"Egyptian 01 - Warlock" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Wilbur)

Nefer covered him with his woollen shawl, and stayed beside him until he started to twitch and groan, and the sweat streamed down his face. His eyes opened and rolled back in their sockets until only the whites glared blindly into the dark shadows of the cave.

Nefer knew there was nothing he could do for the old man now. He had journeyed far into the shadowy places where Nefer could not reach him, and he could no longer bear the terrible distress and suffering that the Mazes inflicted upon the Magus. Quietly he stood up, fetched his bow and quiver from the back of the cave and stooped to see out through the entrance. Across the hills the sun was low and yellow in the dust haze. He climbed the western dunes, and when he reached the top and looked out across the valleys he felt so strongly his disappointment at the lost bird, his concern for Taita in his agony of divination, and his sense of foreboding at what Taita would discover in his trance, that he was seized by the urge to run, to escape as though from some dreadful predator. He bounded away down the face of the dune, the sand cascading and hissing beneath his feet. He felt tears of terror brim in his eyes and stream down his cheeks in the wind, and he ran until the sweat poured down his flanks, his chest heaved and the sun was on the horizon. Then at last he turned back towards Gebel Nagara and covered the last mile in darkness.

Taita was still curled under the shawl beside the fire, but he was sleeping more easily now. Nefer lay down beside him, and after a while he, too, fell into a sleep that was restless with dreams and haunted by nightmares.

When he awoke dawn was glimmering at the entrance to the cave. Taita was sitting at the fire, grilling gazelle cutlets on the coals. He still looked pale and sick, but he skewered one on the point of his bronze dagger and offered it to Nefer. The boy was suddenly ravenous, and he sat up and gnawed on the bone. When he had devoured the third portion of sweet tender meat he spoke for the first time. 'What did you see, Tata?' he asked. 'Why did the godbird refuse?'

'It was obscured,' Taita told him, and Nefer knew that the omen had been unpropitious, that Taita was protecting him from it.

They ate in silence for a while, but now Nefer hardly tasted the food and at last he said softly, 'You have freed the decoys. How can we set the net tomorrow?'

'The godbird will not come to Gebel Nagara again,' said Taita simply. 'Then am I never to be Pharaoh in my father's place?' Nefer asked.

There was deep anguish in his voice, so Taita softened his answer. 'We will have to take your bird from the nest.'

'We do not know where to find the godbird.' Nefer had stopped eating. He stared at Taita with pitiful appeal.

The old man inclined his head in affirmation. 'I know where the nest is. It was revealed in the Mazes. But you must eat to keep up your strength. We will leave before first light tomorrow. It is a long journey to the site.'

'Will there be fledglings in the nest?'

'Yes,' said Taita. 'The falcons have bred. The young are almost ready for flight. We will find your bird there.' Silently he told himself, Or the god will reveal other mysteries to us.

--

In the darkness before dawn they loaded the waterskins and the saddlebags on to the horses then swung up bareback behind them. Taita led the way, skirting the cliff face and taking the easy route up the hills. By the time the sun was above the horizon they had left Gebel Nagara far below them. When Nefer looked ahead he started with surprise: there ahead of them was the faint outline of the mountain, blue against the blue of the horizon, still so far off that it seemed insubstantial and ethereal, a thing of mist and air rather than of earth and rock. The sensation that he had seen it before overcame Nefer, and for a while he was at a loss to explain it to himself. Then it came rushing back and he said, 'That mountain.' He pointed it out. 'That is where we are going, is it not, Tata?' He spoke with such assurance that Taita looked back at him.

'How do you know?'

'I dreamed it last night,' Nefer replied.

Taita turned away so that the boy would not see his expression. At last the eyes of his mind are opening like a desert bloom in the dawn. He is learning to peer through the dark curtain that hides the future from us. He felt a deep sense of achievement. Praise the hundred names of Horus, it has not been in vain.

'That is where we are going, I know it is,' Nefer repeated, with utmost certainty.

'Yes,' Taita agreed at last. 'We are going to Bir Umm Masara.'

Before the hottest part of the day, Taita led them to where a clump of ragged acacia thorn trees grew in a deep ravine, their roots drawing up water from some deep source far below the surface. When they had unloaded the horses and watered them, Nefer cast around the grove and within minutes had discovered sign of others who had passed this way. Excitedly, he called Taita over and showed him the wheel-marks left by a small division of chariots, ten vehicles by his reckoning, the ashes of the cooking fire, and the flattened earth where men had lain down to sleep with the horses tethered to the acacia trunks nearby.

'Hyksos?' he hazarded anxiously, for the dung of the horses in their lines was very fresh, not more than a few days old - it was dry on the outside, but still damp when he broke open a lump.

'Ours.' Taita had recognized the tracks of the chariots. After all, he had made the first designs of these spoked wheels many decades before. He stooped suddenly and picked up a tiny bronze rosette ornament that had fallen from a dashboard and was half buried in the loose earth. 'One of our light cavalry divisions, probably from the Phat regiment. Part of Lord Naja's command.'

'What are they doing out here, so far from the lines?' Nefer asked, puzzled, but Taita shrugged and turned away to cover his unease.

The old man cut short their period of rest and they went on while the sun was still high. Slowly the outline of Bir Umm Masara hardened and seemed to fill half of the sky ahead of them. Gradually they could make out the etching and scarification of gorge, bluff and cliff. As they reached the crest of the first line of foothills, Taita checked his horse and looked back. Distant movement caught his attention, and he held up his hand to shade his eyes. He could see a tiny feather of pale dust many leagues out in the desert below. He watched it for a while and saw that it was moving eastwards, towards the Red Sea. It might have been thrown up by a herd of moving oryx, or by a column of fighting chariots. He did not remark on it to Nefer, who was so intent on the hunt for the royal falcon that he could not tear his eyes from the silhouette of the mountain ahead. Taita thumped his heels into the flanks of his horse and moved up beside the boy.

That night, when they camped halfway up the slope of Bir Umm Masara, Taita said quietly, 'We will make no fire this night.'