Sword of Ra
Written by Robert W. Krepps [as by Geoff St. Reynard]
Illustrated by Robert Gibson Jones
Originally published in Fantastic Adventures, February 1951
Part 1
As a soldier Khafre had defeated many men in mortal combat. But now as a temple priest he faced the wrath of a Goddess...
CHAPTER I
THEY SAT in comfortable armchairs on the jasmine terrace, with Ateera like a lovely child asprawl at their feet. Each of them had spoken in turn of his profession; lazily, for the day was hot, yet with the gravity that befits a man when he talks of his prime business in life. The priest bad told a story of the nine great gods of the Engead, who were before all other gods. The soldier had described with his long homely face alight how his troop of Nubians had conquered their foe-men "so easily, so almost carelessly!" in the last action of the recent Barbarian skirmish in the south. The professional embalmer had mentioned the rising price of canopic jars, which held the viscera of a mummy; and amiably damned the grasping artisans who made them. Then, before they could begin the eternal argument as to which of their trades was most vital to the well-being of their country, Ateera said suddenly, "Look at the Nile!”
They stretched their necks and peered over the jasmine shrubs that grew on the rim of the terrace.
"Well?" said Khafre, the priest.
“See how the sun and the wind play at a game of fighting for the river!" the girl went on. "The sun puts a coat of his silver on the pale blue waters, and the wind, which always blows coolly out of the north, shatters the silver into millions of facets and shards, so that the blue shows through agalo. It's a game be tween them."
The trio of men regarded her silently. Then Horemheb the embalmer said slowly, "Sekht the ka-priest should not let his daughter run at large this way, because although she is nineteen she is still a very small child, who interrupts her elders with whimsical nonsense when they're talking great affairs of state.” They all laughed. She put out her tongue at them.
It was the month of Athyr, the afternoon of the sixth day in the second decade in the month of Athyr, with the sun in the sign of the Scorpion. It was the third year of the peaceful reign of Amenemhet III, the son of the third Sesostris; the Twelfth Dynasty was in its glory. But more important to the land of Egypt than all these dates and kings and dynasties was the fact that the Nile was several weeks sunken from its crest, and now it was time to sow the sorghum and wheat and barley. The Pleiades were all but set from the night skies, and Father Nile having retreated from his yearly flooding peak, the farmers were out with their implements and their bags of grain. Amenemhet was a splendid monarch, doubtless; but the Nile was once more sinking, and the life of Egypt must again be renewed from the seed sacks.
Thinking of these things, Horemheb pointed out across the waters. "They're sowing barley today in the great fields of your father," he said to Ateera. "By Isis, friends, you may chatter of fighting and prate of praying till you're blue in the face, yes, and I may mumble of undertaking, too! But where would we all be if it weren't for those sun-scorched fellows out there planting their barley?" He bent forward and looked at them with a scowl, as if he were going to make some weighty pronouncement. “We'd be sitting here with dry throats and no beer, that's where'd we be!"
Young Khafre chuckled. A hand some man of twenty-eight, clad in the undyed linen of the priesthood but framed and muscled like a swords man, he appeared to burn with vitality even when he rested. It was odd to see him a religious. From sandals to lean classic face, in which dark eyes glittered Joyously under straight black brows, he radiated adventure. This is a man, you would have said, who will make things happen.
"That trick of yours, Horemheb," he said, grinning. "That look of heavy thought, followed by some inane re mark about beer, or women, or one or another little thing "
"Little? Beer? Women? Oh, Khafre," said the embalmer, “you talk like a positive priest.”
THEY ALL laughed, the four friends; and Khafre would re call that it was the last time they laughed together for some days.
Ateera dipped a bronze cup in the jar of barley beer and handed it to the embalmer, who took it with an anticipatory smack of his lips. The Egyptian captain of Nubians, whose name was Ramaos, pushed back his tall helmet and said, "Pomegranate juice for me, Ateera, if you please.”
The young priest Khafre had turned his head to look down toward the town. "Who's this?” he asked, standing up. "A stranger coming to the temple, I think. Wait for me here, while I greet him."
“Sit down, Khafre, he's turned off. He sees us."
Khafre sat down on the edge of his armchair, that was made of tamarisk wood inlaid with ebony. "I don't know," he said aloud, for no particular reason. "I don't know. I feel queer.”
“Too much beer."
"One cup! No, I—my backbone crawls. As though a man were notching his arrow behind me."
Ramaos, who understood such feelings, said quickly, "Perhaps this is an enemy, Khafre. You have been a fighter, and will never lose your sixth sense.”
Khafre nodded absently, "Ra may indeed be warning me of danger."
Horemheb the embalmer, who was a skeptic, looked down his nose and drawled a quiet "Hmmm." Ateera said, "He is not an ill-looking man, if somewhat too thin for my taste."
"Such brazen remarks do not become the daughter of an important ka-priest, my dear," remarked Horemheb jokingly, but neither the soldier nor the priest laughed. They were glancing, now at the approaching stranger, now at each other; and they were not quite comfortable.
"Is he a priest?" asked Ramaos.
“Yes, but his garments are strange to me. What god he serves, I don't know. The man may be all very well, but—Ramaos, do you remember when we fought the Bedouin Arabs in the south, and I slew the leader who was cutting at your head?"
"In the days when you were called the Brand of Ra, a free-lancing adventurer, though born to the priest hood. I remember, Khafre. I still carry the scar on my shoulder, where his blade slid down as he dropped.”
"When we first sighted him, alone on a sand dune, I felt as I do now, Ramaos."
The soldier looked serious and bit his lip. “Now Sekht aid us! This is not to be taken lightly."
"Hush, he can hear us now." Khafre stood up and bowed formally, "Praise Ra who floods the Two Lands with light, for he has brought you safely a great distance, brother," said he in the prescribed formula. “Thanks also to Isis for your unexpected company."
"Praise Ra," said the strange priest curtly, halting before them. "I seek the Divine Fathers of this temple." He was not unhandsome in feature, as the girl had said; his skin was lighter than the deep ruddy bronze of the four friends, he was lean and tall, and his face held a saturnine, sly look. "I am Psamtik, priest of the great goddess Bast in Bubastis of Lower Egypt to the north. Where are the Divine Fathers?"
“I am Khafre, priest in charge of the temple, which is sacred to Thueris. The Divine Fathers have sailed to Memphis at the request of the king..." his voice dwindled off. It was no business of this fellow's that the Divine Fathers had hastened away at a call of Pharaoh's, who had suddenly been seized with a desire to know all about the hippopotamus goddess, Thueris. This temple was the most important one in Egypt to be dedicated to her, therefore Amenemhet had beckoned, and Khafre, who had been a priest for only six years, found himself suddenly in full charge of the other priests and the rites and duties. They have journeyed to Memphis," he said again, "and will be gone some months. Can I serve you? I am the senior priest.”
PSAMTIK LOOKED at him.
“Young for it,” said he. "Well, Khafre, I will talk to you, then. Am I invited to be sealed and partake of some beverage? Dark red wine out of Syria, perhaps, or Keda beer?"
"There is barley brew, and pomegranate juice in that jug."
“So large a temple, too," said the stranger, sitting down in one of the armchairs. "I expected Syrian wine at the least. Thank you, girl," as Ateera gave him a bronze cup.
"This is the embalmer Horemheb, the captain of Nubians Ramaos, and Ateera, daughter of the ka-priest Sekht," said the young priest uncomfortably. The stranger was not like able. "We prefer our own barley beer in this town, Psamtik. And we did not expect guests."
Psamtik crossed his legs, pushing aside the straight bronze sword he wore in a scabbard hanging from his girdle, “I meant no offense, brother. It was only that, well, such a large temple—there must be plenty of money in this town. Riches in grain and oil and timber, cattle and sheep and linen...copper and silver and gold too. Yes, Plenty of wealth in a place this big, and sporting such a temple.”
"We have rich men hereabouts," said Horemheb complacently. "They have very large and very expensive funerals, Bless 'em all!”
Psamtik nodded. “And there must be enormous income to the temple, as it's the only major one in the place. Amulets and such-like to be sold by the hundreds, eh? Revenue in ring money and land from the grateful supplicants. Right?"
Khafre bounded up, the trained muscles of a fighter taking him to his feet almost without the volition of his angry brain. He shouted, "What affair is it of yours, Psamtik, what revenues we take? They are small, only enough for the needs of our priests and for the proper worship of Thueris. Do you imply that we—“
"Sit down, young hothead. I imply nothing. I was merely making talk, and it seemed that the major temple of a flourishing town should be wealthy. Well, well! This is no auspicious beginning, is it? And I had hoped to find a friend in you, Khafre, for I am a missionary sent by my goddess to these parts."
"A missionary?"
"One who travels to distant parts in behalf of his god or goddess." Psamtik looked at the nearby temple in a calculating fashion. “Easily convertible, yes. We might even use those ugly statues of the hippo goddess, which are made of excellent rose granite; we could have artisans cut those hulking proportions down and bring to light a really beautiful cat's head where now sits a stupid-looking hippo's skull...”
“What are you saying?” growled Khafre in a red rage.
“Why, my friend, I hope to persuade you that Bast is so far superior to your blundering hippopotamus Thueris that you will gladly fall in with my scheme—I mean my glorious plan—which is no less than to
begin the spread of Bast's worship over all Egypt right here in your temple!" said Psamtik, his saturnine face taking on a look of righteousness that would have fooled almost anyone who had not seen how greedy that face had been a moment before. "Your Divine Fathers will return to find their temple enlarged, gaining immeasurably in revenue, and dedicated net to this plump and unattractive river-creature, but to the superb sleek cat goddess of Bubastis! What a surprise, eh? How you will grow in their regard! How—“
"How fast you move," murmured Horemheb the embalmer.
KHAFRE, WHO had managed to seat himself, leaped up again. "What drivel are you speaking, Psamtik? Change the goddess of our temple, raise our income, re-dedicate—I begin to think you are a dangerous madman."
"Manners, manners," said Horemheb gently. "Let me speak a minute. Allow me to sum up, sir. You are a missionary of the cat-headed Bast?”
"I am, sir."
"I have traveled greatly. I believe I recall this Bast. Her worship flourishes at a little place in Lower Egypt called Bubastis, where they celebrate a festival, a rather obstreperous festival, once a year."
"That is correct, embalmer," said Psamtik, grinning. "But let us say the worshipers are eager, and loud in their praises, rather than obstreperous."
"As you will. Now you intend to spread her worship throughout Egypt, beginning here at our un worthy town."
"Oh, don't call it unworthy!"
"A form of speech, sir. I esteem this pleasant place, I who have seen Syria and Ethiopia and Nineveh.
Babylonia and Phoenicia and so many other cities and countries I can't re call them all. It's quiet here, and peaceful for an old man of forty-two. But I was recapitulating: you are going to—uh, carry the word, shall we say, to all the poor heathen places that know not Bast. You intend to step in, as for example here, and re carve the statues into likenesses of your feline, raise the revenues to a suitable level for such an important deity, see that the devotion of the populace is centered on her, and then move on, having profited—”
"Oh, only by the gratitude and es teem of yourselves, I assure you. I am an altruist," said Psamtik, in the oily-chuckling tone of one who does not care whether he is believed or not. "Devoted to Bast, I wish only to see her get her desserts."
"Which she will, doubtless," said Ramaos thoughtfully, eyeing his friend Khafre.
"I think you must be quite mad," said that gentleman to Psamtik. "The heat of the day is brewing your brains, priest of the cat."
Psamtik looked at him without ran cor. "Not so mad that I cannot wonder over this place, brother. A strange situation! Big temple, purportedly small revenue, young-very young-priest in full charge. Why? It isn't quite what I expected..."
"I had a vision of Ra!” said Khafre hotly. "It was confirmed as such by the Divine Fathers! I am the senior priest in experience, not in actual years of service."
"Ah, yes, of course. But why are there not a number of townsfolk at the temple, purchasing amulets and charms, making their devotions in payments of oil, spelt, and fruits? Surely—“
"Priest of the cat, I do not like you," said Khafre between his teeth.
"I do not like you at all. I suggest you take your way into the north again."
THE STRANGER stood up. “We will speak of this soon again," he said quietly, and strode unceremoniously away without a farewell. The four looked after him, and Horemheb said, "I don't understand something about this."
"I don't understand anything," said Khafre.
“That's because you were born to be a swashbuckling adventurer, rather than a subtle priest. I have the brain of a Pharaoh, myself," said the embalmer. "It's all plain to me. Except for one thing."
"Then tell us,” said Ramaos, tugging his helmet into place from where it had slipped sideways on his shaven head.
"He's got a clever idea there. He insinuates himself, persuades the Divine Fathers of a temple to transfer their worship from one god to an other, and rakes in the ring-money and land. Settles down and lives in princely fashion as a sort of power behind-the-altar. The thing I don't understand is, why does he come here sowing the seed of this plan in such a slipshod, take-it-or-leave-it, high handed way? Why is he such a—such an apparent blunderer in his ground work? Why should he slam out with his notion just like that, ignore the sort of impression he's making, grin at being called names, and stalk off after he's done no more than hurl the basic idea at you? No, there's something behind this business, Khafre, something that doesn't meet the eye, and I don't much like it," said the embalmer, tugging fretfully at the small metal beard tied to his chin. “There's trouble a-boil, lads."
"What if he doesn't have to bother about making himself like-able?" asked Ateera suddenly. "What if he's so powerful that he can afford to act like that? If he has some strength behind him greater than his own?"
“Dear Ateera," said Ramaos, "my Nubians can smash any force he might bring here, I promise you."
"I didn't mean that," said the girl, huddling up at Khafre's knees as though she were cold. "I meant, not a mortal army, but an immortal goddess. What if his Bast is truly strong er than—than Thueris?"
"But we have the strength of Ra also," said the soldier confidently. "You know of Khafre's vision. Ra himself guards our priest."
Horemheb made a guttural noise of kindly ridicule. "Khafre's vision!” he said.
Khafre laid his hand on the girl's dark wealth of hair, and her great almond-shaped eyes, tawny ocher color against the bronze flawless skin, turned up to him lovingly, though he did not see them. He was looking at the embalmer.
"Horemheb," he said, "we know you are a disbeliever in anything above man, and because we love you we respect your opinions; but you should not laugh at my vision."
"I don't laugh at it, son. I simply regard it as an illusion."
"Illusion!" Khafre would have bounced up again had the girl not been in the way. "I saw our Father Ra as plainly as I see you in this instant! He was as real as this sun light!” They had all heard the story many times, but he told it again. "Six years ago, in the month of Khoiak, I had come in my adventuring to a place of dismal swampland; and being careless, lost my footing and fell into a morass. I was sinking—aye, was up to my chin in the foul muck—when Ra appeared and grasping my hand pulled me forth with the strength of a dozen buffalo!”
"Very tangible sort of vision,” muttered Horemheb.
"When he had set me on my feet I looked at him, and his beard was not false, but grew in flaming profusion all round his face, and both face and beard were red as the sun! At bis side hung a sword of silver metal, gleaming brilliantly; his limbs were like great trees, knotted with muscle! He smiled on me, and I knew him for the greatest god of all, Ra!"
"My poor dear deluded friend," said Horemheb gently, "it was some well-disposed Barbarian or another."
"It was Ra! For when I had cleansed the slime from my body, he had vanished. I sought him every where, but he was gone. Then I took a vow to go back to the priesthood I was born to, and seeing a hippopota mus shortly thereafter, knew that I must serve Thueris and through her, Ra himself.” Khafre was silent a moment. “So it may be as Ramaos says, and we needn't fear this fellow Psamtik inordinately, no matter what his power, because Ra guards our temple as well as Thueris."
Horemheb fumbled in his linen garments and drew out a tiny idol of bronze with a gold head and bright eyes of green enamel. "I found this mite in the ruins of an ancient clay brick temple beside the Nile," he said. "I carry her to remind myself of something. In years aforetime, in the days of the remote Old Kingdom, before the Pyramid builders wrought their mighty works of futility, this wee idol was a god. Now her name is forgotten, the smoke of her worship no longer ascends to the heavens, and she is no more. So in time shall all your gods and goddesses be, Khafre. I have seen trees propitiated in the jungles, and black stones venerated in the desert. I look at your temples reared to Thueris and Sekhmet and Osiris, and I fondle my little lost mite with her green eyes and I smile. Futility, all that man makes is futility."
“You talk to hear yourself," said Ateera scornfully. "We know your great heart and the trouble you take to disguise it, Horemheb."
"Oh, I love my fellow man," said Horemheb, smiling. “I feel compassion for him. But I cannot help chuck ling at his self-made gods.”
“Which is a far cry from Psamtik and his curious proposal," said the soldier. "The man bewilders me. He's certainly cursed with an unfortunate personality. Isis! He made my hand itch for my sword's hilt."
"I say he's mad, and may be dangerous," said Khafre slowly.
"I say he's shrewd, but with a blind spot—he can't help grating on people's nerves," put in the embalmer.
"And I say watch him," counciled Ateera, her head on Khafre's knees. "Watch him, for surely he has out his trust in something stronger than he is...something, perhaps, stronger than us all."
CHAPTER II
THE FOUR friends stood together—before the temple. The doorway, flanked by pylons, truncated pyramids of limestone, yawned darkly in the twilight. Twin statues of Thueris fronted the sloped pylons, and Horemheb leaned familiarly on the right hand one and said, “Well, son, you know whom to call for if you need help."
"My Nubians need no more than an instant's notice," agreed Ramaos.
"And my father has many slaves who would fight for you, Khafre," said Ateera.
“What would violence avail him?" asked the young priest reasonably. "Do you think he intends to slay me and capture the temple as though it were a hostile fortification? He'd need many men for such an attack, and even if he is mad, surely he can't have found a score of mad followers."
"I wasn't thinking in terms of violence exactly," said the embalmer. "I was—oh, never mind. We're all making this an affair of vast importance, when Psamtik only gave you a proposal, after all. Let's go to supper."
But as they were all walking off, Horemheb hesitated and came back. "Khafre, I'll be up later, to see if matters are well."
"Thanks, Horemheb. We'll have an argument about the gods."
"Bah," said the embalmer, turning away again. "Always trying to con vert a man. Eat well, Khafre." He hurried after the others.
Khafre strolled into the doorway and through the first roofless court yard to the hypo-style hall with its decorated pillars of many vivid colors lit now by the flares of oil lamps; he found himself glancing behind each column as he went down the wide center aisle, and tried to laugh at the nervous precaution. But the muscles of his back twitched and rippled, and he knew that his old soldier-of-fortune's instincts were at work in the secret channels of his mind. He thought of Psamtik...a strange and ominous being!
He passed through the small sanctuaries, nodding to several other priests, and went into his own quarters. His servant had laid out a hearty supper: a quail stuffed with leeks and nuts and celery, a triagonal loaf of fine wheaten bread, radishes, onions, roots of garlic, honey-cake, a couple of slices of veal, barley beer and sweet Nile water and a fat bunch of grapes to top it off. He ate quickly, cleaning up the entire array. When he had been an adventurer—The Brand of Ra they had called him, he whose sword was a tongue of living flame—he had learned that food some times came at odd intervals, and must be eaten promptly before enemies appeared or other calamities interfered. The half-dozen years of priesthood had not cured him of wolfing his victuals, of storing up all the food he could get against the lean days which might come.
Popping into his mouth a lozenge flavored with Persian zizafun fruit, he arose and walked out past the sanctuaries into the great colonnaded hall.
The shadows of the multitudes of pillars were black and flickered eerily. It was odd that he had never noticed it before, The effect was—it was weird!
Take a grip on your nerves, Khafre, said he to himself. Not weird, but impressive; not eerie, but solemn, stir ring the mind to thoughts of the gods and their majestic ways.
He passed a long side aisle, glancing automatically toward a seated statue of the hippo goddess down at the far end. Four steps past it he halted, stiffening—
What had he seen there?
Hold hard, Khafre. Don't leap back like a frightened girl to stare with bulging eyes at the statue. Don't let imagination curdle your blood. Walk at a suitable pace down the side aisle, to assure yourself that your vision was playing tricks on you. Grin at your silly mistake.
He turned and went back to the aisle and strode down it to the end, where Thueris sat her gilded throne in magnificent obesity against a blank expanse of sandstone, one of a number of similar statues round the walls.
Gilt throne very stately and solid. Thueris all correct, with her expression of amiable absence of thought. Wall as thick and substantial as ever. Nothing moving behind the ranks of columns graded back into darkness. Oil lamps flaring steadily.
How could he have imagined what he had seen there? Too much supper, perhaps, or a blurring of the eyeballs due to weariness.
But he was far from weary, and his meal had been no more than usu ally abundant. What, then, could have made him think he saw someone sit ting-incredible sacrilege!—on the lap of the goddess?
What had caused the momentary apparition of a woman in filmy blue and white robes, sitting languidly with her arms on Thueris' arms and her head cocked quizzically in the lamp light as she eyed him with great green glowing eyes of opalescent fire?
Eyes of malachite flashing terribly in the head of a giant cat!
CHAPTER III
KHAFRE awoke with his eyes open, his legs tensing, his hand reaching for a sword all in the fraction of a second between sleep and awareness. The sleeping chamber was dark as the heart of Set the boar-god. In the other bed c choked and gurgled in his sleep. The embalmer had sat late with him and decided to pass the night in the temple, a rather irregular procedure but allowable to one who held so sacred an office, atheist though he might be. No other sound came to the priest's keen ears, but nonetheless he groped for his bronze sword. It was not at his bed side. He reached behind the wooden pillow and drew out a narrow-bladed ivory dagger, Rolling over swiftly he came to his feet on the floor beside his couch. Nothing stirred.
He sniffed suspiciously. Then he put a hand on Horemheb's shoulder and shook him.
"What passes?" grunted the other.
"I don't know. Something woke me just now. I had a dream—a curious dream about a cat. Wake up, Horemheb, and see if you can smell anything unusual."
The embalmer sat up and Khafre heard him snuffle loudly. "I smell garlic," he said sourly. "Why you eat the accursed root I can't imagine. I smell a room that's been slept in. I smell a faint wisp of incense from the idols without. Hmm. No more."
"I smell two things more," said Khafre, “which may be too evanescent for the withered nose of an undertaker to catch, plagued daily as it is by the odors of brine, spices, bitumen and natron,”
"Brag and yammer? What are these fleeting scents?”
Khafre frowned in the darkness. "Perfume and the redolence of a cat's fur."
Horemheb inhaled again. "Perfume. Yes, by the scattered bones of Osiris! Faint, sweet, almost like the incense but differing slightly. You're right, Khafre, it's the perfume of a woman's unguent?" He chuckled. "You sly dog, who've you got in here, eh?"
Khafre, ignoring this, struck a light and ignited an oil lamp. His bronze sword lay on the floor beside his rumpled bed. He picked it up. "I leaned that against my stool. If it had fallen we'd both have wakened. Strange...ah!” he cried, as one of the temple cats jumped out from under his couch and scuttled for the doorway. “No you don't, lady puss!” He snatched her up and buried his nose in her fur.
“There's your feline effluvium," said the embalmer, lying back.
Khafre removed his nose and let the cat drop. It shot away into the dark. "No," he said in a puzzled voice, "it was a different sort of cat I smelled first. I can't exactly tell the difference, but well, it smelled dead, rather."
"Gods, what a nose! It smells a dead cat lying down by the Nile."
"But not too dead, you know, not stinking, only like a dried and cured hide of a cat. Like a lion's pelt, a little, or a charioteer's robe of leopard skin."
"Go to sleep, Oh nose that walks like & man," grumbled Horemheb, put ting an arm over his eyes.
"I think I'll just take a stroll round the temple first," said Khafre, belting on a linen garment with his sword harness. "Come along?”
"Not for a silver talent."
"Sleep, then, old man, The ancient need —“
Horemheb rose on an elbow, gave him a dreadful look of loathing, and with a sigh got off the couch and began to feel with his toes for his sandals. Khafre pushed him back and laughingly took his way into the recesses of the temple. Horemheb scratched his chest sleepily, then got out of bed and began to look for his false beard. Such imitation whiskers were ordinarily worn only on ceremonial occasions, but Horemheb never appeared without his at any time. It was a kind of private jest with him, the little metal beard. Where had he put it?
KHAFRE walked rapidly along the central nave, staring hard at each column as he passed it. He favored the seated statue of Thueris with an especially long look. Old placid Thueris eyed him back, no desecrating presence on her lap this time, at any rate. Khafre left the hypo-style ball and crossed the open courtyard, that was dim and ghostly in the waning moonlight. He felt as though someone were calling to him from an immeasurable distance, as though it was that which had awakened him. Some thing calling...calling with a trace of woman's perfume and the curious smell of cat.
He came out of the doorway in the great facade of the temple, and saw, standing beside one of the flanking statues, the priest from Bubastis.
"Psamtik!" he said, touching his sword, "What are you doing here at this hour?"
"I remind you, brother, that I'm a priest too, and may wander at will through your precincts." Psamtik's face was shadowed and saturnine. "I was just admiring the exquisite appearance of the place by moonlight. Wait till we've made these homely creatures into portraits of Bast, my friend! It will add unbelievably to the effect. Slice down these hog-jowls and slim these fat bodies to the likeness of my goddess—ho, what a difference!"
"You are a madman," said Khafre, keeping a tight rein on his emotions. "As such I pity your babblings, and do not kill you, Go away, Psamtik. We will not re-dedicate this temple to any feline deity. Go home and try to regain your sanity."
"Queer, that's what your girl was saying to me only this evening," said the priest, leaning comfortably against Thueris' haunch.
“My girl?" repeated Khafre blankly.
"Ateera. I visited the ka-priest Sekht, as a matter of courtesy, and while telling him my plans for the temple was interrupted and reviled by the girl.”
"Ateera is not my affianced,” said Khafre formally.
"Well, you're blind as an eyeless river-worm, then, for she's in love with you, and a prettier wench I never saw, albeit her face is a little flat." Psamtik stretched. Khafre realized suddenly that the man's movements were catlike, slow and graceful as the animal whose hybrid likeness he claimed to serve. "I hope you've been giving some thought to my proposition," he went on, "because where I go Bast goes; I'm a special favorite of hers, you see, She's powerful—she will be more so. Things happen to those who scorn my requests, friend priest,” he said, and his shadowed face abruptly thrust forward so that his sloe-colored eyes glittered directly into Khafre's. "Things that are decidedly unpleasant. Bast is a jealous goddess. Be wise, friend; let us sit and discuss my proposition over a jug of Syrian wine."
"I'll discuss nothing with you, Psamtik, Look, man," said Khafre, trying to talk sense into him, "if you must spread your Bastite worship hereabouts (and Ra knows I would not stop you, for all the gods must have their just due), why then, set up your own temple. Do as the ancient priests of Thueris did, beginning with a small house of sun-baked bricks of river mud. Gain your prestige and revenue slowly, as is proper and right for our craft. Why must you sail in like a king's heedless plea sure boat on the Nile, running down those who stand in your way, making demands that are fantastic and ridiculous? Such devotion as yours to Bast should produce great results if channeled rightly, Psamtik!” He paused for breath, and then asked, "What would the Divine Fathers say, if I were fool enough to fall in with your scheme? What would Pharaoh himself say, who is now interested in Thueris?"
“They would say, This is a marvelous doing; for they would hear of miracles here such as have not rocked Egypt since the Pyramids were begun. Bast will create miracles that will resound over the Two Lands!” cried Psamtik in a fanatic's voice.
"Miracles?"
"Word would spread throughout the world of them, Khafre!"
“But if such occurred, and I did allow the temple to be re-dedicated to your cat goddess—this is only an example, Psamtik, for I have not that much authority—what would Thueris do in her righteous anger? She would blast me with lightnings."
“NOT WITH Bast on your side. Not after some of the miracles Bast would show. I can promise you that Bast herself would appear in this temple, Khafre!” said the other, prodding him in the chest with a lean forefinger.
"But to re-dedicate a holy temple to another deity—this thing might create a dissension in the ranks of the gods themselves! We could begin a war in the Underworld!"
"And what is that to us, who would be serving the strongest god under Ra? I tell you this Bast is invincible!”
"The idea is completely insane!" roared Khafre; and because he could not think of another argument in the face of this bland idiocy, he hauled out his bronze sword and flourished it. Psamtik hastily took a step back wards.
"Very well, Wait until Bast herself has shown you, brother. Then we'll talk again. But because you have been so stubborn, I think you will grieve over a loss or two before we come to terms. Good night!" He hurried away toward the town.
“Well," said Horemheb out of the gate shadows, and Khafre jumped. "Still more of a brawler than a religious, aren't you, son? If you're at a loss for words you grasp a weapon. Khafre, you're wasted in a temple; you ought to be leading Pharaoh's armies,"
"I thought you'd gone back to sleep," grumbled Khafre.
"No, I've been here. I think I have a line on that gentleman's thought processes, too."
"He's an irresponsible fanatic."
"Oh, a fanatic, doubtless; but not the sort you think. He's a fraudulent fanatic, except that he's mad on wealth. Otherwise he'd be doing what you suggested, building his own temple and starting in a small way to gain devotees. Not that one, though! He's insane with greed. Takes a look at your gigantic temple—really much too big, I've often thought, for this town —and the saliva rises in his mouth with thoughts of gold and silver and land. That man's sort is a plague on Egypt, Khafre. Better a thousand half-reformed adventurers like your self in the priesthood than one dirty grasping thief like him.”
"But what does he hope to gain with these veiled threats and fantastic cajolings?” asked Khafre, all at sea.
"Just what he says: a re-dedication of the temple, with a very big slice of the revenue."
"But I couldn't do a thing like that, even if I would! The Divine Fathers!"
"Are old men, who would tend to fall in with Psamtik's idea if it were already an accomplished fact when they returned. Especially if, as he suggested, there'd been a couple of so-called miracles which seemed to indicate that Bast demanded the change. She's a little goddess, but gods grow and gods decline in stature like the wheat of the field, friend Khafre. He must have done some elementary spy work around here be fore accosting you, and knows the essential weakness of the old head priests. He's spotted you as a tough one, hard to convince but a perfect ally for him once your mind's been changed."
“Which it never will be."
"Naturally. The man's no ally for such as you, or even such an old fumble-fingered scoundrel of an agnostic as I. But there's trouble in the wind, son. He's mad and he's bad, and clever withal."
"And he might have some magical powers,” said Khafre thoughtfully, remembering his momentary vision of the evening.
"Yes," agreed Horemheb seriously, "he might at that. Talking as he did about visions and miracles and all that. He might be a conjurer of a sort. Mind you, I don't believe in much that I can't lay a fingertip to; but sometimes a man has powers that even I can't explain."
"A major victory for me," said Khafre, turning back into the dim courtyard. "I..."
"You what?" asked Horemheb, when the other had been quiet for a full minute.
“What? Oh, I was saying that I'd made you admit there were some few things you couldn't explain, I just remembered..."
"Well, what?"
"Tomorrow—today, rather, for the dawn's near—is the seventeenth day of Athyr."
"So it is."
"A day of ill omen, Horemheb, a day of terrible memory. It was on this date in the twenty-eighth year of his reign that Osiris was murdered by Set. Calamities can happen on such a day.”
"Calamities, friend priest, can hap pen on any blessed day they choose; and the greatest of them at my age is to lose half a night's sleep. Let's go back to bed."
"No, you go. I shall meditate, be fore the statue of Thueris."
"Youth, youth! Resilient bones and limitless vitality! Well, call out if you have need of me, Khafre."
"Of course. Sleep well."
"Once more good night."
"Ra go with you."
“Ra. Ha!” said the embalmer under his breath, and disappeared into the depths of the nearest aisle of pillars.
CHAPTER IV
CHOOSING, for no particular reason, the seated statue which had figured in his strange experience of the evening, Khafre knelt before his goddess. He ignited some little cones of incense and repeated in an absent minded way a prayer or two from the morning devotions. His mind would not focus wholly on his pious duties, however. He wondered about the loss that Psamtik had spoken of; what would it be? He felt deadly certain that something would happen. Psamtik, an obvious bungler in carrying out his irrational folly, was still a dangerous creature to be roaming about with a grudge against one. He sighed a trifle. If these were the old days, now, one good swipe of a sword...
His nose wrinkled. Without moving a muscle he sat on his knees before Thueris, staring at her feet, questing the air with his nose that was as keen as any hunting leopard's. The sweet scent of the unguent, which he had first detected in his sleeping quarters, was all about him.
He bowed himself down, hunching over in apparent adoration. But when he came upright it was with a terrific spring that put him on his feet in a split second, whirling about with his bronze sword tossing hectic red reflections from the oil lamps.
Between two columns stood a black and indistinct figure. In shadow, with arms akimbo and head tilted as it intently regarded him, it stood motion less as he. Seeing it, he instantly took up a defensive position with his weapon thrust forward. It was some twenty feet away. A silhouette, no more; and yet when an infinitesimal movement of the head brought the eyes into a stray flickering beam of thin light, they leaped into horrible life, gleaming like twin emeralds made of supernal fire!
He gasped in amazement. The out line, was unmistakable: a woman's body—and a good one too—topped by a great cat's head!
For the first time in his life Khafre felt a brief giddiness, a half swoon of utter and absolute fear.
Then he stiffened his back and growled out, "I challenge you in the sacred name of Ra, you apparition of the darkness!"
The formula did not work. The hybrid horror remained where it was, staring at him with the enormous chatoyant eyes.
He forced himself to take two steps nearer, so that he could distinguish some detail in the dark figure. Doubt less it was the same one he had seen sitting on the lap of the statue. The body was clothed in very fine, almost transparent, linen; the head was in deed a perfect cat's head, enlarged out of all reason.
The thing put up one arm and pointed to him. A soft, sibilant voice purred out from between the lips, AS though a cat had been given human vocal cords. He blinked and involuntarily stepped back again.
"Psamtik is right, priest; I am more powerful than your clumsy river goddess, for I was spawned of Ra himself, while Thueris emerged from a bed of papyrus in the Nile. Heed my words, mortal! Agree to Psamtik's proposal."
"Never," said Khafre huskily, cleared his throat and repeated it in & louder voice. "Never!” He then closed his eyes and waited to be struck dead. Nothing happened. He opened them. The hybrid creature with the terrible eyes was gone. He strode for ward to examine the place on which she had stood, and a black temple cat came out of the darkness to rub against his bare legs with affection. Ingloriously he took to his heels and ran for his quarters and the rational company of Horemheb the embalmer.
