Dagger (33 page)

Nanefer? The caskets? Samlor couldn't be sure. Only then did they back to the passage and duck away.

Samlor wasn't surprised that his lamp snuffed itself as soon as the children disappeared, nor that the frescoed walls took on a pale, shadowless light.

"Prince Nanefer," said Khamwas, bowing to the seated corpse. "We will leave you to your peace."

"You have done well, my kinsman," the corpse rasped softly. A point of white light sparkled on the surface of either casket, then expanded solidly into the living form from which the bones within had come. Ahwere stepped, in front

248

David Drake

of her husband, lifted Merib onto her hip, and placed her free hand on the mummy's shoulder.

"Go in peace, kinsman," Nanefer said.

"Go in peace," echoed Ahwere, smiling warmly. She and the infant faded away, but for a moment the translucent memory of her lips hung in the air. Samlor turned to follow his companion out of the tomb chamber. He had expected his tension to release when the corpse had accepted their offering, but his gut was no less tense than it had been when he steeled himself to enter the tomb for the third time.

"Wait with me, Samlor hil Samt," said the leathery voice. Great. He could trust his gut. As if that was news.

"Prince Nanefer—

" said Khamwas as he whirled.

"You told your kids you'd come out quick," said Samlor; fear made his voice snarl. "Get out with 'em, then!" His big hand closed on his companion's shoulder, forcing Khamwas to meet his eyes.

"But—

" Khamwas said, begging his friend to be allowed to plead with the corpse at whom neither of them dared look for the moment.

"Don't speak when it's not the time for speaking," said Tjainufi sharply from the opposite shoulder.

"Your kids need you," Samlor said harshly. "I don't need nobody t' take my heat."

Khamwas clasped Samlor's hand, then bowed with cold formality toward the seated corpse. He ducked down the passageway, leaving Samlor in a chamber which contained no other living thing.

"How can I serve you, your highness?" Samlor asked. His voice sounded reedy in his own ears, but at least it didn't break.

"You have served me, Samlor hil Samt," Nanefer whispered. "Do you recognize me?" _

"I know who you are," Samlor replied as coldly as if he were disposing a caravan against foes sure to overwhelm it.

The horny flesh of the corpse began to soften and swell like a raisin dropped in water. The skin lost its wooden

249

swarthiness and paled to a warm, coppery tone much like that of Khamwas and his brothers.

There could be no doubt that this was the man Samlor had met in the Vulgar Unicorn; but there had been no doubt of that anyway.

Samlor drew the coffin-hilled dagger. "Look," he said, beyond fear and beyond even resignation. "The night I took this, I did what seemed like a good idea to do at the time. I don't expect you to like it—

but I'd do the same thing again if

I thought it'd do a damn bit a good."

Nanefer gave the laugh of a happy, healthy man. "You did what I wanted you to do," he said easily. "What I chose you to do." Samlor said nothing, because his lips clamped shut on, "I don't understand—

"

which was too evident to need stating.

"My kinsman is a good man," said the figure which had been a corpse, "and a great scholar. But without a friend like you, Samlor, he would have left his bones to be gnawed by the rats of Sanctuary. He couldn't have taken the Book of Tatenen from me."

The crystal in his lap blazed, visible through the silk and the hands grasping it, though the sunwhite radiance didn't change the illumination of the rock chamber.

"But you fought him?" said Samlor, uncertain in his own mind as to whether he was really asking a question.

"With all my strength," Nanefer agreed. "No one else could have defeated me—

nor

Khamwas had he been alone.

"And until I was truly overborne, neither I nor my wife and son could ever find peace."

"I ... see," said Samlor when he was sure that he did.

"A thousand years isn't a very long time," Nanefer murmured. His well-shaped hands caressed the crystal whose effulgence glowed through him. "When it's over."

"Then I'll give you back your knife," Samlor said, "and leave you to your rest. You—

"

He paused, then blurted out the observation he knew he had no right to make:

"You're a pretty good man, your highness. I'm glad to have known you." 250 David Drake

"Keep the knife, Samlor," said the seated form. "May it serve you as well as you served my kinsman."

The light began to fade from the walls. Nanefer's features shrivelled and darkened away from the semblance of life. The entrance to the passage was a square of light trickling from the rockface beyond.

When Samlor bent to crawl out of the tomb chamber for the last time, his eyes fell on the blade of the dagger bare in his right hand.

Letters wavering in the steel read, Go, blessed of the Gods.