"A daily sum," Khamwas responded, emotionless again now that his emotions had been spurned, "equal to your hire for managing a forty-camel caravan. Two Rankan goldpieces."
Samlor nodded. It was interesting to learn that Khamwas, though-"scattered" was a far better description than "unworldly" – had at his fingertips a datum of Samlor's own trade.
"We will be travelling the Napata," Khamwas went on, "but not-initially, at least-to the capital. We will investigate a temple and tomb, I hope a tomb, near a village named Qui. It's some distance south of Napata City, on the river but upstream. I estimate that it will take us two months, but you will know better than I."
"Longer," Samlor said. "We'll be leaving from Cirdon, remember." He sat down on the couch. Star burrowed toward him in her sleep. "If we."
"After that," said Khamwas with a nod of agreement, "I will examine the tomb and remove from it the object which I. .»
His voice and expression lost their coolness, and he choked momentarily before he continued. "There's a book in the tomb, if I'm right. I've been searching for it as long as… as long as I have conscious memory."
The storm had almost played itself out with the last shattering discharges, but a series of muted rumbles now gave Khamwas an opportunity to clear his throat and both men to break eye contact. At last Khamwas said, "There may be danger when I remove the book. Certainly for me, perhaps also for you. I can't claim that any pay would adequately compensate you, Master Samlor, if the risk is yours as well. But-"
The Napatan's mouth broadened in a cool, knowing grin. "If I succeed," he continued, "I will become King of Napata. And that is the very least of what the book will make available to me. You will be well compensated, I assure you. You'll have your heart's desire."
Samlor's mouth quirked in a smile which was either wistful or mocking, depending on how the shadows fell across the harsh planes of his face. "Before you offer me that," he said softly, "you'll have to tell me what it is."
The three of them waited unmoving while the storm rumbled its way toward silence. Star was asleep, and Khamwas looked toward the barred window, wise enough to know not to push his companion-patient enough to follow the path of wisdom.
Samlor mused, dark thoughts sometimes rolling volcan-ically brighter with moments of rage and frustration. He had every confidence in himself, absolute certainty that he could get what he wanted.
But he didn't know what that was. His words to Khamwas had not been any sort of joke.
Moving slowly enough that it was not a threat, Samlor drew the coffin-hilted dagger from his belt. He held it point high, an edge toward him and one of the flats of scribbled metal facing the Napatan scholar.
"Master Khamwas," Samlor said, "how do you like this dagger? The pattern in the iron?"
Khamwas shrugged. "Very pretty," he said. Innate good manners saved him, barely, from snapping at the frivolity.
"What d'ye suppose it'd tell me I should do if I looked at it now?"
"Pardon?" said Khamwas. This time the question didn't seem frivolous, but it was completely unintelligible to him. Either Samlor had a fund of knowledge closed to his companion, or Samlor was going mad.
The Cirdonian caravan master was not acting particularly like a man with special.knowledge.
"Well, it doesn't really matter," said Samlor in a bantering voice. He slipped his dagger carefully under his belt again. "I've already decided I'm going along with you. After all, that way one of us is going to know what he wants."
"I'm very glad to hear that," said Khamwas. He stood up
and clasped Samlor's hand in token of the bargain they had just struck.
Khamwas didn't have the faintest notion of what had gone through Samlor's mind in the past few minutes, but neither did he care. Khamwas knew exactly what he wanted, just as Samlor implied.
It didn't occur to him that he might be mistaken in his desire.
And he certainly didn't understand what Tjainufi meant when the manikin chirped, "A remedy is effective only through the hand of its physician."
CHAPTER 8
THE WIND WAS hot and charged with sand. Though it swept for hundreds of miles up the valley of the River Napata, the shimmering air brought no hint of moisture with it to the nostrils of Khamwas and Samlor.
"This is the place," Khamwas croaked to his companion. He turned as he started to speak and, convinced of his inattention, the camel on which he rode snaked its head around to bite.
"Child of Hell," Khamwas snarled as he kicked the beast's muzzle. The motion had become almost instinctive through long practice on the road from Cirdon. The beast gave an angry bleat, not so much pained by the boot sole as frustrated at its failure to clamp its square yellow teeth on its rider's calf.
Samlor was logy with the motion of his own beast. He had reined to a halt when his companion did, but it was a moment before Khamwas' words had any more meaning than did the rasping wind that surrounded them. The camel's shambling pace did not rock a man drowsy but rather hammered him to semi-consciousness. Being familiar with the process, as Samlor had been now for decades, did not change it from the physical punishment it had been the first time he rode one of the beasts.
Children of Hell indeed.
Coughing to clear his throat before he ventured a reply, Samlor said, "The temple we're looking for? Where then?"
Instead of giving an immediate response, Khamwas began to dismount with the care required by stiff muscles and a camel whose ill will had been demonstrated over several hundred miles of travel. Samlor remained where he was, taking advantage of the saddle's height to survey their surroundings.
There was nothing very prepossessing about them.
The journey from Sanctuary to Cirdon had been along a regular caravan route-an easy trip for Samlor and not overly grueling for Star and Khamwas.
They'd placed Star in the hands of family retainers-as safe as she could be away from Samlor and probably safer' than anyone else was around a child with the powers Star controlled. Then Samlor began really to earn his fee.
He and Khamwas followed the east bank of the River Napata for a hundred miles that seemed an eternity. A reef of hard sandstone cut across the desert on a course nearly parallel to that of the river. Where rock finally met water here, it formed a bluff sixty feet high.
The path had risen for a mile or more, but the ascent was so gradual that Samlor had been unaware of it until now when he found that by looking to his left he could see well past the other bank. The river's course was brown, golden where the sun reflected from it and gleamingly muddy to either side. The hills in the distance were dark brown, and the plains they enclosed were dun except where green marked village plots, irrigated with water lifted by water-wheel from the river below.
Even the foliage was dulled by dust.
There was a village nearby on their side of the river as well, indicated by the tops of date palms a quarter mile ahead. Nothing could be grown on the sandstone, but beyond it there must be a fold of earth suitable for irrigation.
"Yeah, hasn't been so very bad a way," said Samlor, thinking back on the completed journey with already a touch of longing. He had liked working for Khamwas, being responsible for carrying out tasks in the best way possible-but letting somebody else decide what those tasks should be. Khamwas knew what he wanted. .
And Khamwas was a good man with whom to share a journey. Not especially skilled, but willing and intelligent. Cheerful within reason, but not a maniac who redoubled the unpleasantness of storm or baking heat with bright chatter.