Vengeance of Orion

Chapter 34

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The innkeeper’s smile vanished. “Hittites? They have been our enemies…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I am Orion,” I replied.

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

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

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

“No,” I admitted. “I come from far away.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Would foreigners be allowed in the army?” I asked.

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

“Then the Hittites would be accepted?”

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

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

“He is here in Tahpanhes?” I asked.

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

I blinked with surprise. “Then how did you get a message…”

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

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

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

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

Helen was overjoyed that we were going to the capital.

“There’s no guarantee that we will see the king,” I warned her.

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

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

She frowned at me.

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

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

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

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

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

Almost, I wished that I could. “No,” I said softly, so low that I barely heard my own voice. “I can’t.”

“Where will you go?”

“To find my goddess,” I whispered.

“But you said that she is dead.”

“I will try to revive her, to return her to life.”

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

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

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

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

“Then you love her, and not me?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 35

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Egyptian’s smile broadened. “You have seen nothing of splendor as yet. Wait until Menefer.”

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

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

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

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

But what was that strange beacon on the western horizon?

“You see it.”

I turned, and Nefertu was standing at my side.

“What is it?” I asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The servants were sealed in alive?” I asked.

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

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

“I would like to see the great pyramid,” I said.

“You have just seen it.”

“I mean close up. Perhaps it is possible to enter…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 36

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

It took two swallows before I found my voice. “A dream,” I croaked. “Nothing…”

“You saw the gods again,” she said.

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

“It’s all right,” I yelled through the closed door. “Only a bad dream.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Was there a war here?” I asked Nefertu.

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

“A king? You mean this was once the capital?”

“Briefly.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Not a good place to go swimming,” Lukka observed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Only I felt restless and unsatisfied.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Nekoptah?”

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

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

I felt my eyebrows climb. “A palace intrigue?”

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

“I thank you for the advice.”

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

“What about Lukka and his troops?”

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

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

“That is not necessary,” said Nefertu.

“It is my responsibility,” I said.

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

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

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

“I’ll join you for the inspection,” I told him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 37

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

After greeting him, I asked, “Is it possible to place a guard at Helen’s door?”

He looked genuinely alarmed. “Why? Is something amiss?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finally Raseth turned abruptly and limped back toward us.

“They fought where?” he asked me.

I briefly described the sieges at Troy and Jericho.

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

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

That was the easiest part of the day.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Are there no statues of Merneptah?” I asked.

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

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

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

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

“Not Amon?”

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

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

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

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

A pair of glittering eyes stared at me from the deep shadows. I almost laughed. Another of the palace’s innumerable cats.

At the end of the awesome court we climbed up steps of black marble. Down another corridor, this one lined with small statues of various gods bearing heads of animals: a hawk, a jackal, a lion, even an anteater. At the end of the corridor a giant statue stood in a special niche, its head almost touching the ceiling.

“There is Ptah,” said Nefertu, almost in a whisper.

The god’s statue loomed before us, almost as huge as the colossi of Ramesses outside the temple. A skylight in the roof far above us cast a shaft of sunlight along the length of the statue’s white stone. I saw a man’s face, his body wrapped in windings like a mummy, except that his hands were free and clasping a long, elaborately worked staff. A skullcap covered his head, and a small beard dangled from his chin. The face looked uncannily like that of the slim, sarcastic Hermes I had last seen when I had briefly transported Joshua to the Creators’ realm.

Nefertu stopped at the foot of the giant statue, where incense smoldered in a pair of braziers. He bowed three times, then took a pinch of something from the golden pan between the braziers and threw it onto the embers at his left. The stuff made a small burst of flame and sent white smoke spiraling toward the distant ceiling.

“You must offer a sacrifice, also, Orion,” he whispered to me.

Straight-faced, I went to the railing and tossed a pinch of incense onto the brazier to my right. Its smoke was black. Turning back to Nefertu, I saw his eyes following the dark billow. His face was not pleased at all.

“Did I do something wrong?” I asked.

“No,” he said, his eyes still on the drifting smoke. “But sacred Ptah is apparently not entirely happy with your offering.”

I shrugged.

As he led me down a narrower corridor, past another pair of golden-armored guards and to a massive door of ebony set into a deep, stone doorway, Nefertu seemed distinctly nervous, filled with an anxiety he could not hide. Was he apprehensive about meeting Nekoptah, or was it something I had done? Or had failed to do?

Another guard stood before the door. Without a word he opened it for Nefertu.

We stepped through the doorway into a sizable room. Morning sunlight slanted through three windows on our right. The room was absolutely bare of decorations: the stone walls were as blank as a prison cell’s. The floor was empty and uncovered. Far at the other end of the room, next to its only other door, was a long table heaped with rolled-up writing scrolls. Two huge silver candlesticks stood at each end of the table, the candles in them unlit.

Behind the desk sat an enormously fat man, his head shaved bald, his huge globulous body covered with a gray sleeveless robe that went to the floor. His arms, flabby, thick, hairless, and pink as a baby pig, rested on the polished wood of the table. Every finger and both his thumbs bore jeweled rings, some of them so buried in flesh that they could not have been taken off in years. His jowls were so huge that they cascaded down onto his chest and shoulders. I could barely make out a pair of eyes embedded in that grossly corpulent face, studying us as we crossed the long empty chamber to stand before his desk. His face was painted: eyes lined with black kohl and daubed with green shadow above and below them, his cheeks pink with rouge, his lips deep red.

Nefertu threw himself onto the floor and pressed his forehead against the bare tiles. I remained standing, although I bowed slightly from the waist to show my respect.

“O great Nekoptah,” intoned Nefertu, from the floor, “high priest of dreaded Ptah, right hand of mighty Merneptah, guide of the people, guardian of the Two Lands, I bring you the barbarian Orion, as you commanded.”

The high priest’s fleshy painted lips curled in what might have been a smile. “You may rise, Nefertu my servant. You have done well.” His voice was a clear sweet tenor. It sounded strange, such a lovely voice coming from such a gross, ugly face. Then I realized that Nekoptah was a eunuch, one who had been dedicated to the god’s service in childhood.

Nefertu slowly climbed to his feet and stood beside me. His face was red, whether from pressing it against the floor or from embarrassment at having done so, I could not tell.

“And you, barbarian…”

“My name is Orion,” I said.

Nefertu gasped at my effrontery. Nekoptah merely grunted.

“Orion, then,” he granted. “My general Raseth tells me that your two dozen Hittites will make a passable addition to our all-conquering army.”

“They are fine men.”

“I am not so easily satisfied, however,” he said, his voice rising slightly. “Raseth is of an age where he dwells in the past. I must look toward the future, if I am to protect and guide our great king.”

He eyed me carefully as he spoke, waiting for a reaction from me. I remained silent.

“Therefore,” he went on, “I have thought of a test that these recruits can undertake.”

Again he waited for a reply. Again I said nothing.

“You, Orion, will lead your men to the delta country, where the barbarian Sea Peoples are raiding our coastal cities once again. One particularly troublesome set of raiders flies a lion’s-head emblem on their sails. You will find them and destroy them, so that they will trouble the Lower Kingdom no longer.”

Menalaos, I realized. Searching for Helen and ravaging the coastal cities, looting as much as possible while he searches. Possibly with Agamemnon alongside him.

“How many of these ships have been seen?” I asked.

Nekoptah seemed delighted that I had finally spoken. “Reports vary. At least ten, possibly as many as two dozen.”

“And you expect two dozen soldiers to conquer two dozen shiploads of Achaians?”

“You will have other soldiers with you. I will see to that.”

I shook my head. “With all respect, my lord…”

“Your holiness,” Nefertu whispered.

It took an effort to get the words past my gag reflex. “With all respect — your holiness — I did not intend to stay with the Hittites once they were accepted into your army.”

“Your intentions are of little interest,” said Nekoptah. “The needs of the kingdom are paramount.”

Ignoring that, I continued, “I came here as escort to the Queen of Sparta, the lady Helen…”

“Escort?” He smirked. “Or consort?”

I could feel the blood rising in me. With a deliberate effort I calmed myself, constricted capillaries that would have colored my face.

Softly, I said, “So someone was spying on us in our rooms.”

Nekoptah threw his head back and laughed. “Orion, do you think the king’s chief minister will allow strangers into the palace without keeping watch on them? Every breath you take has been observed — even the dagger you carry hidden beneath your kilt was seen and reported to me.”

I nodded acquiescence of the fact, knowing that there were armed guards standing on the other side of the door behind the priest’s desk, ready to defend their master or slay us at the slightest word from him. Yet there was one thing that Nekoptah did not know, for he had never observed me in action: I could tear out his throat before the guards could open that door. And I could kill three or four armed men, too, if I had to.

“I’ve been carrying it for so long now that it seems a part of my body,” I said meekly. “I’m sorry if it causes offense.”

Nekoptah waved a fleshy hand, the rings on his fingers glittering in the morning sunlight. “The chief priest of almighty Ptah is not afraid of a dagger,” he said grandly.

Nefertu shuffled his feet nervously, as if he wished he were somewhere else.

“As I was saying,” I resumed, “I came here as escort to the lady Helen, Queen of Sparta, princess of the fallen Troy. She wishes to reside in the Kingdom of the Two Lands. She has wealth enough so that she would not be a burden on the state…”

Nekoptah waggled a fat hand impatiently, a movement hard enough to make his mountainous jowls quiver like ripples in a lake.

“Spare me the dull recitation of facts I already know,” he said impatiently.

Again I struggled to keep my anger from showing.

Pointing a stubby thick finger at me, Nekoptah said, “This is what the king wishes you to do, Orion. You will take your men downriver to the delta, seek out these barbarian raiders, and destroy them. That is the price for accepting your Queen of Sparta into our city.”

Kill Helen’s husband in return for her safety in Egypt’s capital. I thought it over for a moment, then asked: “And who will protect the lady while I am away?”

“She will be under the protection of the all-seeing Ptah, Architect of the Universe, Lord of the Sky and Stars.”

“And mighty Ptah’s representative here among mortals is yourself, is it not?” I asked.

He dipped his chins in acknowledgment.

“Will the lady be allowed to meet the king? Will she live in his house, protected by his servants?”

“She will live in my house,” Nekoptah said, “protected by me. Surely you don’t fear my intentions toward your — queen.”

“I promised to deliver her to the King of Egypt,” I insisted, “not the king’s chief minister.”

Again Nefertu drew in his breath, as if expecting an explosion. But Nekoptah merely said mildly, “Do you not trust me, Orion?”

I replied, “You wish me to lead troops against the Achaian invaders of your land. I wish my lady to meet the king and dwell under his protection.”

“You speak as if you had some power of bargaining. You have none. You will do as you are told. If you please the king, your request will be granted.”

“If I please the king,” I said, “it will be because the king’s chief minister tells him to be pleased.”

A wide, smug smile spread across Nekoptah’s painted face, “Precisely, Orion. We understand one another.”

I tacitly acknowledged defeat. For the moment. “Will the lady Helen be permitted to see the king, as she wishes?”

His smile even broader, Nekoptah answered, “Of course. His royal majesty expects to sup with the Queen of Sparta this very evening. You yourself may be invited — if we are in complete agreement.”

For Helen’s sake I bowed my head slightly. “We are,” I said.

“Good!” His voice could not boom, it was too high. But it rang off the stone walls of the audience chamber, nonetheless.

I glanced at Nefertu out of the corner of my eye. He seemed immensely relieved.

“You may go,” said Nekoptah. “A messenger will bring you your invitation to supper, Orion.”

We started to turn toward the door.

But the high priest said, “One thing more. A small detail. On your way back from crushing the invaders, you must stop at Menefer and bring me the chief priest of Amon.”

Nefertu paled. His voice quavered. “The chief priest of Amon?”

Almost jovially, Nekoptah replied, “The very same. Bring him here. To me.” His smile remained fixed on his fleshy lips, but both his hands had squeezed themselves into fists.

I asked, “How will he know that we represent you?”

Laughing, he answered, “He will have no doubt of it, never fear. But — to convince the temple troops who guard his worthless carcass…”

He wormed a massive gold ring off his left thumb. It was set with a blood-red carnelian that bore a miniature carving of Ptah. “Here. This will convince any doubters that you act by my command.”

The ring felt heavy and hot in my hand. Nefertu stared at it as if it were someone’s death warrant.

Chapter 38

OBVIOUSLY, Nefertu had been shaken by our meeting with the king’s chief minister. He was silent as we were escorted back to my apartment, far across the complex of temples and palaces that made up the capitol.

I remained silent, also, trying to piece together the parts of the puzzle. Like it or not, I was in the middle of some sort of convoluted palace conspiracy; Nekoptah was using me for his own purposes, and I doubted that they coincided with the best interests of the Kingdom of the Two Lands.

One glance at Nefertu told me he would offer no hint of explanation. He was ashen-faced as we walked between the gold-armored guards down the long corridors and lofty colonnaded courts of the capitol, with their cats skulking in the shadows. His hands trembled at his sides. His mouth was a thin line, lips pressed together so hard that they were white.

We reached my apartment and I invited him inside.

He shook his head. “I’m afraid there are other matters I must attend to.”

“Just for a moment,” I said. “There’s something I want to show you. Please.”

He dismissed the guards and entered my room, his eyes showing fear, not curiosity.

I knew we were being watched. Somewhere along the walls there was a cunningly contrived peephole, and a spy in the employ of the chief priest of Ptah observing us. I took Nefertu out onto the terrace, where a pair of rope-sling chairs overlooked the busy courtyard and rustling palm trees.

I needed to know what Nefertu knew, what was in his mind. He would not tell me willingly, I could see that. So I had to pry into his mind whether he wanted me to or not. Perhaps somewhere beneath the surface of his rigid self-control I could reach the part of his mind that was searching for an ally against whatever it was that was frightening him.

The poor man sat on the front inch of his chair, his back ramrod straight, his hands clasped on his knees. I pulled my chair up close to his and put my hand across his thin shoulder. I could feel the tenseness in the tendons of his neck.

“Try to relax,” I said softly, keeping my voice low so that whoever was watching could not hear.

I kneaded the back of his neck with one hand while staring deeply into his eyes. “We have known each other for many weeks, Nefertu. I have come to admire and respect you. I want you to think of me as your friend.”

His chin dipped slightly. “You are my friend,” he agreed.

“You know me well enough to realize that I will not harm you. Nor will I knowingly harm your people, the people of the Two Lands.”

“Yes,” he said drowsily. “I know.”

“You can trust me.”

“I can trust you.”

Slowly, slowly I forced his body and his mind to relax. He was almost asleep, even though his eyes were open and he could speak to me. His conscious mind, his willpower, were allayed. He was a frightened man, and he badly needed a friend he could trust. I convinced him not only that he could trust me, but that he must tell me what it was that was frightening him.

“That’s the only way I can help you, my friend.”

His eyes closed briefly. “I understand, friend Orion.”

Gradually I got him to talk, in a low monotone that I hoped could not be overheard by Nekoptah’s spies. The story he unfolded was as convoluted as I had feared. And it spelled danger. Not merely for me: I was inured to danger and it held no real terror over me. But Helen had inadvertently stepped into a trap that Nekoptah had cunningly devised. Loathe him though I did, I had to admire the quick adroitness of his mind, and respect the strength and speed with which he moved.

It had been whispered up and down the length of the kingdom — so Nefertu told me — that King Merneptah was dying. Some said it was the wasting disease; others whispered that he was being poisoned. Be that as it may, the true power of the throne was being wielded by the king’s chief minister, the obese Nekoptah.

The army was loyal to the king, not a priest of Ptah. But the army itself was weak and divided. Its days of glory under Ramesses II were long gone. Merneptah had allowed the army to erode to the point where most of the troops were foreigners and most of the generals were pompous old windbags living on past victories. Where the army had slaughtered the Sea Peoples who raided the delta in Ramesses’s time, now the barbarians sacked cities and terrified the Lower Kingdom, and the army seemed unable to stop them.

Nekoptah did not want a strong army. It would be an obstacle to his control of the king and the kingdom. Yet he could not allow the Sea Peoples to continually raid the delta country; the Lower Kingdom would rise up against him if he could not defend them adequately. So the chief priest of Ptah hit upon a brilliant plan: send the newly arrived Hittite contingent against the Sea Peoples, as part of a new army expedition to the delta. Let the barbarian leaders see that the man who stole Helen from the Achaian victors at Troy was now in Egypt. Let them know that, just as they suspected, Helen was under the protection of the Kingdom of the Two Lands.

And let them know, by secret messenger, that Helen would be returned to them — if they stopped their raids on the delta. Even more: Nekoptah was prepared to offer Menalaos and his Achaians a part of the rich delta country as their own, if they would guard the Lower Kingdom against attacks from other Peoples of the Sea.

But first Menalaos had to be certain that Helen actually was in Egypt. For that, Orion and his Hittites would be sent into the delta as sacrificial lambs, to be slaughtered by the barbarians.

And more.

Unrest against Nekoptah’s usurpation of power was already being felt in the city of Menefer, the ancient capital, where the great pyramids proclaimed the worship of Amon. The chief priest of Amon, Hetepamon by name, was the main plotter against Nekoptah. Should Orion get out of the battles of the delta alive, he was to bring Hetepamon back to Wast with him. As a guest, if possible. As a prisoner, if necessary.

Of course, if Orion should be killed by the Sea Peoples, as seemed likely, someone else would be sent to pluck Hetepamon from his temple and bring him to the power of Nekoptah.

A neat scheme, worthy of a cunning mind.

I leaned back in my chair and relaxed my mental grip on Nefertu’s mind. He sagged slightly, then took in a deep breath of revivifying air. He blinked, shook his head groggily, then smiled at me.

“Did I fall asleep?”

“You drowsed a bit,” I said.

“How odd.”

“It was a very tense meeting this morning.”

He got to his feet and stretched. Looking out over the courtyard below us, he saw that the sun was nearly setting.

“I must have slept for hours!” Turning to me, he looked genuinely puzzled. “How boring that must have been for you.”

“I was not bored.”

With a testing, tentative shake of his head, Nefertu said, “The rest seems to have done me good. I feel quite refreshed.”

I was pleased. He was too honest a man to carry the burden of Nekoptah’s scheming within his mind, without a friend to share the problem.

But Nefertu still looked slightly puzzled when he took his leave of me. I asked him to meet me for breakfast the next morning, so I could tell him about our royal evening.

Supper with the King of Egypt, the mightiest ruler of the world, the pharaoh who had driven the Israelites out of his country, was a strange, disquieting affair.

Helen was tremendously excited about meeting the great king. She spent the entire afternoon with female servants running about, bathing and scenting her, tying her hair in piles of golden curls, making up her beautiful face with kohl for her eyes and rouge for her cheeks and lips. She dressed in her finest flounced skirt of golden threads and tinkling silver tassels, decked herself with necklaces and bracelets and rings that gleamed in the lamplight as the last rays of the sun died against a violet western sky.

I wore a fresh leather kilt, a gift from Nefertu, and a crisp white linen shirt, also provided by the Egyptian. I strapped my dagger to my thigh as a matter of course.

Helen opened the door that connected our two rooms and stood in the doorway, practically trembling with anticipation.

“Do I look fit to meet the king?” she asked.

I smiled and replied truthfully, “The proper question would be, is the King of Egypt fit to meet the most beautiful woman in the world?”

She smiled back at me. I went to her, but she held me at arm’s length. “Don’t touch me! I’ll smudge or wrinkle!”

I threw my head back and laughed. It was the last laughter to come from me.

An escort of a full dozen gold-clad guards took us through narrow corridors and flights of stairs that seemed to have no pattern to them except to confuse one who did not know the way by heart. Thinking back to my morning’s meeting with Nekoptah, and to what Nefertu had unknowingly revealed to me, I realized that Helen and I were truly prisoners of the chief priest, rather than guests of the king.

Instead of a magnificent dining hall filled with laughing guests and entertainers who regaled the company with song and dance while servants carried in massive trays heaped high with food and poured wine from golden pitchers, Merneptah’s supper was a quiet affair in a small windowless chamber.

Helen and I were brought by the guards to a plain wooden door. A servant opened it and beckoned us into the smallish room. We were the first there. The table was set for four. A chandelier of gleaming copper hung above the table. Serving tables stood flat against the walls.

The servant bowed to us and left by the room’s only other door, set in the farther wall.

Once again I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. We were being watched, I knew. There were paintings on the walls, scenes of royal hunts with the king — drawn much larger than everyone else — spearing lions and leopards. I saw the glint of coal-black eyes where a lion’s tawny ones should be.

“Is hospitality in Sparta so cold that the king would leave his guests alone in a room without food or drink or entertainment?” I asked Helen.

“No,” she said, in a small voice. She seemed vastly disappointed.

The door from the hall opened and fat Nekoptah waddled through, covered by a white floor-length robe that looked like a tent. He was decked in almost as many jewels as Helen and the paint on his face was much heavier. I had warned Helen about his appearance, and my estimation of him. He had heard every word I had spoken, I could tell from the nasty expression he gave me.

“Forgive the informality of this evening,” he said to us. “Later, we will arrange a proper state dinner for the Queen of Sparta. Tonight, the king merely wishes to meet you and welcome you to the Kingdom of the Two Lands.”

He reached for Helen’s hand and brought it to his lips. She kept herself from cringing, but just barely.

Nekoptah clapped his hands once, and a servant immediately came from the farther door with a tray of wine goblets.

We had barely tasted the wine, a sweetish red that Nekoptah said was imported from Crete, when the hall door opened again and a guard announced: “His royal majesty, King of the Two Lands, beloved of Ptah, guardian of the people, son of the Nile.”

Instead of the king, though, six priests in gray robes entered the room, bearing copper censers that filled the room with smoky, pungent incense. They chanted in an ancient tongue and made a mini-procession around the table three times, praising Ptah and his servant on Earth, Merneptah. As they left, six guards in golden armor marched in and lined themselves along the wall, three on each side of the doorway, and froze into blank-faced immobility. Each of them held a spear that almost touched the ceiling. Then came two harpists and four beautiful young women bearing peacock-plume fans. In their midst walked the King of Egypt, Merneptah.

He was a man of middle years, his hair still dark. Slim of body and small in stature, he walked slightly bent over, as if stooped with age or cares — or pain. He wore a sleeveless robe of white decorated with gold embroidery around its border. His skin was much lighter than any Egyptian I had met. Unlike his chief minister, the king wore no adornments except for a small golden medallion bearing the symbol of Ptah on a slim chain about his neck, and copper bracelets on his wrists.

It was his eyes that troubled me. They seemed clouded, unsteady, almost unseeing. As if his thoughts were turned almost totally inward. As if the world around him was not important, an annoyance, an impediment to what he considered truly important.

I glanced down at Helen, standing beside me. She had caught it too.

The two harpers and the fan-bearing women bowed low to their king and left the room. One of the guards out in the hall closed the door and we were alone, except for the six guards lining the wall like statues. I knew that I would be seated with my back to them, and that did not please me.

Introductions were polite but perfunctory. Helen curtsied prettily for the king, who seemed completely indifferent to her beauty — even to her presence. I bowed and he mumbled something to me about the barbarians from the sea.

We sat at table and servants brought us a cold soup and platters offish. The king ate almost nothing. Nekoptah ate enough for all four of us.

Conversation was desultory. Nekoptah did most of the talking, and most of it was about how the worship of Ptah was being resisted by fanatics who were trying to reinstate the madness of Akhenaten.

“Especially in Menefer,” complained Nekoptah, while gobbling a morsel of fish. “The priests there are trying to bring back the worship of Aten.”

“I thought it was Amon they glorified,” I said, “rather than Aten.”

“Yes,” said Helen. “We saw the Eye of Amon on the great pyramid there.”

Nekoptah frowned. “They say it is Amon they reverence, but secretly they are trying to bring back Akhenaten’s heresies. If they are not stopped, and stopped soon, they will plunge the Two Lands into turmoil once again.”

The king nodded absently, picking at his food.

With me translating for her, Helen tried to engage him in conversation, asking about his wife and children. The king merely stared past her.

“His majesty’s wife died last year in childbirth,” said Nekoptah.

“Oh, I’m sorry…”

“The baby died also.”

“How awful!”

The king seemed to make an effort to focus his eyes on her. “I have one son,” he muttered.

“Prince Aramset,” interjected Nekoptah. “A comely lad. He will make a fine king, one day.” But his face clouded, and he added, “Of course, his royal majesty has many other fine sons by his royal concubines, as well.”

Merneptah lapsed into silence again. Helen glared at the fat priest.

And so it went through the whole supper. At last it was finished and the king bade us good night and left. I noticed that Nekoptah barely bowed to his king; not that he could have gotten far, as fat as he was.

As the guards escorted us back to our quarters, I asked Helen, “Do you think the king is ill?”

Her face showed how troubled she felt. “No, Orion. He is drugged. I have seen it before. That fat beast is keeping him drugged so that he can control the kingdom for himself.”

I was glad that she spoke only Achaian and the guards could not understand her. At least, I hoped that they could not.

The situation was painfully clear to me. Nekoptah was in control of the capital and the king. He was using me to set up a deal that would trade Helen for the security of the delta country against the Sea Peoples. For good measure, he was going to remove the chief priest of Amon and tighten his hold on the entire kingdom.

To guarantee that I do as he wished, Nekoptah would hold Helen hostage in the capital, not realizing that I knew he intended to hand her back to Menalaos.

And the Golden One had made a fortress for himself inside the great pyramid.

It all looked hopelessly snarled. Until I saw that with one stroke I could cut the knot. Like a message sent by some god, a plan took shape in my mind. By the time Helen and I had returned to our apartments, I knew what I had to do.

Chapter 39

I had not expected the prince of the realm to join our expedition downriver. As Lukka and his men marched aboard the boat that would take us to the Lower Kingdom, a sedan chair flanked by a guard of honor was carried by six sweating Nubians slowly down the stone pier and stopped at our gangplank. A young man pushed the curtains aside and stepped lithely from the chair, slim, well muscled, and as light of skin as Merneptah and the priests I had seen.

His name was Aramset: the only legitimate son of the king. He was barely old enough to have a bit of down fuzzing his chin. He was a handsome lad, a good indication of what his father must have looked like as a teenager. He seemed eager to take part in a war.

The nominal leader of our expedition, the limping, overweight General Raseth, bowed low to the prince and then introduced me to him.

“We’re going to slaughter the barbarians,” Aramset said, laughing. “My father wants me to learn the arts of war, so that I will understand them when I rule.”

He seemed pleasant enough. But inwardly I knew that Nekoptah had arranged this royal addition to our expedition. If the prince happened to get himself killed in battle, and there was no other legitimate heir to the throne, it strengthened his grip on the power of the kingdom even further.

Again I had to admire Nekoptah’s cunning.

I had taken leave of Helen that morning, trusting her safety to the care of Nefertu. She did not fully understand all the machinations swirling around us, but she sensed that schemes within schemes were taking me away from her.

“Menalaos still seeks me,” she said, as I held her in my arms.

“He is hundreds of miles away,” I said.

She leaned her golden head against my chest. “Orion, sometimes I think that it is my destiny to return to him. No matter what I do, he still pursues me, like the hounds of fate.”

I said nothing.

“He will kill you if you do battle against him,” she said.

“No, I don’t think so. And I don’t really want to kill him, either.”

She pushed away from me slightly and gazed up into my eyes. “Will I ever see you again, my protector?”

“Of course.”

But she shook her head. “No. I don’t think so. I think this is our final farewell, Orion.” There were tears in her eyes.

“I will come back,” I said.

“But not to me. You will seek your goddess and forget about me.”

I was silent for a moment, thinking to myself that she was right. Then I said, “No one could ever forget you, Helen. Your beauty will live through all the ages.”

She tried to smile. I kissed her one last time, knowing that someone was watching us, and then bade her good-bye.

Nefertu accompanied me to the docks, and I asked the slim old man to watch over Helen and protect her against the intrigues of the palace.

“I will, my friend,” he said. “I will guard her honor and her life.”

So, as our boat pushed off from the dock with the early morning sun slanting through the obelisks and monumental statues of the capital, I waved a final salute to Nefertu, knowing in my heart that one gray-haired minor functionary would never be able to protect anyone — even himself — against the growing power of Nekoptah. My only hope was to do what I had to do quickly, and get back to the capital to deal with the fat chief minister before he could cause harm to Helen or my newfound Egyptian friend.

I scanned the palace buildings as our boat glided out into the Nile’s strong current, looking for a terrace where a golden-haired woman might be waving to me. But I saw no one.

“So we begin to earn our pay.”

I turned abruptly and saw Lukka standing beside me, his dour face set in a tight smile. He was glad to be away from the palace and heading toward battle, where a man knew who his enemies were and how to deal with them.

Aramset turned out to be a pleasant young man who laughed to hide his nervousness. General Raseth bustled about the boat constantly, hovering over the royal heir until the prince made it clear he would rather be treated as one of the regular officers.

Strangely, Lukka and the prince seemed to get along very well. The youngster genuinely admired the battle-scarred professional soldier, and seemed eager to learn all he could from him.

One hot afternoon, as the oarsmen paddled us past the ruins of Akhenaten, I heard Lukka telling the prince, “All that I have spoken to you in the past days means nothing, compared to the experience of battle. When the enemy comes charging at you, screaming their war cries and leveling their spears at your chest, then you’ll find out whether your blood is thick enough for war. Only then.”

Aramset stared at Lukka with great round eyes and followed the Hittite soldier around the boat like a faithful puppy.

Our boat carried fifty soldiers, and it was powered by sixty oarsmen: slaves, many of them black Nubians. Since we were sailing downriver, the Nile’s own powerful current did the heaviest work for us.

Dozens of other boats joined us as we headed for the delta. At each city where we tied up overnight there were more soldiers waiting to join our expedition, and boats to carry them. I began to see the true power of Egypt, the organization that could bring together a fleet carrying the men and materiel for a mighty armed force that could strike over distances of hundreds of miles.

But I wondered which of the men on our own boat were spies for Nekoptah? Which were assassins? How many of the troops on the other boats had been ordered to fall back, once battle had begun, and let me and my Hittites be cut to pieces by the barbarian raiders? I knew I could trust no one except Lukka and, through him, his two dozen soldiers.

Over those long hot days and dark warm nights I got to know Prince Aramset. There was much more to him than a laughing, nervous youngster.

“I want Lukka and his Hittites to be my personal guard, once we return to Wast,” he told me one evening, as we dawdled over the remains of supper.

We were tied to the pier of one of the cities that dotted the riverbank, rocking gently in the eddies of the main current. It was an oppressively hot, still night, and we ate on the open afterdeck of the boat, desperate to catch any stray breeze that might waft by. A slave slowly swept a palm-leaf fan over our heads to keep the mosquitoes away. General Raseth had fallen asleep at the table, drowsing over his empty wine cup. The prince never took wine; he drank clear water only.

“You couldn’t pick a better, more loyal man, your highness,” I said.

“I will pay you handsomely for them.”

He had pride, this teenager. But I answered, “My prince, allow me to make you a gift of them. I know that Lukka would be pleased to serve you, and it would please me to make the two of you happy.”

He nodded slightly, as if he had expected no less. “Yet, Orion, I shouldn’t accept such a valuable gift without offering something in return.”

“The friendship of the crown prince of the Two Lands is a gift beyond price,” I said.

He smiled at that. Deliberately, I poured a cup of wine from the little Raseth had left and offered it to him.

He refused with a slight wave of his hand.

“To seal our bargain,” I suggested.

“I never drink wine.”

“You don’t like its taste?”

His face turned sour. “I have seen what wine has done to my father. Wine — and other things.”

“He is not sick, then?”

“Only in his soul. Since my mother died, my father wastes away within himself.”

There was bitterness in his voice. He was out to prove to his father that he could be a worthy heir.

As delicately as I could, I asked about Nekoptah.

Aramset eyed me carefully. “The high priest of Ptah and the chief minister to the king is a very powerful man, Orion. Even I must speak of him with great respect.”

“I understand his power,” I said. “Will you keep him as your chief minister when you become king?”

“My father lives,” the prince said flatly. No trace of anger at my presumption. No trace of rancor toward Nekoptah. He had learned to hide his emotions well, this young man.

“Yet,” I pressed, “if your father should become unable to rule, through sickness or melancholy — would you be appointed to rule in his place, or would Nekoptah act for him?”

For long moments Aramset said nothing. His dark eyes bored into me, as if trying to see how far he could trust this stranger from a distant land.

Finally he said, “Nekoptah is perfectly capable of administering the kingdom. He is doing so now, with my father’s approval.”

There was no sense pressing him further. He was wise enough not to say anything against Nekoptah that might be overheard. But I thought he did not like the fat chief minister very much. His hands had balled themselves into fists at my first mention of him and remained tightly clenched until he bade me good night and walked off to his cabin.

We reached the delta country at last, rich with green farmlands, crisscrossed by irrigation canals, lush with beautiful long-legged birds of snowy white and delicate pink. The local garrison commanders conferred with General Raseth and told him that the Sea Peoples had taken several villages near the mouth of a western arm of the river. They estimated the number of barbarian warriors at more than a thousand.

That evening, the general, Prince Aramset, and I took supper together in the small cabin atop the boat’s afterdeck. Raseth was in a jovial mood as he dug into the stewed fish and onions.

“Make allowance for the local troops’ natural exaggerations,” he said, reaching for the wine pitcher, “and we have nothing more than a few hundred barbarians to deal with.”

“While we have more than a thousand trained men,” said the prince.

Raseth nodded. “It’s simply a matter of finding the barbarians and hitting them before they can scatter or get back to their ships.”

I thought of the Achaian camp along the beach at Troy. I wondered if Odysseus or Big Ajax would be among my enemies.

“The horses and chariots are coming up on the supply ships,” Raseth was muttering to no one in particular. “In a few days’ time we will be ready to strike.”

I looked at him from across the supper table. “Strike where? Are you certain the barbarians will still be in the villages where they were seen several days ago?”

Raseth scratched at his chin. “Hmm. They could move off elsewhere in their ships, couldn’t they?”

“Yes. Using the sea, they could move quickly across the breadth of the delta and strike a hundred miles away before we know they’ve pulled out.”

“Then we need scouts to keep watch on them,” said Aramset.

The general beamed at his young prince. “Excellent!” he roared. “You will make a fine conquering general one day, your highness.”

Then they both turned to me. Raseth said, “Orion, you and your Hittites will scout the villages where the barbarians were last seen. If they have gone, you will return here and tell us. If they are still there, you will keep them under observation until the main body of our army arrives.”

Before I could say anything, Prince Aramset added, “And I will go with you!”

The general shook his blunt, bullet-shaped head. “That is far too great a risk to take, your highness.”

Especially if I’m betrayed to Menalaos by one of Nekoptah’s spies, I thought. Was Raseth working for Nekoptah? What secret orders did he carry in his head?

Prince Aramset was not pleased at being balked. “My father sent me on this expedition to learn of war. I will not sit in the rear safely while others are doing the fighting.”

“When the fighting commences, your highness, you will be by my side,” General Raseth said. “Those are my instructions.” He added, “From the king’s own lips.”

Aramset was taken aback. But only for a moment. “Well, in the meantime, I can accompany Orion and his men on this scouting mission.”

“I cannot allow that, sir,” the general replied.

The youngster turned to me. “I’ll stay beside Lukka. He won’t let any harm come to me.”

As gently as I could, I replied, “But what harm may come to Lukka, when he has you to look after and neglects his other duties?”

The prince stared at me, his mouth open to answer, yet no words coming forth. He was a goodhearted youth, and he genuinely loved Lukka. His only problem was that he was young, and like all young men, he could not visualize himself being hurt, or maimed, or killed.

Raseth took advantage of the prince’s silence. “Orion,” he said, his voice suddenly deep with the authority of command, “you will take your men overland to the villages where the barbarians were last seen, and report their movements to me by sun-mirror. You will leave tomorrow at dawn.”

“And me?” the prince asked.

“You will stay here with me, your highness. The chariots and horses will soon arrive. There will be battle enough to satisfy any man within a few days.”

I nodded grim agreement.

It was a two-day march from the riverbank where our boat had tied up to the coastal village where the black-hulled Achaian ships lay pulled up on the beach.

The land was flat and laced with irrigation canals, but the fields were broad enough to allow chariot warfare, if you did not mind tearing up the crops growing in them. Lukka had the men camp along the edge of one of the larger canals, by a bridge that could easily be held by a couple of determined men or, failing that, burned so that pursuers would have to either wade across the canal or find the next bridge, a mile or so away.

Then he and I crossed the bridge and made our way through the fields of knee-high wheat, tossing in the breeze, until we came to the edge of the village. It lay along the beach, and I saw dozens of small fishing boats tied up to weathered wooden piers. The Achaian warships were up on the sand, tents and makeshift shacks dotted around them, smoke from cook fires sending thin tendrils of gray toward the sky.

Despite the breeze coming in from the sea, the morning was hot, and the sun burned on our backs as we lay at the edge of the wheat field and watched the activity in the village. None of the ships bore the blue dolphin’s head of Ithaca, and I found myself happy that Odysseus was not there.

“There’s only eight ships here,” said Lukka.

“Either the others have moved on to other villages, or they’ve returned to Argos.”

“Why would some of them return and leave the others here?”

“Menalaos seeks his wife,” I said. “He won’t return without her.”

“He can’t fight his way through all of Egypt with a few hundred men.”

“Perhaps he’s waiting for reinforcements,” I said. “He may have sent his other ships back to Argos to bring the main body of Achaian warriors here.”

Lukka shook his head. “Even with every warrior in Argos he wouldn’t be able to reach the capital.”

“No,” I admitted, speaking the words as the ideas formed in my mind. “But if he can cause enough destruction here in the delta, where most of Egypt’s food is grown, then he might be able to force the Egyptians to give him what he wants.”

“The woman?”

I hesitated. “The woman — for his pride. And something more, I think.”

Lukka gave me a quizzical look.

“Power,” I said. “His brother Agamemnon has taken control of the straits that lead to the Sea of Black Waters. Menalaos seeks to gain similar power here in Egypt.”

It sounded right to me. It had to be right. My whole plan depended on it.

“But how do you know those are Menalaos’s ships?” the ever-practical Lukka asked. “Their sails are furled, their masts down. They might be the ships of some other Achaian king or princeling.”

I agreed with him. “That is why I’m going into the Achaian camp tonight — to see if Menalaos is truly there.”

Chapter 40

IF Lukka objected to my plan, he kept his doubts to himself. We returned to our camp by the canal, ate a small meal while the sun set, and then I started back to the village and the Achaian camp.

The villagers seemed to be living with the invading barbarians without friction. They had little choice, of course, but as I picked my way through the darkness I sensed none of the tenseness of a village under occupation by a hostile force. None of the mud-brick houses seemed burned. There were no troops posted to guard duty anywhere. The villagers seemed to have retired to their homes for a night’s rest without worrying about their daughters or their lives.

There were no signs of a battle having been fought, nor even a skirmish. If anything, the Achaians seemed to have set up a long-term occupation here. They had not come for raping and pillaging. They had something more permanent in mind.

Good, I thought. So did I.

I made my way down the shadowy streets of the village, twisting and twining under the cold light of a crescent moon. The wind was warm now, blowing from landward, making the palms and fruit trees sigh. Somewhere a dog barked. I heard no cries or lamentations, no screams of terror. It was a quiet, peaceful village — with a few hundred heavily armed warriors camped along the beach.

Their campfires smoldered in front of each ship. A line of chariots, their yoke poles pointing starward, rested on the far side of the camp, near the rude fencing of the horse corral. A few men slept on the ground, wrapped in blankets, but most of them were inside their tents or the rude lean-tos they had constructed. A trio of guards loafed at the only fire that still blazed. They seemed relaxed rather than alert, like men who had been posted guards as a matter of form, rather than for true security.

I headed straight toward them.

One of them spotted me approaching and said a word to his two companions. They were not alarmed. Slowly they picked up their long spears and got to their feet to face me.

“Who are you and what do you want?” the leader called to me.

I came close enough for them to recognize my face in the firelight. “I am Orion, of the House of Ithaca.”

That surprised them.

“Ithaca? Has Odysseus come here? The last we heard he had been lost at sea.”

They lowered their spear points as I came to within arm’s reach of them. “The last I saw of Odysseus was on the beach at Ilios,” I said. “I have been traveling overland ever since.”

One of them began to remember. “You were the one who had the storyteller for a slave.”

“The blasphemer that Agamemnon blinded.”

An old anger rose inside me. “Yes,” I replied. “The one Agamemnon blinded. Is the High King here?”

They looked uneasily at one another. “No. This is the camp of Menalaos.”

“Are there no other Achaian lords with him?”

“Not yet. But soon there will be. Menalaos is mad with rage since his wife ran away from him after Troy fell. He swears he won’t leave this land until she is returned to him.”

“If I were you, Orion,” said the third one, “I’d run as far from this camp as I could. Menalaos believes you took Helen from him.”

I ignored his warning. “How does he know she is in Egypt?”

The leader of the trio shrugged. “From what I hear, he’s had a message from some high and mighty Egyptian, telling him that the lady Helen has come here. They’re holding her in some palace someplace.”

“That’s what they say,” another of the guards agreed.

The story that Nefertu had unknowingly revealed to me was stunningly accurate. Nekoptah must have sent word to Menalaos as soon as Nefertu had reported Helen’s presence in Egypt, months ago. Of course Nefertu had recognized that she was an important woman of the Achaian nobility; he had finally told me as much. And Nekoptah, wily scoundrel that he was, immediately saw how he could use Helen as bait to bring Menalaos and the other warlords of the Sea Peoples into his own service.

I said, “Take me to Menalaos. I have important news to tell him.”

“The king is asleep. Wait until morning. Don’t be in such a hurry to get yourself killed.”

I debated within myself. Should I insist on waking Menalaos? They were giving me a chance to escape his anger. Should I go back to Lukka and our camp, then return in the morning? I decided to wait here at the beach and get a few hours’ sleep. Menalaos’s wrath seemed of little consequence.

They looked at me askance, but found a blanket for me and left me to sleep. I stretched out on the sand and closed my eyes.

To find myself in a strange chamber, surrounded by machines with blinking lights and screens that showed colored curving lines pulsing across them. The entire ceiling glowed with a cool light that cast no shadows.

I turned and saw the sharp-featured Creator I had dubbed Hermes. As before, he was clad in a glittering silver metallic uniform from chin to boots. He dipped his pointed chin once in greeting.

Without preamble he asked, “Have you found him yet?”

“No,” I lied, hoping that he could not see my mind.

He arched a brow. “Really? In all the time you’ve been in Egypt, you have no idea where he’s hiding?”

“I haven’t seen him. I don’t know where he is.”

With a thin smile, Hermes said, “Then I’ll tell you. Look into the great pyramid. Our sensors here detect a power drain focused on that structure. He is obviously using it as his fortress.”

I countered, “Or he is allowing you to think so, while actually he’s somewhere — or some when — else.”

Hermes’s eyes narrowed. “Yes… he is clever enough to decoy us. That’s why it is vital that you get inside the pyramid and see if he’s actually there.”

“I am trying to do that.”

“And?”

“I am trying,” I repeated. “There are complications.”

“Orion,” he said, making a show of being patient with me, “there is not much time left. We must find him before he brings down this entire continuum. He’s gone quite mad, and he’s capable of destroying us all.”

What of it? I thought. Perhaps the universes would be better off with all of us dead.

“Do you understand me?” Hermes insisted. “Time is running out for us. There is only a matter of days!”

“I’m doing the best I can,” I said. “I tried to penetrate the great pyramid, and it didn’t work. Now I must enter it physically, and for that I need the cooperation of the king, or possibly the chief priest of Amon.”

Hermes gusted a great impatient sigh. “Do what you must, Orion, but for the love of the continuum, do it quickly !”

I nodded, and found myself blinking at the first streaks of dawn in the clouded sky of the Egyptian shore.

Half a dozen armed guards were standing around me, one of them poking the butt of his spear into my ribs.

“On your feet, Orion. My lord Menalaos wants to roast your carcass for breakfast.”

I scrambled to my feet. They grabbed my arms and held me fast as they marched me off toward the king’s tent. I had no chance to reach for my sword, still laying on my blanket. But the dagger that I kept strapped to my thigh was still there, beneath my kilt.

Menalaos was pacing like a caged lion as the guards brought me before him. Several of his nobles stood uneasily before the tent, swords already at their sides, although they wore no armor. Menalaos was clad in an old tunic, and had a blood-red cloak over his shoulders. He was quivering with fury so that his dark beard trembled.

“It is you!” he bellowed as the guards brought me to him. “Light the fires! I’ll roast him inch by inch!”

The nobles — all of them younger than Menalaos, I noticed — looked almost frightened at their king’s rage.

“What are you waiting for?” he snapped. “This is the man who stole my wife! He’s going to pay for that with the slowest death agonies anyone has ever suffered!”

“Your wife is well and safe in the capital of Egypt,” I said. “If you will listen to me for a…”

Enraged, he stepped up to me and smashed a backhand blow across my mouth.

My temper snapped. I shrugged off the two men pinning my arms, then smashed them both with elbows to their middles. They fell gasping. Before they hit the ground I had whipped out my dagger and, clutching the startled Menalaos by the hair, I jabbed its point to his throat.

“One move from any of you,” I growled, “and your king dies.”

They all froze: the nobles, some of them with their hands already on their sword hilts; the other guards, their eyes wide, their mouths hanging open.

“Now then, noble Menalaos,” I said, loudly enough for them all to hear, even though my mouth was next to his ear, “we will discuss our differences like men, or face each other as enemies in a fair duel. I am not a thes or a slave, to be bound and tortured for your pleasure. I was a warrior of the House of Ithaca, and now I am the leader of an army of Egypt, an army that’s been sent here to destroy you.”

“You lie!” Menalaos snarled, squirming in my grasp. “The Egyptians have welcomed us to their shores. They are holding my wife for me, and have invited me to sail to their capital to reclaim her.”

“The chief minister of the Egyptian king has built a lovely trap for you and all the Achaian lords who come to this land,” I insisted. “And Helen is the bait.”

“More lies,” said Menalaos. But I could see that I had caught the interest of the other nobles.

I released my grip on him and threw my dagger onto the sand at his feet.

“Let the gods show us which of us is right,” I said. “Pick your best warrior and have him face me. If he kills me, then the gods will have shown that I am lying. If I best him, it will be a sign from the gods that you should listen to what I have to say.”

Murderous anger still flamed in Menalaos’s eyes, but the nobles crowded around eagerly.

“Why not?”

“Let the gods decide!”

“You have nothing to lose, my lord.”

Seething, Menalaos shouted, “Nothing to lose? Don’t you understand that this traitor, this abductor — he’s merely trying to gain a swift clean death instead of the agony he deserves?”

“My lord Menalaos!” I shouted back. “On the plain of Ilios I begged you to intercede on behalf of the storyteller Poletes from the anger of your brother. You refused, and now the old man is blind. I’m not begging you now. I demand what you owe me: a fair fight. Not some young champion who rushes foolishly to his death. I want to fight you, mighty warrior. We can settle our differences with spears and swords.”

I had him. He took an inadvertent step back away from me, remembering that I had fought so well at Troy. But there was no way he could back out of facing me; he had told them all that he wanted to kill me. Now he had to do it for himself, or be thought a coward by his followers.

The entire camp formed a rough circle for the two of us while Menalaos’s servants armed him. This would be a battle on foot, not with chariots. One of the guards brought me my sword; I slung the baldric over my shoulder and felt its comforting weight against my hip. Three nobles gravely offered me my choice from several spears. I picked the one that was shorter but heavier than the others.

Menalaos came forward out of a cluster of servants and nobles, armored from helmet to feet in bronze, carrying a huge figure-eight shield. In his right hand he bore a single long spear, but I noticed that his servants had placed several others on the ground a few paces behind him.

I had neither shield nor armor. I did not want them. My hope was to best Menalaos without killing him, to show him and the other Achaians that the gods were so much with me that no man could oppose me successfully. To accomplish that, I had to avoid getting myself spitted on Menalaos’s spear, of course.

I could feel the excitement bubbling from the Achaians circled around us. Nothing like a good fight before breakfast to stimulate the digestion.

An old man in a ragged tunic came out of the crowd and stepped between us. His beard was long and dirty-gray.

“In the name of ever-living Zeus and all the mighty gods of high Olympos,” he said, in a loud announcer’s voice, “I pray that this combat will be pleasing to the gods, and that they send victory to he who deserves it.”

He scuttled away and Menalaos swung his heavy shield in front of his body. With his helmet’s cheek plates strapped shut, all I could see of him was his angry, burning eyes.

I stepped lightly to my right, circling away from his spear arm, hefting my own spear in my right hand.

Menalaos pulled his arm back and flung his spear at me. Without an instant’s hesitation, he dashed back to pick up another.

My senses quickened as they always do in battle, and the world around me seemed to slow down into the languid motions of a dream. I watched the spear coming toward me, took a step to the side, and let it thud harmlessly into the sand by my feet. The Achaians “oohed.”

By this time Menalaos had grasped another spear. He pivoted and hurled this one at me, also. Again I avoided it. With his third spear, though, Menalaos came charging at me, screaming a shrill war cry.

I parried his spear with my own and swung the butt of it into his massive shield with a heavy thunk, hard enough to knock him staggering. He tottered to my left, regained his balance, and came at me again. Instead of parrying, this time I ducked under his point and rammed my own spear between his legs. Menalaos went sprawling and I was on top of him at once, my legs pinning his arms to the ground, my sword across his throat, between the chin flaps of his helmet and the collar of his cuirass.

He stared at me. His eyes no longer glared hate; they were wide with fear and amazement.

Sitting on the bronze armor of his chest, I raised my sword high over my head and proclaimed in my loudest voice: “The gods have spoken! No man could defeat one who is inspired by the will of all-powerful Zeus!”

I got to my feet and pulled Menalaos to his. The Achaians swarmed around us, accepting the judgment of the duel.

“Only a god could have fought like that!”

“No mortal could face a god and win.”

Although they crowded around Menalaos and assured him that no hero in memory had ever fought against a god and lived to tell the tale, they kept an arm’s length from me, and looked at me with undisguised awe.

Finally the old priest came up close and stared nearsightedly into my face. “Are you a god, come to instruct us in human form?”

I took a deep breath and made myself shudder. “No, old man. I could feel the god within my sinews when we fought, but now he has left, and I am only a mortal once more.”

Menalaos, bareheaded now, looked at me askance. But being defeated by a god was not shameful, and he allowed his men to tell him that he had done something very brave and wonderful. Yet it was clear that he held no love for me.

He invited me into his tent, where he watched me silently as servants unstrapped his armor and women slaves brought us figs, dates, and thick spiced honey. I sat on a handsomely carved ebony stool: of Egyptian design and workmanship, I noticed. It had not come from this fishing village, either.

Menalaos sat on a rope-web chair, the platter of fruit and honey between us. Once the servants had left us alone, I asked him, “Do you truly want your wife back?”

Some of the anger returned to his eyes. “Why else do you think I’m here?”

“To kill me and serve a fat hippopotamus who calls himself Nekoptah.”

He was startled at the chief minister’s name.

“Let me tell you what I know,” I said. “Nekoptah has promised you Helen and a share of Egypt’s wealth if you kill me. Correct?”

Grudgingly, “Correct.”

“But think a moment. Why would the king’s chief minister need an Achaian lord to get rid of one man, a barbarian, a wanderer who stumbled into Egypt in company of a royal refugee?”

Despite himself, Menalaos smiled. “You are no ordinary wanderer, Orion. You are not so easy to kill.”

“Did it ever occur to you that Helen is being used as bait, to lure you to your death — you, and all the other Achaian lords who come to Egypt with you?”

“A trap?”

“I didn’t come alone. An Egyptian army is waiting barely a day’s ride from here. Waiting until they can snare all of you in their net.”

“But I was told…”

“You were told to send word back to your brother and the other lords that they would be welcomed here, if you did as the king’s chief minister asked,” I said for him.

“My brother is dead.”

I felt a flash of surprise. Agamemnon dead!

“He was murdered by his wife and her lover. His prisoner Cassandra, also. Now his son seeks vengeance, against his own mother! All of Argos is in turmoil. If I return there…” His voice choked off and he slumped forward, burying his face in his hands.

Cassandra’s prophecy, the tales that got old Poletes blinded — they were true. Clytemnestra and her lover had murdered the High King.

“We have nowhere to turn,” Menalaos said, his voice low and heavy with misery. “Argos is upside-down. Barbarians from the north are pushing toward Athens and will be in Argos after that. Agamemnon is dead. Odysseus has been lost at sea. The other Achaian lords who are coming here to join me are coming out of desperation. We’ve been told that the Egyptians will welcome us. And now you tell me that it’s all a trap.”

I sat on the stool and watched the King of Sparta weep. His world was collapsing on his shoulders and he had no idea of where to turn.

But I did.

“How would you like to turn this trap into a triumph?” I asked him.

Menalaos turned his tear-filled eyes up toward me, and I began to explain. It would mean giving Helen back to him, and deep inside me I hated myself for doing that. She was a living, breathing woman, warm and vibrantly alive. Yet I bartered her like a piece of furniture or a gaudy ornament. The anger I felt within me I directed against the Golden One; this is his doing, I told myself. His manipulations have tangled all our lives; I’m merely trying to put things right. But I knew that what I did I did for myself, to thwart the Golden One, to bring me one step closer to the moment when I could destroy him — and revive Athene. Love and hate were fused inside me, intermingled into a single white-hot force boiling and churning in my mind, too powerful for me to resist. I could barter away a queen who loved me, I could sack cities and slay nations to gain what I wanted: Athene’s life and Apollo’s death.

So I went ahead and told Menalaos how to regain his wife and win a secure place in the Kingdom of the Two Lands.

Nekoptah’s scheme was a good one. Practically foolproof. He had thought of almost everything. All I had to do was turn it against him.

Chapter 41

I moved through the next several weeks like a machine, speaking and acting automatically, my inner mind frozen so that the bitter voices deep within me could not catch my conscious attention. I ate, I slept without dreams, and I brought my plans closer to fruition, day by day.

There was a measure of bitter satisfaction in turning Nekoptah’s treacherous scheme against its creator. The fat priest had taken one step too far, as most schemers ultimately do. By sending Prince Aramset on this expedition, he had hoped to eliminate his only possible rival for kingly power. But Aramset was the key to my counter scheme. I followed Nekoptah’s plan to the letter except for one detail: Menalaos and the other Achaians would offer their loyalty to the crown prince, not the king’s chief minister. And Aramset would treat the Achaians honestly.

Vengeance against the chief minister gave me a taste of gratification. But only the ultimate vengeance, triumph against the Golden One, would bring me true pleasure. And I was moving toward that final moment when I would crush him utterly.

It was strange, I reflected. I had entered this world as a thes, less than a slave. I had become a warrior, then a leader of soldiers, then the guardian and lover of a queen. Now I was preparing to create a king, to decide who would rule the richest and most powerful land in this world. I, Orion, would tear the power of rulership from the bejeweled fingers of scheming Nekoptah and place it where it belonged: in the hands of the crown prince.

Aramset at first listened to my plan coolly when I brought Menalaos to his boat, moored a day’s march upriver from the coast. But once its implications became clear to him, once he realized that I was offering him not only a solution to the problem of the Sea Peoples, but a way to remove Nekoptah, he warmed to my ideas quickly enough.

Nekoptah’s spies still infested the army and the prince’s retinue, but with Lukka’s Hittites protecting him, Aramset was safe enough from assassination. And gruff old General Raseth was loyal to the prince, in his blustering way. The overwhelming majority of the army would follow him if a crisis arose. Nekoptah’s spies were few in number and powerless against the loyalty of the army. The king’s chief minister depended on stealth and cunning to achieve his ends; his weapons were lies and assassins, not troops who fought face-to-face in the sunshine.

The young prince received the King of Sparta with solemn dignity. None of his usual laughter or youthful nervousness. He sat on a royal throne set up on the afterdeck of his royal boat, under a brightly striped awning, dressed in splendid robes and wearing the strange double crown of the Two Lands, his face set in an expression as stonily unchanging as the statues of his grandfather.

For his part, Menalaos gave a splendid show, his gold-filagreed armor polished until it blazed like the sun itself, his dark beard and curled hair gleaming with oil. Fourteen other Achaian lords were ranked behind him. With their glittering armor and plumed helmets, their dark beards and scarred arms, they looked savage and fierce alongside the Egyptians.

The boat was crammed with men: the prince’s retinue, soldiers, dignitaries from the coastal towns, government functionaries. Most of them wore long skirts and were bare to the waist, except for their medallions of office. Some of them were spies for Nekoptah, I knew, but let them report back to their fat master that the crown prince had solved the problem of the Sea Peoples without bloodshed. My only regret was that I could not see the chief minister’s painted face twist in anger at the news.

Official scribes sat at the prince’s feet, recording every word spoken. Artists perched atop the boat’s cabins, sketching madly on sheets of papyrus with sticks of charcoal. Many other boats were ringed around us, also thronged with people to witness this momentous occasion. The shore was crowded, too, with men and women and even children from many towns.

Lukka stood behind the prince’s throne, slightly to one side, his lips pressed firmly together to keep himself from grinning. He enjoyed standing higher than Menalaos.

I stood to one side of the assembly and listened to Menalaos faithfully repeat the lines I had told him to speak. The other Achaian lords, newly arrived from their troubled lands with their wives and families, shuffled uncomfortably in the growing heat of the rising sun. The converse between the Egyptian prince and the dispossessed King of Sparta took most of a long morning. What it amounted to was simply this:

Menalaos pledged the loyalty of all the Achaians present to Prince Aramset and, through him, to King Merneptah. In return, Aramset promised the Achaians land and homes of their own — in the name of the king, of course. Their land would be along the coast, and their special duty would be to protect the coast from incursions by raiders. The Peoples of the Sea had been absorbed by the Land of the Two Kingdoms. The thieves had been turned into policemen.

“Do you think they will do an honest job of protecting the coast?” Aramset asked me, as servants removed his ceremonial robes.

We were in his cabin, small and low and stuffy in the midday heat. I felt sweat trickling down my jaw and legs. Somehow the young prince seemed perfectly comfortable in the sweltering oven.

“By giving them homes in the kingdom,” I said, repeating the argument I had made many times before, “you remove the reason for their raids. They have nowhere else to go, and they fear the barbarians invading their land from the north.”

“My father will be pleased with me, I think.”

I knew he was expressing a hope more than a certainty.

“Nekoptah will not,” I said.

He laughed as the last windings were taken off his torso and he stood naked except for the loincloth around his groin.

“I will deal with Nekoptah,” the prince said happily. “I have my own army now.”

The dressers departed and other servants brought chilled water and bowls of fruit.

“Would you prefer wine, Orion?”

“No, water will do.”

Aramset took up a small melon and a knife. As he began to slice it, he asked, “And you, my friend. You worry me.”

“I?”

He slouched on the bunk and looked up at me. “You are willing to give up that beautiful lady?”

“She is Menalaos’s lawful wife.”

Aramset smiled. “I have seen her, you know. I wouldn’t give her up. Not willingly.”

Feeling distinctly uncomfortable, I said nothing. How could I explain to him about the Creators and the goddess I hoped to restore to life? How could I speak of the growing unhappiness within me, the reluctance to give up this woman who had shared my life for so many months, who had offered me her love? Silence was my refuge.

With a shrug, Aramset said, “If you won’t talk about women, what about rewards?”

“Rewards, your highness?”

“You have done me a great service. You have done this kingdom a great service. What reward would you have? Name it and it is yours.”

I barely gave it an instant’s thought. “Allow me to enter the great pyramid of Khufu.”

For a moment Aramset said nothing. Then, pursing his lips slightly, he replied, “That might be difficult. It’s actually the province of the chief priest of Amon…”

“Hetepamon,” I said.

“You know him?”

“Nekoptah told me his name. I was to bring him back to Wast with me, if I survived his trap with Menalaos.”

Impulsively, Aramset jumped to his feet and went to the chest on the other side of the tiny cabin. He flung open its lid and pawed through piles of clothes until he found a small, plain bronze box. Opening it, he lifted out a gold medallion on a long chain.

“This bears the Eye of Amon,” he told me. I saw the emblem etched into the bright gold. “My father gave me this before… before he became devoted to Ptah.”

Before he became hooked on the drugs that Nekoptah administered, I translated to myself.

“Show this to Hetepamon,” said the prince, “and he will recognize it as coming from the king. He cannot refuse you then.”

Our mighty armada unfurled their sails and started up the Nile two days later. The army that the Egyptians had gathered was now augmented by Menalaos and a picked complement of Achaian warriors, bound by oath to Aramset. The main strength of the Achaians remained on the coast, with Egyptian administrators to help settle them in the towns they would henceforth protect. The prince headed back for the capital, with his bloodless victory over the Peoples of the Sea.

I paced the deck each day, or gripped the rail up at the bow, trying to make the wind blow harder and the boat move faster against the current on the strength of sheer willpower. Each morning I strained my eyes for the first glimpse of the gleaming crown of Khufu’s great pyramid.

Each night I tried to reach inside that ancient tomb by translocating my body. To no avail. The Golden One had shielded the pyramid too well. Mental exertion could not penetrate his fortress. My only hope was that the high priest of Amon could lead me physically through an actual door or passage into that vast pile of stones.

That would be the ultimate irony, I thought, as I lay on my bunk sheathed in the sweat of useless exertion, night after night. The Golden One may be able to prevent his fellow Creators from entering his fortress, but could he stop a pair of ordinary humans from merely walking in?

The day finally came when we sailed past the outskirts of Menefer, and the great 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.”