Chapter 20

As we walked down the corridors to the audience chamber, I asked Uphotep if there was any special protocol that we should follow. I explained that none of us had ever met a Pharaoh, so we weren't sure of the exact protocol. He said, "Oh, there is nothing special, just prostrate yourselves and wait to be recognized. That usually happens within the hour."

I stopped where I was and said, "OK, folks, time to go back to the river. We don't have to put up with this kind of discourtesy."

Uphotep sputtered and wrung his hands. "But you agreed to an audience. What will I do now?"

"I have no idea, but we are not some peasants who are scared out of a years growth by being invited to the royal presence. If we don't receive what I consider reasonable courtesy, I have other things I had rather be doing. And don't think that you can force us to do anything. Your boat load of soldiers and that stupid priest were taken out by those two children. Now, what will it be?"

"Do you mean that? Those two children did all that damage?"

"They sure did. Herlo, please show Uphotep what form you took when you attacked the crocodiles and the boat. Don't attack anybody, just assume the shape."

Herlo grinned and his shape shimmered for a moment. Then he had the aspect of your worst nightmare. He was black and covered with jaws full of fangs and hands full of claws. The soldiers in our escort ran away, and Uphotep fainted all the way, this time. I grinned at Herlo and signaled him to turn back into his normal shape.

We had to wait for almost 15 minutes for Uphotep to regain consciousness, but he finally was able to stand. "Oh, dear gods, what a fearsome shape."

"And remember, we are older so we have more experience, so imagine what shapes we can assume. Now, what will it be? Shall we go to the audience or shall we return to our caravan?"

"Oh, please, come to the audience chamber. I have not been perfectly honest with you. We have a very dangerous situation facing us and I hope that the Pharaoh will ask for your help. And, once he does, I hope that you will accept.

"OK, enough stalling around. Let's go in, but we will not grovel, and we will not be ignored more than a very few minutes. I don't care what the normal practice is, we have our pride, too, and you people appear to need us a lot more than we need you."

Uphotep breathed a sigh of relief and resumed leading us down the corridor. We got to the audience chamber and walked in like we owned a good section of the place. The courtiers standing around went into total shock when we did not prostrate ourselves, but simply bowed deeply. The pharaoh looked at us and smiled, as if he knew a secret that no one else knew.

Uphotep started into a long and rambling introduction, but the pharaoh silenced him as said, "Please tell me your names. I do like to know who I am talking to."

I bowed again and introduced us, including the children. The pharaoh nodded and smiled. "Thank you, I appreciate your courtesy in spending a few minutes with me. Uphotep, clear the chamber. I wish to speak to Vilkatas without so many extra ears hanging open."

"Yes, Oh Great One. OK, you heard the order, all of you, out, out, out." There was some reluctance to move until several guards lowered their spears and pointed them at the spectators. At that point, the room cleared with dispatch.

"Uphotep, find some refreshment for our guests. Meanwhile, I will not waste the valuable time of these people, but will begin describing our problem. First, I must know, Vilkatas, are you familiar with the Egyptian pantheon? Unfortunately, our problem involves a difficulty with the gods, specifically Satet, the goddess of the river floods. She has disappeared, and, without her annual flooding of our crop land, we will all die. In short, in my position of pharaoh, I beg of you to find her and return her to her job. Will you help us?"

"Yes, we will, but we will need more information."

"There is not much more that I can tell you. I have asked Anubis, the god of the Underworld, to assist you and to be your guide, but, for a lot of complicated reasons, that's all he can do. Anubis will meet you tonight after you go to sleep, so I suggest that you retire to the suites that have been reserved for you. We will have a banquet in your honor in a few hours. I hope that is satisfactory."

"Oh, yes, Great One, that will be quite satisfactory. Very well, we will see you then."

We had a council of war when we got to our suites, and decided that Aklag, Herlo, and Tarsy would accompany me on the trip to the Underworld. My reason was that I valued Aklag's wisdom and Herlo and Tarsy's fighting ability. Those two might be young, but they were a match for anything I had ever seen when it came to a knock down-drag out fight.

We had hardly had time to fall asleep when Anubis showed up. He was quite a sight with his human body and jackal head. Anubis touched each one of us, and we disassembled into a cloud of gray smoke. He walked down a long corridor and we drifted after him. The trip seemed to take forever and no time at all, it's impossible to describe. We were led into a beautiful chamber decorated with all kinds of painted statues of gods and pharaohs with decorations of all sort on the walls and ceiling. The floor was of white marble with pink and black streaks running through it. The whole effect was quite impressive.

As soon as we reached the chamber, we coalesced back into our human shapes. Anubis said, "I will take you to Osiris, who can give you all of the information we have on the disappearance of Satet."

Again, the trip seemed to take forever and no time at all. Anubis led us into another chamber which was just as elaborately decorated as the first one, but this one had a very prosaic office desk and some chairs scattered around. Osiris was sitting behind the desk, and he stood when we entered. Anubis made the introductions, and we got down to business. It was a little easier to talk to Osiris because he had a human head.

The story was that Satet disappeared from her apartment in the Underworld about a week ago. Nobody knew the exact day, since she was inclined to visit her sister Ankhet and her brother Khem. She usually stayed overnight, or even longer, for some fun and games of a sexual nature. Therefore, she was not missed until Ankhet came looking for her three days ago.

Other than verifying that Satet was not in her apartment, the door had been kept locked until a formal inquiry could be made into her disappearance. Osiris and Anubis were very cooperative when Aklag suggested that we search Satet's apartment for clues at to where she might have gone.

We searched the apartment for anything unusual or out of place. Being female, Tarsy was the one who found that certain things were out of place. Satet's cosmetics were strewn about without any order, and Tarsy was certain that most women would have made sure that everything was in its usual and correct place before voluntarily leaving.

Further searching disclosed something very unusual. Aklag found on the floor in a corner, a peculiar looking item that looked like a fish scale, but it was almost 3 inches across. Furthermore, it was an iridescent purplish blue. The only thing that we could figure was that it was a dragon scale, but Egyptians didn't lean toward dragons in their mythology, so it must have come from somewhere else. Either it was not actually a dragon scale or it came from a foreign dragon.

Anubis and Osiris were baffled, but Aklag and I were betting on a foreign dragon. There was not much argument that Satet had been kidnapped, anything else would just be too out of character. Anyway, that was our first hypothesis: Satet had been kidnapped by a foreign dragon. It seemed to us that our first job was to identify where the dragon had come from.