meant nothing to this man. He was capable of piercing to the heart, combining his gift with a keen ability to observe. No doubt in the aristocratic social circles he frequented he could be as smooth as scraped papyrus while he coldly assessed those into whose eyes he looked, but here with his petitioners there was no pretence.
“Very well,” I said. “I have been happy with my life, lacking for nothing, until a few weeks ago when I began to dream …” Carefully I described my night visitor, the hennaed hand, the voice that came with it, and my growing belief that I was seeing and hearing my real mother. “I know nothing about her or about my real father,” I finished. “My adoptive father knows nothing either …” He pounced on my hesitation.
“You think that your father knows more than he is telling,” he stated flatly. “Had you questioned him about your origins before you began to dream?”
“No. It was the dream that prompted my questions.” I found myself almost babbling then, pouring out the interview with my father, Takhuru’s perceptive comments and her plan to find our betrothal contract, my own suspicions, and all the time he sat there unmoving, his exceptional concentration fixed on me like a beam of noon sunlight.
“Describe the rings on the hand. Describe the voice,” he broke in. “Tell me about the lines of the palm if you can. I must have a clear vision of what you see if I am to help you.” I did so and then fell silent.
He crossed his legs, placed his hands in his lap, and I could feel him withdraw into himself. I waited, my gaze wandering the room. Outside the sun had now set and the last of Ra’s glow diffused through the window. To my right I could see, without actually turning my head, the small door beside the laden shelves. There was something odd about it, something disturbing, but before I could decide what it was, the Master stirred and sighed.
“So you do not want to see your future,” he said. “You want to know who your mother was, and perhaps your father too. Where they came from. What they were like. You have set me a difficult task, Officer Kamen.” I interpreted this as an indirect query regarding payment and I leaned forward, lifting the lid of the ebony box.
“I have brought you something very precious to me,” I said, “but your gift is worth the sacrifice. My father purchased it in Libu.” He did not even glance at it.
“Keep your trinket,” he said, rising and coming around the desk, shrugging the white robes higher on his shoulders as he did so. “I do not ask for payment from you. You have already done me a great service though of course you are not aware of it.” I rose also and backed away as he passed me. I did not want to be too close to him. “Follow me,” he commanded and I did so, turning right along the passage that led out into the rear garden where only the tops of the trees were tinged with scarlet. Their trunks and the ground around them were drowned in shadow.
Just beyond the exit there was a small paved space in the centre of which stood a simple stone pedestal. On it was a vase, a large flagon and a stoppered pot. The Seer approached the pedestal, and lifting the flagon he briskly poured water into the vase. “Stand here beside me but not too close,” he ordered. “Do not move or speak except to answer any question I may put to you.” I did as I was bid, inhaling a rush of jasmine as he took the pot and removed the stopper. The perfume in the office that overrode all the other odours must have been from his body. I watched him carefully tip a small quantity of oil on top of the water, wait a moment, presumably for the oil to settle, glance at the sky which was rapidly paling to the purest of blues, and then bend over the vase. His hood fell forward. His gloved hands grasped the sides of the pedestal. “Praise to Thoth,” I heard him murmur. “The Vizier who gives judgement, who vanquishes crime, who recalls all that is
“Very well,” I said. “I have been happy with my life, lacking for nothing, until a few weeks ago when I began to dream …” Carefully I described my night visitor, the hennaed hand, the voice that came with it, and my growing belief that I was seeing and hearing my real mother. “I know nothing about her or about my real father,” I finished. “My adoptive father knows nothing either …” He pounced on my hesitation.
“You think that your father knows more than he is telling,” he stated flatly. “Had you questioned him about your origins before you began to dream?”
“No. It was the dream that prompted my questions.” I found myself almost babbling then, pouring out the interview with my father, Takhuru’s perceptive comments and her plan to find our betrothal contract, my own suspicions, and all the time he sat there unmoving, his exceptional concentration fixed on me like a beam of noon sunlight.
“Describe the rings on the hand. Describe the voice,” he broke in. “Tell me about the lines of the palm if you can. I must have a clear vision of what you see if I am to help you.” I did so and then fell silent.
He crossed his legs, placed his hands in his lap, and I could feel him withdraw into himself. I waited, my gaze wandering the room. Outside the sun had now set and the last of Ra’s glow diffused through the window. To my right I could see, without actually turning my head, the small door beside the laden shelves. There was something odd about it, something disturbing, but before I could decide what it was, the Master stirred and sighed.
“So you do not want to see your future,” he said. “You want to know who your mother was, and perhaps your father too. Where they came from. What they were like. You have set me a difficult task, Officer Kamen.” I interpreted this as an indirect query regarding payment and I leaned forward, lifting the lid of the ebony box.
“I have brought you something very precious to me,” I said, “but your gift is worth the sacrifice. My father purchased it in Libu.” He did not even glance at it.
“Keep your trinket,” he said, rising and coming around the desk, shrugging the white robes higher on his shoulders as he did so. “I do not ask for payment from you. You have already done me a great service though of course you are not aware of it.” I rose also and backed away as he passed me. I did not want to be too close to him. “Follow me,” he commanded and I did so, turning right along the passage that led out into the rear garden where only the tops of the trees were tinged with scarlet. Their trunks and the ground around them were drowned in shadow.
Just beyond the exit there was a small paved space in the centre of which stood a simple stone pedestal. On it was a vase, a large flagon and a stoppered pot. The Seer approached the pedestal, and lifting the flagon he briskly poured water into the vase. “Stand here beside me but not too close,” he ordered. “Do not move or speak except to answer any question I may put to you.” I did as I was bid, inhaling a rush of jasmine as he took the pot and removed the stopper. The perfume in the office that overrode all the other odours must have been from his body. I watched him carefully tip a small quantity of oil on top of the water, wait a moment, presumably for the oil to settle, glance at the sky which was rapidly paling to the purest of blues, and then bend over the vase. His hood fell forward. His gloved hands grasped the sides of the pedestal. “Praise to Thoth,” I heard him murmur. “The Vizier who gives judgement, who vanquishes crime, who recalls all that is
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