pyramid's polished white grandeur rose before our eyes.

I summoned Lukka to my cabin and told him, "No matter what happens at the

capital, protect the prince. He is your master now. You may never see me again."

His fierce eyes softened; his hawk's face looked sad. "My lord Orion, I've never

thought of a superior of mine as a... a friend..." His voice faltered.

I clapped him on the shoulder. "Lukka, it takes two to make a friendship. And a

man with a heart as strong and faithful as yours is a rare treasure. I wish I

had some token, some remembrance to give you."

He broke into a rueful grin. "I have memories enough of you, sir. You have

raised us from dirt to gold. None of us will ever forget you."

A lad from the boat's crew stuck his head through the open cabin door to tell me

a punt had tied up alongside and was waiting to take me to the city. I was glad

of the interruption, and so was Lukka. Otherwise we might have fallen into each

other's arms and started crying like children.

Aramset was waiting for me at the ship's rail.

"Return to me at Wast, Orion," he said.

"I will if I can, your highness."

Despite his newfound dignity at being a true prince with an army at his command,

his youthful face was filled with curiosity. "You have never told me why you

seek to enter Khufu's tomb."

I made myself smile. "It is the greatest wonder in the world. I want to see all

its marvels."

But he was not to be put off so easily. "You're not a thief seeking to despoil

the royal treasures buried with great Khufu. The marvel you seek must be other

than gold or jewels."

"I seek a god," I replied honestly. "And a goddess."

His eyes flashed. "Amon?"

"Perhaps that is how he is known here. In other lands he has other names."

"And the goddess?"

"She has many names too. I don't know how she would be called in Egypt."

Aramset grinned eagerly, the youngster in him showing clearly through a prince's

seriousness. "By the gods! I'm half tempted to come with you! I'd like to see

what you're after."

"Your highness has more important business in the capital," I said gently.

"Yes, that's true enough," he said, with a disappointed frown.

"Being the heir to the throne is a heavy responsibility," I said. "Only a

penniless wanderer is free to have adventures."

Aramset shook his head in mock sorrow. "Orion, what have you done to me?" The

sorrow was not entirely feigned, I saw.

"Your father needs you. This great kingdom needs you."

He agreed, reluctantly, and we parted. I saw Menalaos peering over the gunwale

as I clambered down the rope ladder to the waiting punt. I waved to him as

cheerfully as I could. He nodded somberly back.

One advantage of a mammoth bureaucracy such as administered Egypt is that, once

you have it working for you, it can whisk you to your goal with the speed of a

well-oiled machine. The bureaucrats of Menefer had been given orders by the

crown prince: convey this man Orion to Hetepamon, high priest of Amon. That they

did, with uncommon efficiency.

I was met at the pier by a committee of four men, each of them in the long stiff

skirt and copper medallion of minor officials. They showed me to a horse-drawn

carriage and we clattered across the cobblestoned highway from the riverfront to

the temple district in the heart of the vast city.

I was ushered by the four of them, who hardly said a word to me or to each other

all that time, through a maze of courtyards and corridors until finally they

showed me through a small doorway and into a modest-sized, cheerfully sunlit

room.

"The high priest will be with you shortly," one of them said. Then they left me

alone in the room, shutting the door behind them.

I stood fidgeting for a few moments. There were no other doors to the room.

Three smallish windows lined one wall. I leaned over the sill of the center one,

and saw a forty-foot drop to a garden courtyard below. The walls were painted

with what I guessed to be religious themes: animal-headed human figures

accepting offerings of grain and beasts from smaller mortal men. The colors were

bright and cheerful, as if the paintings were new or recently redone. Several

chairs were grouped around a large bare table that appeared to be made of

polished cedar. Other than that, the room was empty.

The door finally opened, and I gasped with shock as the hugely obese man waddled

in. Nekoptah! I had been led into a trap! My pulse thundered in my ears. I had

left my sword, even my dagger, on the ship in Lukka's care. All that I carried

with me was the medallion of Amon around my neck and Nekoptah's carnelian ring,

tucked inside my belt.

He smiled at me. A pleasant, honest-seeming smile. Then I noticed that he wore

no rings, no necklaces, no jewelry at all. His face was unpainted. His

expression seemed friendly, open, and curious—as though he was meeting me for

the first time, a stranger.

"I am Hetepamon, high priest of Amon," he said. Even his voice sounded almost

the same. But not quite.

"I am Orion," I said, feeling almost numb with surprise and puzzlement. "I bring

you greetings from Crown Prince Aramset."

He was as fat as Nekoptah. He looked so much like the high priest of Ptah that

they might be...

"Please make yourself comfortable," said Hetepamon. "This is an informal

meeting. No need for ceremony."

"You..." I did not know how to say it without sounding foolish. "You

resemble..."

"The high priest of Ptah. Yes, I know. I should. We are twins. I am the elder,

by a few heartbeats."

"Brothers?" And I saw the truth of it. The same face, the same features, the

same hugely overweight body. But where Nekoptah exuded dark scheming evil,

Hetepamon seemed at peace with himself, innocent, happy, almost jovial.

Hetepamon was smiling at me. But as I stepped closer to him, he peered at my

face, squinting hard. His pleasant expression faded. He looked suddenly

troubled, anxious.

"Please, move away from the sun so that I can see you better." His voice

trembled slightly.

I moved, and he came close to me. His eyes went round, and a single word sighed

from his slack mouth.

"Osiris!"

 

Chapter 42

HETEPAMON dropped to his knees and pressed his forehead on the tiles of the

floor. "Forgive me, great lord, for not recognizing you sooner. Your size alone

should have been clue enough, but my eyes are failing me and I am not worthy to

be in your divine presence..."

He babbled on for several minutes before I could get him to rise and take a

chair. He looked faint: His face was ashen, his hands shaking.

"I am Orion, a traveler from a distant land. I serve the crown prince. I know

nothing of a man named Osiris."

"Osiris is a god," Hetepamon panted, his chubby hands clutched to his heaving

chest. "I have seen his likeness in the ancient carvings within Khufu's tomb. It

is your face!"

Gradually I calmed him down and made him realize that I was a human being, not a

god come to punish him for some self-imagined shortcomings. His fear abated,

little by little, as I insisted that if I resembled the portrait of Osiris, it

was a sign from the gods that he should help me.

But he talked to me, too, and explained that Osiris is a god who takes human

form, the personification of life, death, and renewal.

Osiris was the first king of humankind, Hetepamon told me, the one who raised

humans from barbarism and taught them the arts of fire and agriculture. I felt

old memories stirring and resonating within me: I saw a pitiful handful of men

and women struggling against the perpetual cold of an age of ice; I saw a band

of neolithic hunters painfully learning to plant crops. I had been there. I had

given them fire and agriculture.

"Osiris, born of Earth and Sky, was treacherously murdered by Typhon, the lord

of evil," said Hetepamon, his voice flat and softly whispering, almost as if he

were in a trance. "His wife Aset, who loved him beyond all measure, helped to

bring him back to life." Had I lived here in an earlier age? I had no memory of

it, yet it might have happened.

Forcing myself to appear calm, I said to Hetepamon, "I serve the gods of my

far-distant land, who may be the same gods you worship here in Egypt, under

different names."

The fat high priest closed his eyes, as if still afraid to look at my face. "The

gods have powers and hold sway far beyond our ability to comprehend."

"True enough," I agreed, silently adding that I would one day comprehend them in

their entirety—or die the final death.

Hetepamon opened his eyes and took a great, deep, massively sighing breath. "How

may I help you, my lord?"

I looked into his dark, dark eyes and saw honest fear, real awe. He would not

argue when I told him that I was mortal, but he remained convinced that he was

being visited by the god Osiris.

Maybe he was.

"I must go into the great pyramid. I seek..." I hesitated. No sense giving him a

heart attack, I thought. "I seek my destiny there."

"Yes," he said, acceptingly. "The pyramid is truly placed at the exact center of

the world. It is the site of destiny for us all."

"When can we enter the pyramid?"

He gnawed on his lower lip for a moment. His resemblance to Nekoptah still

unsettled me, slightly.

"To go to the great pyramid would mean a formal ceremony, a procession, prayers

and sacrifices that would take days or weeks to prepare."

"Isn't there a way we could get inside without such ceremony?"

He nodded slowly. "Yes, if you wish it."

"I do wish it."

Hetepamon bowed his head in acquiescence. "We will have to wait until after the

sun sets," he said.

We spent the day slowly gaining confidence in one another. I gradually got over

the feeling that he was Nekoptah in disguise and, bit by bit, Hetepamon grew

easier in the presence of a person whom he still suspected might be a god in

disguise. He showed me through the vast temple of Amon, where the great columned

halls soared higher than trees and the stories of creation and flood and the

relationships between gods and men were carved on the walls in pictures and

elaborate hieroglyphs.

One of the things that convinced me he actually was a twin of Nekoptah was his

foolish habit of chewing on small dark nuts. He carried a small pouch on a belt

around his ample waist and constantly dug his hamlike fists into it to feed

himself. His teeth were badly stained by them. Nekoptah, despite his other

shortcomings, was not a nibbler.

From Hetepamon I learned the history of Osiris and his beloved wife/sister Aset,

whom the Achaians called Isis. Osiris had descended into the netherworld and

returned from death itself to be with her, such was the love between them. Now

the Egyptians saw Osiris in the disappearance of the sun at the end of each day

and the turning of the seasons each year: the death that is followed inevitably

by new life.

I had died many times, only to return to new life. Could I bring my Athene back

to life? The legend said nothing about her death.

"These representations are not accurate portraits of the gods," Hetepamon told

me as we stood before a mammoth stone relief, carved into one entire wall of the

main temple. His voice echoed through the vast shadows. "The human faces of the

gods are merely idealized forms, not true portraits."

I nodded as I gazed at the serene features of gods and—smaller—kings long dead.

Leaning close enough for me to smell the nuts on his breath, he whispered

confidentially, "Some of the gods' faces were actually drawn from the faces of

kings. Today we would consider that blasphemy, but in the old days people

believed the kings were themselves gods."

"They don't believe that now?" I asked.

He shook his fat wattles. "The king is the gods' representative on Earth, the

mediator between the gods and men. He becomes a god when he dies and enters the

next world."

"Why does your brother want you under his power?" I asked suddenly, sharply,

without preamble.

"My brother...? What are you saying?"

Taking Nekoptah's carnelian ring from my waistband and showing it to him, I

said, "He commanded me to bring you to the capital. I doubt that it was for a

brotherly visit."

Hetepamon's face paled. His voice almost broke. "He... commanded you..."

I added, "He is telling the king that you are trying to bring back Akhenaten's

heresy."

I thought the priest would collapse in a fat heap, right there on the stone

floor of the temple.

"But that's not true! I am faithful to Amon and all the gods!"

"Nekoptah sees you as a threat," I said.

"He wants to establish the worship of Ptah as supreme in the land, and himself

as the most powerful man in the kingdom."

"Yes, I believe so." I said nothing about Prince Aramset.

"He has always felt badly toward me," Hetepamon muttered unhappily, "but I never

thought that he hated me enough to want to... do away with me."

"He is very ambitious."

"And cruel. Since we were little boys, he enjoyed inflicting pain on others."

"He controls the king."

Hetepamon wrung his chubby hands. "Then I am doomed. I can expect no mercy from

him." He gazed around the huge, empty temple as if seeking help from the stone

reliefs of the gods. "All the priests of Amon will come under his sword. He will

not leave one of us to challenge Ptah—and himself."

He was truly aghast, and seemed about to blubber. I saw that Hetepamon was

neither ambitious nor ruthless. How he became chief priest of Amon I did not

know, but it was clear that he had little political power and no political

ambition.

I was certain now that I could trust this man who looked so like my enemy. So I

calmed him down by telling him how Aramset was returning to the capital with

power, and the burning ambition to protect his father and establish his own

place as heir to the throne.

"He's so young," Hetepamon said.

"A prince of the realm matures quickly," I said. "Or not at all."

We left the great temple and climbed a long flight of stone steps, Hetepamon

puffing and sweating, until we reached the roof of the building. Under a swaying

awning I could see the sprawling city of Menefer and, across the Nile, the great

gleaming pyramid of Khufu standing white and sharp-edged against the dusty

granite cliffs in the distance.

Servants brought us chairs and a table, while others carried up artichokes and

sliced eggplant, sweetmeats and chilled wine, figs and dates and melons, all on

silver trays. I realized that we had never been truly alone, never unobserved,

all through our wanderings through the temples. I felt sure, though, that no one

had dared come close enough to overhear us.

I was amused to see that Hetepamon ate sparingly, almost daintily, nibbling at a

few leaves of artichoke, avoiding the meats, taking a fig or two. He must eat

something more than those nuts he carries with him, I realized, to keep that

great girth. Like many very overweight people, he did most of his eating alone.

We watched the sun go down, and I thought of their Osiris, who died and returned

just as I did.

Finally, as the last rays of sunset faded against those western cliffs and even

the gleaming pinnacle of the great pyramid at last went dark, Hetepamon heaved

his huge bulk up from his chair.

"It is time," he said.

I felt a trembling through my innards. "Yes. It is time."

Down the same stairs we went, through the vast darkened main temple, guided only

by a few lamps hanging from sconces in the gigantic stone columns. Behind a

colossal statue of some god, its face lost in shadows, Hetepamon went to the

wall and ran his stubby forefinger against the seam between two massive stones.

The wall opened, the huge stone pivoting noiselessly, and we stepped silently

into the chamber beyond. A small oil lamp burned low on a table next to the

door. Hetepamon took it, and the stone slid back into place.

I followed the fat priest through a narrowing corridor, our only light the small

flicker of the lamp he held.

"Careful here," he warned in a whisper. "Stay to the right, against the wall.

Don't step on the trapdoor."

I followed his instructions. Again, farther down the corridor, we had to keep to

the left. Then we went down a long, long flight of stairs. It seemed

interminable. I could barely make them out in the flickering lamp's flame, but

they seemed barely worn, although heavily coated with dust. The walls of the

stairwell pressed close; my shoulders grazed against them as we descended. The

roof was so low that I had to keep my head bent forward.

Hetepamon stopped, and I almost bumped into him.

"It becomes difficult here. We must skip over the next step, touch the four

after that, then skip the one after those four. Do you understand?"

"If I miss?"

He puffed out a long breath. "At the least, this entire stairwell will fill with

sand. There may be other punishments that I am not aware of; the old builders

were very careful, and very devious."

I made certain to follow his instructions to the inch.

Finally we reached the bottom of the stairs and started along a slightly wider

corridor. I was starting to feel relieved. The worst was over. No more warnings

about trapdoors or steps to avoid.

We stopped and Hetepamon pushed against a door. It creaked open slowly and we

stepped past it.

Suddenly light glared all around us, painfully bright. I threw an arm over my

eyes, waiting to hear the mocking laughter of the Golden One.

Then I felt Hetepamon's hand tugging at me. "Have no fear, Orion. This is the

chamber of mirrors. This is why we could not approach the tomb until after

sundown."

I lowered my arm and, squinting, saw that we were inside a room covered with

mirrors. On the walls, on the floor, on the ceiling, nothing but mirrors. They

were not flat, but projecting outward at all sorts of weird angles, everywhere

except for one zigzag path across the floor. The light that had shocked me was

merely the reflection of Hetepamon's lamp, dazzling off hundreds of mirrored

facets.

Pointing upward, the fat priest said, "There are prisms above us that focus the

light of the sun. During daylight hours this chamber would kill anyone who

stepped into it."

Still squinting, I followed him across the polished, slippery path, through

another creaking door, and back into a dark narrow corridor.

"What next?" I growled.

He replied lightly, "Oh, that's the worst of it. Now all we must do is climb a

short staircase and we will be in the temple of Amon, beneath the pyramid

itself. From there it is a long climb to the king's burial chamber, but there

are no more traps."

I felt grateful for that.

The temple was a tiny chamber, buried deep underground, barely large enough for

an altar table, a few statues, and some lamps. Three of the walls were

rough-hewn from the native rock; the fourth was covered with faint carved

reliefs. The ceiling seemed to be one enormous block of dressed stone. I could

sense the tremendous weight of the massive pyramid pressing down upon us,

oppressive, frightening, like a giant hand squeezing the air from my lungs. A

shadowed alcove hid the flight of almost vertical steps that led upward to the

king's burial chamber.

Wordlessly, Hetepamon lifted his lamp over his head and turned toward the wall

of carved pictures.

He pointed with his free hand. "Osiris," he whispered.

It was my portrait. And beside it stood the picture of my Athene.

"Aset," I whispered back.

He nodded.

So it was true. We had both been in this land a thousand years ago, or more. And

she was here now, waiting for me to restore her to life. I knew it. I was close

to her. The thought made me tremble inside.

"I will remain here, Orion, while you go up to Khufu's tomb," said Hetepamon.

I must have flashed him a fiercely questioning glance.

"I cannot climb the steep ascent, Orion," he apologized hastily. "I assure you

that there are no further dangers to be wary of."

"Have you ever been in the king's burial chamber?" I asked.

"Oh, yes, each year." He guessed my next question. "The procession enters the

pyramid from its outer face, where a hinged stone serves as a door. The ramp

leading to the tomb is much easier to climb than the shaft you must go through

tonight. Even so," he smiled, "I am carried along by eight very strong slaves."

I nodded understanding.

"I will await you here, and offer prayers to Amon for your destiny, and for the

safety of Prince Aramset."

I thanked him and, after lighting one of the altar lamps from his, started up

the steep winding stairs.

It must have taken an hour or more, although I lost all sense of time as I

plodded up the steep steps, winding around and around and around. They seemed to

be cut into the walls of the shaft, some of them little more than narrow clefts

in the native stone. My lamp provided a little pocket of fitful light against

the darkness, and as I climbed I began to feel as if I was not actually going

anywhere, as if I was on a vertical treadmill, trudging achingly, painfully

forever. It was almost like being in sensory deprivation: no sound except my own

breathing and the scuffling of my boots against the stone steps; nothing to see

except the dusty walls in the dim light of the lamp. The world might have

dissolved outside or turned to ice or burned to a cinder and I would never have

known it.

But I plodded on, and at last came to the end.

I climbed up through a hole in the floor and found myself in a large chamber

where a great stone bier bore a magnificent sarcophagus, at least ten feet long,

made of beautifully worked cypress inlaid with ivory, gold, lapis lazuli,

porphyry, turquoise, and god knows what else. Splendid implements filled the

chamber: bowls bearing sheafs of grain and vases that were filled, I was

certain, with fine wines and clear water. Probably they were renewed each year,

as part of the ceremonies Hetepamon had told me about. Tools and weapons were

neatly stacked against the walls. Stairs led upward, toward other storehouse

chambers. Everything the king needed in life was here or nearby, ready for his

use in his next life.

But there was no sign of the Golden One.

 

Chapter 43

I stood before Khufu's dazzling sarcophagus, surrounded by the finest implements

that human hands could make, and clenched my fists in helpless anger.

He was not here! He had lied to me!

Neither the Golden One nor the body of Athene was in this elaborate burial

chamber. I wanted to scream. I wanted to smash everything in sight, rip open the

dead king's sarcophagus, tear down the entire pyramid, stone by giant stone.

Instead I merely stood there, dumb as any animal, feeling tricked and defeated.

But my mind was working. The Golden One had made this pyramid his fortress,

protecting it with energies that not even the other Creators could penetrate. It

took an ordinary mortal to physically penetrate the passages built into the

pyramid to reach this far. Trying to translocate oneself from outside the

pyramid would not work, the energy defenses would prevent it.

So why did the Golden One defend this pyramid? As a decoy? Perhaps.

Or—perhaps this chamber was in reality a jumping-off spot to his actual hiding

place. He is protecting the pyramid because it contains some clue to his true

whereabouts. Some clue, or some device for making the transition.

I knew that the Creators were not gods. They did not shift their presences from

one realm of the continuum to another by mystical fiat. They did not generate

energy by divine willpower. They used machines, devices, technologies that were

godlike in their power but the offspring of human brains and hands, just as the

weapons and implements in this tomb were.

I thought to myself, If the Golden One has such a device hidden in this titanic

pile of stones, it must be emitting some kind of energy. Could I sense it?

I closed my eyes and tried to shut off my conscious mind. With a gut-wrenching

effort of will I disconnected all my five normal senses: I was blind, deaf,

totally alone in a universe of nothingness.

For how long I remained that way, I have no idea. But eventually a tiny thread

of sensation wormed its way into my awareness. A gleam, a tendril of warmth, a

faint, faint buzzing, like the hum of electrical equipment far off in the

distance.

Very slowly I opened my eyes and revived my other senses, careful not to snap

the connection with the energy leak I had found. I made my way, almost like a

sleepwalker, toward a carved panel in the wall of the tomb. It opened at my push

and revealed another upward-winding passage. I climbed.

Through several other chambers and along more dark passageways I went, always

pulled along by that faint hint of energy.

Finally I found it: a small chamber up near the very top of the pyramid, so low

and cramped that I had to bend over to get into it. My upraised hand touched

smooth metal that was warm and vibrating with energy. The electrum cap of the

pyramid: a good conductor of electricity and other forms of energy, I realized.

Hunched in the middle of the tiny chamber, taking up almost all its space, was a

dome of dull black metal, squatting there like the egg of some gigantic robot

bird. It was humming to itself. I put my hand on its smooth surface. Warm.

My hand seemed to stick slightly as I pulled it away, as if I had touched paint

that had not yet dried. I put my hand back on the dome, pressed it flat, and

felt the surface yield slightly. I leaned on it harder, and my hand seemed to

penetrate the surface, sink through it. It was cold, freezingly, painfully cold.

But I could not pull my hand back. Something inside the dome was drawing me

forward, forcing me deeper into its cryogenic innards. I yelled and dropped the

lamp I had carried all this way as my whole body was sucked into the deathly

cold beyond the surface of the dome.

I felt death again, the cold breath that brings agony to every cell, every nerve

in my body. I was falling, falling in absolute darkness as my body froze and the

last flashes of life in my brain succumbed to pain and darkness. My final

thoughts were of love and hate: love for my dead Athene, hate for the Golden

One, who had beaten me once again.

But when I opened my eyes I was lying on soft grass. A warm sun beat down on me.

A pleasant breeze sighed. Or was that my own breath returning to my lungs?

I sat up. My heart thundered in my chest. My eyes stared. This was not Earth.

The sky was vivid orange. There were two suns shining, one huge enough to cover

almost half the sky, the other a small diamond-bright pinpoint shining through

the orange expanse of its swollen companion. The grass on which I sat was a deep

maroon color, tinging off to blackish brown. The color of dried blood. It felt

spongy, soft, more like a mold or a layer of flesh than like real grass and

ground. There were hills in the distance, strangely shaped trees, and a stream.

"We meet again, Orion."

I turned and saw the Golden One standing behind me. Scrambling to my feet, I

said, "Did you think you could hide from me?"

"No, of course not. You are my Hunter. I built those instincts into you."

He was wearing a loose flowing shirt of gold with long billowing sleeves, and

dark trousers that hugged his lower torso and legs closely and were tucked into

thigh-length boots. He seemed more relaxed than ever before, smiling

confidently, his thick mane of golden hair tousled by the wind. But when I

looked into his tawny eyes I saw strange lights, hints of passions and tensions

that he was trying hard to control.

"I have delivered Helen to the Egyptians. I have brought down the walls of

Jericho for you. Agamemnon, Odysseus, and most of the other Achaian warlords

have been swept away. New invaders are conquering their lands. They've paid for

their conquest of Troy."

His eyes glittered. "But you haven't."

"I've done what you asked. Now it's your turn to live up to your end of the

bargain."

"A god does not bargain, Orion. A god commands!"

"You're no more a god than I am," I snapped. "You have better tools, that's

all."

"I have better knowledge, creature. Don't mistake the toys for the toymaker—or

his knowledge."

"Perhaps so," I said.

"Perhaps?" He smiled tolerantly. "Do you have any idea of where you are, Orion?

No, of course not. Do you have any idea of what my plans are leading to? How

could you?"

"I don't care..."

"It makes no difference whether you care or not," he said, his eyes brightening.

"My plans go forward despite your petty angers and pouts. Even despite the

opposition of the other Creators."

"They are trying to find you," I said.

"Yes, of course. I know that. And they asked you to help them, didn't they?"

"I haven't."

"Haven't you?" He was suddenly suspicious, eyeing me warily, almost angrily.

"I've served you faithfully. So that you will revive Athene."

"Faithfully, yes. I know."

"I've done what you asked," I insisted.

"Asked? Asked? I never ask, Orion. I told you what must be done. While the

others dither and discuss and debate, I act." His breathing quickened, his eyes

took on a look of madness. "They don't deserve to live, Orion. I'm the only one

who knows what to do, how to protect the continuum against our enemies. They

don't realize it, but they're actually serving the enemy. The stupid fools,

they're working for the enemy! They deserve to be destroyed. Wiped out.

Utterly."

I stared at him. He was raving.

"I'm the only one worthy of existence! My creatures will serve me and me only.

The others will be destroyed, as they deserve to be. I will be alone and

supreme! Above all others! Forever!"

I grew tired of his ranting. "Apollo, or whatever your name is, it's time for

you to revive Athene..."

He blinked at me. More soberly, he replied, "Her name is Anya."

"Anya." I remembered. "Anya."

"And she is quite thoroughly dead, Orion. There will be no reviving."

"But you said..."

"What I said is of no matter. She is dead."

My fingers twitched at my sides. He stared at me, and I could feel the forces he

commanded engulfing me, drowning me, freezing my body into stillness even though

he chose to leave my mind awake.

With a scream that shook the heavens I broke free of his hypnotic commands and

sprang for his throat. His eyes went wide and he tried to raise his hands to

defend himself but he was far too slow. I grabbed him and the momentum of my

spring tumbled us sprawling to the blood-colored grass.

"You built strength and killing fury into me too, didn't you?" I bellowed as I

squeezed the life out of his throat. He made terrified strangling noises and

batted at me ineffectually with his hands.

"If she can't live, then neither can you," I said, tightening my grip, watching

his eyes bulge, his tongue swell. "You want to wipe out the others and reign

supreme? You won't even last another minute!"

But powerful hands pulled my arms away and lifted me to my feet. I struggled

against them, uselessly, and then realized who was holding me.

"That's enough, Orion!" said Zeus sharply.

I glared at him, blood-fury still pounding along my veins. Four other male

Creators held my arms tightly. Still more of them, women as well as men, stood

grouped around the fallen Apollo and me, dressed in an assortment of tunics,

robes, glittering metallic uniforms.

Zeus waited until I stopped struggling. The Golden One lay gagging and coughing

on the dried-blood ground, leaning on one elbow, his other hand touching his

throat. I saw the purple imprints of my fingers there and I was only sorry that

I hadn't been allowed to finish the job.

"We asked you to find him for us, not murder him," Zeus said, his sternness

struggling against a satisfied little smile.

"I found him for myself," I said. "And when he refused to revive Ath... Anya, I

knew he deserved to die."

Shaking his head at me, Zeus said, "No one deserves to die at the hands of

another, Orion. That is the ultimate lie. Can't you see that he's mad? His mind

is sick."

New fury surged through me. "And you're going to help him? Try to cure him?"

"We will cure him," said the lean-faced Hermes. "Given time."

He knelt over the fallen Apollo and touched him with a short metal rod that he

had taken from his tunic pocket. The welts around the Golden One's neck faded

and disappeared. His breathing returned to normal.

"Physical repairs are the easiest," Hermes said, rising to his feet. "Repairing

the mind will take longer, but it will be done."

"He wanted to kill you—all of you," I said.

Hera replied, "Does that mean we should kill him? Only a creature thinks that

way, Orion."

"He killed Anya!"

"No," said the Golden One, climbing slowly to his feet. "You killed her, Orion.

She became mortal for love of you, and she died."

"I loved her!"

"I loved her too!" he shouted. "And she chose you! She deserved to die!"

I strained against the men holding me, but they were too many and too strong.

Even so, Apollo dodged backward, away from me, and Zeus stepped between us.

"Orion!" he snapped. "To struggle against us is pointless."

"He said he could revive her."

"That was his madness speaking," said Zeus.

"No it wasn't!" the Golden One taunted. "I can revive her! But not for him. Not

so that she can give herself to this... this... creature!"

"Bring her back to me!" I screamed, straining uselessly against the four who

held me.

Hera stepped before me, her taunting smile gone; instead her face was grave,

almost sympathetic. "Orion, you have served us well and we are pleased with you.

But you must accept what must be accepted. You must put all thoughts of Anya out

of your mind."

She reached up and touched my cheek with the tips of her fingers. I felt all the

fury and tension drain out of me. My body relaxed, my rage subsided.

To Hera I said, "Put all thoughts of her out of my mind? That's like teaching

myself not to breathe."

"I feel your pain," she said softly. "But what's done cannot be undone."

"Yes it can!" the Golden One snapped. He laughed and glared at me. Zeus nodded

at Hermes, who gripped him by the shoulders. The burly redhead I called Ares

also stepped close to the Golden One, ready to restrain him if necessary.

"I could do it," he said, his eyes wild. "I could bring her back. But not for

you, Orion! Not so that she can embrace a creature, a worm, a thing that I made

to serve me!"

"Take him back to the city," said Zeus. "His madness is worse than I thought."

"I'm not the mad one!" Apollo ranted. "I'm the only sane one here! The rest of

you are crazy! Stupid, shortsighted crazy fools! You think you can control the

continuum and save yourselves? Madness! Nothing but madness! Only I can save

you. Only I know how to keep your precious necks out of the noose. And you,

Orion! You'll never see Anya again. Never!"

The murderous rage was gone from me. I felt empty and useless.

Hermes began to lead the Golden One away, with brawny Ares following behind.

Zeus and the others began to fade, shimmering in the double sunlight like a

desert mirage. I stood alone on the strange world and watched them slowly

dissolve from sight.

Just before he disappeared, the Golden One turned and shouted over his shoulder.

"Look at you, Orion! Standing there like a forlorn puppy. No one's going to

bring her back! There's only the two of us who could, and I'm not going to, and

you don't know how!"

He howled with laughter as he faded out and disappeared with the others, leaving

me alone on a strange and alien world.

 

Chapter 44

IT took several moments for the meaning of the Golden One's words to sink home.

"No one's going to bring her back! There's only the two of us who could, and I'm

not going to, and you don't know how!"

I could return Anya to life. That's what he had said. Was it merely a taunt, a

final cruel slash intended to tantalize me? I shook my head. He is mad, I told

myself. You can't believe anything he says.

Yet he had said it, and I could not get it out of my mind.

I gazed around the alien landscape and realized that if I was to have any chance

at reviving Anya, I had to be back on Earth to do so. Closing my eyes, I willed

myself to return. I thought I heard the Golden One's mad laughter, ringing in

the farthest distance. Then it seemed that Zeus spoke to me: "Yes, you may

return, Orion. You have served us well."

I felt an instant of cold as sharp as a sword blade slicing through me. When I

opened my eyes I found myself back in the great pyramid, in the burial chamber

of Khufu.

Drenched with sweat, I lurched against the gold-inlaid sarcophagus. Every part

of me was exhausted, body and mind. Somehow I dragged myself down the spiraling

stone stairway to the underground chamber where Hetepamon waited.

The fat priest was kneeling before the altar of Amon. He had lit all the lamps

in the tiny chamber. Pungent incense filled the room as he murmured in a

language that was not the Egyptians' current tongue.

"...for the safety of the stranger Orion, O Amon, I pray. Mightiest of gods,

protect this stranger who so resembles your beloved Osiris..."

"I am back," I said, leaning wearily against the stone wall.

Hetepamon whirled so quickly that he lost his balance and went down on all

fours. Laboriously, he lifted his ponderous bulk to his feet.

"So quickly? You've barely been gone an hour."

I smiled. "The gods can make time flow swiftly when they want to."

"You accomplished your mission?" he asked eagerly. "You have fulfilled your

destiny?"

"This part of it," I said.

"Then we can leave?"

"Yes, we can leave now." I glanced up at the statue of Amon standing above the

altar. For the first time I noticed how much it resembled the Creator I knew as

Zeus, without his trim little beard.

 

For the next several days we sailed up the Nile, Hetepamon and I, heading for

the capital. Prince Aramset expected me there. Menalaos and Helen were there;

they would be reunited before I returned. At least, I thought, she will live in

the comforts of Egypt. Perhaps she will be able to teach her husband some of the

arts of civilization and make her life more bearable.

Nekoptah awaited us, too. I had no idea of how Aramset would deal with him. The

king's chief minister would never give up his power willingly, and the prince

seemed terribly young for this game of court politics. I was glad that Lukka

headed his personal guard.

But thoughts of them merely buzzed somewhere in the back of my mind as we sailed

up the busy river. My eyes saw towns and cities glide by, monuments towering

along the water's edge, farms and orchards being worked by naked slaves. But my

thoughts were of Anya and the Golden One's taunting words.

Did I have the power to revive her? If so, how could I learn to do it when none

of the other Creators knew how?

Or did they? I felt an icy anger grip me in its merciless clutches. Were they

telling me the truth, Zeus and Hera and the others? Or was Anya the victim of a

power struggle among them, the loser in a battle among the Creators? They said

they did not kill one another, but the Golden One had caused Anya's death, and

perhaps none of them chose to help me bring her back.

Each night I tried to make contact with the Creators, to reach their

golden-shimmering domed city somewhere in the far future of this time. But they

refused me. I lay on my narrow bunk in the creaking boat and saw nothing but the

reflections of the river against the low wooden ceiling, heard nothing except

the drone of insects and the distant faint voice of an occasional song from the

shore.

Our reception at Wast was very different from the day when Helen, Nefertu, and I

had first arrived. The prince himself awaited us, with an honor guard of

brightly polished soldiery that lined both sides of the stone pier from end to

end. Thousands of people thronged the waterfront, drawn by the sight of Prince

Aramset, young and dashing in his purple-hemmed skirt and golden pectoral.

I saw Lukka and his men, wearing Egyptian armor now, standing proudly in the

first rank, nearest the prince.

And no sign of Nekoptah or any priest from his temple.

We were welcomed quite royally. Aramset walked right up to me and greeted me

with both hands on my shoulders, to the tumultuous cheers of the crowd.

"The lady Helen?" I asked him, over the noise of the cheering.

Grinning, he shouted in my ear, "She has had a happy reunion with her husband,

and is now allowing him to court her in the Egyptian manner—with gifts and

flowers and serenades by minstrels in the evening."

"They aren't sleeping together?"

"Not yet." He laughed. "She's making him learn the ways of civilization, and I

must say that he seems eager to learn—so that he can bed her."

I had to smile to myself. In her own way Helen would cultivate Menalaos. Still,

I felt more of a pang of regret than I had expected to.

Aramset greeted Hetepamon with regal solemnity, then showed us to chariots drawn

by quartets of matched white stallions. Our parade moved up the streets of the

capital at a stately pace; the prince was giving the crowds plenty of time to

admire him. He may be young, I thought, but apparently he knows a thing or two

about politics. He must have spent his few years closely observing the mechanics

of power. I was impressed.

Once we reached the palace, I saw old Nefertu standing at the top of the stairs

that led into its main entrance. I was glad to see him alive and safe from

Nekoptah's machinations.

We alighted from the chariots, and Aramset came to me. "I must make a fuss over

the chief priest of Amon; he is a much more important personage than a mere

friend, Orion."

"I understand."

"In three days there will be a majestic ceremony, to seal the new alliance

between the Achaians and the Kingdom of the Two Lands. My father will preside,

and Nekoptah will be at his side."

"What is happening..."

"Later," the prince said, his youthful face beaming. "I have much to tell you,

but it must wait until later."

So he went to Hetepamon while I fairly ran up the steps to greet Nefertu,

realizing as I pranced toward him that it was the prospect of news about Helen

that was really exciting me.

All that afternoon and well into the evening Nefertu filled me in on what had

transpired during my absence. News of our peaceful success in the delta country

had, of course, been flashed to Nekoptah by sun-mirror almost as soon as it had

happened. He seemed furious at first, but put a good face on it for the king. He

had made no overtures against Helen, realizing that his "hostage" had been

turned into the prize for the alliance with Menalaos.

As the sun cast lengthening shadows across the city, we sat in my apartment, I

on a soft couch covered in painted silk, Nefertu on a wooden stool where he

could look past me to the terrace and the rooftops beyond.

"Nekoptah has been strangely silent and inactive," said the silver-haired

bureaucrat. "Most of the time he has remained shut up in his own quarters."

"He won't give up the power of this kingdom without a struggle," I said.

"I believe the sudden emergence of Prince Aramset as a force to be reckoned with

has stunned him and upset all his plans," Nefertu said. "And for that, we have

you to thank, Orion."

"Meaning that Nekoptah blames me for it."

He laughed—a soft chuckle, actually, was all that Nefertu would allow himself.

"And the lady Helen?" I asked.

Nefertu's face took on that blank, expressionless look of a professional

bureaucrat who wishes to reveal nothing. "She is well," he said.

"Does she want to see me?"

Turning his eyes away from me slightly, he replied, "She has not said so."

"Would you tell her that I wish to see her?"

He looked pained. "Orion, she is allowing her husband to woo her all over again.

The husband that you sent to her."

I got up from the couch and walked toward the terrace. He was right, I knew.

Still, I wanted to see Helen one final time.

"Take my message to her," I said to Nefertu. "Tell her that I will be leaving

for good once the ceremony with the king is finished. I would like to see her

one last time."

Rising slowly from his chair, the old man said tonelessly, "I will do as you

ask."

He left, and I stayed on the terrace, watching the evening turn from sunset red

to deep violet and finally to black. Lamps winked on all across the city,

matched by the stars that crowded the clear dark sky.

A servant from the prince arrived with a set of packages and an invitation to

supper. The packages contained new clothes: not an Egyptian-style tunic or skirt

of white linen, but a leather kilt and vest similar to what I had been wearing

for so many months. I laughed to myself. This outfit was handsomely tooled and

worked with silver. It included a cloak of midnight blue and boots as soft as a

doe's eyes.

Aramset was becoming a true diplomat. I wondered how my stained old outfit

smelled to him. Servants answered my clapping hands and prepared a bath for me.

Finally, bathed, perfumed, decked in my new kilt, vest, and cloak—with my old

dagger still strapped to my thigh—I was escorted to Aramset's quarters.

We dined quietly, just the two of us, although I saw a quartet of Lukka's men

standing guard just outside the door to the prince's chambers. Servants brought

us trays of food, and the prince had them sample everything before we tasted it.

"You fear poison?" I asked him.

He shrugged carelessly. "I have surrounded the temple of Ptah with soldiers, and

given them orders to keep the chief priest inside. He's in there brooding, and

hatching schemes. I have suggested to my father that Nekoptah and his brother

officiate at the ceremony three days from now, the two of them together."

"That should be interesting," I said.

"The people will see that the priests of the two gods are as alike as peas in a

pod." Aramset smiled. "That should help to get rid of any plans Nekoptah may

have about setting up Ptah above the other gods."

I bit into a melon and thought to myself that Aramset was handling court

politics rather well.

"Your father is... well?" I asked.

The prince's youthful face clouded. "My father will never be well, Orion. His

sickness is too advanced, thanks to Nekoptah. The best that I can do is to make

him comfortable and allow the people to continue believing in their king."

Aramset seemed in total control of the situation. There was nothing left for me

to do here. Within three days I could take up my quest to find Anya, wherever

that would take me. Still, I thought, it would be good to see Helen one more

time.

A servant came rushing into the room and fell to his knees, skidding on the

polished floor and almost bumping into the prince.

"Your royal highness! The high priest of Ptah is dead! By his own hand!"

Aramset leaped to his feet, knocking over the chair behind him. "By his own

hand? The coward!"

"Who shall tell the king?" the servant asked.

"No one," snapped Aramset. "I will see this suicide first." He started for the

door.

I went with him, and motioned the Hittite guards to accompany us. One of them I

sent for Lukka, with orders to bring the rest.

We crossed the starlit courtyard and entered the vast temple of Ptah. Up the

stairs and along the corridor to the same office where surly Nekoptah had first

received me.

He lay on his back, a huge mound of flesh with a deep red gash across the rolls

of fat of his throat. In the flickering light of the desk lamp we saw his

painted face with eyes staring blankly at the dark wooden beams of the ceiling.

His golden medallion lay over one shoulder, blood already caking on it. The

rings on his stubby fingers glinted in the lamplight.

I stared at the rings.

"This is not Nekoptah," I said.

"What?"

"Look." I pointed. "Three of his fingers have no rings. Nekoptah's fingers were

so swollen that no one could have taken the rings off without cutting off the

fingers themselves."

"By the gods," Aramset whispered. "It's his brother, made up to look like him!"

"Nekoptah murdered him, and he's roaming free in the palace right now."

"My father!"

The prince bolted off toward the door. The Hittite guards cast me a confused

glance, but I motioned for them to go with Aramset. He was right: His first duty

was to protect his father. Nekoptah could go anywhere in the palace, disguised

as his twin brother. I doubted that he intended to harm the king, but Aramset

was right to go to him.

I knelt over the dead body of poor Hetepamon for a few moments, and then

suddenly realized where Nekoptah would strike next.

I got to my feet and ran for Helen's quarters.

 

Chapter 45

I understood the high priest's murderous plan. His goal was to undo the alliance

between the Achaians and the Egyptians, to show the king that Prince Aramset had

brought the barbarian menace into the very capital of the land. Who knows, I

thought as we raced through the palace toward Helen's apartment, perhaps he will

get Menalaos to kill the prince.

If he has Helen he has control of Menalaos, I knew. Even if he doesn't murder

the prince, if he can get Menalaos to run amok in the palace, Prince Aramset's

newfound influence with his father is gone. Nekoptah returns to power with a

haughty "I told you so."

Past startled guards I ran, guided by my memory of the palace's layout. But

there were no guards at Helen's door. It was slightly ajar. I pushed it open.

Nefertu lay sprawled on the floor, a jeweled dagger sticking out of his back.

I rushed to him. He was still alive, but just barely.

"I thought... chief priest of Amon..."

His eyes were glazed. Bright red blood flowed from his mouth.

"Helen." I asked, "Where did he take Helen?"

"The underworld... to meet Osiris..." Nefertu's voice was the faintest whisper.

I could feel his pain. He tried to breathe, but his lungs were filled with blood

and agony.

I had no time to be gentle. He was dying in my arms.

"Where did Nekoptah take Helen?"

"Osiris... Osiris..."

I shook the poor old dying man. "Look at me!" I demanded. "I am Osiris."

His eyes widened. Feebly, he tried to reach for my face with one limp hand. "My

lord Osiris..."

"Where has the false priest Nekoptah taken the foreign woman?" I demanded.

"To your temple... at Abtu..."

That was what I needed to know. I lay Nefertu's gray head down on the painted

tiles of the floor. "You have done well, mortal. Rest in peace now."

He smiled and sighed and stopped his breathing forever.

The temple of Osiris at Abtu.

I went to Prince Aramset and told him what had happened. "I cannot leave the

palace, Orion," he said. "Nekoptah's spies and assassins may be anywhere. I must

remain here with my father."

I agreed. "Just tell me where Abtu is and give me the means to get there."

Abtu was a two-day chariot drive north of the capital. "I can have fresh horses

ready for you every ten miles," the prince said. Then he offered me Lukka and

his men.

"No, they are your personal guard now. Don't strip yourself of their loyalty. A

charioteer and relays of fresh horses will be all I need."

"Nekoptah won't be alone at Abtu," warned Aramset.

"That's right," I said. "I will be there."

Before the sun rose I was standing in a war chariot, light and tough, beside a

nut-brown Egyptian who lashed the four powerful chargers along the royal road

northward. I carried nothing but the clothes I had been wearing and an iron

sword, Lukka's own, given to me by the Hittite captain as I took my leave of

him. And the dagger had been my companion for so long that it had left its

imprint on my right thigh.

We raced furiously along the road, kicking up a plume of dust behind us, the

horses thundering along the packed earth, my charioteer grunting and puffing

with the exertion of controlling the four of them.

We stopped at royal relay posts only long enough to change horses and take a

bite to eat and a sip of refreshing wine.

By dawn of the second day my charioteer was exhausted. He could hardly drag his

stiff and sore body from the chariot when we stopped at the halfway point. I

left him at the relay post there. He protested. He begged me to let him

continue, saying that the prince would have him flogged to death for abandoning

me. But there was no sense taking him farther.

I took the reins in my own hands. I had watched him long enough to know how to

handle the horses. Fatigue clawed at my body, too, but I could consciously damp

down its warning signals and pour more oxygen into my bloodstream by

hyperventilating as I drove four fresh animals pell-mell into the brightening

morning.

The river was on my left, and I passed many boats floating downstream on the

Nile's strong current. Not fast enough for this mission. I cracked my whip over

the horses' ears and they strained harder in their harnesses.

At a bend in the road I happened to turn and glance back behind me. Another

rooster tail of dust rose behind me, far back at the horizon. Someone was

following me in just as mad a hurry as I was. Had the prince sent troops to back

me up? Or could it be Menalaos rushing to rescue his wife? Either way, it would

be help for me. Then another thought struck me: Could it be followers of

Nekoptah, rushing to back him?

As the sun set, I drove madly through a village of small houses, scattering the

few people and children on the main road, and past a mile or so of precise

formal gardens bordered by rows of trees and gracefully laid-out ponds. The

temple of Osiris stood in their midst, facing a long rampway that led to the

river. A single boat was tied up at the pier.

A half-dozen guards in bronze armor stood before the temple's main gate as I

pulled up my lathered horses and jumped from the chariot.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" demanded their leader.

I was willing to fight them if I had to, but it would be quicker and easier if I

could avoid it.

"On your knees, mortals!" I boomed, in my deepest voice. "I am Osiris, and this

is my temple."

They gaped at me, then laughed. I realized that I was caked with dust from the

road, and hardly the glorious radiant figure of a god.

"You are one of the foreigners that my lord Nekoptah told us would try to enter

the sacred temple," said the guard leader. He drew his sword and the others

moved to surround me. "For your blasphemy alone, you deserve to die."

I took a deep breath. There were six of them, wiry little Egyptians with

deep-brown skins and even darker eyes, their chests protected by armor, conical

bronze helmets on their heads, and swords in their hands.

"Osiris dies each year," I said, "and each time the sun goes down. I am no

stranger to death. But I will not be killed at the hands of mortals."

Before he could react I snatched the sword from his hand and threw it toward the

river in a high arc. Its bronze blade caught the last rays of the dying sun.

They stared as it arced high overhead. Before they could react I threw their

leader to the ground and reached the next man. He went down with a blow to his

head. By the time their leader had risen to his hands and knees I had decked all

the rest of them.

I pointed at their leader, recalling the imperious tones that the Golden One had

often used on me. "Stay on your knees, mortal, when you face a god! And be glad

that I have spared your lives."

All six of them pressed their foreheads to the dust, trembling visibly.

"Forgive me, O powerful Osiris..."

"Stand watch faithfully and you will be forgiven," I said. "Remember that to

tempt the wrath of the gods is to court painful death."

Into the temple I strode, wondering in the back of my mind if a god ever ran.

Not in front of worshipers, I supposed. Not bad for a man sent to this time as a

mindless tool, a servant bereft of memory. I had risen to a maker of kings and a

pretender of godhood.

Now I was bent on vengeance once more, this time not for myself but for an

innocent fat priest and a faithful old bureaucrat, both murdered because they

stood between Nekoptah and the power of the kingdom. I drew my sword and hunted

the chief priest of Ptah in the temple of Osiris.

Through courtyards lit by the newly risen moon and past colonnaded halls lined

with statues of the gods I strode, sword in hand. I came upon a row of small

chambers, sanctuaries for various gods. Nekoptah was not in the shrine of Ptah,

where I looked first. Then I saw that the shrine of Osiris had a small doorway

at its rear. I went to it and pushed it open.

The three of them were there, standing beside the altar of Osiris, lit by the

flames of lamps set into the walls: Nekoptah, Helen, and Menalaos.

The erstwhile King of Sparta was in full bronze armor, his heavy spear gripped

tightly in his right hand. Helen, in a shimmering gown of silver-blue, stood

slightly behind him.

"I told you!" shouted Nekoptah. "I told you he would come seeking the woman."

The priest's face was unpainted and his resemblance to Hetepamon was uncanny.

Yet where the brother was smiling and amiable, Nekoptah was snarling and

vicious. I noticed that his hands were bare, except for the three fingers where

rings were imbedded too deeply in flesh ever to come off.

"Yes," I said, more to Menalaos than Nekoptah. "I seek the woman—to return her

to her husband."

Helen's eyes flared at me, but she said nothing.

"You took her away from me," Menalaos growled.

"He slept with her," said Nekoptah. "They have made a cuckold of you."

I answered, "You drove her away, Menalaos, with your brutal ways. She is willing

to be your wife now, but only if you treat her with love and respect."

"You make demands of me?" he snapped, hefting his spear.

I sheathed my sword. Softly, I said, "Menalaos, we have faced each other in

combat before..."

"The gods will not always favor you, Orion."

I took a quick glance at the intricate carvings on the temple walls. Sure

enough, there was Osiris, and Aset—my Anya, I realized—and all the other gods

and goddesses of the Egyptian pantheon.

"Look at my likeness, Menalaos." I pointed to the portrait of Osiris. "And you,

too, false priest of Ptah. See who truly faces you."

The three of them looked up to the carving of Osiris. I watched Menalaos's eyes

widen, his mouth drop open.

"I am Osiris," I said, and I felt it to be the absolute truth. "The gods will

always favor me, because I am one of them."

Helen was gaping, but Menalaos was goggle-eyed. Only Nekoptah saw through my

words.

"It's not true!" he screamed. "It's a trick! There are no gods and there never

have been. It's all a lie!"

I smiled at his twisted, enraged face. So in his heart of hearts Nekoptah had no

belief at all. He was the worst kind of cynic.

"Helen," I said. "Menalaos is your husband, and no matter what has transpired

between us, it is to him that you must now cling."

Nodding, she answered, "I understand, Orion... or should I call you Lord

Osiris?"

She asked with a slight smile that made me wonder how much she believed me. No

matter; she saw what I was trying to accomplish and she accepted it. We both

knew we would never see each other again.

Ignoring her question, I turned to her husband. "And you, Menalaos. You have

torn down the walls of Troy and searched half the world for this woman; she is

yours now, won by the valor of your arms. Cherish her and protect her. Forget

about the past."

Menalaos straightened to his full height and glanced at Helen almost boyishly.

"Fools!" spat Nekoptah. "I'll have you all slaughtered."

"Your troops will not raise their swords against a god, fat priest," I told him.

"Whether you believe me or not, they do."

He knew that I intended to kill him. His tiny pig's eyes darted wildly back and

forth as I stepped toward him.

Suddenly Nekoptah threw a fat arm around Helen's neck. A slim dagger appeared in

his other hand, and he raised it to her face.

"She dies unless you do as I say!" he screeched.

He was too far away for me to reach him before he could slice her throat open

the way he had killed his twin. Menalaos stood frozen beside them, his spear

gripped in his right hand.

"Kill him!" Nekoptah commanded Menalaos. "Drive your spear through the dog's

heart."

"I cannot kill a god."

"He's no more a god than you or I. Kill him, or she dies."

Menalaos turned toward me and lifted his spear. I stood unmoving. In Menalaos's

eyes I saw confusion, fear, not hate or even anger. Nekoptah's face was a

seething map of hatred, his eyes burning. Helen stared at her husband, then

looked at me.

"Do what you must, Menalaos," I said. "Save your wife. I have died many times. A

final death does not frighten me."

The Achaian king raised his long spear high above his head, then whirled and

sank it into the fat neck of the priest. Nekoptah gave a strangled grunt; his

body spasmed, the knife fell from his numbed fingers, and he released Helen as

he clawed at the spear haft with his other hand.

His face contorted in a fierce frown, Menalaos yanked the spear from Nekoptah's

neck and the fat priest collapsed in a heap on the stone floor of the temple,

blood gushing over his huge body.

Throwing the spear to the floor, Menalaos reached for Helen. She fled to his

arms gladly and rested her head against his chest.

"You saved me," she said. "You saved me from that horrible monster."

Menalaos smiled. In the flickering light from the wall lamps, it seemed to me

that his swarthy face reddened slightly.

"You have done well," I said to him. "That took courage."

He ran a finger across his dark beard, a gesture that made him seem almost shy.

"I am no stranger to battle, my lord. Many times I have seen what happens when a

spear strikes a man's flesh. The body freezes with shock."

"You have rid this kingdom of its greatest danger. Take your wife and return to

the capital. Serve Prince Aramset well. The burdens of the kingdom will be on

his shoulders now. And one day he will be king in fact, as well as in duty."

His arm around Helen's shoulders, Menalaos started for the door. She turned to

say a last good-bye to me.

"Orion, behind you!"

I wheeled and saw the bleeding Nekoptah on his feet, staggering, clutching

Menalaos's long spear in both his hands. He lurched and drove its bloody point

into my chest with all his weight behind it.

"Not... a god..." he gasped. Then he fell face down on the stone flooring,

finally dead.

The shock of sudden pain flooded my brain with unwanted memories of other

deaths, other agonies. I stood transfixed, the spear hanging from my chest.

Every nerve in my body screamed excruciatingly. I felt my heart trying to pump

blood, but it was torn apart by sharp bronze.

I sank to my knees and saw my own blood spilling to the floor. Helen and

Menalaos stood frozen, staring in horror.

"Go," I told them. I meant it as a command. It came out as a whisper.

Helen took a step toward me.

"Go!" I made it stronger, but the effort sent waves of giddiness through me.

"Leave me! Do as I say!"

Menalaos pulled her to him once more and they fled through the open doorway,

into the night, toward the capital and a life together that I hoped would be

bearable, perhaps even happy.

I sat heavily, all the strength gone from my body, leaning forward until the

spear propped me from falling any farther, its butt wedged against Nekoptah's

obese corpse.

The final death, I thought.

"If I can't be with you in life, Anya, then I will join you in death," I said

aloud.

I toppled over onto my back as the black shadows of death swirled and gathered

about me.

 

Chapter 46

I lay on my back, waiting for the final death, knowing that neither the Golden

One nor any of the other Creators would revive me again. Nor would they revive

Anya. They were glad to be rid of us both, I knew.

A wave of anger crested over the pain that throbbed through my body. I was

accepting their victory over me, over her, their victory over us. They were

tenderly nursing the Golden One back to sanity so that they could continue their

mastery over the human race and its ultimate destiny.

Memories of other lives, other deaths, flooded through me. I began to understand

what they had done to me and, more important, how they had done it.

With the last ebbing bit of strength in me, I slowly reached up and clasped the

spear imbedded in my chest. Bathed in cold sweat, I closed off the receptor

cells that shrieked with pain, willed my body to ignore the agony flaming

through me. Then, weakly, slowly, I pulled the spear out of me. The bloody barbs

of its point tore great gouges of flesh, but that no longer mattered. I pulled

it free and let it fall clattering to the stone floor.

The world was swimming giddily about me now, the very walls of the temple

shimmering, their carvings shifting and undulating almost like living creatures

in an intricate, eerie dance.

I propped myself up on my elbows and watched the walls, saw my own image and

that of Anya facing each other, wavering, moving, fading from my sight.

The secret of time is that it flows like an ocean, in vast enormous currents and

tides. Humans see time as a river, like the Nile, always moving linearly from

here to there. But time is a wide and beautiful sea that touches all shores. And

in the many lives I had led, I had learned a little about navigating on that

sea.

It takes energy to move across time. But the universe is filled with energy,

drenched with the radiant bounty of uncounted stars. The Creators knew how to

tap that energy, and my memories of their actions taught me how to tap it also.

The walls of Osiris's temple faded before my eyes, but did not disappear. The

carvings melted away. The dancing, shimmering pictures slowly dissolved until

the walls were blank and smooth, as if newly erected.

I rose to my feet. The wound in my chest was gone. That existed in another time,

thousands of years away.

Through the open doorway I saw not the columned court of the main temple, but a

lush garden where fruit trees bent their heavily laden branches to the grassy

ground and flowers were opening their colorful petals to the first welcome rays

of the morning sun.

The temple I was in was small, plain, virtually undecorated. A rough stone altar

stood against one wall, with a single small statue atop it. It was the figure of

a man with the head of a beast I could not recognize: a sharply curved beak,

almost like a hawk's, but the rest of the face had no birdlike qualities to it.

No matter. I saw that there was another doorway in the opposite wall, and that

it led into a smaller, inner shrine. It was dark in there, but I stepped through

the doorway without hesitation.

Through the dim shadows I saw her lying on the altar, dressed in a long gown of

silver. Her eyes were closed, her hands lay by her sides. She was not breathing,

but I knew she was not dead. Merely waiting.

I looked up at the low ceiling, barely above my head. It was made of wooden

beams covered with planks and sealed with pitch. I reached up and, sure enough,

the section of roof just over the altar was hinged. I pushed it open and let the

morning sun shine down on Anya's recumbent figure.

The silver of her robe gleamed like a thousand tiny stars. Color returned to her

cheeks.

I stepped to the altar, leaned over her, and kissed her on the lips.

She felt warm and alive. Her arms twined around my neck and she sighed deeply

and kissed me back. My eyes filled with tears and for many long minutes we said

nothing at all, merely held each other so closely that neither time nor space

could separate us.

"I knew you would find me," Anya said at last, her voice low and warm and filled

with love.

"They said you couldn't be revived. They told me you were gone forever."

"I was here. Waiting for you."

Anya sat up slowly, and then I helped her to stand. Her eyes held the depths of

the universes in them. She smiled at me, the same radiant smile I remembered

from so many other existences.

But as I held her in my arms, rejoicing, the memory of our death together sent a

chill shudder through me.

"What is it, my love?" she asked. "What's wrong?"

"The Golden One murdered you..."

Her face grew grave. "He is mad with jealousy of you, Orion."

"The other Creators have taken him. They're trying to cure his madness."

She looked at me with new respect. "And you helped to capture him, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"I thought so. They couldn't have done it without you, just as they couldn't

have revived me without you."

"I don't understand," I said.

She touched my cheek with her soft, wonderful fingertips. "It will take time to

teach you, my brave Orion, but you already know much more than you realize."

A new question rose in my mind. "Are you human now, or a... goddess?"

Anya laughed. "There are no gods or goddesses, Orion. You know that. We have

much more knowledge than earlier human species. We have much more powerful

capabilities."

Much more powerful than I, I thought.

As if she could read my mind, Anya said, "Your own powers are growing, Orion.

You have learned much since the Golden One first sent you to the Ice Age to hunt

down Ahriman. You are becoming one of us."

"Can you be killed?" I blurted.

She understood my fear. "Anyone can be killed, Orion. The entire continuum can

be destroyed, and everything in it."

"Then there's no place for us to be at peace? No time when we can rest and live

and love as ordinary human beings do?"

"No, my darling. Not even ordinary mortals have that luxury. The best we can

hope for is to be together, to face the joys and dangers of each moment side by

side, through all time, across all the universes."

I took her in my arms once more and felt not merely content, but supernally

happy. "That will be good enough. To be with you, no matter what, is all I

desire."

 

Epilogue

WITH Anya beside me, I walked out of the ancient temple into the warming

sunshine of the new day. All around us, a lush green garden grew: flowering

shrubs and bountiful fruit trees as far as the eye could see.

Slowly we walked toward the river, the mighty Nile, flowing steadily through all

the eons.

"Where in time are we?" I asked.

"The pyramids have not been started yet. The land that will someday be called

the Sahara is still a wide grassland teeming with game. Bands of hunting people

roam across it freely."

"And this garden? It looks like Eden."

She smiled at me. "Hardly that. It is the home of the creature whose statue

stood on the altar."

I glanced back at the little stone temple. It was a simple building, blocks of

stone piled atop one another, with a flat wooden slat roof.

"Someday the Egyptians will worship him as a powerful and dangerous god. They

will call him Set."

"He is one of the Creators?"

"No," Anya said. "Not one of us. He is an enemy; one of those who seek to twist

the continuum to their own purposes."

"As the Golden One does," I said.

She gave me a stern look. "The Golden One, power-mad as he is, at least works

for the human race."

"He created the human race, he claims."

"He had help," she replied, allowing a small smile to dimple her cheeks.

"But this other creature... the one with the lizard's face?"

The smile vanished. "He comes from a distant world, Orion, and he seeks to

eliminate us all from the continuum."

"Then why are we here, in this time and place?"

"To find him and destroy him," said Anya. "You and I together. Hunter and

warrior, through all space-time."

I looked into her glowing eyes and realized that this was my destiny. I am Orion

the Hunter. And with this huntress, this warrior goddess, beside me, all the

universes were my hunting grounds.

 

Author's Afterward

THE distant past has always been just as exciting to me as the distant future,

and seems an equally fascinating domain for science fiction.

The novel you have just read is science fiction, not an historical novel.

Obviously this is so, for the novel deals with the gods and goddesses of the

ancients, and attempts to portray them as advanced human beings from a far

distant future who have the ability to travel through time at their whim.

Yet the historical parts of this novel are as accurate as careful research can

make them—with some deliberate deviations from "known" history.

It is agreed among most students of ancient history that the siege of Troy

celebrated in Homer's Iliad and the fall of Jericho described in the Old

Testament's Book of Joshua both happened sometime around the middle of the

twelfth century B.C. To the novelist, this presents the opportunity of placing

the same character(s) at both events; both could have happened within the

lifespan of a human being. Perhaps they happened within a few years, or even a

few months, of each other.

Once I realized that this was so, the temptation to examine the fabled Trojan

Horse and the true cause of the "tumbling down" of Jericho's walls simply

overpowered me.

Thus the historical backbone of this novel—the Achaian siege of Troy, the

Israelite invasion of Canaan, the collapse of the powerful Hittite empire, and

the troubles of Egypt during the attacks of the Sea Peoples—are faithful to

modern historical scholarship.

In classic Greek legend there is no certainty about Helen's fate after the

Achaians sacked Troy. Some tales claim that she went to Egypt and spent the

remainder of her days there. If she were the kind of woman I think she was, she

would surely have preferred civilized, peaceful Egypt to the semi-barbaric

rigors of Achaian Sparta.

I have taken a few liberties with the canons of history. Several scholars have

pointed out that the Trojan Horse might have been a siege tower covered with

horse hides. It could not have been built by the Achaians, however, who have

left absolutely no evidence of such sophisticated military technology. But siege

towers had been used in the Middle East for centuries before Troy. Certainly the

Hittites knew of them, and thus I bring a Hittite contingent to the service of

Odysseus and the House of Ithaca.

The cause of the collapse of Jericho's walls is more speculative, but I believe

it is consistent with the archaeological evidence and the record from the Book

of Joshua.

In this novel, I have it that while the Hebrews were slaves in Egypt, pharaoh

commanded every female infant to be killed. This contradicts the Biblical

telling of the murder of every male baby. Biblical scholars and historians agree

that the Egyptians apparently carried out the slaughter as a means of

controlling the Hebrews' population growth; the Jewish slaves were

out-populating the native Egyptians. To my mind, the Egyptians were intelligent

enough to realize that killing male children would not alter the Jewish

birthrate; killing female children would. Thus the slaughter of the baby girls.

I assume that later generations of Jewish scribes were so thoroughly

male-oriented that they changed the story to agree with their concepts of male

importance and dominance.

These speculations are perfectly in accord with the traditional science-fiction

axiom that the author is free to invent anything, so long as no one can prove

him wrong. The Egyptians slaughtered baby girls, and Troy and Jericho were both

toppled by Hittite engineers.

The most fantastic elements in the novel are, of course, Orion himself and the

pantheon of advanced human time-travelers who present themselves as gods and

goddesses to the ancients.

Does this mean that the novel is fantasy, rather than science fiction? To be

science fiction, a story must deal fairly with the known laws of science, and

reasonable extrapolations thereof.

Time travel is clearly impossible, almost. Physicists have speculated that black

holes representing collapsed stars or even collapsed galaxies must have

gravitational fields about them that are so intense they warp space-time. Space

and time are bent so drastically that modern physics cannot predict what happens

under such circumstances. Such black holes may represent, then, natural time

machines. What nature can do, the human mind can eventually duplicate or even

improve upon. Time machines are clearly impossible today, but they may not

always be so, especially if you allow plenty of millennia for them to be

developed.

Thus the novel is, to my way of thinking, science fiction. Again, the axiom is

that an author can use anything that cannot be proven to be wrong. Time travel

is reasonable material for a science fiction novelist to use in his

speculations. Even more fascinating are the consequences of time travel.

If one grants the possibility of time travel, then the need for a supernatural

being, a god, as the cause of the universe—and of humankind—goes out the window.

Consider a very advanced human civilization, thousands of years in our future.

Their knowledge is so great that they discover the means to travel through time;

past and future are like different currents in a vast ocean, to them. They could

go back to an earlier eon on Earth and create the human race, their own

ancestors. In fact, they would have to.

To those earlier people the creators would seem like gods. It is clear that the

ancient gods were not the beneficent moralists that we believe our modern gods

to be. In fact, to any rational mind, the concept of a god who is perfectly just

and perfectly merciful is not only illogical, it is decidedly out of tune with

the observable facts of the world around us.

Now then—if the "gods" are as human as you and I but possess enormously greater

powers than we do, and if power truly does corrupt the human spirit, imagine how

wildly malevolent an all-powerful god must be!

The result of such ratiocinations is the novel you have just finished reading,

and its predecessor, Orion. There will be more.

Ben Bova

West Hartford, Connecticut

 

Copyright © 1988 by Ben Bova

Cover art by Boris Vallejo

ISBN: 0-812-53161-2