'He touched them with his bare hands,' Taita whispered. Ishtar had left traces of his sweat on them. Taita could use that faint effluent. Careful not to make the same mistake, he moved the pebbles with the tip of his staff, forming them into a different pattern, an arrowhead pointing in the direction that Ishtar had taken. He took a mouthful of water from the skin and spat it on the pebbles, which shone wetly in the moonlight. Then he pointed his staff like a javelin along the same line as the arrowhead of pebbles.

  'Kydash!' he shouted, and felt pressure build up in his eardrums as though he had plunged deeply below the surface of the ocean. Before it became unbearable, it began slowly to abate, and he felt a sense of well-being and pleasure. It was done. He had turned it back upon the Mede.

  --

  A league ahead Ishtar the Mede was hurrying along the track. He was by now fully aware of the pursuit. He was confident that the barrier he had placed across the track would stop most men, but he knew it would not long deter the one he feared most.

  Suddenly he staggered in mid-stride and clutched his ears with both hands. The pain was blinding, as though a red hot dagger had been thrust deep into each of his eardrums. He groaned and dropped to his knees. 'It is the Warlock.' He sobbed. The pain was so intense that he could not think clearly. 'He has turned it back on me.'

  With shaking hands he reached into the pouch on his belt and brought out his most potent talisman, the dry embalmed hand of one of Pharaoh Tamose's infants who had died soon after birth during the plague of the Yellow Flowers. Ishtar had robbed the little prince's tomb to obtain it. The hand was dark and clawed like a monkey's paw.

  He held it to his pounding head, and felt the pain start to abate. He came unsteadily to his feet, and broke into a shuffling dance, chanting and wailing. The pain in his ears cleared. He gave one final leap in the air and stood facing back along the way he had come. He could feel the presence of the Warlock close, like the threat of thunder on a close summer's day.

  He thought of laying another snare, but knew that Taita would send it back to him. I must turn aside and conceal my path, he decided. He ran on along the road seeking the place where he could turn. He found where the track crossed an intrusion of grey schist, so hard that even the passing of Trok's legions had left no mark upon it.

  With his left forefinger he traced out lightly the sacred symbol of Marduk on the rock, spat on it and uttered the three hidden names of the god that would summon him.

  'Hide me from my enemies, mighty Marduk. Bring me safely back to your temple in Babylon, and I will make for you the sacrifice you love so well,' he promised. Best of all Marduk loved little girls sent into his furnace.

  Ishtar stood on one leg and hopped backwards five and fifty paces, the esoteric number of Marduk known only to the adepts. Then he turned sharply off the road and set out at right angles to it, heading into the northern wilderness. He went swiftly, trying to open the distance between him and the man who pursued him.

  --

  Taita reached the point where the ridge of grey schist crossed the road, and stopped abruptly. The aura that had been so strong only moments before had disappeared like mist in the warmth of the rising sun. There was neither taste nor smell nor a glimpse of the Mede remaining. He went on down the road a short way, but found that the trail was dead and cold. Quickly he retraced his steps until he reached the point where he had lost it. Ishtar would not have wasted his time with a simple spell of concealment. He knows that the Ashes or the Water and Blood would hardly give me pause, he thought.

  He looked up at the sky, and from the starry firmament picked out the single red star low on the horizon, the star of the goddess Lostris. He held up her Periapt and began to chant the Praise to the Goddess. He had barely completed the first stanza when he felt an angry, alien presence. Another god had been invoked on this spot, and knowing Ishtar he could guess well enough who that was. He started on the second stanza of praise and on the bare rock ahead of him appeared a glow, like that of the copper walls of the furnace in the temple of Marduk when the sacrificial fires were burning.

  Marduk is affronted, and shows his anger, he thought, with satisfaction. He went to stand over the faintly glowing spot and intoned. 'You are far from your own land and your temple, Marduk of the furnace. Few worship you in this very Egypt. Your powers are dissipated. I invoke the name of the goddess Lostris, and you cannot stand against it.'

  He lifted the skirt of his chiton. 'I quench your fires, Marduk,' he said, and squatting like a woman, he urinated on the rock. It sizzled and steamed like a bar of metal from the forge of the coppersmith drenched in the trough. 'In the name of the goddess Lostris, Marduk the Devourer, stand aside and let me pass.'

  The rock cooled quickly, and as the steam dispersed he could make out once more the shadowy traces of the Mede beyond as they turned off the track towards the north. The veil that Ishtar had laid was pierced and torn. Taita stepped through it and set off again after him.

  The horizon paled and the light increased to a golden radiance in the east. Taita knew that he was gaining steadily, and he strained his eyes ahead in the gathering light for the first glimpse of his quarry. Instead he came to an abrupt halt. At his feet gaped a terrible abyss, whose sheer sides dropped into darkness far below. No man could scale those depths, and there was no way around this obstacle.

  Taita looked across at the far side. It was at the very least a thousand paces across, and the precipice was even more daunting when seen from this angle. There were vultures soaring over the bottomless gulf. One of the grotesque birds circled in to alight on its shaggy nest of sticks and twigs built on a ledge high in the opposite cliff face.

  Taita shook his head with admiration. 'Wonderful, Ishtar!' he murmured. 'Even the vultures. That was a masterful touch. I could not have improved upon it, but such an effort called for a great expenditure of strength. It must have cost you dearly.'

  Taita stepped out over the edge of the cliff, and instead of plunging down into airy space, there was firm ground under his feet. The vista of cliffs and gorges, even the circling vultures, wavered and broke up as a mirage does when you walk towards it.

  The abyss was gone and in its place was a gentle plain of stony ground, with low hills still blue with shadows at the far end. In the middle of this plain, not five hundred paces away, stood Ishtar the Mede. He was facing Taita with both arms held above his head, trying desperately to preserve the illusion that he had created. When he saw that he had failed and that Taita was striding towards him like an avenging djinn, he dropped his arms with a hopeless, resigned gesture and turned towards the limestone hills at the far end of the stony plain. He broke into a shambling run, his black robes swirling around his legs.

  Taita followed him with his long indefatigable strides, and when Ishtar looked back there was desperation on his blue-whorled face. For a moment he stared in terror at the tall silver-haired figure, then he turned and ran faster. For a while he pulled away, opening the gap, then his run faltered, and Taita gained upon him inexorably.

  Ishtar dropped the waterskin from his shoulder, and ran with a lighter step, but he was only a few hundred paces ahead of Taita when he reached the low hills that were grey blue with limestone outcrops in the early light. He disappeared into one of the gullies.

  When Taita reached the mouth of the gully he saw Ishtar's footprints strung along the sandy floor ahead of him, but they disappeared round the corner where the gully turned sharply to the right. Taita followed him, but as he reached the corner of pale limestone pillars, he heard the thunderous grunting and roaring of a wild beast. As he stepped round he saw that the gully narrowed ahead of him, and standing foursquare in the way, its tail lashing from side to side, was a huge male lion.

  The lion's black mane was erect, a great bush that shook like grass in a high wind at each roar that erupted from the gaping jaws. Its eyes were golden and the pupils were implacable black slits. The rank, bestial scent of the animal was thick in the hot air, the stench of the rotting carcasses on which it had feasted with those long yellow fangs.

  Taita looked down at the sandy earth on which the massive paws were planted with all the claws unsheathed. He could still see Ishtar's footprints in the sand, but the paws of the lion had left no mark.

  Taita never broke his stride. He raised the Periapt on its chain, and walked straight at the slavering animal. Instead of rising in pitch the roaring became muted, the outline of its head turned transparent so that he could see the rock walls of the gully through it. Then, like river mist, the animal faded and was gone.

  Taita walked through the space where it had stood and rounded the corner. Ahead of him the gully became narrower still and the sides were steeper. It ended abruptly against a wall of rock.

  Ishtar stood with his back against the rock, staring at Taita with mad eyes. The whites were yellowed and bloodshot, the pupils black and dilated. The smell of his terror was more rank than the odour of the phantom lion had been. He raised his right hand and pointed a long bony finger at Taita. 'Back, Warlock!' he screamed. 'I warn you!'

  Taita walked towards him and he screamed again, this time in a guttural language, and made the gesture of hurling some unseen missile at Taita's head. Quickly Taita held the Periapt of Lostris before his eyes, and felt something fly close past his head, with the sound of a flighting arrow.

  Ishtar turned and bolted into a narrow opening in the rock wall behind him, that had been screened from Taita by his body. Taita paused before the entrance, and tapped the stony portals with his staff. The rock rang true, and he heard Ishtar's blundering footsteps echoing out of the dark entrance. Taita was almost certain that this was no illusion, but the real entrance to a cavern in the limestone cliff.

  Taita stepped through after him, and found that he was in a low, rocky passage, dimly lit by the sunlight through the entrance behind him. The floor of the cave sloped away in front of him, and he went on, stepping more cautiously. Now he was certain that the passage was real in time and dimension, not something conjured up by the Mede to thwart him and turn him aside.

  He could hear the echoes of Ishtar's footsteps, distorted and magnified in the tunnel ahead. Taita counted his paces as he went forward into darkness. After a hundred and twenty the light strengthened again, a strong emanation from some source deeper in the hillside.

  Suddenly the tunnel took a sharp bend, and as he stepped round it Taita found himself in a large cavern with a high roof. In the centre of the roof was an aperture which must lead to the outside world and open air for a beam of bright sunlight fell from it to the floor of the cavern.

  From the floor rose sharp-pointed stalagmites, the crystals glimmering like the fangs of a man-eating shark. From the high roof hung down matching stalactites, some shaped like spearheads and others like the shining wings of the gods.

  Across the cavern Ishtar crouched against the far wall. There was no escape that way. When he saw Taita appear in the mouth of the tunnel he began to shriek and blubber. 'Mercy, mighty Magus! There is a bond between us. We are brothers. Spare me and I will show you such mysteries as even you have never dreamed of. I will place all my powers at your disposal. I will be your faithful dog. I will devote my life to your service.'

  So abject were his entreaties and his promises that, despite himself, Taita felt his resolve waver. It was just the mere flicker of doubt in his mind, but Ishtar picked up the tiny chink in his armour, and exploited it instantly. He flung out one hand with the thumb and forefinger forming a circle, the sign of Marduk, and shouted something in that strange guttural tongue.

  From behind him Taita felt an insupportable physical weight bear down upon his shoulder, and something like the invisible tentacles of a giant octopus envelop his body, trapping his arms to his sides, wrapping around his throat in a strangler's grip. He smelt scorching human flesh, the aura of the Devourer, suffocating him. He could not move.

  On the far side of the cavern Ishtar danced and capered, his tattooed face contorted in a grotesque mask, his tongue sticking out between his blue lips and lapping at the air like that of a cat. He lifted his skirts and thrust his hips out at Taita. His penis was in full erection, the skin peeled back from the swollen purple head like an obscene fruit. 'Your frail goddess cannot protect you here deep in the earth, Taita. You can no longer prevail against Marduk the Devourer and Ishtar, his minion,' he shrieked. 'Our contest is over. I have defeated you and all your wiles, Warlock! Now you will die.'

  Taita turned his eyes up towards the high dim roof of the cavern and fixed all his attention on one of the long gleaming stalactites that hung down from it like a great shimmering dagger. He gathered all his reserves, lifted the staff in his right hand and pointed it upwards. With the last breath in his lungs he shouted, 'Kydash!' the word of power.

  There was a crack like the ice shattering in the depths of a glacier, the stalactite broke from the roof and plunged downwards. Driven by its own immense weight, the point struck Ishtar on the top of his shoulder, close to its juncture with his neck. It transfixed him through chest and belly and tore out through his anus. The long stone spike pegged him down on the cavern floor like a gutted fish on the drying rack.

  As Ishtar twitched and shuddered and kicked convulsively in his death throes, Taita felt the weight lifted from his shoulders and the pressure on his throat relax. Marduk had retreated and Taita could breathe again. The smell of burnt flesh was gone. The air was ancient and sterile once again, cool and tainted only with the faint odour of fungus.

  He picked up his staff, turned and walked back along the tunnel into the open air and the sunlight. At the entrance he turned back and with his staff struck the limestone portals of the tunnel, once, twice, three times.

  Deep in the earth there was a rumble of collapsing rock, and a gust of air and dust blew from the tunnel mouth as, deep in the earth, the roof of the cavern caved in.

  'With the stone spike driven through your heart, not even your foul god can free you from your tomb. Lie in it through all eternity, Ishtar the Mede,' Taita said, and turned away. With his staff tapping on the stones, he struck out along the road back to Gallala.

  --

  The three messengers reached Babylon in the spring when the snows were still thick upon the distant mountain-tops in the north where the two great rivers rise.

  Pharaoh Naja Kiafan gave them audience on the uppermost terrace garden of the palace of Babylon. Queen Heseret sat beside his throne. She wore the most magnificent jewels that the treasury of King Sargon had yielded. Her high-piled dark hair was covered by a silken net on which gemstones sparkled like all the stars of the firmament. Her arms were laden with bracelets and her fingers with rings so heavy with emeralds and rubies and sapphires that she could barely lift them. Around her throat was a stone the size of an unripe fig, as clear as water from a mountain spring and so adamantine that it could cut through glass or obsidian. This marvellous gem came from the land beyond the Indus river, and when the sun caught it, the shafts of light it threw out pained the eye.

  The messengers were all high officers from the army that Pharaoh Trok had taken westward four months before. They came in great fear of their lives, for they bore evil tidings. They had ridden so far and so fast that they were thin and burned dark by the suns of the desert and the high mountains. They threw themselves at the foot of the throne on which Naja sat in glory and splendour to overshadow even that of his wife. 'All hail to you, Pharaoh Naja, mightiest of the gods of Egypt,' they greeted him. 'We are bearers of terrible tidings. Have mercy upon us. Though what we have to tell you will displease you, be merciful and turn away your wrath from us.'

  'Speak!' Naja commanded sternly. 'I alone shall judge if you are to be spared.'

  'The news we bring is of Pharaoh Trok Uruk, your brother god and the co-ruler of Egypt,' said the officer who was a Commander of the Vanguard, bore the rank of Best of Ten Thousand and wore the Gold of Valour upon his chest.

  'Speak!' Naja ordered again, for the man had faltered.

  'In the desert that surrounds the ancient city of Gallala there took place a mighty battle between the armies of Pharaoh Trok Uruk and those of the usurper Nefer Seti.' He fell silent again.

  'Continue!' Naja rose to his feet, and pointed the royal flail at the man's face, a gesture that threatened torture and death.

  The messenger went on hurriedly, 'By the means of cowardly deceit and wicked witchcraft the army of your brother and our Pharaoh Trok Uruk was lured to destruction. He is slain and his army decimated. Those of his men who survived have gone over to the enemy, and have rallied to the standard of the false pharaoh Nefer Seti, may Seth visit him with a terrible vengeance and eradicate his name and all his works. This same wicked usurper with all his force marches on Avaris and both kingdoms of this very Egypt!'

  Naja sank back on his throne and stared at him in astonishment. At his side Heseret smiled. When she did so, the cruel lines at the corners of her mouth vanished and she was transformed, becoming once more ineffably beautiful. She touched Naja's arm with a bejewelled finger, and when he leaned towards her she whispered in his ear, 'Praise to the gods, and all hail to the one and only Pharaoh of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms, the mighty Naja Kiafan!'