Lauren Haney - Path of Shadows

Lieutenant Huy had said-loaded the waste into baskets and carried it away.

The miners’ task was hot, filthy, and laborious, and could be dangerous. Sweat poured from them. Their knuckles were barked, their legs and feet scabbed. These men were not pris oners. A few had come from the surrounding villages, the rest from lands much farther afield. They would receive payment in kind at the end of the mining season and would return to their homes and families wealthier men. Bak would not have exchanged places with them for any number of riches.

Amonmose caught Bak’s eye and grimaced. Psuro looked on with distaste, and Nebre muttered a few words in his own tongue, a prayer no doubt. Of them all, User, Nebenkemet, and Ani appeared the least troubled. The explorer had seen other mines and quarries, and if this offered any surprises, he gave no sign. The burly carpenter wandered around the gallery, peering closely at the walls, examining tools dulled by use and thrown aside to be resharpened, and watching the way the miners performed their task.

Ani looked around with avid interest. “How much turquoise do you get each day?”

Scowling, the overseer walked along the row of miners, picking up the bowls behind them. He brought them back and displayed their contents. Each held three or four blue green stones from the size of a pea to as big as a man’s thumbnail. “We’ve been working the mines since daybreak, three hours at most. When the workmen sort through the waste, they may find a few more nodules, but this looks to be a typical day.”

Ani looked disappointed. “Are the stones always so small?”

“Most, yes, but now and again…” Teti glared at him be neath lowered brows. “I suppose next you’ll want to see all we’ve recovered since our last delivery to the port.”

Ani’s already flushed face turned even redder. “I mean no disrespect, sir, but I earn my daily bread by making jewelry, toiling in the workshop at the royal house. I’ve seen a few large stones, yes, but I longed to see them here, in the place where they…” His voice tailed off, his expression wistful.

“You make jewelry for our sovereign?” Teti eyed the chunky little man with interest-and a new respect. “I never thought to meet such a man. Certainly not out here in this des olate land.” A smile blossomed and he ushered Ani to a shal low chamber near the deepest end of the gallery, “You must see this, sir. It’s the most promising vein we’re following.”

User winked at Bak and they hurried after the pair. Teti tapped the miner on the shoulder and issued an order in an unfamiliar tongue. The man stepped out of the way and the overseer motioned Ani into the chamber. Bak and the others gathered around.

Teti pointed to several blue-green lumps about the size of chickpeas, all more than a hand’s length apart, embedded in a diagonal line down the wall. “It doesn’t look like much, I know, but I’ve a feeling about this vein. I think we’ll get some good pieces out of here.”

“Could I have one of these?” Ani asked, running his fin gers along the row of stones.

Teti looked taken aback. “I’m sorry, sir. If I gave away bits of turquoise to everyone who asked…” He paused, laughed.

“Why not? They’re neither large nor especially precious.” He turned to the miner, hesitated, asked Ani, “Would you not prefer a bigger and more perfect stone? We can pick one out from among those we mined earlier this week.”

“I want this piece, one I’ve seen in its natural state. In fact…” Ani’s plea faltered, then took on a new strength.

“Could I have the sandstone around it, with the turquoise en closed within?”

They visited a dozen other mines. One was more than twenty paces across, lined with small galleries in which men were chippping away the stone. Another was thirty paces wide and half as deep, cut on two levels, with the men fol lowing layers of reddish sandstone sandwiched between bands of yellow stone. They descended a sloping shaft barely large enough to admit a man bent over, where they found a solitary miner. A couple of mines were shallow, gaping mouths whose rough stone faces occupied men fortunate enough to toil in the open air. Much of the roof had recently fallen in an older mine, making access impossible, and a cloud of squeaking bats forced retreat from a small but deep shaft.

All the while, Nebenkemet hovered close to their guide.

His first few questions verified Bak’s initial impression that he was more interested in the mining process than in the turquoise. Teti, who must have reached the same conclusion, began to divide his attention between the craftsman and Ani.

Bak watched with interest this man who seldom spoke but sometimes revealed hidden depths.

As they walked from one mine to another, they passed sev 238

Lauren Haney eral tall memorial tablets left by long-dead kings whose de sire for the blue-green stone was as great if not greater than that of Maatkare Hatshepsut. Teti pointed out the small quar ries from which sandstone was taken for the mansion of the

Lady of Turquoise and a multitude of open-air shrines where the men bent a knee to their gods.

They peeked into long-abandoned mines, some shallow, others deeper and more heavily shadowed, which had been converted to rough dwellings by the miners and prisoners.

Stones outside, etched with unfamiliar symbols, identified the team of men who had laid claim to each shelter and dwelt within. Similar stones identified old mines converted to stor age magazines and the shaft the scribe had taken as his own.

The whole formed a small village of poor dwellings and storehouses better identified and therefore easier to find than those in the capital city of Waset.

They shared a brief, inadequate midday meal of bread and beer in the shaded opening of a storage magazine. By that time, the supplies and water had been safely stowed away, so Suem nut ate with them. Lieutenant Nebamon had told him to remain atop the mountain until Bak was satisfied he had seen enough, but the sergeant urged them to hurry. They would descend by way of a different trail, one too dangerous to risk in poor light.

“As you can see, this place of worship is small,” Teti said, leading them through the open court in front of the mansion of the Lady of Turquoise. “Our sovereign has plans to en large it further, but I see no need. You saw the many shrines scattered over the mountaintop.”

He led them around a square column lying on the ground.

A workman was smoothing the stone face of the Lady of

Turquoise carved at the top. The goddess had the ears of a cow, as she did in her true form of the lady Hathor. “Our scribe serves as priest, making offerings to the Lady of

Turquoise. One of the miners, a wretched foreigner, makes offerings for his people. Rather than the lady Hathor, they think of our goddess as their own lady Ashtoreth.”

Passing through a doorway in a high wall, they walked into a court partly roofed to form a portico. An open doorway led into the sanctuary. Bak was surprised when Teti said they could look inside. In the land of Kemet, none but priests dared tread so close to the dwelling place of the deity.

The rockcut chamber was small and illuminated solely by the light falling through the doorway. Its walls had originally been smoothed as had the surface of the single pillar that supported the ceiling. Prayers for officials who had long ago led expeditions to the mountain of turquoise covered the walls. Many had faded or were flaking away. Recesses held sacred symbols of the goddess: a sistrum, a thick, beaded menat necklace, and a fist-sized chunk of turquoise. A squar ish altar supporting the enclosed shrine in which the statue of the Lady of Turquoise dwelt stood in one corner. Thick smoke, reeking of incense, drifted from the tops of several cone-shaped altars placed around the room.