The Amulet of Power (4 page)

“So that’s the real reason you were there,” said Lara.

“Yes,” said Mason. “And that’s what I assumed you were hunting for, too.”

“You were mistaken. I had bigger fish to fry.”
And an evil god to capture.

“There are no bigger fish.” He frowned. “The problem is that we’ll never convince
them
of it.”

“Who
are
they?”

“Fanatical fundamentalists.”

“There seem to be a lot of them around these days,” commented Lara with a grimace.

“Not like these,” said Mason. “These are Mahdists—absolute believers in the power of the Mahdi. The Mahdi died only five months after Gordon, and they’ve been waiting for more than a century for someone to pick up his mantle and lead them in a
jihad
against the infidels.”

“I should think they’ve had their choice of leaders over the years,” said Lara.

Mason shook his head. “They know that the true successor to the Mahdi will possess the Amulet of Mareish—and the Mahdists believe in the power of the Amulet. ‘Belief’ is almost too weak a word. They worship it like a god. They think that if they can just gain possession of it, it will somehow call forth a new Mahdi, an indestructible man who can purify the world by slaughtering every last infidel.”

“And they’re what’s been chasing us?”

He nodded. “That’s right.”

“Well, then they should know I don’t have it! I mean, I’m obviously not invulnerable. So why do they keep attacking?”

“It’s not that simple, Lara.”

“Somehow it never is.”

“The Mahdists believe that for the Amulet to function at its most powerful—at full throttle, if you will—the possessor must believe in it totally. If you are a Jew, or a Christian, or even a traditional Moslem, you believe in other things, in God or Jesus or Mohammed, and to the extent that you believe in them, the power of the Amulet is weakened and you
can
be killed. That’s why Gordon couldn’t use it to defeat the Mahdi. He must have been tempted—after all, it would have worked to
some
extent—but he knew it was ultimately evil, and he was devout enough to turn his back on it and hide it where no one could use it.”

She considered what she had heard for a moment, then looked directly at him. “Do you believe in it?”

“I believe it exists. I believe that the Mahdi accomplished things that seem almost like magic. And I believe he was never the same after he lost possession of it.”

“Why should you say that?” asked Lara curiously. “He took Khartoum and killed Gordon, didn’t he?”

“Yes, he killed Gordon and overran Khartoum—but he outnumbered Gordon’s forces twenty-to-one, and even so, Gordon held him at bay for almost half a year. And don’t forget—he himself died just months after defeating Gordon.” He sighed wearily. “So maybe there’s something to it. But what I believe doesn’t matter. What matters is that the
Mahdists
believe in it, and there are thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of them.”

“And they’re all coming after us,” said Lara grimly.

Mason shook his head. “The fact of the matter is, they’re all coming after
you
. After all, you should have died under that rubble, and you didn’t. You may not be invulnerable, but they figure you are a lot harder to kill than a normal person. That’s proof enough to them that you have the Amulet. As for me, they assume I’m simply under your charismatic spell.” He smiled. “Which isn’t far wrong.”

“What if I just tell them I don’t have it?”

“They won’t believe you. You’re an infidel, and they believe it’s the nature of infidels to lie. Besides, you’re not totally unknown in this part of the world, Lara. They’ll assume you’ve got it, and that you plan to sell it or use it yourself.”

“You know,” she said, “a while back I found myself wondering just what I’d gotten myself into.” She grimaced again. “Of all the possibilities that occurred to me, none of them were remotely like this.”

“Well, like they say, truth is stranger than fiction,” Mason observed.

“It’s certainly deadlier,” she said.

5

It was late morning when Lara felt strong enough to emerge from her cabin. Mason argued against it for the reasons he had given her earlier, but she refused to stay in her cramped quarters any longer.

“If you’re afraid someone will spot us,” she said as she walked to the door, “you can stay here. After all, they’re looking for a couple.”

“They’re looking for a girl whose face looks like it’s been used for a punching bag,” answered Mason. “Whether you’re alone or with me, you’re not going to be able to hide those bruises.”

“Then I’ll just have to take my chances,” she said sharply. “I’ve been buried in a tomb, attacked in a hospital, shot at in a car, and now I’m in a room about the size of a broom closet. I’ve
got
to get some fresh air. I appreciate all your help, but I’m used to taking care of myself. I have a feeling you wouldn’t be half this solicitous if I were a man.”

“I resent that.”

“Resent it all you like,” she said. “Just don’t deny it. I want you to stop giving me orders and stop treating me as if I was a piece of rare china that might break at any instant.”

“All right,” he said unhappily. “But at least leave your guns here. They’ll stand out even more than your face.”

“I wasn’t wearing them when you took me to hospital, or when we escaped from it,” replied Lara. “Why should my guns identify me?”

“If for no other reason, they’re what I’d call an attention-getting device.” He stared at her, then shrugged. “What the hell. You’re probably the only Western woman on the boat, and you really are quite eye-catching. I don’t suppose the guns can make you stand out any more.”

She strapped her holsters on, spun the Black Demons into them, and opened the door.

“You’re sure you don’t want to come with me?”

“I’ve
seen
the boat,” said Mason, making a face. “It’s not worth a second look.” He stepped out on deck behind her. “I think I’m going to take a nap. Wake me when you’ve had enough fresh air—which, I might add, is well over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit and getting hotter.” He grimaced. “We’re a lot safer here, but at least an upscale cruise boat would have been air-conditioned.”

She walked out onto the deck, closed the door behind her, and set out to explore the
Amenhotep
. One glance told her that it wasn’t going to take very long.

There were ten doors facing the port side. Most of them had obvious mold and mildew damage. A couple had been riddled by termites. The wooden deck was warped and in need of repair. Beyond the rooms was a restaurant that would have had trouble passing a health inspection anywhere in the world. There was a small open area at the back of the boat—she couldn’t bring herself to think of it as a ship—that held three rickety wooden chairs and two broken chaise lounges.

She looked over the edge of the rusted railing. The boat was riding too high to have much of a cargo hold. Her first thought had been that it was carrying contraband material, but she quickly concluded that it couldn’t be anything heavier than drugs, and in an impoverished country like Egypt there simply wasn’t much profit in dealing drugs anywhere south of Cairo. Of course, they could be hauling some stolen antiquities if they were small enough and lightweight enough. . . . But she would never trust any valuable artifact to this dilapidated boat, and she was pretty sure that no one else would either.

Probably, she concluded, looking at three robed men sitting on the wooden chairs, the only cargo was human beings. What kind? She considered the possibilities. They could be felons on the run, men who had paid to be transported from Luxor to Aswan or even farther south. Perhaps they could even be terrorists. Or, she concluded with a shrug, perhaps the most likely answer was the correct one—that they were passengers who simply couldn’t afford any better transportation than the
Amenhotep
.

She looked ashore and tried to get her bearings. If they’d passed Luxor, they’d be coming to Esna and Edfu before long, and Kom Ombo and finally Aswan. The major tour boats plied their trade only between Luxor and Aswan, but she had a feeling that this one was going to follow the Nile a lot farther south. After all, if there were thousands of Mahdists looking for them, it didn’t make much sense for Mason to put them on a boat whose route terminated at a major city like Aswan, and it made even less sense to go back to Luxor.

She walked to the front of the boat, nodded pleasantly to the captain, who smiled back at her from the ancient controls inside a wood-and-glass cabin, then crossed to the starboard side. There were ten more rooms, almost identical to the port side, except that one door was missing entirely, and the iron railing was, if anything, even rustier.

As she had on the port side of the boat, she stared across the Nile at the arid landscape beyond, trying to spot some landmark so she would know exactly where they were. They passed by a small village where a dozen children were playing soccer up and down the single dirt street, and then the village ended as abruptly as it had begun and the land was cultivated for the next mile.

It’s amazing,
she thought.
Here along the Nile, it’s like good British farmland—green, rich, fertile. But go just half a mile inland from the river in either direction and it’s almost indistinguishable from the Sahara or the Gobi deserts.

She waved to a
felluca
that carried a quartet of local fishermen. They waved back. One of the men stood up unsteadily, gained his balance, pointed to her pistols, and mimicked a fast draw. She laughed, aimed her finger at him, and pretended to shoot. He grabbed his chest and fell theatrically into the Nile, which seemed to amuse his companions no end. They finally pulled him out just as the
Amenhotep
passed by, and its wake almost capsized the little fishing boat.

The fishing must have been good, she concluded, because they began passing a number of boats carrying fishermen. She stayed at the railing, still searching for landmarks, returning the waves and smiles of the fishermen, reveling in just being strong enough to remain on her feet and feel the gentle breeze on her swollen face.

She was aware that a number of robed Arabic men had come and gone from the restaurant, and that each had stared at her, some with open hostility, some with semi-open lust, a couple with simple curiosity. None of them approached her, and she felt no urge to initiate contact. For all she knew, any one of them would betray her to the Mahdists. They might even
be
Mahdists. So she remained alone, content merely to stand by the rail and watch the Egyptian landscape pass by.

Another
felluca
approached, this one carrying two fishermen, one wearing a robe, the other in just a loincloth. Both wore turbans. The one in the loincloth called out a greeting in broken English.

“Hi, Missy!” he said, waving his hand at her. “You are most beautiful lady I see all month!”

“Thank you,” said Lara.

“You are English, yes?”

“Yes.”

“I have been to London,” said the man proudly. “London Bridge. Buckingham Palace. Piccadilly Circus.”

“And I have been to Cairo,” replied Lara. “The pyramids. The sphinx. The Mosque of Ibn Tulun.”

The man laughed. “You are good traveler, Missy.”

“A frequent traveler, anyway.”

“What happen to your face?” asked the man. “Your husband, he find you with another man?”

“I bumped into a door.”

The
felluca
drifted closer. “Very hard door,” said the man, peering at her blackened eyes. Suddenly he noticed her pistols. “Why you wear guns, Missy?” he asked. “You shoot Egyptian man if he get fresh?”

She smiled. “Get fresh and you’ll find out.”

“You are inviting me to get fresh?” he said, and broke into a little dance that almost cost him his balance.

She laughed in amusement. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she became aware of a flurry of motion at the other end of the
felluca
. While the man in the loincloth had been holding her attention, the one in the robe had withdrawn a gun and was aiming it at her.

She threw herself to the deck, drawing her Black Demons, and as his bullet bounced off the rusted rail, she snapped off five quick shots. The man clutched at his chest, then screamed once and fell overboard.

Lara turned back to the man in the loincloth. He had a dagger in his hand and was about to throw it when her bullet tore it from his grasp. He looked at his empty hand in disbelief, then turned to Lara.

“Come closer,” she said, both pistols trained on him. “I have some questions for you.”

The man opened his mouth as if to reply, but then Lara saw that he was gasping for breath, his eyes bulging, his face turning red, his tongue protruding as though ghostly fingers were squeezing his throat.
Just like the men in the hospital,
she thought as her assailant collapsed in the boat without a sound.

She got to her feet and turned around, wondering what kind of attention she’d attracted, but to her surprise, no one was approaching or threatening her. A number of robed men had emerged from the restaurant or their rooms and were looking at her curiously, some sullenly, but no one came toward her. They had their own business to tend to, probably illegal, and if hers required her to kill a couple of fishermen, that was no concern of theirs.

Mason was at her side a moment later.

“What the hell happened?” he asked, looking first at the
felluca
and then glaring at the few men at the back of the boat who were still watching Lara.

“Somebody knows we’re here,” she said as the men looked away uncomfortably. “They tried to kill me.”

“They?” he repeated. “There’s just one man in the boat.”

“The other’s in the river.”

He frowned. “Damn! I could have sworn no one saw us get on the
Amenhotep
.”

“Probably no one did,” said Lara. “I get the feeling that they were checking out each boat as it passed by.”

“You should have stayed in the cabin like I told you,” said Mason sternly.

“And I told you to stop giving me orders,” replied Lara. “Besides, those were just two men. If there are hundreds or thousands of them searching up and down the Nile, we couldn’t have remained hidden for long anyway. I think it’s reasonable to assume they’ll have men boarding or at least inspecting each boat as it stops. There are locks at Edfu, and we’ll have to let passengers out at Aswan, so that gives them at least two more cracks at us.” She stared at him. “Perhaps you’d better tell me exactly where this boat is going.”

“South.”

“How far south?”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“On how much more I pay the captain,” said Mason. “I gave him enough to take us halfway through the Sudan. I suppose he’ll take us all the way to Uganda if I give him enough money.”

“At the rate this boat travels, that’s weeks off,” said Lara. “I think I’d better tend to a more immediate problem.”

She leaned over the railing and put another half-dozen shots into the floor of the
felluca
. Water began rushing in, and the little fishing boat began sinking, along with its human cargo.

“That’s that,” she announced, staring at a pair of bearded faces that appeared at the back of the boat until they vanished back into the restaurant, then spinning the pistols back into their holsters.

“They won’t stay hidden forever,” said Mason. “Sooner or later those bodies are going to turn up.”

“They won’t be the first dead bodies to show up in the Nile,” said Lara. “Or the thousandth, or probably even the millionth. By the time they’re found and identified, either we’ll have this business solved, or . . .” She let the sentence linger, unfinished.

“Or what?”

“Or we’ll have joined them,” answered Lara.