Neb-Maat-Re. The Pharaoh Amenhotep III, that was what that meant. His coronation name. It was the king himself, yes. Standing there, smiling, acknowledging the crowd, before his very eyes.
“Lord of the Two Lands!” they were shouting. “Son of Re! Living image of Amon! Mighty one! Benefactor of Egypt! Life! Health! Strength!”
Too much, too much, too much. He was totally overwhelmed by it all. He was thirty-five centuries out of his proper time, a displacement that he had been confident he would be able to comprehend until the moment he found himself actually experiencing it. Now his entire body convulsed in a tremor born of fatigue and confusion and panic. He tottered and desperately grasped the palm tree’s rough scaly trunk. The last of his little strength was fleeing under the impact of all this staggering unthinkable reality. Thebes as a living city—Amenhotep III himself, wearing the blue crown—the masked priests, hawk-faced, ibis-faced, dog-faced—the dark mysterious figure of a woman coming out now, surely the queen, taking her place beside the Pharaoh—the chariot beginning to move—
“Life! Health! Strength!”
For the king, maybe. Not for him. How had he ever managed to pass the psychological tests for this mission? He was flunking now. He had been able to fake his way successfully among tougher people all his life, but the truth was coming out at last. His legs were turning to water. His eyes were rolling in his head. They had sent the wrong man for the job: he saw that clearly now. Indeed it was the only thing he could see clearly. He was too complicated, too—delicate. They should have sent some stolid unimaginative jock, some prosaic astronaut type, invulnerable to emotion, to the hot dark unreasoning side of life, poetry-free, magic-free, someone who would not become overwhelmed like this by the sight of a fat middle-aged man in a silly costume getting into a Hollywood chariot.
Was it that? Or simply the heat, and the lingering shock of the thirty-five-C jump itself?
“Ah, my friend, my friend,” the dark-eyed stranger was saying. “I fear you are becoming an Osiris this very minute. It is so sad for you. I will do what I can to help you. I will use my skills. But you must pray, my dear friend. Ask the king to spare your life. Ask the Lady Isis. Ask the mercy of Thoth the Healer, my friend, or you will die as surely as—”
It was the last thing he heard as he pitched forward and crumpled to the ground at the palm tree’s base.
Two
The stranger rested quietly on a bed in the House of Life in the Precinct of Mut that lay just to the south of Ipet-sut, the great temple of Amon, in the baffling jumble of holy buildings that future ages would call Karnak. The pavilion he was in was open to the sky, a simple colonnade; its slim pillars, rising like stems to the swollen lotus-buds at the top, were painted a soothing pink and blue and white. The stranger’s eyes were closed and peaceful and his breath was coming slowly and easily, but there was the gleam of fever on his face and his lips were drawn back in an odd grimace, an ugly lopsided smile. Now and again a powerful shudder rippled through his body.
“He will die very soon, I think,” the physician said. His name was Hapu-seneb and he was the one who had been with the stranger when he collapsed outside the Temple of the Southern Harem of Amon.
“No,” said the priestess. “I think he will live. I am quite sure that he will live.”
The physician made a soft smothered sound of scorn.
But the priestess paid no heed to that. She moved closer to the bed, which stood high off the floor of the room and sloped noticeably from head to foot. The stranger lay naked on a mattress of cord matting, tightly stretched and covered with cushions, and his head rested on a curving block of wood. He was slender and light-boned, almost feminine in his delicacy, though his lean body was muscular and covered with a thick mat of dark curling hair.
Her hand lightly touched his forehead.
“Very warm,” she said.
“A demon is in him,” said Hapu-seneb. “There is little hope. He will be an Osiris soon. I think the crocodile of the West has him, or perhaps the rerek-snake is at his heart.”
Now it was the priestess’ turn to utter a little skeptical snort.
She was a priestess in the service of Isis, although this was the Precinct of Mut and the entire temple complex was dedicated to Amon; but there was nothing unusual about that. Things overlapped; boundaries were fluid; one god turned easily into another. Isis must be served, even in Amon’s temple. The priestess was tall for a woman, and her skin was very pale. She wore a light linen shift that was no more substantial than a mist: her breasts showed through, and the dark triangle at her loins. A heavy black wig of natural hair, intricately interwoven in hundreds of tight plaits, covered her shaven scalp.
The stranger was muttering now in his sleep, making harsh congested sounds, a babble of alien words.
“He speaks demon-language,” Hapu-seneb said.
“Shh! I’m trying to hear!”
“You understand the language of demons, do you?”
“Shh!”
She put her ear close by his mouth. Little spurts and freshets of words came from him: babble, delirium, then a pause, then more feverish muttering. Her eyes widened a little as she listened. Her forehead grew furrowed; she tucked her lower lip in, and nibbled it lightly.
“What is he saying, then?” asked Hapu-seneb.
“Words in a foreign language.”
“But you understand them. After all, you’re foreign yourself. Is he a countryman of yours?”
“Please,” said the priestess, growing irritated. “What good are these questions?”
“No good at all,” the physician said. “Well, I will do what I can to save him, I suppose. Your countryman. If that is what he is.” He had brought his equipment with him, his wooden chest of medicines, his pouch of amulets. He gave some thought to selecting an amulet, picking one finally that showed the figure of Amon with four rams’ heads, trampling on a crocodile while eight gods adored him in the background. He whispered a spell over it and fastened it to a knotted cord, which he tied to the stranger’s kilt. He placed the amulet over the stranger’s heart and made magical passes, and said in a deep, impressive tone, “I am this Osiris here in the West. Osiris knows his day, and if he does not exist in it, then I will not exist in it. I am Re who is with the gods and I will not perish; stand up, Horus, that I may number you among the gods.”
The priestess watched, smiling a little.
The physician said, “There are other spells I can use.” He closed his eyes a moment and breathed deeply. “Behind me, crocodile, son of Set!” he intoned. “Float not with thy tail. Seize not with thy two arms. Open not thy mouth. May the water become a sheet of fire before thee! The charm of thirty-seven gods is in thine eye. Thou art bound to the four bronze pillars of the south, in front of the barge of Re. Stop, crocodile, son of Set! Protect this man, Amon, husband of thy mother!”
“That must be a good spell,” said the priestess. “See, he’s stirring a little. And I think his forehead grows cool.”
“It is one of the most effective spells, yes. But medicines are important too.” The physician began to rummage through the wooden chest, drawing forth little jars, some containing crushed insects, some containing live ones, some holding the powdered dung of powerful animals.
The priestess laid her hand lightly on Hapu-seneb’s arm.
“No,” she said. “No medicines.”
“He needs—”
“What he needs is to rest. I think you should go now.”
“But the powder of the scorpion—”
“Another time, Hapu-seneb.”
“Lady, I am the physician, not you.”
“Yes,” she said gently. “And a very fine physician you are. And your spells have been very fine also. But I feel Isis in my veins, and the goddess tells me that what will heal this man is sleep, nothing other than sleep.”