The Medjay gave Bak a hurt look. “You misunderstand, sir. I saw the spirit and I gave chase.”
Bak recalled their conversation of the previous day, the comments he had made about the guards and his feelings about men who failed to do their duty. Kasaya, though superstitious to the core, had taken his words to heart, it seemed.
Irritation fleeing, he dropped onto a stone drum awaiting placement as part of a sixteen-sided column on the upper level in front of the temple. “Seat yourself, Kasaya, and while you eat, tell me what happened.”
Not entirely reassured by the milder tone, the young Medjay sat down on a similar drum. Laying spear and shield beside him, he unwrapped the packet and began to eat the braised fish and green onions he found inside. Imen, at the mouth of the tomb thirty or so paces away, was also eating.
The lord Khepre, peeking above the eastern horizon, sent shafts of yellow into an unblemished sky. A thin sil-ver mist hovered over the floodplain to the east, filtering into the faint blue morning haze lingering over the river.
The workmen, early to rise and quick to begin their day, were spread over the building site, as vociferous as men who had been parted for days rather than the few short hours of night.
“Two, maybe three hours after nightfall, Imen thought he saw a light among the columns of the upper colonnade.”
Kasaya tore away a bite-sized chunk of fish and popped it into his mouth. “At first I saw nothing, but then I, too, spotted a light. It looked to be entering the temple. Since every man who toils here fears the malign spirit. . Well, I knew none of them would go into the temple in the dead of night.”
He stopped chewing, his voice grew hushed. “My blood went cold, and the worm of fear crept up my spine.”
“Yet you gave chase,” Bak said, knowing well the strength of will it must have taken.
“Not because I wanted to, I tell you.” Kasaya broke off another chunk and paused, holding it in midair halfway to his mouth. “Giving myself no time to think, I raced across this terrace, passing innumerable statues and sections of columns behind which hid I knew not what. Up the ramp I went, and into the temple. The building was dark, the moon a sliver so thin and weak the unfinished colonnade cast no shadow.” He glanced at the piece of fish in his hand, returned it to its bed of leaves. “I saw no one, heard nothing. I felt obliged to search the sanctuary and the chapels to either side. I crossed the courtyard to the sanctuary, but beyond its portal lay nothing but black. As was the case in the rooms to the south. I feared greatly and longed for a torch.”
Bak could almost see the young Medjay, standing in the dark, wide-eyed and quaking with fear, trying to convince himself to step into one of those fearsome chambers.
“I heard a faint noise behind me. I spun around and spotted the light. It was near the entrance to the chapel of the lord Re. A tiny flicker that vanished in an instant.” Kasaya took a deep, ragged breath. “Thinking it had gone inside, I followed. All the while I walked around the altar, I thanked the lord Re that the chamber had no roof, that I could see my hand before my face. I found nothing; the light had vanished like the spirit it was.”
Or, more likely, a quick and agile man, Bak thought. One with a vile sense of humor. “Did you smell anything?
Smoke, for example, from an oil lamp?”
“No, sir.” Kasaya lifted the bite of fish to his mouth and ate. “I smelled nothing, heard nothing, saw nothing more.”
“The sanctuary and the southern chambers were empty?”
Kasaya flung him a guilty look. “I peeked inside, sir, but in the end I didn’t search them. They were too dark, and I could see nothing. Anyone or anything hiding there could’ve slipped past me and I’d have known no better.” Giving Bak no time for comment good or bad, he hurried on, “Instead, thinking you’d say I’d chased a man and not a spirit, I seated myself in the entrance near the top of the ramp, intending to remain until daylight, hoping to catch a man if a man it was.” He paused, frowned, offered up another point in his favor, “From there I could see Imen and go to his aid if need be.”
“He’d remained at his post?”
“Yes, sir. He told me later that he’d never have chased the malign spirit, as I did. I think he was afraid. He didn’t admit he was and spoke instead of disobeying orders, but how long has the malign spirit been seen in this valley with no guards giving chase?”
“How long did you stay at the temple?”
“I’d barely had time to settle myself when I glimpsed a light in the old temple of Nebhepetre Montuhotep. The spirit had flitted from Djeser Djeseru to there in the time it takes to blink an eye. I started down the ramp, but it vanished again.
I ran to the southern retaining wall and waited awhile, but it didn’t reappear. Certain no man could ever catch it, I finally decided to return to the tomb and Imen.”
Bak suspected the so-called malign spirit had lured Kasaya into the chapel of the lord Re, and had slipped out of the temple when he was safely out of the way. He also suspected, because of the light’s speedy appearance in the older temple, that more than one man had been roaming the valley floor, each carrying a small oil lamp.
He glanced across the field of partially worked stones toward the burly guard. “As far as you know, did Imen remain at his post all the while you were searching the temple?”
“I can’t swear to every moment,” Kasaya admitted, “but each time I looked, there he was.”
Bak eyed the young Medjay. By rights he should chastise him for abandoning his post at the tomb, but how could he reproach a man who had shown such courage in spite of his strong superstition, his fear of the unknown?
“Go back to the tomb and stay there,” he said. “Let me know when Menna arrives with the priest from the mansion of the lord Amon.”
Could Imen have entered the tomb during Kasaya’s absence? Probably not. Visible from the temple and assuming the Medjay might return at any moment, the guard would have had neither the time nor the freedom to do so. Nonetheless, Bak wanted to know for a fact that the body was intact, to be sure the ancient jewelry was on that bony wrist when the tomb was sealed for eternity.
As Kasaya strode away, Bak walked to the southern retaining wall and looked beyond the workmen’s huts to the old temple of Nebhepetre Montuhotep. Had the Medjay been deliberately drawn into the new temple? If so, for what purpose? To allow the malign spirit freedom of movement in the ruined structure? No one could have predicted the young policeman would have the courage to leave Imen’s side and give chase, but if the objective was worthy enough, perhaps the risk could not be ignored. Or had the second light, that in the old temple, been meant to draw Kasaya from Djeser Djeseru? Had he interrupted someone intent on setting up another accident?
“There’s Kames, sir, the chief stonemason.” Hori, arriving at Bak’s side unnoticed, pointed toward a crew of workmen toiling at the northern end of the lower colonnade. “You said you wished to speak with him. The white-haired man looking on.”
Bak tore his thoughts from Kasaya’s adventure and tamped down a sudden, nearly overwhelming desire to explore the ruined temple. He must speak first with the living, saving until later his quest for lights and shadows.
“I found plenty to fault in Montu, but he knew what he had to do and he did it.” Kames scratched his head, making his short white hair stand on end. His body was tall and angular, very thin, a living skeleton covered in leather-like skin. “You can’t criticize a man for doing his duty, now can you?”
“You’re more forgiving than anyone else I’ve talked to,”
Bak said. “In fact, I’ve been told he shirked his duty.”
“He was critical, to be sure, and never quite satisfied with where we placed the stones. But he had every right to be.
The responsibility for the finished temple rested heavily on his shoulders.”