Dagger

Ah were's nod was no certain indication either way, so the chief priest went on in factual neutrality. "The wall is only a hundred feet long, to be sure, but the stones in its fabric are of exceptional size. There are a few buildings in the capital as massively constructed, but nothing whatever here on the Lower River. And even in Napata, the close fit between the individual stones would be considered remarkable. It is-"

Tekhao paused to consider his words. "It is said," he continued, "that Tatenen made the stones soft for a moment after he put them in place, so that the surfaces flowed together. Despite weathering, there is no place in the wall that a knife will slip further than a fingertip between the layers."

"But there's a face on it, isn't there?" Ahwere asked. "Was that always there?"

Samlor couldn't tell whether Ahwere were just making conversation, or if she had a suspicion of what he intended-but would not ask her husband directly.

"Yes indeed, your highness," Tekhao said. "The face of Tatenen himself, ah-it is said. Stamped onto the stone with his, ah, seal ring as his final act of creation."

The chief priest's wife stood up and stumped heavily across the front of the table to reach the fruit compote. One of the servants standing behind the diners' chairs would have served her had she flicked a finger toward him-but that wouldn't have given her the opportunity to glare straight into her husband's eyes.

"There was once a ceremony," continued Tekhao. Only a tic of his right cheek betrayed his awareness of his wife's displeasure. "The Cleansing of the Face, it was called.

Every year the nearby villages brought offerings which they cast into the river, and they scrubbed the face clean. Horrible waste. Ah, the offerings, that is."

"Now the ceremony is held here in the temple," said Tekhao's wife brightly, joining the conversation as a better way of getting attention than glowering from her end of the table. "It's much nicer. Though still very colorful, of course."

"Ah, yes," agreed Tekhao with a hint of well-deserved embarrassment. "It seemed more fitting that the ceremony be held here in the temple enclosure. Of course, we know that Tatenen is everywhere, not in an idol or a, or a face on a wall. But it makes it easier for the common villagers to carry out their duties to the god if they associate him with the, ah, house where their offerings are deposited."

"The wall," said Samlor, "is thought to be the dam which Tatenen built to separate the realm of men from the realm of gods."

Tekhao blinked and turned to face Samlor. "Yes, your highness," he said. "That is said. Though-" his round face became as neutral as an expanse of flooring " – nothing is behind the stone except earth. There have been, ah, examinations. Muddy earth."

Samlor nodded calmly.

Ahwere was looking at him past the chief priest's head. Her face was gray with fear.

CHAPTER 14

MERIB WAS ASLEEP, but they could hear the nurse singing to him in the room beyond the doorway screened by reed matting.

Ahwere began to cry softly.

Samlor touched her shoulders from behind, then began to massage them gently as he moved closer.

She turned, throwing her arms around him and burying her face against his chest. "Oh, Nanefer," she said through her sobs. "My prince, my brother, my only love…"

"Don't be afraid," Samlor whispered, bending to kiss her forehead and eyelid. "There isn't anything to fear."

"We're going to enter the realm of the gods, aren't we?" she said, looking up at him. Her eyes, her jewels, and the tears on her cheeks were all that was visible in the screened moonlight.

"Yes," said Samlor simply. "I am. There's no need for you to go with me, though. Shay will do as I order, and-"

"Would you leave me behind then?" Ahwere demanded fiercely. "Watch you go off to die and never return? Is that what you want?" Fresh tears were welling up even though she was so angry that Samlor thought she might strike him.

"I'm not going to die, my darling," he said, trying to ease her close to him again. She resisted only for a moment. "I'm going to come back with the Book of Tatenen. I just don't want to force you to help me in this if you'd rather not."

"Rather leave you?" Ahwere said, but this time wijhra lilt of joyous remembrance in her voice. "The way I left you when our father would have married you to a governor's daughter and me to a general?"

Samlor smiled and quoted King Merneb, " 'Shall I marry my son to my daughter and risk all my happiness at once? No, I don't dare risk the gods' envy that way."

"And it was 1 who made him change his mind," said Ahwere, "so that you and I could find happiness with the only souls on earth who could make us happy. I will not leave you now."

They kissed. Lips still joined, they moved toward the bed, shedding their clothes with increasing urgency.

CHAPTER 15

SAMLOR WAS so engrossed that he did not notice when Ahwere entered his work area, the flat roof of one of the temple buildings-now screened so that direct sun would not melt the hard yellow wax. He had shaped a section of the bow and was reaching for another block of material when he realized that his wife was watching him with a slight smile.

He started, dropping the baton with which he formed the wax into a perfect simulacrum of a wood surface.

Ahwere's face clouded. "I'm sorry," she blurted, turning toward the stairs again. "I didn't mean-"

Samlor caught her in his arms. "No," he said, "don't go. You should see this, if you want to. 1 was just- concentrating on what I was doing."

The smile that returned was shaky, but Ahwere allowed herself to be drawn close to what Samlor was constructing.

It was a boat, small but otherwise similar to the vessel which was docked at the temple quay-except that this one was built of wax. Samlor had fitted the flat bottom, shaping the pyramidal cakes of wax into a perfect duplicate of irregular, pegged-together planks of sycamore wood. Now he was raising the slanting wales, starting from the bow.

Ahwere stretched out her finger but did not touch the «planks» until her husband had nodded approval. The

material had the grain of wood, but it retained the feel of wax as well as its yellow translucence.

"Watch," he said, anticipating the question she might not have been willing to ask. He picked up his baton, a section of hollow reed the length of his forearm, and took a fresh block of wax which he held against the end of one of the blanks.

When Samlor drew the baton across it, the wax flowed like paint before a brushstroke. Instead of taking the texture of the baton, it formed another "plank" – perfect in its irregularities, even to the trenails pi

Samlor smiled to Ahwere, but he could feel the sweat of concentration on his brow.

"Shay came to tell you that the fittings have been removed from our ship," she said, nodding toward the edge of the roof. The vessel on which the royal party arrived was just visible past the line of the dock, riding on its cables. "He says they'll begin loading the sand after midday. But-"

Ahwere frowned. "But why, my husband? Why don't we just use the real ship instead of-" she gestured. "Though it's very wonderful, what you're doing."

Samlor smiled so that the implication of danger wouldn't be the first answer his wife received. "The real boat might be able to-enter the realm where we'll find the book," he explained, "But nothing alive could travel with it for the entire distance. We'll be perfectly safe in this vessel-" he patted the waxen side, without quite touching it " – and the other will carry the equipment we need."