Children of the Storm by Elizabeth Peters Page A

the fact that it was a young woman’s body, slim and firm. Her face was veiled and on her head rested the horns and sun disk of an Egyptian goddess.
    “Who are you?” He forced the words past lips that felt rubbery and unresponsive.
    “Don’t you know me? You have seen me before, many times, though not in the flesh.”
    Still a whisper. The words were English, but the accent was odd. Not German, not French, not . . . He found it increasingly difficult to think clearly. How much was real, how much illusion? The sheer linen veiled but did not conceal the lines of her body, the rounded hips and breasts. “Put that damned brazier out,” he gasped.
    She let out a breath of soft amusement and clapped her hands. A dark form materialized behind the couch where he lay. Featureless as she, androgynous in outline, it moved the brazier away and then vanished. He drew a long, uneven breath and tried to focus his eyes. She took a step toward him.
    “Look closely. Do you know me now?”
    She was jeweled like a queen, gold enclosing her slim wrists and arms. The robe of fine linen, the beaded sash and collar, the crown—and protruding from the black hair coiling over her shoulders, the ears of an animal. A cow’s ears. A rapidly shrinking core of sanity told him he must be imagining some of it, seeing what she wanted him to see.
    “You’ve gone to a great deal of trouble assembling that costume,” he muttered. “But no. I don’t know you. Why am I here? What do you want?”
    “Only to see you and cause you to remember me. Stay with me for a day . . . or two. I promise, you will find it pleasurable.”
    He didn’t doubt that he would. There were a number of euphoric drugs available, and she seemed to know how to use them. With an effort he pulled himself to a sitting position. She stepped back and raised her hand.
    “You waste your strength,” she murmured. “I mean you no harm. You are under my protection. Remember that, and do not fear for yourself, whatever befalls. You will know me when next you see me.”
    A beam of white light shot from her hand, striking him full in the eyes. Blinded and dizzy, he fell back against the cushions. When he was able to see again, she was gone and the brazier had been replaced.
    Ramses knew he had only a few minutes in which to act before the drugged smoke overcame him. He rolled as far away from it as he could get, and pulled his knees up.
    He had practiced the maneuver many times, but his movements were clumsy now and it took an interminable time for his stretched fingers to find the heel of his boot. After he had twisted it off he lay motionless, forcing his shaking hands to steadiness, breathing through the fabric of the cushions. Then he extracted the thin strip of steel coiled in the heel. It was serrated and very sharp; before he got it wedged against his wrists his fingers were slippery with blood. Afraid of losing his hold, he slashed hard and fast, risking additional cuts, and getting several. The steel slipped out of his grasp, but not before the job was done; a final tug freed his hands, and without daring to pause for rest he picked it up and cut through the cloth around his ankles. It was silk, twisted into a cord. He sat for a moment staring bemusedly at it, and then flung it aside and started to stand.
    His knees gave way, so he crawled, to the farthest corner of the room, and fumbled along the wall, behind the draperies, trying to find a window. His fingers finally slipped into the carved apertures of a mashrabiya screen, used in harem quarters to allow the ladies to look out without being seen. With the last of his strength he forced it open and fell across the high sill, drawing in the sweet night air in long gasps.
    Sweet by comparison to the atmosphere of the room, at any rate. He’d have known those variegated smells anywhere—animal dung and rotting vegetation, burning charcoal, the scent of night-blooming flowers—the ineffable perfume of Cairo, as his mother