"You continue to assist our demented Apollo," said Zeus. It was a flat statement, neither accusatory nor questioning, like a court clerk reading a charge.

 

I replied, "I continue to do what I must to revive the one called Athene."

 

"You have been warned, Orion," said Hera, her dark eyes flashing.

 

I made myself smile at her. "Would you destroy me, goddess? Put an end to me, at last? That would be a relief."

 

"You could be a long time dying," she purred.

 

"No!" snapped Zeus. "We're not here to threaten or punish. Our purpose is to find Apollo and stop his mad scheming before he destroys us all."

 

"And this creature," said the dark-haired Hermes, "knows where to find him."

 

"I'm not his keeper," I said.

 

"He certainly needs one," said burly Ares, chuckling at his own wit.

 

"We can open your brain, Orion, and fish out all your memories," Hera said.

 

"I'm sure you can. And many of them you'll find to be very painful."

 

Zeus waggled one hand impatiently. "You say that you don't know where the Golden One is."

 

"Yes, that's the truth."

 

"But could you find him for us?"

 

"So that you can destroy him?"

 

"What we do with him is of no concern to you, Orion," said Hera. "Considering how he's treated you, I should think you'd be happy to see him put out of the way."

 

"Can you revive Athene?" I asked.

 

Her gaze faltered, shifted away from me. The others looked uneasy, even Zeus.

 

"We're not here to talk about her," snapped the redhead. "It's Apollo we're after."

 

Before I could think out all the implications of it, I said, "I can lead you to him-after he has revived Athene."

 

"No one can revive her," blurted Hera, annoyed.

 

Zeus and the others glared at her.

 

I said, "After he has failed to revive her, then."

 

With a malicious smile, Hermes asked, "How do we know we can trust you?"

 

I shrugged. "Apparently you can find me when you want to. If you become convinced that I'm not living up to my end of the bargain, then do whatever you want with me. If Athene can't be revived, I'm not all that interested in living any longer."

 

Real sympathy seemed to fill Zeus's eyes. But Hera sneered skeptically, "And what of your current love, the beautiful Helen?"

 

"She loves me just as I love her," I answered. "As long as we are useful to one another, and no further."

 

Zeus ran a hand across his beard. "You will deliver Apollo to us when you are satisfied that he cannot revive Athene?"

 

"I will."

 

"We can't trust the word of a creature," said Hera. "This is madness! The longer we wait the more danger we..."

 

"Be quiet," said Zeus. He spoke softly, but Hera stopped in midsentence. Turning his gray eyes back to me, he said, "I will trust you, Orion. The fate of the continuum depends on your word. If you are false to us, it will mean not only your own destruction, and not only our destruction, but the end of this continuum-the utter ruination of the entire space-time in which we exist."

 

"You're going to let the Golden One play out his game at Jericho?" Ares was wide-eyed with incredulity. "You're going to feed his madness?"

 

"I am going to trust Orion," replied Zeus. "For the time being."

 

All three of the others started to speak at once, but I never heard what they said. Zeus smiled and nodded at me, then moved his right hand slightly.

 

And abruptly I was in the utter darkness of the tunnel's end, under the foundation of the main wall of Jericho.

 

I stood there trembling for several minutes. The end was in sight, I knew. They might not be able to track down the Golden One, but they certainly could keep track of me. The instant our paths crossed, they would jump and seize him, kill him, before he had the chance even to try to revive the goddess I had loved.

 

I forced my body to calm itself. The bitter perversity of the situation was almost laughable. I wanted to destroy the Golden One. They wanted to destroy the Golden One. But I had to protect him until he had made his attempt to revive Athene. I doubted that I could do that. And the more I thought about it, the more I despaired of his ability to bring her back to me.

 

Yet-he was clever enough, powerful enough, to elude their grasp. They could not find him, even though they knew that he was at work here at Jericho. They were in fear of him, in fear for their lives. Perhaps he was truly the most powerful among them. And, while they were trying to find him and destroy him, he was scheming to destroy them. I was caught in the middle of their Olympian struggle.

 

A faint sound startled me. A hooting, bleating noise. The ram's horn trumpets! Blinking, I realized that thin gray pencils of morning light were angling down into the cavern where I stood. Joshua had started up his parade again. It was time for the final stroke against Jericho.

 

I struck the flint and lit the torch, then put it to the piles of brushwood stacked against the wall's foundation. Dry as the desert in this season of heat, the bare twigs and branches burst into flame instantly. I backed away from the sudden heat, then realized that I had better get out of the tunnel as quickly as I could.

 

I ducked into the lower part of the tunnel and scuttled along like a four-limbed spider, the heat glowing at my back, reaching for me. I wondered if the fire would take the timbers that shored up the tunnel roof, trapping me in its collapse. I was crawling on my belly now, much slower than I wanted to be going. Dimly I remembered other lives, other deaths: in the boiling fury of a volcano's eruption, in the blazing maelstrom of a runaway nuclear reactor.

 

Smoke was making me cough. I kept my eyes closed; not that I could have seen anything in the pitch-blackness of the tunnel. I snaked forward, driven by the heat behind me and the hint of fresh air ahead.

 

Suddenly a pair of strong hands grabbed my wrists and I felt myself being pulled along the scrabbly ground. I opened my eyes and saw Lukka, tugging, grunting, swearing as he pulled me into the daylight and safety.

 

We got to our feet, surrounded by the Hatti soldiers. They were fully armed now, with shields and armor ready for battle.

 

"Is it working?" I asked Lukka.

 

He smiled grimly. "Come see for yourself."

 

We went together outside the tent and looked toward the city. Thin spirals of smoke were rising from the base of the wall. As I watched, they went from whitish-gray to a darker, more ominous color. The smoke thickened.

 

"The timbers must have caught," said Lukka.

 

Off around the curve of the wall, the Israelite priests still blew their horns, thumped their drums, clanged their cymbals. They chanted the praises of their Lord, and the people of Jericho stood atop their doomed wall, watching the display, jeering or laughing as they pleased.

 

I turned my gaze back toward the tents of the main Israelite camp. The men were forming up in ranks. They wore no uniforms, had precious little armor among them, but every man carried some sort of shield and either a sword or a spear. They were ready for battle.

 

As the procession of priests rounded the curve of the wall, Joshua gave the order for his men to march. I estimated there were several thousand of them, from teenagers to graybeards. They marched in step with the priests, although their parallel circuit was much farther from the wall, out of bowshot range.

 

The priests came within sight of the smoke issuing from the base of the wall and turned away, heading back toward the camp. The armed men turned toward the wall, as if expecting it to fall at their feet.

 

And it did.

 

As the army of the Israelites approached the wall, the smoke became even thicker and blacker. I could hear strange groaning sounds, as if some creature trapped beneath the earth were moaning for release. The people up on the parapets were pointing and gesticulating now. I heard screams of sudden terror.

 

Then, with a great grinding, thundering groan, the whole section of the wall caved in, collapsed in on itself in a roar of falling bricks. Clouds of red-gray dust blotted out the smoke and rolled out across the plain toward us.

 

A single trumpet note rang piercingly clear through the shuddering thunder and screaming shouts from the city. With a roar that shook the ground, the army of Israel charged across the field and swarmed across the pile of rubble and through the breach in Jericho's wall.

 

 

Chapter 32

 

I held Lukka and his men back for half the day, not wanting to risk them in the fighting. We had done our job, the battle belonged to the Israelites.

 

But by the time the sun was overhead Jericho was in flames, and even the imperturbable Lukka was quivering to get in on the looting.

 

I stood by the tent where our tunnel began and watched as clouds of ugly black smoke spread across the cloudless sky. Lukka's men sat or stood in what little shade they could find, casting questioning looks his way. Finally he turned to me.

 

Before he could speak, I said, "Be back at our tents by nightfall."

 

He gave me one of his rare grins and motioned for his men to follow him. They sprang up like eager wolf cubs, happy to be on the hunt.

 

I went with them as far as the demolished section of the wall, to see for myself what our work had accomplished. The wall was more than nine meters thick, where it still stood. The pile of tumbled bricks and rubble on which I picked my way felt hot, even through the soles of my boots. The fire was not out, it still smoldered deep below. Thin gray smoke issued from the lower cross-timbers in the sections of the wall on the other side of our breach. The fire would burn away at them for hours more, perhaps for days, I realized. Other parts of the wall would fall.

 

Inside the city, it was Troy all over again. The Israelites were like the Achaians in one way: they slaughtered and raped and pillaged and burned just as the barbarians of Argos and Ithaca and the other Achaian kingdoms did, on the plain of Ilios. The frenzy of bloodlust was in them, and no matter which god they worshiped or what name they gave him, they behaved like beasts rather than men.

 

Perhaps Helen is right, I thought. Perhaps in Egypt we will find civilized human beings, order and peace.

 

I clambered back over the hot rubble and made my way to my tent. To my surprise, Helen was holding court there, sitting outside the tent surrounded by more than two dozen of the Israelite women. I got close enough to hear a few of her words: "They will be filthy and bloody and filled with lust when they return. You should have scented water prepared to bathe them and soothe their raging blood."

 

"Scented water?" asked one of the women.

 

"In a tub?" another wondered.

 

Helen replied, "Yes, and let your servants bathe your husband..."

 

"Servants?" They all laughed.

 

Helen seemed nonplussed.

 

"But tell us," said one of the older women, "how do you use kohl to make your eyes seem larger?"

 

"And what charms do you use to keep a man faithful to you?"

 

I walked away, out of earshot, shaking my head in wonderment. While the men were following their savage instincts, murdering, burning, looting, the women were following their instincts, too, learning how to subdue and tame their men.

 

For some time I walked aimlessly among the tents. The only men in the camp were children or grandfathers. The women clustered in little groups, like those with Helen, whispering among themselves and occasionally glancing at the burning city.

 

"Orion," a strong voice hailed me.

 

I turned and saw Joshua standing in the shade cast by the striped awning extended over the front of his big tent. A humid breeze bellied the awning slightly and made the woven wool fabric strain against its creaking ropes. I could smell moisture in the breeze, and the sweet fragrance of date palms. The fire from the city was sucking up air from the river valley.

 

Several of the older priests reclined around Joshua on benches or the ground. They looked tired, spent, slightly ashamed.

 

"You have Jericho," I said to Joshua.

 

"Thanks to the Lord our God," he said, then added, "and to you."

 

I bowed my head slightly.

 

"You have performed a great service for the God of Israel and His people," said Joshua. "You will be rewarded amply."

 

"I appreciate the gratitude of your people." Somehow I could not bring myself to say that I was happy to have helped them. "In a day or so my men and I will continue on our way... southward."

 

He knew I meant Egypt. "You are certain that you want to go in that direction?"

 

"Quite certain."

 

"It is what she desires, isn't it?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Orion, why spend your life as a woman's slave? Stay with me! Be my strong right arm. There are other cities to consider. The Philistines on the coast are powerful enemies."

 

I looked into his deep, glittering eyes and saw the same burning light that glowed in the eyes of the Golden One. Madness? Or greatness? Both, I thought. Perhaps the one cannot exist without the other.

 

"I have no quarrel with the Philistines or anyone else," I said. "And I have my own reasons for going to Egypt."

 

"You are tied to a woman's skirts," he taunted.

 

I replied. "I seek a god in Egypt."

 

"A false god," Joshua snapped. "There is only one true God..."

 

"I know what you believe," I said, before he could go further, "and perhaps you are right. Perhaps the god I seek in Egypt is the same one that you worship."

 

"Then why seek him in a land of slavery and tyranny?"

 

"Egypt is a civilized land," I countered.

 

Joshua spat at my feet. One of the old white-bearded priests who had been listening to us climbed arthritically to his feet and, leaning on a staff, pointed a bony finger at me.

 

"Egypt civilized? A land where the king orders the murder of every Israelite baby girl, simply because his ministers have told him that our numbers are growing too fast? That is civilization?" His weak old voice trembled with anger. "A land where our whole nation was enslaved to build monuments to the tyrant who slaughtered our infants?"

 

I blinked at him, not knowing how to answer.

 

"We fled from Egypt," said Joshua, "with nothing but the clothes on our backs and what little goods we could carry. Their king sent his army to find us and bring us back. Only the miracle of our Lord God saved us and allowed us to escape. We spent years wandering in the wilderness of Sinai, willing to starve and go thirsty in the desert rather than return to slavery. No, Orion, do not think that Egypt is civilized."

 

"But I must go there," I insisted.

 

"To find the God who in truth resides among us? Stay with us, and God will bless you."

 

"The god I seek is worshiped by many peoples, in many ways. To some he is the god of the sun..."

 

"There is only one true God," the old priest intoned. "All other gods are false."

 

"He told me to seek him in Egypt," I blurted, nearing exasperation.

 

The old priest staggered back from me. Joshua's face went white.

 

"God spoke to you?"

 

"This god did."

 

"In a dream?"

 

I raised my arm to point at the distant riverbank. "There, by the river, a few nights ago."

 

"Blasphemy!" hissed the old priest, pulling at his long white beard.

 

Joshua shook his head, an almost smugly understanding expression on his face. "It was not the God of Israel you saw, Orion. It was a man, or a false vision."

 

By definition, as far as he was concerned. All very neat. I decided it was senseless to argue with them. If they knew that the god they worshiped was the one I had promised myself to kill, they would have torn me to pieces on the spot. Or tried to.

 

"Perhaps," I conceded. "Nevertheless, I must go to Egypt."

 

Joshua said, "That is a mistake, Orion. You will be better off staying with us."

 

"I can't," I said.

 

Joshua said nothing in reply. He merely spread his hands in a vaguely dismissive gesture. I took my leave of him and headed back toward my own tent, my insides churning with the realization that Joshua was not going to allow us to leave-willingly.

 

As night spread its dark cloak over the ruin of Jericho, the men came tottering back to camp, stained with blood and carrying the riches of the oldest city in the world. In twos and threes they made their way back to their tents, where their women waited for them. The men were silent and grim, the memories of their atrocities just beginning to burn themselves into their consciences. The women were silent, too, knowing better than to ask any questions.

 

Lukka brought his two dozen soldiers back in a group, each of them staggering under a load of silks, blankets, armor, weaponry, jewels, even precious carvings of ivory and jade.

 

"We will enter Egypt as rich men," he said to me proudly, once the loot was arrayed at my feet by the light of our campfire.

 

Softly, I said to him, "If we enter Egypt at all, it will be despite the efforts of Joshua and his people."

 

Lukka stared at me, his dour face half hidden in the flickering shadows thrown by the fire.

 

"Keep the men together, and be ready to move swiftly when I give the word," I told him.

 

He nodded curtly and immediately started the men packing up the loot and storing it in our wagons.

 

Helen was more impatient than ever to leave, and when I told her of my misgivings, she demanded, "Then we must flee now, this night, while they are drunk with their victory and sleeping without sentries posted."

 

"And what about the next morning, when they find we've left? They could easily overtake us and force us to return."

 

"Lukka and his soldiers could hold them off while we escaped," she said.

 

"And die giving us a few hours' head start on our pursuers?" I shook my head. "We'll leave, but only when I've convinced Joshua to let us go."

 

She grew angry, but realized there was no other way.

 

That night I slept without dreams, without visiting the realm of the Creators. But in the morning I had formed a plan for dealing with Joshua. It was simple, perhaps even crude. I hoped it would work.

 

All that day was given to ceremonies of thanksgiving and atonement, the priests singing hymns of praise to their god in melodies that sounded somehow mournful and melancholy. The people of Israel arrayed themselves in their finest garments, many of them taken from Jericho, and gathered in ranks, tribe by tribe, and joined in the singing. I saw that although the words of their hymns were directed at their invisible god, their eyes were directed toward Joshua when they sang words of praise. He stood before them, decked in a long robe of many colors, silently acknowledging their homage.

 

By sunset the people had split up into their tribal and family units, each gathering around their own fires, and the singing was lighter, happier, songs of the home and the people themselves. Dancing started here and there, men and women in separate circles, laughing and weaving around their fires as they stamped their feet on the dusty ground.

 

Ben-Jameen sent a boy to invite me to his family's tent, but I politely declined, since his invitation did not include Helen. Israelite men and women ate separately, of course, just as they danced.

 

I was waiting for Joshua's summons, and sure enough, as we were finishing dinner, a young man in a newly acquired bronze cuirass approached our fire and told me that Joshua wished to have words with me.

 

I told Helen and Lukka to be ready to leave, then followed the young Israelite to his leader's tent.

 

Joshua's tent was crammed with the spoils of Jericho: beautiful cypress chests inlaid with bone and ivory and packed to the brim with fine clothing, piles of draperies and blankets, tables sagging under loads of gilded plates and goblets, intricately engraved daggers, swords and armor, enamelware, pottery and wine jugs, heaps of jewelry and carvings.

 

I took it all in with one swift glance, then looked up to Joshua. He was sitting on a mound of pillows at the far end of the tent, dressed in splendid robes like an oriental potentate. With a wave of his hand, he dismissed the three serving girls, who ran past me on bare feet, leaving us alone in the tent.

 

"Take your pick," said Joshua, gesturing grandly toward the loot. "Whatever you want is yours. And take some jewelry for your beautiful companion."

 

I walked past the treasures, straight to him, and sat on the carpeting at his feet.

 

"Joshua, I neither want nor need any of this. I want you to live up to your promise, and let us go in peace now that we have helped you conquer Jericho."

 

There was no wine in sight. His hands were empty, his eyes clear. But he seemed almost drunk. Perhaps with victory. Perhaps with visions of future conquests.

 

"God has placed you in my hand, Orion," he said. "It would displease Him if I let you go."

 

"You speak for your god now?"

 

His eyes narrowed angrily. But he replied mildly enough, "Our next objective will be the Amalekites. They threaten our flank, and must be destroyed utterly."

 

"No," I said.

 

"You and your Hittite warriors are too valuable to give up," Joshua said. "Not while there are so many enemies around us."

 

"We must leave."

 

He raised a placating hand. "When we have made this region peaceful. When the Children of Israel can live here safely, without being threatened by their neighbors. Then you can leave."

 

"That could take years," I said.

 

He shrugged. "It is in God's hands, not mine."

 

I made myself smile at him. "Joshua, surely you of all men can understand the yearning of a man to be free. I have no desire to be a slave to you or your god."

 

"A slave?" He pointed toward the loot again. "Is a slave rewarded so handsomely?"

 

"A man who is not free to go where he wishes is a slave, no matter how many trinkets his master offers him."

 

He ran his fingers through the curls of his beard. "Then I'm afraid you will be a slave for a while longer, Orion. You and your Hittite soldiers."

 

"That cannot be," I insisted.

 

"If you resist," Joshua warned, his voice as mild as if he were discussing the weather, "your men will pay for your stubbornness. And your beautiful woman."

 

I had expected this so exactly that I was not even mildly surprised. Not even angry. I simply got to my feet and looked down at him.

 

"Ben-Jameen tells me," I said, "that your god struck the Egyptians with many plagues before their king would allow you to leave the land. I can't promise you plagues, but you will be sorry that you force us to stay."

 

Joshua's face turned deep red, whether from anger or shame I did not know. I left him sitting there and made my way back to my own tent.

 

Lukka and Helen both asked me eagerly if we were leaving.

 

"At dawn," I answered. "Now get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a hard day."

 

 

Chapter 33

 

HELEN was right about the Israelites' laxness that night. Jericho's men were slaughtered; the city's women and children cowered in the blackened remains of their burned and looted homes. There was no need for guards or sentries. The Israelites slept soundly after a day of ceremonies and celebration.

 

I picked my way silently through the darkness toward Joshua's tent. The only light came from the smoldering embers of campfires and the splendor of stars overhead. The hazy glow of the Milky Way split the heavens, and as I glanced upward I wondered once again which of those stars my love and I had been heading for when we died.

 

No time for memories. No time for bitterness. I reached Joshua's tent and stepped over the bodies of the servants sleeping just outside its entrance.

 

It was pitch-dark inside the tent. I felt my way toward Joshua, guided by the faint heat radiating from his body. Like a pit viper, I laughed to myself, although my heat-sensing abilities were mere vagaries compared to the refined sensitivities of a rattlesnake. Nonetheless, I sensed a faint emanation from the far end of the tent and groped toward it.

 

I made out Joshua's sleeping form when I was a few feet from him. He lay on his side, his back to me, stretched out on the pillows where I had seen him a few hours earlier, still wearing his splendid robes.

 

He slept alone. Good.

 

I reached out and clamped my left hand over his mouth. He awoke instantly and started to thrash out with his arms and legs. I leaned my right forearm against his windpipe and whispered: "Do you want the angel of death to visit this tent?"

 

His eyes went wide. He recognized me and became still.

 

Without taking my hand from his mouth I pulled him to his feet and said, "You and I are taking a little journey."

 

Then I concentrated on shifting to the realm of the Creators. I closed my eyes for a moment and felt that instant of piercing cold, then the warmth that glowed all around us. Joshua was still in my grasp, my left hand over his mouth, my right gripping his shoulder.

 

We stood on a height overlooking a vast domed city. The entire landscape was bathed in golden radiance, and I realized that for the first time I could see details of this realm with some clarity. The city spread out below us was a wonderland of graceful towers and spires, all within the protective curve of a huge transparent dome.

 

Joshua's eyes were bugging out of his head. I took my hand away from his mouth, but no words came from him. He simply stared, his jaw hanging open.

 

"Orion, really! This is too much!"

 

I turned to see the slim dark-haired Hermes.

 

"Now you're bringing other creatures along with you," he scolded. "If any of the others see this..."

 

"You mean you don't tell them everything?" I gibed back at him.

 

He grinned. "Not immediately. We have no secrets among ourselves, of course; information is shared whether we like it or not. But if I were you, I would get out of here before the others decide you're becoming too bold."

 

"Thank you. I will."

 

"See to it," he said, and disappeared.

 

Joshua's knees gave way and I had to prop him up. With a final glance around, to register every detail as firmly in my mind as I could, I closed my eyes again and willed us back to where we had come from.

 

I opened my eyes in the darkness of Joshua's tent. He was collapsed in my arms, trembling uncontrollably.

 

"When dawn comes," I said, "I and my people will leave your camp. We have served you faithfully, and I expect you to live up to your side of our bargain. If you try to hinder us in any way, I will come to you in the night and send you to that golden land once again-and leave you there forever."

 

I let Joshua sag back onto his pillows and strode out of his tent. That was the last time I saw him.

 

 

BOOK III: EGYPT

Chapter 34

 

HELEN was right: Egypt was civilization. Even Lukka was impressed. "The towns have no walls around them," he marveled.

 

We had trekked across the rocky wilderness of Sinai, threading our way through mountain passes and across sands that burned beneath the pitiless sun, lured westward by the goal of Egypt. The scattered tribes of the Sinai were suspicious of strangers, yet their laws of hospitality were stronger than their fears. We were not exactly welcomed by the nomadic herders we came across, but we were tolerated, fed, given water, and wished heartfelt good-speed when we departed from their tents.

 

I always gave them some small token from our treasures: an amber cameo from Troy, a leaf-thin stone drinking cup from Jericho. The nomads accepted such trinkets solemnly; they knew their worth, but more, they appreciated the fact that we understood the obligations of a guest as well as those of a host.

 

Still, the heat and barrenness of that wasteland took their toll. Three of our men died of fever. The oxen that pulled our wagons collapsed, one after the other, as did several of our horses. We replaced them with hardy little asses and treacherous evil-smelling camels bought from the nomads in exchange for jewels and fine weapons. We left the lumbering carts behind and piled our possessions onto the donkeys and asses.

 

Helen bore the strain better than most of the men. She now rode atop a braying, barely tamed camel, in a swaying palanquin of silks that kept the sun off her. We all became bone-thin, parched of fat and moisture by the pitiless sun. Yet Helen kept her beauty; she needed no makeup or fine clothes. She never complained about the hardships of the desert; better than any of us, she realized that each step we took brought us closer to Egypt.

 

I did not complain, either. It would have done no good. And my goal was also Egypt and the great pyramid where I would meet the Golden One once more and make him return my beloved to me.

 

The morning finally came when our tiny band saw a palm tree waving on the horizon. To me it looked as if it were beckoning to us, telling us that our journey was nearly ended. We kicked our horses and camels to their best speed, the donkeys trailing behind us, and soon saw the land turning green before our eyes.

 

Trees and cultivated fields greeted us. Half-naked men and women bent over the crops, toiling amid an intricate network of narrow irrigation canals. In the distance I could see a river flowing.

 

"The Nile," said Helen, from the camel on which she rode. One of the Hittites was driving it, and she had made him pull it up beside me.

 

I turned in my makeshift saddle-merely a few blankets folded beneath me-and glanced back at her. "One of its arms, at least. This must be the delta country, where the river splits up into many branches."

 

The peasants took no notice of us. We were a band of armed men, too few to mean much to them, too many to question. We found a road soon enough and it led to the delta city of Tahpanhes.

 

Lukka was surprised at the lack of a defensive wall; I was surprised at how large a city it was. Where Troy and Jericho had huddled closely over a few acres, Tahpanhes sprawled nearly a mile across. I doubted that its population was much larger than Jericho's, but its people lived in spacious airy houses that dotted wide, straight avenues.

 

We found an inn near the edge of the town, a low set of dried-brick buildings arranged around a central courtyard where stately palms and willows provided shade against the constant sun. A grape arbor also stretched its trellises across one section of the courtyard. There was an orchard on the river side of the inn; the stables were on the other side. Depending on which way the wind blew, the atmosphere could be scented with lemons and pomegranates or with horse manure and the annoying buzz of flies.

 

The innkeeper was overjoyed at receiving two dozen travel-weary guests. He was a short, round, bald, jovial man of middle age who constantly held his hands clasped over his ample belly. His skin was as dark as Lukka's cloak, his eyes like two glittering pieces of coal-especially when he was engaged in his favorite pursuit, estimating how much he could charge for his services.

 

The innkeeper's staff was his family, a wife who was just as dark as her rotund husband and even fatter than he, and a dozen dark-skinned children ranging in age from about twenty to barely six. And cats. I counted ten of them in the courtyard alone, watching us with slitted eyes, padding silently atop the balcony rail or along the dirt floor. The innkeeper's children scampered sweatily, helping to unload our possessions, tend our animals, show us to our rooms. There was not an ounce of fat on any of the children.

 

I found that I could speak the language of Egypt as easily as any other. If Lukka marveled at my gift of tongues, he kept it to himself. Helen took it for granted, even though she could speak only her own Achaian tongue and the dialect of it spoken at Troy.

 

Once we were unpacked and comfortably settled in our rooms, I found the innkeeper at the outdoor kitchen, shouting orders to two teenaged girls who were baking loaves of round flat bread in the beehive-shaped oven. They wore only loincloths against the heat of the oven; their bare young breasts were firm and lovely, their lithe dark bodies covered with a sheen of sweat.

 

If the innkeeper objected to my seeing his daughters bare-breasted, he made no show of it. In fact, he smiled at me and tilted his head toward them when he noticed me standing at the entrance in the wall that surrounded the open-roofed kitchen.

 

"My wife insists that they learn to cook properly," he said, without preamble. "It is necessary if they are to catch husbands, she says. I believe other skills are necessary, eh?" He laughed suggestively.

 

Apparently he was not opposed to offering his daughters to his guests, a fact that Lukka would appreciate. I ignored his insinuation, though, and said: "I have brought these men to your land to offer their services to the king."

 

"The mighty Merneptah? He resides in Wast, far up the river."

 

"My men are professional soldiers from the land of the Hittites. They seek service with your king."

 

The innkeeper's smile vanished. "Hittites? They have been our enemies..."

 

"The Hittite empire no longer exists. These men are without employment. Is there a representative of the king in this city? Some official or officer of the army that I can speak to?"

 

He bobbed his round bald head hard enough to make his cheeks bounce. "The king's overseer. He is here, in the courtyard, waiting to see you."

 

I said nothing, but allowed the innkeeper to lead me to the courtyard. The king's overseer was already here at the inn to look us over. The innkeeper must have sent one of his children running to him the instant we rode up to his door.

 

Several cats slinked out of our way as the fat innkeeper led me along a columned hallway and through a side entrance into the courtyard. Sitting in the shade of the grape arbor was a gray-haired man with a thin, hollow-cheeked face, clean shaven, as all the Egyptians were. He rose to his feet as I approached him. He was no taller than the innkeeper, the top of his gray head hardly reached my shoulder. His skin was a shade lighter, though, and he was as slim as a sword blade. His face was serious, his eyes unwaveringly studying me as I approached. He wore a cool white caftan so light that I could see through it to the short skirt beneath. He carried no weapons that I could see. His only emblem of office was a gold medallion on a chain around his neck.

 

Suddenly I felt distinctly grubby. I still wore the leather kilt and harness I had been wearing for many months, under a light vest. From long habit I still carried a dagger strapped to my thigh, beneath the kilt. My clothes were worn and travel-stained. I needed a bath and a shave, and I wondered if I should try to stay downwind from this obviously civilized man.

 

"I am Nefertu, servant of King Merneptah, ruler of the Two Lands," he said, keeping his hands at his sides.

 

"I am Orion," I replied.

 

There were two wooden benches beneath the arbor's twining vines. Nefertu gestured for me to sit. He is polite, I thought, or perhaps he simply feels uncomfortable stretching his neck to look up at me. My head grazed the grape vines.

 

Our genial host scuttled out of the kitchen area with a tray that bore a stone pitcher beaded with condensation, two handsome stoneware drinking cups, and a small bowl heaped with wrinkled black olives. He placed the tray down on a small wooden table within Nefertu's easy reach, then bowed and smiled his way back to the kitchen. Nefertu poured the wine and offered me a cup. We drank together. The wine was poor, thin and acid, but it was cold and for that I felt grateful.

 

"You are not a Hittite," he said calmly, putting down his cup. His voice was low and measured, like a man accustomed to speaking to those both below and above his station.

 

"No," I admitted. "I come from far away."

 

He listened patiently to my story of Troy and Jericho and Lukka's men who sought service with his king. He showed no surprise at the fall of the Hittite empire. But when I spoke of the Israelites at Jericho his eyes widened slightly.

 

"These are the slaves that our king Merneptah drove across the Sea of Reeds?"

 

"The same," I said, "although they say that they fled Egypt and your king tried to recapture them but failed."

 

The shadow of a smile flickered across Nefertu's thin lips. It passed immediately and he asked with some earnestness, "And now these same people have conquered Jericho?"

 

"They have. They believe that their god has given them the entire land of Canaan, and their destiny is to rule over it all."

 

Nefertu smiled again, slightly, like a man who appreciated an ironic situation. "They may form a useful buffer between our border and the tribes of Asia," he mused. "This news must be passed on to the pharaoh."

 

We talked for hours, there in the shaded corner of the courtyard. I learned that pharaoh, as Nefertu used the word, meant essentially "the government," the king's house, his administration. Egypt had been under attack for years now by what he called the Peoples of the Sea, warriors from the European mainland and Aegean islands who raided the coastal and delta cities from time to time. He considered Agamemnon and his Achaians to be Peoples of the Sea, barbarians. He saw the fall of Troy as a blow against civilization, and I agreed with him-although I did not tell him how I had defied the Golden One to bring about Troy's destruction.

 

Nor did I tell him that the woman who traveled with me was Queen Helen, nor that her rightful husband, Menalaos, was seeking her. I spoke only of the wars I had seen, and of my band's desire to join the service of his king.

 

"The army always needs men," Nefertu said. Our wine was long gone, nothing was left of the olives but a pile of pits, and the setting sun was throwing long shadows across the courtyard. The wind had shifted; flies from the stables were buzzing about us pesteringly. Still, he did not call for a slave to stand by us with a fan to shoo them away.

 

"Would foreigners be allowed in the army?" I asked.

 

His ironic little smile returned. "The army is hardly anything except foreigners. Most of the sons of the Two Lands lost their thirst for military glory long ages ago."

 

"Then the Hittites would be accepted?"

 

"Accepted? They would be welcomed, especially if they have the engineering skills you spoke of."

 

He told me to wait at the inn until he could get word to Wast, the capital city, far to the south. I expected to stay in Tahpanhes for many weeks, but the following day Nefertu came back to the inn and told me that the king's own general wanted to see these men from the Hittite army.

 

"He is here in Tahpanhes?" I asked.

 

"No, he is at the capital, at the great court of Merneptah, in Wast."

 

I blinked with surprise. "Then how did you get a message..."

 

Nefertu laughed, a gentle, truly pleased laughter. "Orion, we worship Amon above all gods, the glorious sun himself. He speeds our messages along the length and breadth of our land-on mirrors that catch his light."

 

A solar telegraph. I laughed too. How obvious, once explained. Messages could flash up and down the Nile with the speed of light, almost.

 

"You are to bring your men to Wast," said Nefertu. "And I am to accompany you. It will be my first visit to the capital in many years. I must thank you for this opportunity, Orion."

 

I accepted his thanks with a slight bow of my head.

 

Helen was overjoyed that we were going to the capital.

 

"There's no guarantee that we will see the king," I warned her.

 

She dismissed such caution with a casual wave of her hand. "Once he realizes that the Queen of Sparta and former princess of Troy is in his city he will demand to see me."

 

I grinned at her. "Once he realizes that Menalaos may raid his coast in his effort to find you, he may demand that you be returned to Sparta."

 

She frowned at me.

 

That night, though, as we lay together in the sagging down-filled bed of the inn, Helen turned to me and asked, "What will happen when you deliver me to the Egyptian king?"

 

I smiled at her in the shadows cast by the moonlight and stroked her golden hair. "He will undoubtedly fall madly in love with you. Or at least marry you to one of his sons."

 

But she was in no mood for levity. "You don't really think he would send me back to Menalaos, do you?"

 

Despite the fact that I thought such a move was possible, I answered, "No, of course he wouldn't. How could he? You come to him seeking his protection. He couldn't deny a queen. These people regard the Achaians as their enemies; they won't force you to return to Sparta."

 

Helen lay back on her pillow. Staring up at the ceiling, she asked, "And what of you, Orion? Will you stay with me?"

 

Almost, I wished that I could. "No," I said softly, so low that I barely heard my own voice. "I can't."

 

"Where will you go?"

 

"To find my goddess," I whispered.

 

"But you said that she is dead."

 

"I will try to revive her, to return her to life."

 

"You will enter Hades to seek her?" Helen's voice sounded alarmed, fearful. She turned toward me again and clutched at my bare shoulder. "Orion, you mustn't take such a risk! Orpheos himself..."

 

I silenced her with a finger against her lips. "Don't be frightened. I have already died many times, and returned to the world of the living. If there truly is a Hades, I have yet to see it."

 

She stared at me as if seeing a ghost, or worse, a blasphemer.

 

"Helen," I said, "your destiny is here, in Egypt. My destiny is elsewhere, in a domain where the people you call gods hold sway. They are not gods, not in the sense you think. They are very powerful, but they are neither immortal nor very caring about us humans. One of them killed the woman I love. I will try to bring her back to life. Failing that, I will try to avenge her murder. That is my destiny."

 

"Then you love her, and not me?"

 

That surprised me. For a moment I had no answer. Finally I cupped her chin in my hand and said, "Only a goddess could keep me from loving you, Helen."

 

"But I love you, Orion. You are the only man I have given myself to willingly. I love you! I don't want to lose you!"

 

A wave of sadness surged through me, and I thought how pleasantly I could live in this timeless land with this incomparably beautiful woman.

 

But I said, "Our destinies take us in different directions, Helen. I wish it were otherwise, but no one can outrun his fate."

 

She did not cry. Yet her voice was brimming with tears as she said, "Helen's destiny is to be desired by every man who sees her, except the one man she truly loves."

 

I closed my eyes and tried to shut out all the worlds. Why couldn't I love this beautiful woman? Why couldn't I be like an ordinary man and live out my years in a single lifetime, loving and being loved, instead of striving to battle against the forces of the continuum? I knew the answer. I was not free. No matter how I struggled, I was still the creature of the Golden One, still his Hunter, sent here to do his work. I might rebel against him, but even then my life was tied to his whim.

 

And then I saw the gray-eyed woman I truly loved, and realized that not even Helen could compare to her. I remembered our brief moment together and my mind filled with grief and pain. My destiny was linked forever with hers, through all the universes, through all of time. If she could not be brought back to life, then life meant nothing to me and I wanted the final death for myself.

 

 

Chapter 35

 

THE next morning we started our river journey to Wast, the capital. I felt drained, emotionally and physically. The long trek across the Sinai had taken its toll of my body, and now Helen's sad eyes and drooping spirits were assailing my spirit.

 

Once our broad-beamed boat pushed away from the dock, though, and its lateen sail filled with wind, we at least had the sights and sounds and smells of a new and fascinating land to occupy our minds. If Lukka was surprised at cities without walls to defend them, we were all constantly awed and delighted at what we saw of Egypt on our long trip up the Nile.

 

Nefertu was our host, our guardian, and our guide. The boat he had requisitioned had forty oars, and enclosed cabins for Helen and me, and for himself. A single lateen-rigged sail propelled us against the mighty river's current most of the time, driven by an almost constant northerly wind. The rowers were seldom needed. They were not slaves, I noticed, but soldiers who looked for commands not to the ship's captain but to Nefertu himself.

 

I smiled inwardly. This very civilized man had brought forty armed men along to make certain that we got where we were supposed to go, without fail. It was a subtle show of strength, meant to ensure that nothing went wrong during this journey, without alarming us or making us feel that we were under guard.

 

But if Nefertu was capable of subtlety, the land we saw from the boat's deck was just the opposite. Egypt was big, grand, imposing, awe-inspiring.

 

The Nile was its life stream, flowing a thousand miles from its headlands far to the south. On either side of the river we could see bare cliffs of limestone and granite, and desert beyond. But along the thin ribbon of the life-giving water, there were green fields and swaying trees and mighty cities.

 

It took a whole day to pass a typical Egyptian city, stretched out along the river's bank. We passed busy docks and warehouses, granaries where long lines of wagons unloaded the golden harvests of the land. Imposing temples stood at the water's edge, their stairs leading down to stone piers where many boats brought worshipers and supplicants.

 

"This is nothing," said Nefertu one afternoon as we glided past still another city. "Wait until we come upon Menefer."

 

We were eating a light dinner of dates, figs, and thin slices of sweet melon. Being civilized, Nefertu found it pleasant to have Helen dine with us. He spoke the Achaian tongue fairly well, and refrained from using his own language when Helen was present.

 

 

She asked, "What are the small buildings on the other side of the river?"

 

I too had noticed that the cities were invariably on the eastern bank, but there were small structures scattered along the opposite bank wherever a city existed, many of them carved into the rock face of the cliffs that lined the river valley.

 

"Are they temples?" Helen asked, before Nefertu could answer her first question.

 

"Of a kind, my lady," he replied. "They are tombs. The dead are embalmed and placed in tombs to await their next life, surrounded by the foods and possessions they will need when they awaken once more."

 

Helen's beautiful face betrayed her skepticism, despite what I had told her of myself. "You believe that people live more than one life?"

 

I kept my silence. I have led many lives, gone through death many times only to find myself revived in some strange and distant time. Not all humans lived more than once, I had been told. I found myself envying those who could close their eyes and make an end of it.

 

Nefertu smiled politely. "Egypt is an ancient land, my lady. Our history goes back thousands of years, to the time when the gods created the Earth and gave this gift of Mother Nile to our ancestors. Some of those tombs you see are a thousand years old; some are even older. You will find that our people are more concerned with death and the afterlife than with life itself."

 

"I should think so," Helen said, gazing back at the distant colonnaded buildings. "In Argos only the kings have such splendid tombs."

 

The Egyptian's smile broadened. "You have seen nothing of splendor as yet. Wait until Menefer."

 

The days passed easily. We drifted up the Nile, the steady north wind bellying our sail almost constantly. At night we tied up at a pier, but we slept aboard the boat. Lukka and his men were allowed to visit the cities where we stopped overnight, and Nefertu's guards introduced them to two of Egypt's most ancient entertainments: beer and prostitution. The men were becoming comrades, soldiers who would drink and whore together until they might be ordered to fall upon one another with naked swords.

 

Helen adopted the ship's cat, a pure white one that sauntered along the deck with a lordly air and permitted humans it especially favored to offer it food. The Egyptians regarded the cat as a mini-god; Helen was pleased that it allowed her to pet it-occasionally.

 

Then one morning I awoke just as the sun was rising above the cliffs to the east. Far in the distance I saw a glow on the western horizon. For an instant my heart stopped: I waited for the glow to expand and engulf me, to bring me face to face with the Golden One once more.

 

Yet it did not. It simply hovered on the horizon like a distant beacon. What its meaning was, I could not tell. I had not been summoned to the domain of the Creators since we had left the smoldering ruins of Jericho. I had not sought their realm. I knew I would meet them again in Egypt and either I would destroy the Golden One or he would destroy me. I was content to wait until that moment arrived.

 

But what was that strange beacon on the western horizon?

 

"You see it."

 

I turned, and Nefertu was standing at my side.

 

"What is it?" I asked.

 

He shook his head slowly. "Words cannot explain it. You will see for yourself."

 

Through the hours of early morning our boat sailed toward the light. We came upon the city of Menefer, a vast stretch of mighty stone buildings that towered along the Nile's eastern bank: temples and obelisks that reared into the cloudless sky, piers that dwarfed anything we had seen before, long colonnaded avenues lined with palms and eucalyptus trees, palaces with gardens and even groves of trees planted on their roofs.

 

All this we hardly noticed. One by one, every person on the boat turned eyes to the west and to the incredible sight that stood there.

 

"The great pyramid of Khufu," said Nefertu, in a whisper. Even he was awed by it. "It has stood for more than a thousand years. It will stand until the end of time."

 

It was an enormous pyramid of dazzling white, so huge and massive that it beggared all comparison. There were other pyramids nearby, and a great stone carving of a sphinx rested to one side, as if guarding the approach. Colonnaded temples flanked the road that led to the great pyramid; they looked like tiny doll houses next to its ponderous immensity.

 

The pyramid was faced entirely with gleaming white stone, polished so perfectly that I could almost make out the reflection of the sphinx in it. The cap, big enough to hold Priam's palace, but merely the tip of this awesome structure, blazed in the sunlight. It was made of electrum, an alloy of gold and silver, Nefertu told me. That is what had caught the morning sun when it had first arisen.

 

This was the place where I was to meet the Golden One. This is where I had to be to revive Athene. Yet our boat glided past.

 

As I watched, the dazzling white surface of the pyramid facing us slowly began to change. A great eye appeared, black against the white stones, and stared directly at us. A moan went up from everyone aboard, including me. Several of the Hittites fell to their knees. I felt the hairs on my arms standing on end.

 

Nefertu touched my shoulder, the first time he had put a hand on me.

 

"Do not be afraid," he said. "It is an effect caused by the sun and certain small stones that have been set out along the pyramid's face to cast a shadow when the sun is at the proper angle. It is like a sundial, except that it shows the Eye of Amon."

 

I tore my gaze away from the optical illusion and looked down at Nefertu. His face was grave, almost solemn. He was not laughing at the awe and fear he saw in the faces of his barbarian visitors.

 

"As I told you earlier," he said, almost apologetically, "there are no words that can explain the great pyramid, or prepare you for your first sight of it."

 

I nodded dumbly. It was difficult to find my voice.

 

The great Eye of Amon disappeared as quickly as it had opened, along about noon. Shortly afterward, the figure of a hawk manifested itself on the southward face of the pyramid. We spent the entire day watching the pyramid; not one of us could tear our eyes away from it for very long.

 

"It is the tomb of Khufu, one of our greatest kings, who lived more than a thousand years ago," Nefertu explained. "Within its mighty stones is the king's burial chamber, and other chambers for his treasures and retainers. In those bygone days, the king's household servants were sealed into the pyramid along with his embalmed body, so that they might serve him properly when he arose."

 

"The servants were sealed in alive?" I asked.

 

Nefertu said, "Alive. They went willingly, we are told, out of their great love for their master, and in the knowledge that they would be with him in the afterlife."

 

The expression on his lean face was difficult to read. Did he believe these stories, or was he merely transmitting the official line to me?

 

"I would like to see the great pyramid," I said.

 

"You have just seen it."

 

"I mean close up. Perhaps it is possible to enter..."

 

"No!" It was the sharpest word Nefertu had ever spoken to me. "The pyramid is a sacred tomb. It is guarded night and day against those who would defile it. No one may enter the tomb without the special permission of the king himself."

 

I bowed my head in silent acquiescence, while thinking to myself, I won't wait for the king's permission. I will enter the tomb and find the Golden One waiting for me inside it. And I will do it tonight.

 

Our boat finally docked at a massive stone pier on the southern end of the city. As usual, Lukka and his men went out into the city with Nefertu's guards. But I noticed that there were other guards from the city itself standing at the end of the pier. They would not allow anyone to pass unless Nefertu or some other official permitted it.

 

Helen, Nefertu, and I had dinner together aboard the boat: fish and lamb and good wine, all brought in from the city.

 

Nefertu told us many tales about the great pyramid and the huge city of Menefer. Once it had been the capital of Egypt-which he always referred to as the Kingdom of the Two Lands. Originally called the City of the White Wall, when Menefer became the capital of the kingdom its name was changed to Ankhtawy, which means "Holding the Two Lands Together." Since the capital had been moved south, to Wast, the city's name was changed to Menefer, meaning "Harmonious Beauty."

 

To Helen, speaking Achaian, the city's name was Memphis.

 

Impatiently I listened to their conversation as they dawdled over dinner. Finally it was finished and Nefertu bid us good night. Helen and I spent another hour or so simply staring at the city or, across the river, at the great pyramid and the other pyramids flanking it.

 

Khufu's massive tomb seemed to glow with hidden light even long after the sun had gone down. It was as if some eerie form of energy was being generated within those titanic stones and radiating out into the night.

 

"It must have been built by the gods," said Helen, whispering in the warm night as she pressed her body close to mine. "Mortal men could never have built anything so huge."

 

I put my arm around her. "Nefertu says that men built it, and the others. Thousands of men, working like ants."

 

"Only gods or titans could build such a thing," Helen insisted.

 

I recalled the Trojans and Achaians who believed that the walls of Troy had been built by Apollo and Poseidon. The memory, and Helen's stubborn insistence, put a slightly bitter tang in my mouth. Why do people want to believe that they themselves are not capable of great feats? Why do they ascribe greatness to their gods, who are in truth no wiser or kinder than any wandering shepherd?

 

I walked Helen across the width of the boat's deck, so that we were facing the city.

 

"And this mighty pier? Did the gods build this? It's far longer than the walls of Troy. And the obelisk at its end? The temples and villas we saw today? Did the gods build them?"

 

She laughed softly. "Orion, you're being silly. Of course not; gods don't stoop to building such mundane things."

 

"Then if the mortal men of this land could build such giant structures, why couldn't they build the pyramids? There's nothing terribly mysterious about them; they're just bigger than the buildings of the city-it took more manpower and time to build them."

 

 

She dismissed my blasphemy with bantering. "For a man who claims he serves a goddess, Orion, you certainly show scant respect to the immortals."

 

I had to agree. I felt scant respect to those who had created this world and its people. They felt scant respect for us, torturing and killing us for whatever strange purposes moved them.

 

Helen sensed my moodiness and tried to soothe me with lovemaking. For a few moments I forgot everything and allowed my body to blot out all my memories and desires. Yet when we clutched each other in the frenzy of passion I closed my eyes and saw the face of my beloved Athene, beautiful beyond human mortality.

 

Her bantering mood had changed, also. Whispering in my ear, Helen pleaded, "Don't challenge the gods, Orion. Please don't set yourself against them. Nothing good can come of it."

 

I did not reply. There was nothing I could say to her that would not either be a lie or cause her more worry.

 

For a while we slept wrapped in each other's arms. I awoke to the slight rocking of the boat and the subdued sound of men's muffled laughter. Lukka and the others were coming back. It must be nearly dawn.

 

Closing my eyes, I concentrated my mind on Khufu's great pyramid. Every particle of my being I attuned to that massive pile of stones and the burial chamber hidden within it. I saw it clearly, shining against the night, standing out before the dark starry sky, glowing intensely with a light that no mortal eye could see.

 

I stood before the great pyramid and it pulsated with inner energies, glowing, beckoning. Suddenly a beam of brilliant blue shot skyward from the very tip of the pyramid, a scintillating shaft of pure energy rising to the zenith of the bowl of night.

 

I was standing before the pyramid. My physical body was there, I knew. Yet the guards standing evenly spaced along the edge of the great plaza before it did not see me. They did not sense the light radiating from the pyramid, did not see the coruscating shaft of brilliant blue energy that blazed skyward from its tip.

 

And I could approach no closer. As if an impenetrable wall stood before me, I could not get a single step nearer the pyramid. I stood out in the night air, straining until the sweat streamed down my face and chest, ran in rivulets down my ribs and legs.

 

I could not enter the pyramid. The Golden One had sealed himself inside, I realized, and would not let me reach him. Was he protecting himself against me, or against the other Creators who sought to eliminate him?

 

No difference, as far as I was concerned. Unless I could get inside the pyramid I could not possibly force him to revive Athene. I screamed aloud into the night, bellowing my anger and frustration at the stars as I collapsed onto the stone paving of the great plaza before Khufu's tomb.

 

 

Chapter 36

 

HELEN'S face was white with shock. "What is it? Orion, what's the matter?" I was in our bunk aboard the boat, soaked with sweat, tangled in the light sheet that we had thrown over ourselves.

 

It took two swallows before I found my voice. "A dream," I croaked. "Nothing..."

 

"You saw the gods again," she said.

 

I heard bare feet running and then a pounding at our door. "My lord Orion!" Lukka's voice.

 

"It's all right," I yelled through the closed door. "Only a bad dream."

 

Still ashen-faced, Helen said, "They will destroy you, Orion. If you keep trying this mad assault against them, they will crush you utterly!"

 

"No," I said. "Not until I've had my vengeance. They can do what they want to me after that, but I'll avenge her first."

 

Helen turned away from me, anger and bitter regret etched in every line of her.

 

I felt distinctly foolish that morning. If Nefertu wondered what had made me scream, he was too polite to mention it. The crew cast off and we resumed our journey upstream toward the capital.

 

All that morning I spent staring at the great pyramid as we slowly sailed upriver, watching its great Eye of Amon open and gaze solemnly back at me. The Golden One has turned it into his fortress, his refuge, I told myself. Somehow I will have to get inside it. Or die in the attempt.

 

For weeks we sailed the Nile, long empty days of sun and the river, long frustrating nights of trying to reach the Golden One or any of the other Creators. It was as if they had left the Earth and gone elsewhere. Or perhaps they were all in hiding. But from what?

 

Helen watched me intently. She seldom spoke of the gods, except occasionally at night when we were drowsing toward sleep. I wondered how much she really believed of what I had told her. I imagined that she did not know, herself.

 

Each day was much like every other, except for the changes in scenery along the riverbanks. One day we passed what looked like a ruined city: buildings reduced to rubble, stone monuments sprawled broken on the ground.

 

"Was there a war here?" I asked Nefertu.

 

For the first time, I saw him look irritated, almost angry. "This was the city of a king," he said tightly.

 

"A king? You mean this was once the capital?"

 

"Briefly."

 

I had to pull the story out of him, line by line. It was clearly painful to him, yet so fascinating that I could not resist asking him more questions until I had the entire tale. The city was named Akhenaten, and it had been built by the king Akhenaten more than a hundred years earlier. Nefertu regarded Akhenaten as an evil king, a heretic who denied all the gods of Egypt except one: Aten, a sun god.

 

"He caused great misery in the land, and civil war. When he at last died, his city was abandoned. Horemheb and later kings tore down his monuments and destroyed his temples. His memory brings great shame upon us."

 

Yes, I thought. I could see how uncomfortable the memory made Nefertu. Yet I wondered if Akhenaten's heresy had not been one of the Golden One's schemes run awry. Perhaps I had been there, in one of the lives that I could not remember. Perhaps I would one day be sent there by the Creators to do whatever mischief they wanted done.

 

No, I told myself. My days of serving them will be finished once I have brought Athene back to life. Or so I hoped.

 

We sailed on, and watched crocodiles slithering along the reed-choked banks of the river, and mountainous hippopotami splashing and roaring at one another, their huge pink mouths and stumpy teeth looking ludicrous and terrifying at one and the same time.

 

"Not a good place to go swimming," Lukka observed.

 

"Not unless you want to end up as their midday meal," I agreed.

 

Finally we neared Wast, the mighty capital of the Kingdom of the Two Lands. Along the eastern shore of the river, reedy swamps gave way to cultivated fields, and then to low whitewashed dried-brick buildings. Across the river we saw more tombs cut into the western cliffs.

 

As we sailed onward the buildings became larger, grander. Dried brick gave way to dressed stone. Farm houses gave way to handsome villas with brightly painted murals on their outer walls. Graceful date palms and orchards of citrus trees swayed in the hot wind. In the distance we began to see massive temples and public buildings, tall obelisks and gigantic statues of a standing man, magnificent in physique, his fists clenched at his sides, his face smiling serenely.

 

"They all have the same face," Helen said to Nefertu.

 

"They are all statues of the same king, Ramesses II, father of our current king Merneptah."

 

The colossal statues towered along the river's eastern bank, row upon row of them. The king must have quarried out whole mountains of granite and barged the rock along the river to put up such monuments to himself.

 

"Ramesses was a glorious king," Nefertu explained to us, "mighty in battle and generous to his people. He erected these statues and many more, even larger ones, farther upstream. They stand to remind our people of his glory, and to awe the barbarians to the south. Even to this day they are afraid of his power."

 

" 'Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair,' " I said. The phrase sprang from my memory, and I knew it had been written for this egomaniac Egyptian king.

 

There were more tombs along the western cliffs, including one that was so beautiful it took my breath away when I first saw it. White, low, columned and proportioned in a way that would some day grace the Parthenon of Athens.

 

"It is the tomb of Queen Hatshepsut," Nefertu told me. "She ruled like a man-much to the unhappiness of the priests and her husband."

 

If Menefer was impressive, Wast was overwhelming. The city was built to dwarf human scale. Enormous stone buildings loomed along the water's edge, so that we tied our boat to a stone pier in their cool shadow. Avenues were paved with stone and wide enough for four chariots to run side by side. Up from the riverside rose many temples, massive columns of granite painted brightly, metal-shod roofs gleaming in the sun. Beyond them, up in the hills, handsome villas were dotted among groves of trees and wide cultivated fields.

 

We were greeted at the pier by a guard of honor, wearing crisply pleated uniforms of immaculately clean linen and chain mail polished so highly that it glittered. Their swords and spear points were bronze, and I noticed that Lukka took in their weaponry with a swift professional glance.

 

Nefertu was met by another official, dressed only in a long white skirt and gold medallion of office against his bare chest, who introduced himself as Mederuk. He led us, one and all, to the palace where we would await our audience with the king. Helen and I were put into a sedan chair carried by black Nubian slaves, while Nefertu and Mederuk took a second one. Lukka and his men walked, flanked by the glittering honor guard.

 

Helen was beaming with happiness. "This is truly the city where I belong," she said.

 

I belonged back at Menefer, I thought, at the great pyramid. The longer I remained here in Wast, the less likely my chances of destroying the Golden One and reviving Athene.

 

Looking through the curtains of our sedan chair as the Nubian bearers carried us up the rising avenue, I saw that Nefertu and Mederuk were chatting gaily like a pair of old friends catching up on the latest gossip. They were happy. Helen was happy. Even Lukka and his men seemed to be satisfied that they would soon be employed in the Egyptian army.

 

Only I felt restless and unsatisfied.

 

The royal palace at Wast was a vast complex of temples and living quarters, soldiers' barracks and grain storehouses, spacious courtyards and pens for meat animals. Cats roamed everywhere. The Egyptians revered them as sacred spirits and gave them free rein throughout the palace complex. I thought that they must be very useful against the mice and other vermin that inevitably infested granaries.

 

Our quarters in the palace were-palatial. Helen and I were given adjoining huge, airy rooms with high ceilings of cedar beams and polished granite floors that felt cool to my bare feet. The walls were painted in cool solid blues and greens, with bright reds and golds outlining the doorways and windows. The windows of my room looked out across tiled rooftops toward the river.

 

I saw that whoever had designed the room had a strict sense of balance. Exactly opposite the door from the hall stood the door to the terrace. The windows flanking it were balanced on the blank wall by paintings of window frames, exactly the same size and shape as the real windows, their "frames" painted the same bright colors.

 

Half a dozen servants were there to look after us. Slaves bathed me in scented water, shaved me, clipped and combed my hair, and dressed me in the cool, light linen fabric of Egypt. I dismissed them all and, once alone in my room, found my dagger amid the clothing I had left in a pile at the foot of my bed. I strapped it onto my thigh once more beneath my fresh Egyptian skirt; I felt almost naked without it.

 

Those false windows bothered me. I wondered if they hid a secret entrance to my room. But when I scanned them closely and ran my fingers across the wall, all I detected was paint.

 

A servant scratched timidly at the door, and once I gave him permission to enter, he announced that the lords Nefertu and Mederuk would be pleased to take dinner with my lady and me. I asked the servant to invite Nefertu to my room.

 

It was time for me to tell him the truth about Helen. After all, she wanted to be invited to stay in Wast. She wanted to be treated like the queen she had been.

 

Nefertu came and we sat on the terrace outside, under a softly billowing awning that kept the sun off us. Without my asking, a servant brought us a pitcher of chilled wine and two cups.

 

"I have something to tell you," I said, once the servant had left, "something that I have kept from you until now."

 

Nefertu smiled his polite smile and waited for me to continue.

 

"The lady with me, Helen: she was the Queen of Sparta, and a princess of the fallen Troy."

 

"Ahh," said Nefertu, "I was certain that she was no ordinary woman. Not only her beauty, but her bearing showed royal breeding."

 

I poured wine for us both, then took a sip from my cup. It was excellent, dry and crisp, cool and delicious. I took a longer swallow, savoring the best wine I had tasted since Troy.

 

"I had suspected that the lady was an important personage," Nefertu went on. "And I am happy that you have been honest with me. Actually, I was about to question the two of you rather closely. My lord Nekoptah will want to know everything about you and your travels before he grants you audience with the king."

 

"Nekoptah?"

 

"He is the chief priest of the royal house, a cousin to the king himself. He serves mighty Merneptah as first councillor." Nefertu sipped at his wine. He licked his lips with the tip of his tongue, and darted a glance over his shoulder, as if afraid that someone might be listening to us.

 

Leaning closer to me, he said in a lowered voice, "I am told that Nekoptah is not content merely to have the king's ear; he wants the king's power for himself."

 

I felt my eyebrows climb. "A palace intrigue?"

 

Nefertu shrugged his thin shoulders. "Who is to say? The ways of the palace are complex-and dangerous. Be warned, Orion."

 

"I thank you for the advice."

 

"We are to meet with Nekoptah tomorrow morning. He desires to see you and the lady."

 

"What about Lukka and his troops?"

 

"They are quartered comfortably in the military barracks on the other side of the palace. A royal officer will inspect them tomorrow and undoubtedly admit them to the army."

 

Somehow I felt uneasy. Perhaps it was Nefertu's warning about palace intrigues. "I would like to see Lukka before we go to dinner," I said. "To make certain he and his men are well taken care of."

 

"That is not necessary," said Nefertu.

 

"It is my responsibility," I said.

 

He nodded. "I'm afraid I have made you suspicious. But perhaps that is all to the good." Rising, "Come, then. We will visit the barracks and see that your men are happy there."

 

Lukka and his men were indeed comfortably quartered. The barracks was nothing like the luxury of my own royal apartment, but to the soldiers it was almost heaven: real beds and a solid roof over their heads, slaves to fetch hot water and polish their armor, food and drink and the promise of a night's whoring.

 

"I'll keep them in check tonight," Lukka told me, a hard smile on his hawk's face. "Tomorrow we parade for the Egyptian officers; I don't want them hung over and disgracing you."

 

"I'll join you for the inspection," I told him.

 

Nefertu almost objected, but stopped himself before saying a word.

 

As we left the barracks and headed back toward our apartments I asked him, "Is there some problem with me being present at the parade ground tomorrow?"

 

He smiled his diplomat's smile. "Merely that the inspection will be at sunrise, and our meeting with Nekoptah is shortly afterward."

 

"I should be with the men when they are under inspection."

 

"Yes, I suppose that is right." But Nefertu did not seem overly happy about my decision.

 

We dined that evening in his apartment, a room about the same in size and decorations as my own. I got the feeling that Nefertu was delighted at his good fortune in finding us. It is not every day that a civil servant working in a small town far from the capital is invited to the royal palace and housed in such splendor.

 

Helen told her story to him and Mederuk, the official who had met us at the pier. She held them fascinated with her tale of the war between the Achaians and Trojans, and seemed quite proud to place herself at the center of it all.

 

Mederuk stared at her shamelessly all through the dinner. He was a man of middle age, his hair gray and thinning, his body overweight and soft. Like all the Egyptians, his skin was dark and his eyes almost black. He had a bland round face, virtually unlined, almost like a baby's. His life in the palace had left no traces of laughter or pain or anger on that chubby, insipid face. It was as if he carefully erased all evidence of experience each night and faced each new day with a freshly molded blankness that could not possibly offend anyone-nor give any hint of the thoughts going on behind that bland mask.

 

But he stared at Helen, beads of perspiration dampening his upper lip.

 

"You must speak to Nekoptah," he said, once Helen had finished her tale. The dinner was long finished; slaves had removed our plates and now nothing was on the low table at which we sat except wine cups and bowls of pomegranates, figs, and dates.

 

"Yes," agreed Nefertu. "I'm certain that he will advise the king to invite you to live here in Wast, as a royal guest."

 

Helen smiled, but her eyes went to me. I said nothing. She knew I would leave as soon as I could. Once I knew that she was safe, and that Lukka and his men were accepted in the army, then I could leave.

 

I said, "The lady brings a considerable treasure with her. She will not be a burdensome guest."

 

The two Egyptians saw the humor in my statement and laughed politely.

 

"A burden to the king," giggled Nefertu. He had drunk a fair amount of wine.

 

"As if the great Merneptah counted costs," agreed Mederuk with a well-trained smile. His wine cup had not been drained even once. I looked at him closely. His smooth plump face showed no trace of emotion, but his coal-black eyes betrayed the scheming that was going through his mind.

 

 

Chapter 37

 

I left Helen's bed before sunrise and silently padded through the door that connected to my own room. The sky was just starting to turn gray and the room was still dark, yet something made me halt in my tracks and hold my breath.

 

Just the faintest whisper of movement. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I remained stock-still, my eyes searching the darkness, trying to penetrate the shadows. There was someone else in the room. I knew it. I sensed it. Still straining to see, I recalled exactly the layout of the room, the placement of the bed, the table, chairs, chests. The windows and the door to the hall...

 

A slight scraping sound, wood or metal against stone. I leaped at it, and banged painfully into the blank wall. Recoiling backward, I staggered a step or two and sat down on my rump with a heavy thud.

 

I had run against the wall precisely where one of the false windows was painted. Was it actually a hidden door, so cleverly concealed that I could not discern it?

 

I got slowly to my feet, aching at both ends of my spine. Someone had been in my room, of that I was certain. An Egyptian, not the Golden One or one of the other Creators. Sneaking around in the dark was not their style. Someone had been spying on me-on us, Helen and me. Or going through my belongings.

 

A thief? I doubted it, and a swift check of my clothes and weapons showed that nothing had been taken.

 

I dressed quickly, wondering if it was safe to leave Helen alone and sleeping, wondering if the intruder wanted me to wonder about her and stay away from Lukka and the parade ground. Nefertu had warned me about palace intrigues, and I was thoroughly puzzled.

 

A scratching at my door. I yanked it open and Nefertu stood there, dressed and smiling the polite meaningless smile that served as his way of facing the world.

 

After greeting him, I asked, "Is it possible to place a guard at Helen's door?"

 

He looked genuinely alarmed. "Why? Is something amiss?"

 

I told him what had happened. He looked skeptical, but strode off down the hall to find the guard corporal. A few minutes later he returned with a guard, a well-muscled black man dressed in a zebra-hide kilt with a sword belted around his middle.

 

Feeling somewhat better, I went off to the parade ground outside the barracks.

 

Lukka had his two dozen men arrayed in a double file, their chain mail and armor glistening with fresh oil, their helmets and swords polished like mirrors. Each man also held an iron-tipped spear rigidly erect, at precisely ninety degrees to the ground.

 

Nefertu introduced me to the Egyptian commander who was to inspect the Hittites. His name was Raseth, a swarthy, heavyset, blustery old military man, bald and blunt as a bullet, with arms that looked powerful despite his advancing years. He limped slightly, as if the years had added too much weight to his body for his bandy legs to carry.

 

"I've fought against Hittites," he said to no one in particular as he turned toward the troops lined up for him, "I know how good they are."

 

Turning toward me, he tugged at the collar of his robe, pulled it down off his left shoulder to reveal an ugly gash of a scar. "A gift from a Hittite spearman at Meggido." He seemed proud of the wound.

 

Lukka stood at the head of his little band, his eyes staring straight ahead at infinity. The men were like ramrods, silent and unblinking in the early sun.

 

Raseth walked up and down the two ranks, nodding and muttering to himself while Nefertu and I stood off to one side, watching.

 

Finally Raseth turned abruptly and limped back toward us.

 

"They fought where?" he asked me.

 

I briefly described the sieges at Troy and Jericho.

 

Raseth nodded his head knowingly. He did not smile, he was not the type of officer who smiled in front of troops.

 

"Engineers, eh? Well, we don't engage in many sieges," he said. "But they'll do. They'll do fine. The king's army welcomes them."

 

That was the easiest part of the day.

 

From the barracks Nefertu led me across a wide empty courtyard. The morning sun was just starting to feel hot against my back, throwing long shadows across the smoothed dirt floor. Along the back wall of the courtyard I saw a cattle pen, and a few humpbacked brahmas shuffling around, their tails flicking at flies. The breeze was coming off the river, though, and I smelled jasmine and lemon trees in the air.

 

"The royal offices," Nefertu pointed toward a set of buildings that looked to me like temples. I noticed that he looked nervous, tense, for the first time in all the long weeks I had known him. "Nekoptah will see us there."

 

We headed up a long, slowly rising rampway, flanked on either side by statues of Ramesses II, all of them larger than life, each of them the same: a powerfully muscled man striding forward, fists clenched at his sides, a strangely serene smile on his handsome face. Not a flaw in body or face, perfectly symmetrical, utterly balanced. The pink granite of the statues caught the morning sun and looked almost like warm flesh.

 

I felt as if a living giant were gazing down at me. Or a god. One of the Creators. Despite the sun's warmth, I shuddered.

 

At the end of the statue-lined ramp we turned left and passed a row of massive sphinxes: reclining lion's bodies with the heads of bulls. Even reclining, the sphinxes were as tall as I.

 

"The lion is the symbol of the sun," Nefertu explained. "The bull is Amon's totem. These sphinxes represent the harmony of the gods."

 

Between the forepaws of each sphinx was a statue of-who else? At least these were merely life-size.

 

"Are there no statues of Merneptah?" I asked.

 

Nefertu nodded his head. "Oh, yes, of course. But he reveres his illustrious father as much as any man of the Two Kingdoms. Who would want to tear down statues of Ramesses to replace them with his own? Not even the king would dare."

 

We approached a huge doorway, flanked on either side by two more colossal statues of Ramesses: seated, this time, his hands filled with the staff of office and the sheaf of wheat that symbolized fertility. I began to wonder what it must be like to ascend to the throne after the reign of such a monarch.

 

"Merneptah and Nekoptah," I asked as we entered, at last, the cool shade of the temple, "are they related by blood?"

 

Nefertu smiled tightly, almost grimly, I thought. "Yes. And they both revere Ptah as their guardian and guide."

 

"Not Amon?"

 

"They revere Amon and all the gods, Orion. But Ptah is their special patron. The city of Menefer was Ptah's special city. Merneptah has brought his worship here, to the capital. Nekoptah is the chief priest of Ptah."

 

"Is there a statue of Ptah that I can see? What does he look like?"

 

"You will see soon enough." He said it almost crossly, as though irritated by my questions, or fearful of something I did not understand.

 

We were striding through a vast hallway of tremendous columns, so tall that the roof above us was lost in shadows. The floor was marble, the gigantic columns themselves granite, as wide around as the mightiest tree. Guards in gleaming gold armor stood spaced every few yards, but it seemed to me they were there for ceremony and grandeur. There had been no need for armed men in this temple for a thousand years. This huge chamber had been designed to dwarf human scale, to overpower mere mortal men with its grandeur and immensity. It was a ploy that haughty, powerful men used up and down the ages: utilizing architecture to bend men's souls, to fill them with wonder, and admiration, and fear of the power that had raised these mighty pillars.