by Dana Fredsti
Time to get out of here.
He sprinted for the rendezvous point, then stopped in his tracks as an unexpected surprise caught his eye.
“Well, hello, old friend.”
* * *
The entire camp boiled in turmoil, with soldiers running in all directions—either in pursuit of, or fleeing from, the trumpeting pachyderms making a shambles of the base’s soft underbelly. Back at the northwest corner of the leaguer, the Indians and Kiwis piled into the last of the lorries. As Blake rode up on his rediscovered motorcycle, MacIntyre popped his head out of the back and gave an appreciative whistle.
“Braw motorbike, chief!”
“Singh!” Blake called, pulling to a stop. “Are the petrol tankers taken care of?”
The Sikh gave a thumbs up.
“Light them up.”
“Not to worry,” Singh replied, looking at his watch. “They should be lighting themselves right… about… now.”
A flash and a whooshing sound came from the closest tanker, and then jets of burning flame burst into life from its petrol tank, dousing the next closest tanker like a lawn sprinkler. That tanker spouted a trio of fiery gushers of its own, and the pyromaniacal game continued down the line like hellish dominos, until all the tankers in the line were burning brightly. The licking flames, flickering shadows, and shadowy bodies running back and forth lent a hellish appearance to the entire scene.
“Will they explode?” Blake asked.
“Probably not.” Singh shrugged. “But they might. We should go now.”
“You heard the man,” Blake yelled to the driver. “Let’s move! But follow me, we’ll have to swing around to pick up the Zouaves—if they haven’t gotten themselves killed yet!”
“Hauld up, Blake!” MacIntyre called out from the back of the lorry. “Hae ye got room fur me oan tha’ beestie?”
Blake jerked his head over. “Come on, then.”
The Scotsman grinned and ran over, hopping into the sidecar, bagpipes in hand. Blake shot a dubious look at the pipes.
“You don’t mean to be playing those now, do you?”
“It’s mah job, isnae it?” MacIntyre replied in all innocence. Before Blake could respond, another commotion tore through another nearby row of tents. The war elephants were headed right toward them.
The fire from the petrol tankers, blazing like torchwood, seemed to terrify the charging beasts. They gave the flames a wide berth, one elephant trampling a staff car while the other two crashed through a mess tent, thrashing through splintered tables and benches, sending plates, pots, and pans flying everywhere. The Zouaves cheered their steeds with every new collision.
“Sautez! Sautez!” Blake yelled, with no idea if they could hear him over all the tumult. For whatever reason, the Zouaves chose that moment to dismount, looking remarkably like circus acrobats as they leapt off onto nearby tents and camouflage netting, then dropped to the ground and sprinted to the lorry.
The elephants continued their charge on into the night.
“That’s everybody!” Blake yelled to the driver, and he gunned the motorcycle. “Go! Go!”
The two vehicles sped away. In the sidecar, MacIntyre looked back at the chaos they had unleashed in the German camp and let out a loud hoot of triumph.
“A nod’s as guid as a wink tae a blind horse!” he called out happily over the roar of the speeding motorcycle.
“I have no idea what that means,” Blake muttered as the Scotsman took up his pipes and played them out, into the night.
48
Place: Unknown
Time: Unknown
Chill morning mist cloaked him as he walked through a veil of dangling willow branches along the bank of the Leagean, the Bright River. He stopped, for a pair of bone-white hunting dogs crossed his path. Fierce-looking ghost-white hounds, eyes and ears blood-red. They greeted him like faithful pets.
“Cam,” a familiar voice called out. Cam whirled in surprise.
“Kentan!”
His foster brother was there, large as life, smiling. Cam rushed up to him, but Kentan held out a hand, shaking his head.
“Kentan… I thought… Are you…?” Cam couldn’t get his words out.
Suddenly Kentan was standing across the river with the white hounds. He was waving, and seemed to be calling out, but Cam couldn’t make out the words.
“Kentan! What are you saying?” he called back, shaking his head, a sudden fear gripping him.
“Cam, can you hear me, my brother?” Kentan shouted, his voice barely audible. Struck mute, Cam could only stand there, his voice failing him, mouthing words that no one could hear.
“Can you hear me, my brother?” Kentan’s voice grew louder.
* * *
Someone shook his shoulder. Cam ignored it, burrowing back under his cloak as he tried to retrace his dreams.
“Cam, can you hear me, my brother? Cam. Cam, you must wake up.” Kha-Hotep’s voice finally penetrated the fog of sleep and dreams.
He sat up with a start, grimacing from the sudden sharp twinge in his side. Kha-Hotep knelt next to him, Ibn Fadlan and Leila standing behind him. All three began talking to him at once, each in a different language, his implant racing to keep up with them. Confused, he looked around.
“Where’s Amber?”
“Cam, Amber is gone,” Kha-Hotep said grimly.
* * *
Leaving the others behind to stay with the barge, Kha-Hotep and Cam set off to find Amber, each with a sword in one hand and an oil lamp in the other. Two bright spots fought the dark as they made their way down the quay.
Kha-Hotep had tried to talk the wounded Celt out of joining him, but Cam had assured him he was fine, pulling up the blood-stained tunic to prove that the druid’s magic was already at work. Traceries of tiny silver hexagons were stitching up the ugly stab wound.
Even if he’d been bleeding to death, Cam would still look for Amber.
As the pair left the last of the river fog behind, a moonlit wonderland rose up before them.
“Nev Kawgh…” Cam murmured.
Spread out over a wide and rocky plain on the edge of the endless desert, a conclave of man-made mountains dominated a landscape of temples, shrines, and long stone causeways. Each of the colossal structures boasted bright white triangular sides, every one as smooth as marble, with edges as sharp and crisp as a ray of light. He counted nearly a dozen of the triangular structures, but the three largest towered overhead so high Cam thought he could reach the moon itself, if he could only find a way to scale the sheer sides.
“What is this place?” he asked, awestruck.
“These are the great pyramids,” Kha-Hotep answered proudly. “The tallest and greatest achievements in the entire world. They are the tombs of our ancient pharaohs Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure, built nearly one and a half thousand years before my time.”
“Did your gods raise these up? Or some race of giants?”
“Our forefathers did, by the tens of thousands, laboring for decades—but that was in the fourth dynasty. By my time, the nineteenth dynasty, they were long abandoned, their smooth skin gnawed away by the desert and the ages, and the yellow-gray limestone beneath had been exposed.” He shook his head in amazement. “Yet see how they gleam, as though newly-finished this very day.”
They continued forward. The quay ended in a pair of temples side by side, with no obvious way to get around them. A line of tall statues stood guard at the temple entrances, each sculpted figure a serene enthroned pharaoh carved from speckled gray diorite. Each of the temples had two entrances. Four doorways to choose from, then. There was no other way Amber might have gone.
“She had to have gone through one of them,” Kha-Hotep reasoned.
“Left temple or right, then?”
“That way,” Kha-Hotep said decisively, pointing to the temple entrance on the furthest right hand.
The two men passed the stone pharaohs and entered a high-arched hallway, their lights reflecting off the smooth sides o
f the corridor. Like the outer surface, the inner walls and ceiling were of a pink granite, the floors paved with elegant cloudy white alabaster. The passageway led them a few paces further along, then turned to the right for a few more, before turning left, and finally opening onto a long, wide central court.
Along the walls, alcoves housed statues of various animal-headed deities. A white alabaster altar dominated the center of the court, flanked on either side by an interior colonnade of rectangular pillars, each encased in red granite. The pillars pointed upward, and the chamber was open to the night sky.
They set their oil lamps on the altar, making its four alabaster finials seem to glow from within. Cam stretched his neck up toward the broad skylight.
“No roof but the sky, and yet everything here is gleaming and pristine,” he noted.
Kha-Hotep nodded. “There must be many servants of the gods who care for this temple. I wonder where they are.”
Cam started to answer, then stopped as the sounds of voices and sandaled footsteps approached from the opposite entrance to the one they had used. The pair moved swiftly, each hiding behind one of the pillars.
“The lights!” Kha-Hotep hissed. Cam ran up and leaned over to blow one out, then the other, then ducked behind the altar without a chance to grab either lamp. A tiny curl of smoke twisted up from each extinguished wick, barely visible in the gloom.
The corridor beyond the doorway began to grow brighter with the glow of an approaching light, and then a woman appeared. Her arresting beauty commanded attention, dangerous enough to attract a god or topple a king. Tall and graceful, with dusky golden skin, long lustrous black hair, and keen almond eyes lined with kohl. Her headdress was a circlet with a golden sun-disk diadem and a cobra crown. A wide collar formed of slender rods of malachite and lapis lazuli encircled her neck, while bracelets of gold and faience adorned her long bare arms. Her tall, lean body stood clad in a long dress of pleated white cotton, both sheer and elegant.
Behind her, two female servants led a pair of lions. The huge cats snarled, the terrifying sound reverberating off the walls. Cam was sure the beasts had caught their scent, and would be turned on them any moment, but the women kept the growling creatures in check. Behind them came a procession of softly chanting people—most likely temple acolytes and worshipers—their candles a firefly swarm in the darkened hall.
The procession marched through the open hallway and turned between the altars. Cam stared up at the line of worshipers so close to him, silently willing them to be blind to the abandoned lamps, sitting in plain sight on the altar so conspicuous to his horrified eyes. The high priestess stopped before the wall and pushed against it with her palm. Silently, a panel pivoted open onto another unlit passageway, and she led her flock through.
Once they were gone the two men emerged from their hiding places and looked at each other in speechless confusion, neither knowing what to make of it all.
“Do you think they have captured Amber?” Cam whispered.
“I cannot say,” Kha-Hotep answered softly. “Let us follow.”
Silently and stealthily they followed the procession along the darkened temple corridor. After several more twists and turns the Egyptians stopped in the middle of a passage, seemingly at random. The priestess reached out and pressed an inconspicuous spot on the wall’s carved molding. The small section depressed beneath her hand, and then an entire section of wall slid away with a stony grumble. It opened into the night, the wide desert sky already softening from black to the indigo of approaching dawn.
The procession continued out the tunnel.
“Priests and their secret doors,” Cam murmured.
“Priests and their secrets,” Kha-Hotep whispered back.
49
The Gates of Alexandria
Dawn – Eight days after the Event
Alright then, my girl, Nellie encouraged herself. Let’s get a move on. The great gate to the city opened its doors. She took a deep breath, and strode into Alexandria.
As she crossed the threshold, a quartet of guards in chain mail tunics quickly surrounded her, spears and shields at the ready, their faces grim and determined. Despite herself, Nellie felt a perverse twinge of pleasure that grown men considered her such a frightening threat.
“Halt in the name of the prefect,” one of them ordered, a horse-faced man in a centurion’s helmet.
“Good morning!” she answered with a cheery smile. “Thank you for letting me come in. I hope I haven’t made any trouble for you.”
Their attitude did not improve. The man stepped forward.
“Keep still. Make no sudden movements of your hands.”
Nellie froze in place. “I mean you no harm,” she said. “I’ve come back here to help.”
“Cease talking at once,” he snapped. “You are under arrest.”
“Arrested?” Her face paled. “Please, you must take me to your magistrate Calix and Lady Hypatia—it’s absolutely vital!”
“Your master killed Calix yesterday with his sorcery. You are accessory to his murder.”
Shock stole her voice, but then she rallied. “Please, Hypatia will remember me! You must take me to her, I beg you!”
“Never.” The man’s voice was iron scraping on granite. “We will die before we suffer you to come into her presence, sorceress.”
“But—”
“Enough!” He drew his sword. “Submit or we kill you where you stand.” Nellie slowly lifted her hands in surrender.
“Alright. You win.”
She had just one ace left up her sleeve, but now was not the time. Instead she let the soldiers march her into the city.
* * *
Even without the benefit of steel, gaslights, or other modern amenities, the soaring architecture and bustling streets of Alexandria rivaled her beloved New York. Her captors took her down the city’s primary thoroughfare, at least a hundred feet wide and bordered on either side by rows of towering columns running the length of the metropolis. A lavish blend of Egyptian and Roman styles dominated, from the magnificent temples and theaters to the great houses of the wealthy, and the royal palace complex.
“Are you taking me to the palace?” she asked hopefully. If they locked her in the royal dungeons, perhaps she could get word to Hypatia—if the aristocratic woman would still be willing to grant an audience.
The captain turned to glare at her. “The brig of the Macedonian barracks is as close as you’ll ever get to the palace. It’s the sewer-pit where we toss all the garbage before their execution.”
“Is there to be no trial at all?” she asked, horrified.
The soldiers chuckled at her naïveté.
The unusual procession attracted attention. She felt every pair of eyes as they began to attract a crowd. Excited bystanders pointed at her. Some looked on with amazed wonder, others glared angrily. Nellie’s heart began to beat a bit faster than she liked. Her guards grew uneasy, too. They shouted for the massing throng to clear the way, but the thoroughfare became more choked with curious onlookers.
“Please, my lady, heal my child!” an anguished young mother cried, holding up a screaming baby. Several people tried to reach around the shields of the guards to touch her, only to be shoved back with force. A wild-eyed bearded man grasped for her with a claw-like hand, fanatical fire in his eyes.
“Whore of Babylon!” he raged, spittle flying. “Mother of harlots and abominations of the Earth!” Nellie recoiled as the man lunged at her again, and two of her guards rushed to block him. One’s shield-rush caught the howling doomcaster in the teeth, causing him to shriek and grab at his bloody mouth.
Crouching, Nellie saw her chance and dove past the other distracted guards into the crowd itself. A gauntlet of hands surrounded her—adoring followers hoping to receive a miracle from her touch, and hate-fueled fanatics howling for her blood. She bolted past them all, slipping through the outstretched hands and fending off blows. In her wake, the two groups turned upon each other.
Her
erstwhile guards smashed their own way through the crowd and bellowed for bystanders to make way, but the crowded street had turned into a riot. Their shields now thwarted their pursuit. Hapless pedestrians in the way were crushed up against them, unable to move.
A trio of horses pulling a chariot reared and panicked, very nearly trampling Nellie. She tumbled to the ground and dragged herself away from beneath the stamping hooves, scrambling to her feet again on the other side of the stalled triga and its frustrated charioteer.
Even with all the commotion she could still hear the shouts of her pursuers. She looked around for an escape route. A wide and crowded public square lay just ahead, brimming with statues, public fountains, and market stalls. She made for it, cursing her skirts and boots as she ran, while chaos continued to erupt all around her.
Merchants, customers, and beggars alike were caught up in the spreading tumult. Without slowing her pace, Nellie took advantage of the confusion to snatch the faded awning off of a nearby fig stand. Ducking around a statue of Juno, she quickly pulled it around her as a makeshift cloak, and then zig-zagged through the maze of the bazaar, lightly stepping over the contents of spilled baskets and upset amphorae while the sellers struggled to retrieve their wares.
Abruptly, she popped out of the jumbled maze into another open space, nearly colliding with the four guards pursuing her. Letting out a shriek of alarm she cringed, bracing herself for the impact of their shields—or their spears. They thundered past her without a second glance.
Nellie thought she’d collapse then and there.
“Nellie, old gal,” she told herself, watching them go, “if you were a cat, I’d say you were down to your last life.” Still not quite believing her luck, she rallied and darted off in another direction, just another terrified citizen fleeing the riot.
* * *
From her hiding place, Nellie marveled up at the lighthouse on Pharos Island, towering overhead. Below it the Great Harbor and all her daughter ports spread out all around, offering enough berths for hundreds of ships. Its sheltered cove was nearly spacious enough to contain a second Alexandria. The lines and sails of all the docked vessels, gently bobbing in their moorings, made a soft percussive concerto as they slapped against the masts and fluttered in the breeze.