He subsided at last, his face contorted by the pain of his activity.
The recantal was genuine, then; but there were things about it that disturbed Sargan. The recanter sounded very much as though he knew that the nameless temple was of Aten, not against him.
“If Aten exists at all,” Enkidu added after a moment, “he allowed you to torture me. He was therefore acting through you. Whatever you may profess—you are his agent. He is your god, and you serve him well.”
Now Sargan understood. The recanter was trying to insult the temple by his implications; he knew nothing. Very good. “Whom, then, do you wish to have this sum?”
“Give it to your torturemaster! Let him buy gold to melt in his pots, that his art may be richer.”
Sargan ignored the irony. “So shall it be. And we shall hold the certificate until you claim it. Farewell.”
But he was sick inside as he watched the erstwhile pretender leave.
Still too stormy to transfer! Yet the primary host had been saved, and he should be safe enough for now.
It was not too early to consider how he should locate and deal with the enemy. The only time he had touched the enemy had been when Amalek approached his host in the courtroom. Yet there was nothing in Sargan’s mind and memories to suggest that the enemy controlled Amalek directly. That could be an alternate host—and NK-2 had to be certain of the primary host before taking action. Elimination of an alternate would only alert the enemy. It was the umbra, the heart of the entity, that had to be reached—either by direct invasion of the host, or by unanticipated and sudden destruction of the host.
Yet how could he act—when he himself was more vulnerable than the enemy? And if, as he suspected, the enemy’s primary host was this native girl Amyitis—how could he ever arrange his own host’s assistance in eliminating her?
Sargan reached for writing materials and began drafting out a memorandum of his intended disposition of the case of the pretender Amyitis for the temple records. He paused part way through, in growing distress.
It would be hard for the girl, for her proud spirit. She had left his house one day as Sargan’s daughter. She would return to it now as Sargan’s slave.
He would do everything possible to ease her lot. Never would he remind her of her servitude, so long as she did not pretend to worship Aten. But still it would be a very bitter lot for her.
He would have to arrange for surveillance to continue after his own death. Never must she be permitted to have further contacts with Aten’s Chosen, apart from himself or the subsequent guardian. Never could she marry or be otherwise placed outside the control of the temple, lest she secretly lapse back into belief and so regain power over Aten.
Sargan’s head throbbed painfully. It was an unhappy arrangement, perhaps an impossible one. Yet it was the only alternative to placing her into an even more terrible bondage. It would at least keep her in the custody of those who would care for her welfare. It would isolate her from Gabatha.
For how long?
Amalek had spoken truly. This whole compromise would turn upon the validity and permanence of Amyitis’ recantal. Should she ever temporize or give the slightest evidence that she harbored doubts, the arrangement would no longer be tenable. Her spirit would then have to be destroyed utterly.
On that bleak day would he have the fortitude to do what he could not do now?
His mind turned for relief to the matter of the other pretender. How was it that the man had held out so strongly while confined to his cell—only to capitulate so readily under torture? Why had not his pretender faith sustained him through as many hours of hot oil as it had through days of isolation? This was an atypical pattern.
Where was the missing factor?
Sargan put pen and papyrus aside, knowing this was only a pretext to delay the completion of the damning document, but grasping at it nevertheless. It had become his duty to find the missing information.
He paced down the dark corridors holding the lamp aloft. He hated these dank cells, the stench of their refuse, the misery of their isolated prisoners. Yet such things were necessary to spur recantal. Pampered pretenders never saw fit to change their ways. Once again he marveled at the peculiar mechanisms of the mercy of Aten…
Sargan came to the black door of his daughter’s cell. Involuntarily his fingers reached for the lower corner of the voluminous sleeve of his robe. Through the cloth he fingered the small cylinder within. But he dared not tarry, lest he lose control and cry out. He hurried on.
Next was the vacant cell Enkidu had occupied. He held the light high and stepped inside.
The interior was foul and gloomy even in the combined light of day and lamp. The floor was matted with excrement, with only a portion near the door cleared. Little comfort amid this squalor for a lonely prisoner!
Sargan brought the lamp down and studied the floor. An incredible amount of material had accumulated during the last year of intermittent use. Not all was offal—there seemed to be many fingerlengths of gravel laid over the base.
No gravel had been authorized. It would have taken a bucket-line like that of the hanging gardens to fill in this amount. The notion was ludicrous. Yet here it was.
Sargan was not stupid. Very shortly he was running his fingers over the wall surfaces, feeling for loose or faulty bricks. He found them. He pried one out and studied it thoughtfully. A loose brick resembling any other.
But why?
He removed two more, then began on the inner layer. One was somewhat larger than ordinary. He held it up to the light.
One face of the brick was covered with a shell of hardened mud formed from hair and excrement. Sargan lifted this free and discovered another face beneath. Set in this smoothed pungent surface were tiny wedge prints. Clay-writing!
I TAKE THIS WOMAN AMYITIS TO BE MY SECOND WIFE…
He noted the twin seal-replicas. This was, as far as practicable under the circumstances, a valid document. Certainly it was a statement of intent. But its significance was much greater than its overt commitment.
He stared at it in the lamp’s light for a long time, and his fingers became numb. He read and re-read the incriminating words.
…IN THE PRESENCE OF ATEN, THE MERCIFUL.
This was a worse thing than he had dared imagine.
Amyitis had backslid into belief in Aten before ever leaving her cell. Her butterfly image was on this tablet, calling on Aten to witness her marriage contract.
But even beyond that, his own daughter had given most intimate aid and comfort to this pretender.
No wonder Aten had averted his countenance!
For if Amyitis had acted with so little regard for the principles of the temple, the fault was not so much in her as in her education and selection.
Sargan had done both.
According to temple regulation, Amyitis would now have to be put to continuous torture until she recanted both the god she had sworn by and the pledge she had given the pretender. Then her person would have to be sold to the most demeaning and brutal bidder…
His daughter!
How could he put her under the weights, the burning oil, and all the rest—this butterfly child he had raised from paganism to true religion? The weights he had sought to put on her were earrings, the oil an ointment for her hair.
She was a strong-willed girl. She would never give over under duress what she had refused of her own free will. He remembered the time that obese heathen merchant had tried to make free with her… how proud he had been of her that day, when she showed her mettle unmistakably, yet never complained.