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.