Free Eater of souls by Lynda S. Robinson Page B

worked himself into a state of excitement at the risk he was taking. He had walked into the room, past the sleeping man, and snatched a scarab bracelet that lay on top of a jewel casket.
    All the while, Tcha had waited perched on the wall surrounding the house keeping watch for guards, the city patrols, or other dangers. When Pawah hadn't come back quickly, Tcha knew what he was doing. And he'd been helpless. Lying flat on top of the wall beneath the branches of a willow tree, he could only curse Pawah and finger his Eye of Horus amulet while reciting a spell of protection.
    The memory of his exposure to danger made Tcha angry all over again. "Wretched bastard, greedy-hearted dolt."
    Perhaps it had been Tcha's spell that allowed Pawah to leave the house undetected. The magic hadn't lasted long after they left; somewhere between the noble's house and the refuse mound, they had acquired a follower. He and Pawah had parted, taking different routes home, and the follower had disappeared. Now Tcha felt safe enough to meet his fellow thief.
    The house lay on the outskirts of the city west of the temple district. Here the great one had caused part of the city wall to be removed to make room for his villa and hadn't yet bothered to rebuild it. Tcha and his friend were to meet at the refuse mound so that they could divide their loot.
    Their arrangement was that Pawah would sit sheltered from the refuse mound by a piece of the wall from the collapsed dwelling. By moonlight Tcha had a clear view of his surroundings, the oil jars being situated on a rise near the protective wall of the astronomer's house. He looked out on a vista of waste that formed scattered smaller hills around the great mound, rather like the sacred cities that once surrounded and served the pyramids.
    But the little hills and mounds weren't as deserted as the pyramid cities. Beetles, ants, and spiders clambered in and out of the whole field of refuse, filling the narrow footpaths that wound through the area. Dogs and cats crept up to the freshest spills in search of delicacies. Sometimes they disturbed hawks or vultures perched on a fresh carcass. Then shrieks of fury sailed through the air and caused night terrors among those sleeping in nearby houses.
    "Never know if one of them dogs is really an underworld fiend," Tcha mumbled to himself while he scanned the refuse field. "Where is that donkey's arse?"
    He rose to see over the wall fragment. No Pawah. A scrutiny of the refuse field revealed a cat fastidiously picking its way through a dump of table scraps, an ant mound the size of a sarcophagus, and the same irregular and noxious landscape as before.
    His uneasiness was growing. Had Pawah taken their stores of wealth and run away? Yes! That was why he'd taken those valuables; and he'd left Tcha behind to face any inquiries.
    "Hathor's tits!" Tcha scrambled over the oil jars, startling the dining cat into flight.
    His legs churning, his heart angry, Tcha darted from one heap to another in case Pawah was squatting behind one of them. When he reached the giant mound, he was breathing hard and gulping in putrid fumes. He crept around the base of the hill of rubbish. On the side away from the house wall, between it and the blank expanse of barren ground that became the western desert, lay their hiding place.
    The mound had expanded over the uneven ground formed by more collapsed mud brick. Since before the days of the pyramid builders, people had lived in Memphis. When a house aged beyond repair, its sun-dried mud-brick walls were shoved down and became the new ground. Crumbling mud brick stuck up at odd angles on this side of the refuse mound. Scorpions nested there, and cobras burrowed into the aged earth. Few would risk treading here when they could dump their garbage on the nearer side of the mound.
    Tcha had dug a hole beneath a slumping corner formed by the remnants of two old walls. Pawah had lined the hole with pottery shards and placed a wicker lid over it.