"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 G.o.ds. "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 un.o.bserved, 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 G.o.d, its face lost in shadows, Hetepamon went to the wall and ran his stubby forefinger against the seam between two ma.s.sive 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 b.u.mped 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 ma.s.sive 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 a.s.sure 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sages 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 G.o.ds. They did not shift their presences from one realm of the continuum to another by mystical fiat fiat. They did not generate energy by divine willpower. They used machines, devices, technologies that were G.o.dlike 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 t.i.tanic 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 pa.s.sage. I climbed.

Through several other chambers and along more dark pa.s.sageways 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 succ.u.mbed 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 gra.s.s. 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 through the orange expanse of its swollen companion. The gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s and ground. There were hills in the distance, strangely shaped trees, and a stream. the orange expanse of its swollen companion. The gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sions 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 G.o.d does not bargain, Orion. A G.o.d commands!"

"You're no more a G.o.d than I am," I snapped. "You have better tools, that's all."

"I have better knowledge 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.