Abruptly, amid sharp chirps of warning, the birds shot into the air. Bak started, came fully awake. Something had fright ened them. The watching man? He had been hidden for over an hour if the sun’s passage told true, plenty of time for cu riosity to eat away at a man. He gripped his spear and shield and rose to his feet, as silent as the lizards that had darted in among the rocks.
A stone clattered down the slope some distance to his right. He eased into a fresh position, trying to glimpse the in truder. A jumble of rocks that had rolled down from above cut off his view. He could see no farther than the uppermost pool and considerably less of the slope. Quelling his impa tience, he remained where he was, listening for another sound, hoping to determine the intruder’s exact position. He heard nothing. The man, if indeed the noise had been made by a man, had to be a nomad to creep so silently down a hill as steep as this one and as covered with loose sand and rocks.
The time stretched to an eternity. Unable to stand the strain any longer, Bak stuck his head out of the crevice far enough to see around the rocks. A man wearing the ragged garb of a desert nomad was climbing downward, watching where he placed his feet. He was a half-dozen paces above the wadi floor at a point almost even with the uppermost pool. His hair was long and unkempt. He carried a bow, and a quiver filled with arrows hung from his left shoulder.
He stopped and looked to his left, down the wadi toward the mouth of the gorge. With nothing there to see, he shifted his gaze-and looked directly at Bak. Bak jerked back into his hideaway, but too late. Skittering rocks and the sound of feet half-sliding down the sandy slope verified the fact that he had been seen.
Shield in one hand, spear in the other, he burst out of his hiding place. He scurried down the slope, sending a minia ture rock slide before him, and hit the wadi floor running.
The nomad stood beside the upper pool, seating an arrow, pulling the string taut. Bak gave a blood-curdling yell, a fear some sound made by attacking tribesmen on the southern frontier, and charged toward the man. The arrow sped past, too high and too far to the left.
Bak raced forward undeterred. He had not lain in wait for more than an hour to turn tail and run.
The nomad quickly tugged another arrow from his quiver, seated it, and let it fly. It sped past no closer than its predeces sor. Bak sprinted on. The man spun around and ran to the dry waterfall. He raced upward, climbing the irregularly shaped and sized rocks as if they were the smoothest of steps. Unfa miliar with the terrain, Bak took longer to reach the top. The last thing he wanted was to break an ankle. He had no idea what had set the nomad to flight: the all-out charge, the howl of the southern desert tribesmen, or simply a sudden fear that he might get caught.
Above the fall, the wadi widened out and low dark gray mountains rose in all directions. Bak raced after the nomad up the most recent channel to be cut through the ancient wa tercourse, dodging fallen rocks and boulders and a few widely spaced silla bushes clinging to life in the dry sand. In stead of slowing to an easier pace, as he should have, and biding his time, he ran hard and fast. Sweat poured from him.
His breath came out in loud gasps and he had a pain in his side. He knew that if he lost sight of the man in this play ground of the lord Set, he would never find him. Worse yet, if the man was at all familiar with this landscape, he could cir cle around and lay in wait until his unsuspecting victim re turned to the spring.
He kept up the pace for as long as he could, but finally slowed to a fast trot. The man ahead also decreased his speed.
Bak saw him pause and raise his waterbag to take a drink.
He, too, was thirsty-but he had left his water behind. When the realization struck, he cursed himself for a fool. He knew he should turn back then and there, but he plodded on.
The wadi gradually swerved to the left and the single channel split into innumerable shallow dry ditches. Ahead, he could see the gaping mouths of several intersecting wadis.
No matter which way he looked, the landscape was the same: streams of coarse golden sand dotted with rocks flowing be tween low gray mountains whose surfaces were rough and broken. Later, he thanked the lord Amon for giving him the good sense to pay heed to his surroundings, for that aware ness probably saved his life.
A thousand or so paces farther on, the nomad veered into a gap that angled off to the right between two peaks. Bak lost sight of him, but his footprints were clear in the sand. When he followed the tracks into the gap, he saw that the man had stopped and turned around to see if he was still being pur sued. Spotting Bak, he ran on.
Bak slowed to a walk, lifted the tail of his tunic to wipe the sweat from his face, and looked around. This gap was about the same width as the wadi he had just left and the peaks to either side looked exactly the same. The similarity troubled him.
Breaking into an easy trot, he resumed the chase. The stitch in his side eased, but his mouth was as dry as the sand beneath his feet. Another thousand or so paces took him through the gap, where he saw some distance ahead a forked intersection, with wadis opening to right and left. The nomad turned into the latter, glancing back as he did so. Bak fol lowed him as far as the fork and stopped to study the terrain ahead. The mountains looked no different than those all around, the wadi looked the same as the series of wadis be hind him.
Common sense dictated that he not follow any farther. He was tired and an ache at the back of his head told him how badly in need of water he was. To allow himself to be led deeper into this maze of identical mountains and wadis would be sheer folly.
Reluctantly, he turned around, giving up the chase.
“I can’t tell you how happy I was to see you.” Bak smiled at Nebre and Kaha, who had come upon him trudging back to the pools. “Never again will I go off without a waterbag.”
“You think he wished you to lose your way and die?”
Psuro asked.
Bak leaned back against the wall of the gorge, well out of the strip of sunlight that fell between the overhanging walls.
He had had enough sun for one day. “I’ve no doubt he did, but whether that was his original intent, I’ve no idea. He may’ve known no other way to get me off his trail. On the other hand, he came down to the pools to look for me. He may’ve seen Imset leave and thought to take advantage of my being alone.”
“You’re certain the boy didn’t know him?” Nebre asked.
“I don’t believe he did. He’d not have left his donkey be hind if he’d felt he could safely travel the usual, easy paths.”
Kaha scowled. “You said he looked to Nefertem as at a god. If he told him to sacrifice the donkey, would he not have done so?”
“All I know is that after I drew his attention to the man who was watching us, he was as wary as I was.”
“Who is this Nefertem?” Psuro asked.
Bak sipped water from the metal bowl, replacing the mois ture he had lost during his futile chase. He felt considerably better than before, but was disgusted with himself for having gone off so ill prepared. “He said his father, who was slain a year or so ago, was Minnakht’s guide before Senna. Min nakht is as a brother to him.”
“You believed him.”
“He was very angry about his father’s death and worried for Minnakht.”
“At least he had the good sense to send you here,” Kaha said. “Compared to the wells we’ve seen, this sheltered place and pools are like the Field of Reeds.” He referred to the do main of the lord Osiris, a place of abundance men hoped to reach in the netherworld.
Bak, Psuro, and Nebre followed his glance, looking up the gorge to the pools. User was supervising the taking of baths, making sure no one wasted a drop of water or soiled the pools in any way. Minmose and Rona, seated at the top of the dry waterfall in the shade of an overhanging rock, were keep ing watch.