The Captive Soul Page 2

  “Oh?”

  A shrug. “It’s rather difficult to like dictatorships, particularly those involved in building an empire by killing off enemies in clever, painful ways.”

  “Speaking from experience, are we?”

  That earned him a sly sideways glance. “That, my young friend, was quite a long time back.”

  “But?”

  “But yes, in the words of the sages: ‘Been there, done that.’ They were a bloodthirsty lot.”

  “Nothing new there.”

  “Why, MacLeod, how cynical!”

  “Not cynical, just honest. Civilizations change, but people, good or bad, remain people.” Remembering the newspaper that Professor Maxwell had been waving about with such indignation, MacLeod added, making his point, “If you’ve been following the local news, you know we still have a few psychopaths running around.”

  “Ah, you mean those garish murders on the West Side, don’t you? You’re right; I couldn’t quite avoid hearing about the West Side Slayer, either, though I’ve managed to escape the lurid details, thank you very much.”

  “Turning squeamish, are we?”

  “Hardly that.” Something dark glinted in Methos’s eyes for a fraction of a second. “I just don’t find psychotic killers entertaining. We both know how easy it is to kill—how all too easy it can become to enjoy killing.”

  Then Methos grinned, and the hint of darkness was gone so quickly that MacLeod wondered if he’d imagined it. “One good thing about the Bad Old Days,” Methos said, almost lightly. “There might have been just as much general bloodthirstiness, but there was very little in the way of media. You didn’t have the Crime of the Day trumpeted into your ears at all times.”

  “Now who’s the cynic?”

  “Realist, MacLeod, realist.”

  They strolled on together, studying the exhibit, both of them pretending by unspoken agreement to be just two ordinary men on a day off. They had the place pretty much to themselves at this early hour on a workday, but MacLeod suspected that there never would be much of a mob. Nothing flashy here, after all: just bits of metal and the potsherds that told archaeologists more about the past than any gold. He remembered from the days of the antique store (flinching away from the intertwined thoughts of Tessa) that only the most knowledgeable of his customers had been drawn to the plain-hilted katanas; the majority had gone straight to the flashy, useless parade swords with the pretty hilts.

  Yes, and speaking of swords, here was one beautifully preserved bronze blade. As they both leaned over the case to study it, MacLeod caught the reflection of Methos’s face—which had suddenly gone closed and mysterious.

  “I never thought I’d see that again.” It was barely more than a whisper. “The sword that holds a royal soul.”

  MacLeod straightened, staring at him in surprise. “The, ah, what?”

  “The sword that, as a result of ancient prayers or magic or whatever you want to call it, has a royal soul forever trapped in it.”

  “You can’t possibly believe that!”

  Methos straightened with a defensive shrug. “We all believed a great many strange things back then.”

  “And now?”

  “And now,” Methos retorted evasively, “as I said, I never expected to see the blade again. It’s been safely lost under the desert sands for, what, nearly three thousand years. But now it’s been uncovered.”

  “And?”

  A sharp grin. “And scholars are probably delighted. Well? What else did you expect me to say? This is the twentieth century, after all.”

  But for all the grin, Methos’s eyes had once again grown shadowed.

  Chapter Three

  Egypt, Nile Delta: Reign of Pharaoh Sekenenre,

  1573 B.C.

  Methos stepped off the ship’s gangplank onto the soil of Egypt, getting his land legs back and welcoming the blaze of heat and clear, bright light.

  Ah yes, Egypt. He took a deep breath. The wind had shifted away from the sea, and the air was dusty and laden with the odors of overheated men and beasts, plus someone’s decidedly rancid cooking oil, but it was, above all, blessedly dry. After a hundred years or so of wandering in far-off Albion—that island with its good beer, friendly women, intriguing henge monuments, and abysmally chill, dank weather—after a hundred years of that, even this too-fragrant furnace heat was welcome.

  It was more than the change in weather. An unwanted flash of memory brought him young Prince Amar back there on Albion, a lonely, brooding youngster Methos had befriended. There’d been a quick-witted intelligence in Amar, and Methos had done his best to help the boy out of his black moods, seeing in him the promise of a noble king—

  Then the crops had failed. And Amar’s brooding had turned to something… suicidal—no, Methos told himself, he would not remember a prince become a willing sacrifice, and his own utter disgust at the waste of a young life. He’d had to leave Albion, or he would have said or done something suicidal himself.

  But this was Egypt, a whole different world in itself. Listening to someone playing a thin, intriguingly intricate tune on a reed flute, Methos smiled faintly. He liked this land; always had. No morbidity here, no dark, brooding religion. No, there was something very appealing about a people who enjoyed life so much they could think of no happier afterworld than one in which life simply continued as it was. Without the flies, Methos added silently, slapping at his neck.

  The last time he’d been here, the pharaoh had been Merneferre Ay, probably long dead by now. Methos had done the god-king a favor, solved a political dispute or two, and been given a royal medallion as a reward. Methos let his hand slide down to it, safe in its little leather pouch on the thong about his neck. The medallion was one of the few items he’d bothered keeping over the years.

  After all, time moves slowly in Egypt. One never knows when a pharaoh’s gift, even from a past pharaoh, might be useful!

  A subtle glance about assured him that he was dressed like almost every other man on the dock, which in this hot climate meant underdressed: nothing above the waist save the medallion on its thong, below the waist a lightweight kilt of bleached linen reaching to his knees, and sandals of woven palm fibers on his feet. The only militant touch about him was the bronze sword in its scabbard—but then, other men were armed as well. His features, Methos had learned long ago, could be mistaken for those of almost any Mediterranean race, and a few others as well. There should be no trouble—

  Shouldn’t there? Methos froze, staring at the expected row of whitewashed mud brick houses—and the unexpected row of stakes before them.

  The stakes that each bore a man’s head.

  Fighting down an Immortal’s survival instinct suddenly screaming Get out of here now, don’t ask questions, since he obviously couldn’t jump right back on the ship he’d just left, Methos hunted frantically for a sane, safe explanation.

  Criminals, that’s all, he decided. Or maybe there was some local uprising. Nothing worse, surely. Taking heads never was much of an Egyptian custom.

  Most of the heads looked vaguely surprised, he decided, or even resigned—

  “You! Just off the Levantine ship—this way!”

  Ah. He was being ushered into a line with the other arrivals. Methos took his place without complaint. A hundred years ago, the Egyptians had been big on bureaucracy and, heads on stakes or no, there was no reason for that fact to have changed. That was one of the agreeable things about this Land of Khemt: Minor matters like the reigning pharaoh might change, there might even be the occasional civil uproar (he glanced quickly at those ominous heads)—but Egypt, gods bless its stable heart, went on seemingly forever.

  Did it? A crowd of guards was gathered about what was evidently the port official’s post—and not one of them looked Egyptian. The same dark eyes and hair as the locals, yes, the same tanned skin, but those heavier features and stocky bodies belonged to some land farther east. Their swords were made of sleek bronze, elegantly designed, finer, Methos thought, t
han anything made by Egyptian smiths. Had the pharaoh, whichever one might rule in this century, taken to hiring foreign mercenaries?

  “Who are those?” he whispered warily to the man behind him.

  A glare was his only answer. The man in front whispered over his shoulder, “Hyksos.”

  Well. That wasn’t much information. Still, he would pass through whatever the latest version of port clearance customs might be and get away from here as soon as he—

  “All attend!”

  That was bellowed out by someone with the leather lungs of a professional crier. “All attend the death of a seditious traitor!”

  Methos, caught in the sudden crush of people forced together by the soldiers, thought, We don’t have much choice in the matter!

  “Seditious,” someone muttered to his left. “Stupid, that’s all.”

  “Eh?”

  “Stupid for speaking truth.”

  There were frantic shh’s about him, the sound of men terrified of being overheard. But the one who’d spoken added, almost in Methos’s ear, “Called Prince Khyan touched by the gods.”

  “Touched by Set, more likely,” another daring voice muttered, Set being the closest thing to a demon in the Egyptian pantheon, and there were ripples of nervous laughter.

  The ripples stopped as though they’d all been abruptly struck mute. In the sudden, utter silence, two guards dragged a weakly struggling man forward. An ordinary Egyptian, Methos thought, nothing notable about him at all.

  Except that he was about to die.

  His face white with terror, the man was forced to his knees before a block of stone. One guard raised an ax—even in that moment, an analytical corner of Methos’s mind noted its foreign design—then brought it whistling down. Blood fountained from the crumpling body, and the guard, showing no more emotion than one who’d just swatted a fly, held the dripping severed head aloft. The crowd let out its breath in a collective sigh.

  I’ve taken enough heads in my time, Methos mused, but never with such utter… indifference. I don’t want to be in a place where they cut off your head so casually!

  “Your name and purpose!” a rough voice barked, and Methos nearly started.

  Life went on, and so did the passage through customs. Alarmingly, the customs official, a hard-featured middle-aged man in plain white linen robes, was no Egyptian, either. He bore the same not-quite-right appearance as the guards, and his accent was… wrong.

  I really must keep up on current events, Methos thought wryly. I had no idea there’d been an invasion.

  He gave his name, since “Methos” was nicely nonethnically specific, and added with a carefully charming smile, the image of that headless body fresh in his mind, “A visitor.”

  Bad choice of words. “A vagrant, you mean?” the official sneered, and Methos, instantly summing up the type of man he faced, thought, Gods curse it. He had just given this petty autocrat some unexpected sport. “Or can that, perhaps,” the official continued, “not be ‘vagrant’ at all, but… spy?”

  He deliberately raised his voice on that word, and the guards all tightened their hands on their sword hilts.

  I suppose it really wouldn’t do any good to show old Merneferre Ay’s medallion.

  Silently condemning the official to the desert wastes—no, no, to that still-bloody ax and a clumsy headsman—Methos told him mildly, “Hardly anything so dramatic.”

  What am I, though? Something nice and safe: nonseditious. Ordinary… or maybe not quite ordinary if they behead ordinary folks.

  But this stupid, arrogant creature wasn’t going to let his newfound toy go so easily; Methos had seen his class of bureaucrat, bored and correspondingly sadistic in a petty way, many times before—though usually not with an executioner lurking in the background.

  Ah well, if the wager wasn’t safe but you couldn’t back out, then go for the wildest throw of the bones.

  “I am merely a pilgrim wishing to tour the holy places of this ancient land,” Methos said, and almost smiled. Staring directly at the official, he added, “the… specially holy places.”

  He moved a hand in what was intricate enough to have been a magical gesture, and saw the official flinch.

  Splendid! “Ah, you understand me!” It was said without the slightest hint of warmth. “Surely there is no harm in that type of visit?”

  A second pseudo-magical gesture: Am I a sorcerer? Do you dare risk finding out?

  A second flinch.

  “And surely,” Methos purred, his tone not quite a threat, “an important man like yourself need not waste time on a humble pilgrim?”

  Still smiling mysteriously, he made a third pseudo-magical gesture, and the official said hastily, “You have already wasted too much of my time. Move on.”

  Methos solemnly bowed and obeyed, thinking, Thank whatever gods there are for superstitious minds!

  But, a bit unnervingly, the official shouted after him, “Do not think to return! The guards and I have marked your face in our memories—and in the records! You have been recorded!”

  The perils of a literate society. Methos smiled, showing nothing of his emotions. “I had no intention of returning.” And let that not be an omen.

  Invasion or no, commerce must continue, so he strolled in seemingly perfect calm along the river dock, hunting. Yes, thank whatever Powers there were, here was a granary ship, curved of prow and stern in Egyptian style, bound up the Nile for Memphis, the royal capital, and Methos gladly booked himself passage on it. Nothing luxurious: Sleep on the deck, eat with the crew.

  None of whom bore axes or any disconcerting hints of Immortality. Good enough.

  There was a strong wind blowing down from the north, as there often was. As soon as the crew had rowed the ship out into the Nile, the rectangular flaxen sail, striped an ornamental tan and black, snapped full, sending the ship surging upriver. Later on, the crew might need to break out the oars again, but for now, both the wind and tide were with them.

  Leaning on the rail, watching the vegetation-green and sandy-yellow banks of the Nile move smoothly past under the dazzlingly blue desert sky, thinking that this was very much a land of pure, basic colors, Methos could almost forget those heads on their stakes back in port. Soon enough they’d be in Memphis, and at the capital he should be able to learn—

  But it wasn’t.

  “There’s the capital these days,” an Egyptian sailor muttered to Methos, and spat. “Avaris.”

  A hundred years ago, nothing but a small town had inhabited that swampy site. Now it was heavily fortified, with a massive wall of unornamented mud brick, possibly one or even two bowshots thick, set back from the Nile by a flat, level field and broken at regular intervals by square watchtowers. Behind the wall loomed a great war fortress, something utterly foreign to this land, and a canal had been cut from the Nile through the swamp to further isolate the site.

  Feeling his way, Methos asked warily, “And the pharaoh rules from there?”

  The sailor gave him a contemptuous glance. “You are a foreigner! Pharaoh Sekenenre, Whom the Gods Love,” he added with a quick, wry gesture of reverence, “rules what he is allowed by our overlords to rule, and holds what court he can down in Thebes. Which, of course, we do not hold license to visit.”

  That, Methos mused, was not leaving him with many choices. He could hardly return to the Nile delta and hope that the customs official wouldn’t remember him before he could find a ship away from Egypt; the man might have been superstitious, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t written some telltale record as threatened and advised the guards to keep a strong watch for a certain visitor.

  On the eastern bank of the Nile were occasional villages, but with nothing but desert beyond them. On the western bank were occasional tombs and even more desert. Striking out across that near-waterless expanse would be suicide—or, Methos thought with a shudder, in the case of an Immortal, multiple suicides. Death by thirst, repeated over and over—

  Memphis, then, and, from Memp
his, on to Thebes. From there… the land of Nubia lay to the south, hardly an ally of Egypt, but hopefully not under Hyksos rule. A quick talker should be able to make his way across Nubia to the coast of the Red Sea and take safe passage from there.

  Odd, though, how disappointed he felt.

  Methos gave a wry, silent little laugh. He hadn’t realized till this moment just how much he’d depended on Egypt being there as it always was, an anchor for an Immortal’s wanderings. Equally odd how angry he felt at its loss.

  Think how the Egyptians must feel about it! Methos snapped at himself, and asked the sailor, “Are any ships sailing as far as Thebes?”

  The sailor eyed him suspiciously. “If you wish to sail there, stranger, you’d better have a Hyksos scroll of safe passage. Otherwise,” he added with a shrug, “your best bet is to walk.”

  Walk.

  Ah well, if he followed the Nile, he would come across villages where he could find food and drink in exchange for stories of the outside world. And it wasn’t, Methos thought wryly, as though he had any pressing engagements or a scarcity of time.

  Walk it would be.

  Several days later, Methos sat on the banks of the Nile, resting his feet, watching the never-ending flow of water rippling in the late morning sunlight, and envying the waterbirds riding the currents with seeming ease.

  Until a crocodile grabs them. No free rides in this world.

  Cynical. But then, he had grown mightily tired of walking, and mightily disheartened by everything he’d seen.

  Yes, the pyramids still stood, gleaming in the sun as they had since the long-past days when they’d been built (he had been there for some of that process; amazing how, even with that large workforce, they had moved those great blocks of stone so swiftly); no mere foreign occupation would harm them.

  But Memphis, celebrated Memphis, was now but a shadow of its former glory: The Hyksos had sacked it pretty thoroughly during their first invasion a hundred years back, and the city—what was left of it—had clearly never recovered.