Lauren Haney - The Right Hand of Amon

"Did you hear anything of a missing officer?" "Whispers," the trader admitted. "Nothing factual, merely rumors. But I took no note of them. How does one lose an officer in a fortress as large and well run as Men?" A good question, Bak thought.

Bak was bartering with a local farmer for dried fowl and fresh vegetables for a midday snack when Pashenuro hurried up with two soldiers who had just been relieved from several days of watch duty, their post a tall, conical hill a brief walk to the south. Their task was to watch the surrounding landscape for intruders, and to relay with mirrors in the daytime or fire at night any critical messages being sent up or downriver. Bak knew of the place, for the stoneand-mudbrick lean-to that sheltered the men from the sun stood among ancient carvings scratched on the rocks. The hill was not quite a shrine, but a place to visit and stand in awe of the long-ago past.

"Doubt if we'd spot a body coming downriver," said the older of the two, a grizzled veteran forty or so years of age.

' `He was caught in the roots of a palm tree," Kasaya said.

The younger soldier, as bald as a melon, laughed. "One tree looks much like another from our post. And a dead man would look little different than a dead bullock."

The older man, noting the doubt on Kasaya's face, hastened to explain. "We're too far from the river to see much. And anyway, our task is to guard the desert trail."

Bak, though he had faith in Meru's guess that Puemre had gone into the water near Iken, stepped in to describe the dead man. "Did anyone answering to that description pass by your post?"

"No, sir," the bald soldier said. "We saw no officers at all, nor any soldiers we didn't know. The only strangers were traders, men with caravans."

"Did you happen to see…" Bak described Seneb's caravan in detail, the men and children and animals.

"Sure we did." The older man spat on the ground to show his contempt. "It was all we could do to make ourselves- stay at our post. But since our sergeant would've served up our heads to Troop Captain Nebwa if we so much as set one foot off that hill, we had to content ourselves with a signal to Kor. Hope it did some good."

"You did well." Bak smiled. "I was summoned from Buhen, and now the trader Seneb is locked away, awaiting his turn to stand before Commandant Thuty." His smile faded. "Now tell me, did he or anyone else in his party ever leave the caravan?"

"I don't know what they did farther upstream, but from the time we first laid eyes on them until they walked into Kor, not a man among them set foot off the trail."

South of Kor, they found the river obstructed by islands, some large enopugh for habitation, others mere boulders, black granite glistening wet from the frothy waters roiling around them. On one of the bigger chunks of land, men as industrious and plentiful as ants climbed among new mudbrick walls rising above the rocks and trees and brush. A fortress was taking shape, replacing a mudbrick fort built in the distant past and long ago fallen to ruin.

They plodded on, deeper into the Belly of Stones. There they found the river wild and angry, as different as night from day to the smooth, sedate flow that passed Buhen. Clusters of rocky islets, many bleak and bare, some green with vegetation, formed a labyrinth of narrow, swift channels and tumbling rapids. Where the channel was clear, the reddish brown water flowed smooth and strong, but across much of the width of the great river, it leaped over boulders and tumbled down falls and whirled in circles around unseen obstacles, whipped into a colorless froth. At times, it collected in quiet pools or rippled through narrow passages or cascaded down steps of glittering black stone. All the while, it whispered and murmured and sang like a living creature, a siren.

Bak was awed by its raw power and its beauty and at the same time he was appalled. A fleeting vision of himself in a skiff, riding these tumultuous waters, sent a chill down his back. He dismissed the thought as fanciful. No sane man would take a boat into bedlam.

Away from the water, a world of golden sand and black rocks stretched out to the west, disappearing in a pinkish haze that blended land and sky. The opposite shore, less encumbered by sand, looked bleak and desolate in the distance, a tortured world of rock eroded by sun and wind, abraded by blowing sand. The rising- sun Khepre slowly climbed the vault of heaven, drawing the moisture from their bodies, burning their flesh, searing the barren land. Their feet, shod in reed sandals, burned with every step. They stopped often to dunk themselves in a pool of still water and drink their fill or merely to look at a river gone mad.

Life went on, even amidst the desolation. Crocodiles sunned themselves on a sandy bank; birds chattered in acacias clinging to tiny pockets of earth; waterfowl paddled among the reeds growing in sheltered coves or skimmed the water in search of an easy meal. They saw no people or houses, but each time they came upon a protected inlet, they found neat rows of onions or melons or lentils and sometimes even a patch of grain.

The stony ridge that paralleled the river gradually drew closer, terminating abruptly in a tall, sheer precipice facing the water. Four soldiers, their long spears close at hand, sat on the rocks atop the formation, watching Bak and his Medjays approach. They were watchmen assigned to the signal station located on that highest point in the region.

Leaving his men at the water's edge beside a tranquil pool, Bak climbed a steep skirt of windblown sand rising up the formation. His feet sank deep in the soft slope; the sand clutched his ankles, making his legs feel heavy. It was a relief to reach the naked rock above the drift, to climb the cracked and broken pinnacle of stone. Three spearmen and a sergeant met him at the top, high above the rapids. Bak read curiosity on their faces and the caution inherent to their task.

The sergeant, a short, powerful man close in age to Bak's twenty-four years, examined his traveling pass, then gave him a long, speculative look. "Not many men choose to climb this pinnacle to pass the time of day. And you an officer, too."

"I've a purpose," Bak assured him with a genial smile. The sergeant remained stern. "And that is?"

The man's duty required him to be suspicious, Bak reminded himself. "I'm in search of information. And since you sit here day after day, high above the river and the desert sands, perhaps you can help me."

The sergeant eyes darted toward the base of the cliff and the two Medjays lazing in the water. "You must be the police officer from Buhen. The one who's come to find the man who slew Lieutenant Puemre."

Bak stiffened, surprised. "You've heard of my errand already?"

"We saw your Medjay sergeant come and go yesterday, and a courier from Commandant Thuty passed by last night.

Then this morning, when our supplies were dropped off by the desert patrol, we learned of your purpose, for word has spread through Iken like the grains of sand blown in on a storm."

Bak frowned. The fact that Commander Woser had repeated the message was interesting, for he had essentially admitted publicly that he had failed to satisfy Thuty, his superior officer. But if the admission carried any subtle meaning, it eluded him.

"You must be dry after so long a walk," the sergeant said, more amiable now. "How about a jar of beer?" Accepting with a nod, Bak followed him to a reed lean-to built against a crude mudbrick hut. The shelter stood just below the summit among the fallen walls of several older ruined buildings. Beyond, on the desert side of the ridge, he glimpsed additional watchmen. Four large porous water amphorae leaned against a shaded wall, and a dozen smaller jars hung from the frame of the lean-to. They swung gently back and forth in a light breeze that drifted across the ridge, providing a breath of air.