All together the mug, crown and dagger chorused, "Khamwas could not return home until he had gained further knowledge, greater powers. But nothing was more certain than that someday he would return to confront his brothers-"
Alone, the mug added, "Osorkon."
"Patjenfi," said the crown.
"Pentweret," the dagger concluded.
Khamwas threw back the hood of his cloak.
"We wronged you, my brother," said Osorkon at the center of the table. He was forcing the words through a block of emotions more varied than Samlor could identify.
"Not we, not me," babbled Patjenfi, glancing nervously from Khamwas to the brothers with him at the table. "I said-"
"Fool," said his crown as Khamwas touched the bowl.
Patjenfi fell silent.
"We wronged you," Osorkon repeated. "And it may be that we wronged our father. He would rather-" the bitterness was clear in his rasping voice " – anything in the world than that he lose you, my brother. But-"
Osorkon met Khamwas' eyes with a regal glare of his own. "But much as I regret our action, it~was necessary. The country would not have survived your kingship, Khamwas."
"After your wife died," said Pentweret, speaking for the first time since Khamwas entered the room, "you didn't care for anything except your stones. Buildings ruined for a thousand years. What would have happened to Napata if its king wandered in the desert every day and took rro account of the business of state?"
Samlor kept his face emotionless as he looked toward his companion. Khamwas wore a cool smile which could indicate amusement, or approval-or nothing at all.
"And my children?" asked Khamwas softly. "Didn't I care for them?"
"I misspoke," said Pentweret. "Of course, of course."
"Nobody doubts that," insisted Osorkon. "But that wouldn't have kept Napata from fragmenting into as many petty kingdoms as there're villages along the river. And you wouldn't have cared. You.stopped caring when your wife died!"
"Our father couldn't see that," said Patjenfi, no longer trying to distance himself from his fellows. "Wouldn't see it, I suppose. So what were we to do?" The whine in his voice didn't detract from the sincerity of the question, though it gave it an ugly cast.
"What of my children, then, brothers?" Khamwas said, as gently as a breeze touching the edge of the headsman's axe.
Osorkon blinked. "Pemu and Serpot?" he said. "Oh, they're fine."
"My own are of an age with them," added Patjenfi, "so they're fostered in my apartments. Why-" a look of horror drew across his rabbity visage. "You didn't think we'd have hurt them, did you?"
"If you'll give me leave to go to the door," said Pentweret, "I'll summon them. They can be here in a few minutes at most."
Khamwas nodded. His youngest brother slipped past them to the door-which opened to a thrumming of Khamwas' fingers on the bowl. Samlor watched as the man spoke urgently through the opening. Pentweret had been the one to draw a weapon at the first intrusion, and he was wise enough to ask before stepping toward the door.
That meant his instincts were enough like Samlor's that he could be a real problem.
Pentweret seated himself again. He had left the door ajar. Noise from the corridor became a backdrop as omnipresent as the hiss of a waterfall. The crowding servants were nervous, but they were too interested in events to leave unordered.
The noise grew louder until it was cut by a voice of authority. "Your highnesses?" called someone in pear-shaped tones. "The prince and princess are here, as you commanded."
Khamwas turned and snatched the door open with his hand. Samlor glanced from side to side, trying to cover the seated kings as well as whatever waited in the hall. A functionary with gold ornaments, a spotless tunic, and enough fat to prove he did nothing strenuous for a living, waited with a child to either side of him.
Khamwas dropped his bowl with a clang echoed by every metal object in the room and corridor. He knelt and held out his arms to the children.
Their faces blanked. They didn't move.
"Pemu!" Khamwas said. "Serpot! I'm your father. I'm Khamwas."
The boy looked to be nine, the girl perhaps seven-the age of Star-though both children had the coppery complexions and straight hair of their father. For a moment they poised, unwilling to trust the news that they weren't orphans after all, living on their cousins' sufferance. Then they ran to the waiting arms, the boy first, sobbing and crying, "Daddy!"
The seated kings looked at one another. Samlor wondered if he ought to clear his knife, but the others were uncomfortable rather than hostile. Osorkon was perspiring freely. He hadn't moved from his chair, but tension was working his muscles hard.
Khamwas turned and stood, holding a child by either hand. His foot thrust out behind him to slam the door closed.
The sound of the door thumping against its jamb-and the fact that it had been closed physically-relaxed the atmosphere within the chamber. Patjenfi looked toward Osorkon and said peevishly, "Well, does that mean he'H be joining us?"
"Don't act like a greater fool than the gods made you," Pentweret snapped from across the table. "If he comes to us this way-" his eyes flicked toward Khamwas and were forced back by conscious effort of will " – he comes as our king."
The only sound in the room was the murmuring of the children as they hugged themselves closer to Khamwas coarse robe. The three seated men held their breath while they waited for their brother to speak.
Khamwas fluffed his daughter's hair. His fingers paused briefly at the comb of gold filigree at Serpot's temple, then dropped back to her upraised palm. "You saved your lives," he said calmly, "by the way you cared for these while I was-gone."
Samlor could see that Pemu and Serpot didn't understand what was happening, but the tenseness of the situation was clear enough to silence them. Pemu braced himself, threw his chest out toward his uncles and tried to look as much a man as his age permitted.
"And you saved your throne, my brothers," Khamwas continued, "by the way you've ruled Napata since our father died. Together and for the country's good, as you claimed when you sold me into slavery. You've done well. I'm sure you'll continue to do so."
Pentweret's hands began to tremble as his lips stammered through the prayer which his mind had silently rehearsed. Patjenfi tried to jump up, babbling thankfulness, but his legs caught between his chair and the table. Osorkon stared at him disdainfully, until the rabbit-faced man subsided.
"How can you say that," asked Osorkon slowly, "after the way we treated you six years ago?"
Khamwas smiled. "Because you were correct, my brother. I would have been a disastrous king-but I would have demanded my rights as eldest son, because then I would have all the resources of Napata to aid me in my search."
"We never knew just what it was you were looking for," said Pentweret, being as careful as he could to avoid a negative connotation. "We should have tried harder to understand. .»
His eyes begged Khamwas for understanding.
"I was looking for the source of all power," Khamwas replied with a smile that made sense only to Samlor, who had also been Nanefer in another age. "I found it at last."
Khamwas touched the bulge over his heart where the crystal book lay bound, but before he resumed speaking, he gripped Pemu's hand. "I also found that the only power I really wanted, the power of bringing the dead to life. . is beyond the ability even of the gods."