Max Allan Collins

sorceress?' he asked lightly. 'You think you'll find your king out here in the desert, somewhere? Do you miss your beloved?'

Her eyes flared with anger, and she stood and swung a hard tiny fist at him; he caught the fist, but with her other hand she clawed at him, her nails long, sharp, her ferocity intense, almost over­whelming.

Surprised by the force, the frenzy of her attack, he lifted her off the ground, and hurled her up and over his shoulder, like a sack of grain. She landed with a rolling thump.

Trying to straighten out the line that bound them, Mathayus walked to her, where she turned over— painfully—and, wincing with discomfort yet still prideful, she said, 'Memnon is not my beloved .. . not my lover. I am a virgin.'

He might have laughed at that, had she not been so obviously, indignantly sincere.

'My powers stem from my purity,' she said. 'Even that monster Memnon would not dare defile me.'

Monster Memnon.... ?

'Apologize to me,' she demanded. 'Now!'

The Akkadian studied the beauty, asprawl on the sand, disheveled but no less fetching in the ivory-washed blue of the night. Her conviction was im­pressive, no denying.

'I am sorry,' he said. 'Truly.'

She swallowed, her eyes searching his face for sarcasm, for insincerity, finding neither. Her head lowered. Her voice trembled when she spoke.

'I was eleven,' she said, 'when Memnon heard the stories of the child, the girl, with eyes like the gods. ... He rode into my village and lined up four of his soldiers, before me. He said, 'Tell me the names of these men. Each wrong answer means that man's death.' '

'His own men,' Mathayus whispered, aghast.

'His own men,' she said, with a nod. 'I was ter­rified, but what could I do? I told him the names, all four.'

'You saved their lives.'

'Yes. And, afterward, those same four soldiers killed my family, as I was taken away.'

The Akkadian felt stunned, as though he'd suffered a terrible physical blow; his heart ached for her—she had suffered Memnon's cruelty as much as any man, or woman.

Softly he said, 'The 'Great Teacher' has taught his lessons to us all, has he not?'

And he bent to her, and untied the line from her ankle.

Then he walked back to the camp, the fire and his blankets; she returned, slowly, sitting where be­fore she had slept, clutching her knees to herself.

He had turned his back to her. 'Run, if you like— you're no longer my prisoner....' He glanced back at her, tellingly. 'But keep in mind—there are worse dangers, out there, than me.'

Then, his back still to her, he went to sleep, snor­ing a little, though the snort-snoring of the thief— who had dozed through all the fuss—drowned him out.

And for a long, long time, the sorceress sat and studied her captor, wondering what kind of man this was, after all. Who was he, this man who dared stand up to Lord Memnon?

Yet, for all her visions, for all her prophecies, Cassandra was unaware that she now loved the Ak­kadian. That her future was bound with his.

                  Gathering Storm

B

y midmorning the next day, Thorak and those dozen red- turbaned warriors had all but caught up with their quarry; as they trudged up the slope of a large dune—a