The Amulet of Power - Mike Resnick [26]
“How long will the trip take?”
“That depends on how long it takes the Mahdists to figure out where we are.”
“Inshallah,” said Hassam.
“Inshallah,” agreed Omar and Gaafar.
“You remain silent, Lara Croft,” observed Omar. “You do not know what Inshallah means?”
“I know,” answered Lara. “I’m just not buying it.”
“I do not understand.”
“It means, ‘if God wills it.’ I’m afraid that’s too fatalistic for me.” She stared at Omar. “No offense, but I believe in making my own fate. You can say Inshallah, Omar. As for me, I say: Let the enemy beware.”
A smile crossed Omar’s homely face. “I like you, Lara Croft. Even if I didn’t, I would still risk my life for you, because of what you have promised us. But it is rare to find a beautiful woman who has the heart of a warrior.”
“Is it?” asked Lara. “Perhaps almost as rare as finding a waiter with a warrior’s heart.”
Her three companions laughed at that, and then, at Omar’s signal, they urged their camels to their feet and began heading away from Lake Nasser. The two men who had brought the camels now climbed into the battered little lifeboat and rowed out to the Amenhotep.
“Just out of curiosity, how did you know I’d be on the Amenhotep and not some other boat?” asked Lara, steering her camel next to Omar’s.
“I didn’t,” answered Omar. “I have been on that horrible boat for almost three weeks.”
“Why?”
“We knew that sooner or later someone would visit the Temple of Horus in search of the Amulet of Mareish. That is why we arranged to have it closed to the public—so that we would know that whoever entered it was no tourist, but was almost certainly looking for the Amulet.” Omar paused and slapped at a fly that had landed on his cheek, then flicked it away. “We didn’t know who it would be, but we knew that the Mahdists would surely try to kill him—or as it turned out, her. Of course, we couldn’t know that part of the temple would collapse on you, or that you’d be taken to a Cairo hospital before the Mahdists could react . . . but we knew if you survived, eventually you would make your way to the Sudan.”
“Why should you think so?”
“To return the Amulet if you found it,” said Omar, “and to search for it in the Sudan if you failed to find it in the Temple of Horus.”
“Why are you so sure I would take the Amulet to the Sudan if I found it?” interrupted Lara.
“Even if you do not believe in its power, you know that it is an historically important and valuable artifact, and that it is easily identified,” explained Omar. “Even if you stole it and managed to smuggle it out of the country, where could you sell it without having to answer some very troublesome questions? Whereas if you returned it to the Sudanese government, there would be a sizable reward.”
“Makes sense,” agreed Lara.
“That is the sensible answer,” he agreed. “The true answer is that the Amulet possesses powers whether you believe it or not, and those powers were made to be exercised in the Sudan. It will draw its owner there, possibly even against his or her will. Its power is released in proportion to the character of he who controls it. It is easier for an immoral man to tap into its reservoirs of strength, but a moral man—or woman—can utilize more of its powers. . . . And from all that we have been able to ascertain, you are a moral woman.
“Anyway,” Omar continued, “we knew whoever found it would eventually try to make his—excuse me: her—way to the Sudan, and sooner rather than later. The Mahdists are watching all the airports, the train only runs sporadically—once every two or three weeks, which is not very helpful when people are hunting for you—and almost all the major cruise ships ply their trade only between Luxor and Aswan. There are only two reasonable escape routes, and both are along the Nile: either north past Cairo and eventually Alexandria to the Mediterranean, or south to the Sudan. There are only one or two boats that go all the way to Sudan, and only a handful go all the way north to Alexandria and the sea. It wasn’t difficult to pick the one most likely to appeal to someone