Steven Saylor - Raiders of the Nile

Up the long ramp we flew, with the horses racing at a frenzied pace. In a matter of moments we arrived at the entrance.

I had visited the lighthouse once before, but that had been long ago. Even amid all the confusion and clamor, I gazed up in awe. No other building on earth is even nearly as tall. The tower rises in three distinct segments, each stepped back from the one below. At the top is a chamber where flames and mirrors produce the brightest light on earth, and atop that, a statue of Zeus welcomes all the world to Alexandria.

I had no time to gawk, for the wagon did not pause at the entrance. The huge doors stood wide open. The wagon sped inside.

The lower half of the lighthouse is four-sided, and hollow in the middle. A continuous ramp built against each of the four interior walls ascends from one story up to the next, and then to the next above that. Up this broad spiral ramp the king’s vehicle raced, with our wagon hurrying to catch up. As we went round and round, ascending from one level to another, terrified workers scattered before us. Mule carts bearing fuel for the beacon were overturned. The smells of naphtha and dung filled my nostrils.

Up and up we raced, past tall windows facing each of the four directions, affording a view of the sea, then the setting sun, then the city, and then the harbor, in that order, and then the same sequence again-sea, sun, city, harbor-over and over, higher and higher, until at last we reached a level more than midway up the tower, and the wagon came to a halt. The king was already going about the awkward business of alighting from his wagon, assisted by anxious attendants who appeared to fear in equal measure that they might drop the king or else be crushed by him.

With King Ptolemy leading the way, we stepped through a doorway onto a parapet that circled the outer walls. I drew in a lungful of fresh sea air. Before and below us, as far as the eye could see, sparkled a broad expanse of open water.

Amid the glitter of waves at sunset, the sea was hard to read. Only after searching for a while did I make out the sail of the Medusa, now well past the harbor entrance and headed north. At such a distance, the ship was the size of a toy on the palm of my hand.

Then I discerned, to the west of the Medusa, another, larger ship, and then another to her east. They were warships. Their bronze ramming beaks caught the sunlight. They appeared to be converging on the Medusa .

“Use the mirrors!” screamed the king, even as he reached into a silver bowl of delicacies held forth by an attendant and stuffed a fistful of dates into his mouth. What he said next was an indecipherable mumble.

Zenon spoke for the king. “Signal the ships that there’s a change of orders. They are not to ram the pirate ship! They are to capture the ship instead and bring it back to harbor, but by no means must they allow it to sink! Do you understand?”

He spoke to the captain of the crew that manned the huge signal mirror mounted against the wall, midway between the corners of the parapet. There were four such mirrors, one on each side of the tower. The captain looked fretful.

“Go ahead, you fool!” barked Zenon. “What are you waiting for? Is the message too complicated?”

“No, no, Your Excellency, we can give those signals readily enough. But the sunlight-”

“I can see the sun right there!” Zenon pointed to the half-circle of red that glowed above the western horizon.

“Yes, Your Excellency, but I fear the light’s not strong enough. And the angle-”

“Do what you can! Now! At once!!”

The crew manning the mirror flew into action, tilting the huge lens of polished metal this way and that, attempting to capture the rays of the sun and send them toward the nearest of the warships. Indeed, I could see a spot of red light flickering on the sail of the ship, which meant that the men aboard must have been able to see the mirror flashing.

The ship, which had been speeding toward the Medusa, suddenly relented. I could see the row of tiny oars reverse direction in unison and push against the waves.

“You’ve done it. You’ve done it!” screamed the king, spitting out a mouthful of masticated dates. “Now the other. Now the other!” He pointed at the second warship coming from the east, which continued to race toward the Medusa .

The crew swung the mirror about, but the position of the sinking sun made it impossible to capture and reflect a sunbeam.

“It can’t be done!” wailed the captain. He quaked before the fearsome gaze of the king, who was madly chomping a fresh mouthful of dates. “It simply can’t be done!”

Helpless to intercede, we watched as the warship drove relentlessly toward the Medusa . I felt a stab of empathy, imagining the panic that must have broken out amid the bandits. Captain Mavrogenis would be barking orders at his crew, but to no avail, for the Medusa was no match for an Egyptian warship. Did Ujeb quiver with terror, or was he facing his end with unexpected bravery? Poor Ujeb, who had saved me! Had Ujeb not proclaimed me the new leader, Bethesda and I would still be aboard the Medusa , locked inside the cabin and facing certain death.

And what of the sarcophagus? I realized why the king and his chamberlain were so desperate to stop the sinking of the pirate ship. Against their expectations, contrary to their plan, the sarcophagus-and not its worthless replica-had been loaded onto the Medusa . If the Medusa sank, the golden sarcophagus of Alexander would be lost forever.

So it came to pass. As we watched in horror, the ramming beak of the warship struck the Medusa . A heartbeat later I heard the tremendous crack. The pirate ship broke in two. The sail collapsed. The mast crashed into the water. With stunning swiftness, the two halves of the ship reeled and pitched in the waves and then vanished.

I gasped. Bethesda covered her face. The chamberlain bowed his head. The captain in charge of the mirror swayed as if he might fall. The king choked on the dates and began to hack like an Egyptian housecat with a hairball.

Attendants rushed to pound their fists against the king’s back, until at last a great wad of chewed dates shot from his mouth, flew beyond the parapet, and plummeted down to the blood-red sea.

As dawn broke the next morning, once again I found myself separated from Bethesda.

And, through no choice of my own, I was reunited with Artemon.

With manacles on our wrists and ankles and chained to opposite walls, the two of us sat across from each other on the straw-covered floor of a bare stone room. High above our heads a little window covered by iron bars admitted the only light. I had been delivered to this dank cell with a sack over my head, but I had some idea of its location, because from time to time, from the little window, I heard animal noises-a monkey’s screech, an elephant’s trumpet-which meant that we must be near the zoological gardens within the royal palace.

For several hours after the manacles were clamped onto me, I had been alone in the cell. Night came, and with it, complete darkness. Then the door had opened, and soldiers had delivered another prisoner. As they chained him to the opposite wall, by the light of their torches I could see it was Artemon.

The soldiers left, and the room was totally dark again. I spoke a few words to Artemon, but he made no answer. He was so quiet I couldn’t even hear him breathing.

Overwhelmed by exhaustion, I slept like a dead man. When I woke at the first feeble light of dawn from the barred window, I saw that Artemon, too, was awake. He looked haggard and drawn, as if he hadn’t slept all night. The bloody bandages around one of his shoulders I took to be the result of Cheelba’s attack, along with a wound down one side of his face that would leave a large and ugly scar.