Hot Times in Magma City, 1990-95

  “You are Amon! You are Min!”

  She was slippery with sweat in the heat of the night. He said no more to her about going across the river to see the priestess, and eventually they slept.

  But when he heard her up and moving about the room a few hours later, getting her things together, he reached out, hooked his finger into her anklet in the darkness, and whispered, “Wait for me. I’m coming with you.”

  “You mustn’t!” She sounded frightened.

  “I need to see the priestess.”

  She seemed baffled by his insistent need to do what could not be done. But in the end she yielded: she was a slave, after all, accustomed to obeying. As they crossed the Nile on the early-morning ferry she still appeared tense and apprehensive, but he stroked her soft shoulders and she grew calm. The river at sunrise was glorious, a streak of polished turquoise running between the two lion-colored strips of land. Two little elongated puffs of cloud were drifting above the western hills and the early light turned them to pennants of flame. He saw white ibises clustering in the sycamore trees along the shore.

  They entered the temple grounds through the side gate by which they had left, nearly a week before. A burly pockmarked guard scowled at him as he passed through, but he kept his head up and moved as though he belonged there. On the steps of the House of Life Eyaseyab paused and said, “You wait here. I will see what can be managed.”

  “No, don’t leave me here. Take me inside with—”

  Too late. She was gone. He prowled outside the building, uneasily looking around. But no one seemed to care that he was there. He studied a pair of elegant stone cobras, one wearing the red crown of Lower Egypt, the other wearing the white crown of the southern kingdom. He dug about in the sandy soil with the tip of his big toe and unearthed a superb scarab of blue faience that any museum would have been proud to own. He touched his hand wonderingly to the flawlessly executed and brightly painted bas-relief that was carved along the wall: Pharaoh before the gods, Isis to his left, Osiris to the right, Thoth and Horus in the background, the ibis-head and the hawk.

  Egypt. Egypt. Egypt.

  He had dreamed all his life of coming here. And here he was. Well ahead of normal Service schedule for such a major mission, and all because of Elaine Sandburg and Roger Lehman.

  “I’m not so sure I want to find out what they’ve turned into,” Charlie Farhad had told him, explaining why he had refused to take on the assignment. “The past’s a weird place. It can make you pretty weird yourself, if you stay in it long enough.”

  “They’ve only been there a year and a half.”

  “Not necessarily,” Farhad had said. “Think about it.”

  Sandburg and Lehman had been heading for the Rome of Tiberius, a ninety-day reconnaissance. But they had missed their return rendezvous and an analysis of the field spectrum indicated some serious anomalies—i.e., an overshoot. How much of an overshoot had taken almost a year to calculate. A lot of algorithmic massage produced the conclusion that instead of landing in 32 A.D. they had plopped down at least thirteen centuries earlier and a goodly distance to the east: Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt, the calculations indicated. “Poor Roger,” Charlie Farhad said. “He was so damned proud of his Latin, too. Won’t do him a fucking bit of good now, will it?” The algorithm was a murky one; the calculation was only probabilistic. Sandburg and Lehman might have landed right on top of the Nile or they could have turned up in some merciless corner of the Arabian desert. The high-probability line said Thebes. The most likely year was 1390 B.C., but the time range was plus or minus ten years. Not a hope in hell of finding them again, right? Nevertheless an attempt to rescue them had to be made, but none of the veteran time-jockeys wanted to touch it. That was their privilege. They hinted darkly about serious risk and the considerable unlikelihood of success. And in any case they had their own projects to worry about.

  Davis heard what they had to say, but in the end he had volunteered anyway. Fools rush in, et cetera. He hadn’t known Sandburg and Lehman at all: the Service was a big operation, and he was pretty far down in junior staff. So he wasn’t doing it out of friendship. He took the job on partly because he was in love with the idea of experiencing Egypt in the prime of its greatness, partly because he was young enough still to see something romantic as well as useful to his career about being a hero, and partly because his own real-time life had taken some nasty turns lately—a collapsed romance, a bitter unexpected parting—and he was willing enough to go ricocheting off thirty-five centuries regardless of the risks. And so he had. And here he was.

  Eyaseyab appeared at the head of the stairs and beckoned to him.

  “The prince is with her. But he will be leaving soon.”

  “The prince?”

  “Pharaoh’s son, yes. The young Amenhotep.” A mischievous look came into the slave-girl’s eyes. “He is Nefret’s brother.”

  Davis was bewildered by that for a moment. Then he recognized the idiom. This was an incestuous land: Eyaseyab meant that the priestess and the prince were lovers. A tingle of awe traveled quickly along his spine. She was talking about the fourth Amenhotep, the future Pharaoh Akhnaten, he who would in another few years attempt to overthrow the old gods of Egypt and install a new cult of solar worship that had only a single deity. Akhnaten? Could it be? Up there now, just a hundred feet away, at this moment caressing the priestess Nefret? Davis shook his head in wonder. This was like standing in the plaza and watching Pharaoh himself come out of the temple. He had expected to lurk around the periphery of history here, not to be thrust right into the heart of it. That he was seeing these people in the flesh was remarkable, but not entirely pleasing. It cheapened things, in a way, to be running into actual major historical figures; it made it all seem too much like a movie. But at least it was a well-done movie. The producers hadn’t spared any expense.

  “Is that him?” Davis asked.

  Of course it was. The tingle returned, redoubled. A figure had appeared on the portico of the House of Life. He gaped at it: a very peculiar figure indeed, a slender young man in a loose pleated linen robe with wide sleeves trimmed with blue bows. The upper half of his body seemed frail, but from the waist down he was fleshy, thick-thighed, soft-bellied. A long jutting jaw, a narrow head, full lips: an odd-looking mysterious face. He was instantly recognizable. Only a few weeks before Davis had peered wonder-struck at the four giant statues of him in the Amarna gallery at the far end of the ground floor at the Cairo Museum. Now here was the man himself.

  Here and gone. He smiled at Davis in an eerie otherworldly way as if to say, Yes, you know who I am and I know who you are, and went quickly down the back steps of the temple’s podium. A litter must have been waiting for him there. Davis watched as he was borne away.

  “Now,” he said to Eyaseyab, forcing himself to snap from his trance. “Did you tell the priestess I’m here?”

  “Yes. She says no. She says she will not see you.”

  “Go back inside. Ask her again.”

  “She seemed angry that you are here. She seemed very annoyed. Very annoyed.”

  “Tell her that it’s a matter of life and death.”

  “It will do no good.”

  “Tell her. Tell her that I’m here and it’s extremely important that I get to see her. Lives are at stake, the lives of good, innocent people. Remind her who I am.”

  “She knows who you are.”

  “Remind her. Edward-Davis, the man from America.”

  “A-meri-ca.”

  “America, yes.”

  She trotted up the stairs again. Some moments passed, and then a few more. And then Eyaseyab returned, eyes wide with amazement, face ruddy and bright with surprise and chagrin.

  “Nefret will see you!”

  “I knew she would.”

  “You must be very important!”

  “Yes,” he said. “I am.”

  The priestess was waiting for him in an antechamber. As before, she was wearing a filmy gown, casually revealing in wh
at he was coming to regard as the usual Egyptian way; but she was more splendidly bedecked this time, lips painted a glowing yellow-red, cheeks touched with the same color, the rims of her eyes dark with kohl, the eyelids deep green. A muskiness of perfume clung to her. An intricate golden chain lay on her breast; pendant beads of carnelian and amethyst and lapis-lazuli dangled from it. The presence of her royal lover seemed still to be about her, like an aura. She seemed imperious, magnificent, splendid. For someone her age—she had to be past forty—she was remarkably beautiful, in a chilly, regal way.

  And unusual-looking. There was something exotic about her that he hadn’t noticed the other time, when he was too dazzled by the whole sweep of Egypt and in any event too sick to focus closely on anything. He realized now that she probably was not an Egyptian. Her skin was much too white, her eyes had an unEgyptian touch of violet in them. Perhaps she was Hittite, or Syrian, or a native of one of the mysterious lands beyond the Mediterranean. Or Helen of Troy’s great-great-grandmother.

  She seemed strangely tense: a coiled spring. Her eyes gleamed with expressions of—what? Uneasiness? Uncertainty? Powerful curiosity? Even a tinge of sexual attraction, maybe. But she appeared to be holding herself under tight control.

  She said, “The stranger returns, the man from America. You look healthier now. Hard work must agree with you.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I suppose it does.”

  “Eyaseyab says you are an ambassador.”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “Ambassadors should present themselves at court, not at the temple of the goddess.”

  “I suppose so. But I can’t do that.” His eyes met hers. “I don’t have any credentials that would get me access to the court. In all of Thebes you’re the only person of any importance that I have access to. I’ve come to you today to ask for your help. To beg you for it.”

  “Help? What kind of help?”

  He moistened his lips.

  “Two people from my country are living somewhere in Thebes. I’ve come to Egypt to find them.”

  “Two people from America, you say.”

  “Yes.”

  “Living in Thebes.”

  “Yes.”

  “Friends of yours?”

  “Not exactly. But I need to find them.”

  “You need to.”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded. Her eyes drifted away from his. She seemed to be staring past his left cheekbone.

  “Who are these people? Why are they here?”

  “Well—”

  “And why is finding them so important to you?” she asked.

  “It’s—a long story.”

  “Tell me. I want to know everything.”

  He had nothing to lose. But where to begin? He hesitated a moment. Then the words began to flow freely. He poured it all out. My country, he told her, is so far away that you could never comprehend it. There is a Service—a kind of priesthood, think of it as a priesthood—that sends emissaries to distant lands. A little while ago they sent two to a place called Rome, a man and a woman—Rome is very distant, almost as far as my own country—but they went astray in their journey, they traveled much too far, they wandered even as far as the land of the Nile and have not been heard from since—

  He listened to himself speaking for what seemed to be an hour. It must all have been the wildest nonsense to her. He watched her watching him with what might have been irritation or incredulity or even shock on her face, but which was probably just bewilderment. At last he ran down and fell silent. Her face had tightened: it was like a mask now.

  But to his amazement the mask suddenly cracked. He saw unexpected tears welling in her eyes, flowing, darkening her cheeks with tracks of liquefied kohl.

  She was trembling. Holding her arms crossed over her breasts, pacing the stone floor in agitation.

  What had he said, what had he done?

  She turned and stared straight at him from the far side of the room. Even at that distance he could see restless movements in her cheeks, her lips, her throat. She was trying to say something but would not allow it to emerge.

  At last she got it out: “What are the names of the two people you’re looking for.”

  “They won’t mean anything to you.”

  “Tell me.”

  “They’re American names. They wouldn’t be using them here, if they were here.”

  “Tell me their names,” she said.

  He shrugged. “One is called Elaine Sandburg. The other is Roger Lehman.”

  There was a long moment of silence. She moistened her lips, a quick tense serpent-flicker of her tongue. Her throat moved wordlessly once again. She paced furiously. Some powerful emotion seemed to be racking her: but what? What? Why would a couple of strange names have such an effect on her? He waited, wondering what was going on.

  “I have to be crazy for telling you this,” she said finally, in a low, husky voice he could scarcely identify as hers. He was stunned to realize that she was speaking in English. “But I can’t go on lying to you any longer. You’ve already found one of the people you’re looking for. I’m Elaine Sandburg.”

  “You?”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  It was the last thing he had expected to hear. Vortices whirled about him. He felt numb with shock, almost dazed.

  “But that isn’t possible,” he said inanely. “She’s only thirty-two.” His face flamed. “And you’re at least—”

  His voice trailed off in embarrassment.

  She said, “I’ve been here almost fifteen years.”

  She had to be telling the truth. There was no other possibility. She spoke English; she knew Elaine Sandburg’s name. Who else could she be if not the woman he had come here to find? But it was a struggle for him to believe it. She had had him completely fooled; she seemed completely a woman of her time. He had memorized photos of Elaine Sandburg from every angle; but he would never have recognized this woman as Sandburg, not in a thousand years, not in a million. Her face had changed: considerably sharpened by time, lengthened by her journey into middle age. The tight brown curls of the photographs must have been shaved off long ago, replaced by the traditional black Egyptian wig of an upper-class woman. Her eyebrows had been plucked. And then there was the strange jewelry, the transparent robes. Her lips and cheeks painted in this alien way. Everything about her masked her identity: she had transformed herself fully into an Egyptian. But she was the one. No doubt of it, no doubt at all. This priestess, this devotee of Isis, was Elaine Sandburg. Who had given him cuddly Eyaseyab to play with. And had told Eyaseyab to take him across the river to the City of the Dead and lose him over there.

  Sudden searing anger went roaring through him.

  “You were simply playing with me, that other time. Pretending you had no idea where I was from. Asking me where America was, whether it was farther from here than Syria.”

  “Yes. I was playing with you, I suppose. Do you blame me?”

  “You knew I was from Home Era. You could have told me who you were.”

  “If I had wanted to, yes.”

  He was mystified by that. “Why hide it? You saw right away that I was Service. Why’d you hold back from identifying yourself? And why ship me over to the other side of the river and stash me among the embalmers, for God’s sake?”

  “I had my reasons.”

  “But I came here to help you!”

  “Did you?” she asked.

  SEVEN

  Lehman said, “Where is he now?”

  “In one of the temple storerooms. Under guard.”

  “I still can’t understand why you told him. After chewing me out the way you did last week when I was the one talking about doing it. You made a complete hundred-eighty-degree reversal in a single week. Why? Why?”

  Sandburg glowered at him. She was furious—with herself, with Lehman, with the hapless boy that the Service had sent. But mainly she was furious with herself. And yet, even in her fury, she realized that she was
beginning to forgive herself.

  “Originally we thought he was simply here on an independent research mission, remember? But when he told me that in fact he had come here looking for us—that he had come to rescue us—”

  “Even so. Especially so. You recall what you said last week? You just want to be left alone to live your life. Your life in Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt. And therefore we can’t let him know a thing, you said. But then you did, anyway.”

  “It was an impulse that I couldn’t overcome,” she said. “Have you ever had an impulse like that, Roger? Have you?”

  “Don’t call me Roger. Not here. My name is Senmut-Ptah. And speak Egyptian.”

  “Stop being such an asshole, will you?”

  “I’m being an Egyptian. That’s what we are now: Egyptians.”

  They were in his astronomical chamber, a small domed outbuilding behind the oldest shrine of the main Karnak temple. Cool bright sprinklings of starlight penetrated the openings in the roof and sketched patterns on the brick floor. Across the blue-black vault of the ceiling the fantastically attenuated naked figure of the goddess Nut, the deity of the sky, stretched from one side of the room to the other, great spidery arms and legs yards and yards long spanning the starry cosmos, with the Earth-god Shu supporting her arched nude form from below and complacently smiling figures of ram-headed Khnum standing beside him. Dense rows of hieroglyphs filled every adjacent inch of free space, offering intense assertions of arcane cosmological truths.

  Sandburg said, “I was being just as Egyptian as I could be. But there he was solemnly telling me all about the Service, really sweating at it, trying to explain to a priestess of Isis where America was and where Rome was and how two people from this Service of his had overshot their mark and disappeared somewhere in the depths of time—no, wait, he didn’t try to tell me it was time-travel, he just used geographical analogies—and suddenly I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I couldn’t just go on standing there in front of him pretending to be a fucking ancient priestess of Isis, looking lofty and esoteric and mystical, when this kid, this kid who had come three and a half thousand years to find us, who I had sent over to the City of the Dead to work as a pickler of mummy-guts because we wanted to get him out of our hair, was begging for my help so that he could find you and me. Our rescuer, and I was treating him like shit. Playing games with his head, making him reel off yard after yard of completely needless explanation. I couldn’t keep the pretense up another minute. So I blurted out the truth, just like that.”