Prologue

Zerzura: The Lost City

THE PHARAOH AWOKE WITH THE LIGHT of the full moon shining on his face, knowing that he had just spoken with his god. His god was named Apedemak, and in the temple renderings, he had the body of a man, but the face of the king of beasts. He was the high god of the people of Kerma, Pharaoh Taharka’s island kingdom…an island hidden from the outside world behind a barrier of powerful spells, cloaked in fog and illusion, lying off the coast of the continent men now called Africa.

Taharka rose from his bed, his mind filled with the power of Apedemak’s words, words delivered to him in a dream so vivid its images still seemed more real than the waking world. In the corner, the slave whose responsibility it was to keep the overhead frond-fan spinning, to draw in the cooler ocean breezes of the night, started in surprise, gazing questioningly at his master. Taharka shook his head at the man, wordlessly waving him back.

Moving quickly, he removed a short kilt from one of clothing chests lining the wall of his bedchamber. Donning the simple garment, the pharaoh belted it around his waist. The white linen of the kilt appeared doubly light against his mahogany skin. Taharka was nearly fifty, yet his body was as strong and muscular as it had been when he was a youth. Ignoring the elaborately beaded and braided wigs sitting on their stands, the pharaoh left his shaven head bare. He finished his abbreviated toilette by sliding his feet into everyday sandals barely trimmed with gold.

The pharaoh left the royal bedchamber, with its walls showing scenes of royal family life. He needed no light-bearer to illumine his path. The moonlight was so strong one could almost discern the vivid colors of the painted images and the lotus-topped columns.

Taharka’s sandals made faint swishing sounds against the cool stone floors as he walked slowly down the hall to the first of his children’s chambers. There, as he had known he would, he found his queen, Tiyy. She was sitting at the bedside of their youngest son, Prince Aniba, gently stroking his brow and murmuring to him, as the six-year-old prince’s nursemaid carefully sponged the child’s bared chest with cool water. Taharka winced when he saw the marks of his little son’s ribs beneath his skin. The boy had fallen sick with this feverish wasting illness nearly a month ago, and he was clearly losing the battle. Last week, without telling his queen, Taharka had quietly given orders to have a small royal tomb chiseled from the cliffs behind the palace, close to the tombs already carved for himself, his queen, and his two elder children, Prince Shabako and Princess Amenirdis.

As he heard his father’s soft step, the child turned his head, and his lips curved upward in a weak smile. “Father,” he whispered.

Taharka bent down and kissed his son’s cheek, feeling dry heat against his lips. The fever was not high, but it was relentless, and slowly, slowly, it was burning away the young prince’s life. It was not proper for a pharaoh to display despair, or for a father to show fear, so Taharka was careful not to reveal his reaction as he straightened, smiling down at his youngest. “My boy,” he said softly. “Did you eat all of the soup your mother prepared with her own hands? You need your strength.”

Little Prince Aniba nodded solemnly. “Almost all,” he assured his father, with a quick sideways glance at his mother…a look that begged her not to reveal that he lied.

Queen Tiyy smiled lovingly at her son and nodded agreement. “He did very well, husband.”

The pharaoh nodded. “Good, good,” he said. “Soon you will be well, and we shall go together in my chariot to the royal preserve to see the lions. You shall ride with me, and you may help me drive my horses!”

For a second the child’s wan features brightened into a genuine smile, as a flash of the real Prince Aniba showed through the wasted flesh. “Oh, yes, Father!” he said. “You will let me hold the reins? And we can see the lions?”

“You have my word as pharaoh that we will do it as soon as you are strong enough, my son,” Taharka said, touching the sacred bracelet that he never removed, the broad golden wristlet that was incised with the stylized head of a lion, symbol of Apedemak and the royal house of Kerma. The pale green gems that traced the lion’s head had come from the Heart of Zerzura, the sacred stone lying in the palm of the golden statue of Apedemak that stood far below the earth in the heart of the ancient labyrinth. The chamber at the heart of the labyrinth contained the island’s greatest material treasures: gold, gems, and sacred texts detailing the story of their people’s journey from their ancient homeland of Kush, millennia ago. But those worldly treasures paled in comparison to the Heart of Zerzura itself. Without the magical powers of the Heart, Kerma would be no more. The gem pulsed with the power imbued in it by the god himself.

Prince Aniba’s dark eyes shone in the faint light cast by the oil lamps as he saw his father take this sacred oath. “I cannot wait, Father!”

“Then hurry and get well, my son,” Taharka replied. “But to do that, you will need your rest. Can you close your eyes and sleep now?”

The little boy nodded. His eyelids were growing heavy; even the smallest exertion tired him. His parents and the nursemaid watched in silence as the little prince fell asleep.

Taharka glanced at his queen. “We need to talk,” he said softly. “Come.” Tiyy rose slowly, stiff from sitting so long and half-faint from exhaustion. Taharka caught her arm to steady her. The queen glanced worriedly at her son, clearly reluctant to leave him for even a moment. For who knew how many more moments she would have with him?

“Menhutep will care for him,” Taharka assured his wife. “She loves him as if he were her own.”

The nursemaid nodded agreement. “You need rest, Royal Lady. I shall keep watch, and will summon you at the slightest change in the prince’s condition.”

Tiyy’s shoulders suddenly sagged, and she gave in, allowing her husband to lead her from the sick chamber. The pharaoh put an arm around her slighter form, steadying her as he guided her through the living quarters of the royal palace, faintly lit by oil lamps tended by the slaves, but even more brightly illumined by the moonlight through the floor-to-ceiling windows designed to capture the faintest of the ocean breezes in this hot climate. As they reached the end of the private wing of the palace, he turned her, and they stepped out onto a balcony overlooking Zerzura, the Shining City. Below them lay the great harbor, with moonlight gleaming on the waves. They stood side by side, Taharka’s arm still protectively around his wife’s shoulders, gazing out at their domain.

Finally Queen Tiyy roused herself from her sad reverie and looked up at her husband. Tenderly he touched her cheek, his fingers brushing lightly over her tightly curled hair, cropped short into a dark aureole to facilitate wearing her royal wigs. Her eyes, enhanced with the traditional kohl, were large and the color of onyx as they searched his features intently. “Something is different about you, my king. What has happened?”

Taharka nodded. His queen was as perceptive as she was wise. Looking down at her, seeing her lovely but strained features, he summoned his courage and resolve. It is the only way that our son might be saved.…

“I dreamed tonight,” he said slowly. “And in my dream Apedemak spoke to me and told me what I must do.”

Queen Tiyy’s eyes widened. “Tell me this dream, husband.”

Taharka closed his own eyes, the better to recall every detail. “I dreamed that I was driving my chariot along the beach. The waves rolled in and splashed my chariot wheels. My horses plunged along, their hooves flinging up sand and surf. I could taste the salt on my lips. Ra cast his golden rays down from the sky, and it seemed that the beach had no end. It was a moment of great joy.”

The pharaoh took a deep breath. “Then, suddenly, in the way of dreams, everything changed. Before me there was a great wall of stone, a cliff so sheer and high there was no climbing it. I fought to slow the horses, lest we crash into it. I brought them to a halt barely in time. As I turned them, thinking to go back, I saw that there was another cliff behind me. I was hemmed in between the cliffs and the sea. There was nowhere to go. As I hesitated, trying to decide what to do, I heard Aniba calling me. ‘Father…’ he wailed. ‘Help me!’”

Queen Tiyy’s eyes filled with tears, but she did not allow them to fall. Taharka saw her blink them back, and his heart tightened in his breast. “What then?” she asked.

“I heard a sound from the cliff to my right. When I turned my head, a great golden lion came bounding down the sheer face of the stone. It was much larger than any lion I had ever seen. His mane gleamed like the sun, making a nimbus of light around his face. He leaped down from the cliff and stood before me. The horses plunged in their traces with terror. But then the lion spoke, and they fell quiet, and stood as still as the statues in the temples.”

“The lion…spoke?” Her voice trembled.

“Yes. His voice was the crashing of the surf in a storm, the rumble of thunder, and the sound the earth makes when it shakes…all those sounds together. It was when I heard that voice that I knew this was no ordinary lion, but Apedemak himself. His words echo still in my mind: ‘Look to the sea, Taharka. You must cross the great ocean. Only by doing so will you find the means to save what you hold dearest. It is the only way.’ And when the lion finished speaking, his mane blazed up so brightly that I could no longer look, but had to shut my eyes and turn my face away. When I opened my eyes again, I awakened to find the moonlight on my face. But I knew I had just experienced a true dream, one such as the priests describe. I knew the god had told me what I must do.”

“Cross the sea…” murmured Tiyy. When she looked up at her husband, fear shadowed her features. “Leave our island, husband? Leave your people, who need your rule, your strong hand to guide them? Go out into the world? We have been protected from outsiders for so long! Who knows what evils may be found in the outside world these days? Cannot you send General Kashta and High Priest Senkamanisken? They are strong, able men who are loyal to you. They would travel and search to the doors of death and beyond for you!”

Pharaoh Taharka shook his head. “You know I am the only one who can undertake this quest, my queen,” he said. “Surely you have not forgotten what I wear?” He held up his right arm. In the moonlight, the wide wristlet gleamed, and the gemstones glittered. Deprived of their color, they flashed like the moonlight along the wave crests. “I do not speak of it often, but recall that my bracelet is one of the Three.”

Long ago, when the two kingdoms of Egypt and Kush had been one, the sons and daughters of Kush had turned their faces from the old life to travel west, toward the setting sun, leaving behind all that they had known. They had acted because Apedemak had appeared to the son of their pharaoh and the chief priest to express his wishes that his chosen people should depart and found a new land to the west. To guide them on their journey, he had given them the Heart, and, acting on his orders, the priests had used tiny slivers from the Heart to fashion the three bracelets. Each endowed the wearer with certain powers. The one Taharka wore gave its wearer the power of navigation—of locating whatever it was that the wearer needed. The bracelet’s magic would guide him, anywhere in the world, to achieve his quest. It also granted him insight, a great gift for a man who must rule wisely.

The pharaoh’s thirteen-year-old son and heir, Prince Shabako, wore the one that would allow him to unlock any lock, any portal. Its power extended to unlocking hearts, both human and animal. He had never met a stranger, it seemed.

Taharka’s daughter, fifteen-year-old Princess Amenirdis, wore the wristlet that allowed the wearer to see through illusion, to lift the magical mists that cloaked the island of Kerma and to discern the portal to the sacred labyrinth. She could weave and unweave spells—and any thread she spun, any fabric she wove, was a joy to gaze upon. Her spell-weaving ability also gave her insight into the way words were woven together to produce language.

It took the power of all three bracelets used together to open the way into the labyrinth and the treasures it contained.

The queen raised a finger, but did not quite touch the magical wristlet. “Anyone with the Sight who saw that bracelet would know it for a thing of power,” she cautioned. “Greedy men would kill to possess it!”

“And greedy women, too, doubtless,” observed Taharka dryly. “Fear not, my queen. The wristlets have the power to conceal their true nature. Watch.” He touched the bracelet lightly with the fingers of his left hand, closed his eyes, and summoned its power. Tingling warmth enclosed his wrist. Taharka heard his wife gasp.

He opened his eyes, to see that his wristlet had changed. Now only a slim strip of woven grass encased his wrist, a bracelet such as a child might make in an afternoon for amusement. In the middle of the band of grass a small, flattened, hollowed-out pebble was threaded. The pebble was a common beach stone, smoothed by waves. Scratched into it were a few crude lines that, when studied from the correct angle, resembled the head of a lion.

“I did not know your bracelet could disguise itself,” the queen said.

“They all can,” the pharaoh replied. “Magic is an intrinsic part of them. But when we are given our lessons in using their powers by the priests, we are cautioned against lightly revealing them.” Taharka looked around at the palace, which stood on a rise, the first rank of the foothills leading to a ridge of mountains that nearly bisected the island, then down at Zerzura, gleaming white in the moonlight. “Of course here, in our own land, there is no need to invoke the power of disguise the wristlets bear. But out in the world, disguise will be necessary.”

Tiyy put a hand on her husband’s arm, just above his bracelet. “How long will it take you?” she asked anxiously. “I do not know…how long…” she trailed off, but Taharka knew what she was trying to say. Aniba had his good days, or even weeks, but his strength had been declining steadily. The prince might last two or three months, perhaps. He would not last six.

“I will be as swift as may be,” Taharka assured her. “It is early summer. The winds should be good. I will purchase passage on the fastest modern ship. Or perhaps I shall purchase a ship and crew. Once I am in the world, I will make the decisions necessary.”

He looked down at her. “Never doubt my love for you, or for our son. Rule our people well while I am gone, my queen. I will think of you, and Aniba, and Amenirdis and Shabako every day. If my thoughts were birds, my queen, the skies above Zerzura would be dark with them.”

The queen managed a wan smile. “It is a brave thing you do, my husband. You are a good father.”

Taharka bent his head and kissed her, tasting salt on her lips. She responded with such fervor that it was as if he had left and just returned, victorious. When he finally pulled back, it was only to murmur endearments and reassurances as she clung to him.

When they stepped apart, at long last, Queen Tiyy’s shoulders straightened. “Fear not for our land, my husband. I will rule our people and guard our treasure until your return. This I swear.”

The pharaoh nodded. His heart was too full for words. Together, the royal couple turned and walked back into the palace, their heads high, their strides measured and steady.

Behind them, the moonlight shone down on the harbor of the Shining City. The ocean waves gleamed and glimmered, black and silver, black and silver, until they met the shore, where they curled into fists of white froth.