Hot Times in Magma City, 1990-95 Read online

  “I know you do. I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Don’t try to sound naive. If we release you, you’ll go back to Home Era and tell them exactly where and when we are. And the next time they’ll send out a whole crew to get us and bring us back.”

  He thought for a moment.

  “I could tell them I never located any trace of you,” he said.

  “You would do that?”

  “If that was the price of my being allowed to go home, yes. Why not? You think I want to be stuck here forever?”

  “How could we trust you?” she asked. “I know: you’d give us your word of honor, right? You’ll swear a solemn oath at the high altar of Amon, maybe? Oh, Davis, Davis, how silly do you think we are? You’ll simply go back where you came from and let us live out our lives in peace? Sure you will. Five minutes after you’re back there you’ll be spilling the whole thing out to them.”

  “No.”

  “You will. Or they’ll pry it out of you. Come on, boy: don’t try to weasel around like this. You aren’t fooling me for a second and you’re simply making yourself look sneaky. Listen, Davis, there’s no sense either of us pretending anything. You’re screwed and that’s all there is to it. There’s no way we’re going to let you go home, regardless of anything you might promise us.”

  Her voice was low, steady, unyielding. He felt her words sinking in. He could hear the hundred gates of Thebes closing on him with a great metallic clangor.

  “Then why have you come here?” he asked, staring into those troublesome amethyst eyes.

  She waited a beat or two.

  “I had to. To let you know how much I hate having to do this to you. How sorry I am that it’s necessary.”

  “I bet you are.”

  “No. I want you to believe me. You’re a completely innocent victim, and what we’re doing is incredibly shitty. I want to make it clear to you that that’s how I feel. Roger feels that way too, for that matter.”

  “Well,” he said. “I’m really tremendously sorry that you’re forced to suffer such terrible pangs of guilt on my behalf.”

  “You don’t understand a thing, do you?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Do you have family back there down the line?”

  “A mother. In Indiana.”

  “No wife? Children?”

  “No. I was engaged, but it fell apart. You feel any better now?”

  “And how old are you?”

  “Twenty-seven.”

  “I figured you to be a little younger than that.”

  “I’m very tricky that way,” Davis said.

  “So you joined the Service to see the marvels of the past. This your first mission?”

  “Yes. And apparently my last, right?”

  “It looks that way, doesn’t it?”

  “It doesn’t have to be,” he said. “You still could let me go and take your chances that I’ll cover up for you, or that the Service will have lost interest in you. Or you could opt to go back with me. Why the hell do you want to stay in Egypt so much, anyway?”

  “We want to, that’s all. We’re accustomed to it. We’ve been here fifteen years. This is our life now.”

  “The hell it is.”

  “No. You’re wrong. We’ve come up from nowhere and we’re part of the inside establishment now. Roger’s considered practically a miracle man, the way he’s revolutionized Egyptian astronomy. And I’ve got my temple responsibilities, which I take a lot more seriously than you could ever imagine. It’s a fantastically compelling religion.” Her voice changed, taking on an odd quavering intensity. “I have to tell you—there are moments when I can feel the wings of Isis beating—when I’m the Goddess—the Bride, the Mother, the Healer.” She hesitated a moment, as though she was taken aback by her own sudden rhapsodic tone. When she spoke again it was in a more normal voice. “Also I have high connections at the court, very powerful friends who make my life extremely rewarding in various material ways.”

  “I know about those connections. I saw one of your very powerful friends leaving your temple just as I was arriving. He’s crazy, isn’t he, your prince? And you sound pretty crazy too, I have to tell you. Jesus! Two lunatics take me prisoner and I have to spend the rest of my life marooned in Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt for their convenience. A hell of a thing. Don’t you see what you’re doing to me? Don’t you see?”

  “Of course we do,” she said. “I’ve already told you so.”

  Tears were glistening on her cheeks, suddenly. Making deep tracks in the elaborate makeup. He had seen her weep like that once before.

  “You’re a good actress, too.”

  “No. No.”

  She reached for him. He jerked his hand away angrily; but she held him tight, and then she was up against him, and, to his amazement, her lips were seeking his. His whole body stiffened. The alien perfume of her filled his nostrils, overwhelming him with mysterious scents. And then, as her fingertips drew a light trail down the skin of his back, he shivered and trembled, and all resistance went from him. They tumbled down together onto the pile of furs that served him as a bed.

  “Osiris—” she crooned. “You are Osiris—”

  She was muttering deep in her throat, Egyptian words, words he hadn’t been taught at Service headquarters but whose meaning he could guess. There was something frightening about her intensity, something so grotesque about this stream of erotic babble that he couldn’t bear to listen to it, and to shut it off he pressed his mouth over hers. Her tongue came at him like a spear. Her pelvis arched; her legs wrapped themselves around him. He closed his eyes and lost himself in her.

  Afterward he sat with his back against the wall, looking at her, stunned.

  She grinned at him.

  “I’ve wanted to do that since the day you came here, do you know that? Ever since I first saw you stretched out on that bed in the House of Life.”

  His heart was still thundering. He could scarcely breathe. The air in the room, hot and close and dense, sizzled with her strange aromas.

  “And now you have,” he said, when he could speak again. “All right. Now you have.” A new idea was blossoming in his mind. “We were pretty good together, weren’t we?”

  “Yes. I’ll say we were.”

  “Well, it doesn’t have to stop there. We can go back together, you and I. Lehman can do whatever he damned pleases. But we could become a team. The Service would send us anywhere, and—”

  “Stop it. Don’t talk nonsense.”

  “We could. We could.”

  “I’m almost old enough to be your mother.”

  “It didn’t seem that way just now.”

  “It would in broad daylight. But regardless. I choose to stay in Egypt. And therefore you have to stay too.”

  Her words came at him like a volley of punches.

  He had almost hoped, for a moment, that he had won her over. But what folly that was! Change her mind with a single roll in the furs? Expect her to walk away from her plush life at Pharaoh’s court for the sake of a little heavy breathing? What a child you are, he told himself.

  He heard the hundred gates clanging shut again.

  “Now you listen to me,” she said. She crouched opposite him, on the far side of the little lamp, under the bas-relief of Sobek and Isis. She was still naked and her body had an oiled gleam in the near darkness. She still looked beautiful to him, too. Although now, in the aftermath of passion, he was able to see more clearly the signs of aging on her. “You said a little while ago that you think Roger and I are crazy for wanting to stay here. You want to save us from ourselves. Well, you’re wrong about that. We’re staying here because it’s where we want to be. And you’ll feel the same way yourself, after you’ve been here for a little while longer.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Listen to me,” she said. “Here are your options. There’s an embassy leaving next month for Assyria. It’s an ugly crossing, passing through a pretty desolate st
retch of wasteland that someday will be called the Sinai Peninsula. We can arrange to have you become a slave attached to the ambassador’s party, with the understanding that at some disagreeable place in the middle of the Sinai you’ll be left behind to fend for yourself. That’s your first choice. If you opt for it, it’s extremely unlikely that you’ll ever find your way back to Thebes. In which case you’re not going to be here to greet any possible rescuers that the Service may decide to send out to find you.”

  “Let me hear some other options.”

  “Option Two. You stay in Thebes. I use my influence to have you appointed a captain in the army—it’s safe, there’s no significant military activity going on these days—or a priest of Amon or anything else that might strike your fancy. We get you a nice villa in a good part of town. You can have Eyaseyab as your personal slave, if you like, and a dozen more pretty much like her. A certain priestess of Isis might pay visits to your villa also, possibly. That would be up to you. You’ll have a very pleasant and comfortable existence, with every luxury you can imagine. And when the Service sends a mission out to rescue you—and they will, I’m sure they will—we’ll help you deal with the problem of staying out of their clutches. You’ll want to stay out of their clutches, believe me, because by the time they come for you you’ll be an Egyptian just like us. And once you’ve had a chance to discover what life is like as a member of the privileged classes in the capital city of Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt, you won’t want to go back to Home Era any more than we do. Believe me.”

  “Are there any further choices?”

  “That’s it. Go with the ambassador’s party to Assyria and end up chewing sand, or stay here and live like a prince. Either way, of course, we keep you secluded in this room for another couple of weeks, until the time of the jump field’s return is safely past.” She stood up and began to don her filmy robe. Smiling, she said, “You don’t have to tell me which one you choose right now. Think it over. I wouldn’t want you to be too hasty about your decision.”

  She kissed him lightly on the lips and went quickly out of the room.

  “No—wait—come back!”

  He heard the bolt slamming home.

  ELEVEN

  The days went by, slowly at first, then with bewildering swiftness, then with an excruciating unwillingness to end. He took care to keep count of them, as he had been trained to do, but he knew there was no hope. Sandburg’s last lighthearted words tolled in his brain again and again and again, like the sound of somber leaden bells. He lived in a frozen abyss of despair.

  The chanting priestly voices from outside went on and on, all day long, and by now the strange clashing harmonies seemed not at all strange to him:

  I am Nepthys.

  Here comes Horus at your call, O Osiris.

  He will take you upon his arms.

  You will be safe in his embrace.

  As the time passed he could feel his former existence running out of him as if through a funnel. All his memories were slipping away, every shred of identity: mother, father, school days, girls, books, sports, college, Service, everything. Leaving nothing but an empty shell, gossamer-thin.

  He had danced his way through life, sneaked his way through, dealt somehow with all the uncertainties and the perils and the cruelties. Held his own. More than held his own. He had done very well for himself, in fact. And then had taken one risk too many; and now the game was up. He had run up against a pair of players who were willing to cast him aside without hesitation and with nothing more than the pretense of remorse.

  He had only one day left, now. Tomorrow the jump field would return and wait for him to enter it, and after a little while, whether he had entered it or not, it would take off again for his own era.

  I am Nepthys.

  How beautiful you are that rise this day!

  Like Horus of the Underworld

  Rising this day, emerging from the great flood.

  You are purified with those four jars

  With which the gods have washed themselves.

  He stared at the wall. Gradually the weirdly serene faces of the monstrous gods that were carved into it began to emerge out of the darkness. The first light of morning was coming through the slot high overhead. The last day: his final chance. But there was no hope. The door was bolted and would stay that way. The day would come and go and the jump field would leave without him and that would be that.

  He stood empty and tottering, waiting for the breeze that would blow him to dust.

  But he was surprised to discover that he seemed to be filling again. A new Edward Davis was rushing in. An Egyptian Edward Davis. Already he felt Thebes spinning its web around him, as it had around them. A new life, rich and strange. The daily company of Horus and Thoth, Isis and Osiris, Sobek and Khnum. Fine robes; lovely women; fountains and gardens. A life spent playing senet and sipping sherbet in his villa and attending elegant parties of the sort portrayed on all the tombs of the nobility across the river in the Valley of the Kings. And eventually to have his own fine tomb over there, where his own splendiferous mummy would be put to rest.

  No. No. He was amazed at himself. What kind of insane fantasy was this? How could he even be thinking such stuff? Angrily he thrust it from his mind.

  Which left him empty again, marooned, defenseless.

  He trembled.

  He felt once more the devastating inrush of fear, mingled with savage resentment. They had trapped him. They had stolen his life from him.

  But had they really?

  Was the situation actually that bad?

  Horus has cleansed you.

  Thoth has glorified you.

  The masters of the Great White Crown have abolished the troubles of your flesh.

  Now you can stand on your own legs, entirely restored.

  You will open the way for the gods.

  For them you will act as the Opener of the Way.

  They had him. He might as well give in. What choice did he have, really? When they finally let him out of here, he would allow Sandburg and Lehman to help him. And they would, if only out of guilt. He would take full advantage of what had happened to him. Build a new life for himself. He could go a long way here.

  He knew the history of the years that lay ahead, after all. The whole thing was there, neatly filed in the electronic memory that the Service had poured into his brain. The upheavals that would come after the death of Amenhotep III and the succession of crazy Prince Amenhotep to the throne, the idealistic religious revolution and the bitter counter-revolution that would follow it, the short and turbulent reigns of Tut-ankh-Amon and the others who would follow him—he knew it all, every twist and turn of events. And could benefit from his special knowledge. He would rise high in the kingdom. Higher than Lehman had, higher than Sandburg. A grand vizier, say. A viceroy. The power behind the throne. The powerful men had lovely titles here. The Eyes and Ears of the King, the Fan-Bearer at Pharaoh’s Right Hand. Edward C. Davis of Muncie, Indiana, Fan-Bearer at Pharaoh’s Right Hand. Why not? Why not? He laughed. It was almost a giggle. You are getting a little hysterical, Mr. Fan-Bearer, he told himself.

  But then came a bewildering thought. What if he achieved all that—and then a rescue team arrived from Home Era to bring him back? A year from now, say. Five years. They couldn’t pinpoint the delivery time all that precisely. They’d know what year they had sent him to, but they couldn’t be absolutely certain he’d reached it, and there was likely to be a little overshoot on the part of the rescue mission, too. Five years, say. Ten. Enough for him to get really comfortably established.

  The Service will send a mission out to rescue you, Sandburg had said. They will, I’m sure they will.

  Who? Charlie Farhad? Nick Efthimiou?

  Yes. Somebody like that. A couple of the tough, capable operators who always knew how to manage things the right way. That’s who he’d have to deal with. But how soon? And was he going to welcome them, when they came?

  We’ll help you to stay out of
their clutches, she had promised. Because by the time they come for you you’ll be an Egyptian just like us.

  He wondered. He didn’t know.

  Priests were beginning to sound the morning chants at the temple, now. The unearthly music of Amon and Horus and Anubis came floating through the little slot-like window in the wall. A shaft of bright sunlight poured into his room and lit up the carvings. He stared at the calm figures of the gods: winged Isis, full of love, and mummified Osiris and bird-headed Thoth and smiling crocodile-faced Sobek, high above. They stared back at him.

  And then he heard the bolt sliding back. Voices outside: Sandburg’s voice, Lehman’s.

  He couldn’t believe it. Here on the last day, they had relented after all! The guilt, the shame, had been too much for them, finally. They were giving him back his life. Tears of gratitude burst from him suddenly. They would want him to cover up for them, of course, when he got back down the line. And he would. He would. Just let me out of here, he thought, and I’ll tell any lie you want me to.

  “Hello, there,” Sandburg said cheerily. She was wearing some sort of elaborate priestess-rig, white linen done up in curl upon stiff curl and a shimmering diadem in her black ringlets. “Ready for some fresh air?”

  “So you’ve decided not to keep me here?” he said.

  “What?”

  “This is the day the jump field is coming back, isn’t it? And you’re letting me out.”

  She blinked and peered at him as though he had spoken in some unknown language.

  “What? What?”

  “I’ve been keeping count. This is the day.”

  “Oh, no,” she said, with an odd little laugh. “The field came yesterday. We found your alleyway, and we were there to see it. Oh, I’m so sorry, Edward. Your count must be off by a day.”

  He was bewildered. “My count—off a day—”

  “No doubt of it.”

  He couldn’t believe it. He had ticked off the dawn of each new day so carefully, updating in his mind. The tally couldn’t be off. Couldn’t.