With his arm brushing the wall, he moved one foot forward, shifted his weight, and moved the other foot. The wall fell away from his upper arm, but he could feel it next to his elbow. He smothered an urge to laugh aloud. He was standing beside the open stairway, no more than two paces from the bottom step. Beyond was the door to the larger room. Once he reached the foot of the stairs, his opponent would be trapped inside the kitchen.
He took another step. His toe caught a shard and sent it rattling across the floor. A muffled curse echoed his own, the sound close in front of him. He lunged, collided with solid muscle and warm, slippery flesh. The man spun past him and began to run. Bak, a pace or two behind, glimpsed the faint light at the bottom of the mat that covered the outer door, a swath of drifted sand beneath it, and the dark figure ducking low to grab something off the floor. The mat was shoved violently forward; the cords holding it in place snapped apart. The figure darted through the portal and veered to the right. The mat blew back to slap Bak in the face. He jerked it aside and felt as if he faced a solid wall of wind and sand. He had forgotten the storm raging through Buhen.
He grabbed the sheet hanging from the reed chest. Winding it around his head and shoulders, leaving a slit so he could see, he ducked around the crazily flapping mat and pushed his way into the lane. The wind grabbed him and shoved him after the fleeing man, a vague shadow in the swirling torrent. Fine sand seeped beneath the sheet, lodged under his clothing, adhered to his oily, sweaty body. His eyes smarted, his nose was stuffed up, and his throat was clogged. The burns on his side and arm, scraped raw by the sand, stung as if still afire.
The lane ahead twisted to the left and the man disappeared from view. Bak hastened after him, made the turn. The wind caught him, threw him at the far wall. He hit it with a thud, stumbled, and would have fallen if a stronger gust had not propelled him on. The shadowy figure forged ahead. Bak plowed after him through eddying gusts which blew from all directions. Even with the sheet swaddling his head and shoulders, he felt exposed, vulnerable. He could not help but feel a grudging respect for the other man, who wore nothing but a short kilt.
He followed his quarry around another corner. A gust tore the end of the sheet from his fingers and unwrapped the section around his shoulders. He grabbed the flapping length of cloth, which caught the wind like a sail and blew him backward. He spotted a doorway, tacked toward it, and wedged himself against the jamb until he could pull the fabric around his burned side and arm. When he looked up, he glimpsed the other man much farther ahead than before, turning into an intersecting lane. Something billowed out in the wind behind him. Bak gave a hard, humorless laugh. The man had brought a cloak with him.
Bak battled the wind to the corner, made the turn, and was nearly blinded by a thick cloud of sand blowing toward him. He bent double, held his hand before his stinging eyes, and pushed his way along the lane, using all his strength to put one foot in front of the other. When he reached an intersection, the wind swirled around him, buffeting him on all sides. He stood his ground, looking down each lane in turn. The man he was pursuing had disappeared.
“So you gave up the chase.”
“No, Imsiba, I did not. I’m stubborn like an ass but with less common sense. I went on and on from one lane to another, paying no heed to the turns I made.” Bak was so angry with himself that he practically growled, “I lost my way.”
Imsiba had the grace to make no comment.
Bak frowned at the empty sand-swept lane ahead, which was illuminated by a last faint glow of sunset and the wavering flame of Imsiba’s torch. Walls hugged both sides. Dark rectangles marked doors whose mats had been removed to allow inside the clean, fresh air. At the gradual bend ahead, the light dwindled, faded to blackness. Murmuring voices, a baby’s whimper, the smell of burning oil, onions, and fish filtered down from rooftops cooled by a soft, gentle breeze. High overhead, the stars were brightening as the barque of the lord Re sailed deeper into the netherworld and the last bits of dust drifted back to earth. Bak found it impossible to appreciate the peace of the moment. His battered muscles ached, his side and arm burned. He could not remember a time when he had felt so grimy.
“He knew every lane, every whim of the wind. As for me…” Bak’s laugh was bitter. “With the sand so thick, I couldn’t see the battlements; I didn’t know north from south, east from west. When I finally stopped to ask, those who lived in the block were traders. They had no idea who Heby was or where he lived. I was lucky they could direct me to the citadel.”
They stepped over a low drift running diagonally across an intersection and turned into another, similar lane. The rippled sand covering its surface was scarred by the footprints of a man and a dog.
Bak pointed at the shadows ahead. “The seventh door on the right.”
“You’re certain he came back?”
“With so much to lose, wouldn’t you?”
Imsiba’s smile was rueful. “I’d think it a fearsome thing to do, but if my life depended on it, yes.”
A thick-chested brindle bitch loped past them. Spotting a striped cat sniffing a doorjamb, the dog barked and raced at the smaller animal. It shot through the darkened doorway with the dog in hot pursuit. A man yelled, let out a string of curses; children laughed with delight. The dog scooted out the door, its tail between its legs, and ran on up the street. Imsiba chuckled.
Bak was too irritated to see humor anywhere. “If only I’d seen his face!”
“He had no scars; no marks to tell you who he was?”
“I glimpsed the dagger, nothing more.” Bak grimaced at the crude bandage wrapped around his fiery side and arm. “And the flames spreading beneath me.” He stopped in front of Heby’s door, where the mat hung askew, its lower end torn and tattered. “One thing I know. His body is hard, not soft with age or inactivity, and he thrusts the weapon like a man trained to use it.”
“He’s a soldier.”
“He can read, Imsiba. He’s an officer.” Or a translator, Bak thought.
Pushing the mat aside, he stepped across a calf-high drift unmarked by footprints and stopped a couple of paces inside the room. Imsiba followed with the torch. The chest and stool were overturned; sheets, sleeping mat, and clothing were strewn over the floor. Fine sand blanketed every surface, but all footprints that might have been left had been erased by the wind blowing under the mat. Scalding the air with a string of curses, Bak led the way to the kitchen. The floor was littered with tools and with bits of pottery crushed beyond recognition. Like everything else, the brazier had been smashed, its ashes smeared across the gritty oil-stained floor. Bak had expected the worst, but was disappointed nonetheless. From the look on Imsiba’s face, he was not alone in the feeling.
The big Medjay prodded the ingot-shaped stone with the point of his spear. “We’ll find no gold here.”
“If Heby kept it in this house, its hiding place will remain.”
“Is that all we look for? An empty hole?”
“The cone I saw had never been weighed.” Bak glanced toward the top of the stairway, where the exit to the roof was blocked. “I doubt Heby brought it here empty, meaning to repair it. I’d bet a month’s ration of beer that it was brought to him by the man who attacked me and it was, at that time, filled with gold. We must search for a trace of that second man.”
“If we find none?”
Scowling, Bak uttered the unthinkable. “We start again at the beginning and pray to all the gods in the ennead we’ll have better luck the next time around.”
“You fill my heart with joy, my friend…” Imsiba eyed the room, his expression glum. “…and a wish to forget this hopeless search you plan and return to our men’s barracks. They’re cooking a feast, pigeons and lentils. Would you not like to eat while they’re hot?”
Bak was so hungry he could almost smell the birds roasting on the brazier. He shook off the temptation to leave at once and returned to the larger room. Imsiba followed and mounted the torch in a bracket by the door.
As Bak began to examine the bare sleeping platform, he asked, “What of the tasks I set you this morning?”
“I spoke to our men of the need to patrol in pairs and to walk around those who seek trouble.” Picking up a dirty sheet, Imsiba wrinkled his nose in distaste. “They vowed to do as you asked, for one of the watch sergeants had already warned them of the gossip and most had seen for themselves the fear and mistrust in other men’s eyes.” He set the chest upright and dropped the sheet inside. “That vow tasted bitter on their tongues, my friend. They came to this city, proud to be chosen above all others to police its streets, and now…” He gave a hard, cynical laugh. “Your order that they fight when they must took some of the sting from their mouths, and won their loyalty
