The Captive Soul Read online

  Khyan, though, seemed perfectly willing to accept the strangeness without question. “You are wise. Wise—yes, too wise to be left here among these creatures. You will,” he said firmly, “come with me to Avaris.”

  “You… never knew there were others like you, did you?” Methos tested. “No one ever told you about… the Game?”

  “What nonsense is this? Games have nothing to do with this!”

  Oh, wonderful. No rules.

  “You shall come with me!” Khyan insisted.

  “And there shall be peace between us,” Methos intoned solemnly, mental fingers crossed.

  “There shall be peace.”

  But that eerie fire smoldered in the depths of Khyan’s eyes. An uneasy truce at best, Methos thought. But at least it is a truce.

  Queen Teti-sheri, you had better be correct. It looks as though I’m about to test your Gift to its fullest extent!

  The matter of the tribute was settled, much to Methos’s relief, in a day. He didn’t think he could have kept the insane prince patiently waiting for his new “brother” for much longer!

  That evening, Methos requested and was granted a secret meeting with Kamose and Ahmose. “You may hear some unpleasant rumors about me in the days to come,” he warned them. “If I’m to keep up the persona of a deserter, I will need to seem to be very friendly with Prince Khyan and with King Apophis as well.”

  “‘Seem’?” Ahmose murmured.

  “Prince Ahmose, I am not suicidal.”

  That sparked a thin smile. “No. Neither are we. What are you asking of us?”

  “Simply put: Trust me. Continue your men’s military training, keep your plans secret, and I shall, barring disaster, return with the facts you need to overthrow the Hyksos.”

  Kamose shrugged, his calmness almost convincing. “The dowager queen has already told us that the gods wish us to trust you.”

  “And who are we to go against the will of the gods?” Ahmose added flatly. But then he grinned. “Bring yourself back, ‘man sent by the gods.’ We need more survivors on our side. Oh,” he murmured as Methos was leaving them, “and I give you a message from Tiaa: She claims that she loves you.”

  Methos chuckled. “She doesn’t.”

  “No,” Ahmose agreed cheerfully. “Tiaa loves herself, and the gifts that I give her. But she did say this, and I quote her exactly: ‘Bring yourself back, Methos. I want more of those little games in the night.’”

  That forced a startled laugh from Methos. “With incentive like that, Prince Ahmose, how could I possibly fail?”

  Prince Khyan, who had been pacing the deck of the Hyksos ship in the bright morning sunlight, stopped short at sight of Methos. “Ha, yes! Come aboard,” the prince commanded. “Hurry. The wind is in our favor.”

  That sounded sane enough. Warily, Methos obeyed, and bade a silent farewell to Thebes, trying not to wonder if he would, regardless of his words to the royal brothers, ever return.

  Such finalities, he thought wryly, were generally not among the problems of an Immortal.

  As they sailed the Nile north to Avaris, Methos set about wooing Khyan’s confidence bit by wary bit. This meant listening patiently to the prince’s rambling stories, which often made no sense at all. This also meant comforting Khyan when he, all too frequently, woke screaming from terrifying dream worlds only he could walk.

  “You are a good man,” he told Methos earnestly one night when he’d awakened in terror yet again and been comforted yet again.

  Methos, to his utter astonishment, felt himself redden. There was something almost pathetic about Khyan and his nightmares. An Immortal—a sane Immortal—had his share of foul dreams, too, but at least he knew on waking that they had been only dreams. “I do what I must.”

  “We all do. We all do.”

  The moon was nearly full, the cold silver light rippling on the Nile’s waters. Very romantic, Methos thought. A pity I’m not sharing the scene with Tiaa or some other friendly lady rather than with a madman.

  Khyan, leaning on the rail beside him, was clearly not in the mood for more sleep. “Have you traveled far?” he asked suddenly.

  “Far. As far as Albion—do you know that island?”

  The prince shook his head. “No matter,” he added before Methos could explain. “I have traveled, too, but not out of the lands we hold. Except once.” He glanced warily at Methos. “You must not repeat this tale.”

  Stifling a sigh, since this was Khyan’s standard beginning to every one of his pointless stories, Methos agreed, “I will not repeat it.”

  “No! Swear it!”

  This was a bit different! “I swear it,” Methos said, “by the gods who touched us both.”

  “Good. Yes. This is a secret story, you must understand that. No one else has heard it, not—not even my brother. He must not know; he would not comprehend. But you would.

  “It was five years ago, five years and three days. We went out hunting into the desert, my brother and I and our warriors, and we killed three lions; I killed one, with my arrows.

  “But then… then as we went riding back to Avaris, a terrible hot wind began to blow, and the sand came before it in a mighty wave. Our horses screamed and ran in terror, and I—I was thrown from my chariot. I tried to call out, but the wind ate my words. I tried to find the others, but the world had gone black with sand and I could not see. I could not breathe! The sand… the sand flew into my eyes, my ears, it filled my nostrils and my throat. It stopped the air in my lungs, and I…”

  Khyan swallowed hard, clearly back in that terrifying time. Methos waited, knowing what as coming.

  “I died,” the prince said at last. “I died in that desert waste. It was so, this was no dream or false imagining. I died.

  “But the great god Set—he to whom the desert waste pays homage—the great god Set brought me back to life. I sat up and brushed the sand from me, and I could breathe and hear and see. The storm was past, and I stood and called till the others found me.

  “Set saved me. Set gave me new life. And now I am his son. Now I cannot ever die.”

  Unspoken in his voice was, The god who shelters you is inferior. The god who shelters you cannot stand before the might of Set!

  Methos was far too wise to argue theology—particularly not with an Immortal who didn’t know the Rules of the Game, and who might slide into violence at any time.

  As their ship neared the Hyksos capital, Methos watched the massive fortress of Avaris loom up before them. He also saw a new row of stakes with fresh heads upon them, and felt an involuntary shudder shake him.

  Khyan laughed. “Afraid?”

  “Merely, ah, startled. Those are not the prettiest of ornaments, you must admit.”

  “But they are! Beheading is the way we execute our traitors!”

  “So I gathered.”

  It didn’t help his uneasiness to hear Khyan laugh again and add casually, “Of course they are beheaded. Then disemboweled, so that our sages may read the omens in their entrails. Sometimes,” the prince added with a quick flash of his teeth, “this happens before the beheading. That is a fascinating sight to watch! We wait and wonder at the sacrifice’s stamina, and sometimes we even wager, just a bit, on the length of the screams and how long the life may last.”

  The worst of it was that he wasn’t trying to shock Methos. To Khyan, watching a sacrifice die in utter agony was a pleasant, perfectly normal proceeding.

  And here I was beginning to feel sorry for him.

  Voice perfectly controlled, Methos said, “Forgive a foreigner his ignorance. But if I may ask, to which gods are these sacrifices made?”

  “Why, to our patron god, of course! To my patron god! All hail Set, Lord of the Foreign Lands, Bringer of Storms, God of the Desert Waste!”

  All hail Set, Methos thought dourly. Of course they’d worship him!

  Set, whom the Egyptians claimed had murdered his own divine brother, Osiris, for the heavenly throne. Set, who reveled in desert wastes and utte
r desolation. Set, who was as close to a demon as any god could get.

  What better deity could there possibly be for these folks?

  Chapter Nine

  New York City, Midtown Manhattan:

  The Present

  “Well?” Methos asked over the case holding the Hyksos sword, there in the Branson Collection in New York City. “What else did you expect me to say? Or rather,” he added calmly, “what would you want me to say? I’m not a mystic, MacLeod, not any kind of a seer, nothing more than an ordinary guy.”

  And I, MacLeod thought, am Robert the Bruce. “Older than most,” he murmured, and was rewarded with the barest flicker of amusement on Methos’s face. “In fact, I’d say that—”

  “There you are!” a sudden voice called. “Enjoying the exhibit?”

  “Ah, Professor Maxwell.”

  As the little man came scurrying forward, at least two books tucked under one arm, together with what looked like quite a bit of paperwork, as well as a much-rumpled newspaper, MacLeod just barely managed to turn his amused grin into a friendly smile. “Yes, I’m enjoying it very much. In fact”—including Methos in the gesture—“we’re both enjoying it.”

  Methos was showing every sign of being about to slip unobtrusively away, but MacLeod, acting on a mischievous whim, caught him by the arm. “Professor Maxwell, I’d like you to meet an old acquaintance of mine.”

  He watched the two men do the “Albert Maxwell, Adam Pierson” round of courtesies. MacLeod added, still on the same whim, “Adam here is quite knowledgeable about the Hyksos. Almost personally so, in fact.”

  “Are you?” the professor squeaked in delight. “Oh, but then you must join us for lunch, mustn’t he, Duncan?”

  MacLeod shrugged, held up a hand: Of course! Methos clearly was about to offer some regretful refusal—but then, with a sly sideways glance at MacLeod, said instead, “Professor Maxwell, I would be delighted.”

  The Branson Collection’s little dining room was painted in quietly elegant shades of peach and cream, and tastefully hung with floral prints. But it had once, MacLeod mused ironically, been part of the servants’ quarters.

  Branson would have been mortified to think of anyone serving lunch to gentlefolk in here, let alone charging them for it. Or maybe, come to think of it, the old robber baron would have been downright amused.

  At any rate, the food was agreeable, the service attentive. Methos was being perfectly charming—as, MacLeod thought wryly, he could have predicted—listening intently to Professor Maxwell’s theories about the Hyksos and Egyptians without once refuting him, discussing his own “theories” as well, tiptoeing delicately over details that no one other than a firsthand observer (or a New Age fanatic) could have known.

  “And so you agree that the Hyksos continued trading with Cyprus,” the professor said earnestly, “at least from the evidence at Tell el-Yahudiya; that, of course, is the site near the excavations at Tell e’Dab’a—Avaris, that is—near the Nile Delta.”

  “Of course,” Methos agreed. “Though not all the Cypriot ware came directly from the source. We must not neglect the fact that Malta was a major shipping port—and that the Hyksos were avoiding contact with the Minoans.”

  “Of course, of course!” Maxwell interjected enthusiastically. “But it’s difficult to be sure exactly, without sufficient numbers of artifacts, or much in the way of written records.”

  “Oh, the Hyksos had a written language. They just weren’t so enthusiastic about using it. At least,” Methos added with an urbane smile, “so I believe. Admittedly without much concrete proof.”

  Charming, yes. In fact, MacLeod realized, Methos was being so charming that he, himself, was gently but firmly being shut out of the conversation. For all his knowledge of the art world and its history, he had to admit that the Hyksos weren’t really a part of it.

  Ye brought it on yerself, me boy, he thought in a deliberate parody of his own once-upon-a-time thick Scottish brogue. Never try to outclever the clever.

  A polite waiter whispered in Professor Maxwell’s ear. “Oh, blast!” the professor exploded, glancing at his watch. “Another meeting, and here I’ve lost track of the time again. Gentlemen, I am sorry to have to eat and run, as it were. I enjoyed our little talk, Mr. Pierson. And please, let’s try to do this again, both of you, sometime when things aren’t quite so hectic!”

  There was the quick, expected fight over the bill: MacLeod won. Professor Maxwell scrambled to his feet, and in the process dropped two books and all of his papers. In his frantic haste, he then got in the way when all three men tried to gather everything back up again, so that MacLeod and Methos banged heads and nearly fell over. The confusion continued until the now thoroughly flustered professor, clutching papers and books to him, finally managed to scurry off.

  “Wait,” MacLeod called after him, “you forgot your—” but the professor was already out of earshot, and he finished lamely, “newspaper.”

  He and Methos exchanged a wry grin. “I’d say,” Methos commented mildly, “that he was finished with it.”

  “There’s a safe guess. Almost the first thing Professor Maxwell did when we met was point out that grotesque crime story to me. The one,” MacLeod added dryly, brandishing the paper at Methos, “that you’ve been avoiding.”

  But Methos, to MacLeod’s surprise, snatched the paper from him, all humor gone from his face, staring at the front-page photo and the garish WEST SIDE SLAYER KILLS AGAIN headline. “I… don’t believe it.”

  “Believe what? What’s so alarming?”

  Methos shook his head, busily leafing through the paper for the rest of the story. He scanned it, read it again more closely, then glanced up at MacLeod. “Not alarming so much as surprising. You’re right; I was avoiding all the charming details of the latest serial killing spree. That’s why I didn’t know…”

  “Know what?”

  Methos was studying the paper again, poring over the front-page photo. “Granted, the media can be overly dramatic. But they didn’t invent those beheadings… the disembowelings… I can’t quite make out those signs carved in the earth, or even if those are signs; the photos are just too blurry for that…. And yet I could almost swear…”

  “Swear what?” MacLeod asked impatiently. “Will you kindly finish a sentence?”

  “Ah. Right. I can’t be sure, not without a clearer photo, but—Look,” Methos interrupted himself, “if we are going to take this discussion any further, I’d suggest we find a more private place.”

  MacLeod nodded. “The park.”

  They left the Branson Collection, hurried across Fifth Avenue just ahead of a changing traffic light, and then began to walk up the several blocks’ long stretch of unbroken sidewalk on the park side, their voices muffled to any eavesdroppers by the traffic noise.

  “As I was saying,” Methos continued, “I can’t be sure without a much clearer photo. But—I would almost swear that someone is attempting a ritual sacrifice such as the dear old Hyksos used to make.”

  MacLeod frowned at his calmness. “And no one else caught the connection? There are enough scholars in a city this size to identify—”

  “Ah, not exactly. One of the facts about which I was dancing with your Professor Maxwell is that no one nowadays knows very much about a written Hyksos language: not enough archaeological evidence, I’d guess, because the Hyksos, as I hinted to him, just weren’t big on writing things down. The mutilation of the bodies could be just the work of a modern psychopath, while the signs drawn on the earth…” He shook his head. “Modern scholars wouldn’t be able to identify the symbols as Hyksos.”

  “Then there’s no one but you who knows anything about how the Hyksos used to—” MacLeod broke off, eyeing Methos warily. “I am right about that, yes? You are the only one? There aren’t any Hyksos survivors wandering around, are there?”

  Methos opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I could have sworn he was dead, though granted I
didn’t actually take his head.” He held up a hand before the impatient MacLeod could interrupt. “Right. I’ll get to the point. His name was Khyan, he was one of us—but he was also, at least when I knew him, crazy as the proverbial loon.”

  “And?”

  “And what? Duncan, Khyan could hardly have survived for over three thousand years! He wasn’t a bad swordsman—he was bloody good!—but in all that time, insane and frequently unfocused as he was when I knew him, someone would surely have taken his head!”

  “Would they? These days they call insanity ‘mental illness’ for a reason. A disease can be cured.” MacLeod’s mind shied from unwelcome memories of Garrick, hopelessly insane Garrick, who’d nearly driven him insane as well. “Some forms of the disease,” he amended. “And,” MacLeod continued resolutely, “I’d suspect that was true even in the way-back-when.”

  “Meaning that Khyan could have survived, sane, for a time? Even, oh, for a millennium or so? Maybe. But sane men don’t commit ritual sacrifices in a style three thousand years out of date.”

  “Maybe,” MacLeod said dourly, “he suffered a relapse.”

  “Very amusing. Look, I can’t prove anything one way or the other without something more tangible, such as a clear set of photos. And I doubt that the newspaper personnel are going to grant us those without more of an elaborate charade than I feel like performing right now.”

  “No need for charades.” MacLeod glanced about, getting his bearings. They were midway between Seventy- fifth and Seventy-sixth streets by now… yes. “There’s a computer rental office not too far away: Third Avenue, somewhere in the eighties. If I can access the paper’s Web site, I should be able to get us at least one clear image.”

  Methos, who, MacLeod suspected, was every bit as technically adept, if not even more, than he, shrugged. “I bow before your hacker expertise. Lead on.”

  “There,” MacLeod said some time later, taking the pages he’d downloaded from the printer. “That’s about as clear as the image is going to get.”

  Methos took the proferred printouts, frowning at them.