Robert Silverberg - Thebes of the Hundred Gates

“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 stretch 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. You can let me know when we come to let you out.”

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

“No—wait—come back!”

He heard the bolt slamming home.

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-Amen 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.