In the meantime, in a pile at Mathayus's feet, Arpid had come to his own sliding stop, and was busy coughing up dust. Finally the thief was able to speak, and he smiled up at the assassin, displaying what in more civilized days would come to be described as a shit-eating grin.
"Well! God be praised...." The thief coughed. "We were just looking for you...."
"You found me," the Akkadian said.
Arpid climbed painfully to his feet, the assassin offering no help. As he was brushing himself off, the thief finally noticed the beautiful woman in their midst.
"Well, well," he said. "Who's your comely friend?"
"That's the sorcerer," the Akkadian said flatly.
The thief's eyes widened. "What do you mean?"
"I mean what I said: that's Memnon's sorcerer. Sorceress." And now he turned to the woman, nodding toward Hanna. "Climb on."
With a sigh of resignation, the lovely woman stepped forward, the feminine shape of her playing wonderful tricks under the loose robes.
"Hurry up," the Akkadian said. "Night is coming."
She allowed him to lift her up on the camel.
Arpid was staring at the woman, agape. "Great gods ... You've stolen the warlord's sorcerer! I don't know whether to laugh or cry."
"Choke, for all I care," Mathayus said.
"Partner... why so cross with me?"
The Akkadian was examining his mount, checking to see if Hanna was all right. "You were running off with my camel, thief."
Brushing himself off some more, Arpid said, mildly miffed, "If you were paying any attention at all, my friend, you'll know that your camel was run-ning off with me."
Mathayus swung up into the saddle, behind the sorceress; the nomadic affair was large enough to accommodate them both, if snugly.
Then the Akkadian nudged the camel to motion, and they trotted away, leaving the thief behind, yet again. He scrambled after them, crying, "So ... partner ... friend—where to now?"
"The Valley of the Dead," the Akkadian said casually.
Arpid frowned, slowed. "The ..."
"Valley."
"... of the..."
"Dead. Yes. Join us, if you like."
As the Akkadian and his lovely hostage rode off, Arpid stopped and yelled at them, and at the sky. "Are you a madman? Nobody enters the Valley of the Dead . . . that's why they call it the Valley of the Dead! You go in alive, you stay in there, dead! ... Even Memnon's army wouldn't dare go there!"
Mathayus, bouncing along, granted the thief a backward glance. "Not even to regain his sorceress? The source of his battle prowess?"
Arpid trotted after them, a few hesitant steps. "Well..."
"Of course he would! Memnon would send his men to the ends of the earth to get her back—to their deaths, if need be!"
Arpid swallowed, jogging along unenthusiastically. "It's not their deaths that trouble me, partner. .. . What about ours?"
But Mathayus had no answer for that, and rode along in silence. The sorceress said nothing either, and even Arpid had naught to say... though tag along he did.
Night had fallen on Gomorrah, and in the majestic throne room of Memnon, the warlord's two most trusted military advisers awaited his orders. That faithful servant, the scarred Thorak, stood by, waiting, hanging on his master's every word, every movement. That more recent addition to the inner circle, the patricidal Takmet, lounged at a table, sipping wine, as if disaster had not fallen.
But it had.
Troubled on his throne, the Great Teacher sat studying squirming scorpions in a glass bowl on the wide stone armrest beside him. He withdrew from his belt the dagger he'd appropriated from the Akkadian, and he sent it lancing down, spearing one of the wriggling arachnids. The deliberateness of that act now seemed at odds with his facial expression, as the warlord lifted the dagger with the writhing, dying scorpion impaled there, watching it with seemingly idle interest.
'Take a dozen of your best men," Memnon said suddenly, and Thorak snapped to attention and Takmet looked up, "track him down ... kill him ... and bring Cassandra back to me."
Thorak nodded a curt bow. "Yes, my lord."
Memnon drew the thin sharp blade down the abdomen of the scorpion, splitting it open to the tail, ending its struggle.
"Send our fastest rider back to me, with word of his death," Memnon said. "And of her safety."
Memnon reached into a quiver next to the throne and withdrew an arrow, the tip of which he poked into the venom sac of the dead scorpion. He twisted the arrow's tip, turned it, thoroughly soaking it in the poison.
"My lord," Takmet said, rising finally, "rumors have spread to our armies that Cassandra has been taken."
Memnon turned sharply to Thorak. "Is that true? Do such rumors fly?"
The scarred commander glared at his fellow adviser, conveying his aggravation at Takmet's stirring up trouble; then his gaze returned to his master, and he said, "Yes, my lord. Of course, our generals, and our officers in the field, will need to know of her abduction ... in order to rescue her."
"They will not rescue her—you will. And the men you ride with need not know, until the sorceress has been restored to our custody."
"Yes, my lord."
The warlord frowned in thought. "Silence these rumors. Kill those with traitorous tongues, at your discretion. The people must believe the prophetess is here, even if we can only sustain the deception a short while."
Thorak nodded.
"And when you see the Akkadian," Memnon added, "give him this for me."
And the warlord handed his adviser the poison-tipped arrow, which Thorak handled judiciously, shielding the tip in a leather cover.
Within the hour, Thorak and his personal cadre of his toughest, most trusted men—chosen from among the red-turbaned royal guards—galloped from the fortress city, into the night. Into the underworld, if necessary.
And in his imperial chamber, the Teacher of Men stood ponderingly at a heavy stone tablet, displayed in a golden frame near his throne. This inscribed slab was ancient, even in these ancient times, and bore a crude form of hieroglyphics only the most learned scholars could decipher.
The warlord's fingers ran slowly across the symbols, his touch respectful, almost tender, his expression that of a man in a spell. His fingertips lingered on an etching of a man, whose arms were raised in triumph, seemingly mimicked by tongues of fire rising behind him.
Then Memnon's fingers came to rest upon a carved moon emblem, at the very bottom of the inscribed tablet.
A very short time now, he thought, and all would be his .. . starting with the woman, Cassandra, and ending with the world itself.
By the middle of the next day, the trio of travelers had crossed the nomadic plains and would soon enter the desert. The Akkadian had built some grudging respect for the little thief, who had managed to keep pace, as the camel loped along.
Of course Hanna—bearing both Mathayus and, seated in front of him, Cassandra—was slowed by the burden; and from time to time Mathayus had walked, himself, leading the camel bearing the sorceress along.
At the crest of a rugged hilltop, three twelve-foot poles awaited them—warning signs for those who would enter the forbidden land ahead, the Valley of the Dead of legend. Each wooden shaft bore various human skulls intertwined with small animal bones, snakes mostly, and the dried skins of men who had dared pass this way.
The little horse thief did not find this a tempting invitation, saying, "I'm guessing this means we've gone far enough."
From the ridge they could see the unforgiving landscape that awaited them—pockmarked earth scattered with mud hills, stretching to a desolate horizon. Beyond that, a devastating desert awaited, if the map Mathayus held could be trusted.