—some because they thought him a vile assassin and plotter against their kingdom, others for reasons less pure.

"STOP!" The command seemed to thunder through the hall with unnatural force and clarity. The bewildered soldiers froze in their tracks, and the revelers likewise ceased their attempts to get clear of the coming confrontation. The snow-clad figure of Tallesian stepped from behind a thick column and cried, "I believe I had better deal with the murderous Egyptian!" At that, guards and gentry alike unfroze and began fleeing frantically. The bard remained standing where he was, and for some reason the six musicians nearby likewise stayed put.

Inhetep, too, was motionless. He watched as Aldriss gave a small sign and the players began to perform, viele, harp, lute and the rest striking up a soft but moving air. From where he stood, Inhetep could see both of his antagonists. "This is a useless charade, druid," he said tonelessly as the fellow began to slide sideways, the first small motions of a conjuration evident in the movements of Tallesian's fingers and hands. "You, too, Aldriss the Gwyddorr. I have come for your prisoner. Free Rachelle now, and I will not be hard on you."

A radiance as bright as the white of the dru-id's gown appeared as a halo above Tallesian's head. It brightened into a silver intensity, then suddenly became ebon. The nebulous blotch then spat forth jagged bolts of electrical energy. Each was only as long as a man, no thicker than a spear shaft, but where their argent tips touched, stone blackened and broke, oak burst into blue-flamed incandescence. These flashing darts of deadly electricity flew from above Tallesian's head as fast as a man might snap his fingers. They rained upon the wizard-priest like a hailstorm. "Feel the fury of Dagda!" the druid cried, directing more and more of the lightning bolts upon the motionless Egyptian.

Setne was ablaze, only it was not Setne. Where the wizard-priest had stood was a tall bennu, the phoenix-like bird whose very essence was lightning. The creature's beak darted here and there as a great heron might spear fish. The bright bolts of energy were as fish to the bennu, and the bennu was Inhetep. Then it ceased devouring the lightnings and flapped its rainbow-bright pinions. The sudden gust of air drove Tallesian back, his snowy gown whipping wildly about his body, then the druid fell. Almost simultaneously, the long-billed head turned, and the bennu spat back the stuff it had devoured. One bolt shattered the shalms and laid low the man who had been playing them, another sent the viele into ruin along with its musician. Four more in such rapid succession that the eye could not follow, and no more orchestra played to the bard's behest. Then the bennu again became Magister Setne Inhetep. "Did you think that I was so dull as to ignore the heka you would evoke with your musical henchmen there?"

The demand fell on deaf ears, for Aldriss was seeking desperately to bring forth alone the magick he had hoped to work through his band of chanters, those journeymen nearly bards themselves. They had seemed naught but minstrels to the party-goers, but it was evident that the Egyptian had recognized them for what they were. Aldriss' tenor voice rose strong and sweet in a call for supernatural prowess even as he picked out accompanying chords on the little harp he had grabbed from his table. Suddenly the instrument felt cold and unnatural in his hands. Aldriss looked down and shrieked, for the harp had turned into a cobra, weaving and spreading its hood just above where he grasped it. The bard flung the reptile away and yelled, "May you rot in cold darkness, Egyptian!"

Setne easily avoided the flying cobra. As if to further demoralize the Kelltic spell-weaver, the snake turned into a musical instrument again as it sailed through the air, and smashed to flinders against a stone column. "I would have no urseus treated so," the magister said mockingly to the unbelieving Aldriss. "Now lead me to where you have her held captive." The deadly threat was heavy in his tone.

"Never!" the bard snarled in reply, and with that he sat roughly in the chair behind him. When he struck it, the tall seat toppled over backwards against a curtain, and Aldriss was lost in a swirl of drapery and the overturned chair.

A quick glance showed the wizard-priest that Tallesian was still unmoving on the floor. He must have struck his head severely, for he now lay unconscious, allowing Setne to devote his entire attention to the fleeing Aldriss. Naturally the cowardly man wouldn't run far—not until he felt safe to do so. That meant the bard would head straight to Rachelle to take her hostage. Inhetep ran to the table and bounded over it, long legs showing coppery in the process, flowing kilt and short cape streaming behind as if he flew. Wrenching aside the thick curtain, Setne saw an alcove with three doors in its walls. A glance upward revealed a trapdoor overhead, and beneath his feet was yet a fifth means of egress. A concealed exit could be found quickly, but the chance of guessing correctly was not so likely. Each false way would be riddled with traps to slay the unwelcome pursuer, and even the correct passage would be guarded by deadly mechanisms.

Setne knew that sorcerers preferred the depths while most others sought height as a means of security. To the right the passage must eventually lead to warrens amid the interior walls of the manor, while the left-hand door would take one to the outer wall and whatever secret corridors existed there. The one straight ahead could lead up, down, or to a hidden chamber. There was a smudge of heat evident to Setne's heka-enhanced eyesight on that last portal, so he shoved it open and ducked into the low space beyond. A slight creak warned him, and he pulled back just in time as a weighted timber dropped down halfway to the floor. A skull could be crushed, a spine smashed by the force of its fall. Scrambling on all fours to pass under it, the wizard-priest entered a small secret room some eight feet wide and a little deeper. "How clever of you," he said aloud upon seeing the place, for in it were five more exits—two flights of stairs down, two going up, and a door straight ahead. "The telltale of your passage makes the multiplicity of choices useless when one can see body heat," the hawk-faced man cried aloud as he bounded up the leftmost stairway.

When the sound of Setne's running feet faded, another noise could be heard. Muffled thuds and stifled cries drifted from a portion of the wall along the passage the wizard-priest had just fled. A panel slid sideways. Aldriss stepped out of the cell which the open panel revealed with his captive, bound and gagged. Rachelle struggled, trying her best to give cries of warning through the cloth. "You be silent, bitch!" the bard hissed, "Or else I'll slit your throat here and now!" Rachelle ceased her noise. Should Aldriss fulfill his threat, she knew that Inhetep would be so struck by the sight of her corpse that his enemy could smite him with heka, perhaps mortally, as shock slowed the Egyptian's reflexes. "Better," Aldriss said through clenched teeth. "Now move those pretty legs of yours quickly—run! I want „ us back in the salon where we'll set our ambush for your master." He gave her a shove, which nearly sent Rachelle sprawling on her face. The force of the bard's strong arm propelled her into the little passage, where she rebounded from the far corner and along the narrow corridor toward the salon as if she were a ball bouncing.

"Bravo!"

The cry made Aldriss start and jerk his head to the right. His worst fears were confirmed. The green eyes and sharp smile of the shaven-headed Egyptian shone from the top of the steps. "You!" the bard gasped.

"That's right, bard, me. Did you really think

you could fool me with this child's maze?" He was laughing, but there was menace, not mirth, in Inhetep's voice. "I let you think me off on a goose-chase, so you would release Rachelle and come into the open. Your early cooperation in separating yourself from her was an unexpected but most welcome blunder. I had thought you would be more careful, and I would have to risk myself in a more close quarters situation."

Aldriss allowed the man to rattle on as his fingers found an acorn he had sequestered in his garment. The nut was charged with preternatural energy. The bard hurled it as hard as he could, slamming it into the stairs at Inhetep's feet. Aldriss shouted as the acorn burst and a shower of blazing sparks and thick smoke instantly screened the priest-mage from his view. With the sulfurous cloud obscuring his movements, the man dived down the passage into which he had pushed Rachelle, rolling and regaining his feet in a smooth motion. Perhaps the missile's magickal explosion and choking fumes would do scant harm to the accursed Egyptian, but it gave Aldriss time to grab the amazon and use her body as a shield. His fellow conspirators could handle the wizard-priest once and for all.

But even as the last of the blazing tongues of flame were dying, Inhetep was in action. He didn't dare to send a counter-blast down the narrow passage after Aldriss, for Rachelle might still be in the corridor. Instead, Setne leaped down the steps and followed the fleeing Kellt. As soon as he entered the passage, the wizard-priest crouched so as to present as small a target as possible, traveling almost like an ape on all fours.

The bard was setting himself up to work great mischief on his pursuer, but he hadn't reckoned with Rachelle. When the girl saw Aldriss with his back to her, obviously readying to use some magick against Inhetep, she flung herself upon the man. She struck Aldriss behind the knees, and the man fell forward with a thud. At almost the same moment, Setne emerged from the passage into the salon.

"Nice work, my dear child!" he exclaimed as the girl struggled to rise from the tangle of the fallen bard's legs. "Here, I'll get you shed of those damned ropes," he murmured, pulling Rachelle upright. He used the knife from his broad girdle to cut the bonds from her wrists.