Gary Gygax - Dangerous Journeys 2 - Samarkand Solution (3 page)

A fat woman tugged at Inhetep's short sleeve. "Do not pass by Madam Sefrutha's Open Lotus— a dozen willing maidens await you within!" He didn't even bother looking at her as he continued along the lane. Ahead, Inhetep had caught sight of the Dahlikil murderer, his ebony face made hideous by a blue-and-crimson light as he said something to a Cypriot pimp who blocked his way. The whoremonger was scar-faced and muscular, but he literally scurried away from the assassin when Yakeem snarled his words.

So the tall Dahlikil wasn't interested in sex— at least those "pleasures" touted by the Cypriot. Inhetep watched as Yakeem went on, moving at the same rate the assassin did, for the murderer seemed to have no suspicion he was being followed. Yakeem shoved aside tramp and trollop, peddlar and pimp, shouldering his way along through the press of customers and gawkers which now made the lane a busy thoroughfare.

"Come to the Roman's Arena! You will see such animal acts as you've never dreamed of! We have all manner of hugely .. ." the shill barked, loudly. But the hubbub of sound quickly drowned out his litany.

"Young girls and boys .. ."

"Enter the Pools of Pleasure, Effendi! There you will ..."

"Never was silver better spent than with Zen-obia, for I will ..."

"Performing before your very eyes are . . ."

"Not even Pharaoh has such women as .. ."

The pimp was doing his best to sell sense-heightening drugs as well as Ms whores. Inhetep radiated disgust and violence, and the Cypriot avoided him. Yakeem was now only about thirty paces ahead, and something in Ms posture warned the priest-wizard that the man was uneasy. A shop with a broad archway stood just across the lane, so Inhetep moved into the place, feigning interest in the array of lewd statuettes, pornography, and strange devices on display. Meanwhile, he kept his green eyes fastened on the throng outside. The Dahlikil stopped and turned, staring back along the way, studying each individual. That took only a minute, but it seemed an interminable period to Inhetep. "How much is this?" he asked the beady-eyed little man who was the proprietor of the shop.

"That is a rare work from Farz, master. You are most discerning in your tastes. Normally I would ask a
neb
at least, but business is poor, so I am forced to accept a loss. It is yours for but three crescents—and I'll include a packet of lust-dust. Take it quickly, for I am insane to offer such a bargain!"

Although he wasn't looking outside now, Inhetep could feel Yakeem's stare. The killer was now scanning each place a possible follower might lurk. "Bah! Do you take me for a simpleton? A visiting yokel? You ask thrice the worth of the work—and keep your spurious aphrodisiac! I will pay you a single silver piece, no more."

"One crescent? It is you who imply I am a fool! I must live, feed a family! At two crescents—it is a crime, but I will sell and take the loss."

A neb was a coin of electrum, silver and gold mixed in an alloy so as to make one four times more valuable than a silver crescent, one-tenth as valuable as the big gold aten, the sun-disc coin used in high finance. The fellow's price was still too high, for fifty bronze dinars was as much if not more than what most men here earned in a day of hard labor, and the cheaply made book was worth at most perhaps ten dinars. When Inhetep had suggested a price of a silver crescent, he had purposely offered too much in order to keep the small man haggling enthusiastically. The ploy worked, for the assassin neither recognized the magister nor continued to search for anyone shadowing him. Inhetep could feel the scrutiny pass. A surreptitious glance showed the tall killer moving on up the street, still heading towards the riverfront. "I have changed my mind," the wizard-priest said. "Take this coin for your trouble, and thanks." The man was staring in disbelief at the silvery metal he had been given as Inhetep slipped out of the shop and again trailed after the assassin.

The nature of the lane changed after the next cross street. Big buildings and a wider passage indicated that this district was given over to storage and shipping. There were few pedestrians, but the greater darkness and many recesses made it easy for Inhetep to follow the assassin without being detected. Yakeem proceeded all the way to the bank of the Nylle, and on a rickety pier there met two other men. The three clambered down a ladder and went off downstream in a skiff. It was time to act, for between sculls and current, the boat would be lost in seconds. Inhetep spotted a reed fishing boat moving slowly along with the current. It was a bowshot distant and almost perpendicular to the pier. With a swift motion, the wizard-priest drew out a little carved figurine, a delicately sculpted depiction of Hapy, the deity of the Nylle, made from the tusk of a bull hippo. Speaking rapidly but with absolute precision, Inhetep uttered syllables which would have sounded strange indeed to the ear of any normal man, /Egyptian or otherwise; but which were as a mother tongue to the kheri-heb, for they were sounds of hekau, magick

words.

He timed his incantation so that he was actually leaping out into space leaving the dock's end and arcing toward the inky waters of the river when the final words came forth and passed from tongue and lips into the air. In truth, he wasn't certain as to what, exactly, would happen. His magick had invoked the force of the Nylle and pleaded for assistance in reaching the fisher's craft nearby. Would he become a hippopotamus? A big crocodile? Perhaps a swift-swimming perch? Nothing of the sort occurred. As his feet struck the rippling waves of the river, they sank in a few inches and remained dry. Then he felt himself rising slowly up, a sensation which might be likened to rebounding in slow motion after landing upon a taut net.

"Thank you, Nylle Lord," breathed Inhetep, as he began to lope atop the water. Having the ability to cross liquid, to be as buoyant and agile as a water spider, was not a particularly difficult magickal feat. It was nothing more than an ability to control preternatural energies and whatever a law of dweomercraeftering might require— a water-strider's legs if the decrees of Simpathy were invoked, perhaps. But if the Law of Antipathy were used to bend heka energy, a grease compounded of fire-based substances might be smeared on feet, sandals, or boots. The priest-wizard had no such materials on hand, however, nor time for preparation of any formula or spell which might otherwise enable him to apply any of the many Laws of Magick to the situation. The effect was granted him through the talisman of Hapy and enabled Inhetep's cantrip to effect a means of crossing along the surface of the river to reach the little bundle of reeds in which a fisherman sat with his baited lines.

"Forget that!" the magister snapped, as he stepped dry-shod into the boat.

The man started and dropped the line he had been hauling in as if he were obeying Inhetep's order. "Chons protect me from demons!" exclaimed the fisherman, trying desperately to pick up a big knife even as he called upon the evil-fighting moon deity, Chons, for aid.

It was hardly surprising to see such a reaction, for even if there were thousands of petty practitioners as well as priests and mages employing all manner of castings and magicks in /Egypt, few common folk ever saw such heka-bending work firsthand. "Don't try to use that blade," the magister said in a firm but friendly tone. "I am a servant of Thoth on business of Pharaoh. Here. Look at this." With that, Inhetep displayed a winged solar disc resting upon a crescent moon. The night was clear, and stars and lights from Innu sparkled and danced in reflection upon the velvety waters of the Nylle, so that the fisherman could see the emblem of the owl which was in bas relief upon the disc. He wasn't sure just what that meant, but he recognized the other parts of the badge. "You are ... a police official?" he ventured, still holding the knife so that it pointed in the shaven-headed man's direction.

"Yes. That's close enough. Just who I am and what I am doing is better left unsaid—the knowledge would put you in danger! Now, listen carefully. Use your paddle to steer this craft, and steer well. You are going to pursue a skiff which is a few hundred yards ahead."

"I saw the boat, sir," the fisherman said with growing certainty, for that sort of thing was normal. "It was made of planks, and two oarsmen skulled it. Even if I had two paddles and you assisted me, we could not keep pace with that vessel!"

Inhetep merely grunted, carefully lowering his long frame to kneel on the soggy reeds at the high front of the boat. He was going to summon help, and he had to concentrate on what he was doing. "Listen, fisherman. On your life! In a moment, this sorry collection of sticks will be cutting through the water as if it were propelled by a river elemental. Do you understand me? Now, place that paddle of yours so as to steer, and forget about anything else."

"But—"

Magister Inhetep turned and placed a small coin in the man's apron. "Trust me, that is a gold drachma. More than sufficient payment. Put your mind at rest and shut your mouth. I must have absolute silence now. When we move quickly, I'll give you orders as to how to steer, but even then I will have no talking from you." The fisherman nodded, and Inhetep turned back to the bow.

Employing the little figurine once again, and chanting softly as he held the figure of Hapy out over the water, the wizard-priest called for a denizen of the river to come to him. "Swift-finned fish, great creature of the Nylle," he chanted. "Honored by He whose waters nourish you, come now to help another who is Hapy's friend. Be as Atu and Ant. Move this reed boat, O prince of the river, for your lord directs his hekau through me." On he went, and after several minutes, the motion of the little craft changed from that of gentle rocking to an ever-faster forward rush. Just before that occurred, Inhetep felt a bump, as if some big floating object had nudged the boat's stern. At the same moment, he heard the fisherman utter a gasp.

Without actually seeing, Inhetep knew exactly what had caused it all. Into the priest-wizard's mind came a picture of a red-brown fish, a leviathan. Although the thing had scales the color of the Nylle as it rose in the summer, the shape of it was as that of a catfish. So too the creature's head, although the feelers fringing its gaping maw were arm-thick tentacles, and the huge mouth of the fish was lined with terrible teeth. This was a giant among the fish of the river, a creature from which an enraged bull hippo would flee.

The fisherman was near gibbering in fright, for although he could not see the entire thing, the five-foot broad head must have been dis-cernable. Such fish, rare as they were, were a gift to /Egypt, for they worked deep channels in the bed of the Nylle, kept the waters clean of carrion and refuse, and checked the population of the megadiles, huge crocodiles, by devouring them on a regular basis. These creatures were also the chosen servants of Hapy. All of this was known to the shaven-headed priest-wizard, of course. Inhetep's spell had summoned the beast from the depths of the river so that it might push the reed boat on at speed. There was little steering to do now. The fish simply swam, shoving the vessel along downstream in mid-channel. From a slow drifting, they were now cutting along through the water at the pace of a fleet horse galloping along on land. The bow of the reed boat came up, the craft shook, and even Inhetep feared it might disintegrate under the strain.

Then the skiff came into sight. It was still a bowshot's distance ahead and well away toward the eastern bank. Inhetep judged that the destination of its course could only be the On dock. The city of On was now almost a twin of Innu, for the two communities had but a little land between them, with more construction from each place moving inexorably towards an eventual blending. But while the southern city of Innu was a relatively cosmopolitan one, with only a small district of slums and a well-run administration which kept Innu moving, the downstream city of On seemed a negative image. It was governed under a different nome, and the district's chief official was rumored to be the most corrupt in all /Egypt. He was also a first cousin of Pharaoh.

"Right—steer to the right!" Inhetep called to the fisherman. The reed boat veered sharply to intersect with the assassin. It was too severe an alteration, however. The great fish which had been propelling the vessel rushed on downstream, submerging as its mighty tail passed the boat, and in a moment the craft was slowing toward near-motionlessness. In fact, the current was moving them downstream more quickly as the cross-current momentum of the reed boat was lost. "Paddle now, fisher, and use all of your strength! Make straight for shore."

He obeyed readily enough, probably thinking that any man able to call forth such a monstrous fish from the depths of the Nylle's bed might well summon something even worse to devour him if he proved lagardly. "Which of the docks am I to aim for, master?"

Inhetep had lost sight of the skiff, but it had been heading toward a well-lighted spot on the shore. To the right were a cluster of dull orange smears; downriver about a hundred yards was a long wharf marked by brighter flares, and betwixt them was a dull blue gleam. "Stroke for your life, man. Head for the lapis-hued glow." But halfway there, the gleam disappeared. Inhetep could barely see a narrow pier which had been the location of the blue radiance but seconds before. A dark shape moving out toward them could only be the skiff.

"Keep paddling, but slow your pace. The other boat is coming toward us, and they must not see us as pursuers," hissed the wizard-priest. Then he slid downward, so that he was concealed from sight unless the skiff came very near to them. Inhetep peeped over the boat's side, watching the skiff. It held only the two rough-looking boatmen; one now lounging in the bow as the other skulled the vessel towards them. Both seemed indifferent to the reed boat, and when the skiff was about thirty yards from them, its course was altered southward, upriver. No question that it was being propelled back upriver to Innu.