Free Gary Gygax - Dangerous Journeys 2 - Samarkand Solution by Gary Gygax Page A

more here than a mysterious killing seemed certain to the magister. If he could discover the whole of what was going on, Inhetep felt certain that the murder could then be solved in due course.
    It was a simple matter to find a secluded place and change his appearance through dweomercraeft. Tallish still, but appearing now as a half-cast boatman, Inhetep returned to the Temple of Set. A small cluster of worshippers were just entering the gate as he arrived, so the magister joined them, as if he too were there to participate in the ritual performed at the sixth hour of the night. However, once inside the main building, Inhetep hung back, and as the others went towards the altar and sanctuary, he slipped into a passage leading into a wing which housed the priests' quarters.
    The high priest would be required to officiate at the midnight ceremony, so Matiseth would be busy donning his vestments and performing services for some time. Magister Inhetep intended to make use of the opportunity to investigate the man's personal apartment while Chemres was occupied with his duties to the dark deity, Set, and ministering to that one's faithful servants attending the high service. Although he did not know the exact plan of the complex, most religious structures followed a pattern, and it didn't take Inhetep long to bypass the busy areas where priests and under-priests made ready, find the private corridor of the hem-neter-tepi, and pass through Matiseth's locked door. "Taking no chances are you, Chemres?" he murmured to himself as the priest-wizard carefully neutralized the heka-energized locks, warning castings, and magickal traps which guarded the portal.
    Anything worthwhile would be concealed carefully, so Inhetep didn't bother with a manual search of the four rooms which were Matiseth's own. Instead, the magister took sufficient time to lay a scaled discovery formula, one which applied the Law of Antipathy. Magick might be hidden from a probe which sought it by sympathetic means, but by finding heka which opposed a probe, Inhetep could locate the secret places so warded. His divining was also multi-pronged. It scanned the spectrum from the simplest to most complex castings using /Erth-related power, then that drawn from more distant planes, and finally into that rarified continuum from whence came the energies used by entities of the highest order.
    "Decidedly odd," Inhetep said aloud after completing his inspection of Matiseth Chemres' quarters. He had discovered the usual sort of thing—tomes containing arcana of magickal sort, heka-endowed implements and devices which one would expect a high priest to possess and protect, and a repository of mundane treasures exceeding that which even such a man as Matiseth might be expected to have amassed. The wealth aside, though, Inhetep had discovered nothing incriminating or even enlightening. Then he snapped his fingers and smiled. "You are a sly devil, Chemres," the magister cried softly. "Still, there is a quarter-hour or so, and I'll have you yet!"
    There were many papyri, scrolls, and bound volumes there in the hem-neter-tepi's personal library. Inhetep noted a large volume of maps and charts, flipped through it quickly, and then moved on. After examining the works which were obviously those most readily at hand and frequently consulted, he went to the shelves and searched for something more esoteric. Exploration of the Sudd, and two matching volumes, Navigational Charts, Blue Nylle and White Nylle, piqued his interest. These were common enough books, dealing with a subject both so usual as to be unusual and as changeable as the courses of the two rivers they dealt with. Thirty-year-old works kept on hand by the high priest? Most people would have assumed they simply filled space, if they noticed the anomaly at all. Inhetep took the three from their place and began examining each in turn.
    It took him only a few minutes to see what each work contained. Inhetep replaced them exactly as