Vengeance of Orion (19 page)

Chapter 28

"This is madness," Lukka said.

We stood in the rising heat of morning, at the edge of the Israelite camp, studying the triple walls of Jericho. At sunrise we had ridden completely around the besieged city, as close as a bowshot. The walls were enormous, much higher than Troy's and undoubtedly much thicker. To make things worse, a deep trench had been carved out of the bedrock in front of the main length of the wall. A drawbridge crossed it, although the bridge was pulled up tight against the city gate now. The trench was partially filled with garbage and debris, but still it was steep-walled and an obstacle that looked all but impassable.

"We'll never be able to get siege towers against those walls," Lukka told me. I reluctantly agreed with him. Jericho stood atop a low hill, its main wall slanting from the bedrock floor of the valley plain up along the crest of the hill. Where the wall was set at the floor of the plain, the trench protected it. Where it wound up along the crest, smaller retaining walls stood before it, making a triple set of barriers. The hillside itself was too steep to roll siege towers up its sides, and the walls were studded with strong round towers from which archers and slingers could pelt an attacker with arrows and stones.

"No wonder Joshua needs help," I grumbled.

Lukka squinted against the sun glare. "The people of Jericho have had a hundred generations to perfect their defenses. No wandering band of nomads is going to bring those walls down."

I grinned at him. "That's why Joshua so kindly invited us to stay with him—until those walls
do
come down."

"We will be here a long time, then."

Through the morning we rode the circuit of the walls several times, looking for a weakness that simply was not there. The only thing I noticed was that some sections of the walls seemed older than others, their bricks grayer and less evenly aligned.

"Earthquakes," said Lukka. "The walls are made of mud bricks. Once they dry they become as hard as stone. But an earthquake can tumble them."

An earthquake. The glimmer of an idea stirred in the back of my mind.

Lukka was pointing. "See how the wall is built in sections, with timbers dividing one section from the next? That way, even when an earthquake damages one section of the wall, the rest can remain standing."

I nodded, but my mind was elsewhere.

That night, as we lay down together in my tent, Helen asked, "How long will we have to stay among these awful people?"

"Until they take the city," I answered.

"But they may never . . ."

I silenced her with a kiss. We made love, and she drifted to sleep.

I closed my eyes too, and willed myself to that other realm where the so-called gods played their games with destiny. Concentrating every particle of my being, I crossed the gulf of space-time that divided my world from theirs.

Once again I stood in that golden aura. But I could see their city through the shining mist, its towers and spires seemed clearer to me than ever before.

"Ahriman," I called, with my mind as well as my voice. "Ahriman, my one-time enemy, where are you?"

"Not here, creature."

I turned and saw the haughty one I thought of as Hera. She wore a golden gown that left one shoulder bare, gathered at her waist by a chain of glittering jewels. Her dark hair hung in ringlets, her dark eyes probed me. With a smile that seemed almost menacing, she said: "At least you are dressed better than the last time we met."

I made a slight bow. My makeshift uniform of tunic and leather vest was somewhat better than the rags I had worn at Ilium.

"Are you here to draw more of my blood?" I asked.

Her smile widened slightly. "Not really. Perhaps I can save the blood that's still in your body. Our golden Apollo has gone quite mad, you know."

"He no longer calls himself Apollo."

She shrugged. "Names are not important here. I speak only so that your pitifully limited mind can understand."

"I am grateful for such kindness," I said. "The Golden One has found a tribe that worships him as their only god."

"Yes. And he seeks to eliminate the rest of us.
And
," she added, with an arch of her brows, "he is using you to help him."

I stood silently, digesting this news.

"Isn't he?" she demanded.

"I am helping the Israelites to conquer Jericho," I admitted. "Or, at least, I'm trying to . . ."

"That's part of his plan, I'm sure of it!"

"But I didn't know he is attempting to . . ." I recalled the word she had used, ". . . to eliminate you."

"You know now!"

"Does that mean he wants to kill you?"

She almost snarled at me. "He would if he could. But he'll never get that chance. We'll crush him—and you, too, if you continue to aid him in any way."

"But . . ."

Leveling an accusing finger at me, she warned, "There is no neutral ground, Orion. Either you cease your aid to him or you are our enemy. Do you understand?"

"I understand," I said.

"Then consider carefully the consequences of your actions."

"The one they call Athene," I said. "He promised me that . . ."

"His promises cannot be trusted. You know that."

"I want to revive her, to bring her back to life," I said.

"And he's offered you her life in exchange for your obedience." Hera shook her head angrily. "Leave your dead goddess to us, Orion. She is one of us, and not for the likes of you."

"Can she be revived?"

"That's not . . ."

"Can she be revived?" I shouted.

Her eyes widened, whether with anger or fear or something else, I could not tell. She took a deep breath, then replied calmly, evenly, "Such a thing is—possible. Just barely within the realm of possibility. But it's not for you to even dream of!"

"I do dream of it. I dream of nothing else."

"Orion, you poor worm, even if she could be revived, she would have nothing more to do with you. She is one of us, so far beyond you that . . ."

"I love her," I said. "That's the one advantage I have over you and your kind. I can love. So can she. But you can't. Neither you nor the Golden One nor any of the other gods. But she can, and she has loved me. And she died because of that."

"You are hopeless," Hera snapped. She turned away from me in a swirl of golden robes and disappeared into the shining mist.

I stood alone for several moments, then remembered why I had come here. To find Ahriman. The one the Achaians called Poseidon, the earth-shaker.

Closing my eyes, I visualized his hulking dark form, his heavy gray face, his burning eyes. I called him mentally, telling myself that if he would not come to me, then I must seek and find him.

I remembered, dimly, a forest of giant trees where Ahriman and his kind lived, in a continuum that existed somewhere, somewhen. Did it still exist? Could I find it?

A dark shadow passed over me. I sensed it even with my eyes closed. I opened them and found myself in a dark, brooding forest. Not a drop of sunlight penetrated the canopy of almost-black leaves far above me. The boles of huge trees stood around me like gray marble columns rising toward infinity. The ground between their trunks was cropped grass, as smooth and even as a park.

"Why are you here?"

Out of the darkness a darker shape took form: Ahriman, solid and massive, decked in clothes the color of the forest. But his eyes glowed like red-hot coals.

"To find you," I replied.

He stepped closer to me. In his harsh, labored whisper, he asked, "And why seek me?"

"I need your help."

He glared at me. It was like a volcano threatening to pour out lava. "I will not shake down the walls of Jericho for you, Orion. I will not help your golden madman in his wild schemes."

"It's not for him," I said.

"That makes no difference. It is enough for me to protect my own people in our own continuum. I will not become a party to the quarrels of the self-styled Creators. They did not create me or my kind. I owe them nothing."

"The Golden One promised he would revive Athene if I helped him," I said, ignoring his words. "He waits for me in the great pyramid in Egypt."

"He waits there to destroy you, once you have finished your usefulness to him."

"No," I said. "I will destroy him—somehow."

"And what of your dead goddess then?" he asked.

I had no answer.

Slowly Ahriman swung his massive head back and forth. "Orion, if you want an earthquake, you must make it for yourself."

I started to ask him what he meant, but the forest and Ahriman's dark, brooding presence slowly faded before my eyes, and I found myself sitting in the darkness of my tent, on the straw pallet next to Helen.

She was sitting up too, her eyes wide with terror.

"You were gone," she whispered, in a voice constricted by awe. "You were gone, and then you appeared beside me."

I put an arm around her bare shoulders and tried to calm her. "It's all right . . ."

"It's magic! Sorcery!" Her naked body was cold and trembling.

Pulling her close and wrapping both my arms around her, I said, "Helen, long ago I told you I was a servant of a god. That is the truth. Sometimes I must go to the gods, speak with them, ask them to help us."

She looked up at me. Even in the predawn shadows I could see the fear and wonder in her face. "You actually go to Olympos?"

"I don't know the name of the place, but—yes, I go to the home of the gods."

Helen fell silent, as if there were no words to express the shock she felt.

"They are not gods," I told her, "not in the sense that you believe. Certainly not in the sense that Joshua and his people believe. They care nothing for us, except to use us in their own schemes. They are not even immortal. The goddess that I once loved is dead, killed by one of her own kind."

"You loved a goddess?"

"I loved a woman who was one of the group whom you call gods and goddesses," I said. "Now she is dead, and I seek vengeance against the one who killed her."

"You seek vengeance against a god?"

"I seek vengeance against a madman who murdered my love."

Helen shook her lovely head. "This is all a dream. It
must
be a dream. Yet—dreams themselves are sent by the gods."

"It is no dream, Helen."

"I will try to understand the meaning of it," she said, ignoring ay words. "The gods have sent us a message, and I will try to find its meaning."

It was her way of adjusting to what I had told her. I decided not argue. Lying back on the pallet, I held her until she drifted back to sleep. My mind focused on Ahriman and his words to me: Orion, if you want an earthquake, you must make it for yourself."

I thought I understood what he meant. With a smile, I went back to sleep.

Chapter 29

"Tunnel under the wall?" Lukka seemed more amused than skeptical.

We were facing the western side of Jericho, where the main city wall climbed along the brow of the low hill. There were two smaller retaining walls at the base of the hill, one terraced a few yards above the other, but no defensive trench in front of them.

"Is it possible?" I asked.

He scratched at his beard. The hill on which Jericho stood was made from the debris of earlier settlements. Untold generations of mud-brick buildings had collapsed over the ages, from time, from the winter rains, from fire and enemies' destruction. Like all cities in this part of the world, Jericho rebuilt atop its own ruins, creating a growing mound that slowly elevated the city above the original plain.

"It would take a long time and a lot of workers," said Lukka, finally.

"We have plenty of both."

But he was still far from pleased. "Tunnels can be traps. Once they see that we are tunneling, they can come out from their walls and slaughter us. Or dig a counter tunnel and surprise us."

"Then we'll have to conceal it from them," I said glibly.

Lukka remained unconvinced.

But Joshua's eyes lit up when I explained my plan to him. "Once the tunnel is beneath the foundation of the main wall, we start a fire that will burn through the timbers and bring that section of the wall down."

He paced back and forth in his tent, his back slightly bent, his hands locked behind his back. Joshua was a surprisingly small man, but what he lacked in height and girth he made up in intensity. And although the Israelites seemed to be ruled by their council of elders, twelve men who represented each of their tribes, it was Joshua alone who made the military decisions.

Finally he wheeled toward me and bobbed his head, making his dark beard and long locks bounce. "Yes! The Lord God has sent us the answer. We will bring Jericho's wall down with a thundering crash! And all will see that the Lord God of Israel is mightier than any wall made by men!"

It was cosmically ironic. Joshua believed with every ounce of his being that I had been sent to him by his god. And truly, I had been. But I knew that if I tried to tell him that the god he adored was as human as he, merely a man from the distant future who had powers that made him appear godlike, Joshua would have blanched and accused me of blasphemy. If I told him that the god he worshiped was a murderer, a madman, a fugitive from his fellow "gods," a man I intended to destroy one day—Joshua would have had me killed on the spot.

So I remained silent and let him believe what he believed. His world was far simpler than mine, and in his own way Joshua was right: his god had sent me to help bring down Jericho's wall.

The secret of Jericho was its spring, a source of cool fresh water that bubbled out of the ground, from what Ben-Jameen had told me. That was why the city's eastern wall came down to the bedrock level: it protected the spring. Most of the towers were on that side; so was the trench and the main city gates.

Under the guise of tightening the siege around the city we put up a new group of tents on the western side of the hill and built a corral to hold horses, all out of bowshot range. One of the tents, the largest, was where we started digging. Joshua provided hundreds of men. None of them were slaves; there were no slaves in the Israelite camp. The men worked willingly. Not without complaining, arguing, grumbling. But they dug, while Lukka and his Hittites, as the Israelites called them, supervised the work.

Getting rid of the dirt became an immediate problem. We filled the tent with baskets of it by day, then carried the baskets a mile or so from the city and dumped them in the dark of night.

Timbers to shore up the tunnel were another problem, since trees were so scarce in this rocky desert land. Teams of men were sent northward along the river, to the land called Galilee, where they bartered for wood among the villagers who lived by that lake.

The ground was not too difficult for the bronze and copper pickaxes we had, so long as we stayed above bedrock. The layer of easy soil was barely deep enough to dig a tunnel. Our diggers had to work flat on their bellies. Later, I knew, when we reached the foundations of the two outer retaining walls, we would have real troubles.

I spent the nights with Helen, each of us growing edgier as the time dragged slowly by. She wanted to get away from this place, to resume our southward trek to Egypt.

"Leave now, tonight, right
now
," she exhorted me. "Just the two of us. They won't bother trying to follow or bring us back. Lukka is handling the digging, that's all they really want of you. We can get away!"

I stroked her golden hair, glowing in the pale light of the moon. "I can't leave Lukka and his men. They trust me. And there's no telling what Joshua would do if we ran off. He's a fanatic. He might slaughter Lukka and the men once the tunnel is finished: sacrifice them to his god."

"What of it? They will die one day, sooner or later. They are soldiers, they
expect
to be killed."

"I can't do that," I said.

"Orion, I'm afraid of this place. I'm afraid that the gods you visit will take you away from me forever."

With a shake of my head I told her, "No. I promised you I would bring you to Egypt and that is what I will do. Only after that will I deal with the one I seek."

"Then let us go to Egypt now! Forget Lukka and the others. Tell the gods to bring us to Egypt now, tonight!"

"I don't
tell
the gods anything," I said.

"Then let me speak with them. I am a queen, after all, and a daughter of Zeus himself. They will listen to me."

"There are times," I said, "when you speak like a spoiled little child who is so totally self-centered that she deserves a spanking."

She knew when she had reached the limit of my patience. Winding her arms around my neck, she breathed, "I've never been spanked. You wouldn't be so brutal to me, would you?"

"I might."

"Couldn't you think of some other punishment?" Her fingers traced down my spine. "Something that would give you more pleasure?"

I played the game. "What do you have in mind?"

She spent much of the night showing me.

Although Helen and I usually took our meals with Lukka and the men, at our own fire by our own tents, now and then Joshua or Ben-Jameen would invite me to have supper with them. Me, alone. They made it clear that women did not eat with the men. I declined most of these invitations, but out of politeness I accepted a few.

Joshua was always surrounded by the elders or priests, with plenty of servants and women bustling around his table. The talk was always of the destiny of the Children of Israel, and how their god rescued them from slavery in Egypt and promised them dominance over this land they called Canaan.

Ben-Jameen, his father, and brothers spoke of different things when I ate with them. The old man recalled his days of slavery in Egypt, laboring as a brickmaker for the king, whom he called pharaoh. Once I hinted that Joshua seemed like a fanatic to me. The old man smiled tolerantly.

"He lives in the shadow of Moses. It is not easy to bear the burden of leadership after the greatest leader of all men has gone on to join Abraham and Isaac."

Ben-Jameen chimed in, "Joshua is trying to make an army out of a people who were slaves. He is trying to create discipline and courage where there has been little more than hunger and fear."

I agreed that it took an extraordinary man to accomplish that. And I began looking at these Israelites with fresh eyes, afterward. Unlike the Achaians at Troy, who were the topmost level of a strictly hierarchical society, the warrior class, hereditary plunderers, the Israelites were an entire nation: men, women, children, flocks, tents, all their possessions, wandering through this sun-blasted land of rocks and mountains seeking a place of their own. They had no warrior class. The only special class I could see were the priests, and even they worked with their hands when they had to. I began to feel a new respect for them, and wondered if the promises of their god would ever be fulfilled.

Shortly after noon on the fourth day of the digging, Lukka came out of the big tent, squinted up painfully at the merciless sun, and walked toward me. As always, no matter heat or cold, he wore his leather harness and weapons. I knew that his coat of mail and his iron helmet were close to hand. Lukka was ready for battle at all times.

I was standing on a low rise, examining the distant wall of Jericho. Not a sign of activity. Not a sentry in sight. The city wavered in the heat haze as the sun blasted down on my bare shoulders and neck. I had stripped down to my kilt.

We had fired a few flaming arrows into the city that morning. Each day we made a small demonstration of force somewhere along the western wall, to make the city's defenders believe that we were there probing for a weak spot. But in the noonday sun no one stirred. Or, hardly anyone.

Lukka was dripping sweat by the time he reached me. I had tuned my body to accommodate the heat, opening up the capillaries just under the skin and adjusting my body temperature. Like any human being, I needed water to stay alive. Unlike ordinary humans, I could keep the water in my vital systems for a much longer time; I sweated away only a small fraction of it.

"You must be part camel," Lukka said, as I offered him the canteen I carried. He gulped at it thirstily.

"How goes the work?" I asked.

"We've reached the base of the outermost wall. I've given the workers some of our own iron spear points to attack the bricks. They're as hard as stone."

"How long will it take to break through?"

He shrugged his bare shoulders, making the leather harness creak slightly. "A day for each one. We could work the night through."

"Let me see," I said, striding toward the tent.

It was cooler under its shade, but the air inside the tent was close and confining. Dust hovered, thick enough to make me sneeze. Lukka ordered the workers to stop and leave the tunnel. I got down on my hands and knees, ducked into the darkness, and wormed my way forward.

The tunnel had been dug wide enough for two men to crawl through, side by side. Lukka went in with me, slightly behind. We carried no lights, but every dozen feet or so the workers had poked a reed-thin hole up through the ground's surface. They provided air to breathe and a dim scattering of light that was barely enough to avert total darkness.

Quickly enough we came to the tunnel's end: a blank facing of stone-hard bricks. Two short poles lay on the ground, each with an iron spear point lashed to it. The bricks were scratched and gouged.

In the dim light I took one of the poles in my hands and jabbed it at the bricks. A dull chunking sound, and a few flakes of dried mud fell away.

"This is going to be slow work," I said.

"And noisy," Lukka pointed out. "Especially if we work at night, they'll hear us from inside the city."

He was right, as usual.

We scuttled out of the tunnel like a pair of rodents scrabbling through their lair. The bright sun and air of daylight seemed wonderful, despite the heat.

"No night work," I said to Lukka. "The time we might gain isn't worth the risk of being discovered."

"When we get close to the main wall, they'll hear us chipping away even in the daytime," he said.

"We'll have to think of something, then."

It was Joshua who thought of the solution. That night, when I told him we were getting close enough to be heard inside the city, he curled his fingers through his beard for several long moments, then looked up with a fierce smile.

"We will make so much noise that they will never hear your diggers at work," he said. "We will make a joyful noise unto the Lord."

I was not certain that his plan made any sense, but Joshua insisted that all would be well and told me to resume digging in the morning.

On my way back to my own tent that evening, as the sun dipped below the western mountains, turning them deep violet and the sky a blazing golden red, a stranger stepped in front of me.

"Orion," he whispered. "Come with me."

He was muffled in a long gray robe with a dark burnoose over it, the hood thrown over his head and hiding the features of his face. But I knew who he was, and followed him wordlessly as he picked his way through the tents of the Israelite camp and out across the green field toward the distant river.

"This is far enough," I said at last. "We can stop here. Even if you glow like a star no one from the camp will notice."

He laughed, a low chuckle deep in his throat. "Not much chance of my putting out enough radiation for
them
to find me."

By
them
, I knew he did not mean the Israelites.

"You are helping these people to overcome Jericho. That pleases me."

"Will I be able to leave for Egypt once Jericho is taken?" I asked.

"Of course." He seemed surprised that I asked.

"And you will revive Athene?"

"I will try, Orion. I will try. I can promise nothing more. There are difficulties—enormous difficulties.
They
are trying to stop me."

"I know."

"They've contacted you?"

"I contacted them. They think you've gone mad."

He laughed again. Bitterly. "I struggle alone to uphold the continuum—
their
continuum—so that they can continue to exist. I stand between them and utter destruction. I protect the Earth and my creatures with every particle of my strength and wisdom. And they call that madness. The fools!"

"Hera told me that if I help you, she and the others will destroy me."

In the shadow of his hood I could not make out the features of his face. It was the first time I had met the Golden One that he did not radiate light and splendor.

When he failed to reply, I added, "And you have warned me that if I fail to help you, you will destroy me."

"And you have told
me
, Orion, that you want to destroy me. A pretty situation."

"Can you revive Athene?"

"If I can't, no one else can. No one else would even try, Orion. It takes a . . . madman, like me, to even attempt such a thing."