“To hell with your work!” Ramanon’s voice was low and dangerous. “Can you guess,” he continued, “why my good friend Abizoth here wanted to see your woman, black dog?”
Gomba shook his head, his lower lip trembling in unfeigned terror.
“Then I’ll tell you,” Abizoth hissed. “In my experience, you’d soon speak up if your woman was yelping. But if you haven’t got a woman—well, if I can’t skin a black tit we’ll have to see what I can do with a pair of black balls!”
Quickly, the heavily made-up eyes of the effeminate monster flickered about the room. “On the table,” he snapped. “Strip him!”
The two thugs again grabbed Gomba, and one of them used his free arm to scatter the documents that littered his table. The crude papyrus sheets flew across the room and fluttered to the floor in crumpled disorder. Somehow the huge black broke free and hurled himself down on the dirt floor, scrabbling after his papers.
“Do what you will with me!” he cried. “But take care, masters, if you value your own skins. I control the slaves, and these documents are my schedules. Already Pharaoh grows impatient that his tomb should be finished—and where would he look for an answer if the work stopped altogether? Would you disrupt the God-king’s plans for the sake of a mere boy? I do not know this boy; I have not seen him. Would I suffer for some runaway pup when I could gain favor by delivering him into my master’s hands?”
“Hold!” Ramanon snarled. His men had already hauled the Nubian from the floor and half-stripped him. They were now holding him down on the table and Abizoth’s long-nailed hands were reaching for him, twitching fitfully. Ramanon knew that his perverted junior was a near-madman, and that he would doubtless cripple the black slave-king if given the chance.
But what Gomba had said—about his own skin being more precious to him than that of any unknown boy—had rung absolutely true. And certainly Gomba’s work as the internal administrator and co-ordinator of the vast slave workforce was all-important to Pharaoh. In actual fact, Khasathut probably did not even know of Gomba’s existence—but he would soon track down the source of the trouble if the work on his pyramid were suddenly to show a dramatic decrease.
“Put your sharp woman’s claws away, Abizoth,” the captain commanded.
“Can’t you see how you’re troubling the slave-king? Why, I couldn’t let any harm come to the good and honest Adonda Gomba! No, for he has been my friend for too many years and would not lie to me.”
He turned to the thugs who still held Gomba. “Let him up. He knows nothing.”
Released, the Nubian threw himself at Ramanon’s feet, but the captain only kicked him away. “None of that, slave-king. Better gather your documents together and get back to work. For your threat cuts two ways, Adonda Gomba, and if work on the pyramid suffers from this time forward ... well, I shan’t have to look far for someone to blame.”
“Meanwhile,” Abizoth whispered, “you’d better keep your eyes and ears open, black dog, if you want to keep them at all. We’re looking for a boy__a blue-eyed, fair-haired youth of fourteen or fifteen years—and when we find him–—If you’ve had anything to do with him since he fled the pyramid, then I’ll be back. And next time the captain will let me come on my own!”
III
Out of the City
With nightfall Adonda Gomba let Khai out of his hideaway. By that time, as the big black had expected, the boy was almost at his wits end. Twice he had fallen asleep, only to be shocked awake by rats scampering over him and nibbling at his crust of bread. In the end he had broken the bread into two pieces, throwing them as far as he could along the bend of the disused sewer before and behind him.
This action, while it doubled and redoubled the squeaking and scampering of the gray horde, had seemed nevertheless to satisfy them for a little while and had the desired effect of causing them to keep their distance—at least until the bread was gone. After that, they had grown more inquisitive than ever.
Once, galvanized into a sort of panic, Khai had actually thrown himself headlong at the rats, crawling frantically along the winding sinus after them until he came to a place where the ceiling had collapsed. While the rats could scamper on ahead without pause, disappearing into the tumbled debris, Khai himself could go no further; and so at last sanity returned. It was then that he had realized how quickly the already nebulous light was failing, and he had been lucky in the end to find his way back to his starting point. He had traveled a surprising distance along the track of the old sewer and there had been a number of junctions along the way, the entrances of which all looked alike in the near darkness; but at last he was back beneath Adonda Gomba’s house.
There, under his breath, panting and trembling, he called himself several sorts of fool and coward, reflecting that the black slave above was risking his very life for him—and here he was afraid of a few rats! But for all that he was able to berate himself, still he longed to be out of the place. To stand in the cool, clean air of the world above, separated from him by only the thickness of a slab of stone that formed part of the floor in the Nubian’s kitchen—which nevertheless seemed a million miles away. So that when at last he heard the thunderous approach of Gomba’s feet, and then a hideous grating as the slab over his head began to move, causing a shower of sand and gritty debris to fall upon him, he almost cried out in joy.
It was plainly just as great a relief to the huge black man to be able to drag Khai out of the hole, and he hugged the trembling boy to him for long moments before pushing him away and holding him at arm’s length. “Brave lad, Khai—you were quiet as a mouse down there!”
Khai shuddered. “Don’t talk to me of mice—” he answered, “or of rats!” “I know, I know,” Gomba nodded, patting his shoulder. “But it’s over now. I’m sorry I left you down there so long, lad, but it had to be. There have been squads of soldiers in the streets all day, poking about here and there, but they’ve more or less given up now. Now we can make you a bit more comfortable—but you’ll still have to stay out of sight for the rest of the night. Tomorrow we’ll move you.” “I’m to be moved?”
“Aye, out of Asorbes and upriver. Eventually out of Khem itself—but that’ll be up to you. Don’t worry, it’s all been worked out for you. But Khai—” “Yes?”
“There’s one thing. If you are caught, I want you to remember something. My life will be in your hands….”
“You’ve no need to worry on that score, Adonda Gomba,” Khai answered at once. “I would never mention your name to any man of the Pharaoh. I might well be questioned, but I would not be harmed. They could threaten but never punish. Pharaoh has plans for me, yes, but they don’t include torture just yet. No, first he would train me for … for other things.” He shuddered and looked closely into the black man’s eyes. “But I won’t be caught, will I?”
“Not if I’ve anything to do with it,” the Nubian gruffly answered. “But quickly now, let’s get you hidden away again.” He saw Khai’s eyes go fearfully to the floor and added: “No, not in the sewer, lad, don’t fret. You’re going upward this time—” and he jerked a thumb at the low ceiling overhead. Khai’s eyes widened. “On the roof?”
“Under it,” the Nubian grinned. “There’s a small gap between the ceiling there and the roof above. It may get chilly before morning, but at least there are no rats. Once you’re up there and comfortable on the rafters, then we can talk—provided we keep it quiet. I’ve a lot to tell you before you can sleep. And when you’ve heard me out, then you’ll need to repeat my instructions over and over to yourself. There’ll be no margin for error tomorrow. Now then, before we do anything else, tell me: can you swim?”