“She and the man rode into the heart of the desert mountains.”
“Did you search for them?”
“Aye. For several days. The mountain cat was trailing them, so I doubt they survived. We had little water left and began to walk west to the Inland Sea. Two of the soldiers volunteered to stay and continue the search.”
Thut's muddy gaze rested on the soldier, who looked down. “The woman's eyes were green.” It was a statement.
The soldier nodded. “Aye, My Majesty.”
“The man moved like a cat and had eyes of gold?”
“Aye.”
Thut sighed. Of course, he knew they had escaped Hat's justice and wondered fleetingly in the past weeks if they had fled with the Israelites or had just left at the same time. He'd been informed that Cheftu had booked passage on a ship for the Great Green, but with the confusion of a third of the population dying and another fifth disappearing, he had not found out if they had made the ship. It was obvious Cheftu had stolen RaEm away from her rightful punishment; Thut had seen the dead guardswomen with their wounds of medical precision. Only one man could kill so cleanly.
He sighed again. They would have to be found. They knew, and as far as he could tell, they were the only ones who knew what had happened to Hatshepsut and her select guard.
The soldier stood before him. “Go. Refresh yourself for two days. As Ra rises on the third you shall be leading fresh soldiers out to resume the hunt. They must be found. Alive.” Thut moved his hand and they bowed, backing toward the doors. He walked onto his balcony.
The swollen river ran like a band of silver, hammered out into a hundred filigreed ribbons, weaving through the black soil. Most of the workmen's houses were flooded, and Thut knew that behind him was a rough town of temporary dwellings from which the rekkit watched the waters recede, leaving the thick, black mud that was life in this land. His kilt stuck to his legs in the humid heat, and for the first time since the suicide of his wife, Thut felt a tremble of desire.
Also he felt a rumble of unease. Something pricked his memory, and he called for guards. The last time he had been with a woman…
Decans later Thut walked through the quiet, predawn streets, looking for that one path. Two bumbling soldiers followed him, and he forced himself not to run and lose them. The firstborn … how long would Egypt mourn their loss? He reached the river and realized that once again he had gone too far. He turned and walked back, looking carefully each way, searching for the narrow path to the old hidden temple.
He was staring at the ground abstractedly, when he seemed to see, darkly drawn in the sand, the outline of horns and a disk. He looked up in the direction the horns pointed and could see the trail, hidden by branches and ostraca. Stepping over and moving shards of rock, he walked down it, winding through the ragged undergrowth. The path dipped, he remembered, then ended flush against a door.
Thut remembered the door, left a crack open in that unforgiving darkness of months past. He pushed it, and it yielded, Stepping into the small stone chamber, he saw the bloodied stone couch. That poor girl, he thought. She had been so young, so innocent. Drugged, he realized now. She had never known a man, but he'd wager she'd had sensual encounters. Her reactions had testified to it.
May it please the gods, they would never have to resort to such archaic religious ritual again! The gods were not blood-thirsty, and Thut still felt unclean from the sacrifice he had made. ReShera had been her name, and he was certain he had seen her before.
He walked through the room, his sandals echoing faintly. Why had he come here? Why?
Because something was not right. Hatshepsut had passed judgment too quickly, and Cheftu had been startled at the sight of the girl. Hadn't he even said he'd thought she was older? Even the Sisterhood had not pursued RaEm as they should have, but let her go, preferring to worship HatHor without two priestesses. Actually the new RaEmhetep priestess had taken her place, but she was four years old. Thut, a royal prince Egypt, inducted to the Seven Degrees of the Priesthood of Waset and the Three Degrees of the Temple-of-the-Ka-of-Ptah, knew that such worship was unwise.
Thut sat on the stone couch, staring at the first rays of morning that picked through the clerestory windows. The room, brightening in the sun, had not been opened since that dark day. Debris was piled in the corners, a testimony to the ferocity of the plagues. In this room built of pristine white Old Kingdom stone, unused for dynasties, the bloodstain was a deep scar.
He kicked at the debris, angered and uncertain as to why. A link of metal on stone drew his attention. Kneeling on the floor, his bare hands mindless of the dead and decaying refuse, he pushed back the rotting foliage, feeling for whatever made the noise. He scrabbled in the pile for many moments, and then his fingers brushed it … a chain.
The inscription on the tiny gold scarab was easy enough to read even in the weak light. The implication was astounding. He looked around the room again, a room that he alone and another priestess had ever entered. He himself had carried her drained body to the door. Thutmosis swallowed. A gold scarab lay in his hand.
Gold, the one thing never to be worn by a priestess of HatHor. I was inscribed with a name far different from the one the priestess had given.
“Basha.”
Thut left the room, almost running up the hill in his haste to reach the temple. He wanted some answers.
CHEFTU AWOKE IN EGYPT. IT SEEMED LIKE EGYPT. He smelled the myrrh of temple ritual, his body was supported by the lightly woven bands of an Egyptian bed, and he felt the complex linen bandage around his leg—Egyptian design. Strange.
that his last memories were of heat, cold, rocks, sand, and raging pain as they ran on and on, fearing even to spend a second of turning to see their pursuers.
Where was Chloe? He murmured her name and felt a cool hand on his forehead but it was not hers. A voice spoke, sexless and authoritative. “Your time together is limited, my lord.” What did that mean? The fear engendered by the statement was powerless against the exhaustion in his half-dead body. He slept.
CHLOE WAS SEATED NEXT TO A SLEEPING CHEFTU; he'd been resting for a week since she'd woken up, waking only to eat. How long had they been here? Time seemed to stand still between meals and naps and board games.
Khaku came in, beckoning to her, and Chloe followed him through her room and the bathing chamber into the room at the back of the tent that she had observed earlier.
It looked like Merlin's cavern, Chloe thought. Star charts were scattered about, and against one wall were baskets of all shapes and sizes holding labeled and sealed containers. She cried out when she saw Imhotep.
He was facedown. Khaku bent and cradled the old man, clicking his tongue in grief. Chloe counted his pulse; it was strong. Kahku carried him to the couch and laid a feather in the torches. The singed smell brought Imhotep around He was weak, but fine. He sat up on shaking arms and looked around frantically, as if he'd misplaced something.
He peered at Chloe, an expression somewhere between fear and admiration. “Leave us, Khaku. Bring the young man; we must talk now.”
Khaku fussed over him for a few more seconds and then left, doing as his master commanded.
“Go, my child.” Imhotep gestured to Chloe. “Take the bowl from that table; do not look into it, but bring it to me.”
Chloe found the bowl. Concentrating on a spot above Imhotep's head, she walked to him, setting it carefully on a small table. Cheftu came in, supported by Khaku. His color was good, and he winked at Chloe. They sat on the couch, and Khaku pulled a stool forward so they all could see the small table. Then he bowed and left.
Imhotep seemed improved. “This morning I thought I would cast your horoscopes,” he said a little breathlessly. “I had some sacred oil from Midian and some of the healing waters from Ptah's temple.” He swallowed, his gaze flitting from Cheftu's still features to Chloe's curious ones, noting the strong-fingered grasp that held them together, a human chain. “I poured them in the divining bowl, and then, haii, I c
annot describe what happened. It was like a khamsim blew through, not disturbing anything else, but stirring the water.” He leaned over and stared into the bowl. “When at last I could see, this was what I beheld.”
Chloe met Cheftu's gaze, and with a reassuring squeeze he released her hand. She leaned over the bowl and had to steady herself on the edge of the table. It was a map.
Cheftu scooted forward and saw it also. “Egypt,” he murmured in English.
“It is a map of the Sinai and the two Egypts,” Imhotep said. “It is as clear as a scribe's drawing. But look more closely, children.” Chloe angled her head for a better view. From somewhere along the eastern edge of the Inland Sea, a path led across the water and into the desert between the sea and Waset. There it stopped.
“What does it mean?” she whispered, looking up into Cheftu's eyes. She was so close, she could see the circles of bronze that encircled his pupils.
He turned to Imhotep. “Was there anything else?”
The old man paled and sat back. “Aye, son. There was.” He looked from face to face, then spoke in a monotone. “‘You must leave that which you carry in this place, then you must return to your lives.’”
Chloe looked at Cheftu. What did they carry?
Cheftu looked aghast. “Why?”
“Because you share a destiny. A destiny so vital, it will transform people's lives, their thoughts. It will tear your flesh from your bones, because of its demand.”
“Demand?”
“A sacrifice.”
Chloe raised an eyebrow at Imhotep. “How can we carry anything when … Wait a moment.” She turned to Cheftu. “Those scrolls.”
“The scrolls! Alemelek's scrolls!” He struggled to rise, but Imhotep laid a restraining hand on him and called for Khaku.
A few tense moments later, Cheftu pulled the scrolls from the quiver and unrolled them. There were about fifteen, all fine papyrus, covered with drawings of fruits, trees, and flowers, others of villages, and several of a family. And Meneptah.
Chloe choked when she found the one of the village. “I'll be damned,” she said in distinct English. She felt Cheftu's stare, but her gaze was tracing the lines of the figures. She rolled it up and saw the botanical drawings. Her hands were cold and shaking as she slumped forward on the stool, staring at the map.
“‘A dig in the eastern desert,’” she quoted. She opened the basket that Khaku had also brought while Cheftu looked on in surprise. She removed a false bottom and pulled out several notepads and two well-wrapped scrolls. With trembling hands she opened them. Cheftu had on his doctor's face, watching Imhotep. However, the old man's gaze was steady as Chloe unrolled a long scroll.
Cheftu flinched when he saw his own countenance looking back at him as they sat watching the Exodus prepare to go forth. Chloe felt the blood leave her head.
“What is it?” he asked. “What do you see?”
She put a hand to her face. “The future.”
“What!?”
“In 1994, my sister, who studies Egypt, will be part of a dig that discovers these papyri. I did not recognize the one of the Exodus as my own, because I had never before drawn faces.” She looked at Cheftu. “Before you I never knew …” She bit her lip and looked down. “However, this village, and these fruit, I remember them clearly. The discovery was so amazing because it dated from the time of Thutmosis and was not in two-dimensional Egyptian style. Camille said there were about fifty of them, but they had not all been unwrapped.”
Cheftu and Imhotep both looked confused. There were no direct translations for a lot of what she had said, but apparently they got the impression she knew what she was talking about.
“Where were they found?” Imhotep asked.
Chloe looked at the water and oil map. “In the eastern desert outside of Luxor … Waset.”
“Hatshepsut's secret chamber,” Cheftu said.
“What?”
“Assst! She had it built so that she and Senmut could be together as man and wife throughout time—an action forbidden to Pharaoh, but not if kept hidden!” His voice rose in sudden comprehension. “That must be where these are found! Hat said the reason she chose that location was because the land was barren. Nothing out there at all!”
Imhotep looked from one to the other. “You are to place them there,” he said, gesturing to the wealth of papyri. “You have about forty scrolls here, if you take all. What do they depict?” he asked. “Are fruit and trees so important in the future?”
Chloe frowned. His point was good; what was their purpose? Cheftu began to flip through them. The plague of blood, several of the different stages of locusts, a street in Avaris during the hail, the hallway with sick servants, a recalled rendition of when Hat and Moses met face-to-face and the sun came out at his God's command. “They are just illustrations from the Bible,” Cheftu said. “Interesting, but hardly worth the complexities of time and space we have experienced.”
Chloe began pacing. “Aye, just illustrations. Everyone knows the stories,” she said, then stopped. “But they do not believe them!”
Cheftu looked up, frowning. “Do not believe the Bible?”
“Nay. Nor did I before”—she paused—“before this. Did you?”
“Aye. Why would the Jews use a fabricated story on which to base their entire existence as a people?” Cheftu asked. “It is humiliating enough for them to admit to being slaves, but then the desert? The many times they disobeyed and God punished? Why would someone falsify that?”
“Aye.” Imhotep chuckled. “You will never read of an Egyptian battle lost or a pharaoh falling short of his duties.”
“That is it!” Chloe cried. “There is no other validation of the existence of Israel, or the Passover, or even who the pharaoh was! Even my sister thinks it was Rameses the Great, if anyone at all. This is proof! Cold, hard facts written on paper from the right period.” She sat down, flipping quickly through the drawings. Several of Alemelek's were Egyptian style—one actually telling the story of Ramoses! With a shaking hand she passed it to Cheftu and Imhotep, who leaned over it, reading quickly.
Chloe sat down. This was bloody unbelievable!
She began to shake. They were responsible for delivering the scrolls to the tomb. Then to go back to their lives? The room was quiet now, the puzzle solved.
Cheftu laughed in amazement. “Alemelek was so afraid he had not been used by God. He felt guilty for marrying and not confessing to a priest. The night he died, I was shocked out of my wits to hear Latin.We hardly spoke he was so ill. He asked me to administer last rites, which I did, but poorly. Then he made me swear on the Host that I would give him a Christian burial.”
“Did you?”
“Aye. The night before we left. Meneptah and I traded his body for another, and I broke an ankh to make a cross.”
“Where did you bury him?”
“In the caves behind the City of the Dead.”
Chloe chuckled. “That is sure going to mess with a lot of Egyptologists’ minds!”
“Children,” Imhotep said with authority, “now that you know your task, your destiny demands it be done. Soon. I have laid false trails, but the voice warns me that they will not gain you the time I had hoped. You need to leave soon.” He glanced at Cheftu's leg. “Is there any way I can aide you?”
“Water, food, clothing,” Cheftu said. “What was the second part of … what you heard? How do we go back, and what is the demand, the sacrifice?”
“I do not know how you got here. Obviously, it was necessary for your world. I regret to say I do not know how to get you back.”
“The man you saw ‘disappear,’ the one who was so pale … where exactly in the temple was he?” Chloe asked.
Imhotep pursed his lips. “I will think on it and draw you a map. I will also”—he shuddered—“cast individual horoscopes for you. Tell me your birth dates.”
“December twenty-third, 1970,” Chloe said unhesitatingly. The old man's hands faltered as he wrote down the date.
Cheftu was pale. “December twenty-third, 1790,” he whispered.
The old man dropped the quill and stared at them. “When?” he breathed. “When during the night?”
“Twenty-three minutes after twenty-three hundred hours,” Chloe said, freezing at the sound of her own words. Realizing she had spoken in English, she translated into Egyptian, but Cheftu had understood.
“That is my birth, exactly,” he said.
“You are both of the house of RaEmhetep,” the old man said. “It is the unluckiest day of all births in our year. The lintel in the room was inscribed with ‘RaEmhetepet, RaEmHetp-Ra mes-hru mesut Hru Naur, RaEmPhamenoth, Aab-tPtah.’”
Chloe gasped, hardly able to choke out the words. “What did you say? Repeat it!”
“‘RaEmhetepet, RaEmHetp-Ra, mes-hru mesut Hru Naur, RaEmPhamenoth, Aab-tPtah.’”
“Add on the phrase …” She concentrated, trying to remember the symbols that had haunted her for days in their incomprehensibility. “‘Tehen erta-pa-her Reat RaEmhetep EmRaHetep.’ ‘Prayer in the twenty-third doorway at twenty-three of RaEm.’”
The old man frowned. “Prayer in the twenty-third doorway? Are you certain?”
“I think I am,” she said.
“The other part is easy,” Cheftu said. “The twenty-third of the month of Phamenoth, which more or less corresponds to December.”
Imhotep shook his head. “I do not know what this other could refer to. I will look through my library.”
They all froze then at the words drifting in from the front room: “We demand shelter in the name of Thutmosis the Third, Pharaoh of Egypt, living forever!”
They wasted no time.
“Head west to the shore. Caravans pass there. Join as brother and sister,” Imhotep hissed as they stripped and dressed, accepting packets of food and rewrapping the papyri, while Khaku stalled the soldiers.
“Take the donkey outside. Be careful—there have been mountain cat tracks in the last week.”
Chloe chuckled. Cheftu stared hard at the map, imprinting it on his flawless memory.
Imhotep pressed an ink palette into her hands. “For more,” he said. “There are only forty scrolls. Search your memory for the rest.”
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