“No, no, look! See what she has in her hands? A sacred cat!” The other would-be thief fell to his knees.
“I warned you!” Samut exclaimed, filling his own voice with a convincing note of pathetic terror. “I told you that we’d all suffer for your blasphemy! Didn’t I carve the story of Lord Iritsen’s life on the walls of that tomb? Didn’t my own hands chisel out the curses that would fall on the heads of any who dared to disturb the rest of Bast’s most beloved servant?”
On cue, I took another step forward and clasped Ta-Miu to my chest. From below, we must have looked like a sacred image of the goddess and her sacred creature. There wasn’t enough light for the villains to notice how frantically the cat was squirming, and I held back the urge to yelp with pain when her claws dug into my skin through my garment. I lacked a cat’s head to make the impression complete, but the red paint covering my face must have turned it into a bloody mask.
A chorus of blood-chilling yowls resounded from the clifftop and the passageway behind me. Nava, Amenophis, and Kawit were putting their whole hearts into their part of the performance. I saw the robbers shrink back and heard Samut undermining what was left of their courage with his own horrified whimperings. I wished that there was something I could say to urge them into flight, but it had been my idea that I stay silent unless it became absolutely necessary for the “goddess” to speak. A closed basket can hold a honey cake as easily as a cobra. Let the thieves’ own imaginations and uncertainties feed their fears. I saw the wisdom of my plan working as the men continued to back away. The next step was Nava’s.
The Habiru child’s sweet voice rose in song from her hiding place at the top of the crag behind me. Her true talent was the harp, but she also had a gift for setting words to melodies. In this case, finding the right words was no challenge:
“Free him, free the child, return him to his father or feel the wrath of Bast, her curse, your doom! Your hearts will be torn to pieces by her claws; your bones will crack between her mighty fangs; she will devour their marrow; she will lap your spilled blood from the stones!” Somehow, hearing such horrible things set to delicate music, all sung in a child’s innocent voice, made them infinitely more terrifying. “Free the child or the lady Bast will hunt you by day and by night. She will slash the flesh from your bones! Return him and leave this place, never to return, or she will turn your eyes into lumps of salt. She will burn your bodies to ashes in the fires of her fury. She will—”
Really, Nava was having a little too much fun. At least her taste for bloodcurdling stories had turned into something we could use.
And, oh, how well it was working! Kawit’s brother began to blubber for mercy. His partner stood like a stone, teeth chattering. Samut continued to do his part to build the illusion, falling to his knees, prostrating himself, and begging “Bast” to spare him. Meanwhile, Nava kept up her litany of all the deliciously awful ways the “goddess” was going to punish the would-be desecrators of Lord Iritsen’s tomb, interwoven with orders for them to release Samut’s son and go away.
The thief who’d turned to stone was the first to crack. “Holy Lady Bast, compassionate one, have mercy, forgive me, and I’ll do exactly what you say! This whole evil adventure wasn’t my idea. I never wanted to come here and do this! I’m your devoted servant, your slave. I’ll bring the brat—the boy to his father immediately, I swear!” He started to move in the direction from which the child’s cry had come such a short time ago.
“What in Set’s name do you think you’re doing?” A new voice boomed in the night, and a burly man came out of the shadows dragging a small, weeping child along behind him by the arm. Samut’s piercing cry of relief at seeing his son alive and well was cut off abruptly when he saw the man put a dagger to the little boy’s throat. “What’s wrong with you stinking cowards? Here we are, about to get our hands on more treasure than you hollow-heads ever dreamed of, and you’re shaking like dry reeds? Pissing yourselves on account of a girl? Are you crazy?”
“You’re the crazy one!” Kawit’s brother yelled. “What girl looks like that?” He gestured at me with trembling hands. “What girl appears in the middle of the night, in the land of the dead, with a sacred cat attending her? Her face in bathed in blood! She summoned up the fires of the sun!”
“Ha! Sounds like the fires of the sun cooked your brains, if you ever had ’em.” The burly man sneered. “I see a girl and a couple of campfires. The gods know why she’s got a cat with her, but—”
“The gods do know!” the cold-voiced man cried. “And I’m not sticking around to get punished for your stupid scheme.” He sprinted away before the big man could say another word.
“And I curse the day I ever let you talk me into getting mixed up with this unholy business,” Kawit’s brother whined. “You’ve brought the vengeance of Bast herself on us! Let the boy go!”
“I don’t take orders from mice.” The third thief yanked Samut’s son by the arm, making the child squeal in pain. Samut started toward him, but the dagger’s point moved closer to the boy’s neck and a warning hiss from his captor froze the father in his tracks. “If I don’t head back to Per-Bast with a basketful of gold from that tomb, I’m leaving this valley over the bodies of this brat, his father, and that so-called goddess up there. You hear me, girl?” he shouted, turning his head sharply in my direction.