She looked around the room for a long moment, biting her lips; then, as her mouth began to tremble, she lifted one hand to cover it.

Her quiet weeping grew into sobs, and he cleared his own throat, which had suddenly grown tight. Finally, he reached out one hand and laid it on her shoulder. To his surprise, she grasped it and held it against her cheek. He felt the moisture of her tears under his palm and could nd nothing to say.

"Oh, Yussif. We have been through so much. Running away from Cairo, wandering in the desert, never knowing what was ahead or behind us. But always I was certain I would nally come home and have this baby. I didn't care whether it had anything to do with Rekemheb's gods. It was my baby." She sobbed again. "And now it is all for nothing.

This miracle that was supposed to happen, it's all gone."

A female voice said, "Jehuti's story is not gone."

Yussif spun around, annoyed, to a woman in a plain white dress.

"We did not ask for a nurse."

"Who are you?" Auset's voice was hoarse.

"I am the one who can help you now. Your physicians know nothing of the Ka of things."

"Ka? You are a friend of Rekemheb?" Yussif asked.

The woman tilted her head back, and her soft laughter was like tinkling bells. Two horns curled slowly upward from her temples, and a ball of orange light began to glow between them. She continued in the same musical, soft voice. "I am, you might say, Rekemheb's employer."

"Hathor!" Yussif con rmed, blocking her from the injured woman. "Haven't you done enough?"

"We have not done this." She pointed past him. "And there will be time for explanations later. I can save the Child, but you must come to my temple at Dendara. Right now."

"Dendara? No, that is out of the question. Auset has been through a terrible ordeal. Because of you. First you caused her to carry this * 247 *

child, and then you caused her to lose it. What cruelty is this?"

Auset looked back and forth between goddess and man. "This is the rst time in ve days I've been safe," she said weakly. "Why didn't you come to help us in the desert, or even in the tomb before the gun went off? And what about our friends? What happened to Derek? And Valerie? Weren't they part of this? Why do you show up only now?"

The goddess took a step closer. "I have no power where men have forgotten me, not even the power to bring you away from here. Only in my temple can I assist you. But you must hurry."

Tears appeared again on Auset's face. "Why have you done this to me? I'm not religious, or political, or anything. Why me?"

The goddess wafted toward the sickbed, carrying with her a fragrance of fruit and owers. Her face was somber with affectionate concern, and her voice was golden warm.

"Because you are my blood and bone, Auset. This is how the Egyptians today speak of Isis, which is my other face. Isis, whose son Horus was killed by his brother. You are myself, and we are the mother of a murdered child."

Auset sighed weakly. "What about Yussif? Who is he named after?" Her tone was bitter. "Have you chosen him for anything?"

"He has proven himself worthy and he will know us. Only come to Dendara. Come quickly."

Her voice faded, along with her image, gradually, from the feet up until only the warm orange sphere atop her head remained, and that too evaporated.

Unfazed by the epiphany, Yussif turned back to Auset. "You do not have to do this. We can go back to Cairo where you will be safe. I will take care of you."

Auset wiped the wetness from her cheeks. "You'd like that, wouldn't you, Yussif? For us to pretend that nothing ever happened.

And my parents would pretend I was never pregnant with a foreigner's child." She looked up at the ceiling for a moment, then turned again to his face, which had become so gentle. "That's the choice, isn't it?

Between respectability and this...this call of a strange heaven." She held her belly, swollen with the stilled fetus. "What should we do?"

Yussif laid his hand on top of hers. "You must decide. It is you who carried their child and who is in danger. So much has happened these ve days, I am lost in wonder and know nothing. But a week ago * 248 *

I was certain I knew everything and was as wood.

"Yes, I am changed too." He sighed softly. "There is some great mystery we do not yet understand, only that everything we thought before is...incomplete." He thought for a moment, looking into space.

"The prophet Mohammed must have stood before a decision like this- to return to Medina and accept the ways of his people or to listen to the angel. It must have seemed like madness. I do not compare myself with the Prophet, peace be upon him. But...I too have seen an angel. And my heart wants to hear."

Auset curled her ngers in his. "I want to hear the angel too. We will listen to her together, Habibi."

v Alhamdulillah, he thought, there are always taxis in Luxor, day or night. Always poor men to drive them. He approached the nearest one and leaned over the driver's window. "Brother, I need a taxi tonight. It is an emergency."

"Emergency or not, I cost the same." The driver smiled with broken teeth and started his engine.

"I have no money."

"Ah, then. Not driving costs the same too." He turned off the motor.

"But I have this." He drew the heavy silver ring from his last nger and held it close to the splotchy-bearded face.

"See the stones all around it? Sapphires. With this you can buy yourself another taxi. Look, I bet it even ts your nger." He tapped the ring on the back of the driver's hand.

The driver took the ring and turned it between thumb and fore nger.

"How far do you want to go?"

"Dendara."

"Dendara? That's forty- ve kilometers!"

"My brother, you will only sit idle out here all night anyhow, and my wife is very sick. I must bring her to...her mother."

"You want to take a sick woman from a hospital?"

"Yes. To her mother." Yussif scooped the ring from the driver's palm. "Look, do you want the ring or not? There is another taxi right behind you."

* 249 *

The driver nodded and shook his head at the same time. "All right.

But if the ring is not good, I will come again to your wife's mother and demand more money."

"Yes, that's ne. Wait here. I will be back in ve minutes."

v "I have a car, Habibti. Are you ready?"

"Yes, I think so." She struggled to sit up, wincing. "If you can carry me."

"Of course I can." He slid one arm behind her back and the other under her knees. With a single powerful lurch, he lifted her from the bed and steadied himself, balancing the weight. She drew her knees up, trying to make herself small, and encircled his neck with her arms.

He closed his eyes for a moment at her rst intimate touch and laid his cheek lightly against the top of her head. The smell of her hair sent a wave of resolve through him. He would carry her any distance and never weaken.

The corridor was empty, but as he turned the corner he confronted a female orderly who mopped the oor. She called out to him, but he passed without answering. She stood for a moment in consternation and then hurried away, sounding the alarm.

Yussif kicked open the double doors to the stairwell that led to the lobby. Two nurses confronted him, and a man called out to him from behind. He plunged past the women through the main doors of the hospital into the night.

The driver had waited in his battered black-and-white as agreed, and Yussif laid the feverish Auset in the back. He climbed in next to the driver just as half a dozen men poured shouting from the hospital entrance, and the car lurched forward.

"Alhamdulillah," the driver said.

"Yes," Yussif replied, not daring to bring the words over his lips.

v Inexplicably, in spite of the late-night hour, the gate at the forecourt of the Temple of Dendara was wide open. Yussif helped Auset from the taxi and held her for a moment on her feet as the car sped away. Then he swept her up in his arms once again and slow-marched across the wide * 250 *

court toward the vast temple faade.

The stones underfoot were irregular, and he paced cautiously, surveying the temple grounds. In the moonlight he could make out the main buildings, the majestic temple at the center, the secondary buildings and ruins in the forecourt. Glass panels formed a long facade against the low wall along the right side of the enclosure, silver in the re ected moonlight. "Glass?" he murmured. "Strange."

"To protect the reliefs." Auset laughed weakly. "Valerie was right."

"You are cheerful, Habibti? I am glad." Yussif quickened his pace past the wall of glass as small night creatures came out from the ruins and seemed to gather behind them. In a few moments they were at the entrance of the great hypostyle hall.

"Put me down, Yussif. I want...I think I can walk in here on my own."

He set her on her feet, his arm still around her waist. "I will not let go of you in the dark."

"Dark? No, look. Up there." Auset pointed to the rounded columns that rose high over their heads. At the top, wide triangular faces looked out to the four directions with Mona Lisalike smiles. The outer columns disappeared upward into darkness, but the innermost columns, near the entrance to the naos, glowed softly around the face of the goddess. "I think they've left a light on for us."

In cautious, shuf ing steps, they passed through the hypostyle hall, and she glanced at the hieroglyphic texts that ringed the columns.

"I wonder what they say?"

"Prayers, songs." Yussif shrugged. "I don't know. Do not worry about them. Save your strength."

"There is so much to know." She took hold of his arm again and tilted her head back to study the strip of ceiling between the columns.

Two rows of carved gods marched in single le, one toward and one away from the temple interior.

Yussif followed her glance. "Gods that are animals. Animals that are gods. I don't know."

"Strange," she mused, not hearing him. "I seem always to know what room we're in. This, I'm sure, is the Chamber of Offerings."

The last room, softly illuminated at all junctures where wall met ceiling and oor, emanated both mystery and welcome.

* 251 *

"Yes." He nodded. "And this is the sanctuary."

Auset gasped suddenly and stopped.

"What's wrong?" Yussif asked, alarmed.

"I think...oh!" She curled forward. "Oh!" she repeated, and broke into tears.

"What is it?" He put his arms around her.

She sobbed quietly for a moment, leaning against him, and then caught her breath. Her lips still trembled, and she pressed her ngertips against them.

"Oh, Yussif. Just now...as I entered the sanctuary...I felt it."

"What, Habibti?"

"The child moved."

* 252 *

CHAPTER XXXV:.

LAZARUS.

Valerie awoke lying on silty ground. She turned her head. A meter away, a parabola of yellow light spread dimly over the ground, its apex toward the lens of a ashlight. It lay, she saw, on the palm of her friend slumped against a stone wall, and its light shone on a gold and heavily jeweled object.

Fears assailed her like a gang of thugs. Derek. Why wasn't he moving? Auset and Yussif. Had they made it to Luxor or had Auset miscarried along the way? Jehuti. Her hand felt for the papyrus at her side, for the test that she had failed. She felt guilt like a burning coal somewhere in her chest. Her mouth was dry as paper. If this was resurrection, it was overrated.

Derek stirred and the ashlight rolled away from him. Valerie sat up as he opened his eyes. He rubbed his face. "What the hell was that?"

"Apophis." She shook her head. "Incredible. Jehuti said, 'He swallows up my words and thus undoes them.' I guess that's what happened. It was all undone. We aren't 'justi ed' anymore."

"Or dead!" Derek pressed his hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat. "Yep. De nitely not dead."

"And I thought Seth had tricked us," she mused. She clenched and unclenched her hands, trying to get rid of the tingling.

Derek looked around in the semidarkness. "And this is Rekemheb's cave tomb, right? Yes, I remember now. I brought you here to Rekemheb.

I asked him to take me into the underworld to get you back, but he said you were ful lling your part of the prophecy."

"Yes, that was the plan, apparently."

* 253 *