The Age of Ra

24. Nonomura

David was exhausted, but couldn't sleep.

He had spent the past two days helping to arrange the Lightbringer's forces around the plain in the most strategically effective manner and establish a fortified position on Mount Megiddo. Atop the mountain — a sharply rising 700-foot-high plateau — lay the ruins of the city of Megiddo itself. Narrow streets running between the remnants of stone walls made for perfect trenches and gun emplacements, while a high, vaulted chamber with arched alcoves, which had once been a storehouse, was easily put to use as a command post. From the plateau's perimeter the entire plain could be seen, spread between the slopes of its valley, and the view stretched all the way to Mount Carmel in the west and Mount Tabor in the east.

The troops were divided into units, each a hundred strong, which were distributed at intervals along three lines radiating southward from Mount Megiddo. Each unit was accompanied by a Scarab tank or a conventionally armed vehicle. The indigenous smallholders were none too happy at having men and machines trampling across their fields and bedding down among their crops, but few raised any objections. The wise ones, sensing what was coming, simply packed up their valuables and got out with their families while they could.

The Anubian C39s occupied a central position at the foot of the mountain, and it was here that a restless David went, picking his way down a steep footpath by moonlight. The Anubians were night owls, and he had spied them from above, gathered around a campfire close to their gunships, drinking. Awake in the small hours, jangling with pre-battle nerves, he craved company.

Squadron Leader Nonomura invited him to sit. Nonomura and his men were pink-eyed drunk. A saucepan of sake was warming over the flames, and David was passed a porcelain cup full of the steaming liquor. It burned his throat in more ways than one, but he chugged it down and asked for another. Nonomura approved.

''The only way to drink sake is carelessly,'' he said. ''Like there's no tomorrow.''

''There may well not be,'' David said. ''It's the eve of battle. The Nephs are on their way. If they don't reach us later today, then definitely the day after.''

''A toast to that,'' said Nonomura. ''Kampai.''

His men raised their cups and echoed, ''Kampai.'' Among them were a couple of Australians, who followed up with ''Good on yer'' and ''Down the hatch''.

''You say the Nephthysians are on their way, Lieutenant Westwynter,'' said Nonomura. ''You know this?''

''Intelligence is sketchy. We're relying on radio newscasts as much as anything. But it looks like the Setics have relented and told the Nephs to go ahead and attack. Whatever was troubling their high priests isn't troubling them any more. So we've got Neph infantry battalions amassing to the north of us in Damascus, and a whole lot more troops moving in from Baghdad and Riyadh. And that's not the worst of it.''

''No?''

''We reckon the Setics are going to get involved after all. Chang's making noises about sending several battalions-worth of reinforcements down through the Caucasus and Persia.''

''The gods have changed their minds?''

''Set, apparently, has. Or maybe it's just politics. All the sabre-rattling that the Horusites and the Hegemony were doing. They've stopped now, but it seems to have galvanised the Setics into action. Suddenly it's high priority for them that the Lightbringer is stamped on, most likely so as to prevent the Hegemony taking matters into its own hands. Last thing anyone in the region wants is an Osirisiac invasion of Arabia.''

''Something is going on up there,'' said Nonomura, pointing to the starry heavens.

''Something always is.''

''But don't you feel it? I do. Everything seems uncertain, shifting, one day this, the next day that. It's as though the Pantheon is no longer setting the agenda. They're trying to keep up with events down here. Mortals, for once, are influencing the gods rather than the other way round. The Lightbringer has reversed the order of things.''

''Is that why you've defected to his cause?'' David asked. ''You think we're the winning team?''

Nonomura chuckled, and his men chimed in. ''Oh no, Lieutenant. We're not here for that. The Lightbringer hasn't a hope of success. The gods are too powerful to let him win. We're here to die, simple as that. This whole enterprise has an air of glorious futility about it. It looks like being as pointless and meaningless a sacrifice of life as it is possible to imagine. So naturally we want to be a part of that.''

David frowned, then held his cup out for a refill. ''That doesn't make any sense, but then maybe I need a bit more alcohol inside me.'' In truth, he was already buzzing from the sake and was starting to relish the clarity and calmness that being drunk brought.

''It makes sense to any Anubian, with or without the aid of alcohol,'' said Nonomura. ''We live to die. Life has no goal for us beyond taking us to the point at which we leave it. We despise life. We endure it while it lasts, but death is where we wish to be. Our ruler is Anubis, so why would we not want to be closer to him, in his realm?''

One of the Australians, a lanky giant with dyed black hair and skin that had seldom seen the sun, said, ''We all wind up in Iaru eventually. It's just that some of us want to get there sooner than the rest. You know what they call us in Oz, me and my type, the ones who go along with the Asians? We're the 'can't wait, mate' brigade.''

''But surely,'' David said, ''if you're keen to die, you at least want your deaths to mean something? To achieve something?''

''Forgive me, but that is Osirisiac thinking,'' said Nonomura. ''You are with the Lightbringer, you have come this far with him, so I can only assume you're aware that there's a good chance you may perish fighting on his behalf.''

''I'd prefer not to, but yes, it may well happen.''

''And if it does, you'd like to sell your death as dearly as you can. You don't want to throw your life away.''

''Of course.''

''There's the difference,'' said the Asian. ''For us, a good death is a cheap death. We show our contempt for life by dispensing with it as we might a… a…''

''A pair of old underpants,'' said the Australian.

''Thank you, Gunner Coburn,'' said Nonomura. ''Not as elegant a simile as I was looking for, but it'll do.''

''No worries.''

''So,'' David said, ''you're here effectively to commit suicide?''

''Yes. In the vainest and most fatalistic of circumstances. The moment we learned about the Lightbringer, we knew we had to come and take part. The Nephthysians are going to slaughter this little army of yours. You're doomed. That appeals to us greatly.''

''You're not even going to try to fight?'' David felt cold disgust snaking through him, counteracting the heat of the sake. ''So what's the good of you? You've brought us seven abso-bloody-lutely lethal helicopters and you're just going to, what, crash them into the enemy the moment you see them? Thanks a lot!''

''No, no, please don't misunderstand, Lieutenant. We will fight. We will fight till every last one of our bullets, missiles, and ba bolts is gone. That is the only honourable and fair thing to do. But after that our lives are forfeit. Then we will crash our aircraft into the enemy, and take as many of them with us as we can.''

''Oh.'' David unclenched. ''Well, that's more like it.''

''Your enemy isn't strictly speaking our enemy,'' said Nonomura, ''so we gain nothing and lose nothing by killing them.''

''Adding to the meaninglessness of your deaths.''

''Indeed.''

''Well, you're all mad,'' David said, raising his cup, ''but I salute you.''

The Anubians reciprocated, saluting him with their cups.

David stayed with the Anubians a while longer, till a sliver of pre-dawn grey appeared behind Mount Tabor, levering sky and land apart. He got steadily drunker, and when the Australian, Gunner Coburn, started singing a song in praise of Anubis, he joined in. He wasn't familiar with the verses, but the chorus had a catchy tune and was easy to pick up:

Oh, a knife to the heart

Or a bullet in the back'll

Get you quick-smart

To the kingdom of the Jackal.

The Asian Anubians sang along too with this death-affirming ditty, swaying to the rhythm and slurring the words merrily.

When, finally, David stood up to leave, his head rushed down to his boots. The world whirled and wobbled, and he knew he was going to be sick. It was a matter of when, not if.

''Got to… got to go now,'' he told Nonomura.

The squadron leader nodded vaguely, like someone dropping off to sleep.

''I'll see you around.''

''Yes,'' said Nonomura. ''Yes. We shall meet again in the Field of Reeds.'' The Anubian for farewell.

''Not too soon, I hope,'' David said, staggering away.

Moving like a sailor on deck in high seas, he made his way back to the footpath that led up the mountainside. Halfway up, he stopped and puked, so violently it felt as though he was turning himself inside out. He couldn't recall when he had last been quite so severely, so incapacitatingly inebriated. Not since he'd learned the news of Steven's ''death'' and had gone out on a bender with a couple of friends in London and woken up in an alley with a policeman prodding him and advising him to move on or be arrested. Even the vomiting brought no relief. He cursed himself for being so careless and rice wine for being so beguilingly potent. He continued the uphill journey bent double, sometimes on hands and knees. He planned on crawling into his little camp bed before anyone saw him and catching a few hours' sleep. If war came today, he'd be in no fit state to face it without some shuteye beforehand.

Gaining the summit, he looked around. Sunrise was still several minutes away. Everything was grey and bleary. He could see his little bivouac, perched with several others among the rubble of shattered, ancient houses. Not far. A few hundred paces.

He blinked, and the sun was nearly up, and his bivouac was still a few hundred paces away. He stood up on the spot where he had briefly passed out. He tottered forwards. Then he passed out again.

He half-opened his eyes, hearing voices. He was lying on his side, cheek in the dust. Two people were talking softly nearby, a man and a woman, in Arabic. Dimly David knew that he knew both voices. They were so familiar, it seemed absurd to him that he couldn't for the moment identify them. There was a time lag between what he was thinking and what he wanted to think.

Steven. And… Zafirah?

He tried to stand, so that he could see them. Standing, however, had become a skill as hard to master as juggling. The best he could manage was hauling himself up onto all fours, from which position he was able to peer over the top of an old stone rain-cistern.

His brother and Zafirah weren't as close by as he'd thought. They were at the entrance to the command post, perhaps 200 yards from where he was crouching. In the dawn stillness their voices, though low, carried far.

He couldn't make out their words, and anyway his Arabic wasn't up to translating. He focused on their body language. What did it tell him? Might it reveal what Zafirah was doing up here, talking to the Lightbringer at this hour?

Zafirah looked perplexed, to him. Her usual swagger was gone. There was a hapless hunch to her shoulders. Afraid? Maybe. Almost everyone in the Lightbringer's army was tense, anxious, and understandably so. Attack was imminent. But somehow he didn't feel Zafirah belonged in that category. This was a fight she'd long been spoiling for, and if she harboured any fears, she was the type to keep them to herself.

What, then? What was the reason for the stooped stance, the one foot toeing the other, the hands that didn't seem to know where to put themselves?

And Steven. He was looking concerned. Conciliatory. His head was canted to one side. The patient listener. The man who cared.

Then something he said made Zafirah wheel away abruptly. He caught her by the arm. He turned her back round. His head bent to hers and his voice dropped to an inaudible whisper.

David watched as Zafirah leaned in with her ear close to Steven's mask-veiled mouth — intimately close. He watched as Steven murmured to her, still holding her. He watched her body start to unstiffen. She relaxed. He thought, although he was too far away to be sure, that she even smiled.

And now he thought, or imagined he thought, that Steven's hand was caressing Zafirah's hair.

And now he imagined, or thought he imagined, that Zafirah was pressing her cheek against Steven's face. Had the mask not been there, this would have been a kiss. A lingering touch of lips to cheek. Even with the mask it was still a kiss, of sorts.

Then Zafirah was walking away, confidence restored. She strode straight past David's place of concealment. She didn't see him. He didn't make his presence known. She disappeared down the footpath. Steven turned and ducked in through the command post entrance.

David slumped to the ground, his sake-soused brain struggling to digest what he had just witnessed. It couldn't have been what it had appeared to be, and yet it couldn't have been anything else. Steven and Zafirah in a clinch. Well, not quite a clinch, but as near as made no difference. An embrace too close to be that of just-friends. She had been unsure about something, and Steven had soothed her, as tenderly as a lover would, and they had parted with a kiss.

And where had the pair of them been immediately before that conversation? Indoors? In the command post? Alone together? Was that why Zafirah had needed soothing? To set her mind at ease over something that had happened in there? Something they had done?

It was all leading to one conclusion. David kept trying to reinterpret the evidence, direct it onto a more innocent track. Again and again it steered itself inexorably back towards that same conclusion.

His head swam. The rim of the sun crested the horizon, Ra on the rise. He wanted to get up, go and confront his brother. His eyelids were as heavy as old sash windows. The hard earth felt extraordinarily comfortable beneath him, soft as a feather bed. Steven, the liar. Steven, the traitor. The dawn sky was red. Blood of Apophis, shed by Set. Just a few minutes' rest. Steven, the devious, selfish bastard. Fucked her. Fucker.

''Fkrrr,'' David mumbled, and lapsed into unconsciousness.

And came awake to the scream of jets and the crackle of explosions. A Nephthysian Locust passed a couple of hundred of feet overhead, its roar making the whole of Mount Megiddo tremble. Cluster bombs tumbled from its wings. Rippling patches of ba swelled and popped across the plain like blisters.

David scrambled to his feet, suddenly and brutally sober.

Battle had begun.