“We know,” Donnchadh said. “We have walked Giza, the city of Cairo, and the slave camps for many days. We know how your father rules; and we know that things are worse than your father is told by his advisers. The river runs low and there has been drought for the past two years. There is barely enough grain to feed the Egyptians, never mind the slaves. The Judeans are primed to revolt. They just need hope and a leader.”
“Why do you want this to happen?” Moses asked. “Are you Judean? You do not appear to be from this part of the world.”
“No,” Donnchadh said. She took a deep breath. “We are enemies of the Gods of Egypt. Because they are not realGods. They enslave all men just as much as your people enslave the Judeans and others.”
“If you said that in front of my father, you would be immediately put to death in a most horrible way,” Moses said. “He believes himself to be descended from the Gods and the priests tell him it is so.”
Donnchadh shook her head. “He is not and it is not so.”
“Can you prove this? Can you prove the Gods do not care for us? And that they are not real Gods?”
Donnchadh had considered this during the journey to Midian. “Yes.”
Moses slammed the goblet down. “How?”
“They cannot care for you because they are dead.”
“That cannot be,” Moses said. “Gods cannot die.”
“The Gods worshipped in Egypt are dead,” Donnchadh said. “I can show you their bodies. They are dead. Isis. Osiris. Horus. And others that are still worshipped.”
Moses considered this. “So the Gods are real but dead?”
“Were real and not Gods,” Donnchadh corrected. “And they have been long dead.”
Moses got to his feet. “Where are these bodies?”
“Along the Roads of Rostau, underneath the Giza Plateau.”
“And you can take me there?”
“Yes.”
Moses headed toward the stairs, staggering slightly, but catching himself. “We leave in the morning. I must rest first.”
You cannot tell people what you are seeing,” Donnchadh said to Moses while Gwalcmai stood guard just inside the door to the chamber, sword in hand.
The three of them were clad in the gray cloaks taken from the Watcher’s hut and stood next to a black tube, the top ofwhich was open. Inside lay the body of one of the Airlia, slain by Vampyr many years previously. There was no mistaking the fact that the body was not human, and that it was indeed dead. The pale skin had mummified, shrinking tightly around the bones underneath. The hair had continued to grow after death, surrounding the head like a red pillow. Six clawlike fingers were at the end of each hand. Along the side of the body was a golden staff with a sphinx head on one end.
“The Gods are indeed dead,” Moses murmured. “I had heard rumors before you appeared, but no one dared say anything publicly.”
“Because the Pharaoh’s power base is religion,” Donnchadh said. “It is something they”—she nodded at the bodies—“have always used. And they passed on that knowledge to the Shadows who ruled after them, and the Shadows passed it to the Pharaohs who rule now.”
“People will not accept this,” Moses said. “You cannot take away their beliefs so easily.”
“No, they won’t like it,” Donnchadh agreed.
“So how—” Moses left the question unsaid.
“What you will do,” Donnchadh began, “is use the God of the Judeans to rally them and to frighten the Pharaoh.”
“ ‘The’ God? Just one?” Moses asked.
“Yes.”
“Is the God of the Judeans real?”
The question gave Donnchadh pause. “I don’t know.” She looked down at the body. “As real as they are, I suppose.”
An uneasy silence reigned in the chamber for several minutes, each of the three lost in their own thoughts.
“What else is down here?” Moses finally asked. “When I was growing up, some of the priests would whisper about secret places under the Great Pyramid of Khufu.”
“What else is down here does not concern you,” Donnchadh said.
Moses turned to her, and Gwalcmai stepped between them, his hand drifting to the pommel of his sword.
Moses did not back down. “I heard rumors of a Grail that gives immortality, which lies somewhere down here. It is what the priests would promise the true believers as their reward for a lifetime of service. Yet no one ever seemed to get this reward.”
“There is an Ark in one of the duats along these Roads,” Donnchadh allowed. “Perhaps it contains the Grail.”
“ ‘Perhaps’?” Moses waited, but Donnchadh said nothing more. Finally, he sighed. “You have proven that the Gods of my people are dead. What do I do next?”
“Gwalcmai will go with you,” Donnchadh said. She reached into the tube and pulled out the staff, handing it to Moses. “You will call him Aaron. He will advise you.”
“Where will I go?”
“To see your father, the Pharaoh, of course.” Donnchadh drew her dagger. “But first we must do something so you can make your point more clearly to your father and to the priests who whisper in his ear.”
The royal guards did not kill Moses immediately. Whether it was because they were not willing to kill royalty without direct orders from the Pharaoh, or because of the amazing staff he carried, the likes of which none had ever seen, or a combination of both, it wasn’t clear.
They did, however, securely bind the arms of both Gwalcmai and Moses before bringing them into the Pharaoh’s receiving room. They were shoved down onto their knees on the hard stone floor in front of the Pharaoh’s throne. Ramses II wore a heavy robe, sewn with golden thread, and his head was adorned with a crown covered with jewels. His face was so heavily rouged that it was hard for Gwalcmai to read theman’s expression. His arms were crossed, the symbols of his office—the crook and flail—in his hands. He was so still that for several moments Gwalcmai thought him to be a statue. A dozen guards flanked the Pharaoh on either side. Seated to the Pharaoh’s right was a younger version, dressed and made up the same, except lacking the crown, crook, and flail.
Ramses II stared at his son for several moments in silence, then raised the crook and made a gesture. Guards cut the bindings holding the two men and handed Moses the staff.
Moses raised both hands, the staff in his right, the left palm open in a sign of peace. “Father.”
“You dare call me that?” Ramses’ voice was low, but carried well in the room.
“Father, I have come to help you.”
Two kilometers from the Pharaoh’s palace, near the wall surrounding the sprawling Judean slave camp, Donnchadh removed a small block of gray, malleable material from the backpack she had been wearing. She pressed the material against the base of the stone wall, directly below one of the guard towers that were evenly spaced, one hundred meters apart, around the perimeter. She placed a flat chip, no larger than the nail on her pinkie, on top of the material and quickly moved away.
Taking a small metal ball out of her pack, she pressed one of the hexagonals on the surface and the material exploded, destroying the guard tower and punching a large hole in the wall. Both the Egyptians and Jews in the area were stunned by this inexplicable event. The awe was over quickly, though, as the closest Egyptian troops retaliated for the death of their comrades in the only way they knew how, against the only available enemy—they began massacring the closest slaves they could slay.
Starving because of the drought, worked to within inches of their lives, and having borne the burden of slavery for long years, many Jews fought back and a pitched battle was joined. Bugle calls echoed out as the surprised Egyptian troops called for assistance. The handful of soldiers in the area were quickly overwhelmed and the Jews appropriated their weapons and surged through the hole in the wall.
Just as a second bomb, which Donnchadh had set earlier, went off, destroying a barracks full of soldiers.
What kind of help can you give me?” t
he Pharaoh demanded.
Ramses III stood, glaring down at his half brother. “What kind of help do you think we need, Governor of Midian?”
A sound like distant thunder echoed through the palace, even though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The faint sound of bugles floated in through the open windows. Then another thunderclap. More bugles blared and there was the sound of large numbers of armed men moving quickly.
An officer appeared in one of the side portals to the audience room and hurried across to whisper into Ramses III’s ear. Ramses III dismissed the man, then turned to Moses. “What an extreme coincidence—you come here offering aid, and there is trouble with the Judeans at the same moment.”
“There has been trouble brewing with the Judeans for a long time,” Moses said. “There is the drought. They have been worked harder than they should have been. Even slaves must be fed and taken care of. There is trouble in the east and south. There are stirrings in Persia and I believe within ten years the Hittites will invade in this direction.”
“Do you bring me only bad news?” Ramses II asked.
“I bring you good news,” Moses said. He indicated Gwalcmai. “This is Aaron, a warrior from beyond our borders. He knows of the Hittites. He knows of the lands there.”
Gwalcmai half bowed at the waist toward Ramses II. “Lord, you can solve two problems with one action.”
Gwalcmai paused while several more officers scurried in and talked to Ramses III in low voices. As soon as they left, his father raised the crook, indicating he was to brief him.
“There have been two explosions like lightning striking but there is no storm. One along the wall holding the Judeans, the other at the barracks of the temple guards. Many soldiers—at least one hundred—have been killed. There have been subsequent riots in the Judean camp. It will be suppressed shortly.”
“For the time being,” Moses threw in.
“What is the one action that would solve my dual problems?” Ramses II demanded.
“Let us take the Judeans away from here,” Gwalcmai said. “To the north and east, along the shores of the Mediterranean. Let them establish a state there, close to where they originally came from. A state that will be loyal to you because of their gratitude for being freed. One that will be a buffer state for you against the Hittites.”
“One that you rule?” Ramses III demanded.
“My exile will be farther away, brother,” Moses replied. “That should suit you.” He looked at his father. “You will be rid of the Judean problem. It was fine to have so many slaves when things were going well and the Nile was high and crops were bountiful. Now they are just a drain. The bricks they make are of poor quality and lie in piles, unused. And you will have a state between you and the Hittites that they will have to conquer before they can attack Egypt.”
Pharaoh Ramses II considered the proposition for all of ten seconds. “No.”
“Father—” Moses began, but Ramses II cut him off with a chop of his crook.
“The Jews can be solved more easily than giving them to you. As far as the Hittites—let them come. We will drench the sands with their blood, as we have done to our enemies for as long as our family has ruled.”
“My lord,” Gwalcmai began, “it is not as simple as that.”
“And why not?” Ramses II demanded.
“There is the issue of the Judeans’ God,” Gwalcmai said.
Donnchadh was now hidden at the edge of the lush farmland about a kilometer south of the Giza Plateau. Sweat soaked her robes and she was breathing hard from her run to this location. From a leather pouch tied to her belt she removed a small black sphere, about forty centimeters in diameter. It was an Airlia artifact recovered on her world. It was one of many weapons the Airlia had used in the long war. Donnchadh’s fellow scientists had analyzed it and discovered that it was a microwave transmitter that could be tuned to a number of frequencies. It had been used as a weapon by the Airlia when set to a frequency that caused hemorrhages in human brains. However, it could also be used in other ways, one of which Donnchadh was getting ready to employ. She’d tested it before and now she used what she had learned.
She tuned it to a specific frequency, then pressed the ON button. Nothing apparent happened, but the flickering red light on the side told her it was transmitting.
Ramses II’s laughter echoed off the murals painted on the walls. “The God of the Judeans? Why should that concern us?”
Ramses III said nothing, having settled back onto his throne and reassuming his noble posture. His eyes glittered with malice as he stared at his half brother.
Gwalcmai opened his leather pack and took out a round object wrapped in gray cloth. He knelt and slowly unwrapped the grisly package, revealing Osiris’s severed head. The cat-red eyes stared at the Pharaoh and his son as if they were still alive.
“What is this?” Ramses III yelled. He gestured and several of the guards closed on Gwalcmai and Moses.
“This is not our doing,” Gwalcmai quickly said. “This is one of the Gods of the First Age of Egypt, before the time of even Horus. We found his body below Giza, in the Roads of Rostau.”
Ramses III drew his sword and took a step toward them, but he halted at a gesture from his father. “You walked the Roads?” the Pharaoh asked, his voice level.
Gwalcmai nodded. “We did, my lord. We found this one dead along with five others. There are no Gods left alive there.”
“Who killed them?” Ramses II demanded.
Gwalcmai shrugged. “That I do not know. But I fear the God of the Jews might have had something to do with it. They worship only one God, a powerful one apparently. And this God wants them freed and sent back to their homeland. This is another reason why it would be in your interests to do as your son, Moses, has requested.” He paused. “Lord, I have it from one of the Jewish priests that if you do not release them, their God will unleash a plague upon your land.”
Ramses II blinked, the first sign of concern that had crossed his face since they’d entered. Little cracks appeared in the rouge around his eyes. He seemed about to say something, when the sound of screams reverberating from thousands of throats made its way into the room.
This time there was no pretense. Ramses III ran to the nearest window, Moses and Gwalcmai right behind him. The Pharaoh remained on his throne, bound by tradition, but his head turned, following them with his eyes as the screams of his people struck his ears.
“What is it?” the Pharaoh demanded.
Ramses III replied, the word sending a chill through every Egyptian in the room, “Locusts.”
Donnchadh pulled the cloak over her head. It was as if she were in the middle of a fierce hailstorm as locusts smacked into the cloth, drawn by the Airlia black ball’s microwaves. They numbered in the millions, drawn in from all around, woken from their slumber by the Airlia transmitter. They descended into the fields, consuming all. Farmers futilely tried to stop the scourge, dashing out with brooms. It was like a stick placed in the way of an incoming tide.
From the Pharaoh’s palace, it looked as if a dark cloud had descended to the ground south of Giza, covering the fields. It had been many years since a plague of locusts had struck the center of Egypt. It had occurred once during the Pharaoh’s childhood. He still remembered the devastation as the creatures ate the fields bare. This, on top of the drought, could destroy his kingdom.
Ramses II stood. “Take them, Moses. Take the Judeans and never come back here.”
Donnchadh turned off the microwave transmitter. The battering against her cloak slowly subsided. She waited another five minutes, then pulled it aside. It was if ascythe had gone through the fields, taking everything down to bare stalks.
She felt a momentary twinge of guilt for the day’s events. She knew the higher goal they were trying to achieve would make today’s event shrink into nothingness over time, but that didn’t change the fact that she was responsible for the death of fellow humans. Donnchadh focused her thoughts on the Grail as she wal
ked north, through the barren fields. Night was falling and tomorrow would be a new day. Tonight, there was more to do.
Moses was in the camp with the Judeans, meeting with their leaders, trying to get them to accept this unexpected turn of events and get organized, not an easy task. Despite the great opportunity of freedom they were being offered, the Judeans were a quarrelsome lot and there were those who feared this was some trick of the Pharaoh’s to get them out into the desert and let them starve to death.
Gwalcmai waited for Donnchadh in the darkness at the base of the Great Pyramid. As they had hoped, the Pharaoh had pulled his troops back to protect his palace and the city of Cairo to the north. With Gwalcmai were a half dozen Judeans armed with swords and wearing gray cloaks—those who had been in the forefront of the recent fighting with the Egyptians and who would prefer death to slavery. Moses had recruited them from the leaders with the promise that they would find important things under the plateau. They climbed up the side of the Great Pyramid and entered the Roads of Rostau through the tunnel entrance.
They descended through the massive blocks of stone that had been laid until they were into the solid stone below, which made up the plateau. They avoided the golden spider, hiding under their gray cloaks and remaining still as it cameby. The reliance on automated defenses had been one of the Airlia’s weak points on their home world, as every such system always had a loophole allowing it to be defeated. Of course, the vast difference in body counts between Airlia and human during the Revolution was largely due to figuring out those loopholes at the cost of blood.
They went down tunnel after tunnel, following the directions handed down through the Watcher records that Donnchadh had copied in England. Finally, they reached a stone door, which Donnchadh opened. They stepped inside into brief but total darkness, which was immediately dispersed as a five-meter-diameter orb hanging overhead came to life, throwing light throughout a large cavern.
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