Lamont glanced at Jerry and snorted. “Those crabs. I think we’ve got ourselves a new magician. He summoned them.”
Jerry winced. “The ancient Egyptian magicians were the ultimate believers in the power of words and names. Magicians could even compel their own gods to do their bidding.”
“Holy cow!” Liz looked at him askance. “Do you think you can send us home, O Great Magician?”
There was both embarrassment and exasperation in Jerry’s reply. “Look. I tried to get us some shelter and I got us a plague of crabs. If I had enough of a grasp of what I was doing, maybe I could do something. But right now the results are more likely to be terminal.”
Liz nodded. “Right. The wind has pushed us upstream. I think we should keep going for a bit and then find a good patch of reed to lie up in for the night. Tomorrow—O Magnificent Sorcerer Lukacs—you’re going to have to start systematic experimentation.”
Lamont grinned. “Be careful, Liz. He might turn you into a newt in the trial run.”
Mac shook his head, scowling. “I vote for turning Lenoir into a frog. That’d hardly take any magic at all.”
Lenoir’s response was all in French. Fortunately, Jerry was not able to translate.
* * *
The night was still . . .
Except for the mosquitoes, who filled the air with bzzzz. And the snort of a hippo.
Liz noticed that the moon was full again—as if the full moon on the night she’d swum next to Odysseus’ boat hadn’t happened two days back. She reminded herself to point out to Jerry the difference in time . . . if the delta mosquitoes didn’t drive her mad and get her to fling herself to the crocodiles first. She slapped. She wasn’t the only one.
“These things are going to drive me mad,” snarled Mac.
“They’ll almost certainly give us mythical bloody malaria,” said Liz.
“They had malaria?” asked McKenna warily.
Liz snorted. “I’ll tell you in ten to fourteen days.”
“Why?” asked Lamont
“That’s the incubation period.”
Henri stood up and shook himself. “I do not think my sanity I will still have in a week, not to speak of ten days. These moustique are driving me insane. And the dinner was execrable.”
“I wish we could drop him into the Seine,” muttered Lamont. “He ate enough of the ‘execrable’ dinner for a hog, never mind a frog!”
Liz sat up. Slapped again. “Look, why don’t we get out into the main stream? Out there, there’s a breeze and hopefully we will be away from the mosquitoes. There’s a full moon, too. We can navigate this tub okay.”
“What about hippopotamus?” asked Henri nervously. “I really do not wish to encounter in the dark a hippopotamus.”
Liz shook her head. “They move out of the water at night to feed.”
“I’m for it,” growled Cruz. “Anything beats listening to all the grousing and whining.”
So they pushed the boat out into the open water between the seas of papyrus and raised sail, because they had no anchor, and let the gentle north wind carry them deeper and deeper into the delta. It was cooler on the water. And the mosquitoes were mercifully absent. And somehow all of them on those fish-reeking bundles of papyrus reed . . . they slipped into sleep. Even Liz dozed, at the helm.
And the small vessel sailed on silently, pushed by a divine wind.
* * *
There was a gentle shake. Jerry sat up with a start. He hadn’t meant to sleep. “Shht.” Liz had a hand over his mouth. “Look,” she whispered.
The boat had slid onto a mud bank overhung by a huge tree. From its shadows, Jerry could see a stark moon-etched tableau. A figure was stalking toward the water’s edge. It was at least twice the size of a man. The snout was thin and cruelly curved. The ears stood up straight and square in the moonlight.
It was the head of no animal on earth. . . .
* * *
Jerry shuddered a little. He recognized the figure. It was the typhonian beast. The head of Set, who is the eternal adversary. The Egyptian god that is the soul of drought, desert, and darkness.