“Don’t think of running,” Lud advised. “It’s too hot for you to get far without water, and you know you can’t get away.”
Yama said, “Dr. Dismas tried to have you killed. There is no enmity between us.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” Lud said. “I reckon we’ve a score to settle.”
“You owe us,” Lob said.
“I do not see it.”
Lud explained patiently, “Dr. Dismas would have paid us for our trouble, and instead we had to swim for our lives when you pulled that trick. I got burnt, too.”
“And he lost his knife,” Lob added. “He loved that knife, you miserable culler, and you made him lose it.”
Lud said, “And then there was the boat you put on fire. Yo for that, I reckon.”
“That was not yours.”
Lud scratched at the patch of reddened skin on his chest and said, “It’s the principle of the thing.”
“In any case, I can only pay you when I get home,” Yama said.
“In any case,” Lud echoed in a mocking voice. “That’s not how we see it. How do we know we can trust you?”
“Of course you can.”
Lud said, “You haven’t even asked how much we want, and then you might just think to tell your father. I don’t think he’d pay us then, would he, brother?”
“It’s doubtful.”
“Very doubtful, I’d say.”
Yama knew that there was only one chance to escape. He said, “Then you do not trust me?”
Lud saw Yama’s change in posture. He started down the slope, raising a cloud of white dust, and yelled, “Don’t—”
Yama did. He turned and took two steps backward, and then, before he could have second thoughts, ran forward and jumped over the edge of the cliff.
He fell in a rush of air, and as he fell threw back his head and brought up his knees. (Sergeant Rhodean was saying, “Just let it happen to you. If you learn to trust your body it’s all a matter of timing.”) Sky and river revolved around each other, and then he landed on his feet, knees bent to take the shock, on the ledge before the entrance to the tomb.
The ledge was no wider than a bed, and slippery with bird excrement. Yama fell flat on his back at once, filled with a wild fear that he would tumble over the edge—there had been a balustrade once, but it had long ago fallen away. He caught a tuft of wiry grass and held on, although the sharp blades of grass reopened the wounds made by Caphis’s spearhead.
As he carefully climbed back to his feet, a stone clipped the ledge and tumbled away toward the heaving water far below. Yama looked up. Lob and Lud capered at the top of the cliff, silhouetted against the blue sky. They shouted down at him, but their words were snatched away by the wind.
One of them threw another stone, which smashed to flinders scarcely a span from Yama’s feet.
Yama ran forward, darting between the winged figures, their faces blurred by time, which supported the lintel of the gaping entrance to the tomb. Inside, stone blocks fallen from the high ceiling littered the mosaic floor. An empty casket stood on a dais beneath a canopy of stone carved to look like cloth rippling in the wind. Disturbed by Yama’s footfalls, bats fell from one of the holes in the ceiling and dashed around and around above his head, chittering in alarm.
The tomb was shaped like a wedge of pie, and behind the dais it narrowed to a passageway. It had once been sealed by a slab of stone, but that had been smashed long ago by robbers who had discovered the path used by the builders of the tomb. Yama grinned. He had guessed that the tombs in the cliffs would have been breached and stripped just like those above. It was his way of escape. He stepped over the sill and, keeping one hand on the cold dry stone of the wall, felt his way through near-darkness.
He had not gone far when the passage struck another running at right angles. He tossed an imaginary coin and chose the left-hand way. A hundred heartbeats later, in pitch darkness, he went sprawling over a slump of rubble. He got up cautiously and climbed the spill of stones until his head bumped the ceiling of the passage. It was blocked.
Then Yama heard voices behind him, and knew that Lud and Lob had followed him. He should have expected it. They would lose their lives if he was able to escape and tell the Aedile about the part they had played in Dr. Dismas’s scheme.
As Yama slid down the rubble, his hand fell on something cold and hard. It was a metal knife, its curved blade as long as his forearm. It was cold to the touch and gave off a faint glow; motes of light seemed to float in the wake of its blade when Yama slashed at the darkness. Emboldened, he felt his way back to the tomb.
The dim light hurt his eyes; it spilled around one of the twins, who stood in the tomb’s narrow entrance.
“Little fish, little fish. What are you scared of?”
Yama held up the long knife. “Not you, Lud.”
“Let me get him,” Lob said, peering over his brother’s shoulder.
“Don’t block the light, stupid.” Lud pushed Lob out of the way and grinned at Yama. “There isn’t a way out, is there? Or you wouldn’t have come back. We can wait. We caught fish this morning, and we have water. I don’t think you do, or you would have set out for the city straight away.”
Yama said, “I killed a hyrax last night. I ate well enough then.”
Lud started forward. “But I bet you couldn’t drink the water in the pool, eh? We couldn’t, and we can drink just about anything.”
Yama was aware of a faint breath of air at his back. He said, “How did you get down here?”
“Rope,” Lob said. “From the boat. I saved it. People say we’re stupid, but we’re not.”
“Then I can climb back up,” Yama said, and advanced on Lud, making passes with the knife as he came around the raised casket. The knife made a soft hum, and its rusty hilt pricked his palm. He felt a coldness flowing into his wrist and along his arm as the blade brightened with blue light.
Lud retreated. “You wouldn’t,” he said.
Lob pushed at his brother, trying to get past him. He was excited. “Break his legs,” he shrieked. “Break his legs! See how he swims then!”
“A knife! He’s got a knife!”
Yama swung the knife again. Lud crowded backward into Lob and they both fell over.
Yama yelled, words that hurt his throat and tongue. He did not know what he yelled and he stumbled, because suddenly his legs seemed too long and bony and his arms hung wrong. Where was his mount and where was the rest of the squad? Why was he standing in the middle of what looked like a ruined tomb? Had he fallen into the keelways? All he could remember was a tremendous crushing pain, and then he had suddenly woken here, with two fat ruffians threatening him. He struck at the nearest and the man scrambled out of the way with jittery haste; the knife hit the wall and spat a shower of sparks. It was screaming now. He jumped onto the casket—yes, a tomb—but his body betrayed him and he lost his balance; before he could recover, the second ruffian caught his ankles and he fell heavily, striking the stone floor with hip and elbow and shoulder. The impact numbed his fingers, and the knife fell from his grasp, clattering on the floor and gouging a smoking rut in the stone.
Lud ran forward and kicked the knife out of the way.
Yama scrambled to his feet. He did not remember falling.
His right arm was cold and numb, and hung from his shoulder like a piece of meat; he had to pull the obsidian knife from his belt with his left hand as Lud ran at him. They slammed against the wall and Lud gasped and clutched at his chest.
Blood welled over his hand and he looked at it dully. “What?” he said. He stepped away from Yama with a bewildered look and said again, “What?”