Wraiths of Time Read Online Free PDF Page B

perhaps, in this blinding sunlight, their auras of radiation could not be distinguished.
    Tallahassee inched along the rock which was her support. Was the stranger unconscious? And who—and what—and where?… She felt as if she were going mad, or had passed the border of sanity during the time that the rod had drawn her on.
    There was a thin, almost gossamer cotton robe on the body, so finely woven that one could see the gleam of darker flesh through it. It was simply made, reaching from armpit to ankle, with two broad straps of the same material holding it over the shoulders, a belt which gave off glints of gemlike color against the dead white of the garment. The stranger’s shoulder-length hair had been woven into many tiny braids, each tipped with a bead of gold, and there was another band of the same precious metal forming a narrow diadem to hold those braids in confinement.
    Tallahassee was reminded of something. She moved a fraction closer, fearing to stoop lest her present vertigo send her toppling against the stranger. Instead she dropped carefully to her knees and put out a hand to the shoulder where the brown skin was a shade or so darker than her own.
    With an effort she rolled the stranger over, the body limply slack in her hold. She was sure somehow that this was death. But, as the other’s face came into view, Tallahassee screamed and flinched away.
    Sand was matted on the generous lips, caught in eyebrows that had been darkened and extended by the use of a heavy cosmetic. But the face itself— NO !
    Save for the slight difference in the color of their skins, she was looking down at the same features she saw every time she stood before a mirror! Oh there were differences—the brows artificially lengthened toward the temples and darkened, thick lines drawn under the now-closed eyes, while the headband rose in front to the likeness of a striking serpent.
    â€œEgypt—” Tallahassee whispered. “Egypt and royal …” For that serpent diadem could be worn only by a woman of the Blood, and one placed very close to the throne itself.
    She scuttled back on her hands and knees. The girl was dead, she was certain of that. Now she looked around wildly.…
    They were in a place where sand had been scoured away, perhaps by the wind of some dune-lashing storm, perhaps by human effort. There were ruins all about, stones pitted and defaced by those same grit-filled winds. And she was nowhere on the earth she knew! Shaking with a growing fear, she crouched against the rock that had earlier supported her and tried to understand what had happened. There was no sane explanation for this, none at all!
    She was still locked in rising panic when she caught sounds, first faint and then growing louder. It was such chanting as she had heard just before this unbelievable thing had happened to her. Only now it rang far more clear and distinct. It—they—were coming! She tried to force herself once more to her feet, but she literally did not have the strength to move. She could only huddle where she was as the nightmare went on and on.
    There was no word in that rise of sound which she could understand. But she began to believe she could detect more than a single voice. Once more Tallahassee made a desperate effort. She must hide! Only, under this blistering sun, in this waste of stone and sand, there was no place of concealment she could see.
    The voices ceased suddenly. Now came the ringing of a sistrum. Tallahassee gave a weak laugh. Egypt! But why was her unconscious (which certainly must be directing this weird dream) so set on reproducing Egypt?
    And she was so hot, thirsty. Perhaps back in her own world she was burning with a fever. Or—a scrap of memory flipped through her thoughts—did radiation, an overdose of the strange radiation from the ankh, lie at the bottom of this?
    She heard a sharp cry and turned her head. The figure coming between the broken bits of