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CHAPTER
TWENTY

Four days later, Marty and the group arrived at a market town.

The town was laid out around a central well in a flat, hard-packed earth square. Standing on a low rise and looking down on the town, Marty could see a caravanserai with camels, and a building that looked like an inn, with beds drying in the sun on its rooftop, and a pottery on the square. Along with those permanent businesses, he saw many tents and awnings, displaying wares on blankets laid out on the ground, or surrounded by large baskets heaped with dried beans and currants and other portable trade goods. People walked from tent to tent, shouting out offers and counteroffers.

“It could be a village on the Nile today,” Kareem said. “Or, I mean, tomorrow. In the real time. In the future.”

“Some things change really slowly,” Marty said. “And maybe some things never do.”

“Assume the average household is five people,” Gunther said. “Lots of children, but a high mortality rate. I make it about three thousand residents in the town. But there are far more than three thousand people down there.”

“It’s a market town,” François said. “As in, this little piggy went there. Maybe it’s even a market day. Excellent!”

“Excellent?” Lowanna asked. “Why is that? Are you in the market for something?”

“Oh, my dear,” François said, “everyone is always in the market for something.”

“I wouldn’t mind having camels,” Marty said. “Or whatever these people use as beasts of burden. It would be great to be able to carry more water.”

“I bet we can trade archaeology lessons for that.” Gunther grinned. “Teach them about life in ancient Egypt.”

“Teach them your kung fu,” François said. “Based on my experiences in this place . . . time . . . so far, I’d say they could all use it.”

As they entered the market square, their modern, Western-style clothing drew stares from merchants who mostly wore burnooses, brightly dyed to show their owners’ prosperity. Marty smiled and nodded greetings, but the stares were all abruptly averted when a wailing arose at the market’s far end.

“The king is dying, the king dies!” the wailing went. It was melodic, with a fast-moving succession of short notes, and without accompaniment. A single woman, Marty thought, was the singer.

The king is dying, the king dies!

An evil spirit assails him!

A foul disease steals his breath!

Who will defend the king who has long defended Jehed?

“King?” Marty murmured.

“Being king isn’t about the size of your kingdom,” Lowanna said. “It’s about your role in society. I’ve known tribes of fifty people that have kings.”

“I guess we know the town is named Jehed,” François observed.

The singer appeared. She was in her thirties, a dark-haired beauty with dark-olive skin and light-colored eyes. She wore a white burnoose and a bright red sash and she was followed by two bare-chested men, each carrying an upright pole. At the top of each pole was a straw figure, neatly tied and dressed in a little white cape. The figures were identical except that one wore a circlet of gold on its head and the other wore a tarry black blob. Behind them all came a man in a black burnoose, wearing a black skull cap. He held a small leather box in front of him with both hands. The woman continued her song.

Behold the king, behold the king’s illness!

This is the thief of air,

This is the eater of the king’s lungs!

Who will defend the king against this foul demon of pestilence?

“I have a good idea it’s going to be that fellow back there, in the black,” Gunther said. “Court physician, would you say? Or court wizard?”

“In the fourth millennium B.C.E.?” Marty snorted. “There’s no difference.”

François crossed his arms over his chest. “I have a better idea who’s going to help the king.”

“I don’t think the king wants lessons in martial arts,” Marty said absently.

The men in poles marched in a circle around each other creating, Marty noticed, something like the looped links of the infinity symbol. Coincidence? They rattled the two straw figures against each other as if they were fighting.

Behold the king’s physician, behold the king’s flame!

This is the thief-killer,

This is the healing of the king’s lungs!

Wagguten will defend the king, Wagguten will save Jehed!

The king’s pole-bearer, assuming that the figure with the gold circlet was meant to be the king, struck the other man’s pole hard. The pole-bearer of the demon, or disease, dropped to one knee and shrieked a cry of defeat. The man in black stepped forward, opening his leather box. Inside the box, Marty saw the glow of hot coals, and the man in black, who must be Wagguten, touched the coals to the demon’s straw.

The demon figure burst into flame. Soaked in oil, no doubt. Marty noticed that the sheer theater of the moment had overwhelmed even his hardened, academic companions.

Behold the dying demon, behold the ended curse!

This is the beast who ran,

Thus may all illness flee the king!

Wagguten has saved the king, long live King Iken of Jehed!

The demon’s pole-bearer shrieked again. Then he rose and ran. “Long live the king!” the crowd shouted as he went. The fire streaked across the market and the man continued running right out beyond the edge of town. Out into the plains he ran, and the crowd continued to shout good wishes for the king, until the flame finally vanished.

“So . . . much . . . to say,” Lowanna murmured. She stared at the singer and magician, who now retreated to a large building just beyond the edge of the market, the only building in the town with a second story. “That’s the scapegoat ritual. The Greek pharmakon. The embodiment of evil in order to cast it out.”

“It felt a little on the nose to me,” Gunther harrumphed. “Straight out of The Golden Bough. Very 1960s.”

Lowanna slapped him on the shoulder. “You stuffed baboon! You’re going to criticize what you just saw because you don’t like its academic theory?”

“I just mean . . .” Gunther hesitated. “I mean, didn’t it seem rather obvious?”

“You fool.” She laughed. “That wasn’t some play put on by imaginative grad students. That was the real deal, and you just saw it almost five thousand years before The Golden Bough was written.”

“Er . . . right.” Gunther looked embarrassed.

“I have not read The Golden Bough,” François said. “But why do you think that little performance was news? It seemed like a play to me.”

“You’re correct, it was not news. It was indeed a play,” Lowanna said. “The purpose of the play was to drive evil out of the town.”

“Specifically,” François said slowly, “the evil affecting the king’s lungs.”

“Which could be many things,” Gunther pointed out.

“Fortunately, we have more than one remedy available, don’t we? For starters, I’m thinking you should try to Twilight Zone this bad boy.” François wiggled his fingers in Gunther’s direction, pivoted, and headed after the singer. “Follow me, folks.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Lowanna rushed and caught up with François. The others struggled to catch up. “We need to think this through.”

“Healing the king is worth a lot of camels, don’t you think?” François’s eyes gleamed.

“Yes,” Lowanna agreed. “And the palace just committed to an act of magical healing, performed by one Wagguten. Which I think is that guy we saw. Or if that’s not him, that was an actor playing him. And if we now show up and heal the king—”

“We make an enemy out of the king’s wizard,” Marty said. “She’s right.”

“Duh,” François said. “Which is why we go offer our services to Wagguten, not to the king. And he will absolutely hire us.”

“Why are you so confident?” Lowanna asked.

François beamed. “Simple. If we heal the king, he takes the credit. And if we fail and the king dies, then he makes us the scapegoats. It’s no risk to him, and all upside.”

“We just saw what happens to scapegoats around here,” Lowanna said. “They get lit on fire.”

François tapped a finger to his temple. “So let’s not fail.”

They had reached the large building, a minute behind both the singer and the magician. Two burly men with spears stood before the door. Each wore a white sash from shoulder to hip, and one raised his hand to stop them.

“Strangers do not enter,” the spearman said.

“We aren’t strangers,” François said. “We’re magicians, come from a great distance to heal the king.”

The spearman looked François up and down. “Your clothing is odd enough to make you a wizard, but any fool may wear ugly clothes. By what token do I know that you are magicians?”

Badis pushed forward, eyes blazing and voice suddenly booming. “I am Badis of the Ahuskay. My home is three weeks’ journey to the west. These people came to us from the wilderness, and I have seen their magical powers. They are warriors and healers. They command the beasts. They keep their word.”

The spearman squinted at Badis. “What did they do in Ahuskay, with these magical powers they possess?”

Badis drew himself up to his full height and threw out his chest. “We were oppressed by Ametsu. These people slew five Ametsu and set us free.”

Udad stepped forward. “I am Udad, also of Ahuskay. Badis speaks the truth.”

The spearman frowned and nodded. “Wait here.”

He disappeared into the large building. François turned and eyed the market, which had returned to its previous bustle and hubbub. Gunther was cracking his knuckles and rubbing his own fingers. Did he feel pressure?

Marty certainly did. He was happy to try to help this king heal in any way that was possible, but he didn’t relish the thought that the penalty for failure might be, say, stoning, or death by fire.

“Why are you pushing to help this king?” he murmured to François, careful to speak in English.

“Because we’re here and we can,” François said. “And maybe he’ll give us the camels you want. And besides, you were the one who volunteered us to go fight the Sethians last time. This is a much smaller risk.”

“You’re not going to try to use that . . . bread mold . . . on him, are you?”

The spearman emerged. “Dr. Wagguten will see you now.”

Marty almost laughed. Surely, there was a better translation for whatever the spearman had said—but that was what Marty had understood. “Badis,” he said. “Thank you. Perhaps it is best if the warriors of Ahuskay stay outside here, and stay out of trouble.”

Badis nodded and he and the host withdrew.

The spearmen looked at the remaining people. “Are all of you magicians?”

“I’ll stay outside,” Surjan said. “Kareem can stay with me.”

Marty, François, Lowanna, and Gunther followed one of the king’s warriors inside. Within, Marty saw that the building was a complex structure with several mud-brick buildings, one of which was a stable, around a central enclosed courtyard. Three young children stopped their play in the courtyard and turned to stare at the crew; two women rushed from an open door to whisk them out of sight.

“The king’s wives?” Marty murmured, thinking out loud.

“His maids,” the warrior said. “Lunja is his wife.”

Marty and François climbed steps to a room on the second story, their companions following.

Knotted leather strings formed a rude curtain in the room’s doorway. Behind was a simple chamber with wooden stools, two windows that looked out over the town, and niches in the clay walls that contained an assortment of objects. Skulls, feathers, colored wax, jars, glass beads, a chunk of meteoric iron, an obsidian knife, and other knickknacks reminded Marty of the shelves of some kind of protohistoric general store.

The wizard stood at the far end of the room; with a wave, he dismissed the spearman.

Now that they could focus on Wagguten, they saw him to be a small man, with skin the color of bleached ochre and a thin graying beard. He had set aside his burnoose and wore a simple tunic. His face looked drawn and tired.

“Are you really magicians?” he asked.

“We have knowledge of healing,” Marty said. He looked at Gunther, and Gunther cracked his knuckles. “My companion here has great skill.” He thought of the extra ankh, which he was carrying in his basket. “And if his talents fail, we have another . . . tool . . . that may be able to help.”

“We have a few other tools that may help.” François smiled.

“Now you will tell me that you only want the king’s weight in gold,” Wagguten said.

“Actually,” Marty said, “we could really use a camel. If we can heal the king, we’d love it if we could get a camel. Or a donkey, or whatever.”

“A wagon,” François said. “And jars to carry water.”

Wagguten met Marty’s gaze with guileless, open eyes. If he was making the Machiavellian calculation François had suggested he would, he didn’t show it. “I’m a believer in my own arts, and I must warn you that the king is in a very serious fight against the demon that infests him.” He sighed. “I love my king, and wish him health. But I’m also a believer in trying all possible remedies, because you never know what’s going to make the difference in this infernal battle. I will take you to see the king.”

He took them through a narrow passage in the back, its entryway set at such an angle that Marty hadn’t even noticed it. A hallway led over the front gate, and narrow windows let Marty look and see the two spearmen in white sashes standing guard, and his own warriors, standing at ease a hundred feet away. The sounds from the front of the street carried up into the hallway.

“You can see the gate,” he observed to the physician.

“If you’re asking whether I watched you talk to the guard, the answer is yes. It is wise to stay informed. About everything that happens in Jehed.”

Another angled, inobtrusive gate brought them into the throne room of the king. They emerged behind the throne itself, a heavy wooden chair with arching legs, wide arms, and a back nearly seven feet tall, thick with carvings of eyes and mouths.

The king didn’t sit on his throne, he lay on a bed in front of it. The bed was a raised wooden platform and it bore a thin pallet. The king—it could only be he—lay under a sheet and trembled. His features were hawklike, his hair long, but if he was a hawk, then he was a hawk who had been shot down. Blood stained his pallet and the sheet, especially near his face. A clay spittoon lay beneath his head, stained dark with old blood and glistening with blood that was fresh. The room’s air was close, and smelled of death.

A single woman stood beside him; she was the singer in the white burnoose, and now Marty could see that she had coppery red hair and chiseled, fine features. She held a bowl of water on the corner of the bed and pressed a damp cloth against the king’s forehead.

“Tuberculosis,” François murmured. “It has to be.”

“No it doesn’t,” Gunther murmured. “Could be pneumonia.”

“Lung cancer,” Marty said.

“My lady Lunja,” the wizard said. “These men would attempt their arts upon the king.”

Tears streaked the queen’s face. “What of your arts, Wagguten?” she asked. “What of our sacrifices, our pleas to the gods?”

“You were brave to let me try my skills,” the magician said, bowing deeply. “Be brave again, my lady. This battle our king fights is a great one.”

Lunja took her bowl and cloth and withdrew a step. Gunther stepped forward and placed his hands on the king’s brow. He bowed his own head in an attitude that looked for all the world like a priestly posture and he frowned in concentration.

Nothing happened.

The room felt smaller by the second, and sweat trickled down Marty’s spine. He smiled at Wagguten in a manner that he hoped was solemn and trust-inspiring. Wagguten answered with a frown.

Gunther’s muscles clenched and he gasped. The lady Lunja stepped forward half a step with a wordless cry and then caught herself. She reached forward, stopped herself, and finally bit down on the cloth she’d been applying to the king.

And then Gunther’s hands began to glow.

Gunther groaned as the light poured from his hands into the king’s body. It looked like a light transfusion. Marty had the unsettling sensation that he was watching one man give part of his soul to another.

And maybe that was right. The Egyptians treated the ba, or personality, as different from the ka, or spiritual energy, of a person. Maybe Gunther was pouring his ka into the sick king.

The king’s trembling erupted into spasms. He shook, his body racked by coughs, and then he leaned over the edge of the bed and heaved what looked like a quart of blood into the spittoon.

Marty vaguely remembered that tuberculosis was very transmissible, and he shifted from one foot to the other, trying not to show his nerves.

The king sat up and turned to face the strangers. A dull fire glowed in his eye and a faint smile worked at his lips, visible through the layers of crusted blood. “I am sorry,” he said. “I am a poor host.”

“You have been ill, Your Majesty,” Wagguten said. “Lie down and rest more.”

“I am feeling improved,” the king said.

“We are not finished with our arts.” François stepped forward and reached into his woven basket. Was he going to pull out the extra ankh? Marty didn’t want to stop him and cause a scene, so he held his peace. François produced a lump of bread from his basket and unwrapped it.

It was moldy. It was the bread into which he’d planted only the green mold.

Penicillin. François had been working at developing some kind of home-brew penicillin. It hadn’t healed his infected scratch, but now he was going to give it to this sick king.

Madness.

Was it worse madness than trusting Gunther to heal by the laying on of hands?

Marty looked at Gunther and saw that the German was shuddering. He slipped himself under his comrade’s shoulder to support him, and François sliced the bread neatly in half, offering it to Wagguten. “Feed this to the king. Cut it into twenty pieces and give it to him over ten days. It should finish his healing.”

“Barley rot?” The queen’s voice dripped with doubt.

“Yes, my lady,” François said. “But very special barley rot.”

Wagguten took the bread and led them out.


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