CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
François watched as Kareem stirred the large, reeking pot of guano soup, over a fire outside their mud-brick shelter. The crew’s expanded team, including its ten Ahuskay warriors, occupied the loaned building and a large patch of the land around it, with two fires built on the ground in addition to François’s, and a number of small lean-tos.
After the previous day’s successful test of the gunpowder, François had started the manufacturing process in earnest. Instead of distilling the potassium nitrate from mugfuls of bat guano, he’d upgraded to large five-gallon earthenware containers with the help of the couple who’d made him his grenades.
So far, he’d made a two-pound pouch full of the black powder, and now that Kareem and Gunther had volunteered to help with the extraction of the potassium nitrate, the process should hopefully be done before they had to leave.
It was late at night, after the evening meal, and the campfires were being banked for the night. François spotted Lowanna.
“I’ll be back, okay?” he said.
Kareem nodded, his eyes tearing from the noxious vapors.
François walked toward the next campfire as two women emptied the remains from a large cooking pot into a smaller pot. Lowanna sat on a bench watching, and he sat down next to her.
Her back stiffened.
François sighed. “I’ve been thinking.”
She said nothing.
“You don’t like me. I get it. And I don’t think that’s on you. I think it’s my doing.”
“It’s always about you, is it?” she muttered.
He bit his tongue. “It shouldn’t be,” he agreed. “In this case, it is. I didn’t respect you. And I used my money to control you.”
“How strange that I don’t enjoy that.”
“No, it’s not strange.” François took a deep breath. “Look, I have money. Had money, anyway, before this whole thing happened to me. I always had it, and when I put my mind to it, I could always make more. And the easiest way to get what I wanted, my whole life, was to use the money. So I did.”
Lowanna flared her nostrils. She looked away, watching lights getting snuffed out for the evening in a building across the street.
“I’m not going to say that you would have done the same,” François said. “Maybe you wouldn’t. Maybe you would have been wiser than me. Maybe I have been an especially bad rich man. I will point out that I have at least used my wealth to try to advance the cause of knowledge.”
“Looking for aliens and Bigfoot,” Lowanna said.
“That would have been a much better retort before you and I both traveled back in time,” François said. “Don’t you think?”
“Fair point . . . my dear.”
“Ah, yes.” François nodded. “I’m sorry. I have tried to indicate that I thought you were a beautiful woman, but this was unwise of me. Perhaps I should have stuck to complimenting your anthropological insights.”
“Perhaps you should have made your own tea,” Lowanna growled.
“Yes. Yes, I’m sorry for all of that. I insulted you, and I’m sorry. What else do I need to apologize for?”
Lowanna sat still as a statue.
Nodding, he stood and walked away.
Someone in the distance yelled, “Fire!”
François saw the yellow and orange glow of flames near the marketplace. He rushed toward the commotion as residents of Jehed poured out of their mud-brick homes to see what was going on.
He paused for a second at the well, located at the center of the town square. Was water too precious a commodity to be used against a fire?
He followed the crowd to the market. The smell of burning grass and wood filled the air. Men and women grabbed buckets of sand and rushed toward the conflagration.
François had seen the piles of sand strategically located throughout the marketplace, but hadn’t given it much thought before. Seeing an empty bucket, he scooped up a load of sand.
As he raced past several merchant stands, the glow ahead took the form of flames licking at a wide wooden structure. It was a single-story warehouse.
Following the example of others, he tossed the sand at the fire. It barely had any effect. He raced back for more sand.
For twenty minutes, François and others battled the flames.
In the surging crowd he spotted Marty and Surjan, their faces streaked with sweat and soot.
Even some of the king’s guards were present, throwing large bucketsful of sand, and temporarily preventing the flames from spreading.
But the contents of the storeroom—timber and cloth—were now on fire, and the flames were getting close to an adjacent warehouse.
But was sand really his best firefighting tool?
François tossed the bucket and ran to the crew’s camp. He grabbed both earthenware grenades from his supply pouch and turned to race back. He hadn’t yet inserted the flint-based ignition systems he’d worked on, but it wouldn’t matter in this case. There was fire enough to do the job.
But he needed to clear the crowd.
He ran back across the market to the burning warehouse. Warmth flooded through his body and pressure built up within him. For a second, François felt as if he was about to explode. His chest vibrated like the engine of a muscle car and he yelled, “Everyone back! Move away from the fire!”
This should work.
The grenade would explode, and shock waves would put out the flames.
Might put out the flames. As his bread-mold antibiotic might heal the king.
Or might not.
The people of Jehed scrambled backward, away from the fire. François held a grenade in his right hand, wound his arm back, and hurled the little ceramic weapon through the open door of the structure.
This would work.
Almost instantly there was a loud whoomph followed by a shock wave that knocked François prone. Debris flew over his head and rained down on him.
The building collapsed. Dust and soot rose in a billowing cloud, and the flames were instantly gone.
People rushed forward with more sand to snuff out the glowing embers. Two townspeople lifted François up by his arms, talking to him. His ears rang, and it took him a moment before he understood what they were asking. “What form of magic was that, stranger? I’ve never seen the like.”
François felt a tingling sensation running up and down all his limbs. Like electricity, but . . . it felt good. So good, in fact, that he could have probably run a marathon at that moment. He felt euphoria in the midst of chaos.
Was this what Lowanna and the others had described?
A woman in the distance screamed. “They’re gone!”
A second woman took up the cry. “The king’s boys, they’ve been taken!”
François spotted Marty rushing in the direction of the king’s two-story home. “Thank you. Thank you,” he mumbled. Pulling himself from the grasp of his well-wishers, he raced after Marty.
He caught Marty in the king’s open doorway just as one of the king’s maids burst from the building. She threw herself on Marty, thumping him with her fists.
“It’s because of you!” she yelled. “Your people brought this upon us!”
François put on a show of calm that he did not feel and tried to make his voice soft. “Please . . . can you tell me what happened?”
The woman stopped hitting Marty but didn’t unclench her fists. “The king’s three boys. Nine years old, seven, and five. The youngest two have been taken. The eldest was left with a cut across his cheek and a message.” Her eyes blinked rapidly and she swayed on her feet.
François grabbed her shoulders and steadied her. “What message?”
The woman’s expression melted into one of utter sorrow. “‘Send the strangers to the ruins and we’ll return your whelps unharmed. Don’t do this and they’ll be eaten.’”
Marty paced back and forth along the outskirts of the town, waiting for Surjan’s return. The kidnapping of the king’s children had been a surprise, but the more disturbing thing was that his crew had been mentioned by the kidnappers.
Send the strangers to the ruins . . .
The only thing Marty had been able to learn from the king’s women about the ruins was that they were northwest of the town and that they were haunted.
He’d been to his share of allegedly haunted places in his archaeology career, of course. But that was before he’d encountered the Sethians and the Hathiru. If ancient Earth held those monsters, what other surprises might it contain?
Nobody had gotten any sleep that night, and it had taken all of François’s sweet talking to prevent the crew from being tied up and thrown into the ruins. By the time the first light of dawn appeared on the horizon, the Ahuskay warriors had been isolated into a makeshift prison while Marty and the rest of his crew were escorted from the town.
The Jehedi warriors leaned on their spears with scowls on their faces, watching Marty closely.
It had been Surjan’s suggestion that he go alone and scout the ruins to see what they faced. He’d argued that it would be easier for him to both track and avoid being detected if he was alone.
“There he is, praise God!” Kareem pointed.
Marty focused in the indicated direction and waited for a full minute before he saw the first sign of Surjan’s form jogging in their direction.
As the large man slowed and finally came to a stop, he took a moment to catch his breath. “About three miles northwest, there’s a set of dodgy ruins in a green valley. Looks like human settlements, but they’re old. Really old. Those nippers could be hidden in any of those buildings.”
“Did you see anyone?” Marty asked.
Surjan’s face took on a sour expression. “I thought I saw some people moving within the ruins, but they . . . moved wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
He sighed. “This might sound barmy, and I know we’re in the wrong part of the world, but what I saw looked like incarnations of the Hindu god Narasimha. One of Vishnu’s avatars.”
Marty furrowed his brow. “Narasimha is the one with a head of a lion. You saw cat-headed people?”
“They had the heads of cats. They moved like cats.”
“On all fours?” Marty asked.
“On their hind legs. But they prowled. And they smelled like cats. But their bodies were the bodies of men.” Surjan shrugged. “It was a great distance, and the winds were unreliable, so I couldn’t get any closer without alerting them.”
Gunther nudged Marty. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking? That sounds like Bast.”
Marty nodded. “Why not? We already have Sethians, the cow-headed Hathiru, why not a bunch of Bast clones running around? I suppose something had to have inspired Egyptian mythology. Call them Bastites.”
François grinned. “Call them Bastards, perhaps?”
Marty turned back to Surjan, in no mood for jokes. “You didn’t see any kids?”
The Sikh shook his head. “I didn’t, but I smelled them.”
“You’re sure?” Marty asked.
“The . . . Bastites . . . smelled catlike,” Surjan said. “But when they traveled, they had humans with them. I can now appreciate what a bloodhound must experience, because to me I can smell the difference as clearly as if I was being asked to tell the visual difference between an orange and an apple.”
Marty scanned the crew. “We’re persona non grata in the village until we get those kids back, and it seems that they were taken because of us.” He turned to François. “It looks like your grenades are working. Do we have any more?”
François extracted one fist-sized ball from a pouch hanging off his belt. “Just this one. And my supplies for making more are all back in Jehed.”
“Surjan,” Marty said, “you saw the terrain and the Bastites. Do you have any suggestions?”
The big man turned to face northwest and remained silent for a few seconds. “About two miles from here, the land dips into a valley and it’s pretty treacherous terrain. We’re going to have to be careful. I have no idea how many of those monsters we’re facing, but I guess my nose should be able to sniff its way to where the kids are being held.”
“Is there any cover on the approach?”
Surjan nodded. “Thick forest down in the valley.”
Marty didn’t like it. The enemy had picked the terrain, and it was one that they presumably knew well. A little cover at least meant he might get the advantage of surprise. On the other hand, the Bastites had apparently invited Marty to come.
He looked at the rest of the crew. “Any thoughts or concerns before we head out?”
François frowned. “All I have is the one grenade with an ignition system I haven’t even tested yet. So, if we’re engaging in melee of some kind . . .” He held up his sharpened ankh. “I’m not exactly a kung fu master or trained with weapons.”
Marty patted the Frenchman on the shoulder. “Surjan is taking point with his nose. I’ll be near the front as well. Kareem, I assume you’re somewhere right behind or next to me. Gunther, are you comfortable with your weapon?”
Gunther made a so-so motion with his hand and Lowanna cleared her throat. “I’m very comfortable with both the ankh and my throwing stick, thank you very much.”
“And you?” Marty asked the Jehedi warriors. “Will you fight with us?”
“We come only to make certain that you do not flee,” the foremost grunted.
Surjan pointed at François. “Just watch our six and yell if you see anything.”
François nodded.
“And if you’re about to toss your grenade,” Marty added, “yell so we aren’t caught by surprise.” He took a deep breath. “Let’s go see if Bast turns out to be as much fun as Seth was.”
Marty crept forward on the balls of his feet, amazed at the difference in climate between the arid village and this humid, mist-covered subtropical valley. Hanging in the air were the scents of grass, mold, and something rotten.
About half a mile ahead, Marty spotted multistory stone buildings squatting in the mists. The edges of the buildings were worn smooth, and several walls lay tumbled into the grass. Marty wanted to map them, measure them, and look for inscriptions.
Grandpa Chang’s voice rang softly in his head, on the occasion of a broken action figure.
The root of suffering is your attachment.
No archaeologists had ever uncovered ruins of any great age in this area. Then again, in five thousand years, this entire area was going to be covered by the vast dunes of the Sahara.
Taking a deep breath, Marty set aside his archaeologist’s curiosity and focused on what lay ahead. The ancient-looking buildings were to the north. Several crevasses bordered the southern edge of the city, and skirting along the western edge of the valley was a thick forest, something he’d never seen in this part of the world. A leftover microclimate from the last ice age?
There was one visible path into the ruined city and that was the north-south path between two of the crevasses.
As Marty crept beside him, Surjan pointed toward the buildings. “I smell the kids somewhere over there.”
“You sure?”
“Has to be them. Smells just like the king’s women. They eat a lot of cumin.”
“And our cat-headed friends?”
“They’re there as well.”
Marty pointed in the direction of the trees. “Assuming the western crevasse stops ahead of the forest, I was thinking maybe we could skirt along the edge and go into the forest. We should be able to get closer without being seen, and from there we can scout out the possibilities with a bit more accuracy. The more information we can get, the better. What do you think?”
Surjan nodded. The group slowly progressed through the rocky terrain and entered the forest.
Lowanna murmured, “I’ve never seen so many sycamore fig trees in my life.”
“Amazing, isn’t it?” François plucked a yellow fruit from a nearby tree and bit into it. “Delicious. And these kinds of trees were mentioned in both the Old and New Testaments. I don’t think these exist in North Africa anymore, at least not outside of someone’s private garden.” He plucked another of the ripe fruits and handed it to Lowanna.
She stared at the offered fruit for a moment, took it and bit into it. Her eyes widened and a smile bloomed on her face. “It’s sweet like honey.”
“Guys, let’s eat later.” Marty motioned in the general direction of the stone buildings and Surjan led them forward.
The temperature inside the forest was at least ten degrees cooler than the surrounding prairie. Surjan sniffed, motioned to the east, and said, “The kids are close.”
“The cats?” Marty whispered.
“Closer. But I think we’re downwind.”
Marty nodded as the big man moved forward, leading them toward the buildings. The structures were built of carved sandstone blocks, worn into saddles and red drapery-like ruffles by wind and time.
There were no windows in the buildings, yet there were doorways with what looked like wooden doors. How old were the buildings, and who had built them?
Kareem hissed. “Cat people on the other side of the crevasse.”
Marty glanced toward the entrance of the valley and saw a group of nearly a dozen figures approaching. He crouched and hissed, “To the forest. Get out of sight!”
The group hugged the shadows and raced toward cover.
Keeping a low profile, Marty motioned for everyone to push ahead. He brought up the rear. The thickness of the undergrowth forced the crew to walk along the lip of a crevasse, where the footing was at a steep angle and was strewn with loose rock.
One of Lowanna’s legs shot out from under her in the gravel and François grabbed her arm. They regained their balance and raced ahead, disappearing into the shadows of the forest.
Marty followed Gunther, who was struggling with the rocky terrain. Suddenly, the ground under the German archaeologist shifted. Marty lunged for Gunther and yanked him back to solid ground, but in the process the ground under his own feet shifted and he slid toward the yawning crevasse.
He grabbed an exposed root, which snapped taut and stopped his slide.
“Marty!” Gunther knelt slowly and extended his hand.
But then the root broke, and Marty plummeted into darkness.