4

Lara was lying on a lumpy mattress with her head resting on a torn pillow. Mason was sitting on a wooden stool right next to her.

“What happened?” she asked.

He smiled. “You caught up on your sleep.”

“How long this time?”

“Damned near twenty-four hours,” said Mason. “How do you feel?”

She ran a mental survey of her various aches and pains. “Better,” she said. “Much better.”

“Good. I’m sorry I had to rush you out of hospital, but it really couldn’t be avoided.”

Lara looked around the tiny, decrepit room. “Where are we?”

“Aboard the Amenhotep,” answered Mason. “We made it before sunrise, and this is the kind of boat where no one saw anything unusual about picking up two British passengers from a beat-up felluca, even though one of them was unconscious.” He paused. “Are you hungry? I don’t think you’ve eaten since I found you in the Temple of Horus.”

“They fed me a light dinner at hospital,” she replied. “But I am famished.”

“I’ll get you something.” He walked to the door. “I’ll be back soon.”

“I think I’m up to coming with you,” she said, swinging her feet to the floor.

“Bad idea.”

“Look, Kevin. I’m grateful that you saved me, but I don’t like being patronized,” said Lara. “If you explain why it’s a bad idea, I’ll listen; if you just state it, talk to the wall—it will be a more receptive audience than I will.”

Mason looked annoyed, but acquiesced to her demand. “Only two or three people saw us come aboard, and it was too dark for them to see that you’re a beautiful woman with a pair of black eyes. Whoever’s looking for us is looking for a couple, and they know that the woman was pretty badly banged up. Let’s not make it too easy for them.”

“I thought you told me that this was a tiny boat and no one would find us here,” said Lara.

“I said they wouldn’t think to look for us here,” responded Mason. “But that doesn’t mean the word isn’t out that they are looking for us. Why give the crew or the passengers any information to sell?”

“All right,” she said, putting her feet back up. “But when you get back, we’re going to have a long talk about exactly what’s going on.”

“I promise,” he said as he walked out onto the deck and closed the door behind him.

Lara ran her hands down her hips and realized that her holsters were missing. She sat up abruptly—there was some pain, but nothing like the day before—and then relaxed as she saw the holsters, pistols still in them, sitting on a crooked wooden table. She checked: The Black Demon .32s were loaded, ready to spit death at whoever was after her.

She stood up, expecting to experience horrible stabbing pains in her head and being pleasantly surprised when they didn’t occur, then entered the bathroom. There was a sour taste in her mouth, and she wanted to rinse it out. She turned on the tap and a very thin stream of brownish water trickled out. She decided to live with the taste.

She took a thorough inventory of her various wounds, bruises, and abrasions. She picked up the only towel, which was ragged and had three small holes in it, and wiped off the filthy mirror over the sink. The swelling was down on her left eye, still pretty big there on her right—and both eyes would stay black for at least a few more days.

She gently pulled the bloodstained wad of cotton out of her nostril and took a breath. No obstructions, and her nose didn’t look or feel broken, so she decided not to reinsert it.

Her lips were still cracked and dry. She toyed with rubbing some of the brown water on them, then decided against it. Whatever drink Mason brought her—juice, bottled water, tea, coffee—would serve the same purpose and probably wasn’t filled with dysentery germs and bilharzia mites.

She tried raising and lowering her left arm. No problem. Then she bent it—and winced. Whatever had pinned her back in the tomb had evidently fallen onto her elbow. It didn’t look swollen, and she was pretty sure it wasn’t broken, but it was still very sore.

Still, she could live with all the cuts and bruises, as long as the pain in her head subsided and she stopped losing her balance and passing out every fifteen minutes or so. She turned and took a few tentative steps around the tiny room, secure in the knowledge that if she did fall, she would almost certainly land on the bed. Her knees hurt, her ankles were stiff, and there was a momentary wave of dizziness, but it was so much better than she’d felt in the hospital or the car or the felluca that she mentally pronounced herself Ready and Able.

Now, as soon as Mason returned, she was determined to find out exactly what she was Ready and Able for.

He entered the room almost as the thought crossed her mind, and set a tray down at the foot of the bed.

“I’m afraid the food isn’t much better than the accommodations,” he apologized, and then pointed to the various things on the tray. “Mango juice, melon of some sort, tea. I tried to get some eggs, but they don’t have any. Ditto for coffee, in case you prefer it to tea.”

“This will be fine,” she said, taking a sip of the juice. It burned the cuts on her lips, but at least they didn’t feel quite so dry once she had finished. Mason walked to the wooden stool and seated himself, and she turned to him. “It’s time for answers, Kevin. Who are these people, and why are they trying to kill me?”

“What do you know about the Amulet of Mareish?” asked Mason.

“Just that it’s supposed to be about four thousand years old and that it was created by a Sudanese sorcerer named Mareish. It is said to give its possessor certain extraordinary powers, two of which are great physical strength and invulnerability, and a third is immortality. It is said that he who owns it will possess irresistible charisma and be an absolute ruler of men. Supposedly, once Mareish realized just how powerful it was, he didn’t trust his king or anyone else with it, and he took it with him to his grave. Most people think that it’s a myth.”

“And what do you think?”

“I have no opinion. Why?”

“Because it’s not a myth,” said Mason. “It is very real, and quite possibly the most powerful artifact in the world.”

Lara shook her head. “If it existed, and did all that the legends say, someone would be wearing it right now, ruling the world and living forever. Or are you going to tell me it’s still buried in Mareish’s tomb?”

“No,” he said. “It is not in Mareish’s tomb. I’ve looked there.”

“Well, this is all very interesting, whether true or a fairy tale, but it doesn’t explain why people are trying to kill me.”

“Hear me out,” said Mason. “They’re after you because they think you’ve got the Amulet.”

“That doesn’t make any sense!” Lara protested. “It’s a Sudanese artifact. Why in the world would they think that it’s here in Egypt?”

“Because Chinese Gordon was smarter than anyone gave him credit for.”

“Chinese Gordon?” she repeated. There was something familiar about that name. . . . Then she had it. “Are you talking about General Charles Gordon?”

“You are feeling better,” said Mason with a smile. “Gordon made his reputation by winning a series of absolutely brilliant battles in China in 1863 and 1864, and got his nickname there, too. Chinese Gordon, the Englishman who was the equivalent of any ten Chinese generals—or so they liked to say.”

“I’ve read about him,” said Lara. “He was one of the great Victorian heroes. After China they sent him to the Sudan, and he single-handedly ended slavery there. He was probably more popular than anyone in England except Queen Victoria herself.”

“With people who didn’t know him, anyway,” said Mason. “He was a hardheaded, totally undisciplined sort, always ignoring his orders. The only reason he wasn’t mustered out was because he succeeded spectacularly every time he disobeyed his superiors.” He paused. “They even made a motion picture about him. Huge budget. Of course they hired an American, Charlton Heston, to portray him, but then what can you expect from Hollywood?”

“Okay, we’re talking about the same General Gordon, the one who died at the fall of Khartoum,” said Lara. “That was in 1885, well over a century ago. What does it have to do with me?”

“I’m coming to that,” said Mason. “Eat your melon and be patient.”

“I’m not much better at taking orders than Gordon was,” she shot back. “I’ll eat when I’m ready to.”

“I thought you were starving.”

“Just keep talking.”

He shrugged. “Where was I?”

“The fall of Khartoum.”

“No,” he corrected her. “Earlier than that. There was a Sudanese warrior, a holy man known as the Mahdi—the Expected One. I think Sir Laurence Olivier played him in the movie. Typical Hollywood, eh? Anyway, we sent an army against him, and he led them deeper and deeper into the desert and eventually destroyed them, down to the very last man. It was one of the worst defeats in our history.”

“I know. That’s when the government decided to send Gordon back to the Sudan.”

“Well, yes and no. We were putting down uprisings in South Africa and all over the world, and the government didn’t want yet another war. But they couldn’t just wash their hands of it, not with an entire army dead in the desert and the public demanding action. So they hit upon sending their greatest hero—Gordon, of course—to the Sudan. But because they didn’t want a war, they sent him with just a couple officers and nothing else: no army, no money, no artillery. He was to go there, putter around for a while, and come home, and then the government could mollify the people by saying, in essence, ‘Well, if Gordon couldn’t solve the situation, then it obviously can’t be solved.’ “

She nodded. “But it didn’t work out that way.”

Mason smiled. “Gordon disobeyed his orders, as always. Even though the Mahdi commanded an army of more than a million men, Gordon put together a battalion of ragtag desert warriors, paid them out of his own personal fortune, and actually defeated the Mahdi at Omdurman.”

“I know about the fall of Khartoum—every British student learns about it,” said Lara. “But I never heard of Omdurman.”

“Most people haven’t,” replied Mason. “Omdurman is just across the Nile from Khartoum. Outnumbered twenty to one, Gordon managed to wrest a victory from the jaws of almost certain defeat. Military scholars think it was a brilliant job of soldiering.” He paused for a long moment. “The truth was much stranger.”

“In what way?”

“The Mahdi was not the simple illiterate most people think. He left many writings behind. Most have been lost or destroyed, but a few scraps still exist. According to them—and mind you, this was written in his own hand—he received his charismatic power, the ability he had to draw huge numbers of fanatical followers to his cause, even his supposed invulnerability in battle, from a mystic charm that he wore around his neck.”

“The Amulet of Mareish?” asked Lara.

“Right,” said Mason. “One day he was just an obscure peasant. Then he somehow stumbled onto Mareish’s tomb and appropriated the Amulet—he may not even have known what it was at the time. But two years later he controlled half of North Africa, with millions of men from Morocco to Abyssinia believing that he was truly the Expected One. His men swore that as long as he wore the Amulet, swords broke when they hit him and bullets bounced off him, just like a comic-book superhero.”

“It’s still a fairy tale,” said Lara.

“Why do you think so?”

“You just told me Gordon beat him at Omdurman, and I know that Gordon held him off for almost half a year during the Siege of Khartoum. How could he do either of those things if the Amulet was as powerful as you say?”

“Because Gordon or one of his lieutenants found out about the powers inherent in the Amulet and stole it just before the battle of Omdurman!” said Mason with an air of triumph.

“I’m not buying it,” responded Lara. “Why would a modern, educated, sophisticated Englishman believe in the Amulet of Mareish?”

“The answer is that Gordon was as much of a religious fanatic as the Mahdi.”

“They were different religions,” noted Lara.

“True,” he agreed. “But they had the same devout belief in the supernatural.”

She stared at him thoughtfully. “Go on,” she said after a moment.

“All right,” said Mason. “After Omdurman, the Mahdi called a sixty-day halt to his war on the unbelievers while he went into the desert alone to commune with Allah and plan his next move—and Gordon used that time to hide the Amulet.”

“I don’t remember hearing or reading that Gordon ever returned to Egypt after he was sent to stop the Mahdi,” protested Lara.

“He didn’t,” answered Mason. “But he sent his most trusted aide, Colonel J. D. H. Stewart, to Egypt. Stewart spent only a single day there before returning to Khartoum.”

“How do you know that?”

“He was seen out of uniform in Edfu, entering the Temple of Horus, by a local journalist.”

“If you know it, why didn’t the Mahdi know it—and if he knew it, why didn’t he come after the Amulet?”

“The newsman never published what he saw,” explained Mason. “He was British, and since he didn’t know why Stewart was there, he didn’t want to endanger his mission by publicizing it—but his diary turned up a few months ago, and he described the incident in some detail.”

“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.