Ben Bova - Vengeance of Orion

The day finally came when we sailed past the outskirts of Menefer, and the great pyramid’s polished white grandeur rose before our eyes.

I summoned Lukka to my cabin and told him, “No matter what happens at the capital, protect the prince. He is your master now. You may never see me again.”

His fierce eyes softened; his hawk’s face looked sad. “My lord Orion, I’ve never thought of a superior of mine as a… a friend…” His voice faltered.

I clapped him on the shoulder. “Lukka, it takes two to make a friendship. And a man with a heart as strong and faithful as yours is a rare treasure. I wish I had some token, some remembrance to give you.”

He broke into a rueful grin. “I have memories enough of you, sir. You have raised us from dirt to gold. None of us will ever forget you.”

A lad from the boat’s crew stuck his head through the open cabin door to tell me a punt had tied up alongside and was waiting to take me to the city. I was glad of the interruption, and so was Lukka. Otherwise we might have fallen into each other’s arms and started crying like children.

Aramset was waiting for me at the ship’s rail.

“Return to me at Wast, Orion,” he said.

“I will if I can, your highness.”

Despite his newfound dignity at being a true prince with an army at his command, his youthful face was filled with curiosity. “You have never told me why you seek to enter Khufu’s tomb.”

I made myself smile. “It is the greatest wonder in the world. I want to see all its marvels.”

But he was not to be put off so easily. “You’re not a thief seeking to despoil the royal treasures buried with great Khufu. The marvel you seek must be other than gold or jewels.”

“I seek a god,” I replied honestly. “And a goddess.”

His eyes flashed. “Amon?”

“Perhaps that is how he is known here. In other lands he has other names.”

“And the goddess?”

“She has many names too. I don’t know how she would be called in Egypt.”

Aramset grinned eagerly, the youngster in him showing clearly through a prince’s seriousness. “By the gods! I’m half tempted to come with you! I’d like to see what you’re after.”

“Your highness has more important business in the capital,” I said gently.

“Yes, that’s true enough,” he said, with a disappointed frown.

“Being the heir to the throne is a heavy responsibility,” I said. “Only a penniless wanderer is free to have adventures.”

Aramset shook his head in mock sorrow. “Orion, what have you done to me?” The sorrow was not entirely feigned, I saw.

“Your father needs you. This great kingdom needs you.”

He agreed, reluctantly, and we parted. I saw Menalaos peering over the gunwale as I clambered down the rope ladder to the waiting punt. I waved to him as cheerfully as I could. He nodded somberly back.

One advantage of a mammoth bureaucracy such as administered Egypt is that, once you have it working for you, it can whisk you to your goal with the speed of a well-oiled machine. The bureaucrats of Menefer had been given orders by the crown prince: convey this man Orion to Hetepamon, high priest of Amon. That they did, with uncommon efficiency.

I was met at the pier by a committee of four men, each of them in the long stiff skirt and copper medallion of minor officials. They showed me to a horse-drawn carriage and we clattered across the cobblestoned highway from the riverfront to the temple district in the heart of the vast city.

I was ushered by the four of them, who hardly said a word to me or to each other all that time, through a maze of courtyards and corridors until finally they showed me through a small doorway and into a modest-sized, cheerfully sunlit room.

“The high priest will be with you shortly,” one of them said. Then they left me alone in the room, shutting the door behind them.

I stood fidgeting for a few moments. There were no other doors to the room. Three smallish windows lined one wall. I leaned over the sill of the center one, and saw a forty-foot drop to a garden courtyard below. The walls were painted with what I guessed to be religious themes: animal-headed human figures accepting offerings of grain and beasts from smaller mortal men. The colors were bright and cheerful, as if the paintings were new or recently redone. Several chairs were grouped around a large bare table that appeared to be made of polished cedar. Other than that, the room was empty.

The door finally opened, and I gasped with shock as the hugely obese man waddled in. Nekoptah! I had been led into a trap! My pulse thundered in my ears. I had left my sword, even my dagger, on the ship in Lukka’s care. All that I carried with me was the medallion of Amon around my neck and Nekoptah’s carnelian ring, tucked inside my belt.

He smiled at me. A pleasant, honest-seeming smile. Then I noticed that he wore no rings, no necklaces, no jewelry at all. His face was unpainted. His expression seemed friendly, open, and curious — as though he was meeting me for the first time, a stranger.

“I am Hetepamon, high priest of Amon,” he said. Even his voice sounded almost the same. But not quite.

“I am Orion,” I said, feeling almost numb with surprise and puzzlement. “I bring you greetings from Crown Prince Aramset.”

He was as fat as Nekoptah. He looked so much like the high priest of Ptah that they might be…

“Please make yourself comfortable,” said Hetepamon. “This is an informal meeting. No need for ceremony.”

“You…” I did not know how to say it without sounding foolish. “You resemble…”

“The high priest of Ptah. Yes, I know. I should. We are twins. I am the elder, by a few heartbeats.”

“Brothers?” And I saw the truth of it. The same face, the same features, the same hugely overweight body. But where Nekoptah exuded dark scheming evil, Hetepamon seemed at peace with himself, innocent, happy, almost jovial.

Hetepamon was smiling at me. But as I stepped closer to him, he peered at my face, squinting hard. His pleasant expression faded. He looked suddenly troubled, anxious.

“Please, move away from the sun so that I can see you better.” His voice trembled slightly.

I moved, and he came close to me. His eyes went round, and a single word sighed from his slack mouth.

“Osiris!”

HETEPAMON dropped to his knees and pressed his forehead on the tiles of the floor. “Forgive me, great lord, for not recognizing you sooner. Your size alone should have been clue enough, but my eyes are failing me and I am not worthy to be in your divine presence…”

He babbled on for several minutes before I could get him to rise and take a chair. He looked faint: His face was ashen, his hands shaking.

“I am Orion, a traveler from a distant land. I serve the crown prince. I know nothing of a man named Osiris.”

“Osiris is a god,” Hetepamon panted, his chubby hands clutched to his heaving chest. “I have seen his likeness in the ancient carvings within Khufu’s tomb. It is your face!”

Gradually I calmed him down and made him realize that I was a human being, not a god come to punish him for some self-imagined shortcomings. His fear abated, little by little, as I insisted that if I resembled the portrait of Osiris, it was a sign from the gods that he should help me.

But he talked to me, too, and explained that Osiris is a god who takes human form, the personification of life, death, and renewal.

Osiris was the first king of humankind, Hetepamon told me, the one who raised humans from barbarism and taught them the arts of fire and agriculture. I felt old memories stirring and resonating within me: I saw a pitiful handful of men and women struggling against the perpetual cold of an age of ice; I saw a band of neolithic hunters painfully learning to plant crops. I had been there. I had given them fire and agriculture.