Chapter 25

Away from the moon shadow of the Sphinx, we opened our packs, stripped off our robes, and changed into our common clothing. The serpent who sheds his old skin must feel the same relief that I experienced once more to stand in my sturdy Muslim coat, Gor’s skull at my belt, my water skin hanging from its shoulder strap at my right hip, and my dagger on its woolen baldric at my left hip, where a sword would have hung, had I possessed such a weapon. Knowing my eccentricity, the girl had filled the water skin. I patted it with contentment.

Martala balled up her white servant robe and cast it away from her with a sound of disgust.

“No, put it into the pack.”

She did not question, but retrieved the robe and stuffed it into her travel pack. When I slung mine over my shoulders on its straps, she did the same.

Luck was with us. Brothers had arrived at the Sphinx that very night, and had left their horses in the usual hollow, where they had not yet been retrieved but stood pawing the ground and tugging at their tethers. They were three in number. We took the best two and rode at a canter to the ferry. It had completed the unloading of its cargo, and the stout ferry master was about to cast off and sail back to Feisel’s private dock on the eastern bank of the river.

I stopped behind a screen of dense brush and dismounted, then pulled off my pack and took from it my caul of black silk. Martala regarded me curiously from her saddle.

“Wrap this around your head,” I told her, handing her the scarf.

She did as ordered, and I felt a small satisfaction that she had ceased to question every command I gave her. With my knife, I notched the hem of my black robe and tore off a thin strip of cloth. I used this to bind the girl’s hands loosely in front of her, then closed and donned my pack. Before remounting, I took a moment to renew the glamour that concealed my disfigurements. It was easy to forget, after living for weeks in a place where my face had so seldom been seen, save by my servant. I mounted, took the reins from her saddlebow, and led her horse beside mine toward the landing place of the ferry.

Before the ferry master could speak, I held up my hand.

“I have urgent business in Fustat. I must get this bitch across the river immediately.”

He glanced at the girl, and saw that her hands were bound. Still he hesitated. He was the same stocky man with the bristling black beard who had carried me across the river with Feisel.

“Your master commands you to obey me in all things.”

I made the sign of greeting used between brothers of the Order. To my great relief, the boatman appeared to recognize it.

“We are just casting off,” he said gruffly. “Get your horses on board.”

When we were underway, I caught the eye of the ferry master and beckoned him over. He left the tiller in the hands of the younger man who helped manage the boat. He was not happy at being given orders by a stranger, but he would obey me as long as he thought I had Feisel’s authority.

“Your master wants me taken to the main docks of the city. He has ordered that you are to arrange for passage in a ship sailing upriver to the First Cataract. He will compensate you when he returns.”

The man stroked his beard and thought. The effort must have been painful, since it caused him to narrow his eyes and distort his mouth.

“I know of a ship sailing to the Cataract at first light. They may have room for you. Do you mean to take the girl?”

“That’s why I’m going.” I lowered my voice to give it a conspiratorial tone. “It is necessary for the good of the brotherhood that she be conveyed to the Cataract.”

He began to ask a question, saw me shake my head, and closed his mouth.

“The captain is a friend of mine. I’ll make sure you get passage.”

With the brotherhood in disarray beneath the Sphinx, I judged that I had several hours to escape Fustat before I was pursued. Once Feisel recovered from his grief over Dru’s death, he would want me apprehended, not only to get back the scroll I had stolen, but to make certain that neither Martala nor I ever betrayed his secrets. He had overheard Nyarlathotep’s words, as had others, so there seemed no reason to conceal our destination. Delay was death for me. I must get up the Nile as quickly as possible, though what I was expected to do there I had not the faintest notion.

The first rays of the morning sun that broke over the roofs of the muddy and unfinished city of Fustat saw us glide away from the docks on board a flat-bottomed and wide-beamed trading vessel that was aptly named the Elephant’s Foot. The sunlight lit the edges of the fortress of Babylon with fire and gave its looming stone walls an evil aspect. Soldiers moved along its battlements, no larger than ants, their helmets glinting like sparks cast off from a blacksmith’s hammer. It was a place that knew no rest. Somewhere below its foundations, in the bowels of its dungeons, men groaned in despair. I was delighted to turn my back upon it and gaze southward toward the unseen and unguessed fountains of the Nile.

“How far up the river must we go?” Martala asked, as though she had read my thoughts.

“The dark man said to sail above the Cataracts. How many are there, anyway?”

“Many. But it is uncommon for anyone to venture above the first two. The people there are black-skinned and barbarous of custom. It is a dangerous land, Alhazred.”

In spite of myself, I laughed, and she responded with a smile.

“Perhaps I will take the risk, even so, since the alternative is death by poison.”

I looked down into her pale eyes. A bruise discolored her left cheek. The traitorous guardian had struck her a hard blow, and it was a wonder that the bones of her face had not shattered.

“You are not bound to me. If you wish, you may depart at the first landing. I will give you money so that you can make your way back to Memphis, or anywhere else you desire to travel.”

“I am your servant,” she said with an angry tone. “When the poison begins to act, you will have need of my help.”

To this practical if somewhat callous observation, I had no argument. In a few days I might not even be able to walk under my own strength.

In spite of her ponderous name and broad beam, the Elephant’s Foot glided swiftly against the sluggish current of the Nile when there was a good breeze behind her to fill her enormous square sail. When the breeze died, slower but constant progress was maintained by rhythmic sweeping of the banks of long oars on either side of the ship, for she was a galley, and chained slaves sat on benches below her deck. Her half-Greek captain must have overseen the construction of the craft, which mingled in her details both Greek and Egyptian ornaments.

Captain Critias was the son of a Greek trader and an Egyptian merchant’s daughter, as I learned in the course of our many conversations. He loved to talk almost as much as he loved his ship. He was a man of small size, but athletic and active, with great strength in his arms. The top of his bald head gleamed with sweat in the sunlight as he darted about, barking orders to his crew, for he wore no turban. He was shaven on the chin, a style not uncommon among the Coptic Egyptians, but by way of compensation, he had allowed his fringe of brown hair to grow long down his back, and kept it in order by braiding it like the lash of a whip. It hung almost to his buttocks, and swung from side to side as he moved.

His fat young Egyptian wife shared his cabin. She spoke seldom, and then in so soft a voice that it was barely to be understood, but she smiled often and was a great favorite with the crew, who numbered nine Egyptians and four Greeks. They did not dislike their captain, but were afraid of him, and leapt on the instant he gave an order without a grumble, even those twice his size. This was a matter of curiosity to me, since Critias seemed even-tempered and fair in his ways. As was true of most of the Greek traders I had seen in Egypt, he liked to make a display of his wardrobe. Rich silk trim and gold embroidery ornamented his long white tunic, and his belt, broad as my hand, was made of oiled crocodile skin. Jewels caught the sun on the hilt of his sword, which he wore with the assurance of a soldier.

Martala and I were given a reasonably clean rolled rug to lie upon at night, and an open place near the stern of the ship, a favorable location for sleeping as we soon learned. The breeze was usually behind us, and blew the clean scent of the river into our nostrils. There is no stench so foul as the stench of a slave galley. Even though the slaves were always kept below deck, unless one fell ill, their odor found its way to every part of the ship. Accustomed as I was to the fragrance of human corpses, this did not trouble me greatly, but I was glad for Martala’s sake that most of the stench would be blown away from us during the nights.

Everything aboard the Elephant’s Foot took place in the open air, except the ordeal of the rowers. The captain’s cabin, located just astern of the mast, consisted of little more than a roof that kept off the sun. He spent much of his time on top of it, scanning the river for signs of drifting logs or other obstructions. When a difficulty was seen, he darted down his ladder and took the long tiller in his own hands. Watching him work it, I understood why his arms were so massive. The ship and the river did not fight each other, but when it was necessary to tack across the current they held a conversation. It could be heard in the lap of the water against the bow and in the creak and groan of the rigging.

The savor of flat loaves of bread baking in pans, and of strips of mutton frying in oil as the captain’s wife, Fatima, prepared the midday meal, almost overpowered the stench from the hold. She cooked for all the crew working above deck. The evil-looking stew eaten by the slaves was prepared by a slave master near the bow and carried down through the forward hatch in wooden buckets. When the meal was ready, she spoke soft words to her husband, who bellowed to his first mate, and the crew assembled with pans to receive their portions and carry them wherever they wished to enjoy them. Martala and I, as the only passengers aboard the ship, were favored with a bench at the table, and sat facing the stern opposite Critias and his first officer. His wife never sat, but seemed in constant motion as she supplied the table with food and drink.

I had untied Martala and unveiled her face shortly before boarding. There had been no reason to continue with the subterfuge that she was my prisoner once the ship left the dock at Fustat. What the ferryman had told Critias I did not know, but both he and Fatima seemed to regard Martala as my servant and lover. It might have been expected that the wife of the captain would show disdain for the girl, but instead she displayed affection in her quiet way, smiling at Martala and even speaking to her. Martala returned her warmth, and spent much of the meal on her feet helping with the serving.

As we sat drinking wine after our meal, I asked the question that had concerned my mind since boarding. The language at the captain’s table was Greek.

“How far do you plan to sail up river before putting in to a port?”

“We sail to Thebes, and from there to the Cataract.”

“How long will it take us to reach Thebes?”

Critias shrugged to show that it was not a matter in his control, then looked at his mate.

“What do you think, Hannis?”

“If the winds favor us all the way, four days,” his long-faced mate said after a moment of silent calculation.

Hannis was a curious contrast to his master. A full head and shoulder taller, his face and skull appeared to have been compressed on the sides and narrowed. He sat hunched over the table, his back rounded to bring his eyes down to the same level as ours. He had almost no eyebrows, merely small tufts of black hair directly above his dark eyes, and his beard was so thin as to be transparent. Around his head he wore a single rope of linen that might have been dyed red at some point in the distant past, but was now a sun-bleached pink.

“The winds won’t hold, since they never do.” Critias turned to me. “Five days, if we are fortunate.”

My heart fell. The dark man had said that the minutes of the poison had been extended to days, but how many minutes were there? I had no way of knowing the rapidity of its usual action, or how greatly Sashi had inhibited its working.

“Must we stop at Thebes? I would be willing to compensate you, were you to sail past directly to the Cataract.”

Critias and his mate stared at me. They both broke into laughter at the same moment.

“Forgive me, Alhazred,” Critias said, patting my arm in a companionable way and grinning. “If we didn’t stop at Thebes, we couldn’t unload that part of our cargo destined for that port. Unless that cargo is removed, we will not have enough room on the decks to take on all the goods we intend to receive at the Cataract. We would have to throw the Thebes cargo into the river. It would be very costly.”

“I can pay your costs.”

His eyes widened slightly, and the smile slipped from his lips.

“You must be a very wealthy man. Even so, no, it is impossible.”

From his tone, I saw the futility of argument and let the matter lie. Perhaps I could hire a faster boat at Thebes. My eyes wandered past the man who worked the tiller to a white triangular sail on the river behind us. A smaller and more maneuverable craft was bound to be able to out speed a great ship laden with cargo. Had I possessed the forethought, I would have hired such a boat at Fustat, but it had been imperative to escape from the city before we were hunted by the Order of the Sphinx.

Critias looked over his shoulder at the object of my attention. He continued to regard the small boat. Hannis turned on the bench and the two of them sat with their backs to us, watching the sail.

“What do you think he’s playing at?” Hannis muttered.

“What does it matter? There can’t be more than three or four men on such a small boat.”

For another minute they watched the little craft as it tacked. Critias turned to drink from his tin cup, and seemed to remember that I was sitting at the table.

“What is so interesting about that boat?” I asked mildly.

“Whoever’s piloting it is a fool, or up to no good,” Hannis said before his master could speak. He scowled, and the little furry dots of his eyebrows descended close to his eyes.

“He’s been behind us all morning,” Critias explained.

“He’s faster than this ship, isn’t he?” Martala said, watching the sail over his shoulder.

“Much faster. He should have overtaken us long ago.”

“Is he following your ship?” I asked, trying to keep my voice casual.

“Who knows? I don’t see why he would, since it can gain him nothing.”

For an hour after we left the table, I sat on the rail near the stern and watched the little boat. Martala busied herself helping the captain’s wife with her cleaning, and seemed to have forgotten the craft, but now and then her eyes darted back and searched the river until she found it. She stared at it for a few moments before going on with her work. As the sun crawled across the heavens into the west, and the boat continued to pace the ship with unvarying monotony, I lost interest and amused myself by examining the cargo.

Much of it was cloth brightly colored and coiled in huge bolts around woven reed spindles. There were many large amphorae of wines and oils, mirrors, strings of beads, wool rugs, iron axes and spades. Most of the cargo consisted of manufactured things that were utilitarian rather than of fine workmanship. This was not to be wondered at, since we were bound for barbarian lands where even the simple furnishings and tools of a city such as Alexandria would be regarded as precious possessions. The deck was crowded, but enough space had been left between the bound piles to permit progress through the maze they created. Bales of dried spices scented the air and almost overpowered the stench from below.

I paused beside the open forward hatch, listening to the rhythmic creak of the oars in their locks. None of the seamen paid any attention to me. It was too dark to see into the opening. Some wayward impulse made me climb down the steep stair into the hold. The moist heat and choking stench enveloped me like a damp blanket that has been warmed beside the fire. I stopped at the base of the stair and blinked as my eyes adjusted to the gloom.

The galley slaves were ranked two abreast on either side of the ship. They sat on benches naked or wearing soiled clouts around their hips, chained at the ankles. Sweat gleamed on their backs and dripped from their beards. A man who was a slave, to judge by his lack of clothing, moved along one bank of oars with a bucket and a dipper and gave each rower a drink in turn. They drank without pausing in their work or removing their hands from the oars, which swung back and forth with the regularity of a pendulum. A slave master, unsatisfied with the pace, called out for attention and used the butt of his short lance to beat time on the walkway that ran between the benches. The oars swung marginally faster in their locks.

The slaves who sat forward of the hatch, and who faced the stern of the ship, saw me descend the stair and continued to watch me with curiosity rather than hostility in their expressions. They did not seem in ill health. Here and there a wet cough rose above the sounds of the oars. Most of the backs were unmarked by the whip, and their bones were covered with muscle and fat. There was no conversation between the rowers. Either they were forbidden from speaking, or they had said all they wished to say, and heard all they wished to hear, from their bench mates long ago.

One of the overseers noticed me and approached with mingled hostility and impatience.

“This is no place for an honest man,” he barked in Coptic. “Best get up on deck where you belong.”

“I am Mohammedan,” I told him mildly. “I walk where I please.”

Even in the dimness of the hold, I saw the color leave his cheeks. He stepped backward and bowed awkwardly.

“Forgive me, lord, I did not see your face. You may remain as long as you wish. How may I help you?”

“I have seen enough.”

Resisting the urge to smile, I turned away and ascended the ladder. Being a member of the ruling race in a captive nation had its advantages, and I saw no reason to deny myself their benefits.

The sun painted the sky with red and orange and reflected from the sliding water of the river as it settled below the western hills. I went to the sleeping place I had been given and found that Martala had already unrolled the rug between the high piles of textiles. The space was as close to private as any place on a ship could ever be. We stood unspeaking at the far end against the rail and watched the sunset fade into night, and the stars begin to emerge.

“How are you feeling?” the girl asked after full dark had fallen.

“Normal.”

This was not entirely true. My heart was beating faster than was natural, and my body felt warm. There was no pain, but I sensed its presence. In some way Sashi shielded me from it. I wondered how long she would be able to continue doing so with success. My neck where the tainted little saber had entered was swollen and tender to the touch. Reflexively, I raised my hand to my throat.

“Let me see,” Martala said, a mothering tone in her voice.

She pushed my hand aside and drew apart the collar of my coat. She frowned and said nothing.

“What?”

“It looks like the sting of a wasp. It’s white around the wound, then red in a ring.”

I shrugged and turned to the rail. Leaning as far out as I could, I tried to catch sight of the little white triangle. Either the boat had ceased to follow us, or it was hidden behind the mass of the ship. The lingering glow in the western sky and the starshine gave sufficient light to see the river. It was by this pale illumination that Critias or his first mate would navigate until the round face of the rising moon provided a more reliable guide. Somewhere on the distant, reed-hemmed bank, a beast grunted, and water splashed.

My sleep was peaceful, untroubled by dreams, until the sweet countenance of Sashi came gliding towards me through the darkness, wearing an expression of concern.

There is danger, Alhazred. You must wake.

I started and caught my breath, then slowly opened my eyes and breathed deeply. The moon cast her silver beams over the wall of cloth bolts before me. I heard Martala sigh in her sleep at my left side. Apart from the ever-present creak of ropes in wooden blocks and the splash of water on the bow, the ship was silent.

Closing my eyes, I waited until Sashi approached where I could see her.

What is the danger? I asked in my thoughts.

I know not, my love. I sense some threat approaching. It is very strong.

After the alert the djinn had given in my hotel room at Memphis, I knew better than to disregard her concern. I drew up my legs and pushed myself slowly to my feet, trying to move soundlessly. The girl remained asleep. Not bothering to put on my coat or boots, I went in my surwal and shirt to the rail and scanned the side of the ship in both directions, then walked around the stacks of cloth that bordered our sleeping place. One of the crew passed down the central walkway without seeing me in the shadow, intent on some task of his own. I peered around the edge of the cloth bales and saw the tall form of Hannis at the tiller of the ship. He had his eyes fixed on the near bank of the river and did not notice me.

A strange sound cut the night air, a hiss like that of an angry serpent. This was immediately followed by a soft impact, and at once the ship was lit by a flickering redness, as though the hood had been removed from a giant oil lamp. I looked up, and saw the square linen sail on fire, the thin black length of an arrow dangling from it by its fletching. Even as I watched, another flaming arrow joined it, and a third. The fire enlarged and began to gutter and roar. Hannis gave a deep cry of alarm, which was taken up by other members of the night watch. Above the mounting din came the hiss of more arrows. One stuck in a stack of cloth bolts and began to blaze furiously.

“Alhazred? Where are you?” Martala called.

“I’m here. The ship is under attack.”

Crossing to the burning cloth bolts on the opposite side of the ship, I grasped the arrow and tried to pull it loose. Its barbed head resisted, but finally came free of the burning linen. The arrow blazed with a fury that was unnatural, and I held it well away from my face so that none of the sparks showering off its fiery end would fall upon my skin. Martala came to my shoulder to look at it. I cast the arrow over the side and watched it float on the water of the Nile, still burning. A seaman shoved me aside and threw a bucket of water over the burning cloth, but it continued to blaze with a strange persistence, as though something sustained the fire with secret vitality.

I forced my way to the stern, Martala following close at my back, jostled by frantic crew members who sought to lower the sail and douse the flames that had sprung up in a dozen places on the deck. The air rang with cries of confusion and terror. Critias stood naked with his legs braced, his sword in his right hand, glaring back at the river. For the moment, no one held the tiller. In the moonlight the small boat was easy to see. It had drawn nearer than before. Two tiny flames shone like stars along its side. One after the other, they flew through the air, and thudded into the cargo on the ship behind us.

Critias began to curse the boat in Greek. He waved his sword impotently in the air. No answering cry came from the boat, which seemed ghostly in the moonlight. Slowly, it tacked and moved away. The captain’s wife emerged from under the roof of their cabin with a blanket clutched around her fat body and put her hand on her husband’s shoulder.

I grabbed his arm, and he whirled at me with murder in his eyes. Suddenly I knew full well why his crew paid him such respect.

“The tiller,” I said calmly.

Reason returned to his gaze. He stared at the lolling shaft of the tiller and threw down his sword, then ran and grasped it in both hands.

“Help me,” he snapped in a voice of command.

I lent the strength of my back to the task of swinging the tiller over. Above the cries of the crew and the dull roar of the flames, some sound was missing, a sound I had grown so accustomed to that it had become a part of nature. Critias realized its absence at the same moment.

“Hannis,” he bellowed, his voice carrying above the confusion. “Get those slaves back to their oars. We’re drifting.”

The slave masters had come up to the deck to help fight the fire, and the slaves, in their terror at being burned alive, had ceased to row. I saw the slave master who had spoken so uncivilly to me running with a bucket of water. He slipped and fell, and the water spilled across the deck and washed over the side.

Hannis, lost somewhere amid the burning bales on the deck, added his deep roar to that of his captain. In a short time the rhythmic splash of the oars resumed, but it was too late.

The deck of the ship shuddered under my bare feet. Somewhere deep in the hold, wood groaned against wood. There was a slight lurch, and all motion stopped. So accustomed had I grown to the slight roll of the deck that its stillness was difficult to walk across.

Hannis appeared, his long face streaked with soot. An ugly red burn marred the underside of his left forearm, but he did not seem to notice it. His expression was grim.

“We’ve run aground,” he said.