The Age of Ra (12 page)

''But then we found you again, dear. Nephthys and I. We searched high and low and we gathered all the bits of you together and we made you whole once more.''

''Nearly whole.'' Osiris peers sullenly down at his lap, where used to reside the one piece of his body that the two goddesses failed to recover. A fish had devoured his penis. Now in its place a wooden phallus has been fitted. Handsomely proportioned, a fine specimen of polished cedar, but not, of course, the real thing. A fully functioning substitute but not the same.

''And I,'' says Ra, ''breathed life back into you, so that you and Isis might lie together again, an event from which issued a son. The tale has a happy ending, Osiris. Harm was done but not, I feel, irreparable harm.''

''Not irreparable!?'' scoffs his great-great-nephew. ''I have a fake cock that might argue otherwise.''

''Well, I have no complaints in that department,'' says Isis with a sly smile. ''None at all.''

The comment soothes her husband. ''Thank you, my love,'' says the ever-uxorious Osiris. ''I live to please you. But even so, were it not for Set I would be intact, a whole person.''

''And Set is doing his best to atone for it,'' says Ra. ''It and many other crimes. Can you not be content with that? Can you not simply let the matter lie now?''

Osiris considers the suggestion - for all of a second.

''By killing me Set condemned me to be ruler of the dead,'' he says. ''It's a position I am honoured to hold and I discharge my duties gladly.''

What duties?
Ra thinks to himself.
Anubis does all the work. You are nominally in charge but it's your nephew who actually supervises the labourers in the Field of Reeds.

''But,'' Osiris goes on, ''it's something I'd rather have accepted by choice than had thrust upon me. Given that and Set's other offences against me, am I willing to let bygones be bygones with the so-called Lord of the Desert? No.'' He thumps his fist on the bench. ''No I am not.''

''And in the meantime,'' says Ra, ''down on earth, humankind is engulfed in a maelstrom of conflict, largely because you and Set cannot sort things out between you.''

''So be it,'' says Osiris. ''The mortals worship us, hence they must act in accordance with our wishes and desires. That is the way it is and must be.''

Spoken with finality. No room for compromise.

Ra stands and takes his leave. Osiris and Isis escort him off the premises with every courtesy and good wish.

Ra is back on the Solar Barque. Ra is a single being in a single place. He always has been.

Maat, at the tiller, says, ''My lord? All is well?''

Sombrely Ra nods. ''I now know what I have to do. It is a hard undertaking, perhaps an impossible one, but I must attempt it anyway. Somehow I must end my descendants' warring. It has all gone far enough. I must unite them in peace.''

Maat smiles to herself, a calm, wise smile. Ra has decreed it. So will it come to pass.

Ra rubs his face.

''Peace?'' he says to himself. ''I must be mad.''

10. Lightbringer

I
t was early evening, and people crossed the river like pilgrims. Passenger ferries groaned with the weight of them. Feluccas zigzagged back and forth, riding low in the water on the outbound journey, packed to the gunwales with human cargo. It seemed as if the entire population of Luxor was making the trip from one side of the Nile to the other, a mass migration. Everyone shouted, everyone looked eager, even the children too small to understand what was going on. There was an atmosphere of festival, and an undertow of solemn urgency.

Having reached the east bank, David walked with Zafirah and the Liberators and the crowd, through the bottleneck that was the bridge over the El Fadiyah Canal, then across the plain towards the Ramesseum, through the Valley of the Nobles and on to the Temple of Hatshepsut. This was where the pilgrimage ended, where people stopped and congregated, in the flat causeway in front of that huge mortuary edifice, which rose in a series of terraces against the face of a sheer limestone cliff.

A broad ramp led up to the temple's second tier. David saw floodlights arrayed around the temple, and a sound system was in place, all centred on the podium which stood at the head of the ramp between a pair of stone lions. He looked around him. The crowd already numbered around a thousand, and more and more were arriving, swarming in from all directions, with still half an hour to go before the event was due to begin. The sun was setting over the Theban Mountain. The babble of excited voices was deafening.

''Taking mental notes?'' asked Zafirah. ''Compiling a report for your superiors?''

David started, a little guiltily. ''Just observing. You make it sound like I'm a spy or something. Don't you remember? You invited me along. You wanted me to see all this.''

''I'm only teasing. You look full of curiosity, that's all.''

''Well, I am curious. Who wouldn't be? This is interesting.''

''Is that why you haven't checked in with headquarters?''

''What do you mean?''

''You've had all of today to yourself. There are payphones all over Luxor. There's one in the lobby of our hotel. Yet you haven't tried to contact anyone to tell them you're alive.''

''How do you know that? Maybe you're the one who's been spying.''

''Isn't it true?''

''So what if it is?''

''Then I'm intrigued,'' Zafirah said. ''Surely the good little soldier's first duty, if he's missing believed dead, is to let his commanding officers know he's alive. Unless, of course, he doesn't want them to know he's gone AWOL.''

''I'm not AWOL. As far as the army's aware, I'm KIA.''

''As of today,'' said Zafirah, ''I'd say you were AWOL.''

David thought briefly. ''Put it this way. Everyone thinks I'm dead. For the top brass, that's a desirable outcome. Awkward for them otherwise. So for the time being I might as well remain dead. It's not doing anyone any harm, and it's strangely invigorating.''

She looked wry. ''Being dead - invigorating?''

''Yes, I know.''

''What about your parents? Don't they deserve to know you're all right?''

''My parents...''

Jack Westwynter: ''I have no son. Do you hear me, David? As of now, unless you recant this ridiculous decision of yours, I have no son. Go off and get yourself killed. See if I care.''

''I haven't spoken to them in five years,'' David told her. ''If I called them now, my dad would be too drunk to pick up the phone and my mum would be too away with the sedative fairies even to hear it ringing.''

''Sad.''

''Yeah, the cord of the Westwynter dynasty has pretty much unravelled.'' His laugh was eggshell-brittle. ''I'm the last frayed, loose end of it.''

''It's never too late, David Westwynter. You'd be surprised. Nothing is beyond repair.''

''Where does this boundless optimism of yours come from, Zafirah?''

''From experience. From faith in people. From having met despair and seeing it to be the enemy of life.''

''And from the revered Lightbringer as well?''

''Oh yes,'' Zafirah said earnestly. ''Him most of all.''

''Then I can't wait to hear what he has to say,'' said David.

And he didn't have to wait long. Within twenty minutes the sky was dark, the area in front of the temple was thronged, and the show began.

First, with a fusillade of clunks, the floodlights came on. A few thousand voices hushed. Then recorded music emerged from the huge banks of speakers - the supple skirl of an arghul, long reedy notes rising and falling with flickering trills in between. David couldn't help think of a snake charmer enticing a cobra from a basket. The arghul was joined by the shiver of a sistrum rattle and the shimmer of a tambourine, which together created an understated but insistent rhythm.

There was no crescendo. Slowly the volume was turned down, the music faded away, and then a man stepped out from within the temple and strode casually up to the podium. A few among the crowd whistled and cheered, but for the most part people were quiet. Rather than come out with a bang, as David had been anticipating, the Lightbringer had made a subdued entrance. This wasn't just some rabble-rousing demagogue, he realised. This was something different, subtler - perhaps even more potent.

He peered at the Lightbringer. From a distance of a hundred feet or so he could make out a reasonably tall man. He was wearing a plain green jumpsuit that revealed a trim figure. His posture was relaxed and self-assured. As for the face...

It was no face.

The Lightbringer's entire head was sheathed tightly by some kind of thin white material, muslin or gauze. His features were mere indentations. No protrusions. No hair, no ears. There was just a pale, oblate sphere above the collar of the jumpsuit, somewhat like a moon. The Lightbringer's hands were leather-gloved. None of his skin was exposed. Nothing distinguished him. He could have been anyone. No one. Everyone. And David could tell that that was the point. The Lightbringer was anonymous. He was universal. He was a Freegyptian Everyman.

When he spoke his voice was warm and mellifluous, reminiscent of the arghul in its sinuous ebb and flow. There was a depth to it, a resonance, that made it very easy on the ear.

Zafirah translated.

''My friends,'' the Lightbringer said, ''my fellow Freegyptians. I thank you all for coming. You have travelled here from all four corners of our beautiful, independent nation, from desert and town and coast and mountain, to share in a glorious moment.''

The amplified boom of his oratory rolled across the crowd, echoing afar.

''Many of you have until not so long ago been implacable enemies. Now you come here as allies, in a spirit of togetherness, willing to set aside hostility in the name of a greater good. The infighting which has plagued Freegypt for years and prevented her from becoming the mighty state we know she can be, is at an end. Your presence here proves it. Foes are now as brothers. Factions are no more. I have brokered truces among you. I have brought warlord face to face with warlord and established common ground. I have worked hard and tirelessly to show you all that the greatest threat facing us is not ourselves, it's the world beyond our borders. Man should not struggle endlessly against man. Man, instead, should be standing up against his common foe - the gods.''

David felt a frisson of shock as Zafirah relayed these words. He glanced at the sky, half expecting a bolt of lightning to descend from the heavens and fry the Lightbringer on the spot.

''Infidels they call us,'' the Lightbringer went on, unfried. ''They mean it as an insult, but to me it is a badge of honour. Do we toil under the yoke of divine domination? No, we do not. Do we pander to deities, cravenly begging for their blessing and sacrificing to them in the hope that our crops will grow and our children will be healthy and we may be granted
ba
to power our weapons? No, we do not. Do we live in constant fear of offending these aloof, supreme rulers, to the point where we send off generations of young men and women to fight and die in wars waged unceasingly in their names? No, we do not. Are we victims of their whims and caprices? No! We are Freegyptians and we thrive without assistance from above and we are nobody's slaves!''

This brought ragged hoots of assent from the crowd. The Lightbringer made a calming gesture, keen to show that he wanted things to remain low-key. It was almost as though he was chatting to a roomful of people, not addressing a rally of thousands. Yet still he was able to hold everyone's attention. That, thought David, took some doing. No doubt about it: the man had charisma.

''So listen. Listen well. The time is coming. Our forces are gathering. We are an army and soon we will make our move. We are going to provoke the gods. We are going to thrust a stick into the hornets' nest that is the Pantheon, and we are going to rouse their anger. It will not be easy and it will not be safe. There will be consequences, dangerous ones. But it must be done. And why must it be done? Because the gods are destroying the world. Their feuds ravage every continent. Their wars murder millions. This has been going on for a hundred years and it cannot continue. Someone must rise against them and dethrone them, and that someone is - and can only be - us. And I tell you this, my friends: when it is all over, when our crusade is done, when we are victorious, the entire human race will thank us for it. Better yet, they will remember us for it, for all time.''

He spread his arms.

''Look around you. This temple and all the others nearby, these tombs, these resting places of ancient kings and queens, were built with just one aim, to ensure immortality for the people they contain. Seti, Hatshepsut, Tuthmosis, Ramses after Ramses, they raised these mausoleums so that after they died we would always know their names and their deeds. But time passed. Statues crumbled. Inscriptions were defaced. Treasures were robbed. Wind and rain eroded. Sand drifted and buried. Most of these monuments ended up lost and forgotten. The vanity of pharaohs' dreams.''