The Age of Ra (23 page)

''You didn't send me. I volunteered.''

''Even so, I could have said no. Would have, if you hadn't been so damn insistent.''

''The mission needed someone in charge who had proper military experience.''

''Well, for the record, I was worried sick all week. If you'd been killed, I'd never have forgiven myself. What was I thinking? I must have been crazy to let you talk me into it. Zafirah would have managed fine without you. Fuck it, I shouldn't even have sent her. She's not expendable. Neither are you.''

''No one is,'' David said firmly. ''That's what I'm getting at.''

''OK, OK.'' Steven put up his hands, surrendering. ''Enough of the lecturing. I understand where you're coming from. I don't disagree.''

''Just as I promised, I'm here to make sure you don't do anything rash.''

''My brother, my conscience.''

''Bingo.'' David drained his beer. ''And now I'm going to stop giving advice and ask for some instead.''

''Advice? From me? Well, there's a turn-up. Fire away.''

David hesitated, then said, ''Zafirah.''

''Zafirah? What do you-?'' Steven stopped, and his mouth curled into a sly smile. ''Oh, don't tell me. You're smitten. Dave's smitten with Zafirah. Who'd have thought?''

''I wouldn't say I was-''

''It's written all over your face,'' Steven said, the smile turning gleeful. ''And I can't honestly say I blame you. She's a looker all right. Nice tits. Firm, round arse. And those eyes...''

''You know her. Pretty well. Don't you?''

''Could say that. As well as anyone can get to know Zafirah. It's been three years - more - and I like to think she and I have a pretty good understanding of each other. Even so, I feel I've only scratched the surface with her. She doesn't let people in easily.''

''I've noticed.''

''Desert girl. Hard, hot, beautiful, inhospitable. And so now you're the mole-rat, wanting to make himself a burrow.''

''Don't take the piss.''

''I'm not taking the piss. I am surprised, though. She doesn't seem your type.''

''I don't have a type. Do I have a type?''

''Blonde. Wealthy. Brittle. That's the woman I always remember you going for.''

David cast his mind back over his past relationships. Girls like Kismet, Aida, 'Titi, Alex. Each had seemed as different from the others as trees in a forest. But they had all belonged to the same forest; that was undoubtedly true. The same species of tree, moreover.

''Alex wasn't blonde,'' he said, adding, ''Well, not naturally.''

Steven chuckled. ''A collar-cuff mismatch, huh? Well, be that as it may. Your choices were never anything less than classy. Never anything less than frosty, either. The kind of women you could keep at arm's length, because they didn't mind. That's how they kept you. Zafirah, though, she's a whole different proposition. And if you really want my advice...''

''I do.''

''I'd steer clear.''

''What?'' David was startled.

''For one thing, that's a father-fixated girl you're dealing with. She told you about her daddy, the great freedom fighter and martyr? She still worships him. He's dead and no man will ever live up to him in her estimation. So you're competing against his ghost, and you're unlikely to win. Plus, she's wedded to the cause. This cause. My cause. It's what drives her on. It's all she really cares about. There's an emptiness inside her and this is what fills it. This is what gives shape and meaning to her life.''

''Oh.''

''Oh? You haven't noticed?''

''I knew she was... committed,'' David said. ''I didn't see it as anything more than that.''

''Committed to the hilt. She wants the Pantheon's hold over the world broken as much as I do, maybe even more.''

''And in the meantime she's not interested in anything else?''

''Nothing
you
can offer.''

David pondered this. He supposed Steven was right. Steven had had three years to get the measure of Zafirah's character. By all accounts they had been working closely together.

Yet, at the restaurant the other night, Zafirah had referred to her father in disparaging terms, as a ''coward'', and had shown a trace of scepticism when talking about causes.

Perhaps Steven saw things that he, David, did not. Equally, perhaps he was mistaken.

There was a third possibility, and it put David in mind of Steven's account of his adventures after the sinking of the
Immortal
.

Perhaps he was lying.

David trusted his brother. On the big issues, not least his crusade against the gods, he believed Steven meant everything he said. But on lesser issues, personal matters, he was not so sure. When it was just the two of them together, Steven didn't always seem to be entirely on the level.

He realised, in a flash of insight, that there was a clear distinction here.

He trusted
the Lightbringer
. Steven, on the other hand, he wasn't so sure about.

What did that mean?

''Can I ask a question?'' he said.

''Of course,'' said Steven.

''Do
you
fancy Zafirah?''

''Sure. Why not? Who wouldn't?'' This was said dismissively, as if David had wanted to know whether he liked sandwiches.

''So you wouldn't be trying to put me off her for any specific reason?''

''Such as?''

''Well, to, you know, keep her for yourself.''

''Dave, you wound me,'' Steven said, mock-hurt. But not wholly convincingly mock-hurt. ''I'm your brother. I'm just looking out for your best interests, and I'm telling you - listen to me - Zafirah isn't for you.'' He repeated it, in case David hadn't got the message - ''She isn't for you'' - and his voice took on a strange, resonant timbre as he spoke. The words seemed to penetrate deep inside David's head and lodge themselves there.

''Anyway, for your information, I've bigger fish to fry than Zafirah,'' Steven added, sounding more like himself again. He yanked the Lightbringer mask down, tucking the base of it inside the collar of his undershirt. ''In case you haven't noticed, I'm rather busy saving the world at present.''

''I understand. I'm sorry.''

''You'd better leave.'' Steven's posture had shifted. Stiffened. ''Go get some rest. You said it yourself: you're exhausted. 'Bye, Dave.''

David, dismissed, walked back through the Valley of Kings to Luxor, and with every step he took through the necropolis he could think only of his brother's advice that he should leave Zafirah be. He could hardly think of anything else.

It made a kind of sense. Steven knew her. He was trying to protect David. He didn't see them as a good match.

Zafirah isn't for you
.

She wasn't for him. That was all there was to it.

17. Airstrike

D
avid was home.

Home wasn't his London pad. Pleasant and well furnished as that was, it served as a convenient place to live, nothing more.

Home was Courtdene, the family estate on the Sussex Downs, the flint-and-brick manor house with its walled gardens and its long, valley-hemmed views of the Channel, the sheep-cropped fields, the oak copses and hawthorn thickets, the wide expanses of grassland that were treelessly bleak and bare, the curving driveway, the main gates capped with sphinxes, the pyramid folly which Archibald Westwynter commissioned to be built the day after he bought the property, the lake with its replica Solar Barque dinghies and small overgrown island, this secure and private world where nothing intruded from the outside that wasn't permitted by the family within.

Home was always the place where life was at its simplest.

David strode up to the front door, pausing to glance up at the family cartouche that was carved into the lintel. It was the best kind, a compact, logogrammatic one. You could spell out any name in the uniliteral manner and get a string of simple demotic hieroglyphs, but that was little better than an alphabetical substitution code and looked ungainly. For real class, you paid the priesthood a small fortune - the current asking price was €50,000 - and had your surname translated officially into hieratic logograms. The cartouche for Westwynter consisted, logically enough, of the logograms for west (a bird crown and a sun setting over hills) and winter (four assorted geometric shapes), arranged one above the other and enclosed in a box.

David had always thought of a cartouche as a sign of vanity, but a necessary one. No family that was held in high regard could do without.

He passed under it and entered the house.

The hallway was empty. A clock ticked. Dust motes hung in a shaft of sunlight, swirled by a draught. He smelled the familiar musk of waxed floorboards, mixed with the hint of damp which hung around the draughty old building constantly, even in high summer.

No one.

He was home from war. He had a right to expect some kind of reception, a welcoming committee. Didn't he? He had been away for weeks. He was presumed dead. Why wasn't anyone waiting in the hallway to greet him, rejoicing? His mother at least, even if his father had chosen to disown him.

''Hello?''

Echoes echoed echoingly. No answer.

''Mum? Dad?''

Nothing.

''Jepps? Mrs Plomley?''

Silence.

He searched the ground floor: all the drawing rooms, the library, the dining room, the billiard-room, kitchen, scullery, pantry. Everything exactly as it should be, spotlessly tidy. Not a soul to be seen.

He went upstairs. He tried Steven's bedroom, then his own. The beds were tightly made, sheets turned down, awaiting occupancy. Finally he approached his parents' bedroom at the far end of the corridor.

The door was ajar. He nudged it open.

His mother and father lay in bed together, naked, entwined, locked in a fervent kiss. Jack Westwynter was kneading Cleo Westwynter's breast. Cleo Westwynter's hand was under the covers, working away at Jack Westwynter's crotch.

David stood and stared. He wanted to back away, pull the door to behind him, steal off down the corridor before his parents realised he was there. But he couldn't move. He was paralysed with embarrassment... and fascination.

Nobody in their right mind wanted to see their parents making love, or even to think about it.

But then, as David had realised, these weren't actually his parents.

Around their heads golden auras glowed, and each aura had a distinct shape. His father's was a double-plumed mitre, his mother's a weird blend of vulture and throne.

Dreaming
.

David continued to watch as his father's hand moved down his mother's body, sliding over her belly and beneath the bedcovers to stroke between her legs. His mother, Isis, moaned. His father, Osiris, grunted softly and stroked harder.

Then, as if on some unspoken cue, the two of them calmly turned their heads and looked round to where David stood. They smiled. They kept their hands on each other's genitals, rubbing, caressing, but their gazes were focused on David. Their expressions were kindly but stern.

''Why are you doing this, son?'' his father asked.

''Why are you helping your brother?'' his mother asked.

''Because...''

He was dreaming
.

''Because he needs me. And because he's right. I really think he is.''

''We're your parents,'' said Osiris. ''We watch over you. We care for you.''

''Don't you think this is hurting us,'' said Isis, ''this rebellion of yours?''

''It's not rebellion,'' David replied defensively. He couldn't think of a better name for what the Lightbringer was up to but
rebellion
sounded so childish, the way his mother had said it, a hormonal-teenager thing, like getting a piercing or a tattoo.

''If you want to hurt us, you're going the right way about it,'' his father said sternly.

''Come back home,'' said his mother. ''Come back and all will be forgiven.''

David thought he had come back. He was home. Wasn't he?

He was having a dream, and outside the hotel room...

''We love you,'' said Isis, still fondling his father's cock.

''Don't make us angry,'' said Osiris, still fingering his mother's cunt.

Lightning flickered at the bedroom window. Thunder growled. The sky had been cloudless a few moments earlier, but now-

David snapped awake.

He had been having a dream, and outside the hotel room there were flashes of bright red-purple light and the rumble of distant explosions.

He went to the window and drew back the curtain.

The bombardment of Luxor had begun.