One man wore the stylized image of a dog’s head, with pricked up ears and a canine snout. Another headpiece resembled the horned skull of a bull, another a ram and yet another a scaled, blunt-nosed serpent. A beaked face represented a hawk; another helmet looked like the head of a crane or a stork.
In a voice hushed with awe, Doc whispered, “The major deities of ancient Egypt—Anubis, Serapis, Khnum, Set, Horus and Thoth.”
“Stupes in costume,” Jak growled.
Quietly, Danielson said, “They are the Incarnates.”
“What are they doing here?” Krysty asked fearfully.
Danielson smiled a sad, almost pitying smile. “Looking for you, I imagine.”
Chapter Ten
The chariots rolled and clicked to simultaneous halts in the center of the compound. The humming noise ceased abruptly. As the big, helmeted men disembarked, Ryan noticed how they carefully stepped over or around some object at the rear of the vehicles. Their gait was an arrogant, self-confident swagger. High-strapped sandals encased their feet and muscular calves.
“Osorkon!” Jackal-headed Anubis roared. “Where are you, you demented old prick?”
“Who’s Osorkon?” Dean asked.
“Me,” Danielson answered. “My Aten name.”
Danielson shuffled toward the doorway, but Mildred restrained him with a hand. “What do you mean they’re looking for us?” she demanded.
“They probably seen your tracks,” the man replied calmly.
“And if you’re asked about us, you’ll simply point us out to them?” Doc inquired.
Danielson blinked owlishly, as if the question contained a hidden meaning. “Sure. They’re the Incarnates. You don’t lie to them.”
“Osorkon!” Anubis bellowed peevishly.
“What do they want us for?” Dean asked.
“To bring you to Pharaoh.” Seeing several sets of eyes glare at him suspiciously, he added, “They probably have need of you in the work gangs. You won’t be hurt…’less you take the notion into your heads to resist.”
“Funny thing,” Ryan said grimly, stripping off the sheet. “That’s exactly the notion I’ve taken into my head.”
Jak hefted his Colt Python. “Take out. Not armed, except for frog giggers.”
Danielson’s face paled under its layer of grime. “Not armed? Boy, they’ve got metauh rods! They’ll drop you like fried flounders!”
“Osorkon! Get out here or we’ll burn this shit-heap down!” The deep voice throbbed with an unmistakable note of menace.
Grimacing, Ryan made a move to fling aside the door flap. J.B. stepped forward. “Hold a sec. I got an idea.”
“I am delighted that somebody does,” Doc muttered.
ANUBIS, SERAPIS, SET, Thoth, Khnum and Horus all turned at the rustle of coarse cloth. From beneath their helmets, they stared imperiously at the two men shuffling out of the storage shanty. They ignored the ragged figure of Danielson and focused their attention on the slightly built, sallow-faced man timidly edging out into the hot blast of sunlight. His thin, mousy hair was uncombed, his clothes shabby, and he gaped goggle-eyed from behind the lenses of round, steel-framed spectacles. In the kingdom of the nondescript, this little gnome was the heir apparent to the throne.
Anubis pointed to him with the metauh rod. “Who’s this feeb, Osorkon?”
Ducking his head respectfully, Danielson said, “He arrived here from across the Barrens, O mighty incarnation of the guardian of the underworld.”
Hawk-headed Horus demanded shrilly, “What’s your name, feeb?”
“Name’s Dix,” J.B. replied meekly. “Lost my way from a trading party. Wandered for days. Ended up here.”
“Who else was with you, Dix?” ram-horned Khnum growled.
J.B. shook his head dolefully. “Couple more. They died in the desert.”
“We found the tracks of at least five people,” Thoth declared, the long, curving bird beak casting a goateelike shadow on the human chin beneath it. “Maybe more.”
“Don’t know nothin’ about that. Mebbe you miscalculated. Terrible fierce storm last night. Mebbe messed up the ground.”
“We know all about the storm, pissant,” Set hissed. “Osorkon, was there a red-haired woman with him?”
Danielson fidgeted for a hot, silent moment, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
“Answer us, you old fool,” Serapis ordered. “Who else was with him?”
Before the old man opened his mouth to answer, a deep, flat voice announced, “Me.”
The Incarnates pivoted on their heels. A big, scar-faced man with a black patch over his left eye stepped from a narrow alley between two shacks. The autoblaster in his fist was as rock steady as his voice.