I had asked Kyrlos if there was any likelihood of the Shamans coming round from the gate, and he said he was sure that no one would venture out even so far as the stream outside the tangi, let alone following forty waterless miles round the base of the cliffs. No one had ever ventured into the desert, which the people feared very much; in fact, many of the more ignorant folk believed that there were no other living men beyond it, only strange beasts and fearsome spectres.
The camels would be quite safe there, but he was sending down four men to stay with them so as to keep our man company, since they could not be brought up. He said that since his men had seen us and knew that Aryenis had been some days in the desert, they would not now be afraid to stop down below.
“That’s all right, then,” said Wrexham. “We’d better get down and get the things up as quickly as possible before it gets dark.”
Kyrlos insisted on going down, too, to see the camels, for he was always keen on new things. So in the end we all went down, taking men with us to carry the grain and forage for the camels, and to help the guard with their kit. It was quicker now since we were lowered down instead of having to climb, and in next to no time we were across the arch and well on our way down the slope.
I introduced Payindah to Kyrlos, and explained that he had been the other actor in getting Aryenis out of the Gates of Death, whereupon Payindah got thanked just as I had been.
“Who is the sahib and what is his talk?” asked Payindah.
I explained that he was Aryenis’s father and a great noble in the land, and then, for lack of better explanation, went on that he was of the people of Sikandar Balkarnayn (Alexander the Great), and that was the speech he used.
“Wah,” said Payindah. “Then we be in some sort of the same blood, since we also are of Sikandar’s stock.”
As a matter of fact there was little difference, save for his darker wheat colour and his black bobbed locks, between Payindah, with his Greek features and his Greek form (we used to remark when he was wrestling in the regiment that he might have stood for a Greek statue), his green-grey eyes, and his red low-cut skull-cap, similar in shape to the steel caps worn by Kyrlos’s following, and the white-skinned men collected on the arch.
“Was this man also in the wars Aryenis says you come from?” asked Kyrlos. “He looks like a fighter, and I see that he carries the noise weapon even as you.”