Thebes of the Hundred Gates

Eleven

The days went by, slowly at first, then with bewildering swiftness, then with an excruciating unwillingness to end. He took care to keep count of them, as he had been trained to do, but he knew there was no hope. Sandburg’s last lighthearted words tolled in his brain again and again and again, like the sound of somber leaden bells. He lived in a frozen abyss of despair.

The chanting priestly voices from outside went on and on, all day long, and by now the strange clashing harmonies seemed not at all strange to him:

I am Nepthys.

Here comes Horus at your call, O Osiris.

He will take you upon his arms.

You will be safe in his embrace.

As the time passed he could feel his former existence running out of him as if through a funnel. All his memories were slipping away, every shred of identity: mother, father, school days, girls, books, sports, college, Service, everything. Leaving nothing but an empty shell, gossamer-thin.

He had danced his way through life, sneaked his way through, dealt somehow with all the uncertainties and the perils and the cruelties. Held his own. More than held his own. He had done very well for himself, in fact. And then had taken one risk too many; and now the game was up. He had run up against a pair of players who were willing to cast him aside without hesitation and with nothing more than the pretense of remorse.

He had only one day left, now. Tomorrow the jump field would return and wait for him to enter it, and after a little while, whether he had entered it or not, it would take off again for his own era.

I am Nepthys.

How beautiful you are that rise this day!

Like Horus of the Underworld

Rising this day, emerging from the great flood.

You are purified with those four jars

With which the gods have washed themselves.

He stared at the wall. Gradually the weirdly serene faces of the monstrous gods that were carved into it began to emerge out of the darkness. The first light of morning was coming through the slot high overhead. The last day: his final chance. But there was no hope. The door was bolted and would stay that way. The day would come and go and the jump field would leave without him and that would be that.

He stood empty and tottering, waiting for the breeze that would blow him to dust.

But he was surprised to discover that he seemed to be filling again. A new Edward Davis was rushing in. An Egyptian Edward Davis. Already he felt Thebes spinning its web around him, as it had around them. A new life, rich and strange. The daily company of Horus and Thoth, Isis and Osiris, Sobek and Khnum. Fine robes; lovely women; fountains and gardens. A life spent playing senet and sipping sherbet in his villa and attending elegant parties of the sort portrayed on all the tombs of the nobility across the river in the Valley of the Kings. And eventually to have his own fine tomb over there, where his own splendiferous mummy would be put to rest.

No. No. He was amazed at himself. What kind of insane fantasy was this? How could he even be thinking such stuff? Angrily he thrust it from his mind.

Which left him empty again, marooned, defenseless.

He trembled.

He felt once more the devastating inrush of fear, mingled with savage resentment. They had trapped him. They had stolen his life from him.

But had they really? Was the situation actually that bad?

Horus has cleansed you.

Thoth has glorified you.

The masters of the Great White Crown have abolished the troubles of your flesh.

Now you can stand on your own legs, entirely restored.

You will open the way for the gods.

For them you will act as the Opener of the Way.

They had him. He might as well give in. What choice did he have, really? When they finally let him out of here, he would allow Sandburg and Lehman to help him. And they would, if only out of guilt. He would take full advantage of what had happened to him. Build a new life for himself. He could go a long way here.

He knew the history of the years that lay ahead, after all. The whole thing was there, neatly filed in the electronic memory that the Service had poured into his brain. The upheavals that would come after the death of Amenhotep III and the succession of crazy Prince Amenhotep to the throne, the idealistic religious revolution and the bitter counter-revolution that would follow it, the short and turbulent reigns of Tut-ankh-Amen and the others who would follow him—he knew it all, every twist and turn of events. And could benefit from his special knowledge. He would rise high in the kingdom. Higher than Lehman had, higher than Sandburg. A grand vizier, say. A viceroy. The power behind the throne. The powerful men had lovely titles here. The Eyes and Ears of the King. The Fan-Bearer at Pharaoh’s Right Hand. Edward C. Davis of Muncie, Indiana, Fan-Bearer at Pharaoh’s Right Hand. Why not? Why not? He laughed. It was almost a giggle. You are getting a little hysterical, Mr. Fan-Bearer, he told himself.

But then came a bewildering thought. What if he achieved all that—and then a rescue team arrived from Home Era to bring him back? A year from now, say. Five years. They couldn’t pinpoint the delivery time all that precisely. They’d know what year they had sent him to, but they couldn’t be absolutely certain he’d reached it, and there was likely to be a little overshoot on the part of the rescue mission, too. Five years, say. Ten. Enough for him to get really comfortably established.

The Service will send a mission out to rescue you, Sandburg had said. They will, I’m sure they will.

Who? Charlie Farhad? Nick Efthimiou?

Yes. Somebody like that. A couple of the tough, capable operators who always knew how to manage things the right way. That’s who he’d have to deal with. But how soon? And was he going to welcome them, when they came?

We’ll help you to stay out of their clutches, she had promised. Because by the time they come for you you’ll be an Egyptian just like us.

He wondered. He didn’t know.

Priests were beginning to sound the morning chants at the temple, now. The unearthly music of Amon and Horus and Anubis came floating through the little slot-like window in the wall. A shaft of bright sunlight poured into his room and lit up the carvings. He stared at the calm figures of the gods: winged Isis, full of love, and mummified Osiris and bird-headed Thoth and smiling crocodile-faced Sobek, high above. They stared back at him.

And then he heard the bolt sliding back. Voices outside: Sandburg’s voice, Lehman’s.

He couldn’t believe it. Here on the last day, they had relented after all! The guilt, the shame, had been too much for them, finally. They were giving him back his life. Tears of gratitude burst from him suddenly. They would want him to cover up for them, of course, when he got back down the line. And he would. He would. Just let me out of here, he thought, and I’ll tell any lie you want me to.

“Hello, there,” Sandburg said cheerily. She was wearing some sort of elaborate priestess-rig, white linen done up in curl upon stiff curl and a shimmering diadem in her black ringlets. “Ready for some fresh air?”

“So you’ve decided not to keep me here?” he said.

“What?”

“This is the day the jump field is coming back, isn’t it? And you’re letting me out.”

She blinked and peered at him as though he had spoken in some unknown language.

“What? What?”

“I’ve been keeping count. This is the day.”

“Oh, no,” she said, with an odd little laugh. “The field came yesterday. We found your alleyway, and we were there to see it. Oh, I’m so sorry, Edward. Your count must be off by a day.”

He was bewildered. “My count—off a day—”

“No doubt of it.”

He couldn’t believe it. He had ticked off the dawn of each new day so carefully, updating in his mind. The tally couldn’t be off. Couldn’t.

But it was. Why else would they be here? He saw Lehman standing behind her, now, looking fidgety and guilty. There were others there also. Eyaseyab, for one. A little party to celebrate his release. In the solitude of his cell he had lost track of the days somehow. He must have.

Sandburg took him by the hand. Numbly he let her lead him out into the hall.

“These are your slaves,” she said. “I’m giving Eyaseyab to you.”

“Thank you.” What else did you say, when they gave you a slave?

And a charioteer, and a cook, and some others.

Davis nodded. “Thank you very much,” he said stonily.

She leaned close to him. “Are you ever going to forgive us?” she asked in a soft, earnest tone. “You know we really had no choice. I wish you had never come looking for us. But once you did, we had to do what we did. If you could only believe how sorry I am, Edward—”

“Yes. Yes. Of course you are.”

He stepped past her, and into the hall, and on beyond, around a row of huge columns and into the open air. It was a hot, dry day, like all the other days. The sun was immense. It took up half the sky. I am an Egyptian now, he thought. I will never see my own era again. Fine. Fine. Whatever will be, will be. He took a deep breath. The air was like fire. It had a burning smell. Somewhere down at the far end of the colonnade, priests in splendid brocaded robes were carrying out some sort of rite, an incomprehensible passing back and forth of alabaster vessels, golden crowns, images of vultures and cobras. One priest wore the hawk-mask, one the crocodile-mask, one the ibis-mask. They no longer looked strange to him. They could have stepped right out of the reliefs on the wall of his cell.

Eyaseyab came up beside him and took his arm. She nestled close.

“You will not miss your old home,” she said. “I will see to that.”

So she knew the story too.

“You’re very kind,” he said.

“Believe me,” Eyaseyab said. “You will be happy here.”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes. Perhaps I will.”

The masked priests were casting handfuls of some aromatic oil on a little fire in front of a small shrine. Flames rose from it, green and turquoise and crimson ones. Then one of them turned toward him and held out a tapering white vessel of the oil as if inviting him to throw some on too.

How different from Indiana all this is, Davis thought. And then he smiled. Indiana was 3500 years away. No: farther even than that. There was no Indiana. There never had been. Indiana was something out of a dream that had ended. This was a different dream now.

“It is the Nekhabet fire,” Eyaseyab said. “He wants you to make an offering. Go on. Do it, Edward-Davis. Do it!”

He looked back toward Sandburg and Lehman. They were nodding and pointing. They wanted him to do it too.

He had no idea what the Nekhabet fire was. But he shrugged and walked toward the shrine, and the priest handed him the vessel of oil. Hesitating only a moment, Davis upended it over the fire, and watched a sudden burst of colors come blazing up at him, for a moment as bright as the colors of the jump-field vortex itself. Then they died away and the fire was as it had been.

“What was that all about?” he asked Sandburg.

“The new citizen asks the protection of Isis,” she said. “And it is granted. Isis watches over you, now and forever. Come, now. We’ll take you to your new home.”