Slayer of Gods Read online

  Finally Kysen spotted the place from which the notes issued. In the midst of a stand of trees sat a small pavilion unlike anything Kysen had seen. It was constructed of creamy limestone, but the lintel over the door was of white marble carved with spirals. Two slim, engaged half columns flanked the portal. Of green marble, they had been carved with alternating bands of spirals and hatched chevrons.

  Kysen had never realized just how wealthy piracy had made Othrys. To have imported marble of such high quality and install it in a house rather than a temple or tomb, such extravagance on the part of a commoner was unheard of. Kysen walked up the front steps after the steward and closely followed by his silent, weapon-laden friends. As he crossed the threshold a young woman passed him. Kysen glimpsed lapis lazuli eyes and long waves of hair the color of red gold.

  She hardly glanced his way, but Kysen saw her long enough to notice several things. She wore a fortune in gold and blue enamel jewelry—a necklace of bracelets the beads of which had been shaped in the form of rosettes and spirals, and all covered in minute granulation. She wore a costly embroidered gown of sea green secured with gold and silver pins, and she bore a great resemblance to Othrys. Kysen dragged his gaze away from her when one of his guards glared and shoved him.

  Othrys was sitting in a chair playing a harp. The steward spoke briefly to his master and left. The guards followed him, but they stopped just outside the door and stood watching Kysen. Othrys took no notice of his guest and continued to play. The pirate was a well-built man near Meren’s age, but unlike Meren the hillocks and knolls of his muscles were crisscrossed with scars, white slashes against the light brown of his skin. Like Meren his body was hardened from physical exercise and the exertions of battle, but in place of a dark, concealing gaze were eyes of the glaring white-blue of the sky at midday. He was wearing a blue tunic and gold belt, leggings and sandals.

  Othrys seemed in no rush to speak to Kysen. He plucked a last note on the harp and gazed out of the wide, open windows of the pavilion. They were as tall as a man and five times as wide, allowing the outside to come in along with the breeze. Finally the pirate sighed and turned to Kysen.

  “So, your father didn’t die.”

  “He sends his thanks and begs to be allowed to show his gratitude for your help in his time of desperation,” Kysen said.

  Othrys smiled and set the harp aside. “Spoken with true Egyptian courtliness and breeding, but I’m certain I’ll have occasion to ask Lord Meren to repay his debt to me.”

  Kysen refrained from commenting. He could imagine many favors Othrys might need from his father, but few Meren would be willing to grant. Othrys rose and went to a long table where he poured wine into two fluted stone goblets and handed one to Kysen.

  “May the good will of the Earth Mother bless you, friend Kysen. It’s late in the day for business.”

  “The business of the Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh knows no late hour,” Kysen replied.

  “Ah, you mean the days of pharaoh’s agents are long. I assume you’ve come about Dilalu,” Othrys said. “I got your message and sent men in search of him, but learned nothing. He’s hiding somewhere, and his people are silent about him, which is odd. Usually I can bribe someone to talk.”

  “He’s frightened. We came to blows at the Divine Lotus.” Kysen frowned. “He’d been warned by someone that he was in danger, because he had mercenaries concealed somewhere in the tavern. They even tried to take me prisoner.”

  “How could Dilalu know you were going to be at the Divine Lotus?” Othrys asked as he sat down again and turned his face to the breeze. “It’s more likely that he’s cheated someone in a trade and must protect himself from the wrath of his victim.”

  “Perhaps. A dealer in weapons and mercenaries makes enemies easily.” Kysen set his goblet down. “I must go.”

  Othrys glanced at him. “I heard you met Zulaya and have become well acquainted with him.”

  “More gossip from Mistress Ese?”

  “Many people find it wise to make themselves familiar with those to whom Zulaya grants his friendship. The event is so rare.” Othrys lifted his face to the breeze again, closed his eyes, and said softly, “Beware.”

  “I fail to see the sense in your wariness of Zulaya,” Kysen said. “Neither my father nor I have discovered anything about him that would mark him as more dangerous than any of a dozen such men. Besides, he wasn’t even in Egypt until after—” He glanced back at the guards and lowered his voice. “He didn’t come to Egypt until after the queen was murdered.”

  Othrys set his wine down and picked up a round ivory spice box carved with winged griffins. He shook a bit of powderlike spice from it into his goblet and swirled the liquid.

  “I’m not surprised. That’s the way he conducts business, at a distance, so that nothing can be traced to him. He might not have been in Horizon of the Aten, but his agents could have done his bidding. There were hundreds of foreigners there. Merchants came in with the trading ships endlessly. And there were the foreign delegations to the court, emissaries from other rulers, retinues of the vassal princes, all trekking out to those cursed desert altars and parading at Akhenaten’s jubilees and celebrations of the Aten.”

  Suddenly alert, Kysen said, “You were there?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You never told me.”

  Othrys shrugged. “It didn’t seem important.”

  Kysen barely heard him. This was one of those times when his view of things changed abruptly and drastically. He’d always assumed Othrys had been in Memphis or the Greek city-state of Mycenae or on one of his pirating expeditions at sea. Othrys was toying with the lid to the ivory box. Kysen walked back to Othrys, studying him closely.

  “How long were you there?”

  “How should I know? I was there off and on many times over the years until the court moved back to Memphis and Thebes.”

  “When the queen was killed?”

  The pirate’s hands stilled with the lid to the ivory spice box in them. “Aye, by the Earth Mother. I was there when she was poisoned, my friend. And if you value your pretty head you’d better not ask me if I killed the queen.”

  Kysen heard a menacing note in the pirate’s voice and cursed to himself. He’d made a dangerous blunder, one any novice could have avoided. So he smiled his father’s ingenuous and deceiving smile.

  “Be at ease, Othrys. Had I any suspicions of you, I would never have asked such a question. At least not here, not without a company of royal archers and a squadron of charioteers behind me.”

  Othrys left off his executioner’s stare and laughed. “Forgive me. In my trade one doesn’t survive without an overabundance of suspicion.”

  “As one whose task it is to be suspicious of all, I readily forgive,” Kysen said with a bow. “And I must give you my thanks and go. I must meet with a mutual acquaintance, Tcha.”

  “You’re welcome to him, my friend. I’d sooner face a thousand sea demons than come near that walking garbage pit.”

  Kysen left the pirate’s house in a state of agitation. Reia was waiting for him outside, and Kysen told the charioteer about his discovery as they walked through the streets of the Caverns.

  Soon they both fell silent. Othrys had been at Horizon of the Aten all along and hadn’t mentioned the fact. Why? Had his information about Dilalu, Yamen, and Zulaya been false, a ruse to distract attention from himself? Kysen began to look around as they moved through alleys and streets, but he detected no sign that they’d been followed. As they neared the appointed meeting place, his wariness faded. Had Othrys’s slip been incriminating, he’d have sent men to deal with Kysen and Reia immediately. Or would he?

  Deep in thought, Kysen reached the meeting place, a refuse heap behind a warehouse in the Caverns. He leaned against a wall and studied the cracks that marred its plaster surface. He wasn’t going to solve this new mystery right away, and if he didn’t pay attention to what he was doing he could get into trouble. Ugly things happened to those
foolish enough to become distracted in the Caverns.

  A slave trudged out of a house across the street and hurled the contents of a scrap pot onto the festering pile. Waves of transparent heat floated from its surface along with a sickly sweet odor that had driven Kysen to take his position upwind. He’d been watching this noxious mountain for a good reason. The thief and informant called Tcha made a habit of checking waste mounds for castoffs that might be worth something, and they’d arranged a meeting.

  His father was still at home conspicuously doing nothing other than routine business, which was why Kysen was prowling again. He had to find Dilalu, and Tcha had been asking about the merchant among his low but numerous acquaintances. Kysen straightened as a scrawny little figure with greasy hair and more scars than skin shuffled into view. Tcha skulked around the refuse heap, acquiring a cloak of flies as he went, and joined Kysen. He scuttled into a shadow, darting uneasy glances around the area.

  “No one’s here, Tcha. Reia is down that alley watching, and that’s the only way in.”

  “Didn’t see no charioteer, master.”

  “You weren’t supposed to see him. Now what have you learned?”

  “It be hard work, finding things out, master. I’ve trudged from one end of the city to the other.” Tcha pointed to Kysen’s feet. “Never had no fine leather sandals to protect my feet. Never had no protector to watch out for me. Life is hard, master.”

  “You’re not getting more than I agreed to pay, so quit complaining,” Kysen said.

  Tcha opened his mouth, but a rattling cough issued from his throat. He put the whole force of his lungs behind the cough, bent over and groaned, then leaned weakly against the wall.

  “The wind blew a terrible amount of dust into me, master. I’m sure it blew a desert fiend in too, and it cursed me and that’s why I got this rattle in my chest. Got nothing to pay a magician or doctor. Just going to waste away, me.”

  Kysen lifted an eyebrow, but said nothing. Tcha sank against the wall with dramatic effect, and gave a high-pitched moan. Kysen’s foot swept around and knocked the thief’s legs from under him. Tcha hit the ground with a screech, but Kysen grabbed a handful of sticky hair and hauled him to his feet, shaking him with each word.

  “Tell me what you’ve found out.” He released Tcha.

  “Ow! Broke my neck, I’m certain of it.” When Kysen moved toward him again he backed away. “All right, all right, master. I heard of a man who might know where the merchant’s got to.” Tcha rubbed his neck and put some distance between himself and Kysen. “He used to work for Dilalu as a trader’s assistant, but he was dismissed because he drank too much.”

  “Where is he?” Kysen asked.

  “Probably at a place called the Heart Scarab. It’s near that old wrecked shrine to the god Shu. He goes there because the beer is cheaper than at the Divine Lotus.”

  Kysen eyed the thief, who had suddenly become more fidgety than usual. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Naught, master.”

  Kysen studied Tcha, but decided the little man simply wasn’t used to anyone taking notice of him for any length of time. “Does this drunkard have a name?”

  “O’ course, master. Name’s Marduk something. Impossible to say these foreign names. He’s known as Marduk.”

  “Well done,” Kysen said as he rubbed the palm that had touched Tcha’s hair against his kilt. It felt sticky.

  He handed the thief several bronze beads on a string, leftovers from a necklace his sister Isis had broken. Tcha’s eyes grew big, and he clutched the beads to his chest.

  “Thank you, master.” He bobbed up and down in gratitude.

  Tcha had expected to be cheated, Kysen was sure. It was a realistic expectation given the people with whom he usually consorted. Still clutching his treasure, Tcha began to sneak away, but he hesitated. Casting wary glances all around, he sidled up to Kysen, wet his lips, and spoke in a voice so low Kysen had to bend down to hear it.

  “You be careful at the Heart Scarab, master.”

  “Why?”

  Tcha’s glance slid away, and he muttered, “Always should take care around here.” He shuffled off, talking to himself. “Never had no beads like these before. Never had no jewels, nor good sandals, nor nice, soft kilt. Never. Never, never, never.”

  Chapter 15

  Kysen eyed Tcha’s stunted figure and contemplated calling him back to demand the significance of his last warning, but then he shook his head. He just wasn’t used to Tcha’s gratitude, and there wasn’t much time. He didn’t want to remain in the Caverns too long. There was always the chance that someone in the employ of Nefertiti’s murderer might see him and recognize Lord Kysen, the son of Meren. Kysen walked back down the alley to where Reia waited and headed for the ruined shrine of the god Shu.

  The Heart Scarab turned out to be a gathering hole for the dregs of the city—derelict servants, leather workers smelling of curing salts and urine, street thieves, embalmer’s assistants, and drunks. The place was named for the beetle-shaped amulet placed in the wrappings of a mummy in order to prevent the deceased’s heart from testifying against him in the netherworld. If the heart revealed evil deeds during the soul’s judgment, the dead person was cast into oblivion. An apt name considering the patrons of the place.

  With Reia behind him, Kysen walked across a packed earth floor littered with food scraps and spilt, sour beer. Inert bodies lay in poses of destitution and stupor from one end of the tavern’s single room to the other. The proprietor had pointed out a slumped, fleshy man in a corner when Kysen inquired after Marduk.

  Standing over the man, Kysen noted his curling beard, the ringlets in his hair, his dirty nails, and soiled wool robe. He was dozing on a stool with a beer jar clutched in both hands.

  “Marduk?”

  There wasn’t a response. He exchanged glances with Reia, who was watching the rest of the tavern’s patrons.

  “Marduk,” Kysen repeated. When the man didn’t stir, he nudged him with his toe. The man snorted and came awake.

  “Wha—”

  “You are the Asiatic called Marduk?”

  “Go away.” Marduk turned his shoulder and snuggled into his corner.

  Kysen pulled the stool from under Marduk, and the Asiatic hit the floor hard.

  “Aargh! May Baal curse your children’s children. What do you want, Egyptian?”

  “It is said you might know the whereabouts of a certain Asiatic called Dilalu.”

  Marduk scowled at Kysen. “Who be you to ask me anything?”

  Kysen knelt beside the man and produced a bronze ring with a turquoise bezel. “I’m the man who’s willing to pay to be able to ask you anything.”

  Marduk’s scowl vanished. He laughed so loud Kysen winced, and he clapped his benefactor on the back.

  “Help me up, my friend. Come share a jar of beer. I have two. Where’s that other one?” Marduk snatched a jar that stood on the floor near his corner and thrust it into Kysen’s hands. He waved his own jar so that the beer sloshed out, and laughed again. “Let us drink in honor of friendship.”

  “I don’t want a drink.”

  Marduk’s joviality disappeared instantly. “You don’t want to drink with me? Why not? Marduk is good enough to drink with fine lords and great men. I don’t answer the questions of men who refuse a friendly jar of beer.”

  Casting a rueful glance at Reia, Kysen took the cup Marduk offered and poured beer through the straining holes in the jar. He took a sip and grimaced at the acrid taste. The stuff was poorly made and flavored with some cheap spice that failed to hide the flatness of the brew. Marduk must have thought it as fine as Syrian wine, however, for he insisted that Kysen drink most of the jar before he began answering questions.

  “That old cheat Dilalu? He cast me off near a week ago. I heard he’d gone into hiding. Only Baal knows why. He’s wealthy enough to buy his way out of trouble.”

  “Do you know where he might be found?” Kysen asked as he took another painfu
l sip of beer.

  Marduk drained his cup, slapped it down on the table, and pretended to consider carefully, his eyes raised to the ceiling in thought. “Well, young one, as I remember, when Dilalu ran into evil-wishers he didn’t trust to leave him be, he went to ground at his harlot’s place.”

  “Where is that?”

  “The dwelling of Mistress Henut, third house from the corner in the Street of the Locusts, beside the sandal maker’s house.”

  “I’m unfamiliar with this Street of the Locusts,” Kysen said. The beer was causing a faint buzzing noise in his head. “If you’ll take me there, I’ll stand the cost of two jars of beer.”

  “Five jars.”

  “Three,” Kysen said.

  Marduk slapped his thigh. “Done! Let us hurry, my friend, so that we may start drinking those jars all the sooner.”

  Kysen followed Marduk outside to find that dusk was rapidly turning to night. That buzzing sound seemed to be louder outside, and his eyes were beginning to hurt. With difficulty he tracked Marduk’s progress through the crooked streets, dodging street vendors, donkeys, women with water jars or baskets on their heads. Once he glanced over his shoulder to see Reia loping steadily after him, but he had to hurry to catch up with Marduk.

  He shoved his way through a crowd around a baker selling fresh loaves to find Marduk was far ahead of him. He worked his way through the crowds headed away from one of the city’s many markets, but each step became more difficult, as if stone weights had been tied to his ankles. His chest heaved with the effort to catch his breath, and the fading day seemed as hot as the hour when Ra reached his highest point.