"What"s up with you?" Jade demanded.
"I"m just not going to let myself get sidetracked by irrelevant stuff anymore," he scowled at the track ahead. "I have to keep focussed on our goal for this level. We have to work out what the "death of the moon" means, then release Anuket. Like you said, we can"t make any more mistakes or lose any more lives."
"That doesn"t mean we have to ignore everything around us," Jade pointed out. "You never know what"s relevant and what"s not in this place."
"What do you mean?" The angry edge had gone from his voice, but he still sounded bitter.
Jade drew a deep breath, trying to relax and sound non-confrontational. "Well, I"m pretty sure this game isn"t simple like most computer games. In most games you"re choices are limited kill or be killed, really. Here, it"s more like real life lots of choices; lots of different results from each decision we make; lots of grey areas. In fact, I"m more and more certain that the old lady back in Albion you know, the one who told us this place is real is probably right. This is real in its own way. What we do here affects this world - and our world. We have to think more; choose carefully; take opportunities."
Phoenix sent her a sceptical glance, so she continued.
"Remember back in Svealand, when you didn"t want to go back to Olshammar and fight the troll-mother?" Jade said. "You thought fighting her was a waste of time a way to get bonus points in the game, but not really important."
"Yeah, so?" he shrugged.
"Well, we chose to go back and it turned out for the best, didn"t it?"
He stared at her in disbelief. "You got killed, remember?"
She blinked at him in surprise. "But we got to Asgard a whole lot faster than if we"d stayed in Midgard and trekked all the way to Uppsala."
"But you got killed again in Asgard!" He seemed fixated on the times she"d been killed and Jade figured that must be what was really bugging him.
"Yeah, I know," she tried for patience, "and believe me I don"t want to do it again, I still have bruises. I"m just saying that we can"t ignore opportunities that might help us even if they do put our lives at risk. We have to balance the risk with the benefit."
Phoenix was silent awhile, hopefully mulling over what she"d said.
"I still say we have to be more focussed on getting through this level and staying alive nothing else," his face was set and stubborn.
Jade gave in. "Whatever." The loss of two more lives had obviously shaken him more than he cared to admit, but she really couldn"t disagree with him. They did have to be focussed.
After waiting a few minutes, she switched topics."Any idea where we should go to find this tekhen that Anuket"s supposedly trapped in?"
He shot her a narrow look. "I thought you"d know. You said that, when you were "dead", the old-lady voice told you everything we needed to do in Egypt, India and China, remember? Didn"t the instructions include where to do it?"
She shook her head. "Only that we had to release Anuket before the death of the moon and that the tekhen "obelisk" the Greeks call them is in one of the major towns along the Nile. The voice didn"t say which one."
"Great," his reply sounded distinctly sarcastic. "Another quest where we have to randomly chose a direction and hope it"s the right one. Hopefully someone will conveniently point out our destination again this time before we end up lost or captured by badguys."
"Wonder who the badguys will be this time?"
"Probably mummies," Phoenix grumbled.
Jade shivered. "Ewww. I hope not. I hate those zombie and mummy horror movies. They give me the creeps." Glancing ahead she saw a collection of low, mud-brick and stone buildings. They didn"t look inhabited. In fact, they looked...dead; half-ruined. She shivered again, her imagination populating them with linen-wrapped zombie-mummies.
She turned in the saddle to catch Marcus" eye. He trotted up.
"Is that a village?" She pointed to the huddled group of buildings.
Marcus looked around at the two pyramids and various other, mounded structures in the area, then shook his head.
"I think it"s a necropolis a city of the dead. The past pharaohs used to build them before they started building pyramids. The people of Egypt bury their dead in the desert to save fertile land for farming."
"Great," Jade muttered. "Let"s hope we can get past without being attacked by mummies."
He smiled down at her. "I"ve never heard of mummies attacking people. By the way, the Egyptians call them "sah"."
"Great," Jade repeated. "Let"s hope we can get past without being attacked by "sah" then. Happy?"
She kept a close eye on the necropolis as the horses ambled past, but nothing came shambling out. She felt some of the tension drain away when the ancient, crumbling city had; at last, become just a jumble of outlines on the horizon behind.
After a couple of kilometres, the land changed underfoot. The harsh, blinding ocean of sand-dunes around the pyramids and dead city gave way to dry, cracked, grey dirt and the occasional, stunted tree. Here and there, remnants of ploughed fields showed this land was farmed; but no crops grew. A few, withered stalks poked miserably up out of the ground. Eddies of wind blew the dusty soil into gritty little whirlwinds.
Jade wrapped her face in a cloth to keep out the worst of the sun and dust. The others followed suit and they all began to look like Tuareg nomads. All they needed were camels.
In the distance, a smudge of green-grey stretched from south to north.
Brynn pointed. "It must be the river." His voice was m.u.f.fled by the cloth, but his eyes were bright with antic.i.p.ation.
Long before they reached the river, however, they stumbled across a cart-track. The horses stood obediently in the middle of the rutted road as the companions glanced in both directions. It ran roughly north-south, but there was n.o.body to be seen for any distance in either direction.
"Look," Brynn nodded toward the north-east. About two kilometres away were the low, square silhouettes of houses cl.u.s.tered together. "Another necropolis?"
Marcus shook his head. "A village."
"Great," Phoenix pushed back sweaty hair from his dust-streaked face. "We can get water there."
Marcus held out a cautionary hand. "No. There"s a well that"s closer." Jade looked and saw nothing but a stand of what she recognised as date palms a few hundred metres to the northwest, near the road.
The sun beat down mercilessly upon their heads. By the time they reached the trees, they were all exhausted and sweating. Even though they"d exchanged their furs for lighter clothes, they were all hot and sweaty in gear more suited to the cold British spring. Marcus was the most comfortable as the sun climbed higher and the heat grew more intense. He had reverted to his Roman garb a short, skirted tunic and sandals. The horses nickered softly at the scent of water and picked up their pace to a fast walk.
Dismounting, the four companions lead their mounts into the shade of the palms. They found a small circle of mud-brick in the centre of the grove. A leather bucket sat forlornly beside it. The water was a long way down and very muddy. It took several bucketloads to let the horses drink their noisy fill and then replenish their own waterskins.
Jade muttered a cleansing spell over the containers, ignoring Phoenix when he raised an eyebrow at her. Up until now their water had come from fresh mountain streams and lakes. It seemed stupid to trust well water in a hot, tropical pre-antibiotic world.
Finally, they sagged into the shade of the date palms. Digging out supplies given to them by the Svear people, they ate half-heartedly, worn down by the heat.
"Something"s wrong," Marcus murmured, gnawing on a slab of smoked meat.
"You mean the fact that there"s n.o.body attacking us right now?" Brynn"s comment was m.u.f.fled by a mouthful of food. Phoenix brushed a stray fragment of food off his shoulder and scowled at the boy.
"No," Marcus frowned, "I mean the fact that it"s spring and the farmers aren"t harvesting their crops. The Nile floods in summer and fertilises these plains. The farmers plant in autumn and by spring they are harvesting. Where are the crops?" He swept a piercing look around the dry, cracked riverflat.
The others sat up and looked around. Jade picked up a handful of soil and crumbled it beneath her fingers. It was grey and very dry. To her Elven senses the land felt almost dead. "Maybe the river didn"t flood?"
Marcus nodded, his expression pensive. "That has happened in the past, but it causes great famines and poverty. We will need to be careful. The Roman Emperor, t.i.tus, taxes these people heavily, taking their crops for Rome. We may be a target for thieves." He glanced up at their well-packed belongings.
Jade patted her personal backpack. "I keep the Hyllion Bagia in here with me. If we lose the rest it doesn"t really matter that much."
"Hey," Phoenix sounded indignant, "I like having food and tents, thanks. You woodsy elf-people might like the great outdoors, but I prefer a roof, a bed and a change of clothes, thanks."
He plucked at the sweaty, heavy wool shirt and iron-studded leather armour he wore. "Speaking of clothes, have we got anything cooler than this stuff? I"m boiling."
Jade sighed. "All the clothes we have are more suited to cold weather. We need to get whatever the locals wear so we can blend in. Marcus?"
The Roman nodded. "We do look different and I, certainly, would rather not wear Roman garb outside the capital. We"ll need the white linen tunics worn by the peasants. We may need to darken our skin, too."
Jade looked across the bleak, listless landscape at the distant village. Laying her staff across her knees, she closed her eyes and drew on something she"d read in her new spellbook but hadn"t yet tried. Softly, she murmured "harken" and concentrated on the houses. A weird, displaced feeling stole over her. The voices nearby became oddly m.u.f.fled. It felt like her ears were soaring across the grey fields. Suddenly she was "hearing" inside the cl.u.s.ter of mudbrick houses: hearing silence. Not a voice; not even a dogbark or the soft scurry of a rodent. Nothing stirred but a slight breeze.
"Oh!" Opening her eyes, she found the others looking at her with puzzled concern. "The village is empty."
Phoenix turned down the corners of his mouth. "If the farmers have left, it must be bad. They probably didn"t leave any convenient clothing behind, either. So the question is... which way now?"
"And which direction do we go to find the tekhen where Anuket is imprisoned? We have no idea which city it"s in," she added.
Marcus held up a hand as though to stop her rising worries. "Most of the tekhen were originally in the ancient capital, Mennufer. The Greeks called it Memphis."
"Originally?" Brynn prompted.
"First the Greeks and then we Romans kindly moved most of them when we took over."
"Where to?" Phoenix asked.
Marcus looked down and poked a stick into the loose earth. "Alexandria."
"So why the long face?"
Jade jumped in to spare Marcus having to explain again. "Marcus says Alexandria"s dangerous at the moment. It"s become very...ummm... multicultural and there are some clashes. The Egyptians don"t like the Romans; the Romans don"t like the Jews or the Greeks... you know."
"Sounds just like home," Phoenix muttered, grimacing. "You"d think we"d learn, wouldn"t you? What about the Muslims?"
Marcus looked blankly at him? "Who are they?"
Phoenix cast an inquiring look at Jade.
She shrugged. "I don"t think the Islamic faith comes along until about 600AD. Anyway, we should still check out Memphis, just in case," she brought the conversation back on track. "Then, if the tekhen is there, we won"t have to go to Alexandria at all."
With a snort and a fierce grin, Phoenix slapped at the handle of his sword. "Fat chance. You can bet that Anuket"s prison is going to be in the most dangerous place it can be. We should head straight for Alexandria."
"Probably, but we"d be stupid to bypa.s.s Memphis just on a hunch," Jade argued. "Remember each decision could be critical."
"I suppose," Phoenix"s expression said he disagreed, "but we"re on a time-limit here, remember? The death of the moon and all that?
"I know," she gnawed on her bottom lip. "I"ve been thinking about that. It has to have something to do with the phases of the moon - waxing and waning." When the others stared at her with varying degrees of blankness, she continued. "I think it must mean the waning phase - when the moon is getting smaller. I just don"t know if it means at the beginning of the waning or the end."
Phoenix stared up at the bright sky in thought. "Wasn"t it a full moon just the other night?"
Jade nodded, remembering. "The first night we were in Svealand. So you"re right, it can"t mean the beginning of the waning phase, or we"d have missed the deadline already. It can only mean either the last quarter or the dark-moon."
"That sounds appropriate," he grimaced. "So how long do we have?"
"I"ve sort of lost track," she had to admit, "with all the skipping from country to country, but the first night of the last quarter-moon can only be maybe one or two nights away."
"Cutting it fine, then - as usual." He turned to Brynn and swatted the Breton boy on the shoulder, making him choke as he swallowed a mouthful of water. "So, if we come across an inhabited village, are you up for some sneaking and thieving?"
Brynn wiped his mouth and nodded eagerly. "What do we need; just clothes?"
"Phoenix!" Jade was outraged. "We don"t need to steal. We have a bag full of Roman coins, remember?" She shook her backpack.
Marcus laid a soothing hand on hers. "As much as I hate to descend to common theft, Phoenix might be right in this instance. Hatred of the Romans is deep. Trying to buy clothes with denarii might cause more problems than stealing them."
"Can"t we leave a horse or something in exchange?" Jade begged.
Marcus shook his head. "Peasants don"t own horses it would cause comment."
Jade pressed her lips together and turned to repack their gear. It just didn"t feel right to steal from farmers who were already suffering from the drought.
Behind her, Phoenix questioned Marcus about which way to go.
"So where"s Memphis?" He swung himself back into the saddle and patted his horse"s neck as the stallion tossed its head.
Marcus mounted and gathered up the reins. "North," he nodded downstream. "I believe most of these pyramids and burial sites lie west and south of Memphis, so it ought to be that way."
CHAPTER FOUR.
They followed the road north, keeping the horses to a walk as the afternoon wore on. Only half an hour later, another small village came into view not far from the road. This one had people in it.
Jade used the harken listening spell again and spent several minutes staring into s.p.a.ce while the other three waited. At last, she opened her eyes "Man, that"s a handy spell you"ve picked up," Phoenix gave her his grudging admiration. He was still irritated at her know-it-all motherly att.i.tude, but there was no doubt she had skills.
Waving a hand as though brushing aside his compliment, she spoke in earnest tones. "We can"t steal from these people, Phoenix"
He sought for patience and leaned to one side, easing his b.u.t.t in the saddle. It really was too hot to argue, but they did need the clothes. "Why not?"
She pursed her lips at him. "They have nothing. I heard them say that the Roman tax collectors came through this village, Saqqara, yesterday and took even the last of their livestock. They"ve had to sell members of their own families as slaves to the Romans, just to eat!" There was a mulish expression around her mouth.
Phoenix blinked at her, astonished. "They"ve sold their families?"
She nodded. "Or some of them have gone off into other parts of Africa to hunt big game animals for the Roman Games. Some have even volunteered to become gladiators! Others went to try and find work in Memphis and Alexandria. The ones who are left are starving and desperate. I won"t steal their clothes."
Marcus grimaced. "I was afraid of this. We"ll have to try a bigger town. Memphis should only be an hour or so north."