Dagger

Osorkon looked from Samlor to Khamwas, doubtful but obviously hoping that medical attention would not be necessary.

Samlor's dagger lay in the grass. Its blade was stained with the juice and pulp of the gourd.

Khamwas stepped stiffly out of the arbor. He held the Book of Tatenen in his hand. Lights winked and changed in its crystalline interior, but sunshine on the open lawn did not affect the display.

Sarnlor said nothing, but his face grew very still. His eyes met Khamwas' when the book glinted between the men in its own rhythm.

"I think. .," said Khamwas. "What is that thing?" demanded Osorkon. "Is it a jewel?"

"Nanefer won't send us a dream next time. We'll really live it," said Samlor, ignoring Osorkon. "And there won't be a damned thing we can do, even knowing it." His groin ached with the abuse he had just given it.

". . that we'd best return this now," said Khamwas, completing the thought that he did not realize had been interrupted.

"What are you talking about?" Osorkon begged, suffused with the fear that his brother was going to break out into aberrant behavior again.

Samlor and Khamwas were walking toward the house, discussing preparations for their formal return to the Tomb of Nanefer.

As they passed the wide-eyed servants and children, they opened their arms. Khamwas strode on, holding his son by the hand, while Samlor carried the little girl who was not Star.

The manikin Tjainufi capered on Khamwas' shoulder, crying, "Happy is the heart of the man who has made a wise decision!"

The sparks in the crystal's heart had muted to warm pink and a yellow the hue of sunshine.

CHAPTER 30

"THE BOOK," TRILLED Ahwere's ghost. Her form shrank and expanded like a doll twisting on the end of a pendulum, now close to Samlor and now farther away. "They've come back with the book."

"Royal prince," intoned Khamwas, "royal princess, we return to you what is yours."

"Royal Prince Merib," Samlor echoed according to the directions his comrade had given him, "we beg forgiveness for having disturbed your rest."

Thirty musicians were playing on a barge on the river outside, and there was a chorus of over a hundred boys on the strand, chanting a hymn of praise to Tatenen. The music had been loud even while Samlor followed Khamwas up the tu

The corpse of Nanefer laughed.

Samlor was sweating and his nostrils were full of the dry, thick odor of incense boiling from the braziers he and Khamwas bore on their heads. There was no real danger that a quick motion would unlatch the perforated lid and pour burning coals down on the wearer-but it was possible, and the crawl through the tu

"Welcome, Prince Khamwas," said the corpse. "Welcome, noble Samlor."

One of Nanefer's dry, blackened hands gestured. Suddenly no heat came through the thick pad protecting Samlor's head from the brazier. The glow of the similar brass censer which Khamwas wore also cooled.

The room brightened with clear light flooding from the Book of Tatenen. It bathed the sparkling, ethereal ghosts of Ahwere and Merib. Instead of washing them away, the light gave substance to the figures, making them appear solid at a glance and warming their skin and clothing with its natural colors.

"Take off your headgear, my fellows," said Nanefer. "You and I are brothers, Prince Khamwas, and your friend Samlor is a friend to me."

His voice was awkward, as if it were being driven by a cracked bellows which had to be recharged after every few syllables, but his enunciation was so pure that his words were easily understood.

Samlor unlatched Khamwas' chinstrap and set that brazier on the floor before he delt with his own. Khamwas' hands cupped but did not grip the crystal book.

The brass censers were as cold as if they had never been lighted. They looked forlorn, sitting beside the blackened lamp which the men had abandoned on their first visit to the tomb.

Ahwere moved closer to her husband, walking instead of drifting as her shape had done in the past. Merib clutched her chest and shoulder but his chinless face was turned toward the living men with an expression of doubt rather than terror on it.

Khamwas swallowed. He stepped forward as Ahwere put her arm around the shoulders of the seated corpse.

"Prince Nanefer," Khamwas said, "the book is yours. Take it with our apologies." He laid the crystal, cushioned but not enveloped in its silk wrapper, on Nanefer's lap.

"We have bought the Book of Tatenen, my kinsman," said Ah were's ghost, her voice a wistful echo in the minds of the living men.

"We will leave you now in peace," said Khamwas. He backed away stiffly, trying not to rub his left wrist. The corpse's leathery hand had brushed him there as it grasped the crystal.

Nanefer's dark face smiled, but he did not speak in the white, sourceless glow which filled the tomb chamber.

"Let your benefaction reach him who has need of it," said Tjainufi, looking straight into Samlor's eyes.

"What can we do to make amends for the trouble we have caused you?" Samlor blurted, surprised at his words but certain that he was right to speak them.

"You can bring my wife and son to me," wheezed Nanefer.

"You can bring me to my brother, my husband, my life," whispered the words Ahwere had no mouth to voice.

"You are my kinsman, my brother, Prince Khamwas," the corpse said. "Bring my wife and son to me that we all may find peace. After a thousand years we may find peace. .

"Peace. .," echoed Ahwere.

"What you ask, we shall do," Khamwas promised formally. He bowed, rose, and then ducked low again to crawl out the tu

Samlor could hear the music again as he followed, but he could also hear a voice ruurmuring "Peace. …"

CHAPTER 31

SEVERAL OF THE barge's deck planks near the bow had been replaced recently enough that the polished wood shone paler than the surrounding planks. It was the same vessel Samlor had traveled aboard in the dream that ended on Tabubu's bloody floor. When he realized that, he started sharply enough to splash a dollop of fruit juice from the cup a servant had offered to cool him.

"Yes, but it's all right," said Khamwas grimly. "The details were right, even when we didn't know them; but it was only a dream."

"I've had men searching as soon as the messenger brought us words of your requirements," said the sallow priest from the Office of Religious Works. His face was blank and his voice so reserved that his extreme concern was obvious. "I'm very much afraid that-long before my tenure in office, I assure you-property of the temple on this side of the river was converted to private use."

"But you know where the boundaries are?" Samlor said, glowering at the priest. Lost records had a way of turning up when officials weighed the bribe a landowner had given them against the chance of being tortured. Samlor's scowl promised torture and worse if the priest failed.

" 'Ware in the bows!" shouted a crewman at the masthead. "Next landing but one!"

"This is. .," said Khamwas, squinting at the shore the royal barge passed in a controlled drift. The walled enclosures, most of them with private docks for the convenience of Ankhtawi's wealthy residents when they visited the capital across the river, varied only slightly in style from one to the next.

"This is where Tabubu lived," Samlor said, thinking that he was completing his companion's thought.

"Tabubu lived only in our minds," Khamwas corrected. "Look."

The bank here was walled by huge stones so black with age and ages of flooding that the interstices between the blocks had vanished to the eye. The central relief of Tatenen which had gri