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.
Bak and his companions sat on the sand, surrounded by the water jars, supplies, and weapons they had brought from Kaine. Their donkeys and the animal Imset had left behind stood or lay in the shade inside the mouth of the gorge, doz ing. User’s camp and animals were farther back in the gorge.
From what the Medjays had told Bak, the caravan had ar rived at the well not long after he had chased the nomad up the wadi. They had found the hobbled donkey, the meager supply of food, the abandoned waterbag, and the spent ar rows. Their first thought was that the donkey’s master, who ever he was, had vanished as Minnakht had.
Nebre, while watering one of the donkeys, had spotted the print of a sandal near the pool and, thanks to a small
V-shaped cut at the heel, had recognized it as Bak’s. The
Medjays were stunned. The man they had been seeking for the past four days had been here, possibly awaiting them, but had vanished once more-maybe not of his own volition.
While Rona and Minmose had remained behind with Psuro to tend to the animals and make camp, Nebre and Kaha had gone out to look for him. The sand carpeting the wadi floor was too soft to leave clear prints, but they had gradually come to believe they were following two men. They could not tell if Bak was pursuing the other man or if he was that man’s prisoner.
Later, after returning to the pools, Bak had pointed out the slope on which he had first seen the nomad. Kaha had climbed the incline. Higher up, he had found a print of the sandal worn by the watching man.
“The boy went off alone, you say.” Psuro adjusted his seat on the hard ground. “If he was truly what he said and was no friend of the watching man, do you think he got away unharmed?”
“Coming back from my foolhardy chase, I looked specifi cally for his footprints,” Bak said. “I found the place where he left the wadi to climb a hillside too rough and rocky to leave traces of himself. From that point on, I walked in reverse the path he took when he left here, covering all sign of his passing. I saw nothing to indicate that he’d been fol lowed, and I doubt he can be now.”
Kaha and Nebre exchanged a look. The latter spoke for them both. “User wishes to spend the night here. We should have plenty of time during the cooler hours of evening to track the man you chased.”
“I’d wager the last drop of water in this bowl…” Bak held up the container from which he had been drinking.
“… that he’s even now somewhere above the pools, watch ing us.”
The Medjays looked distinctly uncomfortable with the thought.
Kaha broke their long, unhappy silence. “Nefertem must’ve sent him. How else would he have known to look for you here?”
Bak could not bring himself to trust Nefertem without res ervation, but the nomad had been true to his word as far as the pools were concerned and the caravan had come as predicted.
“I first saw him watching us a day’s walk down the main wadi that descends to the west. Is that not the way you came?”
Nebre shifted a blade of dry grass from one corner of his mouth to the other. “We did.”
“Either that’s the only way to reach the pass we crossed to get here, or someone in the caravan told him the route you meant to take and he hurried on ahead to intercept you. My coming along may’ve been a surprise.”
Bak spoke reluctantly of a traitor in their midst. He had been greeted like a long-lost brother, with every man in the caravan clapping him on the back, expressing his joy at his return, and letting him know in a multitude of ways how worried they all had been for his safety. He had described his abduction as briefly as possible and had evaded further questions, saying the nomads had known few words of the tongue of Kemet.
“We’ve a snake among us, you think?” Kaha spat out a curse.
“Why take such interest in this caravan?” Psuro asked.
