Stealing Fire (25 page)

I know
, Isis whispered.
You want to live
.

At that a tear broke loose and ran down my cheek.

I want to live, Lady of Egypt, I thought. I cannot help it, but I want to live. I took a breath, and it seemed something loosened in my chest.

Before me, Ptolemy walked gravely, his head down. Beside me, Bagoas lifted his face to the first stars appearing in the sky, his green eyes glittering with tears. I mourned a king who had changed my life. He mourned the one he had loved. I understood that now. Loyalty and pride would have caused him to speak no ill of the King, but this grief came from love.

And how not, I thought. Was it such a strange thing that any who served him, even come into his service as a spoil of war, should not in the end love him? Whoever had scarred Bagoas had not been Alexander. This grief was real.

I felt no jealousy, for how should I? It was I who had come after, with my own memories and my own scars. Above the dry cliffs the sky still flared in the west with the fading colors of the sun's passage.

We came to the doors of the Serapeum, and Manetho stepped forward to face us. The funeral cart passed him and went within, disappearing into the darkness. We watched it go. We would see it again, later in the rite.

“This is the place of the Sacred Bulls,” Manetho said. “For more than a thousand years, the Apis bulls have been laid in this place when it was their time to go down into the West, to the Halls of Amenti. Will you pass the doors of Amenti, Ptolemy of Egypt?”

“I will pass,” Ptolemy said. “I am seeking Alexander the son of Phillip.”

I saw Bagoas’ eyebrow quirk, that even now and here Ptolemy named him in the Macedonian style.

Manetho looked at me and Bagoas. “And will you accompany him?”

“I will,” we said together. I hoped there were not many more lines that could not be easily guessed, as I had not ever seen such a rite before, nor had anyone prepare me as Manetho had Ptolemy.

Manetho turned and led us in, under the massive lintel carved in the very stone of the hills. This was no entirely manmade place, but a cave wrought by the gods, old as time. We passed into its shadow.

We went down a long sloping passageway that went straight back into the hill, vaulted and wide enough for four men to walk abreast. It was not entirely dark. At intervals along the passage oil lamps had been set on stands so that they threw their light up onto the walls. I wondered for a moment why they had put them so far apart if they were going to the trouble of bringing in lamps, but then realized that it was so parts of the passage would remain in shadow.

We had gone only a short distance when a young woman stepped out carrying a golden scale in her hands and exchanged words with Ptolemy. “I am Justice,” she said in Greek, a conciliation to Ptolemy not speaking Egyptian. “Any who seek to rule the Black Land must pledge to uphold Justice for all who dwell within her borders. Will you so swear?”

“I will,” Ptolemy said, and she stepped back against the wall.

As we passed, he let me catch up and said to me, “Don't worry so, Lydias. It's not so very different from the Eleusinian Mysteries, is it?”

“I wouldn't know,” I said. “Nor did I know you were an initiate.”

Ptolemy dropped his voice. “I became one long ago, when I was a young man in Athens with Alexander. Thais had already become an initiate, and she sponsored me.”

“Oh,” I said. Truly, there was a great deal I did not know of Ptolemy. But I had never been to Eleusis, or anywhere else in Greece. Nor could I imagine what a mystery should look like that was open to women as well as men.

Now two people dressed as peasants stepped forward, asking for Ptolemy's promise to watch over the poor of Egypt, those who labored in the fields with little reward. Once again he gave his word, and once again we went on.

We came to a broad cross corridor where there was yet another tableau, then turned left down it. The flickering lamps, the jumping shadows did make it feel rather strange. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck. We came to another, still broader junction, and there was another priestess, this time asking Ptolemy to affirm his dedication to the gods of Egypt. I thought this priestess was the Adoratrice I had seen earlier, though now she wore a heavy wig with many plaits, each braided with gold beads. She caught my eye and gave me a little smile, almost flirtatious, like a girl at a festival. I felt myself blushing.

On either side of this corridor were great arches sealed with blocks of stone, elaborate carvings on them saying something I could not understand.

“We have come to the Passage of the Bulls,” Manetho said, standing with his staff in the left-hand side. “Here lie the Sacred Bulls in their tombs.” He touched the archway to his left. “Here lies Apis, who died in the twenty-third year of Ahmose Khnemibre, who you call Amasis. There beside him lies Apis, who died in the sixteenth year of Nekau. That way,” he gestured with his chin, “lies Apis who died in the fifth year of Alexander the Son of Amon, who you call the son of Phillip. They go into Amenti, as all men do.” He raised his arms, and the lamps threw his shadow tall on the wall behind. “Hear, oh gods! Hear us knock, for we come on behalf of Alexander, the son of Amon!”

At this a young priest with a shaven head came forward with a basin and held it so Ptolemy could wash his hands and dry them on a piece of linen, then stepped behind him and did the same for me and Bagoas.

“Come into the presence of Pharaoh that was,” Manetho said.

We walked a short distance down the corridor. One arch was unblocked, and within on the lid of a sarcophagus of green granite lay the golden coffin. The lid was off, and I heard Bagoas make a sound.

Alexander lay as if sleeping, his hands crossed on his breast just as I had seen him when I looked in the coffin after I had taken the hearse. His hands looked perfectly lifelike, if a little waxy, and in the glow of the lamps it seemed that he had the glow of health. He looked as though in a moment he would wake.

Bagoas should not have come, I thought. Surely he has already had enough of this. But he did not move, only stood silent and reverent.

“Frankincense and myrrh we offer, gifts for a king,” Manetho said. Another young priest came in with a censer and passed it slowly around the room, the smoke curling in living tendrils around Alexander's body.

“Gold we offer, gift for a king,” Manetho said. He brought forth a diadem, and I drew a sharp breath. The kings of Macedon wear diadems, not the heavy double crowns of Egypt. Alexander, when he was here, wore the double crown only once. For other occasions he had a diadem made, a simple circlet of gold such as Macedonians wear, only with the rearing cobra's head, the uraeus, in the front. It was this that Manetho brought forth and carefully arranged on Alexander's head.

Bagoas closed his eyes.

“Oil we bring you, scent of life.” Manetho lifted a small glass vessel and unstopped it, the heady scent of roses filling the room like a breeze of summer. He put a single drop on the King's forehead.

“Bread and beer and the flesh of birds we bring you,” Manetho said as again the young priest stepped forward carrying dishes for a feast, roasted duck and other good things, and laid them on the sarcophagus at Alexander's feet.

“Breath of life we bring you,” Manetho said, and the censer swung his smoke again. “We bring all we have to you, to our king and god.” He brought his hands together in front of his chest.

He took a step back, and then spoke to Ptolemy. “These things we do in any funeral, to greater or lesser degree, so that all who pass the Gates of Amenti shall be remembered and shall be blessed with all good things. From this point, however, we depart from what is done for any man besides Pharaoh. We shall do the Opening of the Mouth as is common, but then we must call forth Horus who is still indwelling in the body of Alexander the King, that his ka and that of the Pharaoh That Was may become separate. First, Ptah must give him breath.”

An older priest stepped forward, and Manetho gave way gracefully. From a box presented by an assistant he took forth a stone chisel, and then began a long recitation that was not translated into Greek. I understood parts of it, I thought. “Awake! May you be as a living man once more! May you be rested every day, healthy and whole…” When he finished he barely touched the tip of the chisel to Alexander's lips.

“And then Sokar must give him sight,” Manetho said.

The young priest stepped forward, taking from the box a stone of clear quartz and one of black obsidian. He began a long prayer in Egyptian as well. The smoke from the incense was thick in the confined space, and it made my head spin. “…may the gods protect you. May they weave protection about you every day. May you open your eyes to the blessings of Ra.” Carefully, he touched each still eyelid with the black stone, then with the white.

I blinked. It should be warm in here with all of us pressed into the small room. And yet I felt a chill down my back, as though someone stood just behind me. I could almost see how Alexander would be, bemused and a little pleased, I thought. I could almost see how he would be.

“Now it is for you,” Manetho said. “This is for the sem-priest to do. Take up the knife.”

The last item in the box was a small flat dagger, its blade dark and vaguely mottled, as though it had a light sheen of oil on it. Ptolemy lifted it gently. “What is it?” he asked.

“Forged of meteoric iron,” Manetho said. “When I say, touch it to his lips.” He cleared his throat and began in Greek, his words slightly accented. “Come forth, Alexander son of Phillip! Come forth, Horus of Egypt! Come to those who call you, to the sem-priest who is your son, to those who wait for you. Come and speak. Let your mouth be loosened. Come forth, Alexander and Horus!”

Meteoric iron, I thought. Fire stolen from the gods, as Prometheus had done. There was a layer that Manetho did not know, more than one layer. And he did not know that Ptolemy was blood kin, brother in fact to Alexander. And he did not know… something. I had no time to even formulate what I would say before Ptolemy bent and gently touched the tip of the iron blade to Alexander's lips.

Stolen fire.

My head reeled, the room reeled around me. The lamps flickered, their shadows moving across the King's face.

He was there. He was standing behind me and a little to the side, just behind Bagoas. There was nothing I could see. There was no flesh I could touch, but the sense of him, the pure, vital thing that had animated him, that was nothing to do with the mummified body in the coffin, was there.

Alexander stood beside me, and I knew what he asked. There could be no doubt of my assent. I was a Companion, my oaths binding beyond death.

I felt my mouth open, heard my voice issue forth changed in timbre and tone. “You have called me. Why?”

THE OPENING OF
THE MOUTH

B
agoas spun around, his brows knitting together as though he wondered if this were some part of the rite that I had been rehearsed in, some ritual repetition of lines. Ptolemy, who doubtless thought that unlikely, looked at me as though he could not credit what he had heard. It was Manetho, who knew this was no part of the preparations, who openly gaped.

“If you call me, why are you surprised when I answer?” I said. Or he said. Perhaps we said was the most accurate. It was a very strange sensation, as though Alexander were both by my side and within me. I could hear him, though it was more than that. It was as though I shared his thoughts as if he'd said them, and yet remained entirely separate. I was myself and he was himself, though he used my voice.

Though you allow me use your voice
, he thought in my head.
I cannot make you do or say anything. And I am grateful that you allow it.
For a moment Alexander sounded amused.
This is more usually the job of oracles than cavalry!

My Lord
, I thought,
you have no idea how many strange things have happened since I stood beside your bier. I do not know what I am anymore.

It was Manetho who recovered his presence of mind first, and he bowed from the waist. “All hail Alexander, Lord of the Two Lands, Beloved of Amon, Chosen of Ra. All hail Alexander, Pharaoh of Egypt.”

Bagoas stared at me in absolute disbelief.

Ptolemy frowned. “What is going on here?”

“You called me,” we said. “Did you not have a reason for it, Ptolemy? You seem to have gone to a good deal of trouble to do it.” We looked around the tomb chamber, the priests crowding in with their implements, Manetho with his cheetah skin draped across his chest. And of course the body lying in the coffin. We did not quite like to look at that.

Bagoas’ voice was flat. “This is cruel and has no point.”

The part of me that was me recoiled at the anger and hurt in his eyes, thinking that I played with him thus. It did not bode well for Lydias.

It's like that, is it?
Alexander sounded almost wistful.

My Lord
,
you have been dead three years
, I replied a bit defensively.

I know
, he said.
And I do not wish him unhappiness. He never gave less than the best of himself to me.

“Lydias, what are you doing?” Ptolemy demanded. “Manetho, is this part of the rite? Is he acting? Did you rehearse him?”

Manetho spread his hands, his customary confidence deserting him. “No, Gracious Lord. Not in the least. He is a soldier, and I have never heard of such a thing happening when there was not a trained priest or priestess involved. Indeed we have priests here! I cannot imagine why Pharaoh would choose a soldier instead.”

“Possibly because your priests do not speak Greek,” we said. “Besides, I prefer to rely upon my own men.” We tilted my head just a bit, the way Alexander always did when he spoke to someone taller than he. “Ptolemy, what leads you and Bagoas to this? And what is going on?”

Ptolemy's mouth opened and closed.

“Gracious Lord, you should address him just as you would have,” Manetho said. “We invited him to speak, and while it is unusual that the dead would want to converse with the living, such things do happen. Though usually through a proper oracle.”

“Talk to him as though he were Alexander?”

“I don't believe this,” Bagoas said flatly.

“Is it so strange that I might speak to you?” we asked. “Are there not rites and prayers to me? Are there not men who call upon my name as a god?”

“Pharaoh is a god,” Manetho said, recovering somewhat. “Horus indwelling. And when he dies he becomes Osiris and passes into the Uttermost West. I have never spoken with a dead pharaoh before, though I have seen accounts of such. Seti is particularly voluble, I understand.”

“There are men who invoke you as a god, yes,” Ptolemy said. “Does that matter?”

“It should,” Manetho said. “That is why we pray before statues—to call the god's attention to where we are, to bring their wandering consciousness to bear on us. The god Alexander is as real as any other.” He looked at us and shrugged. “And he is still trapped by it, not free to pass from here into Amenti should he so choose.”

Our head lifted again, keenly, like a hunting dog on a scent. “Should I so choose? What are my choices then, priest?”

Manetho took a breath, his eyes on ours. “These are deep waters, my Pharaoh. But once you are released, I believe you have a choice. To remain here, an invoked being, exactly as you are now, feeding upon the energy of offerings and belief.”

“An immortal hero?” we asked.

“Rather a daimon,” Manetho said. “If I have your word correctly. A spirit disincarnate, unchanging and unaging, a benefactor of mortals.”

We nodded slowly. “Or?”

“You may pass into the Halls of Amenti,” Manetho said. “Where you will stand before Isis and Osiris, and Ma'at will weigh your heart.”

Or before Death and his Queen, and return to the wheel once more
, I thought to him.
To return to this life in all its pains and sorrows, like Prometheus chained to the peak devoured again each day.

I felt him smile within me.
The world is not all sorrow, Lydias. Surely you cannot say so when Bagoas is your friend?

“But that is a question Isis should put to you,” Manetho said. “Not I.”

“Then what question is it that you called me for?” we asked.

Ptolemy looked us in the eye. Ever practical, he would play this the way it came. “To ask you to give up the governing of the Black Land and the control of its creatures so that it may be taken up by another.”

“By whom?”

“By your son, Alexander son of Alexander. I stand as proxy until such time as he can rule,” he said evenly.

If he rules
, I thought. I tried to keep it to myself, but that was impossible.

Alexander was not surprised, though I felt the thread of regret run through him.
You have said nothing I did not know
, he thought.
Bagoas has told me much, in his empty hours.

I thought with an ache of Bagoas sitting beside the golden coffin, telling stories and news and court gossip to ears that could not hear.

We spoke, and our voice was firm and unexpectedly gentle. “You cannot be a little bit of a king, my brother.”

Bagoas’ head shot up and we heard Manetho take a swift breath.

“You must be king, or not be king,” we said.

To my astonishment Ptolemy's eyes were filled with tears. “I promised you when you were six years old that I should never take anything that was yours, that I should never betray you or plot against you. I promised you that you were my little brother, and that you would never have reason to mistrust me. I swore, Alexander!”

“You are taking nothing from me,” we said. “Nothing.” I heard my voice choke, and swallowed hard. “My son does not have Egypt, and he never will. Persia may be his, and Macedon if Roxane is strong enough. You didn't see why I wanted to marry her, said that she was unsuitable. You did not say, she is just like your mother, Alexander, though you thought it. Do you think I didn't know that? Do you think I thought that any one less strong and ruthless would be able to keep our children alive? I did not want to see my children murdered any more than you do.”

Bagoas drew a breath that was almost a sob.

“Roxane has her fight, and you have yours. Egypt is a small enough gift out of all the vast empire.” Our eyes met Ptolemy's, and a rueful smile touched our lips. “You had no patrimony from our father. I had it all. Always, I had it all, his care, his effort, even his name. Most men would hate a younger brother who had everything while they had nothing. And yet you were true, the truest brother who ever lived. Take this then from me, a patrimony long delayed.”

We raised our voice, addressing Manetho and all who stood there. “I relinquish the kingdom of Egypt into the care of my beloved brother Ptolemy, so that he may reign and wield the power of Pharaoh, he and his descendants who come after him. Does that do it?”

Manetho bent his head. “I think so, Gracious King.”

“And may you know what a good bargain you have got in Ptolemy,” we said, smiling.

“We know that, Gracious King,” Manetho said.

“Bagoas.”

He lifted his eyes to ours, and I saw that he at last believed. “I know,” he said.

“You do.”

“Good night, my sweet Lord,” he whispered.

“Sleep sound, beautiful one,” we said, and I watched his eyes overflow at last. Bagoas closed his eyes and lifted his chin, the light playing across his face, and I was not sure whether it was Lydias or Alexander who ached.

We turned to Manetho. “What do we do to let go?”

“I call Horus from you,” he said, “and when the sem-priest touches your lips with the knife, Horus will come out from you and rest in him.”

“Do it then,” we said. “And Ptolemy?”

“Yes?”

“Remember me to Thais.”

Ptolemy shook his head, looking for once entirely like an exasperated big brother. “I will, Alexander.”

We took a step back and Manetho spread his arms, beginning to speak aloud in the Egyptian tongue. It was very odd, as we understood some parts of it and didn't understand at the same time.

I have learned some here in Egypt
, I said.

I never had the chance
, he replied as Manetho went on and on.

Perhaps next time
, I thought.

I felt a broad grin cross his face.
You do not think I will choose to be a daimon?

If I could have blushed I would have, but I answered straight.
My Lord, did not the oracle at Siwah reply when you sent to them asking if Hephaistion would be a god that he was not? That he was a hero, but he was not a god? I do not think you would choose to go where he cannot follow. You are a wind through this world, and I do not think you are done with it.

Manetho's voice grew louder, ringing in our ears.

I will see you again, Lydias of Miletus
, he said.

I do not see how you can help it
, I replied.

“Now,” Manetho said.

Ptolemy lifted the blade of meteoric iron, and as it touched my lips the room twisted and at last went dark.

I
WOKE TO
darkness and the stars reeling overhead. For a long moment I had no idea where I was, or what might be happening. There were just the moving stars. Then I was aware of the sound of hooves, the quiet clopping of a horse on a sandswept road, and it came to me. I lay in the cart on which we had brought Alexander's body to Saqqara. We must now be on the way back to the walls of Memphis.

Someone bent over me and I saw that it was Manetho. “What?” I asked.

He looked relieved. “Ah. You're awake. Do you know who you are?”

“The Hipparch Lydias,” I said, trying to push myself up on my elbows. “Where is Ptolemy?”

“He has gone ahead to the city,” Manetho said. “A messenger came a few minutes ago and said that Perdiccas’ men had been sighted.”

“He's gone to the walls then.” I sat up, though the world tilted around me. “What's wrong with me?”

“To hold a daimon within you requires a great deal of energy,” Manetho said. “For an unprepared man with no training at all to do so is frankly unusual. Generally oracles and the like are trained from childhood, in Egypt anyway. I've never seen it happen in a grown man and a soldier. You are exhausted. But it is nothing that normal rest will not mend. You should eat a meal including meat, and you should go to bed.”

“I need to go to the walls,” I said, still clutching the boards of the wagon. I felt as though I had lost blood, though there was no wound on me.

“You will not,” Bagoas said, appearing on the other side of the wagon. “Ptolemy said you were to rest and not to try to report to him until tomorrow, that you had done enough in his service for one night.”

“Bagoas.” I did not know what to say to him. Certainly I had never intended to cause him pain.

“Sit still and don't fall over,” he said. “We will get you a meal and a good night's sleep, and tomorrow you can see Ptolemy.”

His tone of voice left me nothing to say that would not start a very personal scene in front of Manetho and all the junior priests, so I subsided. Wordlessly I rode in the cart as we approached the walls of Memphis, shining whitely in the light of the waning moon. How many days had it been? Eight? Morning would bring the ninth day. And then what?

The movement of the cart was soothing, and I nearly went to sleep before we got to Bagoas’ rooms. He asked one of the priests to fetch some food, and helped me in and settled me on the couch as though I were an invalid.

I looked at him, ready to say I knew not what, but the priest came back with two bowls of hearty fish stew, goat cheese, bread, and beer. The smell of the food was almost overwhelming. I could have come off a two-day march from the way I tucked into it. The fish stew was thick and rich, redolent of dill and other herbs. I thought I had never had something so good. The bread was the perfect texture, and the beer was cool and good even to the dregs in the bottom. Food is life, I thought. And I am hungry.