“His father said he’s never found anything of value, but here you are, retracing his path on the strength of a rumor.”
“Minnakht knows minerals and stones.” User glanced across the sloping banks of the main flow of the wadi to scan the gray limestone ridges on either side. “He’s wrong if he believes he’ll find gold this far north. The only gold-bearing quartz I’ve come upon that wasn’t long ago exhausted has been some distance to the south. But these desert mountains are full of other valuable minerals and stones. The trick is to find rock of sufficient quality in a quantity worth mining.
“For example…” He picked up several small black and gray chunks of rock and held them out so Bak could see.
Their facets glittered in the bright sunlight. “These are gran ite washed down from the mountains of the central range.
The stone’s beautiful and of value to sculptors, but with so much fine granite available at Abu, where it need be dragged but a short distance for transport downriver, this is worth nothing.”
“Where might Minnakht have vanished?”
User dropped the stones and brushed his hands together to wipe away the dust. “He could be anywhere. Look at the land around you. What you see is barren and rough, but blessed by the gods when compared to the land through which we’ll pass in the next few days. The deeper one travels into this desert, the wilder and more forbidding the land becomes. I myself have journeyed into innumerable places where no man had ever trod before me.”
Bak eyed the barren wadi up which they were trudging and the craggy stone ramparts fading into the haze ahead. How could he hope to find one man in so vast and rugged a land?
Bak stepped off to the side of the track to wait for Wensu to come even with him. The portion of the wadi they had traveled thus far was broad and straight, a long slope drop ping down to the well where they had spent the night. As if solely to provide a background, the escarpment beyond the well, partially cloaked in a pinkish haze, rose as a series of high, steep steps in shades of gray from dark to light.
User had given him much to think about. If he was to be believed, he had not come into the desert in search of great wealth, yet he must have planned this journey as soon as he heard of Minnakht’s disappearance and rumors of gold.
Could anything less than riches have drawn him from a sick wife for whom he clearly cared? A passing donkey brayed, as if jeering at his puzzlement.
“Lieutenant Bak.” Wensu raised a scornful eyebrow. “I thought you were firmly ensconced at the head of this cara van, free of the soft sand that marks this trail.”
Bak fell in beside the young man, who walked alone in front of the drover leading User’s string of donkeys and about twenty paces behind the explorer. Each time his right foot led the left, he tapped the leg with his fly whisk, betray ing an impatience with the monotony. “Commander Inebny,
Minnakht’s father, requested that I search for his son. I need your help.”
“Me? Help you?” Wensu asked, immediately on the de fense. “I know nothing of his disappearance.”
“How did you come to know him?” Bak pretended not to notice the adolescent break in the youth’s voice. Was he younger than the eighteen years he had initially believed him to be?
“How can I be sure his father sent you?”
Bak made his laugh as cynical as he could. “Why else would I come into this godforsaken land?”
Wensu flushed. “You might’ve come for the gold Min nakht found.”
This spoiled young man, it seemed, had also heard the ru mors. “I’m here solely because Commander Inebny and my commandant have known each other for years and are as close as brothers. If not for that, I’d be taking a long, soothing swim in the river at this very moment.” A movement caught
Bak’s eye far up the wadi, the golden-tan coat of a gazelle.
The graceful creature bounded out of sight as fast as it had entered his line of vision. “Tell me, how did you come to know Minnakht?”
“I met him a few months ago. In a house of pleasure in
Waset.” As memory surfaced, Wensu’s misgivings slipped away and a smile spread across his face. “He was surrounded by young women who were listening to his tales of the desert, accounts of the many wonderful and exciting adven tures he’s had. They sat as silent and still as stones, utterly enthralled.” No less absorbed in his own tale, Wensu forgot the flywhisk he carried and waved off an insect with his free hand. “As was I.”
Bak could picture the youth sitting in the shadows, awed by the more mature man, his way with words and women.
Drawn in by tales of bold and stalwart behavior, of what he interpreted as being a romantic and heroic way of life. “Did you approach him then and there?”
“Oh, no! He went off with one of the women.” Wensu flushed scarlet. “I waited outside in the lane, and when he ap peared later that night, I spoke to him.”
“And…?”
Wensu flung a distracted look Bak’s way. “I told him how much I admired him, of course. How much I’d like to be come a man of the desert as he was. An explorer. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and…” The young man looked away, bit his lip. “He told me I must wait. I must not simply gain in maturity, but I must come to hunger for the desert as a man hungers for a woman.”
Bak pressed his tunic against his chest, blotting a rivulet of sweat trickling down his breastbone. “He made no promise to take you along on a future expedition?”
“Well, no, but he did imply…” The lie faltered. “No, he made no promise.”
“Why, in the name of the lord Amon, did you travel to
Kaine, thinking he’d take you with him?”
Wensu visibly wilted beneath Bak’s incredulous gaze.
“When I told my father I wanted to become an explorer, he laughed at me.” The young man swallowed, his distress ap parent. “He’s a chief scribe, sir, a lofty and influential man who reports directly to the vizier. He wishes me to become a scribe as he is. He hopes some day that I’ll become a man of note, attaining a rank equal to or higher than his.” A bitter smile touched his lips. “He’d like to see me a vizier.”
“You came anyway,” Bak said, trying not to reveal the sympathy he felt. “You turned your back on your father’s wishes. You ignored Minnakht’s advice.”
“I couldn’t submit to a lifetime of boredom, Lieutenant!”
The response, meant to be defiant, came close to being a wail.
Bak ignored the young man’s anguish. “Wensu, you spoke earlier of the gold Minnakht found. Were you repeating something he told you or were you referring to a rumor you heard?”
“He told the women in the house of pleasure that he was looking for gold.”
“He mentioned no specific discovery?”
“Oh, no. He merely said that was his goal. To find gold or some other precious mineral or stone.” Wensu flashed a guileless smile. “When I arrived in Kaine and heard the ru mor, I assumed he’d found it.”
Wensu’s dream was no different than that of many other young men. Bak doubted, however, that one as selfish and ar rogant as he could ever learn to cope in an uninviting envi ronment like the one User had described. In fact, he could not imagine the young man sneaking away unseen from User’s campsite or creeping up to the stranger and taking his dagger without rousing him. He would have neither the patience nor the ability.
“Tomorrow, Wensu, you should turn around and return to
Kemet. It’s not too late. You can spend the night with us at the next well and go back in the morning. Within two days, you’ll be sitting in a house of pleasure in Kaine.” He did not wish to squash the young man’s pride, but he felt sure User would agree to sending one of his drovers with him to make sure he arrived safe and well. If not, he would send a Medjay.
“No.” A stubborn look descended upon Wensu’s face. “If I can discover a new source of gold or some other valuable metal or stone, I’ll attract the attention of our sovereign and my future will be assured. My father will have to accept me as I am, not as he wishes me to be.”
When Bak walked back along User’s string of donkeys,
Ani was nowhere to be found. Looking worried, the nomad bringing up the rear pointed in the direction from which they had come. There Bak spotted the craftsman, lagging far be hind the caravan.
