centuries.
At last Trok stood back from the table. 'There is no weakness that I can divine, magician. You were right the first time. It will take three years of hard work to break through those walls. You will have to do better than this to earn your three lakhs.'
'The water,' whispered Ishtar. 'Look to the water.'
'I have looked to the water.' Naja smiled at him, but it was a serpent's smile, cold and thin-lipped. 'There are canals supplying every quarter of the city, enough water to grow Sargon's six terraces of gardens that. reach up into the sky, and to water and feed the city for a hundred years.'
'Pharaoh is all-seeing, all-wise.' Ishtar bowed to him, 'but where does the water come from?'
'From two mighty rivers. After the Nile itself, the mightiest rivers in the world. A supply of water that has not failed in this millennium.'
'But where does the water enter the city? How does it pass through, under or over those walls?' Ishtar insisted, and Naja and Trok exchanged a look of dawning comprehension.
--
Half a mile north of Babylon, outside the city walls, on the east bank of the Euphrates, at a point where the flood broadened and ran sluggishly, stood the temple of Ninurta, the lion-headed winged god of the Euphrates. It was built on stone piers that extended out into the river. The multiple images of the god were engraved on a frieze that ran around all four outer walls. In the Akkadian language, chiselled into the stone lintel over the entrance, was a warning to all who sought to invade the sanctuary, calling down the wrath of the god upon them.
Ishtar the Mede worked a charm on the threshold to nullify the curse, slitting the throats of two captives and splashing their blood on the portals. Once the way was cleared Trok, with twenty troopers at his back, strode through into the temple courtyard where all the purple-robed priests of Ninurta were gathered. They were chanting and gesticulating, waving their arms towards the intruder, splashing water from the Euphrates in his path, invoking Ninurta to build up an invisible wall of magical power to turn Trok back.
Trok strode through the wall without a check and killed the high priest with a single thrust through the old man's throat. Wailing at such sacrilege, the other priests prostrated themselves before him.
Trok sheathed his sword and nodded to the captain, who commanded the guard. 'Kill them all. Make certain no one escapes.'
The work was done swiftly, and when the courtyard was littered with purple-clad bodies Trok commanded, 'Do not throw them into the river. We do not want the city guards to see them float past and guess what we are about.'
Then he turned to watch Ishtar who, once all the priests had been disposed of, had entered the courtyard to work another charm to counteract the baleful influence of the god they had invoked. At the four corners he burned bundles of herbs, which emitted a thick, greasy smoke that was repugnant to Ninurta and, as Trok remarked jovially, to all gods and lesser mortals equally. Once Ishtar had completed the purification, he led the way into the holy places of the temple, and Trok and his troopers followed him, with blood-caked blades bared.
Their cleated sandals rang hollowly in the gloomy recesses of the high, cavernous hall, and even Trok felt a religious chill as they approached the image of the god on his plinth. The lion's head snarled silently and the wings of stone were spread wide. Ishtar declaimed another lengthy prayer to the god to placate him, then led Trok into the narrow space between the rear wall and the idol's back. Here he pointed out a heavily grilled gate built into the body of Ninurta. Trok seized the bars of the grille, and shook them with all his bear-like strength. They did not move.
'There is an easier way, all-wise Pharaoh,' Ishtar suggested sweetly. 'The key will be on the body of the high priest.'
'Fetch it!' Trok snapped at the captain of his guard, who ran. When he returned there was blood on his hands, but he carried a bunch of heavy keys, some of them as long as his forearm. Trok tried two in the lock on the grille, and the second turned the ancient mechanism. The gate swung open on creaking hinges.
Trok peered down a descending spiral staircase into darkness. The air coming up the deep shaft was cold and dank, and he heard the sound of running water far below.
'Bring torches!' he ordered, and the captain sent four of his troopers to take down the burning torches from their brackets. With a torch held above his head, Trok started down the narrow, unprotected stairwell. He went gingerly, for the treads of the stone steps were slimy and slippery. The sound of running water grew louder as he went down.
Ishtar followed him closely. 'This temple and the tunnels beneath it were built almost five hundred years ago,' he told Trok. Now there was the gleam of water below them, and the sound of the torrent running swiftly in the darkness. At last Trok reached the bottom and stepped down on to a stone pier. By the wavering torchlight he saw that they stood in a wide tunnel with a curved roof, an aqueduct of impressive dimensions. The roof and walls were lined with ceramic tiles, laid in geometric patterns. Both ends of the tunnel shaded off into deep darkness.
Ishtar picked a fragment of fungus from the wall and tossed it into the flow. It was whisked away down the duct and disappeared from sight. 'It is deeper than a man's head,' he said, and Trok looked speculatively at the captain of the guard, as though he considered testing that statement. The captain shrank back into the shadows trying to appear insignificant.
'This footpath on which we stand runs the full length of the aqueduct,' Ishtar explained. 'The priests who repair and maintain the tunnel use it to gain access.'
'Where does it start and where does it end?' Trok demanded.
'There is a sump in the bed of the river, under the piers of the temple, into which the water flows. The far end of the aqueduct emerges in the other temple of Ninurta within the walls of Babylon, near the Blue Gate,' Ishtar explained. 'Only the priests know of the existence of this tunnel. All others believe that the water is a benevolent gift from the god. After it gushes from the fountain in the temple precinct, the water is lifted by shadoof, water wheels, to the gardens of the palace, or sent by canals to every quarter of the city.'
'I do believe, Ishtar the Mede, that you are close to earning your three lakhs.' Trok laughed with delight. 'It remains only for you to lead us down this rabbit-hole, and into the city of wonders and treasure, especially the treasure.'
--
