Three Princes (3 page)

“That be most gracious of you, sir.” Mathias was a rough-hewn fellow, sandy-haired, with layers of dark freckles. He kept a bigknuckled hand resting on the handle of his nightstick, peering into the night from side to side in steady watch as they strolled up the avenue toward the Ibis Road.

Oken had the nagging feeling that there was a question he should ask, but the night was peaceful and still, with only the fragrance- laden breezes stirring. He was grateful for Mathias’s simple company without need for conversation.

Ibis Gate was in sight at last. Mathias was making a polite comment about the emptiness of the road at this hour of the night, when two figures, half-stumbling, emerged from a side alley, hurrying in the direction of the gate and the guard station there. Mathias unclipped a metal torch from his belt, excusing himself to Oken, and strode after them, shining the beam over them and ordering them to halt.

Oken leaped after him in abrupt impulse, not out of concern for crime or criminals. To his complete astonishment, Oken recognized those two men.

One was a security officer from the Campus Guard, Sergeant Aaron Wast. The other was, quite impossibly, Oken’s mentor and best friend, the very person whom Oken was most eager to see, Captain-Prince Mikel Mabruke of Pharaoh’s Special Investigators, Retired. Even in the dark night, Oken was certain.

He ran. The men were in trouble. Wast could barely walk, and was being half-carried by the tall, thin figure of Mabruke, who was himself clearly struggling to go on. They moved with a weary determination that spoke of grave danger.

Constable Mathias called to them again to halt, yet they stumbled on more quickly as if alarmed to be discovered.

“Mik!” Oken called loudly. “Mik! It’s me, Scott!”

He caught up with the constable. “That’s Professor-Prince Mabruke!” he shouted as he ran past him toward the two men. “He’s in trouble!”

Mabruke stopped, turning his head to peer at Oken running toward him. “Scott?” he whispered in clear astonishment. He stumbled, with Wast nearly slipping from his grasp.

Oken took the weight of Wast as he caught up with them, putting an arm around the man’s shoulders despite the pain of his half- healed ribs. Mabruke put a hand on Oken to steady himself. He was breathing heavily.

“Red Hand,” Mabruke gasped, his voice a barely audible croak. “Too many.”

Oken could smell the iron- sharp tang of fresh blood on Wast. The man was barely conscious, only a lifetime of fierce discipline keeping him on his feet.

“The Red Hand!” Mathias said in disbelief as he caught up to them. “Here? In Thoth’s District?”

There was no more notorious criminal syndicate in Memphis, perhaps in all Egypt, but the university district of Egypt’s capital city was believed to be too well patrolled to permit their activities. The young constable’s hesitation was understandable. The Red Hand League was an organization as old as Memphis, claiming descent from the ousted Hittite kings of Egypt three millennia ago, a ruthless order of criminals ruled by the deadliest impulses, justifying their crimes with ancient rituals and corrupted gods. They believed that their stone knives and obscene rites granted them powers that put them above the law, above decency, above civilization itself.

Mabruke pointed with a shaking hand to the alleyway from which he had just emerged.

“Call for help, Mathias!” Oken said.

Lord Oken’s rank was too important to ignore. Mathias took the whistle that hung on a steel chain around his neck, and blew a series of loud blasts, a coded pattern that would alert other officers within hearing.

“The hounds!” Oken said to him in command. “Call out the hounds!”

The constable blew a second series of blasts. At that same moment, black-clad figures surged out of the alleyway, running toward them. Mabruke backed away, dragging Oken and Wast with him.

Before the men of the Red Hand could reach them, however, the great hounds who lived in the guardhouses beside the gates along the street burst forth in response to the constable’s whistle, baying their challenge. They had been called, and they were well-trained animals, huge beasts, black and brindled and gray, wearing leather harnesses studded with spikes. Each hound knew Mabruke personally. They knew his scent and remembered the kindness he had shown them. They also knew the scent of human blood. From up and down the street, they ran to him, gathering around Mabruke. The dark night was suddenly filled with their voices.

Booted feet were heard running toward them from farther up the road. The guards at Ibis Gate were also responding to the call.

Vicious howls rose from the hounds as they attacked the attackers. They screamed like women when hurt. The night was rent by their voices in triumph and in pain.

Seconds later the yellow uniforms of Thoth’s guardsmen broke like flames against the shadows in the dark street, sparked by the gleams of white teeth and flint blades.

Oken held Wast with one arm and Mabruke with the other, dragging them away from the chaos. Wast was fading quickly. Oken hefted him over one shoulder, blanching for breathless seconds under the stab of protest from his rib cage. The pain was almost as sharp as the stab of fear he felt when he saw the expression on Mabruke’s face. Something terrible had happened to him. Oken had perhaps arrived too late. He put his arm around his friend’s waist and hurried him away from the brawling mass of hounds and men.

Guards from Thoth’s Manor were pouring out onto the road, some on foot, some on horse back. An armored vehicle with gun ports and fiercely brilliant spotlights came roaring out of the main gate.

The eternal night froze over this bloody tableau.

Oken clung to his friend, step by step, staggering under the limp weight of the man on his shoulder. He lost sight of the kindly Constable Mathias, who had volunteered to lead him safely through the nighttime streets. Oken focused on the blue security lights around Ibis Gate. His single thought was that he had to get to those lights.

ACOLYTES POURED
out as they reached the gate, surrounding them, murmuring gentle reassurances. Mabruke and Wast were taken from Oken by practiced, confident hands and swiftly carried away. Oken found himself being ushered inside.

Once the doors shut behind them, the sudden hush and stillness were overwhelming. He had just awakened from some terrible nightmare. Nothing that had just happened was real.

There was blood on his hands, on his clothes. That was real. He mumbled thanks to the acolytes and hurried after the crowd of young people who were carrying Mabruke and Wast away down a side corridor toward the Sakhmet Healing Station deep in the front wall of Thoth’s Manor.

Emergency sakhmeticians, wearing the light blue, high-collared uniforms of their guild, met them on the way. They were pushing a pair of beds on cushioned wheels. Wast and Mabruke were placed on these, then immediately hurried away. The temple acolytes followed, with Oken at their heels.

Tense minutes passed as this parade hurried through the late- night silence of empty corridors, until they reached the lobby of the emergency sakhmetical facility. Nurses and sakhmeticians closed in around the beds with hasty exchanges of jargon that Oken only half understood. “Dehydration,” “blood loss,” and “intravenous fluids” rang ominously in his ears. In the desert climate of Memphis, dehydration was always serious and often fatal.

Oken’s attention was interrupted by a youngster tapping his shoulder. One of the acolytes had brought a tray with a set of steaming washbowls, soap, and towels. “If you would care to wash? It is not safe to let someone else’s blood dry on your skin, sire.”

Oken looked down at his hands, then gave the boy a shaky smile. “A good thought, my young friend.”

“The water has a purifier, so you will take no harm from anything in the blood.”

“Will it clean the blood off my jacket?” Oken swirled his hands in the heated water in the bowl.

“No, sir. Cloth must be cleaned in other ways.”

Oken realized that the interruption had not only cleaned his hands but also calmed him. He rinsed and dried carefully, struck by the realization that the touch of warm water on his skin would always carry a lingering trace of the blue radiance of a bathing pool in faraway Novgorod. That was one of the compensations of a well-trainedmemory.

He thanked the boy for his assistance.

Another group of emergency sakhmeticians rushed into the lobby then, disrupting the scene with noisy calls for assistance and hurried instructions. Apparently, the staff were prepared for the recovery of a kidnapped nobleman and his bodyguard. Equipment had been waiting on standby. The staff were not so prepared for the number of casualties from the unexpected battle that had erupted between temple guards and the agents of the Red Hand in pursuit of Mabruke. More than a dozen men, as well as five hounds, were being brought in on stretchers. Four more hounds were “walking wounded,” still on their feet but bleeding from cuts on their muzzles and backs.

The beds with Wast and Mabruke were smoothly wheeled away to side rooms as wounded and staff members filled the lobby.

Oken saw that one of the most severely wounded was young Constable Mathias. Indeed, the stillness of death lay on his bloody and battered form. Okenabsorbed this with dismay,, then hurried after Mabruke.

There was only one nurse left beside Mabruke’s bed, working at a side table with a silver heating tray, measuring herbs into a carafe of steaming water. She looked up when Oken came in, gave him a slight, professionally concerned smile, then continued her work. She did not protest his presence at Mabruke’s side. Oken stood beside the bed, looking down at his friend.

Oken felt helpless, something he had not experienced since childhood. Mabruke’s dark skin, normally as shiny and purple black as ripe Nubian plums, was almost yellowish green. His lips were dry and cracked, bleeding in one corner. His long limbs, usually as gracefully posed as a dancer’s, were slack, lying limply in awkward positions, as though he could neither feel himself nor move according to his will. Worst of all, his long-fingered, beautiful hands, his most expressive and elegant hands trembled, plucking listlessly at the air as though trying to find themselves. His fingernails were broken and torn, almost as if the man had tried to dig through solid stone with his bare hands. Mabruke had never gone unshaven in his life, so the length of harsh, graying stubble covering his scalp, his cheeks, chin, and throat was a shock. The ordeal had lasted for days.

Oken had never seen anyone look so lost. He put his hand gently on his friend’s shoulder and softly called his name. “Mik? Mikel. Are you in there?”

At Oken’s touch and the sound of his voice, Mabruke’s eyes flew open. The change in him was immediate. Energy and life woke in him. His large, chestnut eyes devoured the vision of Oken bending over him, searching his face. Mabruke’s hands steadied at once, gripping Oken’s wrist. He was weak; that was clear. He was not defeated. That was also clear. His cracked lips parted as he tried to speak.

The nurse leaned over from the other side of the bed, lifting Mabruke’s head. “Drink this slowly,” she said calmly. “You are severely dehydrated.”

The glass held green, sweet- smelling tea and a glass straw. “Drink slowly,” she repeated, putting the straw to his lips. “This will restore you,” she went on encouragingly. “Let it rest on your tongue and be careful swallowing.”

Mabruke obeyed, his eyes closing slowly as he sipped the tea.

Oken watched anxiously, focused on his friend’s face. He kept his hand on Mabruke’s shoulder. Mabruke’s hand rested on Oken’s arm, drawing strength from him.

“Professor-Prince Mabruke has been missing for several days,” the nurse said quietly to Oken, without looking away from the glass of tea she held. “Pharaoh has had every man on the force out searching for him since yesterday morning. We feared the worst.”

Oken held himself still against the keen aftermath of panic. What would have happened to Mabruke if he and the constable had not chanced to be there at that moment? Could Oken have summoned the guards and the hounds as swiftly without Constable Mathias and his whistle? The mystery of destiny was beyond him. Oken felt himself snared in its web, with only Osiris as his guide. The hounds who had saved their lives were the scions of Anubis. Mabruke’s years of attention to the guard animals housed in the neighborhood of Thoth’s Manor had before been a mystery to Oken. Now he felt he understood one thing: Captain-Prince Mikel Mabruke knew how to plan. Mabruke had made a point, years earlier, of introducing Oken to each one of the hounds guarding the estates surrounding Thoth’s Manor. Mabruke had carefully given names and lineages as though introducing two human beings, two friends of his who had not met before. He knew Oken would remember them by sight, as the hounds would remember Oken by scent.

A young man opened the door to the room enough to stick his head in, and called the nurse. “Sara, we need every hand we can get out here. Can the gentleman spare you?”

Sara looked at Oken. “He should finish the tea, sir, then he should sleep. Can you hold the glass for him?”

“Of course.” Oken said. Mabruke smiled encouragingly at her and nodded.

“He will recover,” Nurse Sara said reassuringly as Oken took the glass. “He was found in time.”

Oken watched in concerned silence as Mabruke slowly finished swallowing the tea; then Oken refilled the glass. With great relief, he noted that color was returning to the man’s face.

“You have a new scar,” Mabruke whispered, gesturing weakly toward Oken’s cheek.

Oken touched the thin line of newly healed skin. “Fractured ribs, too. Both solid evidence of the success of my assignment in Novgorod.”

Mabruke drank half the glass in a single swallow. His strength was returning. He sank back and waved it away. “Enough.” His voice was just above a whisper, yet he spoke steadily. “Was it Antonyev, as I predicted?”

“Not even close.”

Mabruke raised an eyebrow in query.

“Blestyak—General Vladimir Modestovich Blestyak of the Vizier’s Horse Guard.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Exactly.”