From beneath the hood, the assassin's eyes took it all in: the detachment of red-turbaned guards checking the people as they entered, searching carts, scrutinizing individuals and their baggage alike; and a line of archers on the ledge overlooking the gated entryway—with a nod from the guards below, these bowmen could turn any troublemaker into an instant pincushion.
"You see, Mathayus?" the horse thief whispered, from behind him. "Memnon has the city locked up tight as a blood-gorged tick. . . . We need to turn back."
"But I'm depending on you."
"I know, and I wish there was something I could do."
Mathayus turned to the thief and his smile was broad and terrible. "Oh, but there is."
And the Akkadian drew his arm back and punched Arpid in the face, knocking him instantly out.
Moments later, with the unconscious thief slung over Hanna's saddle, the cloaked Akkadian walked the camel by its reins up to the guards at their gate station. They viewed him with suspicion—but then they viewed everyone with suspicion, so that was to be expected.
"What business have you in Gomorrah?" the burlier of the guards demanded.
"I have come for a bounty," Mathayus said. He nodded toward the figure draped over the camel's saddle. "Arpid—the horse thief. He is a wanted man, I understand."
Another of the guards stepped forward and lifted up the thief's head by its hair, for inspection—Arpid didn't seem to mind, slumbering as he was.
"I know this dog," the guard said. He let out a single nasty laugh. "They'll behead the bastard for sure, this time!"
Mathayus patted the unconscious man's skull with mock affection. "And how much prettier he'll be, for the alteration."
The guards all laughed at that—the Akkadian had judged their sense of humor well—and they waved him on through the gate.
Soon the Akkadian found himself in a buzzing, bustling bazaar, leading his camel and his still-slumbering companion through an exotic array of belly dancers, flame blowers, snake charmers, fire walkers and sword swallowers, an open-air market where vendors sold fruit and vegetables and woven baskets and fine carpets and every other commodity known to man, and perhaps a few previously unknown as well. Dens of iniquity offered sustenance, if one could survive the clientele, and outside one of these rough bars, Mathayus stopped at a horse trough.
The Akkadian dragged the dazed thief down off the camel and dunked his head into the water, bringing the man suddenly around.
"What... what," Arpid sputtered, "what happened?"
"Thanks to your wiles," Mathayus said, "we got past the guards. You got us in."
"Ah ... yes." Water trailed down his face from his sodden hair. "A man who lives by his wits is hard to defeat!"
"Such true words," Mathayus said, lifting the little thief by the scuff of the neck and hauling him over to a crude wooden stool outside the bar, depositing him there.
The Akkadian called out to the proprietor. "A jug of your finest wine for my road weary friend, here!"
Arpid just sat there, dripping wet, bleary-eyed, getting bis bearings, as Mathayus tied up the albino camel at a nearby hitching post. Carefully the assassin removed the pouch of rubies from the hiding place beneath his saddle, and tied the precious bag securely to his belt.
"Watch Hanna for me," Mathayus told his groggy companion, who remained seated on that rough-wood stool.
"You can .. . can count on me," Arpid said, tenderly testing his jaw, which seemed to be sore, for some reason.
"Always," the Akkadian said with a smile, and slipped into the chaos of the crowd.
The little thief stayed at his stool, blinking his way back to a more or less alert state. "Wait a minute!" he said, calling to Mathayus, though the assassin had already disappeared into the flurry of activity that was the marketplace. "The last thing I remember was this enormous fist..."
From the bar, carrying a jug of wine, came a generously shapely, serviceably attractive serving girl overflowing her harem-like attire. She filled a glass for Arpid, who stared up at her appealing if slatternly countenance, already forgetting about the indignity of that Akkadian fist in his face.
"Please, sir," she said, with a sublimely false smile of little-girl innocence, "let me know if there's anything else you'd like."
The horse thief sighed and returned the smile; he seemed dazed again, but it was no longer the effects of Mathayus's fist.
"It is so good," he mused to her, "to be back in the big city again."
Elsewhere, the Akkadian was winding through the whirlpool of commerce, sin and decadence that was the bazaar, making his way toward the palace gates.
"Here they are," a seller of swords was saying, "the finest steel in the land . .. You can't get respect in Gomorrah without a quality blade on your hip!"
But Mathayus was already armed to the teeth, and ignored all such come-ons in the main square, where one could buy anything from damask to damsels; he strode single-mindedly toward the citadel that was Memnon's palace. Finally he stood, hands on his hips, looking up at the heavily armed red turbaned guards walking the ramparts, guarding the gates of this imposing structure, half castle, half fortress.
And just as he was studying the lay of the land, a brood of street urchins manifested itself out of nowhere—the youngest ragamuffin might have been six, the oldest no more than ten, a blur of dirty faces and nimble feet, swirling around him, stirring dust.
"Guide, sir?" one said.
"You need a guide, sir," said another.
'To find your way in Gomorrah, sir," yet another bleated.
Mathayus knelt and summoned the leader of the smudged-faced flock with a curl of a finger. "You, lad—are you a smart enough guide to show me a way into the palace?"
Dark eyes glittered in the dirty, dark face. "A smart guide wouldn't, sir—or he'd get a tour ... of Lord Memnon's dungeon!"
The little gaggle of urchins laughed like magpies, and Mathayus was smiling at them when one alongside him sneaked in and, in a flash of steel, cut the pouch of rubies from the Akkadian's belt!
The culprit sprinted off, and Mathayus raced right after him; but those urchins tagged along, laughing, running, catching up with the boy who'd snagged the pouch and—in a dazzling display of misdirection—began to hand the booty off between themselves, until it was impossible for the Akkadian to tell which boy had wound up with the rubies.
Half guessing, he pursued one of the little brigands, winding through stalls, upending carts and tables of fruit and vegetables, finally catching up with the lad. Taking him by the ankles, Mathayus hauled him in the air and held him upside down—was this how Arpid had started?—and shook the boy; a few coins spilled from the child's pockets, but no pouch.
Frightened, the dangling boy pointed to another, older urchin; this one looked about twelve, and was darting through the stalls with impressive dexterity. The Akkadian dropped his prisoner rudely to the ground, and took off after the older boy ... only to have another of the urchins dash by going in the opposite direction.
The Akkadian, twisted this way and that by the acrobatic street gang, stopped running and leaned against a cart, trying to focus. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted a flicker of movement, and his hand snapped out and caught a boy just darting from behind the stand. Latching onto the gamin's shirt, Mathayus yanked him off the ground and lifted him to his face and looked right into the boy's dark, jumping eyes.
The child smiled, sheepishly, and held out his hand... proferring the precious pouch.
Mathayus took his property back, and put the boy down, the Akkadian's hard gaze instructing him not to run. After Mathayus had again tied the pouch to his belt, he gripped the urchin's jaw in one hand, prying it open, and reached the fingers of his other hand in ... to withdraw a ruby.