Wraiths of Time (10 page)

She could pick out the history of this time level from her memory induction. Egypt, which in her own world had been rumored by so many cults to be the fountainhead of occult knowledge, had, on this plane, indeed discovered and perfected a type of mental control and general ESP (centered in a trained priesthood and the royal family) which did approach that ability the cults argued it once had had.

Though Egypt had fallen to invaders, first Greek and then Roman, even as in her own world's history, it had not been lost. Retreating south to Kush, the modern Sudan, those of the Hierarchy who had survived again brought their civilization to a peak, favoring their own teaching. Arabs had attempted to invade from modern Ethiopia but they had been driven off during a war that had again depleted the hard core of the priesthood—for the strained use of their powers had brought death or mental collapse to many. So Meroë had fallen, while the handful of refugees—the royal family and what was left of those with the Knowledge—had fled westward.

There were very few in any following generation who showed ability for the training that the closed Circle of the Talented kept alive. Thus their ranks of late were thin, though a generation after their westward flight, a king of unusual ability had come to the throne. After the custom of those of the Blood from the most ancient of days, he married his half sister, one who had passed three of the four stages toward becoming a major wielder of the Power. Together they had laid the foundations for the Empire. It seemed an auspicious time, now looked back upon as a golden age, for there had been then, for a short interval, a number of births of those having the Talent, and several of these were also rulers of provinces that the outspreading Empire occupied.

There followed a peak of prosperity and success that lasted for nearly two centuries. But what favored their safety was the fact that in this world there had arisen no Mohammed, no way of Islam to drown in blood the central African states, as had happened in the history Tallahassee knew.

Coptic Christianity spread slowly among the lower classes, but the hard inner core of the rulers and administrators remained almost fanatically tied to the Great Knowledge. And in the royal family a strain of those who had the Talent continued.

Europe, Tallahassee had learned from her new foster memory, had not meddled. Though trading ships from Portugal, Spain, and England visited Empire ports, the northerners had not dared to attempt that conquest which had brought the curse of the slave trade to this continent. For by the time Europeans made their appearances, the Empire was close-locked with India, China, and the Far East in bonds of trade. Since there was no interruption of the Meroë-Egyptian civilization, their own inventions and defenses equalled if not topped those of the traders.

Cunning metal workers always, and led by the Great Knowledge that planned and experimented, those of Amun had developed a modern civilization on a par with any of the emerging African nations of her world, yet far more stable because of the core of belief on which they had drawn for centuries. Now at last, they were being threatened, not from without, but from within. Again, there had been a marked recession of Talented births. Ashake had been the only one of the royal line to possess the Power for two generations. And, because such were weak in numbers, there came suggestions that the rulers of Amun apply other means for their defense.

Tradition here was a power in itself, so, at first, Khasti found few to listen to him. It was the envy of Userkof and the real hatred of his chief wife for his royal cousins, whose attainments were higher than she dared to hope to equal—that gave Khasti his chance. His own background was obscure, for he had only appeared several years ago, shunning the temple but prevailing on Userkof for support.

Jayta drew herself up proudly. “No work of any mind not endowed with the grace of that Which is Beyond Measurement can stand. Where it is used, there will it break the tie between us and the earth. Look at those to the north with their constant warring, their famines, their plagues.… Have the people of Amun faced such in a hundred hundred vears? We open our hearts to all life about us, and through us, then, the spirit of life flows into the hands of the farmer who tends the grain, the herdsman with his flocks. Our people dream beauty, and it comes alive under their fingers. Do we plant a tree and leave it to live or die—no. He who plants draws into him the spirit of life which he wills outward again to aid the growing roots under the soil. We are builders and not destroyers—and if we turn from the truth we shall indeed be lost.”

“How many have now the Great Knowledge?” Herihor flung the question at her. “How many children are born in these days who can be brought to temple care and nurtured to the use of the Talent? What if we grow too old, our blood too thin? What if there comes a time when this life-spirit cannot be summoned?”

“There are ebbs and flows of the tide,” Jayta returned. “If we stand now at an ebb, there will come a flow. But it is now that those who believe against us will strike. For it is as you say, our numbers are not great. Therefore, we must attack first, root out this Khasti and the abominations with which he busies himself.”

“If we can,” Herihor commented darkly.

“Look upon what we have already done,” Jayta said sharply. “Were we sure we could find where the Rod was hidden? Yet that we did, even though the Key was also stolen. It is back in our hold. And I tell you, my Prince, that the Rod is far more than many believe it to be.”

“Just what do you mean by that? It is a symbol of authority, and it seems true that no one not of the true line of the Blood can hold it. But what else is it?” he demanded.

“We do not know yet,” she told him frankly. “But there was a power unleashed in it even as we drew it back that we do not yet understand. Or perhaps”—she looked to Tallahassee sitting silent on the bed—“that was the doing of someone else.”

“I have nothing of your Talent,” the girl quickly denied. “You have given me enough of
her
memory so I know what I lack.”

Herihor glanced from her to Jayta and back again, his eyes now searching Tallahassee's painted face as if beneath that cosmetic mask he could find a truth he must have.

“Yes, Daughter-of-Apedemek—your number of supporters lacks now the one I think you esteemed the highest of all. By so much are you the loser.” There was bitterness in his voice, and his eyes were cold, his expression closed. Did he really hate her? Tallahassee was sure that that must be the truth.

“We do not know what we face.” Jayta seemed to temporize. “It is only true that above all else we must hold in safety the Rod and the Key and pray that the Candace finds a quick way home. Since the spy ray holds us mute, perhaps it is better to send some messenger directly to the Temple to speak with Zyhlarz. And guards—”

“I know my trade. I brought the Ibex Regiment with me when I came. And two messages have gone to those commanders I can still trust in full. One answered while I was still airborne. He is moving overland to keep open the north road—if he can. For if Khasti extends this power of his, who knows what evil surprises we shall have to face.”

He gave a quick nod of his head, divided between the two of them, and was gone before the priestess could speak again. Tallahassee broke the silence between them with a question she was herself surprised to hear, even as she asked it:

“Did he love her very much?”

For a second or two Jayta appeared so buried in some thought of her own that it did not register. Then she started, stared at Tallahassee, so that the girl had a queer, shamed feeling, as if the question she had asked broke some important rule of politeness.

“The Prince Herihor was chosen as consort for the Princess,” Jayta's tone was very remote and forbidding, “since he was not of the pure Blood. It was believed that perhaps a mixture of such heritage would strengthen anew the line for the next generation. It is—was—Ashake's child who would wear the next crown.”

A marriage of convenience and state, then. Yet Tallahassee thought that that greeting shouted outside her bedroom earlier had held something else, a warmth of feeling. But she could not judge these people, she told herself firmly. She might have Ashake's memories filtered through their recall machine, but she did not possess any concerning Herihor that seemed especially close. In fact, she was now engrossed by a discovery she had just made—there were no overtones of emotion raised by any of those memories she had yet sampled. She was not aware that Jayta, having watched her closely for a breath or two, went silently out of the room. For Tallahassee was testing, after a fashion, those memories, drawing to the fore of her mind each of the people she was supposed to be closely allied with, to wait some response, a yes or no of liking—no matter how faint. And still she could detect none at all.

Tallahassee's headache dulled, she was able to eat all of the meal Idia brought her later and knew her energy was flowing back. In fact she felt almost euphoric, a condition that aroused suspicion in her mind. Had the restorative also been a drug of sorts to tie her more closely to Jayta's will? She could not detect a ground for such suspicion in the Ashake memories she could tap. But it was well not to depend too much on those for present assurance.

She went out beside the pool and sat on a bench, gazing into the water where the lotus blossoms spread wide their pointed petals. This was her own villa, or Ashake's, she knew now, a private retreat where the Princess had many times withdrawn for study and meditation in the past. Within it she was as secure—as long as she
was
Ashake—as she could be anywhere in this world.

The kittens came leaping out of nowhere to jump up beside her. One spoke in feline fashion at some length, staring straight up into Tallahassee's face as if delivering some message. When she put out her hand, it nipped delicately at her fingertips, while the other small mouth yawned wide, as, sleepy-eyed, it settled down for a nap.

This was soothing. She could almost push away that feeling of displacement. Would Ashake grow stronger in her and become dominant? Tallahassee stirred uneasily. How much dared she give open passage in her mind to those implanted memories?

There was—

Tallahassee stiffened, tense. Both cats roused, turned on the bench to stare at some point behind her. Both wrinkled their lips in silent snarls. The girl's hand went to the hilt of the dagger at her waist. Behind her—now—was danger.

She made herself rise slowly as if unaware. A call would bring one of the Amazon guard. Only there was something … This she had felt before, not as a Princess of Amun but rather as herself, Tallahassee Mitford.

Slowly she turned to face what lurked there. Though this was day and not in a dark building in another time and world, there was again that presence—no better could she describe it. Only she could see nothing.…

Nothing? No! In the doorway of that chamber where Jayta had her roles of wisdom—there flickered a shadow. And that shadow …

Tallahassee could not define it as more than a kind of blurring of her own sight, a blurring confined to that one area. Drawing upon every bit of courage she possessed, the girl started toward it. Her hand moved, not by her will, but directed by the Ashake memory, in a gesture, to draw in the air the outline of the Key.

There was—not menace, she realized, as her own controlled fear began to ebb. Here was a need that reached her fleetingly. And then that blur was gone. As if a door had closed. What kind of a door and why? Ashake was dead. It could not have been the Princess's shadow-self that invaded Tallahassee's world and lingered here now. Both memories assured her that was impossible.

But there had been that other one. The curdling in the air among the ruins when Jayta had sent such a presence away. The other one—he or she who had been dispatched by this Khasti to steal and hide the greatest defense of Amun—could such be the lurker? If so—they might face a danger now that even all the vaunted Ancient Knowledge could not handle. For when an enemy is invisible …

Tallahassee made herself go to that doorway, gaze into the room beyond. But she knew the thing had gone. The cold chill of fear that it could bring with it was already fading. However, that it went did not mean it would not return.

“Great Lady?”

Tallahassee was so startled by a voice from behind that she nearly cried out. But she mastered her loss of self-control before she turned to face Colonel Namila, herself.

“Warrior-of-the-lion.” The old, old acknowledgment came unbidden from the second memory.

“There is one who has come—the Princess Idieze. She would have speech with the Great Lady.”

Idieze—the wife of Userkof—she whose jealousy had brought on much of this trouble here. But why did she come?

“You may admit her to the presence, but summon also the Daughter-of-Apedemek and Prince General Herihor.”

“As it is commanded, so it is done.” The Amazon gave the formal response.

Tallahassee moved back to the bench, deliberately seated herself. She guessed that Idieze might come so boldly on a kind of “fishing” expedition. She had both the cunning and the arrogance to take such action. Ashake's memory supplied much concerning Idieze and little or none of it good.

There was a stir at the main door at the far end of the pool as a slender woman wearing a garment of saffron yellow and a small travel wig came determinedly forward, those escorting her lingering by the gate. Tallahassee did not rise to greet her. Ashake's rank was far higher than that of this upstart female. In the old days, before the smothering etiquette of the court had been revised, this one would have approached on hands and knees and kissed the sandal strip of the Princess. None of the Blood ran in her veins.

If no emotion had broken through from the memories Tallahassee had earlier sifted, she had been wrong in feeling that none such existed. For the very sight of Idieze's smooth, painted face brought to life now a flare of hot anger.