Robert Silverberg - Thebes of the Hundred Gates

“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 what 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 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 un-Egyptian 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.