Wraiths of Time by Andre Norton Read Free Book Online Page B

commandingly, while the leader of the trio scowled at her. A scar, which split his right cheek from temple to chin, did not add to any suggestion of mercy in his expression. He gave no ground, only glowered at the lioness-masked woman.
    The rod! Tallahassee decided to try a small experiment. She held the staff a little aslant so that its top crystal now inclined toward the man. He quickly shifted gaze from the priestess to the girl. She saw the change in his eyes.
    He was afraid! Afraid of either her or the rod, and she believed it the latter. Now an expression of sullen defeat warped his scarred features. Tallahassee took one step forward and then another. He retreated, but not as fast as his two followers, who broke and ran as the girl approached them.
    Their leader was not giving in easily. Tallahassee sensed danger building in this man. She had always been able somehow to pick up emotional reactions of others to herself, knowing when she was accepted, tolerated, or disliked. But it was no dislike this man radiated, rather it was hate. She was as certain of that as if he had shouted curses in her face.
    Driving him this way might be the worst move she could make. Yet the two women stepped quickly aside, and she was aware that the priestess walked steadily behind her. They wanted her to do just as she was doing!
    The soldier growled under his breath, a hostile mutter, yet he backed step by slow step, as she advanced. Now they passed into the outer chamber of the temple with the statue of Apedemek looming behind the man’s shoulder. Back and back again—outside into the white blare of the desert sun, the furnace heat.
    She caught a glimpse of something standing not too far away. But she could not look at it closely. It was necessary instead to keep her eyes on the man before her. Back still more until they were at the very edge of the temple pavement. Suddenly he swung his weapon by its strap up across his shoulder and spoke a last sharp sentence in which she could read menace without understanding the words.
    He seemed reluctant to turn his back on her. His withdrawal was rather crablike, glancing at her with a side look as he descended the wide outer steps and stalked away—his whole body expressing his angry impotence—to a flyer.
    To Tallahassee’s eyes that vehicle possessed some of the attributes of a helicopter, save there were no whirling blades on top. Rather, once the man had made his way to the opening in its side and climbed within, it arose in a cloud of grit and sand by a method she did not understand.
    There had been an insignia painted on the flyer’s side but those markings had no meaning for the girl. Again a touch on her wrist, and the priestess made that small inclination of her masked head, suggesting their return to the interior of the temple ruin. One of the women behind spoke and then spat outward in the direction of the vanished flyer. The roar of its withdrawal was already fading.
    The priestess wasted no more time. Instead she moved at a pace that closely approached a run, Tallahassee hurrying after, to reach the inner chamber. There the masked woman, once more on her knees before the lighted block, spoke to it with an imperative burst of words.
    Tallahassee moved closer to the woman who had spat after the retreating soldiers.
    â€œWho?” She tried to get into that word of her own language the sound of inquiry as she pointed to the outside.
    For a moment it would seem that the woman was not going to answer, if indeed she understood Tallahassee’s query. Then she spoke slowly and deliberately one word:
    â€œUserkof.” At least it sounded like that.
    The part of Tallahassee’s knowledge that had already found the small, disturbing, familiar hints in this place seized upon the sound. Userkof—Nubian of the past—or Egyptian? She was sure it was a man’s name. But was it that of the leading intruder, or of one who had sent him? If she only knew .