Mildred couldn’t help herself. With a derisive chuckle, she argued, “Granny, you don’t have the color of Aten. Is that why you’re down here, as the serving-girl wardess?”
“A good guess,” Grandmother responded. “We serve Pharaoh when and where we can. You’ll come to appreciate that.”
Mildred eyed the woman surreptitiously, gauging her age and combining it with her slovenly appearance. “You’re one of the original crew of Fort F-bar, aren’t you?”
Reprovingly, Grandmother said, “We don’t speak of that blasphemous half acre of hell, child. It’s forbidden.”
Mildred started to say something else, then shut her mouth.
Grandmother stopped before a low, open doorway. It was hardly tall enough for Mildred to step through without stooping, and that made it very low indeed. Gesturing with one hand, Grandmother announced, “Here’s your room, child. It’s all yours, you don’t have to share it with anyone else—at least until I’m told otherwise.”
It was very dark inside the cell, but Mildred took a determined breath, bent her head and walked in. The door shut behind her, and a locking bar rattled and clanked. A small, barred grille at eye level on the door allowed a feeble sort of light to filter through.
The cell was about eight feet wide and twelve long. There was no cot or pallet to sleep on, but it did have a toilet and tank in one corner. She sat down on the hard stone floor and rubbed her eyes.
Mildred had visited a lot of strange places, been in many a bizarre situation since Ryan Cawdor had revived her from cryogenic stasis, but this place and this situation was so strange, so utterly bizarre, she wondered if she were still in the throes of a jump nightmare.
A murmur of lilting voices reached her through the door grille. Though she couldn’t know for sure, she doubted the women’s dormitory was part of the original movie-set blueprints, despite DeMille’s legendary reputation as a strict taskmaster.
Sixteen years was more than enough time to build additions and tinker with the original specs. But the building materials had to come from somewhere, especially the stone used in the pyramids.
The walls threw back her heavy sigh. She wondered about Jak, about Krysty and what Mimses would do when Doc started to quote Dante or Lewis Carroll. If he spoke the truth about his origins, and Mildred’s, then their lives were probably forfeit. She feared for him. She feared for them all.
She couldn’t work off her stress by pacing the cell, so eventually she lay on the floor, pillowing her head on her arms. In spite of her anxiety, she fell asleep.
She was jarred awake, almost immediately it seemed, by the rattle of the door’s locking bar. She sat up, blinking, stiff and aching from sleeping on the hard floor. The door swung open, and a slim girl in a white frock came in, carrying a wicker tray containing a bowl of some kind of soup, a wooden spoon, a thick slice of darkish bread and a jug of water.
The girl kneeled, carefully placing the tray on the floor in front of Mildred. Like all the rest, she had black hair and a dusky-hued complexion. However, her eyes were pale, perhaps gray or a light blue. A touch of pink lipstick brightened her mouth.
Stifling a yawn, Mildred asked, “What time is it?”
“The dawn bell has just been rung. Here is breakfast.”
The girl cast a swift glance behind her and said softly, “My name is Kela. Nefron sent me to bring you word of the one called Jak.”
Chapter Fifteen
Jak Lauren couldn’t read, write or cipher very well, but he excelled at calculating the odds.
He came out of his handspring in time to see J.B., Mildred, Krysty and Doc writhing under the combined energy assaults of four metauh staves. He watched as they slumped unconscious, J.B. tumbling limply out of the chariot, his beloved fedora falling to the dust.
Though shouting, running pandemonium ruled the plaza, Jak was able to focus on several sights more or less simultaneously, all of them occurring within heartbeats of one another.
Ryan spun in the direction of the chariot at the precise instant a giant of a man, like a bronze statue given life and mobility, stalked out of the press of the milling Incarnates. The V prongs of the silver rod in his hand thrust toward the one-eyed man’s back. A shout of warning rose in Jak’s throat, but before it left his lips, Ryan crashed heavily to the ground, to lie motionless on his face.