Max Allan Collins

... and the archer let fly!

Mathayus reared back, startled as he saw the un­blinking Memnon snap his hands shut and catch the arrow, inches from a breastplate that would not have sufficiently shielded the warlord's heart.

The Great Teacher nodded to the archer, who re­turned the gesture, but deeper, as the courtyard rang with applause.

As for Mathayus, he was not clapping; he was notching his own arrow into his mighty bow, his smile as taut as the bowstring, knowing even a man of such skills as Memnon could not catch an arrow he didn't see coming ... well, not catch it in his hands....

But as Mathayus aimed at his nemesis, sighting the man with precision and pleasure, a commotion below distracted him. The Akkadian ignored the disruption, regaining his concentration, steadying his aim, drawing a bead, pulling back the impossibly taut bowstring .. . through the neck would be nice....

And then a pair of red-turbaned guards dragged a struggling prisoner into full view below, to face Lord Memnon. Since his high angle on his target was not hindered, the Akkadian initially intended to go ahead and shoot.

But then he saw who the prisoner was—the boy!

The street urchin who had aided him, guided him through that rear doorway into just the right tower, providing him this perch ...

Damn!

Now the guards, hauling the boy, were periodi­cally blocking the assassin's line of sight, and he paused, muscles straining as he held the tense bow­string in place, waiting to fire, ready to fire.

Right now, however, one of the guards was dis­playing to Memnon the ruby, which they'd obvi­ously found on the boy.

'Why waste my time?' Memnon snapped, speak­ing to the guards but looking straight at the raga­muffin. 'Why test my patience? You know the penalty for thievery.'

The guards dragged the boy to a nearby table and forced him to stretch his small arm out, straight. From the back of the row of red-turbaned guards, a burly example of their brethren emerged, with a large ax in hand, its edge catching the dying sunlight and glinting, making the watching Akkadian blink.

The ax-wielding guard raised his implement high, and Mathayus—face darkening, frustrated—swore under his breath as he shifted his aim and let the arrow fly.

The power of the Akkadian's arm, the swiftness of the arrow's flight, the sturdiness of its shaft, its razor-keen point, all did their appointed tasks: the arrow hit the ax handle, hard, knocking it from the guard's grasp and sending it whanging into a tree, where the blade quivered and held.

Not a second passed before every eye was on that balcony (allowing the boy to scramble away), the presence of an intruder sparking an immediate alarm. With an impressive implementation of pro­cedure, half the guards swarmed their lord and mas­ter, and swept him from the garden; the rest flew into pursuit.

Bow slung back over his shoulder, scimitar in hand, the Akkadian was racing down the balcony walkway, where he soon spotted a small entry in a tower at his path's dead end. In the corridor beyond, he hustled along, and the first door he came to, he shouldered open, and thrust himself inside.

He shut the door and lowered the wooden beam— which had thankfully not been in place—that se­cured it. Then, breathing hard, he turned and took in his surroundings, and strange surroundings they were indeed.

Mathayus had never seen the like of what he could not recognize as a primitive but prophetic lab­oratory, scattered with strange, imaginative inventions that centuries from now would have been worthy of da Vinci; the largest of these was a weapon Mathayus did not recognize, because it had only recently been invented (by the chamber's oc­cupant): a large wooden catapult. On rough wood-slab tables bubbled and burbled various potions