Soldier of Sidon

"A frightening dream, from what you say."

"It was. Isn't there a wolf-headed god in this land? You're of it, and the most learned among us, Myt-ser'eu says."

"That god has many names," the healer told me. He recounted some of them.

I said my soldiers called him Ap-uat.

"Then we may call him that, so long as we keep in mind that he is the opener of the ways. When our army marches, Latro, it sends a few men ahead so that it ca

"An advance guard," I said. "That is always wise."

"These are called the openers of the way. Often they see a wolf-headed man who walks in advance of them. Then they know the way is safe and the army will triumph. For that reason this god was on our pharaoh's standard."

"My men wished to stop at the city of this god," I explained, "so they might sacrifice to him before we reach the wild southern lands. We went to Qanju and explained this, but he would not stop there."

The healer nodded. "I see. Do you believe that this god sent your dream?"

"It seems to me he must. We spoke to Muslak as well. He said that we'd be far south of Ap-uat's city by the time we stopped for the night, perhaps as far as Akhmim."

"Thus you come to me."

I shook my head. "Thus I sat with Myt-ser'eu, and slept. I was in a dark land in which there lay many dead. Slowly, a wolf that was also a man crawled toward me, dragging itself with its hands, which were its forepaws as well."

The healer listened in silence.

"Seeing it crawl, I knew its back was broken. No man and no beast lives long with a broken back. With a man's voice it begged me to slay it, to take its life and end its agony. I-"

The healer raised his hand. "Wait. I have many questions. Did you recognize this man who was a wolf?"

"Yes, I knew who he was in my dream, but I ca

"Yet you knew him then. Was he friend or foe?"

"He had been my enemy," I said. "I knew that, too."

"He came to you begging mercy, nonetheless?"

I raised my shoulders and let them fall as men do. "There was no one else."

"Only you, and the dead."

"I think so."

"Very well. Go on."

"I did as he asked." I showed the healer my sword. "I killed him with this, and quickly, holding his ear while I slashed his throat. When he was dead I saw his man's face." I paused to think and to remember the dark plain of my dream. "After that, Myt-ser'eu woke me, fearing I had died."

The healer took four sticks of crooked gold from his robe, made a square of their corners on the deck before us, and did and said certain things I will not write. These things done, he picked up the gold sticks, speaking a word for each, shook them together, and cast them at my face.

I asked whether they spoke to him when they clattered to the deck. Angry, he motioned me to silence. After a time, he swept them up, shook them as he had before, and cast them again. "You are not telling me everything," he said when he had studied them a second time. "What is it you have not told?"

"I said girl as I cut his throat. Only that. I ca

"Girl."

I nodded. "Just that. The one word."

"You speak the tongue of Kemet better than most foreigners. Was it in this way that you spoke in your dream?"

"I spoke only one word in my dream. That one."

"Satet?"

"No, another word that meant the same."

"Bent?"

"I don't think it was in this tongue. It meant a tall girl, very young but tall and crowned with blossoms-meant that in my dream, I mean."

The healer looked out over the water. "We must stop at Asyut," he said.

He cast his sticks as before, nodding and humming over them, then cast them again. When he looked up he said, "You must not fear your dream, Latro. Ap-uat favors you. I want you to buy a lamb and take it to his temple. A black lamb, if you can find one."

I objected that the Crimson Man had told me we would not stop for the night where Ap-uat's temple was.

"If we do," the healer asked, "will you do as I have instructed you?"

"Yes," I said. "I will surely do it if I have enough money."

He nodded, as if to himself. "Myt-ser'eu will not have left you much, I imagine. Qanju has a great deal and may give you something if you ask. Wait."

He cast the sticks as before, whistled softly, and cast again. When he swept them up, he put them into his robe. "Anubis favors you also, as he has long favored me. Now he speaks to you through me. You are to go to the city of the dead. There he will give you more than enough to buy the lamb. You are not afraid of ghosts?"

"Of course I'm afraid of ghosts," I said, "what sane man isn't? But to what city of the dead am I to go? Doesn't every city have a place to inter its dead?"

"He did not say, nor did he say on which night you are to go there. When I spoke of ghosts, I meant only that many men are afraid to enter any city of the dead by night. Will you, knowing that the god commands you?"

"Certainly."

"Is your sword sharp?"

"You handled it," I said.

"I did not examine the edge. Is it?"

"Yes."

"That is well. Anubis wishes you to bring a sharp sword."

I write this while I remember. I have told Uraeus, who says he will go with me. Myt-ser'eu overheard us. She says she will come with me as well.

She says also that this god Anubis who favors me is a very great one, the messenger sent from the Lands of the Dead to the gods, and the messenger whom the gods send to the Lands of the Dead. He oversees the preparation of the body for burial, guards the tomb, and is invoked by everyone. I asked why he should favor me. She could not say, saying only that no one can tell why a god favors one person over another. Perhaps it is because his brother favors me.

Uraeus says we met, this Anubis and I-that he held the scales in which my heart was weighed. I protested that the heart ca

14

ANUBIS LED THE grand procession in honor of his brother. Urged by Myt-ser'eu, I had read much in this scroll before we ate this morning. Thus I knew him at once.

We slept on the ship last night, having tried (Myt-ser'eu says) to find an i

"We will have to stay here at Asyut tonight and tomorrow at least," Muslak told me. "My crew is off sightseeing, drinking, dancing, and looking for women now, and it will be that long-if not longer-before we'll be ready to sail again."

Neither Myt-ser'eu nor I had any objection, though I wished we had been able to find an i

I ca

It would have been better, I thought, to have had a special place set aside for it, in which the spectators might watch in safety. (I mentioned this to Uraeus, but he would not agree.) As it is, spectators have no protection save the ropes about the horns of the bulls by which their handlers slowed their charges when they tried to toss us.