At first it was indeed dark, and so warm as to be stifling, but soon Khai became aware of a rotten luminescence that seemed to have its source in the baked brick walls themselves, almost as if the vile glow of putrescence remained after all these years of disuse. And of course it was by this intermittent and unearthly light that he first became aware of the rats….
The rodents bothered him from the start, coming so close and in such numbers that he was sure they intended to attack him; but on each occasion, as soon as he made any threatening movement, they would disappear back to wherever they came from and leave him on his own. The mere fact that they were there, however, somewhere in the snaking sinus of the old sewer, was enough to fill him with a shuddering nausea.
Mercifully, the trench was not airless (though the warm drafts that passed along it were so redolent of rats both living and dead, not to mention the stenches of less easily recognizable refuse, that Khai almost wished it was), and it was far from silent. Instead it seemed to the boy that he had become trapped in the coils of some vast sounding shell—like those of the great snails which were often washed up on the Nile’s banks—where every tiniest sound was magnified tenfold. The creaking of Adonda Gomba’s ancient chair in the room adjacent to the kitchen sounded to him like the groanings of some mighty oak in a great wind, and the thunderous footfalls of the Nubian as he went from room to shabby room in the crumbling ruin overhead were almost deafening. One other sound—a monotonous, dull and apparently distant pounding, which try as he might he could not shut out—bothered him continuously and even had him grinding his teeth; until suddenly he realized that it was only the magnified pounding of his own blood in his ears!
But if Khai’s predicament was unpleasant, Adonda Gomba’s was surely worse. It would not be the first time Captain Ramanon had called on him and probably would not be the last, but each visit was invariably more nerve-wracking than the one before. And so, having put the boy out of sight, the Nubian covered his table with work details and lists of tools for replacement, with quarrying schedules and food quotas and many other matters concerning the administration of the slaves, then sat back and awaited Ramanon’s arrival. And sure enough, less than twenty minutes later, the captain and his escort of soldiers came to visit. Ramanon was Khemish by birth, though plainly it was the Arabban in him that came out in his swarthy features and bent beak of a nose. Adonda Gomba knew the captain’s face well and he hated it, but he respected (as well he might in his position) the sharp mind behind it. On several past occasions he had pitted his wits against those of the chief of Pharaoh’s “security” officers, and so far he had always managed to come out on the winning side. This time, however, he was less certain of himself.
For one thing, the boy was right here—within spitting distance if one could spit through a slab of stone—and for another, he was important. Aysha the witch-wife had first brought this fact to light with her predictions about Khai, and now Ramanon’s visit only served to confirm the old woman’s cryptic words. After all, why else should this powerful agent of Pharaoh find it necessary to come here in person? Why, as on those previous occasions, had he not been satisfied merely to send for Gomba? The answer was simple: this was not just a matter of a few missing sheep or the mysterious fall of a particularly hated overseer from the pyramid’s face. No, the boy was very important to Pharaoh, and as such his immediate presence increased the danger to Gomba tenfold!
The captain’s arrival was heralded by the sudden sound of soldiers halting in the dust of the alley outside. They had approached very quietly and Gomba would have had no warning other than the military thump of sandaled feet if his own intelligence system were not so finely tuned. As it was, he had time enough to compose himself, then to look up and assume an expression of surprise as the covering of his door was torn aside and the hawkish, red-robed figure of Ramanon appeared framed in the opening.
The captain grinned (a bad sign in itself) and entered the room in front of three of his lieutenants. Two of the latter looked like nothing so much as common thugs, while the third was a slimly effeminate creature wearing makeup applied as carefully as any woman’s. Gomba recognized this last human anomaly as Nathebol Abizoth, the son of one of Pharaoh’s most trusted overlords, and he inwardly shuddered.
Rumor had it that one of Abizoth’s favorite methods of extracting information from an unwilling victim was to first extract his more readily removable parts, such as nails, testicles, eyeballs and skin, leaving the tongue, of course, to the last. And it was not on record that anyone had ever survived one of Abizoth’s “examinations!”
“Master!” cried Adonda Gomba, springing up from his rickety table and flinging himself down on the dirt floor. “Illustrious Lord, I am honored!”
“Up, black dog,” Ramanon quietly answered, but with no trace of malice in his voice. Hands on hips, he faced Gomba squarely as the black came to his feet. “There are one or two things you might like to tell me, my friend. At least I hope so, if you desire to remain my friend....”
“Only say what I should tell you, Lord, and if I can—” Gomba began.
“If you can?” Abizoth cut in, his voice the hiss of a viper. “We come to you, black dog, because we know you can!” He snapped his woman’s fingers and the two stony-faced thugs grabbed Gomba’s arms and dragged him protesting out into the alley. As they came out into the open air, a squad of twelve spearsmen snapped to attention. Ignoring the soldiers, the thugs turned Gomba’s face toward the pyramid whose peak rose massively over distant rooftops.
Ramanon and Abizoth came out of Gomba’s house at a more leisurely pace and the captain stepped up close to the pinioned black. He stared into the Nubian’s face. “Do you see Pharaoh’s tomb, Adonda Gomba?”
“Yes, Lord,” the Nubian stammered. “I see it, as I have seen it all my life, but—”
“Quiet!” Ramanon snarled. He picked at his fingernails for a moment, then once more peered close into the black man’s fearful face. “Late last night a boy climbed out of a hole near the top of the pyramid. He slid down the south face—that face you see there—and we believe he came into the slave quarters. He is probably injured, badly burned from his slide, broken from the fall at slide’s end. He could not get far without assistance. We want him, Gomba. We want him badly!”
“Lord, I know of no such—”
“Bring him back inside,” Ramanon ordered, turning his back and re-entering the slave-king’s house.
Gomba was bundled in through the doorway once more and Abizoth was quick to follow and pounce upon him. “Black dog,” the pervert hissed, “where’s your woman?”
“My woman, master? I have not had a woman for many months now,” Gomba lied. He thanked all the Gods of Khem that he had sent his woman away that very morning. He had intuitively known that trouble was in the air, and so had sent Nyooni out of harm’s way.
“Isn’t it your duty to have a woman?” Abizoth insisted. “To produce a new generation of slaves for Pharaoh?”
“The woman I had was barren, master, for which reason she was sent to cook for the quarriers. I have not yet found another woman. My work is—”