The Amulet of Power - Mike Resnick [21]
“Maybe not,” said Mason. “As long as we’re running from them in Egypt, they’re going to assume one of us has the Amulet. But once we show up in the Sudan, rather than going to England, they’ll know we’re still looking for it.”
“Why?” asked Lara. “Maybe they’ll think I found it and plan to rule the Sudan as the new Mahdi.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” said Kevin. “You have to be a true believer to be the Expected One, and you and I are both infidels. They know neither of us can become the Mahdi, and that means they know neither of us will be invulnerable even if we’ve got possession of the Amulet. That being the case, we’d have to be idiots to go to the Mahdist’s stronghold if we had the Amulet. No, the only reason for us to go to the Sudan is because we don’t have it. Because we are still searching for it. That’s the truth, and more important, the Mahdists will accept it as the truth.” He paused. “Oh, a few of them may think our going to Khartoum is a ruse and keep trying to kill us, but I think most of them will be content to watch us and let us find the Amulet for them.”
“How will they know we’ve found it . . . assuming we do?”
He shrugged. “I’m sure they have their methods.”
“They think I’ve got it now, and I don’t, so they must not have very reliable methods.”
He shrugged again.
“And what do we do with it if we do find it?” Lara continued. “If everyone knows why we’re there, the government won’t want us to take it out of the country, and I don’t know that I trust any government enough to hand that kind of power over to them, even if there’s no magic to it at all, but only the power of fanatical belief.”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” admitted Mason. “I suppose we’ll try to hunt up a truly worthy man, and give it to him.”
“There you go again,” said Lara. “Aren’t there any truly worthy women in the world?”
“Point taken,” he said sheepishly.
“And what if—assuming it’s a man, after all—he’s a Lincoln rather than a Sadat?”
“I don’t follow you.”
“What if the best person we can find, the one truly worthy person, is an unbeliever, an infidel?”
“Then he or she won’t be invulnerable or immortal,” answered Mason. “But they’ll still possess a source of enormous power. Unlike pulp magazine heroes, they won’t have the power to cloud men’s minds, but they’ll certainly have the power to influence them for good.”
“I don’t know,” she said dubiously.
“What’s the problem?”
“If absolute power corrupts absolutely, then almost-absolute power corrupts almost absolutely.”
“Let’s assume whoever we find will be able to resist the corruption.”
“Gordon was a devout man, and he knew better,” Lara pointed out. “How do you destroy the thing, anyway?”
“Destroy the Amulet of Mareish?” he repeated, shocked at the thought. “I’ve spent half my life looking for it!”
“If it’s half what you say it is, it’d be better if no one ever found it—but since I don’t seem to be able to walk away without getting shot at anyway, I’d like to know how to rid the world of it once I find it.”
“I won’t even consider it,” said Mason. “We’ll simply give it to the best person we can find.”
“What if we can’t find someone we trust?”
“That’s a very cynical thing to suggest,” remarked Mason. “Surely you’ve met trustworthy people before.”
“Not many.”
“Then we’ll keep it under lock and key until the day we can find one.”
“I’ve spent my whole life taking things that were under lock and key—and worse,” said Lara.
“Let’s worry about that when we come to it,” said Mason. “The main thing is that by the mere act of openly searching for the Amulet in the Sudan, we’ll put an end to most of these crazed attacks. Besides,” he added, “as an archaeologist, I think it’s the most exciting challenge of my career.” He stared at her for a moment. “Do we have a deal?”
“I think you’re risking your life rather foolishly,” she said. “But if you want to come to the Sudan, I can’t stop you.”
“Then we’re partners,” said Mason.
8
“There it is!” said Mason as the Amenhotep finally appeared out of the darkness. He stood up in the stern of the motorboat and waved