Gary Gygax - Dangerous Journeys 2 - Samarkand Solution

HEAT IN THE CITY

The bead of sweat that ran down his neck felt like a spider. Magister Setne Inhetep swiped the offending droplet away, then replaced his soggy handkerchief inside the fold of his tunic. "Boy! Another tea here," Inhetep called irritably, muttering under his breath, "Damned lazy Yar-bans." The waiter came to the little table, slowly gathered up the remains of the magister's first order, and then slowly wended his way through the maze of seated customers toward the interior of the cafe. Inhetep was too hot to complain further, although he again wondered why an establishment of the stature of Ra's Chariot couldn't find decent help. "All these foreigners! Where are the young Egyptians who used to serve so well?"

"Too many positions paying more than the work's worth!" answered a fat merchant from the table at Inhetep's elbow. "You should have to hire the sort of scum I am forced—" The fellow snapped his plump-cheeked jaws shut upon seeing the magister's glare, returning his attention to the bowl of fruited sherbet and sugar wafers before him. The hawklike features and green eyes of the tall man next to him were hard and authoritative. Although his costume was plain white cotton, something told the merchant that this was someone not to trifle with.

Inhetep looked away from the fat man. Innu was a wealthy city, and rich men such as the merchant frequented places such as Ra's Chariot and the many other cafes, restaurants, and cabarets—kept them in business, in fact. Despite having attended university in the city, Inhetep wasn't overly fond of the place. The corpulant merchant and all of his kind were part of the reason. Well, no matter; he'd make the best of the two weeks left. Tomorrow he would spend time visiting the colleges again, and the libraries and museums, and, of course, would see his fellow kheri-hebu, priest-mages, at the upcoming convocation at the Temple of Thoth. The trouble was the heat.

Summer in /Egypt was hot—very hot in many places, muggy in a few. Innu, however, was supposed to be pleasant, kept bearable by the cool breezes from the north. But the damned wind seemed to blow perversely, alternating between the south and the west, bringing only heat and no relief at all. Magister Inhetep might have been somewhere else but for two reasons. First, the summons to the convocation had precluded his taking leave of the kingdom to holiday in a cooler place. Second, Prince Harphosh had requested his presence in the city. Because the prince was both an old comrade and the governor of the sepat, the city and environs of Innu and associated areas, Inhetep decided to leave his villa immediately, spend three weeks in Innu, and thus satisfy both calls.

"I have things I must do," Racheile had told him when Inhetep informed the girl of his decision. Girl? Well, Inhetep thought of her thus, although he realized she was a mature and beautiful woman. Beautiful and deadly, given her training. Once his ward, she was now Inhetep's guard and companion, an amazon-like warrior who had assisted him with any number of dangerous, private investigations as well as the highly secret government missions he was given from time to time. "Wait until I return from the hunt, please, Setne."

He had laughed at that. "I fear neither the convocation nor the governor will understand and delay their affairs accordingly, my dear Racheile. You shall be away in Keshu for a month with Lady Mintet and that foppish cousin of her's, Lakhent. I fear any delay in my plans is impossible."

"That isn't fair," Racheile had retorted. "Lord Lakhent is a big game hunter, and an unequalled expert in archery!"

"Bah! You can outshoot him any day."

"With a horn bow perhaps, but Lakhent knows all manner of other arms and will teach me much while we are—"

Inhetep had cut her off, pretending not to be irritated by her fondness for the handsome young nobleman and her desire to spend time away. "But of course, Rachelle. That is why I was agreeable to your accepting Lady Mintet's invitation in the first place. It is only a matter of my also being away for a time, rather than sitting here in the villa rusticating, while you chase after . . . whatever it is you think sport."

That had been sufficient to send Rachelle away in anger. He had regretted his words slightly, but Inhetep had remained as coldly aloof as the girl over the next few days, until she had departed for the expedition to Keshu, and he had sailed downriver to Innu.

At first it had seemed as exciting as being away from home for the first time. Rachelle had been with Inhetep for years, initially as a slave, an urchin bought on a whim to be given to the Temple of Maat for eventual priestesshood. Later, the girl had become almost a foster child to him and begun to run his household, as well as his life as time passed. With only a smattering of training in religious disciplines and an immersion in martial skills, Rachelle's gradual change from adjunct to principal had come naturally. Magister Setne Inhetep needed a good swordsman—or swordswoman—at his side from time to time. Now Rachelle was mistress of his villa, constant companion, and as near to a wife as the wizard-priest ever hoped to get. After several years of this relationship, the journey alone to the metropolis of Innu lifted his spirits to near boyishness.

Inhetep had been a trusted agent of the government for some time, working for the secret police, the Utchatu, and a member of its most potent arm, the Merit-f. He had been a high officer, meeting and working for Pharaoh himself, before retiring a few years back to pursue his own affairs. Inhetep was of a very old family of hereditary princes—noble, certainly well to do— and he might have been very rich had he chosen to seek great gain. Instead, the magister lived from income generated by his holdings in Jigypt, a pension of a talent of silver annually from Pharaoh, and some miscellaneous sums from his current work. Inhetep had accepted not a few cases involving murder and high-level criminal activity since he "retired." He had successfully solved each, too, and for that had been offered vast amounts of money. He never took much, but instead saw to it that the sums were used for the betterment of his fellows. All but a tithe he gave to various charities, including those of Thoth, promoter of learning. How many dozen deserving youngsters now studied because of his gifts? Even Inhetep had no certain idea.

The slow-footed Yarban waiter finally appeared with another tall glass of minted, heavily sweetened tea. Some folk wondered about such a hot refreshment on a sticky summer's day, but Inhetep knew that the stuff helped him to cool off by opening his pores. He placed a copper tek on the empty plate and sipped from the glass, staring at the waiter all the while. "Well ... ?" The dark face grew darker, but the Yarban slowly counted out the bronze dinars due in change. "Here," Inhetep said curtly, putting a couple of brass coins on the waiter's serving plate when the fourth dinar came to his hand. "If you are more attentive next time, I'll be more generous." The fellow gave him a blank look, shrugged, and ambled off. Inhetep saw that the waiter posted himself near a table where several pretty young women were clustered. So that was it! Innu's avenues and shops were famous for lovely females. These four were striking and scantily clad, as was the latest fashion dictate from Grecia. That made him even more irritable, and for the tenth time that day the magister thought of Rachelle.

It seemed unnatural. He should be enjoying his freedom! But what if Rachelle were enjoying hers? Inhetep mentally sat back at that thought, examining his emotions. I am jealous of Lakhent, resent his obvious attentions to Rachelle, and I am certainly envious of whatever it is that effete young wastrel has which so interests her. Knowing that such feelings were destructive—dangerous as well for one in his position—the magister sipped his tea and carefully began a process of correction. Inhetep isolated each emotion, placed a counter-reason around it, and then dismissed both thoughts from his mind.

For a few minutes he simply enjoyed watching the pretty women at the table where the negligent Yarban waiter hovered. Inhetep admired the curves which the thin cotton or clinging silk garments half-hid, half-revealed. He couldn't blame the boy for preferring them to serving him. Could he manage two weeks of this? He would have to, since the convocation was unusual and certainly important.

There were few kheri-hebs who were truly adept. Such were the ur-kheri-hebs. The best of that lot were known as ur-kheri-heb-tepiu. He was one of only a handful of wizard-priest masters who advocated the teachings of Thoth. In all /Egypt, serving the hundreds of actively worshipped deities, there were no more than three score ur-kheri-heb-tepiu worthy of the name, thrice that number of ur-kheri-hebu, and thrice again that number of kheri-hebu. Political considerations aside, Magister Setne Inhetep was perhaps the most able of all those when it came to bending heka energy and using hekau, words of power. Yet, despite that standing, he had not been
consulted.
When the convocation was decided upon, Inhetep had been excluded from the process, merely informed of it afterwards. Well, it was time for him to become involved again. Inhetep resolved to use the fortnight's time to visit his fellow priest-mages and priest-wizards and find out what was so urgent as to require a gathering of all kheri-hebu. He would cut through the screen and make them confess the actual reasons for the assembling of the most powerful practitioners of priestcraeft and dweomercraeft in Pharaoh's empire.

Of course, the matter seemed banal on the surface. The announced purpose of the gathering was to award rankings to those now accepted as members of the confraternity, to elect new officers, and determine the suitability of novice-apprentices with regard to studying in one of the twelve schools which trained kheri-hebu. What could the true purpose be? The normal priesthood was often at loggerheads with the kheri-hebu society, and practitioners of secular dweomer-craefter were envious rivals of the priest-wizards. That was competition, a natural thing, and not likely meat for the assembly. No, something has been discovered which threatened the society, the realm, or ... or what? Idle speculation was not something in which Inhetep wasted time. A call at the temple, then a visit to the headquarters of the society to grill old Khaem-uas, current archmaster and the only other ur-kheri-heb-tepi whose art was comparable to his own. For the rest of this afternoon, Inhetep decided, he would simply relax and do a little more sightseeing. Innu was a city worthy of such activity.

The shaven-headed Inhetep snapped his fingers, ignoring the deliberately slow acknowledgement by the Yarban servitor. "Here." said the wizard-priest when the fellow finally came to stand before him. "Please use this to treat those lovely ladies—the ones who you have perhaps noticed at that table over there," Inhetep said with only a hint of sarcasm as he placed a big silver coin on the table. "They are to have whatever pleases them, and I do not wish them to know I bought for them. Think of something .. . ingenious. And, my good man, you may keep the remainder of the crescent for yourself." Then, not bothering to see what the women ordered, not caring if the Yarban simply pocketed the coin or pretended to be the big spender, Magister Inhetep arose and strolled away from the cafe.

He had supposed that the business which Prince Harphosh,
hatia
of Innu, had wished him to manage would consume some considerable amount of time and effort. However, the governor had simply desired Inhetep's advice. After a formal greeting and the friendly exchange between old associates which followed, Harphosh related a list of the concerns usual to a man in his office—labor and taxation problems, the irrigation system's expansion and improvement, a minor scandal involving embezzlement and a woman, and all the rest.

"What? No smuggling? Short weights? Crime wave?"

The governor smiled, shrugging at the same time. "Innu is basking in a period of unusual inactivity of that sort, Setne. Even with slavery abolished for most offenses, there's been no great upsurge in thievery or bad debt. The heat has caused some problems—fighting and murder— but nothing unusual. Most of the organized criminal activity has virtually ceased, oddly enough."

"Perhaps the thugs are on holiday," quipped the priest-mage.

"It just might be true! I even went so far as to grill the prefect and his lieutenants; I suspected them of slacking off on their reports, you know. A drop in crime here makes Thopu-emen look good when Pharaoh reads such reports."

"Still trying to take away your job, is he?" Inhetep queried. "I thought that after twelve years in office, you'd have the sepat as a virtual fief."

"Ha! Just like the palace to decide that a younger and more vigorous man as hatia is now in order. Time to have him get used to things as governor with no crises," the prince said with bitterness.

He
was
getting too old for the job, Inhetep realized then. Perhaps a few more years at best, and Harphosh would be put out to pasture. The civil minister or police prefect of the city were possible choices, but in all likelihood some relative of Pharaoh's would be appointed as the new governor of the sepat. "You should thank Thopu—he does a good job for you, governor. Besides, it is time to consider a more leisurely life. Don't you ever want to spend some of your noble fortune? Relax and enjoy idleness?"