Page 82
Julie could see the subtle changes in his face, the faint shadow of despair; yet as they moved on, he answered Elliott smoothly.
"Yes, no concept of progress whatsoever. But then the concept of time was not as well developed, either. A new count of years began with each King's birth. You know that, of course. No one counted time itself in terms of centuries. I'm not sure the simple Egyptian had any sense at all ... of centuries."
Abu Simbel. They had come at last to the greatest of Ramses' temples. The shore excursion had been brief on account of the heat, but now the night wind blew cold over the desert.
Stealthily Julie and Ramses climbed down the rope ladder into the dinghy. She wrapped her shawl tightly over her shoulders. The moon hung perilously low over the shimmering water.
With the help of a lone native servant, they mounted the camels awaiting them, and rode towards the great temple where stood the largest statues of Ramses the Great in existence.
It was thrilling to ride this mad, terrifying beast. Julie laughed into the wind. She dared not look at the ground moving unevenly beneath her. But she was glad when they came to a halt, and Ramses jumped down and reached up to catch her.
The servant took the beasts away. Alone they stood, she and Ramses, under the star-filled sky, the desert wind faintly howling. Far off she saw the lighted tent of their little camp waiting for them. She saw the lantern shining through the translucent canvas; she saw the tiny campfire dancing in the wind, winking out and then reappearing in a dazzle of yellow brilliance.
Into the temple they walked, past the giant legs of the Pharaoh god. If there were tears in Ramses' eyes, the wind carried them away, but his sigh she heard. The faint tremor in his warm hand she felt as she cleaved to him.
They walked on, hand in hand, his eyes roving over the great statues still.
"Where did you go," she whispered, "when your reign had ended? You gave the throne to Meneptah and then you went away...."
"All over the world. As far as I dared. As far as any mortal man had dared. I saw the great forests of Britannia then. The people wore skins and hid in the trees to shoot their wooden arrows. I went to the Far East; I discovered cities which have now completely vanished. I was just beginning to understand that the elixir worked on my brain as it did on my limbs. The languages I could lea
rn in a matter of days; I could ... how do you say ... adapt. But inevitably there came ... confusion."
"How do you mean?" she asked. They had stopped. They stood on the hard-packed sand. A great soft light from the starry sky illuminated his face as he looked down at her.
"I was no longer Ramses. I was no longer a King. I had no nation."
"I understand."
"I told myself that the world itself was everything. What did I need but to wander, to see? But that was not true. I had to come back to Egypt."
"And that is when you wanted to die."
"And I went to the Pharaoh, Ramses the Third, and told him that I had been sent to be his guardian. That is, after I learned that no poison could kill me. Not even fire could kill me. Hurt me, yes, beyond endurance, but kill me, no. I was immortal. One draught of the elixir had done this to me. Immortal!"
"Oh, the cruelty of it," she sighed. But there were things she still did not understand, and yet she dared not ask him. Patiently she waited for him to tell her.
"There were many others after my brave Ramses the Third. Great Queens as well as Kings. I came when it pleased me. And I was a legend by then--the human phantom who spoke only to the rulers of Egypt. It was seen as a great blessing when I appeared. And of course, I had my secret life. I roamed the streets of Thebes, an ordinary man, seeking companions, women, drinking in the taverns."
"But no one knew you, or your secret?" She shook her head. "I don't know how you could bear it."
"Well, I could bear it no more," he said dejectedly, "when I finally wrote it down in the scrolls your father found in my secret study. But in those early days, I was a braver man. And I was loved, Julie. You must realize this."
He paused, as if listening to the wind.
"I was worshipped," he went on. "It was as if I had died, and become the very thing I claimed to be. Guardian of the royal house. Protector of the ruler; punisher of the bad. Loyal not to the King, but the kingdom."
"Don't even gods get lonely?"
He laughed softly.
"You know the answer. But you don't understand the full power of the potion that made me what I am. I myself do not fully comprehend. Oh, the folly of those first years, when I experimented with it like a physician." A look of bitterness came over his face. "To understand this world, that's our task, is it not? And even the simple things elude us."
"Yes, I have no quarrel with that," she whispered.
"In the hardest moments, I put my faith in change. I understood it, though no one around me did. 'This too shall pass,' the old axiom. But finally I was so ... weary. So tired."
He put his arm around her, closing her against him gently, as they turned and made their way out of the temple. The wind had died down. He kept her warm. She shaded her eyes only now and then from the tiny grains of sand in the air. His voice was quiet, slow, as he remembered:
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82 (Reading here)
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165