The Pharoah Contract

Ruiz felt the hard-packed clay of the street tremble under his feet. As the crowd condensed on the shady side of the street, he heard the gasp and whistle of steam thumpers, and he stood up in the properly respectful attitude. The parade toiled up the street toward him, moving at a slow dragstep that matched the rhythm of the thumpers. The thumpermen passed, three abreast, the huge steel feet of their machines slamming down on the street with jarring force, in perfect unison. As the thumper rebounded into the air, each man stepped forward smartly, wrestling his machine ahead, straining at the long handles braced to it. It was clearly no job for weaklings, for the men, all brawny specimens, sweated and struggled as they marched their smoking machines into the central square. In earlier times the thumpermen would have carried great balks of timber to shake the earth. Progress, Ruiz thought, and chuckled.

Behind them came several dozen musicians in the traditional Pharaonic mourning garb, which consisted of masses of thorny shrubs bound to the torso with leather straps. Ruiz saw that they were of all ages and sexes, and that many exhibited entertaining deformities. All held eccentric musical instruments in their hands, but marched in silence. It was an artistic and well-balanced group, and the thorns were cinched in so that the blood ran in thin striations down each lean dusty body, an effect which indicated a first-class production budget. Dancing about the perimeter of the orchestra was a cadre of clowns, jugglers, minor mages, streamer tossers, and glitter flingers.

The last mourner, a much-scarred ancient with a particularly large and uncomfortable collection of thornbushes, preceded the steam engine that drew the stage. This engine was in the shape of a scarab, plated with damascened steel and turning man-high spiked driver wheels.

The stage it pulled was skirted with flashing metal-thread tapestries, showing scenes from the Pharaohan mythos. Mounted on a central platform was a grand gilded sarcophagus, carved with various beasts, demons, and the several Pharaohan gods of redemption and resurrection. On the four corners of the stage stood the members of the phoenix troupe. Each held a ritual pose, as still as the jounce and sway of the stage would allow. Three were older men in the fanciful costumes of senior conjurors, and one was a young woman of great beauty. She had the pale olive skin and fine coppery-black hair of the Pharaohan nobility, and wore the linen robe of the intended phoenix. As the stage jerked past she looked directly at Ruiz Aw, but then her gaze swept past, impersonal and unseeing.

He found that he had dropped his lunatic grin, just for a moment.

Behind the stage trudged three fat doctors, there to certify the death. They wore over their shoulders the tanned hides of large arroyo lizards, with skull and toothy upper jaw worn as hats. This symbolized the chancy nature of their calling, though Ruiz supposed that the costume was also a gesture of professional respect. The lizards provided many patients.

Ruiz Aw bent his head and stared at his dirty toes. The datasoak had given him the outline of what was to follow. Reluctantly, he joined the crowd filtering into the square.

* * *

Nisa, former favored daughter of the King, concentrated on her balance as the stage jolted toward the Place of Artful Anguish, willing all other thoughts away, pushing her mind into a safe golden corner, feeling nothing but the throb of life in her veins. The drug made it easier; she remembered the way the philterer had made it for her, stirring the fine red granules into the pale wine. He’d handed the goblet to her with an air of ceremony, and in his faded old eyes she’d read both envy and compassion.

Since that moment, she had only broken bits of memory, like the dreams or nightmares of a restless sleeper.

…The gowners, washing her with sweet oils, while she stood, passive, arms lifted, eyes closed, feeling their subtle touch on her body, caressing, teasing.

…Flomel, helping her to mount the stage, dark eyes burning in his narrow face. He pulled her toward her station as if she floated above the scarred wood of the stage. “You will be magnificent!” Flomel whispered to her fiercely, holding her face in his long clever fingers.

…The heat, the dust, the smell of the people in the narrow streets of Bidderum, the stench of refuse from the alley mouths. She breathed it all in, as if it were fine perfume, filling herself with sensation one last time.